Honestly, I wasn’t looking forward to graduation. I thought it was going to be long, boring, and full of awkward over-emotional moments. Much to my surprise, it was a fantastic time.

“Better than any birthday, even,” as my best friend Jessie put it.

Walking into that stadium was incredible. The teachers lined a pathway for us to walk. Nobody could keep from smiling as we made out way through them toward a crowd of thousands. Sure, the families and friends were cheering for the individuals they had come for, but it felt like they were all cheering for me.

I felt special.

It was exciting to hear our reticent Valedictorian speak more than a paragraph. He did a wonderful job and got a number of laughs. I was shocked at his eloquence, recalling the way he would mumble through his presentations in class. Maybe it was the atmosphere. The fellowship was as fair as the weather. For the next few hours all the hard-wearing barriers between cliques were lowered, there was no status quo. This is a rare thing. Brookwood is notorious among the other local high schools for its tight-knit circles. A few people from student government got up to speak and some school officials, but after Eric spoke I was too busy thinking about my walk to get my diploma.

When the time came, people widened their eyes at me, “You’re too chicken, you won’t do it.”

Months of deliberation had gone into this. My math teacher challenged to purposefully trip and fall when I walked to get my diploma. Every person to whom I mentioned it would encourage me, but nobody believed I would go through it.

The fall would be more than just a practical joke on my part. This would be my last chance to show people I didn’t care if they laughed at me. I didn’t care what they thought at all. After years of constantly worrying about what the popular crowd and constantly being judged, I was finished. I would never see most of these people again, and I had begun to wonder why I had even bothered. I’m not very well known at school. Maybe people wouldn’t remember my name, but who could forget the girl that took a massive fall at graduation?

So I did it. People were shocked. There was nothing to trip over, yet I had managed to face plant on my way to receive my diploma. How does this happen? Isn’t that everybody’s worst nightmare?

My friends were given dirty looks from nearby teachers as they laughed.

They had never been more proud.

An overall successful graduation.

After turning out tassels, throwing our hats, and taking pictures I went home for barbecue.

I was more than thrilled to receive presents.

Claire and Danny pitched in to get me an iTunes gift card.

Grandpa and Sue got me some mazooma.

Grammalie got me a nice Bible with my name engraved on the front.

And Mom and Dad got me a MacBook (which I am currently using).

These were all great gifts! I am pretty excited and can’t wait to use them all, so thanks to everybody. You’ll be receiving thank you notes from me soon. 🙂

We rushed over to “project graduation” where I received many handshakes (and even had my autograph requested) until 2am. I had to leave early because I got sick. Too much fun for one day, I guess.

It was a nice day.

(PS: If you want to see the video of my fall its on facebook)

In math, we were given a creative writing assignment where we took 25 algebraic terms from a large list and used them in a creative writing piece, using them, but with a different meaning than what they would mean in algebra.

Bold- Algebraic terms

It was the 2nd term at Divide Middle School. I was there as a substitute teacher for Spanish. I had a prediction that it was going to be bad, starting with the fact I had no clue on how to speak Spanish, and I had to walk up this really long slope to get to the school. I mean sure, I could translate hola, but almost everyone knew that meant hello. Plus, my ankle was hurting from the recent operation I had (it hurt even worse after the big walk). Also, the slogan was ‘Do not sin‘. Not like that’s a bad thing, but it is very’ uncreative and their school was not even a religious school. In comparison to the slogan ‘Building a tradition of excellence’, (Crews Middle School) it was just dull.

Well, first thing that happened when I got there, the principle confronted me about my ‘improper foot wear’.

‘WHY ARE YOU WEARING PINK SANDALS?! THAT’S A BIT RADICAL FOR A SUBSTITUTE TEACHER DON’T YOU THINK!?!’ the principle yelled in a much louder volume than he needed to.

‘Well, um, no-‘

‘HEY YOU! DON’T RUN IN THE HALLWAYS!!’ shrieked the principle at a teacher fast walking to her classroom.

I walked to where I was going to teach, my ankle throbbing at an annoyingly fast rate. On the desk I found a note:

espa’ol todav’a.

‘Oh gosh, what that supposed to mean‘ I thought out loud. I tossed the note aside and searched the area for the lesson plan. There was none. The note must have had to do with the lesson plan. If only there was some kind of translation machine. Which was when it hit me, the students could help read it, it was such a simple solution. Quickly, I went to grab a cup of coffee before the bell rang.

‘RRRRRRIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNGGGGGG!!!’ Students poured in to the classroom. My ankle was starting to tingle unpleasantly. I grabbed one of the students aside to look at the note.

‘Sorry miss, none of us know Spanish, we’re all new.’

‘Wh- bu- wel- Are you sure’ I stammered on the verge of tears.

‘Yep, I’m positive, but if it makes you feel better my dad just started giving free samples at his tattoo shop. He’d probably give you a discount on a tattoo for being my teacher and all. By the way, how much DID it cost to get your entire foot tattooed blue like that’

‘I’m sorry, could you repeat that’ I said, thinking I had heard him wrong.

‘How much did it cost to get your entire foot tattooed blue’ the student asked slowly.

I looked down and screamed. My entire foot, from the ankle I had operation on down, was an extremely deep blue. I can’t remember much after that, because I fainted. I was told they drove me straight to the hospital, and my foot was amputated. And THAT is the tale, of the worst day of my life.

THE END

The Spanish teacher’s note translated:

The class plan is in locker number one.

Yesterday and today, we dissected frogs in science. It was pretty gross. As you probably guessed, it was a 2 day process. Yesterday we chose the frog of our choice from a big ol’ bucket of frogs in this solution (PU!!). It was gross, my partner made me get out our frog. Picture sticking your hand into this yucky smelling fluid through a pile of stiff, soggy, dead froggies. Then we each got 1 pair of gloves that we had to use today and save until tomorrow because we were “running low on gloves”, (my teacher doesn’t have to lie, there is whole cabinet full of latex gloves that everyone knows about. There must be a thousand pairs!). We didn’t even really need to use the gloves the first day, all we did was examine the frog’s external features. We were supposed to figure out if our frog was a boy or a girl frog by their thumbs. “Boys have bigger thumbs to hold the female while mating”…heh heh heh. Nobody could really see any difference in all the thumbs though so for day 1, our frog’s gender was a mystery. Well, when we were done with day 1, guess what my partner did. SHE THREW AWAY THE GLOVES!! I forgave her though. So, today was the gross day where we had to cut open the frog and cut out and examine our frog’s internal organs. Lucky us, no gloves. Well, SURPRISE! Our frog was a female. Boy, was she loaded, their were eggs EVERYWHERE! Behind her organs, in front of her organs, in between her organs, in her ribs! It was amazing, and gross… Why is caviare such a “rare” delicacy? Well, we were kinda frustrated because we got a small frog with cramped organs that stuck together and you couldn’t tell which organ was which. To let out some of our anger, we broke the frogs arms off. Ok, that was part of the reason, really it was because they were so stiff that we couldn’t move them out of the way of our “working” area. So we cut open the stomach to see any undigested food. We found parts of beetles, and guess what? This sick frog ate it’s own eggs!! At that moment, a kid in my class, “Brew”, threw his frog legs at us! I mean, one of the smartest kids in class who people get so annoyed with because he always tries to be an adult was immature! Well, that was the interesting stuff. THE END.

I’m putting this here just in case my floppy disk breaks.

Life Cycle of a Seed (PowerPoint)

Ms.Dickson told us to right our serendipity today. A DREAM COME TRUE. Of course, when she said a dream come true I think FANTASY. I write about how I want this magical flying pony that is pink! It flies over the world and has money flying out of it’s ears and nose! It’s purple hair is constantly falling out, and wherever the hair lands, peace will spread through out the land! Best of all, when it flies, I ride on it and we are out in space. PLUS, we don’t need oxygen!! My picture got chosen to hang up on the wall!

This was an entry I wrote on March the 29th 2004 in the 6th grade. It never got published, it was only a draft when I read it! I remember this picture, Mrs. Dickson kept it. it was not even my best art!