Back to KAMSC

It's not like I woke up thinking, "I'll probably hustle out of a building carrying a bloody package today."  That wasn't originally the plan.

During the summers I work at the Kalamazoo Area Math and Science Center (KAMSC).  I also went there for high school - during the school year it's an advanced math and science school.  It's affectionately called the "Nerd Farm" because most of the kids there are stellar academics...which usually translates into nerds.  The director of the summer program offered to let me borrow a fingerprinting kit to use in my classroom crime lab next week.  She told me that I could show up before school and get the kit, which would be in her unlocked office.  No problem.

I parked my car in the lot across the street from KAMSC.  I went to the main doors and started ascending the eighty-four steps to the fourth floor.  I saw KAMSC students shuffling along on the stairs all around me, seemingly dreading their upcoming labs and lamenting the fact that they were awake at 7:30 AM.  I wanted to grab them by the shoulders and say, "It's okay guys!  It's hard work, but it's worth it at graduation!  You can make it!"  I didn't have time for encouragements.  I had to get my fingerprinting kit and still make it to my own school by the time the bell rang at 8.

I got to the top of the stairs and pushed the buzzer.  The secretaries buzzed me in, either because they recognized me or because they weren't looking closely enough to realize I was not another bedraggled student.  I started trekking down the hall to Susan's office, and as I walked by the high schoolers I was flooded with a million flashbacks.  I realized that no matter how many years go by, some things always stay the same.

There was a group of kids huddling over calculators and frantically trying to finish a lab.  One of them desperately tried to keep up with the others: "Wait, how did you get the answer to number seven?!"  I wanted to stop that kid and say, "Don't worry.  I was you once.  You're going to turn out fine.  Ten years from now, you won't give a crap about the answer to number seven."  Again, I had no time for that.  Mission: fingerprints.

There was a group of kids trying vainly to fit in with each other, not realizing that each other kid in the group was also insecure.  I wanted to tell the pimply kid not to worry - that pimples eventually go away.  I wanted to tell the kid swearing uncertainly that he didn't actually sound as cool as he was trying to sound.  I wanted to tell the kid burrowed away in a corner with a textbook that studying is good, but you have to take a second to stop and smell the chemicals (figuratively, that is).  High school is over before you can blink.  Before I could get totally immersed in my reverie, I was at Susan's door.  Her office was dark, but I stepped in anyway (I had permission, remember?).  The fingerprinting kit was on her desk, wrapped in (faux) bloody brown paper with a caution tape bow.  I smiled.  The whole thing was so very KAMSC.  I grabbed the small package and headed out of the office.  I started to head back towards the doors, but I was stopped by a teacher (one who wasn't there when I was in high school).  "Can I help you?" he asked, which everyone knows is the polite way to ask, "What the crap are you doing here?!?"  He eyed my "bloody" package, and I can only imagine what was going through his mind.  I had just walked into a dark clearly-not-my-office and come out with this suspicious parcel.  "No, thanks," I responded sweetly.  "I got what I needed."  I didn't feel the need to elaborate further, probably partially because I'm pretty sure I've clocked more hours in that building than that teacher has.  I proceeded to hustle down the hall before he could think of more questions to ask.  I didn't look over my shoulder to see his face, but I bet it was funny.

As I was on my way out, I heard two of the nerdies talking about music.  One of them said, "I've really been getting into alternative orchestra music lately."  It was then that I realized that as years go by some things stay the same, but also there can always be a new level of nerdy.  Long live KAMSC.