Okay, so no sooner had I bragged about my boys’ high school being named the 7th best in the nation than the judges recounted and discovered that it is actually #6.
This has been a bad year for bad counts. Wasn’t it just about a week ago that it was discovered that the wrong Miss California had been named due to a mis-tabulation and they had to take the tiara from one girl’s head and place it onto another? What’s with that? Ever since Bush, Gore and Florida it seems that no one can count anymore.
So it seems that poor Montpelier, VT, which had been named the #5 high school in the nation was simply one of the top 500 (note the two added zeros); not #5, which moves our High Tech High into 6th place. Now if it is discovered that Thomas Jefferson High in Virginia was using Human Growth Hormone …
To console poor Montpelier (I loved it when one of their current students was quoted as saying, “Yeah, we thought it was weird; we’re really not that great a school”), I am up here in Vermont to extend a shoulder on which to cry. No, really, it just so happens that the road has taken me to that very (frigid) state this very week, and I am within (frozen) spitting distance of said high school. It’s been a rough week for them and somehow I doubt they’d be comforted with a High Tech sweatshirt, or even a free copy of THE FOURTH HOUSE. Maybe I could exchange some Jersey Shore salt water taffy for some maple syrup.
Apparently, our local high school heroes also rocked the New York regional National Vocabulary Competition. We didn’t win, but we sent the most competitors and our student body showed up face-painted and screaming, so much so that we made almost as big an impression as the winner. You see, at High Tech, knowing lots of big words is like being able to bench press 400 lbs. We truly have our priorities straight.
Just about every other kid in this video was from High Tech, particularly the rabid word fans.
… as attested to by the New York press.