Your Fourth Grade Majesty

Your Fourth Grade Majesty

                2004…. I know I say this in every post but these things are really making me feel old. I’m serious; I was sitting in my fourth grade classroom at this very moment eight years ago. Anyway, even though I feel like I’m a thousand years old, I can actually remember that year. Mrs. Smith was probably the coolest teacher ever. Not only had the women been a teacher for twenty something years but she had also taught in foreign countries and knew like twelve languages. And the best part of all; she is still one of the two elementary teachers that still remember me.  I learned so much in her class, but I also had a feeling that she had higher expectations of me than anybody else.  The only reason I believe this is because once again I was a legacy. But instead of my perfect older sister, who was a junior in high school at that point, it was both of my cousins. Josh the genius and Daniel the….. well its Daniel there is nothing really to say there because he really doesn’t have acuity in school subjects.  She loved both of them and knew what they had gone through… which I will not say because it’s esoteric and not really my place.  She had supported them in any way she could as they got older but unfortunately they were the cases that couldn’t be helped…. Both dropped out of high school. And no my cousins aren’t complete dumbasses… my aunt just didn’t care. See I found all this info out when I was in fourth grade. My cousin Josh, was the typical genius… all AP, Honors classes… you get the point. Anyway he apparently started getting bored in school because he wasn’t challenged enough and he fell into the wrong depraved crowd and eventually dropped out. His little brother… which was also a legacy had to live up to Josh’s academic standards, and just couldn’t do it. He was enervated compared to his brother and dropped out mid-freshman year. Needless to say, I was smarter than him back then.  So, living up to Mrs. Smith’s expectations of me was really hard… because of Josh.  And now that I look back on it, I’m kinda glad that she pushed me and my class. I mean what other fourth grade class would learn German?

                Sooo anyway the thing, I remember the most about fourth grade was the soiree. It was this huge hallow holiday party reserved for fourth graders, that everybody looked forward to.  Well at least the girls did. The guys weren’t as enthusiastic about it because they had to do etiquette training. They had to escort girls to the table, pull out their chairs, garner any food that the girls at the table required, etc... But for the girls, it was the one day we could dress up and not worry about school for the day. Anyway I remember my dress perfectly. It was this sumptuous gold, little girl version ball gown thing. I loved it. Anyway since my older sister worked at Libby-Liu at the time she had done my hair and put a mini tiara in it…. Believe it or not, I wasn’t the most overweening and overdressed person there. Anyway school started as usual but with one big difference. The kid that I had punched in first grade chose that day to get back at me…. No he didn’t hit me. He made a fiat that I was a princess and that since I apparently looked like a princess that every five seconds, he would bow going “your highness.”  Ok I will admit the first few times I had a small penchant feeling towards them and it was funny but after the fifth time it got annoying. Everybody was starting to get annoyed and then after the six hundredth time, Mrs. Smith told him to stop and if didn’t he gets fined. Yeah in fourth grade we had check books, and teachers would add or subtract money. Needless to say, he didn’t stop and I actually yelled at him. That was fun, because I still win.

Fourth grade song: Just the Girl by The Click Five