Convocation Day. Everyone has showered within twelve hours and is wearing something other than what they slept in. We congregate in front of Wiggins and mill about until a faculty member yells at us to line up in alphabetical order. This takes more time than one would expect from a group of fairly intelligent high schoolers. Once we are in our single file line, the Juniors (and a few Seniors) break out of line in order to take pictures of people standing in line and to pass out lip gloss to the girls. The line soon moves and we begin our trek to Center Theater. Our little parade of sorts actually backs up traffic in downtown Hartsville. I can just hear the Hartsvillians thinking (read with Southern drawl), "What are them crazy smart kids up to now?" We are heckled by a bus full of football players before our group finally makes it inside the doors of the theater (the marquee reads "GSSM Convocation").

As we enter the lobby of the theater, we are greeted by Dr. Cox and Dr. James Daniels, president of Coker College and the guest speaker. I had imagined that we would enter the theater to the applause of hundreds of parents. In reality, we enter the theater and were met with the sounds of "academic music" and with the adoring gaze of maybe twenty people. It was not as grand as I had imagined it and quite frankly, I was disappointed. We reach our reserved seats and continue to stand as the faculty and administrators march on stage. The faculty situate themselves and under the prodding of Dr. Hendrick, Dr. Cox finally steps up to the podium and motions for us to sit. Dr. Cox welcomes us and introduces the chorus. About twenty of us rise and go on stage where we sing two songs. Once we finish, the crowd does not realize that it must react by applauding until the chorus is almost completely off of the stage. Dr. Cox returns to the podium and forces the crowd to applaud the chorus once again. Then he introduces Dr. Daniels. More applause. Dr. Daniels begins his speech by talking about the founding of the school. This is fairly interesting, but in the back of my mind, a little voice is chanting, "You will fail history and chemistry!" I start worrying about the tests looming ominously in the very near future (less than twenty-four hours away) and my mind begins to wander to the world of LAND and Aufbau Diagrams. To tell you the truth, I can’t remember anything that Dr. Daniels spoke of past the founding of the school. I can, however, tell you about the Decade of Crisis or explain Pauli’s Exclusion Principle. I return to reality just as Dr. Cox begins to explain to the Seniors how they should go about receiving their academic letters. This goes without a hitch (except for the butchering of a few people’s names) and we march back out of the theater.

For the most part, I think that Convocation is a great way to officially begin the school year. It’s definitely an improvement upon the official opening of my old school. My principal used all school assemblies, especially the first one, as an excuse for him to tell the student body that we were all going to Hell if we didn’t change our heathen ways and that he knew that he had a spot in heaven. I wish that my mind had been more on Convocation and less on tests, but then again, that would be too unlike a Govie.