During gym, we had the basketball tournament, and my team lost almost instantly. But we didn’t know,  that we lost to the winning team. But my friend, Srija, was on that team, and like, crushed us. Because if a girl scores, your team gets two points, but if a boy scores, you only get one point, so her team just passed it to her, and ended up winning by like, ten. So when we lost, we were out of the rest of the tournament, but my friend, Giulietta, and I didn’t care, we just talked the whole time. But the team that also made it to the playoffs, had like, every single good player in the class. So, the really good team was up by four, so I went to get water, but by the time I got back, they were tied, and then they were winning. But the other team, the team my friend Srija was on, was losing. And everyone thought they were going to lose, but Jake Nathan, made a shot at the last second, and they were tied. So if a game ends in a tie, the jersey team gets to shoot a free throw. So they chose their best player, she shot. And missed. Jake’s team won, and all his friends ran onto the court, and just screamed. They were so happy.

Strings is great. Besides the fact that I have to practice. I know that sounds weird, playing an instrument, and not wanting to practice, but if you already play an instrument, and you have to practice that every day, plus homework, the time adds up.

I always think of things that I want during the year, but when my birthday comes around, I have NOTHING to tell people. NOTHING. I’m pretty sure that I annoy everybody when they ask me, “hey Kate, what do you want for your birthday?” I DON’T KNOW. So then my parents say that they’re not going to get me anything, and I leave the conversation feeling terrible. Because I’m that annoying kid who begs for things all during the year, but by the time it’s finally my birthday, I don’t know what I want. But I’m pretty sure, that deep inside me, I know what I want, but for some reason, I think I’ll sound bratty if I make a list of what I want. But heck, it’s my birthday coming up, and I literally have no clue what I want.

Keyboarding can be so boring. I’ve already finished Microtype, which doesn’t help, because I used to be able to just do Microtype the entire class, but now that I’m done, I actually have to do Everfi. Every time I go into keyboarding, I’m dreading it. And every time I leave, I end up with terrible headache. Why can’t we do FUN  typing exercises? Mycrotype, Typing Club, and Everfi are super boring. What else can we do during keyboarding to make it more fun?

In elementary school, we had recess. Why don’t we have that in middle school?! Recess was the best, and my teacher last year, always gave us way more than we deserved. Even if we were bad that day, she still gave us so much recess. During recess, you could do whatever you wanted (except go on the kickball field when it’s wet, I’ve learned form personal experience). I remember in third grade, when Rainbow Loom was super popular, all of us would do Rainbow Loom at recess, and when our time was up, we went inside with at least three bracelets on our wrists. How come we don’t have that recess here? Sure, we have PAT time, but that’s only once a week, without a playground. That may sound childlike, to want a playground, but I really want one. It would make PAT time so much better. Instead, what people do during PAT time is run around playing tag. And that game gets boring after a while, even if you’re not playing it. People say, “well, you’re in middle school now, you don’t need recess anymore,” but what they don’t know, is that we do. Inside all of us is a longing for that special time of day, we all like to call, recess. The one time of day, you can do whatever you want to do. People say that we have lunch, and that we  can talk to our friends at lunch, but at lunch, you can only be so loud, and you have to ask permission, just to stand up. At recess, you can be as loud as you want, and guess what, you can stand up without having to ask! That shouldn’t be an exciting thing, standing up, but middle school only allows you so many freedoms. And I bet you, teachers want that twenty minute break during the day. They have to teach hectic middle schoolers, all day, and the only break they have, is lunch, and if you’re an English teacher, PAT time. And I’m pretty sure, taking away PAT time is just as painful for the teachers, as it is the students. Because everyone wants a break from school, to actually have fun. So why can’t middle schoolers have recess again? Who ever thought of taking away recess in the first place?

Braces are so annoying. Yeah, they make my teeth straight, but they are SO annoying.  I had braces for two years, and I can’t tell you in words how much of a pain they were. Food would always get stuck in them, and I’d have these little rubber bands in my braces that I’d have to take out every time I wanted to eat something. But now that I have them off, everywhere I go, it’s like a land mine of those rubber bands. EVERYWHERE. I’m not even exaggerating. With braces I couldn’t eat anything. No popcorn, no gum, so starburst, no carrots, no apples. Nothing. I’m so glad I got my braces off.

Why do people come up to me and ask, “is it your birthday?” Because no. It’s not my birthday. Just because I’m Irish, it doesn’t mean that it’s my birthday on St. Patrick’s Day. How is that even a question? If you’re Catholic, and it’s Christmas, I don’t ask you if it’s your birthday, because I know it’s not. That’s just common sense. If you celebrate a holiday, because of your  religion, or culture, it DOESN’T mean that it’s your birthday. How does that even make sense? Why have four people asked me that today? Do you see my locker decorated? Do you see my walking down the hallway feeling proud that I turned twelve? No. You don’t. Because it’s not my birthday.

I both love and hate two hour delays. I love them, because it means we get to skip two hours of the school day, but I hate them, because there wasn’t enough snow to have the full day off, and the schedule gets all messed up during the school day. But today, with the two hour delay messing up the schedule, when I was in keyboarding, the bell for lunch rang, but Mrs.Maxvill thought that was the bell to switch classes, so all of went to House C, but no one was there. So we all thought we were either really late, or really early. But what we didn’t realize, was that we were half an hour early. So when the bell rang for the eight graders to be in lunch, all of us were expecting a huge mob of people to rush out of their classrooms, but no one came. So we just walked to our second block classes, which mine was Strings, and my friend Ava’s was Resource, which is our split block class. So I was just waiting outside my Strings teacher’s room for five minutes not noticing that no one else was coming. But since Ava and I were in the same hallway, we both noticed that we were the only ones in the hallway. So we started walking down the hallway to the House office together, to ask what was happening, and what was wrong. But when we were doing that, we ran into the Dean, who after we explained our case to, instantly sent us back to our third block, telling us that we still had another half an hour of dreadful keyboarding.

1. Go outside
2. Play an instrument
3. Play with your pet
4. Write a blog post
5. Nothing
6. Go on your phone
7. Play Clash Royale
8. Have a bubble blowing contest with yourself
9. Eat
10. Read
11. Learn the digits of pi
12. Solve a Rubik’s Cube
13. Sleep
14. Call your friends
15. Bottle flip

In summer, there’s no school. Which means no homework. Which means more free time to do whatever you want. In spring, it’s my birthday, but we have SOLs in the spring. And SOLs mean studying for a grade that could change the classes you take in the following year. In winter, you might have winter break, but that’s only twelve days, summer is three months. Winter might bring snow days, or what’s supposed to be snow days, but that means teachers expect you to make up for the work you missed in the day. It’s practically a free for all during summer, you can miss as many days as you want, because you don’t have to show up for anything. Fall means summer’s over, and you have to go back to school. Which means back to school shopping. Which basically means that you either get to keep the old backpack you had last year, or since you waited so long, you can walk into seventh grade with a My Little Pony backpack. In summer, you don’t have to wake up at a certain time to show up for school. You can skip the alarm, which you’d normally press snooze on a thousand times during the school year, and wake up at noon. Summer is so much better than the other seasons for those reasons.