In-class Excersise: Drafting

I was fifteen years old, still shy and reserved in the presence of strangers, when  first I walked into Mrs. C's sixth period Chemistry class, a large drafty room nestled in one corner of my High School's main building. There were counters around the edges of the room and a large chimney structure in one corner, a odd contraption we called the hood, which you could enclose completely in case of  dangerous chemical vapors or an explosion. I used to secretly wish for some catastrophic disaster, just so I could have the pleasure of heroically tossing the volatile liquids  into the pit and closing the hood good and tight.

My first impression of Mrs. C was not necessarily a good one, mostly because I refused to allow it to be one. I'll admit I was already biased to dislike her, due to some minor horror stories of mistreatment I'd heard from brother in law regarding his time in her class. I felt that I had a familial obligation to dislike the woman my sister's husband disdained.
 Thus, I found her charming Coney Island accent grating, grousing silently over the way she pronounced the word fifty as "fity," annoyed by her clever, sarcastic jokes and her easy familiarity with students. Everything she did, I was determined to dislike, from the innocent way she asked students about their older siblings--her former students--to the way she excitedly paced before the blackboard and made broad motions with hands arms and sometimes even her feet. Even the way she conducted the class grated on me, and I would spend hours at home complaining to my parents about how she never explained anything and she simply expected us to know things.
Fortunately for me, even my determination to hold a grudge was no match for Mrs. C's enthusiasm, humor and high expectations. After the first quarter, I had already started to warm. I was no longer swallowing down my laughter, determined to be surly, no longer complaining to my parents. In fact, soon enough I retelling tales of her antics gleefully to classmates and laughing with my parents over her unorthodox methods. I started to relish the challenge of the assignments she gave us. I didn't need her to explain--all I need to do was use my own mind, think it through, and do the very best that I could. Somehow, somewhere, Mrs. C had tricked me into enjoying chemistry, and--goodness forbid--thinking. I had been transformed into a enthusiastic, intellectual and independent student, quite against my own will.