What I have learned these past seven months...

I did it! I made it through my last two weeks of school. (And they were only a little bit as bad as I thought they would be) Last Friday I officially wrote my last exam. I am pretty confident that it went really good so now I am just waiting for my marks back. I have taken some time since Friday to think about my past seven months in class and have comprised a list of the top 10 things I have learned, some through observation, some from personal experience...

10- Teachers are hired because they really do know what they are talking about and we should listen to them
9- The girl that everyone else thinks is mean at first glance can end up being one of your favourite people
8- In every classroom you need a few allies, people you can really talk to without holding back
7- Every person has their off days where they are emotional and crazy and that is allowed
6- You truthfully don’t have to like everyone, but you have no excuse to be cruel to them
5- The no eating in the classroom rule only counts if the teacher actually catches you disobeying it
4- Participation marks really can make or break your grade and actually doing homework reading assignments and studying for tests can be very beneficial to your grades as well
3- You go into a classroom expecting to learn only about the topic at hand, and in turn you wind up learning more about yourself, others and life then you ever thought you would
2- Every person deserves the opportunity for you to take your time to get to know them and to let them get to know you, no matter what anyone else thinks about them
1- Talking bad about someone and/or behind their back gets you absolutely no where, but learning to speak out of kindness and love, gets you everywhere

So to Anelita, Azeb, Bev, Dana, Donna, George, Holly, Jackie, Jenelle, Julie, Katie, Luc, Maria, Matt, Robert, Sonali, Soraya, and Steve, thank you for all the memories of the past seven months. It was a gong show, but I still loved it and appreciate every one of you for your place in my journey through life.