Hello, my name is Gillian Graver, and this is officially my second year at Dobie Jr. High! I am now an eighth grader, and I am really excited to get further into the year. I do have some stories to tell about the first day of school, though.

I felt like the first week of school was a bit awkward for me. I felt really anxious because I missed both of the prep days while I was in Pennsylvania for the summer. I couldn’t get any sleep when it was the night of the first day.

Morning came and I got ready, wanting to go back to sleep so badly. I had my mom take me to school that day because I was so uneasy. I felt shaky, and I just wanted to back out and not go. When we got there, I my friends, and I thought I couldn’t be more relieved. They gave me a bunch of hugs and told me it was going to be okay.

We all went inside and I didn’t have my ID quite yet, and we talked for a bit. Then the bell rang, that’s when I really started to panic because things were different from last year. We had to check these big posters on the wall to see where we were going to go to get our schedules. I hurriedly got up and pushed through the crowd of students, trying to get to one of the posters.

I finally found my name and I saw that I was in my theatre class! I was so happy because I saw that one of my best friends, Maddison Grindel, was in the same class as me. I walked to my class, happy to know where I was going, and I saw a substitute teacher. I was very confused, thinking why Mrs. Adkison, the previous theatre teacher, wasn’t there. I sat down quietly, waving at some friends I knew last year as they walked into the classroom. That’s when the sub told us Ms. Adkison wasn’t coming back, and after hearing that, my heart sank like a cement block in water.

I really liked Ms. Adkison. She cheered me on when I was tense about something, saying I could do it, even if something’s difficult, but now, she’s gone. I got handed my schedule and I looked it over a bit, trying to figure out where the classes would be.

I saw that math was first period, which I was rather happy about, even though I don’t really like math. It will get me more determined to finish my math homework on time, unlike last year, when I had a lot of trouble with that. I had some of my first classes with Maddi and the bell rang and we both tried to find our math class.

We found it, thankfully and math went through like a breeze along with most of our other classes. All we were really doing was introducing ourselves, going through the expectations of the classroom, and etcetera. I also got lost on my way to one of my classes, but I asked for help and got there just fine! In short, I was very anxious for the first day, but it went better than I expected. Thank you for reading!