Eighth Grade Me

My job is fun. The eighth graders are going to have to do a final project called "The Future Project," where they do things such as researching professions, colleges, etc. to find out what they might want to do with their futures. They are going to put a bunch of different things on a display board (think the tri-fold science fair boards), and we are going to display all of their boards at the eighth grade graduation. Good idea, huh? Thanks. I thought of it myself. Anyway, I'm making an example board to show them before we even start the process so that they can see an example of the finished project. It's quite funny, actually...I'm sending letters to colleges pretending to be an eighth grader so I can see what kind of stuff I get back.

On the left side of their tri-fold board, the students are going to display two essays: "Who I Am Now," and "Who I Will Be in Fifteen Years." For my example board, I wrote two essays from the perspective of my eighth grade self. It was way too much fun, and I decided to share them with you here:

Who I Am Now:

My name is Christine Knasel. I am an eighth grade student at Kalamazoo Christian Middle School in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I am fourteen years old, and I guess you could say that I am a lot like other fourteen-year-old girls: I enjoy shopping, staying up late talking to my friends, playing volleyball, and wearing sparkly lip gloss.

My favorite subject is Language Arts. It is mostly my favorite subject because I love to read and write, but it is also my favorite subject because during Language Arts class I sit by this really cute guy named Andrew. I don’t think he likes me back, but oh well. I still like Language Arts. My proudest accomplishment this year was winning a writing contest put on by my local newspaper, The Kalamazoo Gazette. I wrote a short story called “All I Wanted Was Mountain Dew.” I got my story published in the paper, and I also won $25.

Here are a few of my other favorites: my favorite movie is Pirates of the Caribbean. My favorite book is Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix. My favorite color is pink, and my favorite thing to do in my spare time is to write. A few things I hate are running, tomatoes, detention (which I have only ever had once), zits, that really bad perm that I got on my 14th birthday, spiders, and Andrew's girlfriend (but don’t tell her I said that).

All in all, eighth grade has been a great year. I would say that it’s been my best year ever. I love all of my friends, and I’m sure we will be friends forever. Bonds made in middle school will not ever be broken.

Who I Will Be in Fifteen Years:

In fifteen years, I will be married to an amazing guy. I will be twenty-nine years old, verging on that scary number thirty (when I will be practically old). It won’t really matter, though, because I will already be married, so that guy will have to like me even when I get old and wrinkly and senile and forget his name because I’m so old that I forget everything.

I will be a teacher, hopefully for middle school Language Arts, but I won’t live in Michigan anymore. Michigan is too cold. I want to move somewhere warmer where I can see palm trees every day. I have had fourteen years of snow, and that is enough for me. I am really sick of snow. Plus, I want to have three dogs, and walking them in the snow every day will be very annoying. Walking them next to palm trees will be fun. I will have a beagle, a pug, and a stray mutt that my husband and I found wandering the streets. We really only wanted two dogs, but we took in the third one because she was so pathetically cute. We will live in a nice house with our very own palm trees in front of it and a pool in the back yard.

Even though I love teaching, that doesn’t make very much money. Therefore, when I’m not teaching I will be writing books. By the time I’m twenty-nine I probably will not have achieved winning a Newberry Medal for children’s literature, but I will be well on my way. I will have published at least three books by then, and they just keep getting better and better. I’m sure my big break will come eventually, and I will definitely have the Newberry Medal by the time I am forty (another scary “old” number).

Life will be awesome, because when I’m twenty-nine I can do whatever I want. I will be able to drive, stay out as late as I want, make money and spend it on whatever I want, and eat junk food as often as I like. Sometimes I might even eat candy for breakfast just because I can. Being twenty-nine will be the best.




I hope you enjoyed those. They made me miss eighth grade a little bit. :-)