What's in a Name?!

So let's be honest here. Most of middle school/junior high is all a big blur. I can't differentiate memories very well for those three years. But there are a few things that stick out as being very 6th grade.

I mentioned last week that I was starting to get in the habit of not doing homework. 6th grade didn't cure this. In fact, I bet it made it a little worse.

Oh yeah, I was so challenging authority. And I got away with it a lot. I still made decent grades, A's, B's, the occasional C.

But there was that one subject. The subject I got busted in. Spelling.

Ms. Aadams.

The brand new happy perky idealistic cheerleader coach spelling teacher.

My worst nightmare. (I wasn't a fan of the cheerleader type.)

Well, spelling was not my favorite subject and I decided to not put forth any effort. Especially when it came to homework.

I'm not sure exactly how it came to this, but I had to get something signed by my parents due to my lack of homework doing. Of course I didn't want them to know that I was slacking so I did the only logical thing.

I forged my mother's signature.

In retrospect, very very stupid move, but I thought I was brilliant at the time.

So I turned in this forged paper and thought I was a big dog.

Until the next day.

She called me to her desk and told me she knew that my mother hadn't signed the paper.

I was shocked!! How did she know??? (Duh, the 6th grade handwriting!)

Well, another note came home and I had to tell my mother what I had done. I was sure I was dead. Big, big, big trouble here!! Until my mom started laughing. See, this note said that my grade was in "grave jeopardy." And my mother was tickled by this. She asked if I even knew what "grave jeopardy" was. Well of course not! To me, jeopardy was something that came on after Wheel of Fortune!! So the jokes started about "grave jeopardy" being the round after "double jeopardy." And I'm sure I did get in trouble. And my grade was no longer in grave jeopardy. And maybe, for a while, I did my homework for that class.

But I still giggle about it all.

Sure as heck didn't learn any lesson about homework!

But I never, never signed my mother's name again!!

Annie wins!!

So I don't feel like writing today.

I could care less if you know what my fifth grade year was like.

I mean, it was fifth grade, another year at school.

Hmm... seems like I'm channeling my feelings from my fifth grade year into this little blog here.

You see, fifth grade was the year I got tired of school. It wasn't a challenge, it wasn't fun, it was just school. Friendships were getting trickier, cliques were forming, and I usually felt like I was on the outside looking in.

 I feel like I just didn't (don't) see things the way other people do and I don't always care about the things my peers did. MTV was not my thing (actually, mom said we couldn't watch it and of the rules I might have broken, I never watched) so I wasn't sucked into pop culture. I didn't have to wear Guess jeans. I didn't want to be popular. I did want to be on the safety patrol though, but I just wasn't safety patrol material. (I'm guessing they sensed my inner rebel and knew that I'd create chaos at any given chance. Or maybe my grades weren't good enough....)

But more than that, my attitude changed. I started not doing my homework-and this was a major problem because my teacher went to church with us. Sunday mornings-- "Hi Annie! Have you got your fill-in-the-blank project done yet?" Me-- "mumble, mumble, mumble." Mom (tightly gripping my shoulder)-- "No, not done yet, but it will be." Or something very similar.

And have I mentioned before that I was (am) a talker? Well this held true for the fifth grade.

Got my first detention. For talking.

But here's the fun part.

Detention was served after school. Mom was in college and would be in class when detention was over. She asked the nice principal lady if she intended to bring me home afterward. Principal lady answered with a non-surprising no. So mom told them that they needed to figure something else out then. The agreed upon punishment was for me to serve detention during lunch. So I walked to the office during lunch, some other kid had to bring me my lunch (yeah, I was that important, in my head), and then I got to eat another crappy school lunch in complete peace, all alone in the cool, quiet conference room.

Another thing about me is that I'm a smiler.

I generally smile all the time, no matter what the situation. You know it's going to be ugly if I stop smiling. It's just who I am. So there I am, sitting all alone in this conference room enjoying my lunch when the principal lady walks by. I turn and smile at her. And this is my favorite part--- Stern face, frowning in my general direction: "I wouldn't be smiling if I were you young lady. You're in detention."

I bit my tongue to keep from laughing. I try to look like I'm upset that I'm in detention. I did a good enough job I reckon because she firmly and authoritatively walked away.

And I felt like (knew) I had won.

The year the teacher didn't like me

Wow.

4th grade.

Can I really remember back to the 4th grade?

Challenger Elementary School. Mrs Rice- the first teacher immune to my charms. In fact, I think she really disliked me. Couldn't have been me! I was a delightful, sarcastic, questioning, never quiet, always moving little kid! Who wouldn't want that? And she was a teacher who maybe should have never been given a job as a teacher in the first place. I guess that's harsh, but to a kid, especially this kid, teacher's are supposed to know everything and love students.

 (Not really, but this is the emotion most remebered.)

You might be reading the writing of one of the world's worst spellers (thank goodness for spell check) and spelling was really hard in the 4th grade. And during spelling tests I moved my lips, it helped me see the words better. And she accused me of trying to cheat- like the C speller was giving answers to the A spellers!

And then maybe I was a little bit of trouble. Note passing, lots of note passing. Talking, all the time. Knowing when she didn't know an answer and asking questions anyway. Possibly being disrespectful, but never to her face. 

And maybe I helped my mother be a thorn in her side,too. I have this lingering memory of coming home with a less than stellar test, and while I'll admit now that maybe I should've studied more, I answered the questions that were asked. Her lack of grammatical correctness lead to my answers being wrong because I answered what she asked, not what she intended. And my mother might have corrected the teacher's grammar with a red pen and sent it back to the teacher and a few people higher up in the food chain.

But enough about that. I had a life outside of school. Friends, movies, reading, reading, reading, roller skating (but not at all night skates like some of my friends, which was secretly ok with me).

And there was probably lots more, but that's all I remember today.

 So that's the end of 4th grade!

Whoops!

Well, I was out of town last week and and out of touch and totally forgot about this project! But I was on a mission trip working with Habitat for Humanity so hopefully you will forgive me. And when this gets posted on Thursday, I will be at camp-I'm a counselor for adults with cognitive disabilities.

But let me start telling what you're here to read...

I'll backtrack a little to catch you up. Biggest memories from the 2nd grade- I got glasses, I broke my arm, I cemented my friendship with my best friend, and, unfortunately, I can remember wetting my pants in class because I was embarrassed to ask the teacher if I could go. We also moved the summer between 2nd and 3rd grade and I no longer went to the same school as my best friend. But it was a great house that we spent many happy, and some not so happy years in!

So now the  3rd grade. Mrs. Willhite. My first C (in spelling). Shuttle launches (I lived in rocket city and we watched ALL of the launches in school). Learning that it did matter if I was for Auburn or Alabama, but really not caring. Going to Allison Gibson's birthday party-our birthday's were the same day- and having to listen to New Kids on the Block. Wearing pink Hammer pants (with black polka dots) and thinking I was totally awesome. Old enough to ride my bike to school and being left behind by my brother.

To be honest, I lived so much in my own little bubble, Annie World, that it's hard to pin down many memories. Especially assigning them to a specific year. What I remember the most is that grade school was happy. In my mind, in my world, nothing bad ever happened then. So happy Annie in my phone booth in the sky will continue to tell it the way I remember it!