I expected a degree of academic difficulties going into the seventh grade– that was the understatement of the year and if life was actually a bowl of cherries, this would be the biggest pit of them all.

I came into the year afraid– afraid of that first homework assignment or project that I may or may not finish… and afraid that I wouldn’t know anyone in my classes. That dreaded first day of school turned out to be not as awful as I anticipated but when the work stared piling up i was drowning in poor essays, bombed math tests, and way over due major grade projects. I could see that many of peers that were responsible for the same amount of work i was were doing just fine. Yet there was a period of time when i was grounded for eleven weeks and one day due to grades, yeah… I counted.

Mondays through Thurdays from 4:00 to 5:00pm in the Wildcat lab were the “highlight of my week”… mainly because my teachers weren’t asking me questions I couldn’t answer and my parents weren’t grilling me about my failing grades.For my social however, I found friends this year I could trust with my life this year– I found my family. They make me laugh and cry and remind me to lift my chin up a little when things get hard. Unlike others I eventually  figured out that I probably wouldn’t ever figure it out, …oops?

I know I’ll always remember seventh grade as stressful and time consuming but it’s also the year I found a couple sturdy shoulders I know I can always lean on.  I wish I had advice for the incoming seventh graders but I guess I actually figured out one thing– Everybody is just a little bit different.

If you haven’t been a five year old preschooler obsessed with a little “magic” screen that makes black shapes and if your really talented sometimes a full word, you haven’t lived. That tiny screen with the white knobs on the front, was the “Etch A Sketch”.

Basically if you couldn’t write your name with an Etch A Sketch you weren’t cool. I can vividly remember bringing my Etch A Sketch to preschool every single day, if I was somewhere– so was my Etch- A Sketch. Covered in stickers, glitter and most likely last nights macaroni-and-cheese, it was my rock. It sounds stupid that a chunk of plastic could mean so much to me but as drooling five year old I would spell out words and if the ADD kicked in maybe a flower or two, it was joy–to me. My mom says prying the thing out of my tiny hands became a real issue…oops.

There was something about twisting the little knobs that made me so happy. I played on that thing until one night I remember hearing the sound of a loud crunch while in the living room–like plastic. Guess who left their precious Etch A Sketch sitting on the driveway? And guess who stood there wide-eyed staring at a glittering mess of shattered plastic their dad had just run down. I’m almost positive i didn’t talk to my dad for a week after he “murdered” my Etch A Sketch. I also may or may not call him Satan every time I recall that tragic event. I did NOT want another one, oh no i wanted that one.

Okay so maybe i never got another one but now I remember being the only kid in the kindergarten class who could actually spell out the word kindergarten because i used my Etch A Sketch every minute of every day…magic huh?