Not being in school....

.....after 19 years of schooling is weird.

Ms. Something (I used to remember) was my pre-school teacher. My cousin Tiffany was in that class with me. We played duck duck goose and on St. Patrick's Day a leprechaun turned all of our milk green.

Mrs. Johnson was my kindergarten teacher. She was mean. If you got in trouble she whipped out her Sharpie and put dots on your knuckles. I think this is where my need to make everyone happy started. I didn't want the black dots. They scared me.

Mrs. Hanks was my 1st grade teacher. She had a redhead fro. It was awesome. She was nice and I liked her. She had a candy/toy bucket that you got to pick something from when you had been good all day.

Mrs. Bonds was my 2nd grade teacher. She was my best friend's mom. We had globes that asked us questions about the world. It was like computers but in globe form.

Mrs. Taylor was my 3rd grade teacher. She made a girl cry once because the girl was writing in cursive to slowly. She made me cry once after I blacked out and hit a wall.

Mrs. Carter was my 4th grade teacher. My brother had her for 4th grade too. She was nice. We timed multiplication test in her class. I thought they were fun. One time I told on myself for talking across the table at lunch and she made me put my name on the board. I cried.

Mrs. Blair was my 5th grade teacher. She lived across the street from me. We had a 21st century classroom where we played Oregon Trail. She was my favorite teacher.

Woodland Middle School 6th grade - 8th grade. I had a lot of teachers and basically only remember the ones that I didn't like very much like Ms. Hawkins who, in 7th grade, made us memorize all 95 counties and county seats of Tennessee. I think I got a 77 on that test. I might have taken it twice.

Brentwood High School 9th grade - 12th grade. I had a lot more teachers and remember a lot of good ones. Mr. Box taught band. He's my uncle and a good teacher. I was his office assistant and I went in there during my study hall(s) and watched movies for two or more hours. Mrs. Goldfarb was my Spanish II and III teacher. She was short and Jewish. She called me Maria and my friend Ryan, Paco. We were the only two in her Spanish III class that she called by our Spanish names. We would purposely leave off an accent mark when we wrote on the board so she would have to jump to fix it. Paco took a picture once. She was my favorite teacher.

Middle Tennessee State University 13th grade - 18th grade. I had professors. Some were good and some were terrible, like Professor Kerrick. Don't ever take him for English. Mr. Norton grew on me after time. He taught a class called History of Photography. Most people take it twice. I was one of those people. I grew to understand and appreciate him a little more by the time I graduated.

There are more memories than that, but that should give you an idea of what my last 19 years of schooling was like. Joyful, stressful, thrilling, infuriating, fruitful, wasteful, confusing, tearful, happy, etc...