Just when I was started becoming “normal” in an elementary school setting, the world turned itself upside down yet again with the transition to middle school.
Alamitos Intermediate was the school. Continuing from where I left off, I was still quite afraid of talking in the classroom, especially to the female gender (partially due to rejection faced in the 6th grade). I had no problems now making nerdy friends though.
I was a very good student, getting straight A’s. The teachers I remember in middle school had a sense of novelty to their teaching. Mrs. Gurzi, my history teacher, always complained about students in front of us, and had a generally negative attitude (and I don’t think it was meant to be sarcastic). There were rumors that the PE teacher Mr. Kirksey was a pervert, but I’m pretty sure every male PE teacher has had that accusation hurled at them. He was nice to me though and gave me an A even though I failed the swimming unit. Mr. Craycraft was by far the best teacher I had in middle school though, because he was able to instill a bit of humor into his teaching style in life science. When he was explaining cells, he did it in such a fun and hilarious manner. An element of his personality is definitely seen in my teaching my with students. Mr. Gossman was by far the strictest teacher by far, yelling at students and instilling fear in all of us in his keyboarding class. He failed me once for using the incorrect shift key to capitalize my letters. Though his teaching style was quite unorthordox, I understand now that he went with the Machiavellian philosphy to teaching. That fear will instill compliance in students. I do agree to an extent.
I got addicted to Neopets, an online virtual pet-simulation website, so much so that when my friend asked me to “watch his pets” while he away, I transferred all the money in his account into my account. And that by far one of the most dishonest moments ever in the history of my life.
7th Grade came and went without much other fanfare. Though my body was changing, my personality had not, and the awkwardness of that experience is something I would not want to go through again.
