Insignificant Findings

As I was looking over my blog the other day, I was noticing my formatting or lack there of. I am not a fan of indenting my paragraphs apparently. I figure it is a gift I even separate them out anymore. I will get writing and notice I have one big paragraph....a big no-no! I go back and enter spaces. But, it reminded me of an assignment I did in third grade--which reminded me of many such assignments I had in elementary school that caused much grief and were graded with no mercy. Most of these lessons seemingly had no purpose, some I can find a slight purpose. Mostly I have found that despite the crazy amounts of importance my teachers placed on them, I have little use for them. I am not saying it wasn't good I learned these things, but being the ever perfectionist, I struggled with these assignments and the poor marks received were devastating. I loathed going to school and failing in these areas. Scarred me for life--tears over these lessons, first memories of stress. And where are they now?

1. The amazing letter writing assignment. Write a letter to an aunt. Easy enough? Oh no. Spaces were counted, commas were a must after greetings, space, indent 5 fingers, begin writing (pencil and paper mind you), extend salutations in the first paragraph. Space, indent 5 fingers, write about you. Space, space, indent lots of indents, sincerely (spell that write or minus some points), space, lots more indents, your name. And then to addressing the envelope perfectly and no, it wasn't ok to put the zip code on its own line, it went directly after the state. I was in third grade and really had a whole lot to tell my aunt....

Why it doesn't matter---first, if I wrote to my aunt she would be thrilled with whatever because who just writes to their aunt anymore? Plus, now there is such a thing as email, Facebook, and texting. Sadly, the art of letter writing is just dead.

2. Cursive writing complete with the ruler below making sure my line is perfectly spaced and that the words are perfectly spaced apart. Second grade. Mrs. Westenskow. The meanest teacher ever that all my friends' parents let them switch out of, but I needed the growing experience of having a mean teacher.

Why it doesn't matter--I get the straight line thing, but word spacing? As long as there is a space, does it matter if it has an exact measurement? Does the other person reading my paper have a ruler seeing if all the spaces between the words are a perfect 3.5 millimeters or whatever it was? Not to mention I ditched writing in cursive and left it where it belongs, in the second grade. I suppose it gave me the ability to read my dad's writing, which is in cursive so it wasn't a complete loss.

3. Still second grade....the agenda. I pretty much thought "agenda" was the coolest word. Had never heard it before. Essentially, it was a piece of paper hung on the bulletin board that we could write our second grade concerns on. Then, once a week, we would have a class meeting and discuss the agenda. How I wish I had these meetings recorded. I am sure the issues were pretty serious. So 'n so always gets the big recess ball. So 'n so made fun of so 'n so. Really though, it is one of my good memories of second grade. Gave us a reason to talk about each other, poke at people and find minor problems with everything they did, and then gossip about what was on the agenda and what would happen in the meeting. Can I blame all these terrible habits on second grade?

4. Third grade fractions. Death. Tears. Dad saved me and spent many a night helping me understand them and that 1/3 of a pie is bigger than 1/4 despite 4 is bigger than 3. I am still nervous that in posting that, I am not right. Add mixed numerals to that and I was pretty lost. First "F" in a math assignment.

5. "Time" lesson in 4th grade. If you get paid 1.50 an hour, and you babysit for 3.5 hours, how much do you make. (I say definitely not enough to make babysitting worth it, but apparently that isn't the right answer) Or the dreaded 76 minutes is how many hours and how much would you get paid for that. This was a good, useful lesson, I just repeated this mini math class a few times. The story problems made no sense. I guess I was glad people paid me to babysit first of all, second of all, who says it is 1:07 anyway? Round people!

6. Roman numerals ummmm, good for the Super Bowl?!?

7. Proofs in geometry. This wasn't even elementary school. I seriously hated these and thought I wasn't going to pass 9th grade math. But honestly who cares how we solved the problem and with what theory if the problem gets solved?

Here is a list of random memories that just made me smile:
1. Being jealous of kids that got fluoride treatments in kindergarten in awesome little cups. I was never signed up for those.

2. Lunch tickets. Plastic, business card sized, with cool big black designs that I realize now must have been a barcode and the typical lunch lady that inserted them into a square, green whatever and if it beeped and the light was green, I could get a rib-b-q.

3. Fake crying at recess so my friends could get the recess duty to come over. Didn't bode well for me. She was even cool. If you told her it was your birthday you got a hand stamp. Cruel joke...crueler that I managed to have multiple birthdays in one year for a hand stamp and somehow didn't consider the fact I was lying---for a hand stamp!

4. Winning a Berenstein Bear book in 1st grade, still the only thing I have ever won in a drawing.

5. Losing to Davia King every year on field day, only to lose to Paige Bushnell when I finally beat Davia King. Darn second place.

6. The smell of that white stuff they put on throw up--doesn't make me smile, just memorable.

7. PUMPED when there wasn't enough guys for the 4th grade square dance performance so I was asked to dance a guys part. Sad, I know, but for anyone that knows me, I'm a tomboy, and let's face it, in 4th grade, I just wanted to be a boy.

8. Equally pumped that in 3rd grade I was part of the special group that got to dance disco in the end of the school year production. Jealous I wasn't part of the Von Trap Family, but glad I wasn't one of the million rejects that had to sing in the New York, New York number.

9. Moving to Rexburg where they had middle school so I could brag to all my friends that they would start 5th grade in elementary school, but I would be in middle school. Forgetting really that 5th grade is 5th grade no matter where it is. Unfortunately bragging was premature when I found out that my new 5th grade would incorporate the following
       1. Mrs. Miller
       2. Cubicles so we couldn't see anything but our desks
       3. A gum shrine in Mrs. Allen's class
 On the up side....
      1. Sucker chips from a local candy factory
      2. A rat named Chocolate Chip (not all were fans)
      3. Pogs--'nough said.
      4. My first crush, and might I say long lasting since I crushed on him all through high school.
      5. My first boyfriend who gave me a Goosebumps book for Valentines, who I later dumped so I could  go out with my first crush over the summer, essentially meaning we never spoke or saw each other, only to be dumped right before 6th grade.


Enough memories for now, but I would love to hear yours! Any lessons never to be forgotten? Any fun memories?