Oops, she had homework?

I'm a terrible mom, I forgot that my kindergartener had homework. We finished it, but I have to say it's a dang good thing it's easy to do or we would have been in big trouble! Boy, times sure have changed, I don't remember having homework in Kindergarten. So, I decided to use a journal jar topic (refer to an earlier post on this one) to blog about today.

The Question is: How did you feel about school?

I loved school! Well, I loved highschool. Elementry school is almost a blur now. I remember certain friends and teachers. I remember the one girl in 4th grade that decided she hated me. This was the closest I have ever been to being in a fight. We were playing kickball and she was on 3rd base. I was at 2nd running to 3rd. I was going to be able to score a run, so as I rounded 3rd, she grabbed my high-on-my-head-80's-ponytail and pulled hard. I almost hit the ground. Well, I did the most un-Mormonlike thing I could do. I called her many names that I'm sure can be overheard being muttered by a drunken-sailor on shore leave. I'm not proud of it, but I did it. So later, she moved in for the fight. Confronted, I admit, I ran. I ran right to Mr. Farmer the music teacher. I did hard time for this fight. Detention during lunch recess.

Otherwise, besides the "pizza-face" comments I normally got, I remember having friends. I remember subject I really enjoyed. I loved music and art!

Art class was wonderful. I really enjoyed art, and I wasn't too bad at it. My drawings usually looked like they were supposed to. I was a little weird with my subject choices, for example I did a plaster cast of my foot instead of my hand like everyone else. I painted it black with eye balls on it. It could have sold for millions to some yuppie in New York. But, alas, my real love called me. Music!

My first choir experience was in 7th grade. I moved in too late in the 6th grade year to join, and my old school didn't have it, so I waited until 7th grade to try out. We had to audition with the classic tune "Happy Birthday." I surprised my teacher by being a soprano. I have a naturally deeper speaking voice, so people think it's weird to hear me talk then hit a high B or C (I have done it, but it's been awhile). But then, I just was a soprano. I made choir that year and the next. We had this crazy show choir that had a whole choreographed show. We always did popular music (go Whitney). It was fun! I didn't take choir freshman year of high school because I was taking Keyboarding 101, which by the way, landed me my job at the State (almost 10 years), so THANKS MOM!

Let's see....Oh! Kindergarten. I remember we had these books called Letter Books (creative!) Each week, a new letter and book. I liked them because they had pages with different smells. If you remember, the 80's enjoyed may different types of Scratch-In-Sniff, and the school district thought that learning the alphabet should also include scratching and sniffing. We also took the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. We sat a common tables in kindergarten, so they partitioned us off with those cardboard building blocks that looked like red bricks. I remember poking my pencil in the holes between blocks. We got a cup of trail mix to keep our energy up while we were tested. I picked out all the good stuff and left the raisins (I still do that!)

I also remember we wanted to be in class with this one girl (between 1st and 4th grade) because her mom always brought in the best gifts for the class for Halloween, Christmas and her birthday. Quality stuff, like Tinkerbell nailpolish that pealed off.

Halloween was Halloween when I was in school. It was a huge costume parade. Everyone was in costume. We had a great party and ate HOMEMADE treats. I only remember one group of people not participating, the Jehovah Witnesses (funny, but I didn't realize that was a religion when I was little, I just always felt sorry for the kid that couldn't have a birthday party). That's it! Halloween wasn't evil, it was pure fun!

Christmas was wonderful also. It was Christmas. We had gift exchange. We made paper angels and colored Santas and sang Christmas songs. All of them, including the ones with Jesus! Oh, back in the day (as Dane says, that was a Wednesday).

I can't say enough about how cool High School was for me. I always encourage everyone to be involved in High School. Join clubs! I still have friends from those clubs! And, if I needed to prove how much I liked High School. '96-'97 Yearbook, Most likely to Return to Every Homecoming. PHS! Who's House? Cat's House! (I know all the words to the Fight Song and the Alma Mater, I'm a real geek!)