Sunday was gorgeous, and I walked to Riverdale Avenue (up the 238th St steps: 16+16+16+16+14+14+14+14+huff+….+puff) and found I had gone to the wrong store.

So I head over to Starbucks on Johnson for a latté, and the counter kids are fooling around, and if I’d hesitated 1 more minute I could have had a free something tall and sweet, too bad, and as I step out I look at the Kosher Deli across the street.”Now,” I think, “didn’t Dmitri say he worked at a Kosher Deli somewhere in Riverdale?” So I went. And he did.

“Mr. Halabi!” Like he was excited. Not something I remember from senior year!  And I came in, and we chatted for a moment. “You’ve got to try our hotdogs, they’re the best, and they’re only a dollar.” I said yes, mustard only, took out a dollar. “No,” he said, “it’s on the house.”

The house stood at the register, grimacing ever so slightly.

[Updates: Adonis filled in a few details. 11/15]

Our second year was a big year. No more classes in the APEX – we had our own building. No more just one grade – we had freshmen and sophomores. Sixty-odd kids? Now 150. No more teensy staff of 6½ teachers and 5 others. Now just a tiny staff of 12 teachers and 7 others. Classes dropped to under an hour, but met four times instead of three times each week. And we started doing some big things with just one grade at a time… We were much closer to being an actual school.

We said hello and goodbye to some students. Annie went to Lehman. Melissa to JFK. But we added Fariza, and Blessan, and Debra, and Taquana.

In Social Studies Mr. Mansdorf and Ms. Rice were joined by Mr. Elinson. In math I was joined by Mr. Sacchini – and this was the first year I taught fewer classes (3½) to allow time for scheduling. I had two algebra classes, and one Precalc. Mr. Rodriguez joined Ms. Villani in foreign language. This was the last year that we taught Italian. Mr. Evangelista became our first Chemistry teacher. And Ms. Cochin joined Mr. Murphy in English. I think Mr. Schulman became full-time that year, and he may have begun deaning as well.

The new office was fuller. Ms Girolamo was the Assistant Principal, and Ms. Wellington worked alongside Ms. Garcia. The back office was a new thing for us. Mr. Schulman, Ms. Fiore and our new counselor, Ms. Gilman shared the space. The first room on the right, where Ms. Harris works, was empty.

The teachers were rattling around the building as well. We all had our own, unshared rooms. Mansdorf, Rice and Elinson in 117, 119, and 104 respectively. Me and Sacchini in 133 and 127. Murphy and Cochin in 134 and 125. Villani in 128, Rodriguez in 124. Only the science teachers had to share at all. I think Evangelista and Fiorello were 90% of the time in 120, but one class may have had to meet in 126(?) a couple of times a week.  106 and 108 were probably completely unused.

The new class was much bigger than the old class – about 90 versus 60. They were still mostly Bronx kids, with a huge number (14??) from one school:  Pace Academy (MS118). I think 141 was number 2.

My group at Sturbridge included Scott Miller, I remember that. It was a really nice day. On the Boston trip in the Spring, we put electrical tape on the doors. I stayed up for the first half of the night, Elinson took the early AM shift. And I kept catching Roger and TJ and who else? Sean? trying to sneak out. So I went to bed, and there was a half hour gap before Elinson. And when Elinson got up, all the electric tape had been removed from the student doors, and was on mine… TJ sat next to me in the front of the bus on the way home. Elinson had similar company on the other bus.  I didn’t go on the sophomore trips to Philly and DC (and in fact, have never been on a trip to either one), and nothing was so exciting that I heard about it… I seem to recall that we did the overnights on the same Thursday/Friday, so we essentially shut the school for the trips.

Some parts of the schedule would seem strange today. Music was afterschool, with Jonathan something or other (not me). The extra class during the day for sophomores was a second year of research. There was still only one lunch for everybody. Some freshmen had Global with Elinson – and US with Elinson too!  Seminar, I’m pretty sure it was on Tuesdays that year. I want to say that PE was separated by grades.  We introduced AP and non-AP Global 3 that year, that was a new thing.

We lost students after our second year. Maybe I’ve got the years mixed up… Talisa didn’t make it through her first year. She was on campus this year, working at the bookstore, in school. It was nice to see her after such a long time. Little Courtney transferred somewhere in Queens, and Mandy retook the test and went to Stuyvesant. Weird Esther moved to New Jersey. Matt Stein transferred somewhere in Queens, and Sachet went to Truman. I wonder if I’ve missed anyone?  From the sophomores, Phil Choy moved to Jersey, and Tahirah went to Georgia, and Danielle Jones went south and Elizabeth Adams went to California, but maybe that was the following year?

I think our first dance was that year, and I’ve never been to one of our dances, and probably don’t want to ever go, but I know what happened at that first dance, but I’m not telling, not here. We did an International Night for the first time, too (I think?), lots of fun, even if there was less to talk about.

The school newspaper, Common Sense, started that year. I was the first advisor. Tiarra was the one who wanted it, and we said ok. It was nothing like what we have now, but it did come out, and students did write it, and it had the same title.

I think basketball started that year, too, [Adonis says yes, with Coach Van Voorhis for the boys. His mom's a professor at Lehman. Neither one of us remembers who coached the girls.] but I’m not so good with sports details.

And I’m probably missing tons and tons more, but this is what I recall, off the top of my head. Go on and fill in details, make corrections, tell stories, whatever. Make the comments interesting, but not too interesting, ok?

HSAS-nostalgia. HS AStalgia…

You know what “nostalgia” is. And Ostalgie is nostalgia for the east (in German), like for the chunky crosswalk man from East Berlin, pictured above, who’s going through a revival (he’s called Ampelman).

But HS Astalgia? Yup.

In 2002 they opened the school, but not the building. We were upstairs.

Upstairs?

Yup, upstairs in the APEX. An office, 4 classrooms, a teachers’ lounge on one side, and a program roomlet – teensy – and a counselor’s office on the other side of the hall, with a fresh chlorine breeze. The bio labs were on the 3rd floor of Gillet. I think it was Friedman right from the start, but it’s a little fuzzy.

You’d recognize a few teachers – me, Mansdorf, Murphy, we’re still around. Rice, of course. I don’t know if you guys knew Ms. Fiorello, who taught bio, but I’m sure you’ve seen Villani around. She taught Spanish and Italian that year. Schulman was our part-time PE teacher. And there was no dean at first, and then Mansdorf did it intermittently the second half of the year.

Ms. Garcia was there from the start, and so was Ms. Flintall. Ms. Fiore signed up during that first year. Ms. Luftman was principal, you’ve probably seen her once or twice, but she had retired before you started. The counselor was Vergalee Taylor, who was gone the next September. There was no Assistant Principal, although Olivieri had done work over the summer, including setting up the first round of programs and schedules.

The classes only met three times a week – but anywhere from 58 to 70 something minutes. Each teacher except me and Fiorello taught Research, which looked nothing like what you do today (well, maybe Rice’s was a little like today’s).

We started with sixty-odd students, and sixty odd students is more or less what I remember. Along the way we lost some and gained some. Tiffany Boccagno, did she ever show up? Melissa Seymour, that may have been her name, transferred to HSMSE@CCNY and seems to have done quite well – she left before she made any friends. Annie Bermudez was only here freshman year. Melissa Singh, she made her way to JFK, but I don’t know what happened after that – I saw her at some of our basketball games over the years.

It was weird having only one grade. They really had their classes with the same kids all day – and I think the classes only mixed a very little. PE was the whole school, and so was lunch, so teachers could hang together if they wanted to when the kids were all gone, but I don’t remember that happening so much.We all had 100% of the kids, so we could talk and compare very easily. The first parent teacher conferences, I think all but one or two of the parents came. We were in the East Dining room, one big circle, and they just lined up. (that’s what I remember, someone else might remember differently).

Sturbridge was fun. I think Irina was in my group. And I remember Darren being disappointed when the blacksmith wouldn’t stay in character. Mansdorf trained the freshmen to shout down opinions they disagreed with – and the town meeting was a zoo. Boston, all of us went except Ms. Luftman. We went to Fenway that year, first and last time. We sat in deep right, foul, with an obstructed view. Jeffrey and Paul B and probably Phil and some others I am forgetting wrote the name of the other team (Royals) on their t-shirts, and got into throwing things fights with some adult Red Sox fans. Uncomfortable. Plus it was cold. Plus none of us really cared about the game. Some of the rooms stayed up way too late playing video games, and I remember Jordan R falling asleep on the trolley ride – to the walking tour. We never did the walking tour after that year (I kind of liked it, but I was alone) – lot’s of walking tired kids around.

It was a challenging year for teachers. We all came from places where there were rules, structures, procedures. But we were from 5 different schools, and adjusting to changes would have been one thing, but creating those structures when we had different ideas about what they should be was something else. We had different rules and expectations, graded in different ways, had different ways of dealing with academic and behavioral issues. At least lateness wasn’t an issue – there really wasn’t anywhere to hide – and there were no lockers to hang out by.

The classes were too long, and met too infrequently (in the Spring Ms. Rice and I discussed a few schedule ideas, and I fleshed some out and presented them. The faculty chose one of the proposals, which is still pretty much our schedule today.

Maybe some of the teachers were working off old curricula – but I am not sure. Me, I was making it up as I went along – calendars, Homework A/B and B/C, posters, Ghost the Bunny, everything. We bought a book that had been used in my high school, back in the day (that means a real long time ago).

But even with all the bumpiness, the newness, and the nervousness, it felt like we had a school rolling forward.

Today’s middle school event was a success. Students visited from exactly the right schools, and while we could have handled more, almost everyone who came walked away with HSAS their first choice, going into the SHSAT next week.

Thanks to

Natalie and Steven ‘06

Adonis, Clelia, and Talina ‘07

Cristina J, Christina H, Dan, and Sergey ‘08

Cindy, CJ, and Lamine ‘09 + surprise appearances by Marlene and Stephanie and Whitney (and Eric, after it ended)!

Anthony, Ariana, Ashani, Janina, Nicole, and Stephanie ‘10 (plus Chelsea came by, a little later)

Ariel, Clarence, Cynthia, Hallie, Jeffrey, John A, Julia, Maddie, Nathan, Rebecca, Sarah C, Shanice ‘11

(Let’s hear it for 2011… that’s a whole lot of volunteers… you guys rock…)

Hai ‘12

Two years ago, I wrote here all the time. Or maybe just once a week. In any case, it seemed like a lot. Last year, I hardly wrote at all. Like maybe twice? This year? We’ll see, but this is a start.

News? It’s all about schedules, just now. The college classes are done. Almost everything got something high on their list. But I’m still working on the master schedule. Soon. Soon.

But I watched anyway. There was a crowd of about a dozen, and none of us glanced over to watch the cricket practice going on.

The girls won by a lot, and everyone did well.

I’ll try to get to at least one away game this year.

It’s time for the door to reassert itself against the sophomore onslaught.

Yes to corny comics!

Yes to these ridiculous notes!

Yes to articles!

notices!

photos!

No to Orange Post Its!

Grades are coming in. Class lists are almost ready. College has started. In five days we all start over, clean slates, clean blackboards.

We don’t appreciate our clean starts enough. School is kinder than the real world. We should notice.

very very soon