First day of school

In honor of schools starting up in the coming weeks, I'm going to recall the details of my first days of school in the public school system. I don't remember as much as I had hoped.

12th grade. I ate Fruity Cheerios for breakfast. I think I looked at where my locker was, but there were people in front of it, so I didn't bother opening it. Then I went to my first class, Spanish 4 with Sr. Huddleston. That might have been the day we went to a computer lab to write something, but I don't remember. Then I went to seminary with Brother Lomu. Then I went to Honors Physics with Mrs. Wagstaff. After lunch it was AP Calculus AB with Doug Saltzgiver. He told us, "Mr. Saltzgiver is my father" and commanded us to call him Doug.

11th grade. My first class this day was French 2 with Mme Jamison. There was a fair amount of people from French 1 the previous year, but some new faces, including Kelsey Bodily. After that I went to Body Conditioning. Then I had AP Biology with Mr. Hill, and Latecia Pope was in my class. After lunch I had Pre-Calc Honors with Mrs. Larson.

10th grade. I was excited about my first day of high school. First I went to seminary with Brother Williams. Then I stopped at my locker before going to French with Mme Jamison. I was so excited to learn French and I was sad when class was over. We got French names; there was a girl named Treasure and she translated her name directly as Trésor. Mine was Marc with a c. I think we started learning the alphabet. Then I went to Honors English with Mr. Riley. I think I dropped my books off at my locker before lunch. After lunch I went to Algebra 2 with Ms. Jordan. She told us how she would periodically have us stand up during class to get blood flowing in our brains again. 

9th grade. I went early to my Earth Systems class with Mrs. Brown. There was a kid sitting in class whom I had never seen before, so I decided to be friendly and talk to him. His name was Jacob (I can't remember his last name at the moment), and he had just moved in. I would later learn he was a little strange. First period was 5 minutes longer than all the other classes so there would be time for announcements--it was the first time our classes ended at reasonable times. Then I went to Geography with Mrs. Edwards, then seminary with Brother Heaston. Then I had Geometry with Mrs. Sorensen and then Honors English with Mrs. Steed. After lunch I had my gym class, and finally I had Spanish 3 with Mrs. Birdsall. After school I got on the bus. Our bus driver, Debbie, wasn't very nice. There were obnoxious people in the back standing up in their seats, so to make them sit down she would tap on the brakes so that they would fall forward. It would be one thing to do that to make them sit down, but there were people who had just gotten on the bus, such as Jacob Buhrman, who were still in the aisles walking to their seats. Jaydon Bean was yelling at the driver that his sister hadn't gotten on the bus yet. She wouldn't stop and left, but Jaydon kept insisting that she wait for his sister, so she stopped the bus on the road and made him get out. 

8th grade. I first had science with Mr. Brower. Then I went to U.S. History with Mrs. Sorensen, gym with Coach Hyde, Spanish with Mrs. Birdsall, and English with Mrs. Hadley. After lunch I had choir with Mrs. Vonk and ended with Algebra with Mr. Young. I think Mr. Young remembered my sister Susanne. We might have gone to Lorena's that night for dinner, but that might have been a different year (or years).

7th grade. My mom dropped me off at the back parking lot of South Davis Junior High, but it wouldn't be a parking lot for much longer because they were building houses there. On this day I even had to step over the base of a fence they were building. I put my stuff in my locker; Isaac Wood was my locker partner. First I had gym, but we didn't do anything gym related. Since we were all new seventh graders, we sat on the bleachers and got all the technical stuff told to us. Then I went to Spanish with Mrs. Bailey. She asked if anyone had been to a Spanish-speaking country; Brittany Bowman said she had been to Puerto Vallarta. Mrs. Bailey asked if anyone knew any Spanish, and one kid said something, and she said to him, "Muy bien!" We received our textbooks, Ven Conmigo, and I think we sang a song. Then I had Pre-Algebra with Mrs. Sorensen, and then science with Mr. Brower, which got out at 11:44. Then I had lunch, and after lunch I had English with Mrs. Steed. I went to TLC with Mrs. Brown and then Art with Mrs. Tingey. I sat with Sam Prusse, Steven Johnson, and Kyle Mabey. That night I remember doing my homework and filling out forms. I was up really late and I was depressed that I had so much work on the first day of school. I wasn't in elementary school anymore.

6th grade. I had Mr. Williams, but I can't specifically remember the first day. :(

5th grade. I went to Mrs. Call's class. She asked us as a class to describe major events in our life. Paul Castleberry spoke of the time he went to the Virgin Islands (maybe it was some other islands). I nerdily said a major event was when I learned to play chess. (I really don't know why I liked chess so much then--I couldn't play it at all, and now I don't care for it.) We filled out getting-to-know-you sheets, and one of the questions was our three favorite TV shows. Two of the things I put were The Simpsons and The New Adaams Family. I knew that one of the letters in Addams was repeated, I just picked the wrong one. I glanced at Hillary Ulmer's sheet and she put The New Adams Family. I knew she spelled it wrong but I didn't know I spelled it wrong too. We sat in the reading corner (where I noticed a Halloween spiderweb decoration tucked against the wall) and we played the "two truths and a lie" game. One of my truths was "I put up Halloween Decorations on July 5" and my lie was "I made a movie this summer." I thought that would trick people because at the end of fourth grade, I had told people all the grandiose plans I had for the summer, one of which was making a movie. But people guessed that was the lie. I think only one or two people guessed the Halloween thing was a lie, and Morgan Smith told them he knew me so he knew it wasn't a lie. We got journals (Mrs. Call told us we had to write ten lines every time), and this is my entry for August 30, 1999 (the first day of school):
"The best times I had this summer were reading good books, becoming a vegetarian, playind [sic] chess, Memorizing Long Poetry, swimming, Putting up Halloween Decorations on the 5th of July. I didn't like having an awful Sunburn, My mom killing spiders, and being mocked for being vegetarian."
It was a rainy day, so rainy that while I was waiting for my mom to come pick me up (she was late, and I might have been waiting with Hillary Ulmer), I was standing under a tree and put my backpack over my head. One sixth-grader, Sadie, said to me, "Don't you know that under a tree is the worst place you can stand when it's raining?" But there wasn't any lightning. My mom eventually came but for some reason she parked across the street from the school. She walked over and got me, and when we got home we told my siblings how crazy the rain was. They were more impressed with how wet my mom's hair had gotten in her brief walk in the rain than they were by the fact that my hair was soaked despite standing under a tree with my backpack over my head and that the folder in my backpack was soaked. 

4th grade. I had Mr. Williams. I think we sang some songs that he had; one of the songs had "Hello" in lots of languages, and he told us what some of the languages were. He told us "Guten tag" was German and "Buenos días" was Spanish. But one part of the song said "Shalom Nihao," and Mr. Williams seemed to think that was one expression, not two different languages. 

3rd grade. When I went outside to carpool in the morning, I was surprised to find that I was getting a ride with one Mrs. Plowman instead of Chantelle Christensen. I went to my class's portable; our teachers were Mrs. Fisher and Mrs. Slagowski. We kids were surprised at the new hairdo of our principal, Mrs. Park. That might have been the day that we were filling out papers of things we liked to do. One of the questions was, "What do you like to do with your friends at recess?" I looked at Autumn Lord's paper, and it said "Play" but I thought it said "Pray." On my paper I said my favorite game was Clue and I made the C a big bubble letter. After school I went to my second grade teacher, Miss Slater, and showed her the paper I had that meant I read a lot during the summer. She took me to the teacher's lounge and let me get something from the vending machine; I got Twizzlers Nibs. Then Mrs. Plowman took us home. 

2nd grade. I had Miss Slater. I think she gave us journals to write in and we had to write five lines each day. I tried to find my journal to see what I wrote, but I couldn't find it.

1st grade. I brought a home lunch. Mrs. Taylor told us about how we only had show and tell twice in the school year. We all had little slips on the wall with our name and I think our lunch cards inside. She had written Kennie Christiansen's name as Kent.

Kindergarten. I don't remember anything about it, but a journal my mom kept for me when I was a little kid said that I came out of school proclaiming "I didn't even cry!"