Why Stop Now?!

Just as a disclaimer, please don't expect proper grammar and punctuation in this blog post, or any other future blog posts. I'll do my best with the spelling, but everything else is up in the air. Run-on sentences, incomplete sentences, numbered lists, and bullet points are all very good friends of mine, you will meet all of them very soon.

7th Grade.

For the next two years, my grade would be divided into thirds.

Three teams.

Garnet Team.

Crimson Team.

Red Team.

I was on the Garnet Team.

So naturally, that was the best team.

The battle lines were drawn!

My team was also located upstairs.

That was a big deal to me.

Why?

Because out of all three of my schools, only the middle school had an upstairs.

Even then, it was only a single upstairs hallway, as opposed to an entire floor.

My team was in that upstairs hallway.

The Crimson Team was too, but we don't count that half of the hallway.

It's a matter of principle.

This was also the first time I shared a classroom with people a grade ahead of me.

English and History had both 7th and 8th graders in their classes, while Math and Science had separate classes for each grade.

This was also the year that I actually started to LIKE Science class.

That was due in large part to my new Science teacher for the next two years.

He was more passionate about the subject than any teacher I had ever had up until then (and also afterwards, but let's not get ahead of ourselves).

We actually did SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS.

We made our own ice cream.

We got to use Dry Ice and Liquid Nitrogen.

It. Was. Awesome.

It was from that class that I discovered that when you bite into Wintergreen Lifesavers, they emit a flash of light in your mouth!

I'm not kidding, try it for yourself!

Make sure you do it in a dark room so you can see it!

English class really started to introduce a lot of "new vocabulary words".

The thing was, it wasn't until I heard any of these "new words" in an actual conversation that I actually understood them in context.

I mean sure, all of the new words had plenty of "sample sentences" to try and show them in context, but they never "stuck".

History and Math class were still pretty straight forward.

I heard rumblings about learning Algebra, but they turned out to be false.

History class only meant one thing to me this year.

Another shot at the Geography Bee.

I was still reeling from not advancing past the "class level" the year before.

That wasn't going to happen again this year.

Then it came.

And I made it past the class level.

Then I made it past the grade level.

I was once again at the school level.

In the gym.

In front of the entire school.

I had already done this two years prior.

I got 3rd Place in 5th Grade.

This time around?

.........

I got 5th Place.

I still remember the question that knocked me out.

"What U.S. Capital is the farthest West?"

It should have been a piece of cake.

But in that moment, I made a critical error.

I was only thinking about the CONTINENTAL UNITED STATES.

I frantically said "Salem Oregon?"

Then there was a pause.

I knew my mistake before she even said it.

"The correct answer is Honolulu."

I knew that.

But it was too late.

I was out.

I still think about that moment to this day.

It still stings!

  

But what was done was done, nothing I could do about it, not until next year.

As the year started to come to a close, our annual "class trip" was on the horizon.

It was to a place that I still wish I could go back to.

Two words.

High Meadows.

It's a kid's dream.

A gigantic pool with a diving board.

Every kind of food a kid wants.

Cheeseburgers, Hot Dogs, French Fries, Nachos, Ice Cream.

Fountain Soda everywhere.

As much as you wanted.

All day.

Every sport you could think of.

There were AT LEAST 10 other school there besides ours.

It was unbelievable.

I already couldn't wait to go back the next year!

I also officially had a new crush by the end of that day, but we'll get to that on the next one!

ANOTHER ONE!

Just as a disclaimer, please don't expect proper grammar and punctuation in this blog post, or any other future blog posts. I'll do my best with the spelling, but everything else is up in the air. Run-on sentences, incomplete sentences, numbered lists, and bullet points are all very good friends of mine, you will meet all of them very soon.

Grade.

Number.

SIX.

Out of all of my years in school, Grade 6 is definitely the most "foggy".

Maybe that's not the best way to put it.

It's just that nothing really "eventful" happened for me that year.

I do remember that this was the first time I would actually go to different classes for my school subjects.

Up until then, it was always one teacher who taught us everything.

Math, Science, History, English (Which my school called "Language Arts" until I was a Freshman in High School, no one could ever tell me why they called it that). 

It was always at the discretion of the teacher.

She would just decide to stop teaching one subject, and just start teaching another one.

Not this time around.

Each subject had its own dedicated teacher.

What a concept!

History was definitely my favorite subject out of the four.

I didn't mind Math, but I hated having to "show my work".

There's only one right answer to the math problem.

And I have the correct answer.

So I don't get what the problem is.

"Well, I need to SEE how you got that answer".

Alright, then you can WATCH ME press these buttons on the calculator.

I always loved how they tried to feed us the same lies over and over again.

"When you grow up, you're not going to be able to just use a calculator to get the answer"

Wrong.

"When you grow up, you need to be able to write in cursive"

Wrong Again.

"When you grow up, you're going to have bills to pay"

......

They were right about that one.

Science was always fun when we got to do the "hands on" stuff.

I didn't care much for English.

Now don't get me wrong, I love the English language.

In fact, I use it every single day!

I'm using it right now!

I didn't care for English for one specific reason....

Essays.

I HATED WRITING ESSAYS.

I hated it with a passion.

The font HAD to be "Times New Roman".

The font size HAD to be 12.

It HAD to be Double Spaced (or Single Spaced if the teacher decided to be extra cruel).

The margins HAD to be "Aligned Left".

Because we all know that without these parameters, it's impossible to convey a thought.

Let alone get a point across.

That's why I do my blog like this.

It's spite.

Pure spite.

Subject?

Predicate?

If I sometimes maybe feel like it.

Maybe. 

No promises.

I always hated seeing the red pen all over my essay.

"You should start a paragraph like that".

"That's a run-on sentence".

"You needed to use a semicolon here".

Don't even get me STARTED on semicolons.

What purpose do they ACTUALLY serve?!

None. 

They serve no purpose.

Like mosquitoes.

They are just there to annoy you.

I could write an entire post about semicolons and mosquitoes.

I just might do that.

Anyway, let's move on.

The Geography Bee came around once again, and this time.......

.........I didn't make it out of the "class level".

Bummer.

BUT.

There was always next year for that.

As far as "special subjects" went, gym class was still my favorite.

When you love playing sports as much as I do, gym class is usually your favorite.

Basketball, Hockey, Soccer, Football, Dodgeball, Capture The Flag, Kickball.

I could go on forever.

I loved them all.

I mean I still liked other classes too.

Home Economics.

I get to cook food and eat it.

And get graded for it.

Sign me up.

"Tech Ed."

Better known as "Wood Shop".

I get to make things.

I get to use a hot glue gun.

Sign me up.

Art Class.

I can't draw to save my life.

Luckily the grade was only based on "effort" and not "quality of drawing".

Stick Figures and Sailboats for life!

As the year was coming to a close, I was getting excited for our "class trip".

In 5th Grade the previous year, our "class trip" was to our "Town Beach".

....

Not very eventful.

But THIS year, we were going to Mt. Tom!

I had heard such wonderful things about this magical place.

Waterslides.

Food.

Other awesome rides.

Sounds great right?

One small problem.

Apparently, the grade ahead of me decided to get into a fight with Agawam at Mt. Tom the year before, and Southwick and Agawam were both asked not to come back.........

.........ever again.

Awesome.

Scrap that idea.

The consolation prize?

We were now going to Riverside Park instead!

Now known as "Six Flags New England".

Long story short, it was a very nice consolation prize!

Summer break followed, which meant lots of swimming, video games, and sleepovers.

My three favorite things.

Doesn't get much better than that!

That was, until 7th Grade came around, but we'll get to that in my next post!

Let's Get To It!

Just as a disclaimer, please don't expect proper grammar and punctuation in this blog post, or any other future blog posts. I'll do my best with the spelling, but everything else is up in the air. Run-on sentences, incomplete sentences, numbered lists, and bullet points are all very good friends of mine, you will meet all of them very soon.

Fifth. Grade.

Powder Mill Middle School.

I had heard all of the stories.

"You can only write in cursive there."

"They don't have recess every day."

Alright, so maybe those were just misinformed thoughts that I had my my head.

But still.

I was going back to the "bottom of the food chain", just after getting used to being at the top.

In my school system, Elementary School was grades K-4, Middle School was grades 5-8, and High School was grades 9-12. That has since changed, but back when I was going to school, this is how it was.

All three schools are right next to each other.

I thought that's how it was everywhere.

I was wrong.

Apparently other towns and cities like to disperse their schools as far away from each other as possible.

It looks like I lucked out in that aspect.

The schools are right down the street from me.

Literally.

I can get to any of the schools in under a minute.

However, now that I was in Middle School, I could no longer take the bus.

Why?

Because I lived too close.

I took riding the bus too and from school for granted!

School buses all have their own routes, and since I lived so close, I was always one of the last ones to be picked up on the way to school.

On the flip side, it also meant that I always ended up being one of the last ones dropped off after school.

But no longer, now I was left to my own devices.

In the beginning, I would walk to school with a few of my neighbors who were a few grades older than me.

Then I decided to "kick things up a notch".

That's right, I started to ride my bike to school.

It was a "Dyno VFR", all chrome (and rust), with handle bars that were well on their way to being fully "stripped".

At that age, having a bike was like having a car.

I loved that bike. 

My morning routine was pretty much the same every day.

Wake up at like 7:15, shower, eat, brush my teeth, play some Nintendo 64, then head off to school for 8:15.

I'd say it took me a full month or so to get used to everything that Power Mill Middle School had to offer.

Everything just seemed "bigger" there.

The classrooms, the gym, the auditorium, the cafeteria, everything.

This was the first time I had experienced things like the "Taco Bar" or "Potato Bar".

It was incredible.

I was actually able to walk to a classroom BY MYSELF, instead of having to walk as an entire class in single file, always on the right side of the hallway, to go from one class to the next.

It really is the "little things" sometimes.

Four Square had been added to the Middle School, (due to its popularity during my 3rd and 4th Grade years) so I knew EXACTLY where my time would be spent during recess.

However, this time I was going up against 7th and 8th graders.

They were ruthless.

But that didn't stop me.

It just meant I couldn't take a day off, and that was just fine with me.

As far as academics went, my favorite subject was definitely........gym class!

Alright fine, I guess it was History.

Only because that was what came the closest to Geography.

Speaking of Geography, this was also the first time I took part in the "Geography Bee".

I had no idea what it was going in.

It started off at the "classroom level".

Basically, my teacher would ask each person in my class a different Geography question.

If you got it right, you made it into the next round.

If you got it wrong, you had one strike.

Unlike baseball, you only got two strikes before you were "out".

Now initially, I thought this was just some "game" that the school had made up.

I was wrong.

This was NATIONAL.

This was going on all over the country at the same time.

Every teacher had a copy of the same book, with the same questions.

Once every classroom had only one person left, those winners would then compete against each other at the "grade level".

I was the only person left for my classroom.

I was moving on to the "grade level" against 5 other classroom winners for my grade.

The winner would then move on to the "school level".

10 students would compete in the "school level"

Each grade would get a certain number of "representatives" to compete at the "school level".

8th Grade = 3 students.

7th Grade = 3 students.

6th Grade = 3 students.

5th Grade = 1 STUDENT.

Yeah, my grade got the shaft that year.

The day then came for the "grade level" competition.

Fun fact, I won that one too!

I was now moving on to the "school level" competition.

That day came, and all 10 students met in the gym, where they had 10 chairs for us to all sit in.

The teacher that was going to be asking us the questions was sitting at a table in front of us.

I found it a bit "odd" that we weren't just doing this in an empty classroom, since there was only 10 of us........

..........That's when they handed each of us a microphone.......

........Then the doors opened at the far end of the gym, and people just kept POURING IN.

They neglected to tell us that the "school level" was going to happen IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE SCHOOL.

My heart started racing.

I got goosebumps all over.

So yeah, I guess I was just a "bit" nervous.

We all know what it feels like when you're in front of a bunch of people and you have to speak.

All eyes are on you.

At least it feels that way.

Every breath.

Every blink.

Every thought.

It feels like they can see it all.

More specifically, it felt like SHE could see it all.

Nothing worse than falling flat on your face when you know your crush for the last three years is watching your every move.

Oh, to be that young again......

Anyway, the rules were the same as the previous rounds.

Two strikes, and you're out.

No pressure.

Except for the fact that I was carrying the hopes of AN ENTIRE GRADE on my shoulders.

No big deal right?

Long story short, I got 3rd Place.

I'd say that was pretty respectable.

An 8th grader got 1st Place, a 7th grader got 2nd Place, and I got 3rd.

I lasted longer than all three of the 6th Grade representatives, and two reps from both 7th AND 8th Grade.

That's a "win" in my book. 

It also made me that much more determined to do better the following year, but we'll get to that soon......

Let's Keep This Going!

Just as a disclaimer, please don't expect proper grammar and punctuation in this blog post, or any other future blog posts. I'll do my best with the spelling, but everything else is up in the air. Run-on sentences, incomplete sentences, numbered lists, and bullet points are all very good friends of mine, you will meet all of them very soon.

Fourth. Grade.

My final year at Woodland Elementary School.

I had Mrs. Jones.

I needed to make the final year at this school a good one.

And that's exactly what I did.

I came into the school year with a new sense of "purpose".

I had a lot of things going for me!

I was about to turn 10.

I had a killer flat top haircut.

But most importantly?

I had a Four Square Championship to defend.

My friends and I had been playing Four Square all summer long.

We used a crack in the middle of the road as one of our dividing lines.

Then we took rocks and scraped them on the pavement as our own "chalk" to make the squares.

The squares we made were AT LEAST twice the size of a regulation square.

Why you ask?

Simple.

If you can handle a square that's twice as big, then a regular square won't be a problem.

It worked.

By the time school had started, I thought they had made the squares even smaller than the year before.

That's what using squares twice as big all summer will do to you!

Everything else on the playground didn't even exist to me anymore.

Not the Seesaw.

Not the Merry-Go-Round.

Not the Swings.

Not even The Playscape (which is still the best playground I've ever been on to this day).

For me, it was all Four Square, all the time.

The game had become so popular that some of the TEACHERS were starting to play.

Maybe they thought I was going to cut them some slack.

I did no such thing.

I had fun sending my gym teacher to the back of the line.

On her very first time in, she tried to get ME out.

Big mistake.

I made her look FOOLISH.

She deserved it.

The playground was like the prison yard, it was our time out there.

Everywhere else we had to walk in a single file line.

We had to sit at desks.

We had to raise our hands.

But not on the playground.

We could run.

We could jump.

We could PLAY.

In my case, that meant diving for ANY loose ball in Four Square.

On blacktop pavement.

No protective equipment.

I scraped my elbows and my knees more times than I could even count.

But I always got to the ball, and I always got someone else out doing it.

My reckless abandon was never in vain.

Sometimes I would get that "oohhhh" or "aahhhh" reaction from the crowd.

But it was never about that.

I wasn't trying to impress anyone.

Not even my crush, because once again, she could wait.

I was just doing what needed to be done!

When I wasn't playing Four Square at recess, I would spend almost every waking hour thinking about when I was going to pay it again.

I would pretty much daydream as often as I could during the "regular classes".

Math?

Social Studies?

Science?

English?

Sure.

Is it recess yet?

Lunch was always unpredictable.

I quickly figured out which lunches were going to be good, and which lunches were going to be.....well, bad.

American Chop Suey? Good!

Weird name, especially since it's elbow macaroni with meat sauce, and I've never heard it called that ANYWHERE but on the school lunch calendar.

Sloppy Joe's? BAD!

Let me clarify, I love Sloppy Joe's.

I make them all the time.

They are delicious, WHEN I MAKE THEM.

Now I don't know what "recipe" the school was using, but those were NOT SLOPPY JOE'S.

The buns were always toasted/stale, and the filling itself was......dreadful.

Friday was always Pizza Day.

However, all pizza's ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL.

If it was the "Pizza Boat", it was delicious.

But if it was the "Soggy Brick", you'd be better off asking for an extra milk instead.

The desserts were just as "Hit or Miss" as the lunches they accompanied.

Warm Jell-O?

Not a fan.

Dry cake that's topped with a substance which was formerly known as frosting?

I'll pass.

But, there was one dessert that I'd go back to school to have right now.......

There were actually two variations of this dessert, and both of them were AMAZING.

Imagine a thick square of chocolate (or peanut butter) that's cold to the touch, but it starts melting in your hand almost immediately when you pick it up.

Inside these thick squares were two of my absolute favorite things, raisins and peanuts!

I've always wondered who came up with it, and to this day, I still want to try and replicate it!

As the year was coming to a close, the announcement I was waiting for all year was made...

The Four Square Tournament was going to happen right before Field Day!

All of the hard work in the summer.

All of the other games I could have played, but I avoided to play more Four Square instead.

It was all for this.

I was ready.

They actually made MORE Four Square courts for the Tournament, because it had become so popular!

This also allowed more people to actively be playing, instead of waiting in line, because in the tournament, every out counts, and you can't get any points for yourself while you're waiting in line, so I was all for it!

Then the day finally arrived, and the tournament had begun.

After my showing the previous year, I already knew what was going to happen going in...

I was a marked man.

I didn't care.

This is what I had waited all year for, and NO ONE was going to stop me.

I had go out out on top, there was no other option!

I got off to an even stronger start than I had the year before.

People were trying their hardest to get me out.

It was adorable.

Then in the blink of an eye, the tournament was over.

They announced the results at the end of the day.

I got 1st Place again.....but so did someone else!

It felt tainted.

It left a bad taste in my mouth.

A tie for 1st Place?

What happens now?

All of these thoughts ran through my head for a good 3-4 minutes before I had a Root Beer popsicle and got over it like all 10 year olds do.

The next day, the principal from the Middle School came to my class to ask myself and a few others about Four Square.

Apparently it was becoming so popular that the Middle School wanted to add a few courts of their own, and they wanted to know how the game worked!

I now had something to look forward to in 5th Grade already, but we'll get to that part in the near future!

Until next time!

The First Time In A Long Time!

Just as a disclaimer, please don't expect proper grammar and punctuation in this blog post, or any other future blog posts. I'll do my best with the spelling, but everything else is up in the air. Run-on sentences, incomplete sentences, numbered lists, and bullet points are all very good friends of mine, you will meet all of them very soon.

Let's see, it looks like my last blog post was just under........6 months ago, no surprise there.

Unfortunately, that is to be expected of me.

I put the "Pro" in Procrastination, that is for sure, but I'm working on it.....at least I like to think I am.

Anyway, I believe the next logical thing is to continue telling the story known as my school career, which means we have now arrived at 3rd Grade.

This is when the gloves started to come off.

I'm talking about multiplication, and even worse than that......long division.

They were both foreign to me, I initially thought they were forms of torture.

9 x 7?  8 x 5? What is this? Why do I need to know this?

I'm supposed to get to the point where I'll know these answers right away?

That's impossible! (Spoiler, it wasn't impossible, but I was 9, so what did I know right?)

Eventually, I got the hang of it, but I really just wanted to play outside, I was a kid after all.

But it was more than that.

I had found something that had completely taken over almost every train of thought I had.

No, it wasn't my crush at the time, she could wait.

I'm talking about.......Four Square.

I didn't think anything could be that fun, but it turns out that I was wrong, because it was THAT FUN.

So simple, yet so addictive, those are the best kinds of games.

It's a simple premise really, four people stand in a giant square, that has been divided into four smaller yet equal squares.

The squares are lettered A-D (clockwise from the top left), and whoever is in square "A" is the server, that's the square that everyone wants to be in, which means everyone is gunning for you, and that's what I wanted, so it was right up my alley.

The server bounces the ball once in his/her square, and then they hit it with their hands to one of the other three squares.

The person who just had the ball hit to them has to let the ball bounce once, and then they need to hit the ball to any of the other three squares.

If you cannot complete that action for one of many reasons (the ball bounces twice, the ball hits you, you hit the ball into your own square, you hit the ball out of bounds, you hit the ball on the dividing line of the squares), then you are "out".

Whenever someone gets "out", they leave their square, and everyone moves up a square, so if the person in Square B got out, they would have to vacate their square, and go to the back of the line, and the person in Square C would move up to Square B, then the person in Square D would move up to Square C, and the first person waiting in line would now move into Square D.

The goal is to make it to Square A, and try to last as long as you possibly can, the server has the biggest advantage because they can choose to hit it to whoever they want to start the game.

This is the playground we're talking about here, so the line to play this game was always LONG.

And I'm not talking about what might have "seemed like a long line to a 9 year old", I mean it was ACTUALLY LONG.

It was always a full on sprint to be one of the first four people to get there, so you could guarantee that you would be one of the first four to be able to play.

Square A was always the top prize.

If you couldn't get A, then you'd go for B, then C, or D if it was the only one left.

If you got out, sometimes the line was so long that you knew the bell was going to ring before you even got a shot again, but I still got in that line, because I wanted to be THE BEST.

Now of course there were going to be alliances, sometimes me and one of my friends would have Squares A and B, so we would never go after each other, and instead we would "set each other up" to keep getting the people in Squares C and D out.

Sometimes I was that person in Square C or Square D, going up against such an alliance, and that pretty much meant I had one shot to try and get one of the two people in the alliance out, or I was probably going to be knocked out myself.

Those were the moments I lived for, I also scraped my knees for them, it was amazing.

After playing for months nonstop, the school announced that they were going to have a FOUR SQUARE TOURNAMENT.

It was music to my ears. 

Each grade would have their own tournament.

For the first time, we had actual "judges".

You see, as with most playground disputes, you try to present your best case for why you should or shouldn't be out, and if you are persuasive enough, you get the magic words you were really fishing for in the first place - "Let's just do it over".

There was none of that in the tournament.

Whatever ruling the judge made was FINAL, no arguments would be heard.

It was black and white.

I liked it.

I liked it a lot.

The battle lines were drawn.

Any "Alliance" that I had was put on the back burner come tournament time.

My friends and I all knew the same thing, there could only be one winner.

It was nothing personal, and we all promised not to hold back against each other.

The tournament rules were pretty simple, any person that you got "out" counted as a point for you.

Whoever had the most points at the end of the tournament would be declared the winner.

You wouldn't know how many points you had until after the tournament was over, and the Top 4 would be announced for each grade.

The Top 4 people in each grade would all get a prize, but they didn't tell us what the prizes would be.

The prizes didn't really matter to me, all I wanted was to be THE WINNER.

Then the tournament began.

It lasted for two days.

When time was up, the judges said they would tally up the scores, and make the announcement of the winners for each grade.

They announced the Top 4 for 1st Grade.

They announced the Top 4 for 2nd Grade.

Then they announced only 3 people from my grade.....and my name wasn't one of them.

I was confused.

I was hearing the point totals for the people in my grade, and I thought I did better than all of them.

They announced the Top 4 for 4th Grade.

I was still confused.

Why did they only announce 3 people for my grade?

Did I miss something here?

And then it happened.

After a brief pause, I can still hear it in my head now just a clear as when it was originally announced over the school speakers, "The person with the highest score out of all grades was Jerome Yanford with 76 points".

I guess I did better after all.

I had thought I did pretty good, but I didn't realize it was THAT good!

My whole class looked at me, I didn't know what to do!

So of course, I smiled, like I was going to have my school picture taken, and I stayed that way until the shock wore off.

It felt like forever, but in reality it was probably like 10-15 seconds before everyone went back to, well, not staring at me.

As for the prizes?

They were Four Square balls!

However, since I got the most points, I got the first pick of the many color variations that they had, so that was cool, I took the green one.

That's where my love of Four Square began, and it would spill over into 4th Grade the following year, but we'll get to that soon enough...........

Until next time!

Is This Real Life?

Just as a disclaimer, please don't expect proper grammar and punctuation in this blog post, or any other future blog posts. I'll do my best with the spelling, but everything else is up in the air. Run-on sentences, incomplete sentences, numbered lists, and bullet points are all very good friends of mine, you will meet all of them very soon.

Is This Real Life?

Second Grade. It came from out of nowhere. No more training wheels.

I knew about Addition and Subtraction. Then i started to hear the rumors......

Multiplication? Division? What are these things?!!

Luckily, it turns out that I would be safe from those two things for another year.

I came into second grade looking for something that I could really sink my teeth into.

That's when I discovered Geography, and everything changed.

Capital Cities. Country Flags. Postal Abbreviations. I had to know them all.

We did an activity where we were trying to memorize the U.S. States by their shape.

We had flash cards.

Then it became a competition.

Everyone wanted to be the first one who could identify all 50, without making a mistake.

The first one to do it would get their name put on the wall.

Forget The Oscars, THIS was the prize that everyone wanted.

I had to win. I had to be the first one to do it.

I watched others try before me, but they always got tripped up.

I was finally confident that i knew all 50, so I gave it a shot, and I nailed it.

But it wasn't enough. I wanted to know more. I wanted to learn more.

So I decided to memorize all 50 U.S. State Capitals.

After that, I started to memorize the capitals of different countries.

Then I started memorizing the flags of as many countries that I could.

Geography had become my favorite subject. I still love it to this day.

Geography, Gym Class, Recess, and Lunch, that's what I looked forward too.

Outside of school, you could find me down the street at my best friends house.

We did everything that kids did outside.

We played every sport imaginable. We made up our own games too.

We went swimming in the summer. We went sledding in the winter.

We rode our bikes. We played capture the flag. We made our own fun.

We both loved video games, and we still do to this day.

On any given day, there would be 5-10 of us, so we always had good numbers.

We played until the sun went down, then the next day. we did it all over again.

I miss those days, they were awesome.

Third Grade was now on the horizon.

Multiplication and Division were both going to become a reality soon.

I was ready for them.

But we'll get to that soon enough!