WHY I HATED THE 6TH GRADE

Minding My Vocabulary


I had Ms Stout for my 6th grade English class. She was a woman who appeared 10 years older than her stated age but dressed 10 years younger. She annoyed me with her loud, tight clothing thrown together with gaudy jewelry. I'm not sure if she annoyed me more before or after she didn't back me up after a certain incident in class.

Again, Corey Christiansen, our gifted and talented groups' class clown was involved. For that day's exercise in English we had to write a sentence, and in it use a good vocabulary word so that is could be dissected grammatically. The previous week I came across this word in the vocabulary section of my Reading class textbook: ejaculate: to exclaim (this was the book's definition, and its ONLY definition).

In keeping with directions, I decided to use my newly learned word in a sentence:
"I ate the whole thing!"ejaculated Andrew.

Once we wrote our sentence, we had to pass it to the student behind us for dissection. I passed my paper to Corey and in seconds he was snickering and laughing to himself.

"What are you laughing at?!!" I asked in my don't mess with me cuz I know I'm smarter than you attitude.

"Do you know what this word means?" He laughed pointing to IT. I explained that of course I did and told him. He laughed even harder and then had the audacity to show Ms Stout. After I vehemently told her what I thought it meant she made me look it up in the dictionary (a real one). I'm not sure I even understood its explanation, but I knew it was something sexual and was extremely embarrassed and mad.

It was me against them now. Was it my fault that this word had a less popular meaning and they were too perverted to only know its infamous one?

(yeah, I know you didn't know it either)

WHY I HATED THE 6TH GRADE

Bad Hair Day

Up until the 6th grade I wore my hair down to my waist usually pulled back in a hair band. I used a wool belt that belonged to one of my sweaters so often that in its dinginess it no longer matched the white sweater to which it belonged.

In the 6th grade I decided to get that infamous "feather-look" sported by those beautiful girls in my 80s teen magazine. I had my hair parted down the middle with the front part cut short so that it could potentially be "feathered." The rest of my hair from my ears back lay straight down below the shoulders. The thing about that do was that it did not work with Filipino hair, in other words, it did not "feather."

When I showed up at school the next day, our class clown Corey Christiansen blurted out,"Whoa I couldn't even recognize you, I though you were the new girl in class!" And then he nudged my then 6th grade crush at the time Patrick Nadol with his elbow saying, "Hey doesn't she look like Elvira (mistress of the night?)!"

A wave of major, intense, 6th grade embarrassment enveloped me, but nonetheless, I kept that hairdo for another 6 months.

WHY I HATED THE 6TH GRADE

The First Day

Beginning around the 6th grade I started wearing jeans on the first day of school. Since the 6th grade was the beginning of middle school for me, I knew I'd be lumped in with the "big kids" and needed to somehow be cool. Wearing jeans was a way to look casual and "safe" just to see what other people are wearing. What I didn't know was that when you're in 6th grade, what ever you do is not cool. You're the lowest of the low.

My first experience of subjugation towards the 7th and 8th graders came around lunch time when I had to open my locker. We never had lockers in the 5th grade, so getting past that combination lock was a big deal. Turn to the right . . .turn to the left . . .pass the original number . . .uggh. I could never get it on the first try! Finally, when I got it open, books fell out along with a dollar bill.

Just as I reached over to get that dollar bill, along came a 7th grader who picked it up for me and then said, "It's mine now!"

And that is why I hated the 6th grade.


LIFE RIGHT NOW

We had some friends over today. Robin showed off his cooking skills. He was the chef and I was his assistant chef. I helped with presentation, virgin cocktails and dessert. But he planned it all and it went very well.

I'm in my second trimester now. I've noticed the baby move earlier than I did during the first pregnany, but I'm also much bigger than I was during the first.