Daughter Number Three at 12

Twelve years ago today I started this blog.

At age 12, I was just starting 7th grade, the second year of middle school. We didn't purchase my school photo for that year so this is the closest I can get: a sleepy Christmas-morning Instamatic snapshot, without my glasses. 

I loved my math teacher that school year even though I didn't always do well in her class (set theory, among other things... New Math had finally come to my small town). Mrs. Myers was a SUNY-Albany grad who told us she had been a GDI (goddamn independent, meaning she hadn't joined a sorority). She helped us start a Future Teachers of America club and we had picnics at her house a couple of times; that was probably the first time I thought of a teacher as a person as well as an authority figure.

This is the year I lost the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire book in social studies. It's also the only year I had gender-segregated home economics. And the year I sometimes spent recess indoors in my English teacher's classroom playing Battleship with my other nerdy friends.

My grades were moderately bad, at least compared to those of my older sisters: low to mid-80s in English, science, and math, though around 90 in social studies. The teachers' comment marks were generally about how I was courteous and cooperative or worked satisfactorily. I missed 4.5 days of school total, so I guess I was pretty healthy, compared to most of my earlier school years. I was finally starting to read for pleasure, including lots of science fiction.

My main recollection of that time period is that puberty is hard. Thank goodness blogs don't go through it.

__

My past anniversary posts, each with age-appropriate photographic evidence:

• First
• Second
• Third
• Fourth 
• Fifth 
• Sixth 
• Seventh
• Eighth 
• Ninth
• Tenth
• Eleventh