Ninth Grade

This photo has nothing to do with the post; he’s just cute.  (And he was witness to my excavation that caused this blog entry.)

When I was in the ninth grade, I took algebra from Miss Nelms.  We had a class set of graphing calculators that she kept in pockets on the wall.  We all had an assigned calculator that we used each class.  I was in fourth period along with my best friend Laura; my boyfriend at the time was in sixth period.  That meant that on Thursdays with block scheduling, he had class right after us.  And he and Laura shared the same assigned calculator.  This is a long story all to say that I used to leave him notes on the calculator.  I thought we were being totally sneaky about it, but it turns out not so much.  A few years ago I ran into Miss Nelms (only now her name is Mrs. Snell).  We were at a spiritual retreat where I was a table leader and who should be at my table but my ninth grade algebra teacher.  Whoa.  And I had to use her first name!  Anyway, she mentioned how she was pretty impressed that my friends and I managed to send text messages before that was even invented.  :)

I was reminded of this today because somehow in all the moves and purging in my life, I still have this bin full of notes.  Most of them are from the ninth grade, and I’m pretty sure I could reconstruct my freshman year of high school with this box of paper.  :)

I took a picture of this pretty one from Kathy before I unfolded it.  I wasn’t totally sure I could refold it.

Most of the notes are from Kathy, Laura, and Jennifer, with a few smattered in from other friends, including that boyfriend with the calculator.

It’s fun to take a walk down memory lane with these little artifacts from fifteen years ago.  Some things, like notes I can’t read, hall passes, and copies of demerits, don’t need to be kept.  But I’m hanging on to a big stack of these notes.  They won’t take up much space, and I’ll have them when I need to remember what it was like to 14 years old.