junior high
Image by Eugene Ivanov /Shutterstock.
This past spring break, I took my 14-year old daughter to the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center.
My daughter has had a difficult middle school experience, especially these last two years. This last year, we have both, in describing it, used the word “hell.”
We have been frequently at odds in these months, my daughter and me. I often feel that I have failed her, that I have failed myself.
One point of connection has been her explorations around World War II and the Holocaust. She has read books about it — novels, mostly. We have watched movies that, in my naiveté, I didn’t imagine she would watch for a while. There have been questions, discussions, recollections of stories her grandfather, a WWII vet who is now deceased, once shared with her, with me. There have been nightmares, too, where I wonder if we are, yet again, making the best choices in our twisting, turning journey through this year, this path.
Mr. Bean (aka Rowan Atkinson). Image via Wylio, http://bit.ly/yhrTu0.
Allow me to share with you a list of characters I’ve been told that I look like. I got all of these when I was in elementary, junior high, and high school.
- Screech
- Mr. Bean
- Ernie of Bert and
- Boy George
- The elf that wants to be a dentist from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Imagine being a 12-year-old boy and all of your classmates agree that you look like the nerd on Saved by the Bell. Not exactly a confidence booster when it comes time to ask a girl if she wants to — as I remember the phrase —“go out with you.”
But that was me. Scrawny. Brainy. Goofy. Religious. Socially-awkward. I sucked at sports, but could sing and act, which were gifts that no adolescent male wanted back then. These were the days before, High School Musical, American Idol, and Justin Bieber. Go figure.
Cafeteria tray and food. Via http://www.wylio.com/credits/Flickr/2033876359
Each day leading until Christmas we will post a different video rendition of the "Hallelujah Chorus" for your holiday enjoyment and edification.
Today Handel's "Hallelujah" is brought to you by the junior high students from Oostburg Christian School in Oostburg, Wisconsin.
Oost!
The OCS kids stated their own tween version of a "Hallelujah" flash mob in the school cafeteria. The resulting video of their impromptu-ish performance is heartwarmingly earnest and awkward. Just like junior high itself (in its best moments.)
Watch the video inside...