Memory

Recovering from my third virus of the Fall season I am having a hard time getting my brain to kick in. What I decided to do was grab the dictionary next to the desk (which I have used a more now that I have started blogging than I ever did in school!) anyway.. focus... I grabbed the book and decided to write a blog post on what ever word I came across first. The word I opened to first was memory/memorize so, here I go... my post about the first word in the dictionary I saw.

Memorize - My worst teacher ever was named Mrs. Dolphay. She was my 8th grade English teacher. She looked quite similar to a troll. She ate in her classroom and paid students a quarter to take her tray down in the beginning of her next class. For some odd reason brown rice comes to mind when I think of her. This is something she ate often I believe. She also talked about brushing her teeth. She insisted that we brush our teeth for two minutes each day. Now coming from a troll we all laughed at her behind her back.
(oh to be such a rude jr. higher again- cut my wrists now!)
Everyone knew where she lived (on the other side of the lake) and we knew she drove a big conversion van. It was rumored she had a scrawny little boyfriend which made for some Jack Sprat jokes.

She was old by classification of an 8th grader, and I still believe I would find her old now as an adult. She had a reputation. She was "one of those teachers" . She was tough. As an adult now I would say that she had this reputation because she expected things out of you, you were to learn in her classroom. Something teachers had side stepped in the jr. high I attended.



We learned to conjugate sentences, what adjectives, prepositions and the likes of them were, along with examples that we were to memorize. Yep, good old fashion stand in front of the class and recite, rote memorization. Sadly, I remember very little. All I can still do is the beginning of the propositions-
about
above
among
around
along
at
because of
before
behind
below
beneath

and then I lose it..... Still impressive since this was 22+ years ago.

Yes, when I see the word memorize I remember Mrs. Dolphay (who probably was really a Ms.) Many years later I ran across a box in town that was giving prizes to local teachers, all you had to do was nominate your favorite teacher. I remember standing before the box and running through my past teachers like a slide show in my mind. There was my Kindergarten and First grade teachers (everyone loves them), definitely NOT my second grade teacher (she called me blabber mouth in front of the whole class, bad bad teacher) and so forth through the list. I finally landed on Ms. Dolphay - by all means she won my nomination. She had expectations and a love of learning, and although she was tough she was well meaning. As an adult now, I get her. I kind of think I always did.