Monday, May 5, 2008

My History In Education, Part 1

Preschool-Kindergarten
The closest thing I've got to a memory of kindergarten is the movie Kindergarten Cop starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Great film.

1st-3rd Grade
I lived with my mom and I went to Balboa Elementary in San Diego, I think in the Torrey Pines area. I don't even know where Torrey Pines is anymore, or if it still exists, or if maybe I'm making that name up. People who live in San Diego, where the fuck is Torrey Pines? It's a real place, right? Anyway, I may not remember the area, but I kinda remember the school and the teachers. In first grade, I had Mrs. Sunday, and I liked her ok because she always played us some kick-ass jams by Raffi. I kinda hated her for awhile after I got in trouble and sent home with a note for cussing in class, but I'm over it. My second grade teacher was named Mr. Shannon, but I don't remember much about him. And I don't remember the name of my third grade teacher, but I remember we all thought she was constantly drunk. My best friend during these years was a black boy named Ty (short for William, which I never understood) who was a year older than me, and I don't remember this, but apparently we were once caught making out. My favorite musicians around this time (besides Raffi) were Janet Jackson, Paula Abdul, and Cyndi Lauper. My favorite movie was Labyrinth.

4th-6th Grade
I moved in with my dad and stepmom in Glendale and went to R.D. White, which was right across the street from our house. My best friend was Christian, who was kinda dumb, but he had his moments. Later, I became good friends with Albert, who was a cutter, and I was also sort-of friends with Ian, who was annoying but rich, and he used to pay us $20 to come over to his house and hang out with him. We were all really into the monkey bars during recess, and I was pretty decent with doing the flips and stuff, but I never got up the courage to do the Cherry Bomb. My biggest obsession during this time was magic. My favorite magicians were Penn & Teller, but I also loved David Copperfield. My second biggest obsession was wrestling, and I was allowed to stay up late on Monday nights to watch Raw. My favorite wrestler was Ultimate Warrior. In 4th grade (I think, it may have actually been 3rd), I got really into gangsta rap. My favorites were Ice-T and NWA, but I was also into the not-so-gangsta Kris Kross, MC Hammer, and Vanilla Ice. My favorite movies were House Party 1 & 2 and Drop Dead Fred. School-wise, I don't remember a whole lot involving classes or teachers. I was in GATE, which stands for Gifted And Talented Education, and was a program that rewarded you for being smart by forcing you to go in an hour early twice a week to take another class, where we learned about boring advanced stuff like Shakespeare. I fucking hated it. In 6th grade, I was a really good speller and I made it to the school Spelling Bee. On my first turn, I was given the word "colossal" and I got it wrong, and it turned out to be the only word given in the entire Bee that I didn't know how to spell, and this was very traumatizing. I should've won that shit. Well, ok, I should've known how to spell "colossal", but it was unfair to throw a tough word like that into the first round.

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