Yamilla and me got out of the car with our backpacks on our shoulders and our instrument cases clutched tightly in our fists, for me, it was the first day of middle school. Yamilla was already an expert at this; she was in 7th grade. I was a clean slate, not even knowing what could be behind the double doors. I stood with the other 6th graders seeing some familiar faces thinking,Wow! Everybody looks so much older! If anyone’s read the Diary of a Wimpy kid series, they know that from Greg’s point of view it seems like everyone has changed, people are taller, look more older, or purposely wearing make-up to make themselves look older. I was like Greg. It seemed like nothing about me changed at all, and everyone else looked older. Think of it this way, in 5th grade your one of the tallest kids in your grade, and when you start 6th grade you’re considered the “average height” for your age. Scary, right?
My friend Mitali came out of her car and immediately we both ran to each other. Me and Mitali had been best friends all of 5th grade, and even though she had come to my birthday party in the middle of summer, it seemed like a long time since I’d met her. Immediately I squealed at her “Unit! Unit! What unit are you in?!?!?!” With a happy look she said “Neptune!” I broke into my happy dance. In Crossroads North there were 3 units, Neptune, Comets and Polaris. If you and your friends got separated into different units seeing your friends would be very rare. I got into Neptune. Now I knew me and Mitali wouldn’t be separated for the rest of the year. The music teacher opened the door and everybody flooded in. The hallways were filled. I was holding Mitali’s hand but I could no longer feel the grip of her hands. I was lost in the middle of a bunch of 8th graders and the next thing I knew I was being pushed around by kids twice my size. I could see nothing other than people all around me. I was scared. Finally things started to clear up. I asked a teacher “Where is the Neptune unit?” She gestured me to follow her and we went all the way to the end of the school and turned left into the Neptune unit. “Thank you.” I said. 2 seconds before I turned into the hallway 8th graders came out of no where pushing me everywhere. I saw Mitali’s face somewhere and I felt her hand again as she pulled me into the Neptune hallway which wasn’t as crowded as the other one.
I thanked Mitali and went straight to my homeroom class. I passed by the team Neptune poster Neptune: Wisdom, power, spirit. The poster made me feel like I belong. I sat down in seat surprised that I was one of the first ones in the room even after all of that hallway chaos. I waited and my friend Jasmine came in. I started pointing to the chair next to me and she sat down there. “We have the same homeroom teacher!” she said. My homeroom teacher was Ms. Catanese. I realized she had done something different with her hair, it gave her a more . . . sophisticated look. I started talking to her when my classmate Lauren Brengel walked through the door. I wasn’t like a “friend” friend with Lauren but I didn’t dislike her. She sat down next to Jasmine because that was the only real table with Brooks Crossing girls. 3 1/2 schools go to Crossroads North. I think they’re Brooks Crossing, Cambridge, Momouth Junction and half of Green Brook. Lauren was telling us a story that she was so lost in the hallways that she walked into a different classroom altogether and embarrassed herself. Me and Jasmine started laughing at the story. It was already 10 minutes into class but Ms. Catanese was waiting for more people to come. There was one empty seat at our table. My singing teacher’s daughter, Ishwari Joshi walked in not quite later. She was my friend that I’ve been friends with ever since I started going to her mom’s house for singing lessons. She got to here the rest of Lauren’s story. A couple minutes later more people came in and Ms. Catenese started explaining procedures in Middle School. Everyone listened tentatively because it was there first day and everyone wanted to absorb as much information as they could. Then we took a tour of the school and tried to open our lockers. I started kicking my locker with frustration. It was literally impossible to get my locker open. Feeling defeated by my locker, I walked over to Health class.
Because it was our first day, we only had to go to our homeroom and go to encore, which was extra things the school gives to give you extracurricular things to do. My extracurricular (shortened to encore) for the first trimester was health. I walked to class and met my very sarcastic but funny teacher (she told us we were going to be learning about where babies come from, she started talking about this RIGHT before we ate Lunch. Wrong place . . . wrong time ). After health I went to lunch and got to nibble at the taste of freedom. In Elementary school we were assigned a seat at a table with our class to avoid confusion. In middle school we got to sit with whoever we wanted in any unit. Lunch was the only real time we get to socialize AT ALL. We could even talk to people out of our unit. I was super hungry but I couldn’t manage to eat my lunch because it tasted a bit weird so I forced myself to eat half my lunch, left myself hungry and walked to the assembly. The assembly was boring . . . dozed off a bit. Nothing I hadn’t heard before. Then came gym where by then my hunger had settled and I wasn’t so hungry anymore. At gym we laughed as the teachers made fun of each other and then got put into our weight/fitness classes. Then I heard about what we would have to bring and stuff like that. After that we went to the library. They made us go there so we would get to know people in our unit. The teacher gave us a paper where there were questions like “Find someone who was born in the same month as you and write their name. Find someone who goes to a different school than you and write their name.” and so on. The unit teachers were expecting us to go out of our way and actually introduce themselves to someone they already don’t know and try to get an answer for a question that way. I guess we weren’t too interested in meeting new people so we turned into a joke. I went up to Vishnu and said “Hello person I totally haven’t known since forever. Do you like to eat?” (that was one of the questions.) We all asked people we knew pretending we have no clue who they are and they answered back as if they were meeting for the first time as well. The teachers probably figured out but they didn’t really say anything. We went back to our homeroom classes and Ms. Catanese let us settle down and then showed us a video of a kid who opened his locker. Then she said it was time for us to try. I really wasn’t ready. I had already failed at least 20 times trying to open my locker. I tried. Didn’t work. Tried 2 more times. Didn’t work. Then I twisted my lock the opposite way and it opened. I was so happy. I did it again just to make sure I knew how to do it. I did it 5 more times to practice. Every time it opened I felt like I was getting more ready for Middle school. I locked my locker and went back to homeroom. We got a bunch of forms to take home and did a short activity where we had to decorate a paper trident for team spirit. (I am in Neptune, so Neptune is related to the sea and the king or queen of the Neptune sea carries a trident) After we were done for the day I walked home with Yamilla and her mom. I was ready to take on 6th grade.
Sneha Kandalgaonkar