It's so weird for me to think that I am Done With School. Even these last few years, I've been in Grad School, so I could still tell people (if I so chose) "I'm a student." Now I can't. Because I'm not. I'm just me, a Working Stiff. One of the teeming masses.
One of the things I love about fall, aside from the boot-and-coat weather, is of course, the back-to-school shopping and the ritual of buying new stuff for school. For me growing up, it was a trapper keeper, shiny pencil case (one of those ones with the different compartments and the buttons - press one and the pencil sharpener comes out, press another one and a magnifying glass comes out, press another one, and the little tray with your number 2 pencils rockets into a vertical position, so you can better select which to use, I guess...), pens in a rainbow of colors (I took notes in different colors. Pink, green, turquoise, purple. Just to mix it up, not because it was a useful study tool, or anything. What else? New backpacks... Not like these kids today (Yikes. Did I just say that??) with their backpacks on wheels that they lug around like they're going on a flight, or something. I lugged around a heavy backpack on my back for 12 years of schooling, I think they can, too. All I got was a little mild scoliosis (kidding!) Honestly. It's not like they bring any books home, anyway...
Just a sidebar here - it's really funny to me sometimes how things have changed between when I was in school and now. When I was in elementary school, we had a 'playground' in a field. When we got older, there was one with just different sets of climbing apparatus (apparati?) - covered in lead paint, probably. Over concrete. No soft rubber stuff or little wood chips to cushion the fall. The park by my house had a massively tall slide you had to climb up, and also one of those merry-go-rounds that you rode round and round and round on until you gor whiplash. Yeah, those playgrounds had character. (Why do I feel like I am 90 years old all of a sudden?)
But back to the shopping list - notebooks, loose leaf paper, folders, graph paper and graphing calculators, protractors and compasses for math of course (never to be used again, relegated to collect dust in the junk drawer), gym clothes (in jr. high we had really really unattractive reversible yellow and blue shirts and little tiny shorts), and the Chandler's Assignment notebook. When I was student teaching, there was a big teacher meeting about letting the kids have palm pilots. And, oh, wait, the kids were in Junior High. Honestly? I don't even have a palm pilot. I still use the assignment notebook style appointment diary. What could 6th graders possibly need with a palm pilot?
Look out for more School Nostalgia. I need something to occupy my mind so I am not constantly obsessing with my next field trip coming up here.
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