Re: I miss UPA by Christy Nghe

After reading Christy's post about how she misses her old middle school, I decided to write about how I feel about leaving mine. In her blog she states:

  For the one's that when to UPA or Urban Promise Academy, at some point we all disliked that school. I wouldn't use hate because hate is a strong word. UPA is an okay school ... one thing I disliked about that school is the fact that they have Homework Detention. Homework Detention is pretty self explanatory, if you do not do your homework they simply mark you down and you would have to come after school and finish it... I really miss UPA though, I miss all my friends and teachers... Looking back at my times at UPA I wish I can go back.

Christy's school sounds a lot like the middle school I went to. They were very strict about students completing their homework and during my 6th, and part of 7th grade year, they would make us stay in at lunch if we didn't complete our work from the night before. Eventually they changed the rules and our grades would just be effected if we didn't turn in our work. This strategy worked for some students, but obviously you're going to have some kids that don't really care about their grades. However, when the teachers made us stay in for lunch if we didn't do our work, a lot of kids, including myself on occasion, would go into the bathroom before class started and finish it there. Since every single assignment we had from the night before was checked at the same time during homeroom, there would be large groups of girls in the bathroom finishing their work. When they were done, students would cautiously emerge from the bathroom so that they wouldn't be caught by any teachers. It was a very bad habit, but it was hard to break.

I can also relate to Christy when she says that at one point, she disliked her school. When I first began middle school I absolutely hated it. I begged my parents to let me transfer for about the first half of my 6th grade year. Unfortunately, they wouldn't change their mind, and surprisingly I'm kind of glad they didn't. I really liked my 7th grade year of middle school. Sure, there was drama that made me wish I went to a different school at times, but what made it bearable was having my friends with me. I made amazing friends in 7th grade who were honestly the main reason why I didn't really mind going to school because there wasn't anyone at home to talk to but my parents. :) There were definitely times when we would complain that we hated our school though. In our 8th grade year we kept on talking about how we couldn't wait to graduate and leave. We obviously didn't fully realize what we would be leaving behind until the day of graduation when we were all crying on stage, hugging each other, saying that we didn't want to leave one another. Some of us even admitted that we were going to miss some of our teachers.

Now, I still keep in contact with my old schoolmates over Facebook or text messaging, but we don't really get to see each other as much now that we all go to different schools. It is especially challenging for me to visit them since I go to school in Alameda and they all go to schools in San Francisco.  Now that I am actually gone, I miss my middle school sooo much. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy ASTI and my new friends here, but I also miss my old ones from middle school. I guess this goes to show you, you don't know what you have until it's gone.