A room to reminisce

THE FIRST ARCHIVES- A poetic journey into and through adolescence

A room to reminisce

Being in this seventh grade English class allows me to become nostalgic and reminisce about when I was in seventh grade.

The class is filled with about twenty miniature adults, most of them still seeming innocent and not yet having an encounter with puberty. A boy arrives late and almost refuses to sit next to me. Prejudice, shyness, innocence? All have been taken into consideration; I chose to opt for innocence.

As the class continues memories float back into my head, I am twelve again. I can see myself in the eyes of all the little girls. I am the shy girl sitting at the back and the loud girl who sits at the corner of the room. I am the smartest and the student who just needs more encouragement. I have lived fragments of each student in this class or rather, one might say they are living segments of mine.

As the teacher shushes the students I am propelled into the future. I am five years older than I was a minute ago my spelling days are over, but its nice to know that some parts of us will always be lived through others after us.

- I had plenty of free lessons while I was studying my AS level in grade 13. So on this day I opted to stay in my English literature class room, where my teacher was teaching the grade seven students. Here they were just starting out high school and I, just about to finish. I had a moment to put to paper what was on my mind.