They are so loud? Noisy. Raucous. Rowdy. Roaring. Blaring Vociferous. There are so many words that mean the same thing as loud. But they also don’t. The synonyms for loud all look like kinds of loud. Take rowdy loud. Rowdy loud is the class I have on my mind right now. I can’t really explain why, but for some reason their loudness comes with a great deal of kinetic energy. There bodies are always looking for a way to be expanding outside of their chairs. Even when they are managing to “sit still”, their wiggly selves are still rocking back and forth, and side to side, creating a chorus of creaks and squeaks in the chairs like a room full of Jurassic off-key crickets. I keep hoping the relentless REEE-eer REEE-eer REEE-eer will become like a soothing white noise in the background of my head, but so far there is nothing soothing about the noise. The noise is a dazzling sharp red rain of sound that is as easy to ignore as direct sunlight. And then, there is the drumming of their hands on the tables when they don’t know what to do with their hands. It is a rhythmless staccato as soothing as gunfire. Bless their rowdy loud little souls.

How about the hallways? Remember in The Lion King, when Scar was setting up Mufasa and he got the jackals to start a wildebeest stampede in the gorge? (Sorry for the spoilers but the movie is 30 years old almost.) That is a lot like what the hallways are like here, but add yelling. This kind of loud is…raucous. It shouts, and challenges, and roars and grunts. Inexplicably, when the kids are close together, they keep grabbing one another’s backpacks, like they are afraid of getting lost in a dark cave. I haven’t seen the end of the year yet, but I have a feeling that it is going to be a lot less of a spontaneous dance sequence, like at the end of High School Musical 2 (2006), and a lot more like that scene in Jurassic Park when the kid looks up and points to a heard of dinosaurs and says “Uh…guys? They’re flocking toward us.” (1994 – I saw it in the theatres.)

So why are they so loud? Are they afraid they won’t be heard? Are they all slowly going deaf? (Conspiracy theory: I blame earbuds.) Is it like in the wild, when bears meet on the same territory, and they have to shout each other down to see who gets to stay, and who’s gotta go look for a beehive somewhere else? (Tangent – do bears really eat honey from hives, or did Winnie the Pooh mislead me?)

Thoughts?