hey look i'm alive.

The Second Grade.

Where: Arlington Texas until Halloween, and then Pine Tree Elementary in Longview Texas.
Teachers: I have no recollection of my Dunn teacher except that she maybe had black hair. My Pine Tree teacher was Mrs. Smith.

The second grade in Arlington was marked by two great experiences:
A) Kid Pix. A computer program that I somehow forgot the name of until I searched for "kids computer programs art 90s." I didn't really think the art part was amazing, but the stickers... So amazing. There was a sticker for every living thing you could possibly want. I would actually get in trouble for using too many stickers (because in the computer lab, when we got on Kid Pix, we were supposed to be using our own creative juices to inspire the creation of non-sticker images). My teacher would sometimes give me a 5 sticker limit. Impossible.

B) At some point in the fall, there was an "Apple Day" when our teacher brought three kinds of apples and we made a chart about how many kids liked each apple. This was the day when I realized that I didn't like red apples. I voted for yellow apples. I don't like yellow or red apples now. I like green apples in pies, and Pink Lady apples for eating, and THAZ IT.

And then my family moved to Longview, Texas: the jankiest, most ratchet place I have ever lived. 

In Longview, the elementary schools were not K-5. There were various buildings across the city for K-1, 2-3, 4-5, etc. This is what I remember about that experience:

A) My lunchroom smelled like dead squirrels. At least, I expect that that's what a troop of dead squirrels would smell like. I got nauseous during lunch so my mom had to get creative in packing things that would tempt me. I ate blueberry muffins almost every day. As soon as we left Longview, I stopped eating them. To this day, they sound unappealing.

B) Most of the kids in Longview were either not going to progress past the fifth grade or the teachers didn't really know how to teach. Almost everyday of my second-grade education was spent watching "educational" (baby) movies or coloring. I was one of a dozen gifted and talented kids in my building, so once a week they would take us to a room where we would do advanced coloring. 

C) I scored exceptionally high on the one reading/cognition test that we took. My teacher pulled me aside to ask why I did so well. I told her it was because I read The Book of Mormon everyday. I'm not sure that explained anything to her.

D) The Peter Rabbit Play. I was cast as the farmer's wife. I had one line, an incoherent shopping list, muttered as I crossed the stage dragging the farmer along with me. The farmer was the cute boy in my class. He did not like it when I touched him. My costume was made out of one of my favorite of my mom's dresses. I think it was pink, and it had peaches on it... I also got to wear a straw hat that had come along with an Easter dress. 

E) Field Day. Field Day is generally a day of great physical accomplishments. Not so in Longview. Our PE teachers were two very large women who had no desire to exercise or teach us how to exercise. Our field day was spent throwing water balloons at each other in the fenced-in outside lunch courtyard.

F) The Treasure Box. Our mascot was a pirate or something of that nature, and students that did really nice things would usually get sent to the principal's office to pick some party favor out of her treasure box. Me and another kid in my class that was gifted and talented figured out that if we picked up trash on the playground (and there was a lot of trash) we would get to pick out treasures. So we did that like once a week. We would also quiz each other on all the random facts we had picked up over seven years of living. Like: What came first, the plain or peanut M&M? We both accepted the invented fact that peanut M&M's came first. That is false. 

G) A girl in my class that may have been homeless (not a laughing matter, I know) got lice. She was a nice girl, but she didn't have many teeth and I felt a little afraid of her. I got in trouble for not being nice to her once. Not because I was mean, but because I didn't go out of my way to be her friend. I guess my teacher had singled me out to be the kid that would be her friend after she got lice. So I tried to be nice to her when she came back after her period of quarantine, but her talking about watching the lice squirm grossed me out. I was not friendly to her. I'll probably get punished for that in the afterlife.

As soon as school ended, we moved to Tyler, Texas. A veritable paradise compared to Longview. Tyler is where I spent the rest of my pre-college education. A million golden experiences. Just wait.