School Cycles

As I was running today, I passed a preschool. It must have been recess time, for all of the little kids were romping around outside and climbing on the play equipment as a couple of ladies watched on and joined in their games of tag. A few little girls stood near the fence and just watched me curiously as I ran by. I smiled and waved at them and then wondered, "In the future, what are those girls going to remember from today?"

I was in preschool fifteen years ago. I remember it like it was yesterday.

I remember being confused after the Christmas skit when not all of the refreshments tasted minty. Shouldn't refreshments taste minty?

I remember encountering the word 'pasty' for the first time when someone used it to describe the skin of new- and extremely pale- boy in my class.

I remember feeling embarrassed as my mom would wipe her lipstick off my cheek everyday after giving me a kiss when she'd dropped me off.

I remember being nervous when the teachers would test me to see if I could fit the right shaped blocks in the right shaped slots in a certain amount of time.

I remember walking around by the parking lot with some teacher on a drizzly day and picking up leaves for some project. I remember being confused by words and her having to explain to me the difference between leaves that grow on trees and 'leave', as in to exit a location. She also had to explain to me the difference between 'fall' the verb and 'Fall' the season. A leaf falls off the tree and leaves in the Fall.

I remember arguing with kids over who's turn it was to ride one of the tricycles.

I remember wondering what certain smells were at lunch when my classmates' foods were having high-frequency electromagnetic waves sent through them.

I remember getting sad and frustrated when trying to talk with one of my friends that only knew how to use some different, strange system of word-symbols called "Spanish." -Does she remember me? Do we speak the same language now? Or were we better at communicating as children?

I remember getting to sit in a chair while all of the other kids had to sit on the floor the day I had gotten my kindergarten shots.

I remember rehearsing the songs and my lines for "graduation." I remember being so proud as I put on my tiny red gown and cap with the tassel that said '96 on it. Singing about tulips in Holland and getting up on the make-shift stage to say my lines. Watching my sisters watch me as I delivered the words I had practiced so many times. The camera Shelly held in her hands to take pictures as I spoke. Its flash, and then being done with my part, and scared but excited to start kindergarten.
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I'm so excited to be working with kids that age when I'm in Russia. It's a little strange... After all these years of elementary, junior high, high school, and some college, I'm going back to preschool and kindergarten...

...And I don't think I could be any happier about it :)