Feeling a bit of everything, really.

I went to visit Eldo with Brian Hoang today. It’s essentially become our “annual” teacher visitation trip. So, we ended up getting there sometime during the beginning of 6th period. Our initial intention of getting there so early was to catch Mrs. Grosse before she left. . . which worked!
Seriously, in all these visits to Eldo since I’ve graduated, Mrs. Grosse is the only teacher I had never been able to catch up with. Since she never has a 6th period, normally by the time I get on campus/after I finish talking to all my other teachers, she’s gone. So it was a really nice feeling to be able to catch up with her after all these years. I think the last time we had a face-to-face conversation was probably my senior year, and that was about the chem project I never did. We also talked (for a bit) with Mrs. Bobbitt–I don’t think I’ll ever be able to call her Livingstone, haha! And spent most of our time in Mrs. O’s room. It was really nice to just be on a HS campus again; has it really been 4 years since I was last in high school??? Apparently so…

But I think being on campus today also brought about many different regrets about my high school career. I was telling mom earlier tonight that in some weird, awkward way, I miss my high school life. High school, in a nutshell, was horrible for me. Missing homework galore, being wayyy too shy to talk to teachers when I had questions/couldn’t turn in homework on time, and way too much undeserved grace from teachers that I really haven’t deserved. But I think what I miss about high school are those teachers who really care enough about their students. Whether it’s getting a C in an honors class, and the teacher saying that you’re on probation for a semester–but monitoring this child, having an “action plan” to make sure that the next semester another C doesn’t appear on the transcript. Or, whether it’s a teacher who emails you to remind you that–”HEY! You haven’t turned in X bajillion assignments. Do you still want a chance to make up this assignment?” I’m not saying that professors in college don’t care for their students or anything. I’ve had excellent professors, many of whom I really admire and respect, and still wish to maintain contact with in the future. However, in college, I feel that if you fail a class, ultimately it’s your fault (not to say that it’s not your fault in HS, but…) and they really won’t monitor your performance in the class, even if you’re failing. In that way, I miss high school.

Talking to Mrs. Grosse & Mrs. Oberle, I really had a lot of regrets come back to me. I wish I could go back to September 2005, when Honors Chem first started and redo my high school career from there. I wish I had worked harder to understand the material, studied harder for those tests, done all of my homework, asked questions when I was lost, and so on. But ultimately, I wish I had done that project. If I could turn back the clock, or even go back in time and tell 15-year-old Amanda, I would’ve told me that even if I didn’t know how to begin the research experiment, I should’ve asked Mrs. Grosse for pointers on how to begin. . . to, in essence, lead me by the hand if I was that lost.
Looking back, I’m so thankful that she allowed me a chance to have my chem grade pulled up to a C-. To have made up that project, even though I essentially never did it in the first place. I guess there are not enough words to describe what I would’ve changed, and how surprised now, how … shocked I am that she let me do a make up project. There was also a test that I took where she allowed me to do extra problems for more credit for a test that I completely bombed! I don’t know… in many ways, I would’ve milked out that time in Mrs. Grosse’s class, had I known better. I might’ve been a science major now!

Mrs. Oberle’s class was another class in which I had a lot of regrets with. I wish I had told her when I first started getting overwhelmed with my schedule. She’s super nice in that way, where I think if I had asked for an extension on an assignment, I’m sure she would’ve let me have that extension. I wish I had not waited until the last minute to do homework, wished that I had spent less time on Facebook (or even NO time on there…) I wish I had completed all the assignments we had from during winter break. Maybe I would’ve gotten a D- or something and been allowed to stay in AP Bio.

I think that these past few years, I’ve been led down this crazy, convoluted road, but I’m equally thankful for the experience that I had. I’ve sure made many mistakes in the span of 7/8 years since high school started. At the same time, I know that when bad things happen, God always creates something beautiful out of those ashes. I’m much more appreciative of the dedication that my former teachers have made in my life, and their unconditional love for their students. I wish I could send an email message or something just explaining all of this to them, and honestly, just writing to describe how thankful I am for my amazing teachers.

…at the same time, I wish I could’ve gone back and just fixed all those mistakes…I think it would’ve been easier. (:

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