The year 2020 to 2021, the last year in middle school, will always be one of my favorite school years. We were the top dogs, the 8th graders. There are numerous memories I have made that year, but also just starting off the year there were multiple, hard obstacles. This was a brand new year, a brand new me, and the first year with coronavirus.
At the beginning of 2020, a new virus struck mankind and set the whole world silent with a mask over our faces. This virus was new and was nothing like people have ever seen. It is called Coronavirus or Covid-19. This virus traveled through the air where we could breathe it in and exhale it out setting and spreading a world pandemic. Now for better protection from this deadly virus, we wear masks, social distance by 6 feet, disaffected everything, etc. Covid-19 didn’t just affect our health but also our education. By having this virus with us, we were online for the end of the 7th-grade year. This affected us for the beginning 8th-grade year. We were online all over again. At first, it seemed great not having to go to school, being online at home, not having to really be there for school, but as we kept doing online school was boring. We weren’t able to be with our friends, we couldn’t do sports, we had to wear a mask every time we went out, and couldn't really understand the lessons we were learning. It was just a whole mess. Then gradually they finally let us go back to school but still with restrictions.
We were finally able to go back to school if we wanted to. It was better being at school rather than online since you can actually speak to people, be with friends. But also when online students wouldn’t speak out, we wouldn’t understand some of the lessons, or we would get distracted easily by our electronic devices. When we were back at school I was finally able to meet my amazing teachers. I had Mr. Skipper again for 8th-grade encounters and ELAR, for science I had Ms. Pingsterhaus, for Spanish I had Ms. Garica, athletics I had Coach Wait, Coach Aubrey, and Mr. Jessie, for algebra I had Ms. Fox, etc. As you can tell these were my favorite teachers. Sadly for encounters, we were able to finish our car from last year nor able to papier-mache.
Also, when we went back to school, I was finally able to see all of my friends. I have really missed them by being online. And just it being our last school in middle school, I want to make as many memories as we can with my closest friends. Some of my closest friends are Idalis, Arianna, Alexis, Camila, Jade, etc. Thankfully I was able to make so many memories.
Thankfully we were able to still do sports. I still went ahead and did all of the sports volleyball, basketball, and track. And was on A team for everything again. Volleyball was our best year. It has felt like such a long time since we last played. This year for volleyball we weren’t able to have one of our amazing coaches Ms. Damante. But we were able to still go off strong by losing only 3 games. For the end of our volleyball season, we had our annual last 8th-grade game which was WAMS against GPMS at Galena Park Highschool. Last year in 7th grade we lost against them. But this 8th-grade year we destroyed Galena Park by having both A team and B team win. And we were able to show off our skills to high school coaches. We all cried in celebration of winning and it is the last time we ever play with each other as a whole team ever again. Then the whole team went out to Brewings to eat. Also, for track I was able to win multiple races by running the long distance races like the mile and the mile ½.
Everything was going great, sports turned out to be a great year, I had all A’s, I had amazing teachers, everything was fine. But something came up that took my family into shock. My grandfather was diagnosed with cancer. We took it hard at first. A lot of my family was crying, but we were able to take on this challenge. Thankfully he started taking treatment and the cancer is getting smaller and is not spreading.
In conclusion, this year was basically a mess, some good came out of it though. But I’m really going to miss this school with all of my favorite teachers. And with all of my favorite memories. It’s going to be hard to leave WAMS. At times it doesn’t even feel like we are in 8th grade or even the fact that we are 8th graders. I still feel like a 7th grader most of the time. I think that I have grown so much for my 6th-grade self. Just starting out middle school at a whole new school with no one I know. And now I’m leaving this school as an 8th grader and going to start a new adventure as a freshman in high school. I’m going to miss everyone who isn’t going to Galena Park High school. I’m really going to miss this place. But now it is time to start a new adventure in high school.