School Days...

It's that time of the year again...pencils, glue sticks, erasers, markers, crayons, notebooks, day planners... And my personal favorites-paper clips and sticky notes, two things I can never have enough of! Back to school shopping, an activity that has been a favorite of mine ever since I was enrolled in half-day kindergarten. Each August would come around and my sisters and I would dig out our school bags, see if they were usable for another year, and then make a list of all the supplies we would be needing.

I remember when I was going into third grade the supply list suddenly changed...gone was the three inch lined paper, now we could use wide ruled notebook paper and we also could purchase mechanical pencils and red pens. The "new" thing on the supply list for 5th grade was white out! I remember how quickly I went through that first bottle of white out and not understanding why my parents wouldn't purchase me a second bottle. Didn't they know crossing out mistakes was not near as cool as whiting them out, and hey it conserved paper, right?

Junior High came and day planners were the big thing; I had to make sure I had just the right one. I think I can pinpoint my infatuation with organizers back to that year...

High school years came and now I was required to use a calculator for any math classes; it was convenient but I still felt as if somehow I was cheating.

You would have thought that by the time I got to college I would have matured...you know not looked at school shopping as an actual summer activity. But...I did not. In fact I still have not. This year was the first summer in which I did not have to go school shopping. This was the first week of the school year in which I did not pack my school bag with my favorite brand of pens, lots of paper clips, colorful sticky notes, an expandable file, or spiral notebooks. It is the first year that I am not filling my organizer with all my class project's due dates. I recently found myself looking at Brooke's College list of events and jotting them down in my calendar, even though they do not apply any longer. Yes, I miss the school shopping. I find myself passing down the school aisle at every store I enter, looking for that great find-colorful pencil grips, a mini stapler, cute thumbtacks...

But even more than the school shopping, I think I even miss school. Before you think me completely weird, I do not miss the tests, the quizzes, and I hardly even miss the boring lectures. What I miss most is the projects. Projects that I devoted hours to and when it was all said and done learned something new and interesting because I had done some real research. I miss the satisfaction of receiving that paper or project back and getting not a satisfactory grade, but rather one that I knew I had sweat and stand up late for. When Brooke came back from her first day of classes yesterday and was sitting on the couch with her class requirements and project dates, jotting them in her planner, I jealously sat across from her with my day planner in hand wishing I could fill mine up with more than my work schedule and ministry duties.

And so, the school year has come once again only this time I am being left out... I'm beginning to think that a Master's Degree isn't such a bad idea...