An Old English Journal

I came across this the other day: my old English journal when I was 12th grade.

Every few days of the week, our English teacher (an influence on my own teaching career) made us write in a notebook about whatever, just to check our own literacy -- or for him just to snoop around. I read through it the other day and I just laughed and some of the stuff I had written, conjuring up some thoughts and emotions from those days so long ago.

I like to share some with you all.

Sept. 6, 1995

Journal Entry #1

The first day was super boring to me. I had study hall the first hour and Mr. F--- had to go over the student handbook with us. I've now been through this 4 years! It's 100 degrees in there and it's just sucking the energy out of your body, know that you're not going to have the greatest day.

You might as well call the first day "expectation day" because that's all we had talked about. In band 7th hour, I dozed off a little bit during a group discussion about jackets that we were probably going to wear during Pep Band performances. I'm an officer in band (treasurer) and I'm already going through my personal hell dealing with this problem.

Lunch usually sucks as usual because they don't give you a lot of food. They're almost making you to go to the a la carte line to buy something. Forget it. Today, I brought lots of money and I'm going somewhere else to eat.

Football practice was OK, but I had to run 2 extra laps after practice for being late. I had an excuse though, because all the sophomore, juniors, and seniors are crammed into one small room, trying to put on all of that stuff. My locker's right in a corner and I had no way of getting there.

I also got my hair cut too, thank God, because Mom butchered it during the summer with the clippers.