Wannaska World Wednesday, September 12, 2018

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Wannaska World Wednesday, September 12, 2018, brought to you by the Angle Inlet U.S. Post Office, 9394 Golf Course Drive NW, Angle Inlet, MN 56711-9998, Phone: (218) 223-4036; Toll Free: (800) ASK-USPS; 49°23′50.28″N, 95°08′56.7″W.

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Saturday     9:00 am - 11:15 am
   
Last Daily Collection
Weekdays     1:00 pm
Saturday     1:00 pm

September 12 is the 255 day of the year, with days 110 remaining until the end of the year, and 201 days remaining until April Fools Day.

Nordhem Lunch: Southern Fried Chicken

Days without an avocado-related injury for Wannaska Almanac contributing authors: 26,101

Earth/Moon Almanac for September 12, 2018
Sunrise: 6:56am; Sunset: 7:44pm
Moonrise: 10:18am; Moonset: 9:33pm, waxing crescent

Temperature Almanac for September 12, 2018
           Average      Record      Today
High       78               93             65
Low        55               34             61

September 12 Local News Headline
Grgyla Cow Stumbles into Pot Field: High-Steaks Pasturing Violation Ensues

September 12 Celebrations from National Day Calendar
National Report Medicare Fraud Day
National Video Games Day
National Chocolate Milkshake Day
National Day of Encouragement

September 12 Riddle
What did the janitor shout when he jumped out of his work closet.

September 12 Notable Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1755 Giacomo Casanova is sentenced to 5 years imprisonment in Venice without trial for affront to religion and common decency
• 1758 French astronomer Charles Messier mistakenly identifies the Crab Nebula so begins his Messier Catalogue
• 1888 Start of Sherlock Holmes adventure, Greek Interpreter
• 1910 United States' 1st known female cop appointed, Alice Stebbins Wells by LAPD
• 1940 4 teens, following their dog, Robot, down a hole near Lascaux France discover 17,000-year-old drawings now known as Lascaux Cave Paintings
• 1958 US Supreme Court orders the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas to integrate
• 1959 Bonanza premieres on NBC-TV

September 12 Author/Artist Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1688 Ferdinand Brokoff, Czech sculptor and carver
• 1880 Henry Louis Mencken
• 1907 Louis MacNeice, Irish poet and playwright
• 1921 Stanislaw Lem, Polish sci-fi author, Solaris, Invincible
• 1980 Josef Vašíček, Czech ice hockey player

Words I Looked Up This Week Challenge

Make a single sentence or poem from the following words:

bdellium, demotic, djembe, frisson, jeel, maunder, noosphere, ogham, scopophilia, sgraffito

Wannaska World 2018.09.12
Chapter 2: Middle School

Otto sat watching Mrs. Nelson's lips move. He was not surprised that an English teacher spoke with such precision, but the sheer physicality of her lips mesmerized Otto. Mrs. Nelson's upper lip gathered into a gentle, tapered point just in the middle of her mouth. Both upper and lower lips each produced delicate secondary lips on demand along the midpoint where each lip met another lip or row of teeth in a ballet of pronunciation. For an hour each day, her smooth, steady voice calmed Otto's induction into a new world of extremes. At an age where boys still giggle together, Otto entered the physically, cognitively, emotionally, socially, and in all other ways alien world of middle school.

Although he entered the same sprawling school complex as previous years, the middle school portion was an alternate universe from the moment he got off the bus and walked through the different doors than he used as an elementary school student. Otto felt smallness in a gigantic space of swirling colors and swarming movements; he felt deafened and disoriented by a chaos of sound without playfulness; he felt enveloped by stiff, scratchy new clothes, reactively withdrawing from chance contact with the currents of bodies flowing around him; he felt alternately attracted or repulsed by waves of natural and artificial body aromas washing over him like uninvited, invisible, ill-mannered interlopers; and he felt the aching glacial movement of time tying all these sensations together from bus ride to bus ride.

Friendships used to be a matter of asking a simple question: "Do you want to be friends?" In only two weeks, Otto had already learned that middle school friendships were complicated and based on a growing list of unfamiliar rules:

• Most friendships require some form of group certification.
• Group friend membership certification often involves relatively superficial membership criteria such as clothes, hair cuts, word use, athleticism, intelligence, allegiance, and no major associations with any person who did not otherwise uniformly meet the set of group membership criteria.
• Group memberships overlap, as do their membership criteria, which are often mutually exclusive.
• Exclusion from one group tends to increase exclusion from other group memberships.
• There does not appear to be an appeal process.
• Group-based friendships are not very friendly.
• Picking and keeping friends was a cross between science experiment and a spy game.

In the context of these complex rules, Otto also learned that all middle school social relationships - positive and negative - rose and fell based on the stories that circulated between students. Izzi had warned Otto about "the drama", and our Son of Wannaska was more disposed to being a spectator than role playing. Izzi also suggested that middle school is where childhood ends. Otto's primary goal in those first to weeks was to avoid becoming a story. So far so good.

Was it any wonder, then, that Otto found solace in the gentle, firm precision of Mrs. Nelson's mouth and calming voice? A middle school teacher of 40 years, Mrs. Nelson guided her students through their introduction to middle school with attentive wisdom. During each of her fourth hour classes, Otto's eyes alternated from Mrs. Nelson's mouth to her eyes - flashing eyes that grew wide with astonishment and crinkled with joy at the stories she taught - dancing eyes that moved from student to student for brief visits of attention. Mrs. Nelson believed in immersive study, where each student got to choose a subject for a semester-long study and writing project. Students could choose personal interests or choose from Mrs. Nelson's impressive list. Otto chose Norse mythology. It seemed like a good place for learning about middle school.

Contribute to Wannaska World, a community writing project where story ideas or contributions left in the comment section or elsewhere on Wannaskan Almanac will be incorporated into ongoing installments.

Be better than yesterday, learn a new word today, and try to stay out of trouble - at least until tomorrow.

*Supplies!