Connor K
“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you're the pilot”
-Michael Althsuler
For those who remember, do you remember how big this school felt when you arrived in 5th grade? Remember how little you felt in a new, big world, where you were going to be for the next four years? I do, and at the time, I thought eighth grade was like how I think of high school now. But now I’m here, and eighth grade doesn’t seem so big anymore. Now high school is big, and it’s coming to me faster than I ever imagined.
It felt like just yesterday when I walked into Golf for orientation, when we sat down in our new classroom for the first time, thinking about how grown up we were, being in middle school. The year went by so fast, it wasn’t until 6th grade that I noticed how much 5th grade was like elementary school.
Then, when I walked into school a year later, I felt like time was in fast forward. I felt like I just got into 5th grade the other day, but now I was in 6th. I have so many memories of 6th grade, the fundraiser, Medieval Times, the paper crane folding (I folded bags full), scientist of the year, 3D explorer posters, and many more! I loved 6th grade. There was always something going on to keep us excited. But then, the end of the year picnic came, and the year was over.
I worked at a summer camp over the summer, that was only for eight weeks though, and sure enough, it was over as soon as I started.
I had heard a lot about 7th and 8th grade, and on the first day of school in 7th grade, I was super excited. I was going to meet most of the teachers that I would graduate with, and be taught by them for 2 years. Here’s a brief description of all of their classes/a word of thanks.
The only teacher I had in 7th grade that I don’t have anymore is Mr. Gilman. I loved his classes, even though English and Literature were never really my forte. We were always doing new things, from the books we read to the projects we worked on. His class actually made me enjoy essays.
But skipping up to eighth grade, my first class of the day was Spanish, I was really excited for it. For the first few days, Mrs. Conejo seemed really different. I had never seen a teacher like her before, so enthusiastic with her teaching to the point of singing and jumping around the room. I got used to it eventually. The way she chose to teach kept us paying attention and helped us memorize spanish rules way easier. She would always yell chants for the rules, which play in our minds whenever thought about. I usually understood the spanish in questions and games, but I could never bring myself to answer well, thanks to my massive amount of social anxiety. But, that didn’t stop me from picking up the knowledge needed.
Then came my back-to-back Joyner periods, Literature and English. Before even meeting her, or seeing her, I had heard from a lot of people that she was an amazing teacher. Her classes are great and really fun. We’ve learned a lot from her and remembered it easily. And most importantly, Mrs. Joyner cares a lot about her students. She is obviously not one of those teachers there just for the paycheck, she always tries to teach things in creative and fun ways.
After that came history, with Mr. Carris. Mr. Carris is an amazing teacher. He always tells us things in the most interesting ways, makes us all laugh daily, and he really cares about us. I have always loved history, I always got A’s and was always super interested in what we were being taught.
Then came science, with Mrs. Maldonado. Mrs. Maldonado always had something interesting for us to do, anything between the lines of cooking popcorn over the bunsen burners to frequently watching videos and movies on the subject that we were currently learning about.
And finally, math, with Mr. Carro. Mr. Carro was always super into what he’s teaching us. He is also known to give us some random facts in the middle of a lesson, and sometimes sit down and argue with us about it. One of the topics was whether white was a color or not, that one took up almost the whole period. Mr. Carro is also the complete opposite of Mrs. Conejo, which makes the fact that their classrooms are right next to each other ironic. He’ll be in the middle of a lesson and we’ll hear Mrs. Conejo singing/screaming through the wall, and we’ll all start to laugh. Whenever this happens, Mr. Carro will just sit there thinking about what he has just heard, with a confused straight face.
I had most of these teachers for two years now, and it feels like I’ve only had them for a little while it also feels like I’ve had them forever. It’s a weird feeling. I want to thank all of them, for being such great teachers and educating us to graduation.
With all that said, I’ll talk about my hopes for the future. In highschool, and college, I have a few hopes. My first hope is that I’ll gain a lot more work ethic in the future. It has been a problem for me, I’ve been pretty lazy sometimes, and I need to pull myself together. My second hope, which is pretty obvious, is that I’ll do great in high school and get into a good college. My final hope is that I will get a job that I love, and live through life happily with it.
Thank you to all of the people that have been there for me in the past years, I really appreciate you. I’m still confused on how time went by so fast, but I can’t look back, I need to focus on the future. High school makes me really nervous, but I am confident that I’ll do great.
