Happy Tuesday!
Recently, I heard Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time," and I was immediately transported back to 1984. I was twelve and starting the seventh grade, nervous, I'm sure, about all the changes life would bring now that I was attending classes in the high school. (Our high school and junior high students shared the same building.) It was a year of many firsts: first school dance, first "boyfriend," first kiss, first taste of independence... I don't think I'd ever want to go back to those years, but I'm happy to say I lived through them. ☺
What song takes you back every time you hear it?
Wishing you all a Tuesday filled with wonderful memories. ☺
Showing posts with label junior high. Show all posts
Showing posts with label junior high. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Dancing queen
I was a junior high dancing queen.
Well, not really. Far from it, actually. I couldn't keep a beat to save my life. In fact I still can't.
But my lack of dancing ability didn't stop me from going to all the junior high dances. Dad, my reluctant chauffeur, would drop me off at the glamorous dance hall (really the slightly malodorous elementary school gym), and I would flail around to the music with the best of them. I didn't know what I was doing, but I always had fun.
I have so many great memories of those dances. Here's a short piece I wrote about one of them:
Junior high dances: kids packed into the elementary school gym, DJ blasting music, disgruntled teachers stuck with chaperoning duty wandering around, pushing couples out of dark corners and eyeing the dance floor. I was there that night with Matt, the "love" of my seventh-grade life, and the gym was hot and the pop was warm and the DJ played "Mony Mony," some of the kids chanting the non-PG audience participation parts until Mr. S, that squat, toadish English teacher, pulled the plug on the song (and nearly the dance) and then glared at us from his post by the door.
Ah, memories!
Nowadays, I'm not much of a dancer. I'm too self-conscious of my lack of ability and usually avoid the dance floor at all costs, even though my poor husband just loves to get out there. I sometimes wish that I could go back to those junior high days when I was either clueless about my lack of skill or just didn't care that I couldn't feel the rhythm. Luckily for me, though, it seems that my daughter, little ballerina that she is, intends to keep my dancing dreams alive.
Finally, just because I can't resist, here's Abba with "Dancing Queen":
Lyrics here.
Did you attend your junior high or high school dances? What memories stand out?
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| Put on your dancing shoes. Image courtesy of Mei Teng Wong, rgbstock.com |
Well, not really. Far from it, actually. I couldn't keep a beat to save my life. In fact I still can't.
But my lack of dancing ability didn't stop me from going to all the junior high dances. Dad, my reluctant chauffeur, would drop me off at the glamorous dance hall (really the slightly malodorous elementary school gym), and I would flail around to the music with the best of them. I didn't know what I was doing, but I always had fun.
I have so many great memories of those dances. Here's a short piece I wrote about one of them:
Junior high dances: kids packed into the elementary school gym, DJ blasting music, disgruntled teachers stuck with chaperoning duty wandering around, pushing couples out of dark corners and eyeing the dance floor. I was there that night with Matt, the "love" of my seventh-grade life, and the gym was hot and the pop was warm and the DJ played "Mony Mony," some of the kids chanting the non-PG audience participation parts until Mr. S, that squat, toadish English teacher, pulled the plug on the song (and nearly the dance) and then glared at us from his post by the door.
Ah, memories!
Nowadays, I'm not much of a dancer. I'm too self-conscious of my lack of ability and usually avoid the dance floor at all costs, even though my poor husband just loves to get out there. I sometimes wish that I could go back to those junior high days when I was either clueless about my lack of skill or just didn't care that I couldn't feel the rhythm. Luckily for me, though, it seems that my daughter, little ballerina that she is, intends to keep my dancing dreams alive.
Finally, just because I can't resist, here's Abba with "Dancing Queen":
Lyrics here.
Did you attend your junior high or high school dances? What memories stand out?
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Scary and exciting
It's been obvious lately that I have school on my mind, and watching my excited four-year-old go off to preschool this week has prompted me to think about my own feelings about school. I don't remember my earliest days sitting in a classroom, although my parents have told me that I was as eager to start kindergarten as my son was to start preschool. I do, however, remember the first days I experienced in later years, which became the subject of today's 100 words:
Other than posing on the front steps for my annual first-day picture, I don't really remember much about my first days of school--at least not until I was older. I do remember starting junior high. The kids in the seventh and eighth grades were in the same building as the much-bigger-seeming kids in grades nine through twelve, and I can remember feeling intimidated by everyone around me. They all seemed so confident, and I didn't know anything: where I was going, what teachers to avoid, how not to look like a lost young child...
I think I'm done with school talk now, at least for a little while! It's been an exciting, scary, teary, happy week. Thanks for hanging in there as I shared my thoughts. :)
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Litterbug!
Today's 100 words:
I was a quiet kid in school. I didn't get into trouble, mainly because I just did what I was required to do. Once, though, when I was in junior high, I was called to the principal's office. My friend John--also a "good" kid--was called there, too, so we walked together, jokingly wondering what horrible thing we had done. When we saw the principal's stern face, however, we started to worry. Apparently, some of our school papers had fallen out of our lockers and were found in the hallway. We got yelled at for accidental littering. How ridiculous!
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