Some sort of "story" emerges

So while I've talked about the process, I haven't talked about the novel itself, and that might be something one might want to include in blogging a novel. I'm writing the story of a student who enters a newly consolidated rural middle school. It's mostly an exercise in catharsis to exorcise the ghosts lingering from my junior high days. I want to write a laugh out loud story, but what I really like are the stories that make you laugh but have heart, too, like "Freaks and Geeks." The idea is heavily influenced by the TV shows I've been watching, in that the (imagined) structure of the novel is much like one season of a TV show, and the possibility of subsequent volumes is definitely open. So far, I've spent almost 7000 words describing the first day of school in a novel that's supposed to cover an entire school year. There will need to be some jumping ahead.