Prompt: Focus on elementary school. Here you will focus on K-6. Be sure to write about friends and things you did together. Talk about school memories. Be sure to include something about your elementary school love.
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My K-6th grade experience was unlike any other account that I've heard of. [FSAE: I enjoyed ending sentences with prepositions then; I enjoy the same now.] I was the only kid in my grade for the longest time, and I skipped the second grade, because my parents knew I was smart enough. [Uh. I wasn't too conceited; my teachers suggested it.] But let me back up and say I actually started school a year ahead of most kids, because my birthday was on the either-or slope of winter-born babies. [My birthday is November 18. I'm not a winter baby.] Since my birthday is November 18 [Doh.], my parents also decided to send me to school a year earlier than normal. My earliest memories of school were in a tiny room, as large as my present bedroom [~25' x 25'], with a stern old lady [Mrs. Jocilyn Warren] teaching all 10 of the kids from Kindergarten to sixth grade. That lady, Mrs. Warren [I give up. I've forgotten I used to write fairly sporadically short sentences. No more commentary, future self!], only taught me Kindergarten and first grade before a new teacher, Miss Kim, taught me from third to sixth grade.
Miss Kim really expected perfection, like my Asian mother.. They got along quite well, indeed! Looking back, it was her tutelage that inspired the perfectionist streak in me, and her heavy burdens have provoked me to scoff at Valley Christian's workload. I don't know if that's a good thing or not [FSAE: Breaking my rule...it most certainly is a good thing.], but that's how I see things. She was a private tutor before she began teaching at Covenant Christian Academy. Oh, right; that's the name of my school. No, you haven't heard of it. It's located in a tiny alcove in Little Saigon in Westminster. In my year of Kindergarten, it was located in Garden Grove, but the school moved to share space from its endorsing church, Westminster OPC. In front of the church was a wide expanse of open grass, probably about 10,000 square feet, with rolling hills and trees separating the church's parking lot from the street. I remember playing there whenever we were let out on that side of the church, but a retirement home has since bought that land and had finished building its property by the second time I enrolled in sixth grade. Second time, you ask? My parents agreed to compensate for my early age because of my skipping second grade with sending me to sixth grade again, whilst being taught/tutored by Mrs. Sim (Miss Kim got married before my sixth grade [which one, I can't remember!) to Peter Sim, hence the name change.) more extensively in higher levels of education.
Because my school was so tiny (and I live in an area of Long Beach that has mainly older folks), I never really had the typical "childhood crush" like most other kids [FSAE: Not that I regret it.]. However, there was one girl I remember I always competed with, for some reason. Her name is Christine Lehart, and we used to always compete for first place in sprints like kids do. Being fast helped back then! We would rule any kind of game of tag, colors, capture the flag, steal the bacon, or other games involving running (including, if I may, running the mile). [FSAE: Oh. This was after I'd ran cross country, reader, so bear with the silly "runner's high" comments. I'll plead insanity on multiple accounts of endorphins.] We're still friends today, although not quite as close friends as we were, since we've headed separate ways in high school [and now, college].
What a strange childhood I had! But aren't they all? I only got what I needed, as God planned ahead of time.
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My K-6th grade experience was unlike any other account that I've heard of. [FSAE: I enjoyed ending sentences with prepositions then; I enjoy the same now.] I was the only kid in my grade for the longest time, and I skipped the second grade, because my parents knew I was smart enough. [Uh. I wasn't too conceited; my teachers suggested it.] But let me back up and say I actually started school a year ahead of most kids, because my birthday was on the either-or slope of winter-born babies. [My birthday is November 18. I'm not a winter baby.] Since my birthday is November 18 [Doh.], my parents also decided to send me to school a year earlier than normal. My earliest memories of school were in a tiny room, as large as my present bedroom [~25' x 25'], with a stern old lady [Mrs. Jocilyn Warren] teaching all 10 of the kids from Kindergarten to sixth grade. That lady, Mrs. Warren [I give up. I've forgotten I used to write fairly sporadically short sentences. No more commentary, future self!], only taught me Kindergarten and first grade before a new teacher, Miss Kim, taught me from third to sixth grade.
Miss Kim really expected perfection, like my Asian mother.. They got along quite well, indeed! Looking back, it was her tutelage that inspired the perfectionist streak in me, and her heavy burdens have provoked me to scoff at Valley Christian's workload. I don't know if that's a good thing or not [FSAE: Breaking my rule...it most certainly is a good thing.], but that's how I see things. She was a private tutor before she began teaching at Covenant Christian Academy. Oh, right; that's the name of my school. No, you haven't heard of it. It's located in a tiny alcove in Little Saigon in Westminster. In my year of Kindergarten, it was located in Garden Grove, but the school moved to share space from its endorsing church, Westminster OPC. In front of the church was a wide expanse of open grass, probably about 10,000 square feet, with rolling hills and trees separating the church's parking lot from the street. I remember playing there whenever we were let out on that side of the church, but a retirement home has since bought that land and had finished building its property by the second time I enrolled in sixth grade. Second time, you ask? My parents agreed to compensate for my early age because of my skipping second grade with sending me to sixth grade again, whilst being taught/tutored by Mrs. Sim (Miss Kim got married before my sixth grade [which one, I can't remember!) to Peter Sim, hence the name change.) more extensively in higher levels of education.
Because my school was so tiny (and I live in an area of Long Beach that has mainly older folks), I never really had the typical "childhood crush" like most other kids [FSAE: Not that I regret it.]. However, there was one girl I remember I always competed with, for some reason. Her name is Christine Lehart, and we used to always compete for first place in sprints like kids do. Being fast helped back then! We would rule any kind of game of tag, colors, capture the flag, steal the bacon, or other games involving running (including, if I may, running the mile). [FSAE: Oh. This was after I'd ran cross country, reader, so bear with the silly "runner's high" comments. I'll plead insanity on multiple accounts of endorphins.] We're still friends today, although not quite as close friends as we were, since we've headed separate ways in high school [and now, college].
What a strange childhood I had! But aren't they all? I only got what I needed, as God planned ahead of time.
I <3 Little Saigon. And the Winslows and Warrens houses. :D
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