Lincoln Elementary School.
I started out the year really excited. It was a new school, a new teacher, new classmates! I was even going to have guitar lessons in my music class! But as the year progressed I found myself getting bored. The class sizes really weren't that different, the teacher was nice but the lessons weren't usually very interesting and the other children were still just as rude as ever.
On my bus, the driver had chosen me to be one of the bus patrols... At first this was exciting too! I got to be helpful and had the responsibility of memorizing the route in case the driver got sick and we had a substitute driver. But I soon found out this wasn't so great either, because the other kids on the bus didn't like that I would remind them to sit in their assigned seats or ask them to quiet down when it was getting too noisy. But I was only doing what the driver asked me to...
The last straw for me happened on the bus. The day came that our regular driver was sick and we had a substitute driver. This was the MOST important part of my job as bus patrol. I had the route memorized and everything was going fine until one of the older girls on the bus realized I was giving the driver instructions and decided to get out of her seat to give the driver instructions too. Pretty soon the driver took a wrong turn and we were lost. I was really upset with the older girl for what she did. I told her she should get back in her seat so I could help the driver get us home. She knew the driver was worried about finding the route and wasn't watching so she slugged me in the gut and told me to shut up.
The rest of the ride I didn't say anything. I didn't bother trying to help the driver at all. The driver had to call the bus headquarters to get back on track several times. Normally I would get home by four o'clock, but that day it took a whole extra hour. When I came home at 5 o'clock my mother was very worried and asked what happened. I told her what happened and that I never wanted to go back to school again. She had homeschool her other kids before me and was fine with allowing me to stay home. But when the driver found out what had happened she called and begged me to come back, even the school called. But I was done. I appreciated that the adults cared, but I just didn't want to deal with the other kids.
So it was that I began my homeschooling. I found it way more enjoyable because it usually meant playing educational games with my parents and when we came across a question we didn't know the answer to we would do research. I loved it.
