School Stories That's All Folks I was always jealous of my older sister. She was only one year older, but to children that year can be an eternity. I always wanted to do what she did and so I was especially envious when she started going to school. Finally it was my turn to go. I was so excited. I remember that on the first day of school my mother walked me there and delivered me to the classroom. Now that I had finally got to go to school, I thought that it was okay. Not as exciting as I thought it would be but fine. The bell rang and the teacher escorted everyone out and I immediately walked home. My mother was very surprised to see me and asked what was wrong. As it turned out I came home at recess. I thought the school day was over. Mom took me back after lunch even though I wasn't much interested now that I had finally found out what school was all about. Although my introduction to school was a little unusual, I developed into one of those kids who really liked school and did well. LD, Kelowna How Many? As a child of a career soldier, all of our family's summer holidays were spent moving around and across the country. By the time I graduated (for the second time!) from high school, I had attended 15 different schools. I attended two different schools for grades 3, 5, 8 and 12. People always ask, "Wasn't that hard?" And I always answer, "No, to us it was normal. It was the only life we knew." It did have many pluses. You learned very quickly to make friends, fit in, and handle all kinds of different situations. In higher grades, the school communities tended to be very clique-ish and it wasn't easy to fit in with the "in" crowd. I tended to make friends with the more interesting kids, sort of the "fringe" element. I joined the audio-visual club which was great because we got to do all the public announcements over the school's public address system, operate audio-visual equipment for events and teachers who couldn't figure out the equipment; did sets and makeup for the drama department and was on the decorating committee for school functions. This was great because you met like-minded people. We weren't necessarily really interested in all of these things but it sure got us out of a lot of classes. KL, Victoria Top Faint I discovered in high school that the sight of blood makes woozy and faint. My grade 10 biology teacher was young and drop-dead handsome. All the girls in the class had huge crushes on the guy. In one class we learned out how to type our blood. The teacher took a sharp blade and attempted to puncture his finger to get squeeze out a drop of blood to put on a slide. I was sitting near the front and watched his repeated attempts to draw blood. I remember being a little light headed as he stabbed away. After many tries he finally drew blood and I fainted dead away. I came to with this handsome, concerned face looking down on me. He scooped me up and carried me outside to a staircase where we sat for the remainder of the period as I recovered. All the other girls were really jealous. I still pass out at the sight of blood but don't mind it as each episode brings back memories of my first faint. GK, Chilliwack Biology When I was in Grade 11 I had my tonsils out. I asked the doctor if I could have them. No one had ever asked him for his or her tonsils before. I told him that our class had just been studying tonsils among other things in Biology class and they would be cool to have. He came to visit me shortly after the surgery bearing a formaldehyde-filled glass jar with two big ragged red blobs in it. Definitely stomach turning but I understood a little better why my throat hurt so much. It had two big holes in it! Needless to say, they were a big hit with the kids in my class. The teacher thought I was a little strange. But he labeled the jar "Sarah's Tonsils", dated it and placed it on a shelf in the Lab. When I went back to the school for our 10th reunion I stopped by the Biology lab and sure enough, "Sarah's Tonsils" are still there on the shelf. SG, Edmonton Top