"You're not as smart as you think you are."

The year was 1993. I was in third grade and it was winter time- January or February.

I'd spent the early part of the year getting in trouble.  I talked- a lot.  My teacher, Mrs. F, despised me.  It's not good when as a small child you can tell that an adult really doesn't like you.  All the signs were there though- she took the side of every other child against me.  I was sent to the round table for telling a girl to "Shut up", when she said it to me three times first.

I hold grudges.
Anyway, I remember about half the class was told to come up to the front of the room.  Of course I was one of the ones sent to the front- I volunteered a lot.  We were each handed a large card with a word on it.  Mine was "Whip".  We were to match ourselves up in pairs, creating larger words.

"All right" I thought, "This is going to be easy! Whip Cream!"  Yes, I know it's Whipped Cream. Seven year old me had no idea.  Don't even get me started on "Napoleon Ice Cream".

A quick search of the words and I realized this wasn't going to be quite so easy.  There were no other words that fit with "Whip".  Slowly the other children paired up and returned to their seats.  Soon it was just myself and a kid named Will.  Will had a card with two other words on it.  "Poor Will."  I thought that was interesting, since his name was Will and all.  He was hardly the brightest crayon in the box, but a nice kid in general.

I came to the brilliant conclusion that "Whip" must have been a last name.  So we lined up.  "Poor Will Whip."


"No!" Mrs. F. triumphantly thundered.  Her glee was honestly palpable.  We rearranged and our cards spelled out "Whip Poor Will".  I thought it was kind of unfair.  First we call Will poor, then we whip him? 

Mrs. F. finally confirmed our word was correct.

I don't remember saying anything, but I clearly must have said "oh, that one was hard!" or something similar.

Mrs. F's eyes lit up and she informed me "I gave you a harder one.  I wanted to prove to you that you're not as smart as you think you are."

Wow.  How pathetic is it when a 60+ year old woman engages in a battle of wits with a 7 year old? The rest of the class laughed of course and we were sent back to our seats.

I got the last laugh though.  Mrs. F. eventually decided on a parent-teacher conference. Why? I honestly do not know.  My parents pumped me relentlessly for information- what had I done? Was there anything else I wanted to tell them before we all went in to sit down?  I shook my head- no, I really didn't know what I had done.  Other than telling Candice to shut up and being sent to the round table.  Oh, and I talked a lot.  They were used to seeing that little tidbit on every report card from Kindergarten on up, so that was no great shock to them.

I let my mind wander a lot during the conference, but I do remember my Dad's face at one point becoming as dark as a thunder cloud.

"You mean you're punishing her because she answers too often, too quickly?  Because the answers she gives you are right?  Why didn't you just ask her to slow down?"  They talked a little more and then he turned to me and said "You answer the questions in class too fast.  Can you let some of the other kids answer sometimes?"  I nodded and they moved on.

It was a glorious day. Mrs. F. definitely got an earful on the way I was being treated in class (that the stupid woman admitted to herself).   She had to keep her dislike of me a little more under wraps after this meeting as well.  I had learned that good teachers do not tell 7 year olds how they want to bring them down a notch.  I had also learned that more behavior like that was to be reported to my parents.

So... to Mrs. F.- the woman who taught me I would never be a teacher unless I loved teaching, because otherwise you became a miserable old piece of baggage that picked on small children...

I'm still probably not as smart as I think I am- but you also didn't succeed in destroying any self-esteem I had, nor did you kill my love of learning.  I win.

Can it be?

September 11th.  Can it really have been ten years?  It's hard to believe 2001 is so far away- but at the same time, it feels like only yesterday we heard the news.


I'm sure that today we'll all tell the stories of where we were when "it" happened. I'm sure we can all remember it vividly.  The fear, the tears, the absolute bewilderment.

I was in High School and we all walked in to Band Class (second period), to find our instructor, a native New Yorker, in tears in front of a TV.  He told us someone flew a plane into the World Trade Center and one of them twin towers had collapsed.

What?  Is that possible?  There must be a mistake somewhere.  Who would do something like that? Why would they do that?  Oh God...how many people were inside? Could anyone get out?

We watched the news coverage, stunned.

The rest of the day was full of uncertainty.  News had spread through the school like wildfire and even though most of us had never been to New York, had no connections to people there, we were stunned, upset- and frightened.

I remember the lunch room and hearing two freshmen girls wonder if they would hit our small, dinky town.  We older, wiser kids knew our town was safe- but what about our state capital?  What about Charlotte, the "Queen City" ?

I went home, turned on the news channels and watched the updates for the rest of the evening.  Two buildings collapsed, a hijacked plane crashed by American Heroes in a field, saving countless lives, but killing all on board.  Another plane crashed into the Pentagon.  I made my little brother, who was in early elementary school, watch a few minutes.  I told him "You need to see, so you can remember."

I think the days after September 11th were the worst I can remember.  There was so much sadness everywhere as the body count rose.  Friends and family members declared they wanted to join the military, they wanted to fight, to avenge those who had died and punish the ones who had the audacity to attack us.  Our innocence had been lost.  Most of my generation only vaguely remembered Operation Desert Storm (and doubtful any of us really understood it)- we were used to peace and none of us thought something like this could even happen.

Yet, we pulled together as well.  Emergency workers rushed from all corners of the country to help the stricken New Yorkers. Blood banks overflowed as people rushed to donate.  Everywhere you looked, flags were out and waving proudly.

Ten years. How can it have been so long already, when the memories are so fresh?  It won't be long until our high school graduates weren't alive when it happened. 

Today should be a day of simple remembrance and appreciation. Let's not politicize this one day of the year.  We can go back to being Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Tea Party-ers, Independents, etc. tomorrow.  Today, we're just going to be Americans.

I've struggled over trying to decide how to tag this post.  "Tragedy"?  Well hopefully I won't have to use that tag more than once. "Holiday"?  Well it's not exactly a holiday is it? Maybe I'll go with simply, "Memories".

-Kristen