Eleventh Grade - First Semester

Beginning of the School Year

My life might have turned out very differently if I had decided to take AP Psychology my Jr Year of high school. When I picked up my schedule on registration day I found out that I was signed up for 2 third periods. AP Psychology and Orchestra. Both classes were only taught third period so I had to choose between them. I ultimately chose Orchestra. I had played the string bass since 5^th grade and I couldn't think of a good reason to stop. AP Psychology was taught by Mr W who was the most monotone teacher I ever had. He'd been my 10^th grade biology teacher and despite the fact that I fell asleep in his class nearly every day he'd badgered me into signing up for his AP class.

Another strike against AP Psychology was that I already had one AP (advanced placement) class in my schedule and I wasn't sure I would want to try to handle two. I was registered for AP European History – even though as a Jr I should have been registered for AP American History. However, American History was only taught two periods and both of those conflicted with other classes in my schedule. When I signed up for classes in February of my sophomore year I'd noticed the conflict. I asked my counselor if it would be possible for me to wait to take American History until my Sr year. I wanted to take AP European History as a Jr instead. I also wanted to take AP European as a Jr because I found out that Ms S, the teacher for world history and AP European, was planning on taking a sabbatical during my Sr year to work on her Doctorate. My counselor approved this unusual schedule with the understanding that I would take an American History class as a Sr or else I couldn't graduate. It's a good thing I waited to take AP American History because as the year went on it became apparent that I could not have handled the rigorous course work as a Jr.

So on the first day of school I choose to go to orchestra instead of AP Psychology. I didn't know that I made a choice that would lead me to some of my best friends. I didn't know that I starting off on a path that would lead me through love and heartbreak and ultimately lead to meeting Brandon. All I knew was that I liked playing the string bass a lot more than listening to Mr W talk.

Of course it took me a week to get around to officially letting the counseling center know that I wanted Orchestra listed on my schedule. And I only told them because my new counselor, Mr H, tracked me down. It wouldn't be the last time he'd need to track me down about my classes.

This is me on the first day of school.

Orchestra

Oddly enough Mr H had been my Orchestra teacher in tenth grade. At the end of the year he'd announced that he was stepping down as a music teacher and taking a counseling position with the school. A new teacher was found to replace him. The new teacher was Mrs P. She had just graduated from BYU and we were going to be her first students ever. Well first students if you don't count some angelic teenagers she had enjoyed during student teaching in Utah Valley-who she constantly compared us to.

Usually the first day of Orchestra would include getting out our instruments and playing a few songs so our teacher could gauge our ability. On this first day we didn't even touch our instruments. In fact it was over a week before we got them out. On the first day she sat us down and taught us how to read music. Not just in our own clefs which we all knew by heart, but in the other clefs. Ever since 7^th grade I could read bass clef lightning fast, but I'd never given treble clef a second thought – I didn't need to know it. But Mrs P thought I should. It drove me nuts. She taught us all how to draw the treble and bass clef symbols. She made us recite stupid mnemonic devises like, “Faces in the spaces- FACE lines.” To this day I'm still not entirely sure what that means, but it is ingrained in my memory. She made us work on learning this basic stuff the entire hour and a half of the class. This was a huge change from the year before when Mr H had only made us play our instruments for 45 minutes.

Mrs P's method might have worked if we were musically ignorant, but the truth is we were really good musicians. We'd received a 1 rating at festival the year before. Many of the class members were also members of the prestigious Granite Sr Youth Symphony. We wanted to play our instruments, not learn music theory – there was a separate class for that.

Over time I came up with a theory as to why Mrs P treated us the way she did. I think that she was really excited to be hired for her first teaching job. She must have started telling all her BYU friends that she was going to be the band/orchestra teacher at Kearns High School. And they must have responded something like this, “Oh Eliza dear, you're from West Virginia so you don't know, but Kearns is such a rough place. Those people don't have any culture. Good luck teaching them to play music.” She must have got it into her mind that she would save us by teaching us music so we could succeed in life. She probably spent the summer watching “Mr Hollands Opus” and “Stand and Deliver” every day.

Over the first few weeks of school she made a lot of changes. One that caused a huge uproar was the change she made to seating. The prior arrangement was that the two best violins sat next to each other and shared a stand. Then the next best two shared the stand behind them and so on. Mrs P changed the seating so that all the best violins sat on the outside seats and shared stands with the not so good players. The theory behind this is that at a concert all the best players are the most visible. It's also good for less accomplished players to sit with the best players. Lot's of college orchestras have this type of seating assignments. However, this was a change from how most high school orchestras were set up. As far as I know even Granite Youth didn't seat their players this way. Everyone was in an uproar – especially the most talented players. They didn't want to look like they were less talented because they were sitting further back. I can't remember if Mrs P ever changed the seating back, but I know a lot of people were mad about the arrangement.

Over the next two years there was a gradual exodus from all the music classes that Mrs P taught. The biggest wave of students left in the first few weeks, but it seems like every month another student gave up and dropped their music classes. Halfway through my Sr year I left because of Mrs P, but the year and a half I did stick around was longer than most. During most of my Jr year I gave her the benefit of the doubt. She was new and she needed some time to figure out how things really worked. Also as a bass player I wasn't as affected by her changes. I just hung out in the back and played when I was supposed to.

Here I am as a 10th grader after an orchestra concert.

Another reason I stuck around in Orchestra was that I finally had someone to talk to. Over the years I'd had few stand partners and I hadn't become good friends with any of them. In 7^th and 8^th grade I'd shared a stand with a kid named Jason who was one of those moody, silent types. He only came to class half the time, didn't show up for concerts, and eventually dropped the class altogether. In 9^th grade I had a little 7^th grader named Austin as a stand partner. He was a good musician, but he was really quiet around me. I don't know if he was just shy or if I scared him, but we usually didn't talk much. 10^th grade I'd been pared up with Chris who was another silent, moody type. Our section leader was Jamie, a Sr who took little notice of us. I vowed that if I was section leader in high school I would pay attention to the other bass players. So on the first day of 11^th grade I made sure I made friends with the other bass players. And that is when I met Anthony H.

Anthony was in 10^th grade. He'd never played the bass before, but he had played the clarinet for years. His older sister, Michelle, was my age and played the viola that year. He'd gone to Jefferson Jr high and I'd gone to Kearns. He was 15 years old, tall, and actually listened when I talked to him. I was so happy to finally have a friend with me on the back row. So no matter how bad Mrs P made the class, I didn't mind because I had a stand partner I could talk with.

This is me after a Christmas Concert in 11th grade.

September 11th

The first real conversation I remember with Anthony was on September 11, 2001. That morning I'd walked over to my friend Ashley's house. Ashley, our friend Becky, and I had met up at each others houses almost every morning since 7^th grade. At first we had called each other to see if we were ready, but over the years we'd developed a system where we would just come over. Ashley lived closest to the high school so Becky and I would meet at her house. Then we would watch Channel 2 news while Ashley finished getting ready for school. Then we would all walk to school, or get a ride with Ashley's dad.

On September 11^th I came over to Ashley's house and she told me that a plane had just hit a tall building in New York. I watched the commentary on the crash while Ashley finished getting ready. We really didn't know what had happened. We though it was just a small airplane. Ashley wasn't quite ready for school yet and I was anxious to get going. I told her I would just walk to school and not wait for a ride from her dad. I caught up with Becky who hadn't stopped at Ashley's, and I told her what had happened. We hurried to school. As I walked from my locker to my English class I heard people joking about how dumb a pilot must have been to crash into a building.

English was uneventful – other than the fact that I already hated that class and school hadn't even been going on for a month. After English the atmosphere in the halls was different. A second plane had hit a second building. In English we elected our class representatives for Homecoming Royalty. (Yeah, that's what my journal says) And then Mrs P turned on the TV. By this time both of the Twin Towers had collapsed. We sat in class and watched replay after replay after replay of the towers falling. No one really knew what to make of it. Eventually we got bored of watching the same footage and started talking. Anthony and I started talking about what had happened and where we were when we found out certain things. Then we just started talking about life in general. I really enjoyed getting to know him. Mrs P had kept us so busy learning basic music theory that we hadn't had a chance to talk much. I've always thought it interesting that on a day when so many people lost so much, I gained one of my best friends.

After orchestra I went to lunch. I was still eating lunch with a group of guys that I'd known since Jr high. We went out side to eat and noticed that there weren't any planes in the sky. They had all been grounded. My next class was social dance. My friend Joel was in the class with me. As we walked across the street to the Rec Center where we had class Joel and I speculated that we wouldn't have to learn anything that day. But our teacher, Marla V, had other plans. She must have been sick of watching footage because she put us all to work learning the Cha Cha.

My last class of the day was Math. I don't remember if we watched footage or not. After school I came home and sat on the couch watching the news for a long time. That evening my parents held a little memorial service. My dad played a CD with the song Adagio for Strings on it. We all knew that the world had changed.

The next day was Wednesday. My first class was seminary. We had a minute of silence. My other classes were some what back to normal, but each teacher talked for a little bit about what the terrorist attacks meant. That night for our Young Woman's activity we placed flags in front yards all along 4640 West.

This is my ward after we were done putting up flags.

Slowly life got back to normal, but my life started to change in ways that had nothing to do with towers falling, or planes crashing. For one I got a job. I was hired as a sweeper at an elementary school. A sweeper cleans the bathrooms and vacuums classrooms after school everyday. It wasn't a glamorous job. But I liked it because it gave me lots of time to myself after a busy school day. And I got money.

Friends

Another change was in my friends. All through 10^th grade I ate lunch with a bunch of boys. My friends Becky and Shannon ate with me too. By 11^th grade though I didn't really want to eat with rowdy boys anymore. Instead I gradually started hanging out with some girls that I knew from Orchestra and other classes. I discovered that I fit in really well with them. We were all in music classes like orchestra, choir, and band. Most of us also took honors and AP classes. For the next two years we at lunch together every day. At first we ate in the sewing room while Michelle worked on a project in there. Our conversations would be punctuated by outbursts from Michelle like, “Dang it, I sewed the pockets shut!” Later we moved to our permanent home outside the choir room. Kim F, Nicky W, Erin L, Katie D, Alison C, and Michelle H are still some of my best friends.

Church

Sometime in September my ward went on a combined youth activity to climb Ensign Peak. This was an annual end of the summer tradition. We hurried up the hill, enjoyed the view, and then came down. There is a small memorial area at the base of the hill with benches to sit on. The girls in my ward got up on these benches and started doing cheer-leading moves. Most of the girls either were cheerleaders or wanted to be cheerleaders so they were pretty good. During all the commotion I noticed Michelle from orchestra. And then I noticed Anthony. I was so excited to see people I knew. They were there with their ward. I talked to Anthony for a few minutes. It was fun to show off my rowdy ward to him.

That Ensign Peak activity kicked off the best six consecutive months of activities during all my years in Young Womans. We had planned to do the Ensign Peak activity in September and then a Lip Sync in October. But as October got closer we decided to do a Halloween Dance. Technically it was just a dress up dance because some people in the ward didn't believe in celebrating Halloween, but what ever. The lip sync was moved to November, but then we changed our minds and put together food baskets for Thanksgiving. In December we went caroling like we always did. In January we would have had the lip sync, but the deacons were in charge that month and they didn't want all the responsibility. So they put together a really fun game night instead. In February we finally had the lip sync.

During those same six months I worked on a lot of projects for my ward. I helped plan the Young Women in Excellence activity held in November. I wanted it to show case each young woman's uniqueness. That night I had several large displays set up. One had pictures of each young woman as a baby. Another had a favorite stuffed animal. And the third had things that symbolized each young woman. I had spent weeks making sure everyone would bring their stuff. Then we did an activity where everyone guessed whose stuff was whose. After that we did a middle name matching game where we filled in every one's middle names on a sheet of paper. It was really fun.

Another thing I put together for the young women was a complement book. I did this as a Personal Progress project around Christmas time. I passed around papers that had each girls name on them. Then everyone could write down positive things about that person. I typed up the complements into individual books and gave them out to each of the 25 girls.

Here I am working on some of the complement books.

English

At the same time I was overachieving at church I was under achieving at school – at least in one class. I hated my Jr year of Honors English. We didn't read a happy book the entire year. Instead we read “inspirational” classics such as King Lear, The Old Man and the Sea, Macbeth, The Scarlet Letter, and the Grapes of Wrath. Well, actually the other students read those books. I didn't. I tried but I just couldn't get through them. I remember Becky telling me all the important points of The Scarlet Letter as we walked to school the day that we had a quiz. The sad thing is that I did really well on that quiz. The class was challenging for me in a busywork way. We read books, took multiple choice quizzes, wrote a few short essays, memorized vocabulary words, and never really learned a single thing. I could not figure out how to enjoy the class.

It all came to a head for the first time on the day after Thanksgiving weekend. Thanksgiving had been amazing. All my dad's family had gathered at his mom's house in Idaho. We'd spent the weekend eating, joking, watching movies, and enjoying each others company. It was especially meaningful in light of September 11^th. The Monday after that wonderful weekend I woke up and discovered that I had absolutely no desire to get out of bed and go to English – so I didn't. And I didn't on Wednesday or Friday either. I went to my other classes. I just didn't go to English. The next week I finally went back to class but I still couldn't motivate myself to do anything in the class and things would only get worse. (Incidentally I have never liked the Monday after Thanksgiving. It's always a hard day for me. I just don't like going back to reality. I laughed out loud when I found out that I was due to have my babies on the Monday after Thanksgiving.)

Social Dance

There were classes I enjoyed. I loved social dance. First semester we learned; Cha Cha, Tango, Country Swing, and Marangay. Marla would teach us the steps and we would rotate through partners as we learned. Then she would assign us a partner for the dance test. During the test we would all watch each other dance. That was really scary for me, but I gradually got over my shyness. It helped that most people in the class -especially the boys – were all beginning dancers.

In November we had an in-class dance competition. Everyone found partners for each of the 4 dances we had learned. Then we choreographed our own routines. The day of the competition we went to the small gym in the high school. The competition would start out with all 12 or so couples dancing. Then Marla and another judge would select 6 couples to compete in the semi final round. From there they would select 3 couples to go on to the final round. And then they would decide which couples were the first, second, and third place winners. I was surprised when my partner and I placed 3^rd in Cha Cha.

Towards the end of the semester we started working on our piece for the dance concert. It was going to be a country swing number to the song TROUBLE. We were able to pick out own partners. I picked Joel. Joel was the one who had asked me to sign up for the class with him. In 10^th grade I'd asked him to come to a mutual activity where we learned some swing moves. I wasn't 16 yet and neither was he. We just considered it a friend thing. But my parents had other thoughts. They were convinced it was a date and had to have a special talk before they allowed Joel to come to that activity with me. It was things like that that made me hate being the oldest child. Years later when my youngest sister was 15 my parents let her go to movies with her basically-boyfriend and his family. Grrr.

Anyway, Joel and I were partners for the country swing number. Neither of us had ever been in a dance concert so we were both nervous. We practiced a lot and learned the routine. First our class practiced in our class room at the rec center across the street from the high school. We met at the rec center because the high school employed 3 dance teachers. There wasn't enough room at the high school for all the classes so the school rented space at the rec center. As the concert date came closer we started meeting on the high school auditorium stage. That way we could get used to how large the stage was. Another dance class also met at that same time so halfway through class we would switch with them and go into the dance classroom down the hall.

The country swing number wasn't the only dance we had to learn. We also had to learn the piece for the finale. It was a patriotic number. There were four parts to it. One for each of the different dance teachers' classes, and a final all together number. Most of the people in my class had a hard time with the final part of the finale. We were all used to dancing with a partner, but for the finale we had to be on our own. It was choreographed with lots of steps and moves we had no idea how to do. But we did our best.

Before the concert there were two nights of dress rehearsals. Each day we would start with the finale and practice that all the way through with all the dancers. After we were done with the finale everyone would stay and watch all the dances from the first half of the program. The second day of rehearsals we ran through the finale again and then the second half of the program. We weren't allowed into the auditorium for the actual performance so this was our only chance to watch the show.

The night of the concert finally came. I did my hair in a bun and did my makeup so it would show up on stage. I borrowed my friend Ashley's dance shoes and tights. I wore jeans and a brown plaid shirt. Joel also wore a brown plaid shirt. All the dancers met back stage. The choir room was the girls dressing room and the band room was the boys dressing room. People and clothes were everywhere. There was also a lot of nervous tension in the air. My class all gathered outside the stage door two numbers before we were supposed to go on. When that number ended we went through the door and waited in the right wing of the stage. We were “on deck.” When the number before us ended we hurried and got into our positions. Joel and I were tall so we were in the back which was just fine with us.

The music started and we began our routine. It started out with all the couples on the stage. Then during a guitar solo in the song most of us ran into the wings. Three or four couples stayed on the stage and preformed some complicated lifts. Then we all ran back on to the stage and finished the number. The lights dimmed and we ran to the front of the stage for a choreographed bow. And then we exited stage left while the next number came on stage right.

After we got off the stage everyone high fived each other. We were all so excited. To me it felt like a roller coaster ride. I'd been nervous before it started, thrilled while I was on it, and wanted to do it again once it was over.

Soon it was time to preform the finale. It was a patriotic number so we all wore red white or blue. All the students from one dance teacher's class crowded onto the stage while the students from the other classes waited on deck or out in the hall. The people on stage would all perform the same steps together. One at a time each class would get a chance to be center stage and do a small dance about 16 counts long. Joel and I were center stage when our class's turn came. Once our teacher's section was over we exited the stage and went to the doors at the back of the auditorium. During the final section of the finale we came in through the back doors and danced in the aisles. We danced to “Born in the USA.”

Here is one of my favorite pictures of me. It's from right after the dance concert.

End of the semester

The dance concert was held at the very end of the semester in the middle of January. Joel had a problem with his second semester schedule and he didn't think he could be in 5^th period social dance anymore. I knew Marla would want to keep the boy-girl numbers even in the class so I asked her if she wanted me to find someone to take Joel's place. She said that would be good. All semester long I'd been talking to Anthony about social dance and he seemed interested in the class. I asked him if he would want to come into the class and take Joel's place. He said yes. I was really excited to have him in two of my classes.

I liked Anthony as a friend, and because I talked to him so much people began to speculate that we liked each other as more than friends. I didn't let myself think about any other possibilities though because he was still 15 and couldn't date yet. Plus I'd started flirting with a guy that would become the center of my world during the second half of my Jr year.