Shila Travels: Middle School Time Warp

Think back to your former self in grades six, seven, and eight. If I'm guessing correctly (I bet I am), it was probably a strange, strange time to be alive. Of course middle school is weird! You're like, literally growing into yourself, and people are starting to take you a little bit seriously, but you don't really have freedom, dating is suddenly this big confusing focus, the social scene is super touchy and mysterious, you still don't quite know what is going on in the world, and you have a lot of feelings most of the time. Teachers focus a lot on "picking the right paths", and there's this new pressure about "the future" and "going to university."

I mean, I was practically a Hanson brother back then. The word on the street was that I stuffed my bra (lies!) and this photo chronicles the recovery period after THE haircut (you know, the one that was 100% too short and you couldn't style it and your mom cried?).

I think we can all agree that middle school is just a flat out weird time.

So for me, as a newly 25 year old woman, it's a little weird to be living in such close contact with middle schoolers. A few things happen:

- I'm constantly reminded of all the weird things that happen in middle school that my brain had evidently sealed off
- I feel HUGELY compassionate for my girls, especially when they have major emotional moments and unexpectedly mature existential crises
- I realize that no matter how many affirming/soothing things I tell their stressed hearts and minds, a lot of it might not really ring true for a while (things like: be yourself, it will be okay, this test won't matter in the grand scheme, and this is probably not who you are going to marry)

The thing is, they just need to get a few more years of life under their belts so they can do what I'm doing now, which is look back and laugh and maybe give a sigh of relief that middle school is in the past.

This job certainly stays interesting though! In some ways my position is slack compared to a full blown teaching job. We get to hang out and eat with the kids, our programming is fun, and we don't have to deal with curriculum and planning. On the other hand though, we are dealing with the kids when they are OUT of the classroom, which means that they are probably slightly more relaxed. I have a suspicion that when that 3:55 bell goes off, their best behaviour goes with it.

Anywayyyyyy.
In other news, I turned 25 on 09/09 and it feels great to reach a quarter of a century. I am pretty on board with aging since I feel like I'm becoming more myself all the time. I have a tiny section of grey hairs starting (no joke) and I think they look badass. My birthday was a great day!

The girls decorated the board and sang for me.

This AMAZING thing was given to me by Maggie, my colleague. You just add water and the Jeju moss grows!

Cutting out the cupcakes for our birthday wall.

I have also been exploring quite a bit so here are some lovely photos:

Two seconds from our campus.

The right side is the middle school and the left is high school

Some fun shells I found at the beach

When you touch the sand here, it never ever leaves you.
The little shell pieces vacuum seal to your skin and
you find sand in weird places like, a week after you swam