Baby Book Observations

I've been trying to get the paperwork together to register my car in Utah and get a driver's license here.  I ended up digging through a box of stuff my mom collected over the years and then gave me a few years ago in order to try and find my birth certificate.  I made the following observations/discoveries.

A.  My baby book is no longer in this box.  I assume my mom has it somewhere, which I totally understand.  Unfortunately I know that my birth certificate is with my baby book so I guess I won't be keeping my driver's license appointment on Thursday.

B.  Teachers are crazy.  I found a report card of mine from my freshman year where I had all A's and a B+.  Not too shabby.  But 5 of my 6 teachers gave me a #4 in the comment box which equals "ATT/Tardies Affect Work."  Why is that all capitalized?  I don't know.  Was I absent a whole bunch during my freshman year?  I don't remember being sick a lot.  And seriously, how much could these supposed missed classes have been affecting my school work if I just had the one B+ in geometry?  It just seems crazy that 5 of my teachers checked that box.  Maybe it was a computer glitch.

C.  My arch nemesis Mr. Jones really was evil.  In 6th and 7th grade I played percussion for Mr. Jones in the school band.  I hated band primarily because of him.  I even had a nightmare once where he was a Nazi and I was hiding from him.  He would lose his temper randomly and just start screaming at people.

His instrument was also percussion and he was always trying to get me to take it more "seriously."  He had all these dreams of me getting a college scholarship and going on to become a great percussionist.  My own band dreams went no further than junior high.  He was always trying to get me to come to the band room during lunch to get some extra practice or play around on his drum kit.  He also always wanted me to take home this portable xylophone over the weekend to practice more.  I don't think he realized that I had to lug that thing about a mile to get it home and back.  I only took it home one time when I knew it was raining and my mom would pick me up.  Plus when I played it at home it was super loud which I'm sure my family enjoyed.

So anyways, while I was looking through my box of baby stuff I found a certificate from Mr. Jones where he had named me "Challenger Band Outstanding Musician" for my 7th grade year.  I started feeling kind of bad about harboring this negative view of Mr. Jones all these years.  Maybe he wasn't a totally crazy individual who shouldn't have been allowed to interact with children.  Maybe he really was just this frustrated musician who was trying to pass his passion for music on to his students.  Or maybe not.

Later when I was looking at some old report cards I found one from 7th grade where he gave me comments #3 and #6.  Those equal "Achieving Below Ability" and "Assignments Not Completed Regularly/On Time."  Again with the capitalization.  And he only gave me a B.

Now what made him suddenly make me "Outstanding Musician"out of the whole band that very same year if I was such a lazy slacker?  I will tell you.  It was a bribe.  After 7th grade I had so had enough of that crazy teacher.  Unfortunately he made us fill out these forms a couple weeks before school got out where we committed to being in band the next year or not, and I was brave/foolish enough to write that I would be leaving for greener pastures.  He made me stay after class to talk about it and tried to talk me into staying.  Fortunately 7th grade me realized that it would be easier to face his immediate wrath rather than spend another year with him and I stuck to my guns.  And lo and behold, Mr. Jones suddenly got super nice and gave me the award at the end-of-year awards assembly and even an A on my final report card.

So have I been misjudging him all these years?  That certificate almost tricked 31-year-old me, but luckily I was a bit more perceptive at age 11 and managed to escape Mr. Jones.

D.  I don't have anyone to share my baby box with.  This one is a "woe is me/pity party" one so feel free to skip.  Whenever I looked at this stuff before (old report cards and awards, funny stories I wrote, pictures of me growing up, etc.), I thought about how fun it would be to show this stuff to my kids someday, and then tonight it hit me that I don't have anyone to show my box to and I probably never will. And I know it's totally my fault, but it still sucks.