What about the 8th graders you may want to know???

Well I wasn't in time to talk about my experience graduating from the 8th grade as I was for my experience in talking about graduation from kindergarten (kgs) yesterday. Yesterday the 8th graders had their commencment and on this day kgs have theirs both Bennett & Shedd at Bennett's auditorium.

Strangely enough my folks didn't have many pictures of the ceremonies. There was a ribbon pinning ceremony where the parents would walk onto the stage to pin a ribbon on me. Then after that the actual graduation which took place just about the last week of June the year I graduated.

In any case one of the many tassles hanging on a pin in my room included one from my 8th Grade commencement. I still have a few artifacts from that time even though I'm closing in on almost two decades since that time. As part of my grad regalia in addition to a cap and gown with an unattached tassle, there was also a kente scarf and a medal.

Not sure where my actual cap and gown is but I still have the medal and it's not particularly fancy but something I still treasure enough to get the medal itself attached to the ribbon again. The ribbon is red, black, and green and most likely to emphasize our African roots. I couldn't possess my kentae scarf because my mom would appropriate it whenever possible.

Somewhere around the house are the tickets from the graduation. I also ran across a program and my certificate. Also I do have a class picture which is really just all the portraits of not only my graduating class, but also the teachers, counselors, and administration at Bennett School.

Unfortunately if I wanted to share that I would have a tough time. The class picture is a little too large to just put on my HP scanner at home. :(

Unfortunately we had to sing at our graduation and when I rehearsed the ceremony some teachers discouraged it. My 8th grade teacher since I didn't get the step right to his satifaction said I had to march by myself when others marched in pair. Unfortunately we also had to sing some knock off songs such as "Kiss 8th Grade Goodbye" based upon the song "What I did for love". That in addition Bennett's school song.

Anyway at some point I was glad it was over and off to bigger and better things. On some level however I'm excited in more ways than one of the current crop of 8th graders.