8th Grade Farewell Adress-Gretchen, B.

My middle school experience was like a cake, each grade is a new layer and a new adventure. I am going to miss Jordan's welcoming environment but I am sure that Paly will be the same. Every single person here contributed to my amazing middle school experience, from friends to teachers to coaches. I can’t wait to take my first bite into a new cake, Paly High School. I am excited to experience something new and different.I would like to thank my teachers, my friends, and my coaches. I would like to thank my teachers for being patient, understanding and for teaching me something new and interesting every day, from the articles of the constitution to vignettes. I would like to thank my friends for always making me smile and laugh, even when I have two hours of homework to do. Finally, I would like to thank all of my coaches for always challenging me with new and harder workouts and for always cheering me on. Thank you to everyone at Jordan, for teaching me and helping me, I will miss all of the staff and students.I have had many accomplishments, thanks to the help of my peers but I have three main ones. My first accomplishment here at Jordan was finding Ms. Pierce's classroom with the help of only three people. I am terrible at directions and remembering things so when it was my second day, I completely forgot where her classroom was and three different people had to help me. My main accomplishment in seventh grade was beating my nemesis for track and cross country in the mile by eleven seconds. In both track and cross country, Samantha Turtle from Ralston middle school had beat me but in our first meet of seventh grade, I had more practice and beat her by 100 meters. My last accomplishment was surviving middle school, even though we still have a few more weeks.In eighth grade social studies, I have learned that the US made the constitution to form a more perfect union and it is our job to speak up and improve it. Many people disagree with some aspects in the constitution but I have learned that it is our job to change it, we can protest, write papers and do many more things to express ourselves. We also learned about the election, and fortunately for us, the real US election was happening at the same time, so we really got to understand the good and bad of our election process. I have learned many new things in this class and I am very grateful I did. The easiest way to thrive and be successful here is to be organized, pay attention in class, and use your binder reminder. If you are organized, you can complete all of your homework and still have time to do fun things like play sports or hang out with friends. If you pay attention in class, you will get a lot more out of what you learned and you will be able to finish your homework quickly because you can understand it. Finally, remember to write down your homework because I sometimes forgot and that would lead to a worse grade overall. If you use these tips, you will be able to balance your homework and after school activities well and you will have a lot more time to do fun things.To conclude, I would like to thank everyone for creating an amazing school, especially my teachers and friends. And for the incoming sixth graders, stay organized and pay attention. Everyone here has contributed to creating a welcoming environment for everyone, thank you.Goodbye, Jordan Middle School, I will miss all of you. I will miss the great teachers who keep you organized but I am also eager to bite into a new cake and have lots of freedom at Paly.