School is so dull. The monotony knows no bounds. For example, there's economics, a.k.a., "The Class from Mehl!" Really, it wouldn't be so bad if it weren't taught by her (Mrs. Mehl), or at least in her style. Others have echoed this sentiment. I know she teaches in her own little style to shock some kids into paying attention, but it just don't work for me. She'll do weird stuff, like talk about her fantasies of torturing little babies, getting stun guns so she can entertain herself during the day, thoughts of clandestine murder, etc. You see, this is what happens when you marry a lawyer.

Anyway, she is a total news freak, as she remembers what was on the 6 o'clock news 18 months ago and not only expect us to have watched, but also care! That is when the "King of the Hill" reruns are on. Yes, she is that disconnected with the modern teen. One time when this thing came up I thought about saying, "Ms. Mehl, if it makes you feel any better, even if I had seen it, I wouldn't have cared," but that might have caused her eye to start twitching uncontrollably. That would have been scary.

I know I am being a little hard on her, after all, when one finds her class so easy as I do, I shouldn't complain too much. However, my view on the whole thing is that teachers freely comment on all of our work (especially English teachers, your next Ms. Graber), so I can take the liberty of freely commenting on theirs. Anyway, you'd expect something more from a "Teacher of the Year" (or some sort of award) recipient to make the class less mind-numbing to someone who actually has an interest in it. Plus, dramatized fact is a lot more entertaining, read on...

So, one day I show up early for class, only because my parents were taking me when I had broke my arm. Usually, I'm still in my car driving to class nodding with the heavy bass when the bell rings, or at least cursing the commercials as I change channels. I hate morning talk radio. Play the music already! Let's see, where were we? Ah, yes, I was there early and she comes up to me and asks what stocks I own in the stock market game we are playing. I, naturally kicking rear in the game, explain that a security software company has been helping us. She goes on to say that she owned shares in a different security software company and lost most of her investment. Ms. Mehl, I really don't care, 'kay? See this thick glaze over my eyes? It's not from doughnuts. Another time, and I am so sorry I said it, I said Taser, the company that makes stun guns, helped me out. Wow, that made her day, knowing that there was someplace she can get stuff to stun the babies she so wants to torture. If it weren't for the fact you can't have them at school, she would have surely show up in the following days with one.

One thing I really dislike about her is half the time she's wrong in what she says. One day we are in class listening to her lectures, and she has a tendency to dumb things down really far, to the lowest common denominator so that those dense kids in the corner can understand some of it. Generally when this happens, she begins spewing fiction (yes it is spewing, there is a lot more than words that comes out when she talks). I got fed up with it, but not wanting to jeopardize my grades, I write a quick note correcting at least 10 errors of hers over the past two classes. She was on a real role that week. The next day we are in the computer lab and she hands me the pre-progress report things some teachers hand out, and tells me the class is too easy for me, this coming from her as she hands me a paper saying I'm getting a B. It would have been much worse if I hadn't corrected her, which netted me an extra 80 points. Anyway, I am pretty darn shocked at this; it nearly blew the lecture-induced glaze right off my eyes! It was bittersweet however, now that everyone around me now knew my intelligence; it’s so irritating when that happens because people begin expecting things from you. Anyway, I thought about telling her the only reason I was in her class was for the stock market game, as I really have no reason to be here, but that could have had a negative effect on those 80 freebies I just got.

Not only does she not always speak truth, she brings in speakers who are less than experts, and it scares me when this non-expert in econ is a stockbroker at Edward Jones. The guy came into class and asks what Altria (a.k.a. Phillip Morris) makes. One guy said cigarettes, and I said they own part of Kraft. He tells me, rather convinced in his speech, that "Actually, they own all of Kraft." B.S.!!! If it weren't for the fact he was handing out candy, and I was hungry, I would have said that to him. Readers, you can be assured that Altria, the company formerly knows as Phillip Morris, owns only 84.2% of Kraft, and you can but Kraft shares on the stock market, and therefore own part of Kraft, without owning Altria. As if you cared. Anyway, this stockbroker was very annoying, touting one of his favorite mutual funds for well over half of his talk. People, this guy keeps 6.5% of the money you hand him when you buy this mutual fund. The reason stockbrokers love mutual funds so much is they make so much money off of them. If some guy walks into his office with $100,000, and asked for a diversified set of stocks, the broker would earn $6,500 and keep about $3,250 to himself if he bought that mutual fund, whereas if he bought 30 different companies as stocks, he would earn $1,500 in commissions, and only keep $600 of that to himself. To top it off, Edward Jones as a company has been charged with taking cash from certain mutual fund companies to sell their mutual funds instead of better performing ones. Stock brokers as a whole strike me as a group of self-serving salesmen who know way too little about the stock market and too much about how to get a new Lexus.

Then there is always the worst part of the class, her lectures. Luckily, I have entertaining people in my class, who will break up her lectures to ask rather peculiar questions. Then those people in the corner she yells at to wake up always add that important humor factor. Her lectures lack anything that remotely interests me. Either I know what she's talking about, or I simply don't care. I noticed this type of thing has happened a lot this year.

Econ is the pinnacle example of the primary thing I have learned in this year of coming out of my homeschooled hole: Boredom can't kill you, but by God, you wish it could.