Freedom

That is my word for today, as today, my friends, marked the end of our middle school careers. Just think, in two months or so, we'll be going into high school, separated from the people who (in the case of many) we have attended school with for six years. Last night, I found this amazing crossword website where you can make your own crosswords (I added the link to my list of sites) and I made a crossword to give to Alexis, Elizabeth, and Shannon, who has already finished her's, with a little help from me with the sections on song lyrics; after school today, I made my grandfather one for father's day, which is appropriate because he loves them. When I was in Atlanta, I helped him solve one a day from this little book, which has been a ritual for him and my grandmother. Anyways, I'm getting off topic: back to the last day of school. I woke up late this morning, since my mom's alarm went off late - this brought about the necessary deletion of my morning shower from my schedule, and so I went off to school feeling unclean and thinking, "I will be very sad if the rest of my day goes like this."
Halfway to school, I found this brown stuff caked on my shoe that looked like dog crap, but it turned out only to be mud.
At school, I spent first period in Mrs. Browder's class, helping her move books down to Room 108. We ran into Mr. Clauset in the hallway and we all sabotaged him with hugs; it was amazing, as he is going to Peru or South Carolina or something and won't be teaching anymore. I also got to hug him later that day out in the bus lot, and now I don't feel bad about forgetting to write him a letter to put in that anthology. Then, in band, nothing eventful happened except that I got to hug Mr. Talbert and watch him complete Elisabeth's survey (I hugged him in the bus lot again as well) Then we watched the rest of the 1980's presentation, and I won a plastic bag of skittles for naming two popular 80's movies. I got a hug from Mr. Holbrook, but not until later on that day.
Then, in science, we tested our tower and Terry, Duane, and I got an efficiency score of 523.4. Our little tower-that-could.
Lunch was depressing; it was when everyone first started to weep. There were people leaning on each other, sobbing, and one would think that we were all going off to war or something (I was, in fact, reminded of the scene in The Killer Angels in which Armistead remembers the night before he went off to war, the night he spent with Hancock and his wife). Madison suggested that it seemed as though we were going off to different countries or something, and soon after did a loud impersonation of the weeping people with Jenny in the hallway outside the bathroom. After this incident, it was common to see groups of people crying throughout the rest of the day; as hard as Shannon, Alexis, and I tried, as obliged as we felt to contribute to the overall emotion of the day, we could not shed tears (though, as I predicted, I did when I came home).
After science, where I gave Mr. Samora a hug as well, we went to English, where we "roasted" people, or had them go up and listen to embarrassing stories about themselves. It was pretty hilarious, especially this one that Sara told about Mallory having an imaginary dog that supposedly lived in the attic. We hugged Mrs. Allman (who won't be coming back to teach next year) and left, and this was probably the closest I came to crying at school that day.
In math, we just messed around, played a round or two of truth or dare, and ate Ms. Vasili's yogurt, which I must confess was a bit too different for my liking; if my taste buds were more diverse, then, perhaps, I might have enjoyed it slightly more than I did. Then, as it neared time to leave, everyone hugged each other and Ms. Vasili, and we walked through the hallways to the outside world. I tried to pay close attention to every detail of the school I would likely never walk in again, ran my hand over the lockers, looked at the various shades of carpeting and linoleum. Some teachers high-fived us on the way out; then, in the bus lot, most of us sabotaged the teachers standing sentinel in the center with hugs (this was where I gave Mr. Talbert and Clauset my second hug) and then we moved on to the bus.
When I got home, my dad asked me if I could do the dishes and sweep, which I was glad to do, to keep my mind off of the weird sort of sadness that had started to settle in me with the realization of the disruption of three years of routine. Before I did this, though, I went upstairs and took a long bath; I got out a minute or so after I nearly drifted off, for sleeping is the last thing one would want to do in a place where drowning is even a slight possibility.
Then, I went downstairs and pulled up my Myspace music playlist, and blared it while I removed the clean dishes from our dishwasher and inserted the dirty ones from the sink; this was where I first cried. I had added the song, "Shake It," to the playlist because it had been stuck in my head all that day, and I was fine through that song, but something about "Vienna" by Billy Joel saddened me, and so I shed a few tears. Then, "Homeward Bound" by Simon and Garfunkel played, followed by the "Triple Concerto in C" by Beethoven, and I couldn't really shed too many tears over these.
Soon after this, Hope and Heather arrived home, and the latter retired upstairs for an hour or so; I played with Hope for a while, an activity that typically keeps my mind off things. Eventually, when I felt that I couldn't take another minute of playing with baby dolls, I brought the blocks out in front of the couch (playing with blocks was my favorite childhood pastime), turned on the TV to Hope's channel, and took a break.
My dad came home, we went out to dinner at Fudruckers (where we were waited on by Alice, who is one of the coolest waitresses in the world; if you're ever waited on by her at Fudruckers, you should tip her 150%!), and then we came home. My dad and I went to see Terminator at the Wynsong Theater, and from the commercials, I had thought that it would be pretty awesome, and it turned out even better than I had pictured it. It's the first future-esque war-with-machines movie that I have ever seen that has actually made me ponder how terrifying it would be if machines had independent intelligence. However, I was exhausted from being around crying people all day, and from crying myself, and so I drifted off during one part; I still recommend the movie, though. Then, my dad dropped me off at my mom's house and I went to bed. We will be going to my grandfather's house tomorrow, after a yard sale that will hopefully bring about some money for our planned trip at the end of the month to Ohio.