Notes and Pictures From the Front, Complete with Code Words

If you're friendly with the Conserve School administration or the trustees, I would like to remind you that the first amendment protects this blog post. Also I'm not lying.

Today my friends and I here at Conserve School planned and executed an amazing party code named "Otterhouse". I came up with the name while I was walking around, and it sounded cool, so I used it. There were secret messages and code words, meetings and conspiracies. This wasn't to exclude anyone, no. Instead, we were simply trying to avoid the prying eyes of our headmaster, Stefan. (whenever I refer to him henceforth, pretend I'm saying "he" or "him" with a tint of derision, please. Thanks.) He reads our email(I have 99% proof of it anyway), he somehow always knows what we're up to. He personally has created a terrible atmosphere of tension and surveillance here that more than anything has put a dampener on our last weeks here. I know for a fact that there are a lot of people who would rather we had a different headmaster who wasn't constantly watching, listening, and perusing our personal messages, thank you very much.

Oh, so anyway we planned Operation Otterhouse in secret, right? Nobody told him where this thing was, or sent it by email. We sent the time and date, the people and the details, but the party's location was kept to verbal communication only. So what does he do? He shows up. At our secret woods party. He shows up and claims to be "clearing brush" along the trail that leads to the peninsula. The only possible explanations I have for this are:

1. He overheard someone say the location(very unlikely, as we're all paranoid).
2. He was watching us from across the lake through some sort of binoculars or telescope.
3. He was patrolling the woods in his car, listening for party sounds.
   
4. Somebody accidentally sent the location by email (very unlikely, as we're all paranoid).

We partiers went to the main building for dinner, and when we came back, he's gone. In his defense, the trail had in fact been cleared, but what are the odds that he happens to be maintaing that exact trail on that exact day at that exact time? We hang out and play cards for a while (BS, mostly). We chat for a while. Then he shows up AGAIN, and asks us, "If I served root beer floats at 9:00 tonight in the commons would you guys like them?" Then he leaves. We said yes, though. They were pretty tasty, but everyone knows he's just trying to win us over after he kicked everyone out.

I understand completely his need to keep tabs on students. Unfortunately, I believe very strongly that although he has the right to read our emails and even listen in through our computer microphones (which I have yet to dis-believe), this does not mean that he should unless something is wrong. This is a man who has too much time on his hands (and too much money, I hear he's getting a raise after destroying our school do to 'economic woes', although this is unconfirmed rumor-stuff right now) if he sits in his office reading students' emails and watching our every move through the cameras on campus.

I wouldn't put it past him to have the entire campus bugged. I'm not even the one who came up with that. The atmosphere here is one of fear and division. I love what Conserve was. I love it no longer.

I still think a lot of the kids here are pulling thin strings of fun through our headmaster's steel grate of containment. Operation Otterhouse, the party, was still a blast. Some pictures:




Brendan in a tree.



Opal was a little cold. It was about 80 degrees but REALLY WINDY.



Hobbes reacts to... I don't remember. It's still a good picture though.



Lena, who has been featured before on this blog.

Finally a strange picture that I took of Dimitri's goosebumped skin. I thought it was a cool texture that I might be able to use in some strange way, like reference for a drawing. I also just thought it was a strange enough picture to share.



Weiiiird. Anyway.

We're holding out, but I know a lot of people will be happy to be out from under Stefan's rule this Sunday.

--Erty, codename "Señor Awesome"