Elementary School

Elementary school really defined a lot of my baggage that I would carry for a lot of my life.

Primarily, I was a high performer in class and remember being very competitive with these math quizzes we were given. Everyone in the class would be given a test, it was short, 60 seconds or a couple minutes maybe, and if you completed it then you moved on to the next one, if not the next time we did it you would keep the same one and try again. In my class of about 30 kids, I believe I was always ahead.

There was a girl, Karen, whom was also a high performer and we seemed to trade some award for most gifted or something. I wasn't friends with her and felt competitive toward her, but I really have no memory of her other than her name.

I got this idea of myself that carried on throughout a lot of my life that I was much much smarter than most people. This may or may not have been true, but was certainly out of context when my only comparison could possibly have left me within a top couple percent at best. I also developed a phobia or something in displaying my smartness because I was made fun of or shunned for it. Throughout elementary school and middle school I would routinely claim I didn't know the answer to things I did know, both in class and among friends at recess, to be more accepted. I never told anyone that.

I don't have a strong sense of my placement in the social ladder before middle school. I remember vaguely a female whom I felt competitive with in third grade, though I don't remember her name. The whole memory is based around what we called 'cootie-catchers' but are also known as 'fortune tellers' which was more accurate for what we used them for. I *believe* I learned the folding technique from somewhere outside of class and had a brief period of social demand where I would make them for people. I also remember being incredibly jealous of a kids pen that had these little polished rocks held in plastic on the upper part of the pen that he got at a field trip we went on.

In any case, back to the fortune tellers, this girl whom I felt competitive with started making an improved version of them, because I was using rectangular paper and she knew to make it square, which makes a much higher quality cootie catcher. I didn't realize how she was making them better until years later when I came across them again.

I also remember making butter by shaking cream, we just passed it around the class. The butter barely worked, but we put it on ritz crackers anyway. I am sure the teacher was embarassed by the failure, but at the time I hardly noticed.

Most definitively in the latter part of elementary school I had the hugest crush ever on this girl, Jennifer Fisher. She probably remembers me not too fondly or not at all.

Two distinct and horribly embarrasing memories involve Jennifer: one time we were sittign in a group and I was trying to get close and touch her, I think with my foot, completely aloof as usual, and she announced to me I was touching her and to please stop in a way that made it clear she thought I was doing it mindlessly. The other, which was pretty bad was where we had to choose groups of some sort and the teacher didn't want us to pick based on who else was picking what groups so we were supposed to do it with our heads down.

I cheated, obviously, to pick Jennifer's group. I am trying to remember now how it went down, I think it was that too many people picked the group Jennifer and I had picked so we had to repick, and I did it in some way that made it obvious to the teacher I was cheating and she basically called me out on it. I explained to her that I didn't actually cheat, I used people's conversations to pick up on what they would pick and just made my pick that way. I have no idea if she bought it or not.

I brought the class hamster home for the holidays and it got paralyzed and we had to kill it. That was sad.

I changed schools a lot in elementary school. Kindergarten somewhere, First Grade somewhere else, 2nd and third grade somewhere else fourth grade somewhere else, and fifth grade back to where I was in third.

At one of those times I was getting moved away from Jennifer, and with all my whining and complaining my mother somehow figured out I had a 'girlfriend' and that is why. Probably she found my stash of Jennifer things that I worshipped. I told her it was my girlfriend, though clearly she was not, and my mom, bless her heart, got me back into the other school.

Also, I was in 'GATE' (gifted and talented education) for third grade, where we would leave campus once a week for half the day and have awesome funtime, there was an in class economy, and we did a lot of brain teasers. There was also a boring part where the gate teachers hubby would come show off his stupid train part collection. At one point I found a wad of the in-class economy money and snagged it, not telling anyone. Later, when the teacher asked if anyone had found it, I did not speak up. Sonny Ghio was in gate with me, and an awesome, awesome kid whom I remember fondly and now follow on twitter, though we haven't really spoken in probably 15 years.

I remember having an amazing bo fight with sonny in his front yard once. We were really wailing on each other and it was very ninja like. If nothing else, I hope he remembers that. Perhaps I will tweet sonny that story and see what happens.