Welcome to the ninth grade!

With all the drama that took place during the summer of 1978, I was ready to return to school. I would be entering the ninth grade. Although in most places, that marks the beginning of high school, it just meant the end of junior high for me and everyone else who lives in Artesia.

One thing no one ever explained to me (including my parents, who were both teachers) is that for the first time in my education, my grades were actually going to count for something. They would be used for my transcript that would be accessed by colleges that I would apply to.

I should also explain that I went through a strange phase during the summer in which I didn't expect to see myself going to college. At this point in my life, I wanted to be a cartoonist and sort of didn't know what college was going to help me to make that my career. However, I also had no idea how I was going to make a living being a cartoonist. I just thought you set out for something and it just happens. When I read Charles M. Schulz' autobiography, it just appeared that he didn't have a set plan for accomplishing what he did in life. Things just happened to go his way. My parents weren't very clear about what was waiting for me after I got out of high school. They had no idea how cartoonists got started, either.

And I appeared to be getting really sick of school at this point. Eight solid years of frustrating education can really wear on someone and I just felt like blowing off steam and my classes. I just wasn't aware of the consequences. Eighth grade would have been a better year to goof off. I wish I had gotten all that out of my system then. I could have probably landed a higher rank in the Class of 1982 and graduated with honors or better.

However, I guess that didn't really matter in the end. It wasn't like I was trying to go to Harvard or Yale. But it would have been nice to have left school with a higher rank and grade point average. As it was, I was number 22 out of 200 students in my graduating class. I missed the 10% mark, but that's because about 20 students didn't complete all their requirements needed to actually graduate.

So, the ninth grade had its challenges. Coming up in a future post, I will be examining my biggest challenge for the year: Choir.