Archive for November, 2018
My Short Nonfiction Story | “The Seventh Grade Slump!”
Tuesday, November 20th, 2018
People always say that they either hated middle school, hated their middle school selves, or simply have no valid recollection of middle school at all. Why is this? Is that just our brains cringing and erasing every single memory out of sheer embarrassment? Even high school, which is notorious for being one of the most stressful periods of your life, is somehow considered “better” than middle school for some people.
I wish I could say that I feel differently. But I would be lying. Seventh grade (or as I like to call it, “The Seventh Grade Slump”) is what I would consider to be one of the absolute lowest points in my academic life. Read on to see what I mean.
Firstly, some background—at the start of sixth grade, I was forced to transfer to another middle school which I would soon end up not liking as much as my elementary school. I was put into a Special Education program, called the “Navigators”, which was designed to provide extra help to students that were in need of it, such as myself. It was nice, and the people were nice to me. Aside from lots of verbal conflicts between certain Navigator students (which honestly did affect my enjoyment of the program), I did not mind it too much. In fact, I was pretty sure I would grow to like that school.
And then seventh grade came. The conflicts were less in number, some classes were fun and memorable, and I began to develop a slight sliver of an idea of what I wanted to do for a living. But this story is titled “The Seventh Grade Slump” for a reason.
This was the year in which I first felt the world may have been conspiring against me. My parents, for instance, became more strict, and as a result, more “annoying”. The Navigator teacher became more strict as well, and as a result, more “annoying”. My classmates became more annoying, and as a result, as one might guess, more “annoying”.
And that is not even getting started on me. Looking back, I realize that I became just as “annoying” as I thought everyone else was back then. To quote a certain fiction story that I wrote in eleventh grade, “I was shyer, lazier, more easily upset, more of a pessimist, a perfectionist who was angered if the slightest thing was wrong… The list is endless, basically.”
Because I was shy, the Navigator staff started actively trying to make me less shy. This was around the time when people started to leave my lunch table with no given reason, so the teacher assumed it was because I was not talking enough. As a result, I went through lots of individual training with conversations and talking, of which I quickly got tired. It seemed like they were overly obsessed with the very concept of me uttering words in public.
Side note—this would become especially evident when a particular new student showed up the following year, in eighth grade. It seemed like the only thing that anyone ever cared about was whatever the new student and I talked about (say, during lunch when we would sit together), and it also seemed like they wanted us to become best buddies forever. The problem was, neither of us was very talkative. And we had just met. That was “annoying” for both him and me.
And lastly, I was very forgetful during seventh grade, which would often land me in trouble with my parents (and on some occasions, the Navigator staff). They would deliver long, critical rants each time, as well as punishments and restrictions, and I distinctly remember hating it.
I soon became fed up with all this. So, during second semester, I started trying to make myself more likeable (e.g. trying to talk more, to be more positive, and even to be less lazy).
Did it work? Well… No. At least, not at first. But my impatient younger self, who would always give up if he did not see results immediately, just did not see any improvements. I still felt exactly as I felt during first semester. I had made no progress (as I saw it back then).
Perhaps the highlight of seventh grade was when it finally ended in May 2015. I enjoyed the summer as if it was the last, and then suffered through one last year of middle school (which was only slightly better than seventh grade because my classes were fun and memorable).
But once high school came around, something changed. Throughout ninth and tenth grade, I gradually became less shy, more optimistic, more organized and productive, etc. The new Navigator program was not as strict with me about speaking up, which ironically made me feel more self-confident. I was starting to subconsciously learn from “The Seventh Grade Slump”.
It just goes to show that if you find your life to be not all that great, you should first and foremost try to look at yourself, and see what can be improved.
THE END
