In Honor Of Feits' Blog About Snow Days Being A Thing Of The Past - The Definitive Rankings Of School Days
Feits blogged about this yesterday and it got me thinking. Well, first have to publish this on a Friday because Friday is the best school day of normal school. Just a no-brainer there. Simply can't publish it on a Thursday. But more importantly we need a rankings of official school days. As far as I’m concerned the power rankings of awesome shit in elementary/high school is as follows. Note, we're not counting college because college isn't real life:
12. First day of school/first day back from Christmas break
Pretty standard here. You have the excitement of getting back to school to show off anything new you may get to wear, especially if you went to public school. Rock some new sneakers, maybe a new sweatshirt you got for Christmas, whatever. It's a big day to get a fit off and see someone. At the same time it's the clear last option here since it's the start of it all.
11. Assembly Day (Confession Day if you went to Catholic school)
For those like me who went to Catholic school, we're counting assembly day and confession day the same. Why? They basically took the same amount of time. You got out of class to sit in the assembly hall and either quietly whisper to your friends while waiting to go lie to a priest about all the shitty things you did or whisper to your friends while some person rambles about God knows what up there. It was important for everyone involved. Teachers didn't want to sit there and work, so they used this as a chance to avoid shithead kids.
10. Day before Christmas break
Ah, the excitement in the air knowing you were leaving class for a couple of weeks. As you got older this was more important because it meant more chances to sneak away and party while parents were at work or whatever. Teachers didn't give a shit this day, it was typically a Finals day if you were in high school, so all in all just a great, worthless day of school from 7-3.
9. Play games in class day
You know what game was awesome growing up? Heads Up, 7-Up. Everyone agreed they would cheat during the game and pretend no one actually would. You memorized shoes and would just look at those. You also could use it as flirting. If you didn't tap the person you liked on the thumb I don't want to know you. It was the quick rush of excitement that set up how you approached chicks or dudes in college. One of the more important lessons you could ever have growing up was a teacher being too lazy work and saying fuck it, dim the lights and play Head Up, 7-Up.
8. Dress down day
This is specific to me since I went to Catholic school but fuck it, it's my list. Dress down was awesome, if you had to wear a uniform you know what I'm talking about. And sure, my school's rules made no damn sense since we weren't allowed to wear shorts, but we didn't have to wear khakis or dress pants. We got to rock jeans or sweat pants or breakaways since it was the early 2000s. Just slapping on a t-shirt instead of the shirt, tie and sweater was worth going to school alone. That said, I couldn't imagine going to public school and waking up each day trying to pick out an outfit. My options were what tie to wear, what color polo shirt (blue or white), what color oxford shirt (blue, white, yellow) and what color sweater (green, blue, white). Not great.
7. Last Day of School
The peak worthless day of school. I'm pretty sure every teacher went and tailgated before this day and just let you do whatever the hell you wanted. Most of the day was spent signing yearbooks and playing games. You'd set up plans for the summer and if you were younger it was all about biking to a pool.
6. 2 Hour Delay
The moment you had your first two hour delay was the day you realized you could hit the snooze button for your entire life. Now I will say this does fall into the middle tier category because there was a letdown that it wasn't a full day off. That said, sitting there in your sweats and eating breakfast watching some extra Sportscenter (when it was actually good) was awesome. Hell you could even hop on AIM that morning and chat up some people talking about how pointless the day was going to be when you got to class. This did grow as you got older though. I remember being able to drive and two hour delays automatically meant going to meet a group of friends at a diner.
5. The moment you saw this wheeled into class
Everyone knew what this meant. The teacher just gave up for the day and is probably hungover. You didn't care. It meant you got to watch a movie. It was always something like To Kill A Mockingbird and the English teacher would lie and say they wanted you to see the difference between the movie and the book and write a page essay on the differences. Pretty sure everyone had that assignment and everyone got like a 93 on it because the teacher had no idea either. If you were lucky and had the awesome teacher - see the younger guy - you knew it meant you could watch the NCAA Tournament during class.
4. Field Trip
Ah yes, growing up in York, Pennsylvania this typically meant one of three common places. You were going to Gettysburg, the state capitol or the science museum outside of Harrisburg. Either way, you were getting the hell out of school. This could be higher but you always had the risk of your parent being a chaperone and embarrassing you or one of your friend's parents being the chaperone and taking away any fun.
3. Snow Day cancels school the night before
You know this feeling. You get the heads up from your dad that the weather going to be nasty tonight and no school for tomorrow. It meant you got to stay up late and try to download porn on Kazaa. It meant you were talking on AIM. It meant you could try to beat the storm to hang out with buddies and get snowed in so you could mess shit up all night. Going to be knowing you didn't have to school tomorrow is just an unreal feeling that you can't really get back.
2. Unexpected Snow Day
Howevah, this is the better of the snow days. You wake up in the morning and you slap on the local news station because you had to watch the bottom line to see your school name pop up and if you were cancelled. Without failure, you always started just missing your school's name and had to sit there even longer. Then you saw it. 'York Catholic. Cancelled.' BOOM. You got a surprise day and likely your parents were already scrambling to get to work so now you're home alone too. Price is Right during the day, going back to downloading porn on Kazaa or Limewire and meeting up with buddies. Nothing better. Maybe it's the gambler in me, but you can never top the unexpected cancel.
1.Field Day
I almost didn't want to count this, but I'm pretty sure this is the unanimous number 1 for everyone. You got the games, you got the food, you got teachers not giving a shit and it counted as a 'day of school.' Just a complete reset the clock for all parties involved.