That’s So Jr High.

My Jr High Experience was fair.

{inside joke}

In reality I HATED it.

Miss T who taught English, who had it out for me.  Our crazy band teacher who I was SURE was dead but my dad saw him just the other day at a restaurant, turns out he wasn’t that old.  Seriously?  Blech.  Jr high was no fun.

1.  My mom challenged me to make a new friend every day.  I somehow found the willpower to talk to a complete stranger in my homeroom.  We remained friends all through high school {waiving to Emily H}.  Frankly, I haven’t stopped talking to strangers and I’ve pretty well made a career out of it.  Thanks mom!

2.  I remember having teachers say I just wasn’t smart enough for things.  I didn’t get into honors English and she just said I wasn’t smart enough.  Do teachers do that anymore?  It made me mad.

3.  I loved being in the plays in Jr High.  I had a really great time playing a granny in one of the productions.  I was a total ham (reminds me of someone else and his first grade performance).  At first I was disappointed to play someone so old and crotchety but I really found a niche.

4.  Band.  Blech.  It’s a miracle anyone makes it through Jr high band, especially the teacher.

5.  The bus.  Jr high was the one grade that I rode the bus.  There were some seriously mean girls who said mean things and did mean things to me.  Again, if you read my bulling post I really think that everyone needs to face this at some point. I mean, I had frizzy hair, a retainer, and later braces.  Who wouldn’t want to make fun of me?  I still have negative feelings towards some of these girls.  I was juts going to type what some of them have made of themselves, but I am resisting.  I remember getting a facebook friend request from one of them, and happily ignoring it.  I guess some grudges last. 🙂

6.  I remember walking up to my dad’s office from school.  I remember feeling a huge amount of autonomy doing that.  I wish I could let me kid have their own type of autonomy.  My dad was also a bishop at BYU at the time, and I would sometimes walk to one of their apartments.

7.  I remember one of the people in his ward paid me to come help her set-up her classroom for the new school year, and would pay me to make file folder games for her to go and laminate.  I LOVED doing it (mostly because I adored her) but I felt a great deal of responsibility now that someone else was paying me.

Again, autonomy.

You know, I think I’m inspecting my own parenting a bit more as I write these.  So, how was your Jr high experience?  Was it fair? 🙂