I can't help it. I am still living in what the late humorist Doug Kenney called "a homeroom of the mind." I love everything about high school culture - the easy availability of ice cream sandwiches, having a stash bin locker for my stuff, lots of friends to talk to, exercise in fresh air, and, occasionally, learning something.
I will readily admit that I would be spotted as an outlier, were I to try to blend in and fake being a high school student again. Gray hair and an unsteady gait would give me away at once. But hats off to Hyejeong Shin! She's 29 and faked them out for a whole week, posing as a new student at New Brunswick High School in New Jersey before the school administrators got wise to her fake birth certificate.
It's not as if Ms Shin was trying to make up for missed education. She is a graduate of Rutgers University, for crying out loud. Her attorney says she knows she goofed, but it was all out of her longing to have the kind of friendships she had in high school that made her do it
See what I mean?
Shin is a South Korean citizen who was sent here at 16 to attend a private boarding school, and she just missed that atmosphere. The pep rallies! The smoke-filled lavatories! The Geometry quizzes! The morning announcements!
Her attorney, Darren Gelber, said, "At no time was anyone or any student in danger and this entire case is more about my client wanting to return to a place of safety and welcoming and an environment that she looks back on fondly and nothing more."
Maybe he gets paid by the word.
Gallantly, the New Brunswick Police released a statement, saying their investigation found nothing to indicate her enrollment was part of a plan to bring harm or violence to anyone.
Gelber says as soon as this is over, Shin wants to return to South Korea, after 13 years in the US.
Maybe if I dye my hair and buy the cool clothes that kids today wear, I could pull it off...
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