By Rohan Simon ’22
Jay Wood, English department head, has always been a stickler for preparation. Expecting every kid to review their material after finishing their (ostensibly, but not really) 45-minute homework assignments, he shows no mercy to the unprepared, single handedly roasting them in class while fellow peers watch in terror. Even worse, the words, “take out a sheet of paper,” trigger instant fear in the hearts of many Brit Lit students, wrecked by the trauma of ruthlessly hard pop quizzes.
This PTSD that we Brit Lit students know all too well seemed like it would never end, until lo and behold, distance learning appeared. Naively, we thought we were safe; God’s grace had befallen us, giving another week until we had to step into that hellish, high pressure environment known as Chamberlayne Room 213. Also, teachers said not to expect any assessments for the next week, with St. Catherine’s even banning teachers from assigning graded material. Saved from the wrath of Mr. Wood, we were relieved. We had been freed from the fetters of British Literature, or so we thought.
Grossly underestimating Mr. Wood’s cunning, ignorant BLH/B students such as myself filed into the Zoom room, unprepared for the worst. Soon after roll call, Mr. Wood dropped a bombshell rivaling that of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: a pop quiz, and on the first day back! Mass mental hysteria followed, with no one expecting Mr. Wood to have the gall to pull off such a thing.
Regardless, we students valiantly fought back, desperately trying to remember obscure information learned months ago. In the end, surviving the bloodshed was a handful of students, glad to live another day. Unfortunately for them, Mr. Wood is the type to finish the job; he leaves no survivors standing. The following day, he put the final nail in our coffins by slapping students with a quote ID pop quiz.
Some words of advice, from survivor to victim: if you ever find yourself in his class — be prepared. Be prepared, if not with knowledge, then for your untimely fate.
Dedicated to the 13 BLH/B students who died in shock those first two days of online classes.