School Days: The Slob

My mind wandered a bit today as I thought about my oldest child's birthday in October.
He turns 7 this year.
His pants had a hole in the knee today.
I remember a lot of things about being 7.

I got my first 'real' bike on my birthday.
The Pink Schwinn.
The day after (I am not really sure if it was the day after for certain, but I remember it being almost the same day as my birthday) my parents told me that they were getting a divorce.
One more year and I would be baptized.
(Ironically, this is a photo of me in my baptism dress...purple. Pretty huh?)

I am not quite sure, but 7 is one of the birthdays that sticks out in my mind, where I grew from being a child, and carefree--to being not so much that way.

I want to make that different for my kids, but this post is not about that.
This post is about being 10.
Being 10 and getting called a 'slob'.
Being 10 and being called a 'slob' by your 4th grade teacher.

So, as I discussed earlier in this post, when I was 7, my parents split.
That left us with a single mother, who worked really hard for us.
We lived across the street from my Grandma and Grandpa.
There wasn't much money, and what little money we had was spent on necessities,
food, shelter, and clothing.
Many of my clothes came from Sears at the time.
My mother worked for a subsidiary of Sears, therefore she got a discount, and they had some sort of amazing children's clothing dealio (I think they still have it!).
Anyway,
In late spring that year, when the school year is getting close to being over,
(and school clothes are near being worn out...)
I went to Kmart with my grandma.
We were in the women's clothing section when I saw THE t-shirt.
It was pink.
It had a kitty on it.
I wanted it SO much!
It was a little big for me (of course) but they style back then was to wear the big tee and tie a knot in the bottom and wear leggings.
She bought it for me.
I was THRILLED.

I couldn't wait to wear it to school the next day.
I put it on, slipped on my black leggings (which had holes in the knees).
Tied the knot, and was off for the day.

I cannot remember how the conversation turned,
or what would possess my (male) teacher to say what he did to me that day.
(In an inner-city school none the less.)
But he did.
"You are such a slob."
Tears.
All because of my big pink kitty shirt and my holey black leggings.
I cried.
Hard.
I was embarrassed.
I know the other kids heard.
What an ass this guy was.
I knew it then, I know it now.

What I learned?
I will protect my kids to the moon and back.
Mean words hurt a lot from kids.
Those same mean words hurt a lot more coming from an adult.
If that man EVER crosses my path, I may punch him.
And that even through all of this, even though the memory still hurts, when I looked back at my 7 year old today, and he had a hole in the left knee of his pants, I let him go to school just like that, and I smiled.

School Daze --"And I Was a B"

James* and me circa 2000
(Not the name he goes by, I love to protect the innocent. Heart you James.)

So, do ya'll recall that time I mentioned about the TI 89 in Mr. Reynolds class?

I am here to further detail the horror that was this particular mathematics class for me. New girl, new school, knows NO ONE...sits next to amazingly cute James.

James and I became SUPER great friends.
I think in some ways James and I were in similar boats, we kind of both left a lot of our friends behind to go to a new school. James started eating lunch with me and my friend Candie.
So we got to know each other really well.

The one thing James had going for him that I didn't...
was that his sister was SUPER beautiful and SUPER popular, and also a Student Body Officer...

...so I think that helped him transition better than I did.

Since high school is SO large and full of SO many people and different clubs and stuff, James and I mostly just talked during our Algebra class.

(I think it was Algebra...James is super smart and just graduated as a Pharmacist...see he was SUPER good at math.)

Anyway, this one particular chapter in the book was a struggle for seemingly EVERYONE in the class.

We had a test coming up and I studied for it and studied for it to no end,
as did James.

The day comes for the test and we all take it with palms sweating and our little index card full of notes.

A few days later Mr. Reynolds, lisp and all hands back the tests to each of us...and I look at my score (it was a GOOD score) and with a HUGE smile on my face turn to James to see how well he had done...

...the entire time knowing he would have it ACED and would have it down.

We concur.

Here is where it went wrong, and hell as we know it broke loose.

I did better than James did on the test.
WHAT?!!
For the first time in months...
...I DID BETTER THAN JAMES ON A TEST?! IN MATH?!

So instead of being the sweet person I normally was, I start RUBBING in the fact that I did better than James.

Even worse, it carries over into lunch time, and my pride gets the better of me, and in front of many people, I begin to declare my smartiness over James'.

It got so bad.
SO BAD.

James has had enough and he yells,

"YOU ARE SUCH A B****!"

...in front of EVERYONE.
(wouldn't you have done the same thing?)

I was crushed.
Yet, I deserved it more than ANYTHING.

James and I didn't talk for months.
I don't even think we talked until the next school year.

I finally fully understood the error of my ways, and apologized for being such a biznatch.

James apologized too, and our friendship was what it was before.

I love me my James.
We are still friends to this day, albeit through facebook mostly.

That is okay, I am thankful to know such a smart and talented young man...
...and through the horror of being called a 'B' in front of many of your friends,
I learned a valuable lesson:

Pride goeth before the biznatch.

Postally Challenged

Feeling like a blogging LOSER.

Do you guys ever go through a slump?
I have been feeling like I have nothing good to share.

I am, however cooking up another "School Daze" post,
you will love it.
It is the one I like to call,
"And I WAS a 'B'!"
So stay tuned for that.
You won't want to miss it.

So, cuz I feel like a loser, shall we play some Q&A?
Ask me anything, about life, photography, life, photography, etc...

...and enjoy a study I did of Memms a few weeks back.

I was just playing around with the jpg setting on my camera, these are SOOC
(straight out of camera, 50mm 1.4 @ 1.4 and they are orange...oh well.)

...just wanted to leave you with some goodness.

School Daze--TI-89

So, our next installment of School Daze brings us to my Sophomore year in high school.

Let's just get it out in the open that I suck cheese at mathematics.

It is my WORST subject, I was even better at P.E. than I was at math this says a lot.
I can't remember the actual term for the particular mathematics is that I took in 10th grade, but it was some sort of "Algebraic" concoction.

I pride myself on remembering the names of people and events from my past, but for some reason, perhaps to protect the innocent the name of my teacher eludes me.
So, I will get on with the story. I do recall he had a lisp, my teacher...if anyone out there can tell me his name, I will send you some bubblegum.

****Edited to note: Marci wins the bubblegum...it was Mr. Reynolds! Marci, see me after class.****

Anyway, here I am, 15, at a new school, half of my friends went to another school and I am sitting in Algebra 2.0 at the beginning of the year knowing absolutely NO ONE, and up the isle being passed up to me from the back comes a graphing calculator.

What the H is a graphing calculator?
I had no clue...dood
I was from the West Side...we had no such wonders known across the valley.
Anyway, "written" on the calculator were the words:

"Kim, will you go to Homecoming with me?"

Uhm. Okay, firstly, who the H sent this? Secondly, I don't know how to respond via said calculator. Thirdly, I am only 15 and I know that my parents would not approve of my going on a date before my 16th birthday...(my religion encourages youth to start dating at 16).
Panic sets in. PANIC.

I look to my left, then to my right, then I look back...and I see the culprits.

They are laughing. Laughing?! Why the H are they laughing?
With all the bravery in my little body--it once was little, I stand up and walk the calculator back to the two laughers and say,

"Is this yours?"

Then dorkily and red-faced I slink backto my chair shaking and hating life at that very moment.

A ton goes through my mind:
Were they serious? Why were they laughing?

I go home and tell my mom of the incident.
Incidentally I need a graphing calculator for class so she takes me out and gets me the most up to date, crazily hard to operate and manipulate calculator of all TIME:
the TI-89.
She instructs me that the next day in class she wants me to type back a response to the laughers...on my calculator.

So, I do it. I politely decline the "invitation" to the dance on the new beast of a calculator...and pass it back.
Jaws drop to the floor...what is this?
THIS? THIS CALCULATOR?
No one from the East Side had such a wonder...but this girl...she has one!

It shut them up.
They both claimed they were "kidding" about the dance asking.
To this day, I am not so sure.
I think I really burst someone's bubble.
For the remainder of high school, these two particular boys were always acting strangly around me.
Sometimes I wonder.
I think they both were secretly in LOVE with me...at least that is what I tell myself so I feel better.

As for the TI-89, I never really learned how to use it.
It did get my husband through college though. Accounting, who'da thought?

As for me and math? That was the last mathematics class I ever took, it was enough to get me into college and enough that I shouldn't have to take another class until I actually want to graduate. Can't wait for the tutors.

School sucked.

Thanks mom.

School Daze

This shall be the first of a small series of posts I shall entitle "School Daze".

As I prepare to send my first born off into the land of curious lunch cuisine and first crushes, my mind is brought back to those long ago days of grade school. At the same time as J-Man is introduced to such woes, I have a little sister entering Jr. High, and another entering High School. So in honor of their preparation and mortification, I will share with you some of the worst moments I had in school.

Laugh with me, more importantly CRY with me...because as my friend put it after I told her this first story, "It has not been long enough, these wounds are still too fresh."
Oh how I pray I do not lose thee...oh faithful readers.

Or as my other friend put it, "Dood that is HILARIOUS."

YOU BE THE JUDGE.

The setting: 15 years ago. If you do the math, we are talking sixth grade. I had a crush on, oh we'll call him "CK". I sat at the same table with CK as well as one of THE most popular girls in the sixth grade--Jenna. I was either lucky or doomed. I prefer the term "doomed".

My family had just moved into a new home, landing me into this new found hell of a place...and in sixth grade no less. When I should have been "ruling the school" I was instead trying to make it through each and every day. No easy feat where I went to school. It was grade A ghettosville USA.

So there was this one day in Spring. I was sitting at the table after running around all recess long...and you know when you run sometimes you get cloggy in the...um nasal region. Well, as the secretions dried, it caused me the most unbelievable mass to ever grace one's nose. I was sitting there with CK to my left nose in a book (as per usual) and Jenna was also reading. So, I thought quickly that if I hurried and dug out the menace...no one would see...and I would be freed of my burden. I must act quickly. I only hesitated for a moment...dig...grab...swoop...into the mouth. Yes. I just admitted to the entire world that I ate my boogs until I was in sixth grade. Back to the story.

Once I commenced the "swoop" of my plot, that is where I neglected that behind the dried mass may lie a long string of...well you know...undried mass. So the big menace took with it all of it's relatives leaving a trail from my nose to my...er um...my...uh...mouth. I know I am kind of dry heaving as I relive it.

This is not the worst of it. As I was mortified that such a situation had occured, and that my plan had not been fully executed with the grace I had so fully thought it should...who is it that was there to witness the entire event?

Was it CK?

Thankfully, no.

Was it Jenna?

Yes. Yes it was.

Mortification.

One of THE most popular girls in school just saw me PICK my nose and EAT it. Death. What was I to do? She sat staring at me. I was still cleaning off the mess. And what is it you suppose she said to me?

"It's okay Kim. I used to eat my boogers too, I won't tell anyone."

I am CERTAIN I was three shades of red, nevermind the green tracing my nose and lips. I can tell you one thing...that day cured me of ever wanting to eat a booger ever...EVER again.

That day could have been very, very different. Jenna and I became very good friends, I can't say because of the booger incident...but friends nonetheless. It was really good for my self-esteem.

As far as eating boogers, in case you are all sitting at your computers reaching for your garbage can to hurl in...read along, you may think twice the next time you grab for a tissue.

I rest my case.

School is hell. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise.