Bittersweet Ending

This has been the first time that I've ever cried about leaving school. Never, not even in Kindergarten, did I ever cry. But, well...I don't know. The best word to describe it is bittersweet. But I'll go with the good stuff fist.

Today was the last day of school for the 8th grade (everyone else gets out tomorrow). The school day was just us hanging out, going tot he park, eating ice cream, and preparing for the graduation that would take place later on that day. Got back home, worked for around 2 hours with clearing out the fire pit for the bonfire I'm going to have Saturday as a kind of summer celebration, than had a shower and dressed up in some snazzy dress clothes before going to the graduation at our school at 6:00. After chatting up with some friends and girls (who looked amazing in their graduation dresses), I was required to lead the line of 8th graders to the auditorium stage (which I guess is a big honor- I dunno). After we got seated, all the teachers made these big long speeches about how great of a class we were (and I have to admit, we are an awesome class) before handing out medals to all of us for "such a great year". Then they started with the awards: you know, highest academic achiever, best singer, etc etc. I ended up with some long service award for both band a strings (a shiny nice medal to boot) and, most surprisingly of all, the athletic award. I mean, I'm pretty athletic, but no where near what some of the other people in the grade are. Moment of shock there...the rest were pretty predictable, with the exception of a few here and there (one of my friends got the geography award while the other got the...friendliest person award? best student? something like that. Proud of them both) The teachers started actually crying when they gave an award to honor a teacher who died a while back (the one which my second friend, Kimmy, got), which made me feel really, really bad. Then a couple of chorus kids started singing In My Life by the Beatles, and I almost choked up right then and there. two or three started crying in fact. it was really, really well done.

After that was the graduation party. They started playing the hour-long 8th grade video while we were eating on the projection board, which had video clips and pictures from kindergarten up to 8th grade. that was about it...my friend Andrea started crying, so did Kodie and Kylie. After given pretty long hugs to every girl in the 8th grade to say goodbye- another time when I almost chocked up when giving a few hugs with some girls that I knew that I would never see again (and I gave a few bro hugs here and there, I'll admit it).

After saying final farewells, 8 of my friends and I headed to the local pizza place, Mellow Mushroom, and pretty much just hanged for an hour or so. It was a really, really fun time...going to miss a lot of these people, even If I'm going to be hanging out with a most of them this summer anyhow. Thinking about asking one of the girls out this summer...not going to say her name as my parents sometimes read this, but I'm going to go for it later on.

So, yes. Bittersweet is the best word to describe the day. probably one of the best days I've had in a long, long time, but Its been really sad leaving all these good memories behind. After 9 or so years with most of these people (and a class of only 35 at the highest) we've grown into more of a family than a class...we were all friends there, and it is always hard to leave your friends behind. But anyhow, it was a very, very good way to kick off the summer. Going to the pool and heading uptown tomorrow to hang with a lot of my friends that I'm not yet ready to "let go of" yet. Also, I'm inviting 12 or so of my closest friends to a bon fire Saturday too...this is going to be a very, very good summer.



found this when i got home. that was it, I cried. The most un-manly thing that i could do, but it couldn't be helped. This is the song sung by the chorus at grad- to everyone in the 8th grade, I'm going to miss you all!