it was a very good year

The Fifth Grade

Where: Caldwell Elementary
Teacher: Kathy Haley. THE BEST FIFTH GRADE TEACHER ON EARTH.

I'm not even sure where to start when it comes to the fifth grade. There's just too much!
-The outfits I put together myself from Ross that could have also been worn by my grandma.
-Annie Jr.: white cheese itz during rehersal, being Ms. Grace while Mark was Mr. Warbucks and everyone told us that we were ruining the love-story plot.
-Simultaneously being in Annie at UT Tyler, being a chorus girl (the "chubby one" at the orphanage. I knew my place.)
-Camp Tyler. CAMP. TYLER. The silent breakfast when what's-his-name made Eric (the hot boy of the grade) (Molly Cook you know what I'm talking about.) (I always kind of liked Eric even though he didn't acknowledge Molly and I at Rusted Root in Dallas.) (Rude. Not attractive.) (Who am I kidding.) eat a grasshopper out of his hair.
-Selling pickles.
-The whole freaking year at Target. It was the best year ever to be gifted and talented. A) we got the colored Mac, B) my teacher had been in the Peace Corps and knew a lot of cool stuff, C) we watched the PBS series about a family that did a Victorian living experiment in London. I fell in love with Victorian England. D) The day we were supposed to "barter" our lunch stuff but I dissuaded most kids from bartering for the box of Ritz Cheese Bits my mom had sent with me so that I got to eat them all. So tasty.
-How my Target teacher literally disappeared off the face of the earth after our last class period.
-Reading The School Story. Ms. Haley said I was like the character that fakes being an editor... Yeah.
-Bonding with Megan over the Seven Little Monsters. Making Marcie pretend to be Belinda the Cow when we played in the truck at recess (Megan was Monster #3 because she wanted to be a psychologist and I was Monster #7 because he was from Transylvania--a sure sign that I would grow up to be obsessed with Europe).
-The day we went to Old City in Dallas, and The Science Place.
-When LaGarian had the mishap with a nail in his head...
-Will Morgan would dream about me.
-Y-Ties. I never got them. But I wanted them all.
-T.O.T. I never got in. Chubby white girls are not meant to handle basketballs, anyways.
-Being forced into choir and crying about it in the hallway.
-Singing a solo at fifth-grade graduation.
-That project with sand boxes when we created deltas.
-I won a raffle and got a blanket.
-Crying in class about something that I can't remember and lying about the tears coming from yawning (I cried a lot in school, y'all).
-My science project about mold. The pizza slice did the best!
-The tea party. Shelby Spell getting dressed for the tea party in the classroom and singing "It's getting hot in here so take off all your clothes," and I wanted to die of shame.
-Watching Oklahoma in the library.
-Figuring out the secret tunnels between Caldwell and the Caldwell theater.
And so many more things. It was just the best year EVER.