Hello, my name is Timothy Lai, a 6th grade (soon to be 7th grade) student at MS158. As we all know, the last day of school is June 26th, and our school year is coming to an end. It was a rollercoaster, with ups and downs that made the year better and worse. But in general, it was good. Here’s my story.
In the last weeks of summer, I got an email from my school from Mr. Comer, the Assistant Principal for 6th Grade. It told me about my class placement and all the information I needed to know. My homeroom teacher was Ms. Dias, a teacher that I would learn to appreciate. My homeroom was in room “304”, and my class was “620”. Other classes have an “0” in the middle digit, but since I was accepted into the Screened Program, I have a “2”instead.
Come the first day of school, I was nervous and scared about what was to come, like bullying. I try to surround myself with familiar faces in the crowd, to try and see if we have the same class. Although none of those faces are in my class, I learned to make new friends and keep the old ones too.
When I walked into homeroom, it was very quiet. Ms. Dias welcomed each of us, with kindness. I saw faces that I somewhat knew from my old school and summer school, but also completely new ones. I chose to sit at the back of the room when Ms. Dias told us “Hey guys, sit up front, that’s not a table!”. Later, she took attendance for the first time and sometimes mispronounced our names as teachers do, and introduced us to the laws of the land.
My first ever class was with my ELA teacher, Mrs. O’Brien. She was very chilled out, and was nice to us and our class. She told us a little about herself, and gave a list of supplies. Then was Mrs. Angell, our Math teacher, who also pretty much did the same thing, but we had a fill-out sheet to try and guess information about her, like favorite soda (Dr. Pepper), favorite Taylor Swift song (Enchanted (Taylor’s Version)), and much more! Our next class was Arts, where we were introduced to the 4 arts: Band, Chorus, Dance, and Visual Art (Beginning and Advanced). We filled out a selection form for our preferred art, and I chose Band, because (1) you get priority if you had done band the past year, and (2) I love all things music!
Then, there was Science, where we had Ms. Dias, our homeroom teacher, who was kind in introducing us to the subject. She also had us make creative name tags based on science-related things. After that was Ms. Dias’ close friend, Mrs. Parker, who taught Coding, who also laid out rules and what we will be learning. Then, the last of the day was Mrs. Krieger in PE(Gym), which half of us shared with 602. Then, a day later, we had Mrs. Bergfeld, our Social Studies teacher, who gave us a sheet that asked about our interests in Geography and History. We met other teachers that we didn’t have all that regularly, like Mrs. Rey (our Humanities teacher), Ms. Peretz (our Mindfulness teacher), Ms. D’Ambrosio (who left the school in the 1st marking period, canceling Science Research/STEM), Ms. Chaves (who replaced Science Research with Math WINS), Ms. Viñas (the Spanish teacher), Ms. Wei (the Mandarin teacher) and Mrs. Weisser (our Health teacher). The teachers that we have are all kind to our class and treat us with respect, so a BIG thank you to my teachers for making 6th grade a great experience.
About a month after the first day of school, the students that got selected for band do instrument tests, which tests a person’s ability to play instruments, such as flute, trumpet and trombone and euphonium, or low brass. This is tested by blowing/buzzing on mouthpieces. There are also percussion tests that are based on rudiments and following tempo. Based on how well you play on the mouthpiece, you get rated from 0-5. I got a 1 on a flute test, an automatic 5 in a trumpet test because I played it before, and a 1 on low brass. I play trumpet to this day.
There are also fun clubs in 158. For example, there’s the Curious Times. Every Friday, we meet to write articles (like this one) and have fun with each other. We wrote a wide variety of articles, ranging from politics to pop culture and poetry. It’s a great place to express your creativity in writing with your friends. Another club I joined was Theater Club, which makes a school play every year for our school. You can audition for a role in the cast, or make and move props. The 2024 school year’s play was Matilda, and we had fun with all of the aspects of it.
The last “club” I’m going to talk about is the most exclusive of all of them–Science Team. You get recommended by teachers and go through a selection process by the two 8th Grade Science teachers, Mrs. Biondo and Mrs. Peretz, who was mentioned earlier. It’s based on grades and averages, but some may be drawn down to a random selection. This was the first year back doing it since COVID, so it was a big milestone. 3 out of 5 projects went to the District Science Expo. Although none of us won, it was a fun experience. If I could, I would join these clubs again in 7th Grade.
And, of course I couldn’t survive 6th grade without my friends, like my good friends Jasper, Kiran, Louis, Ioklee, Emma, Nadia, Sheya, Raul, Jalen, and Anderson. Without them, middle school would be a lot more depressing.. They helped me with many things, like writing articles for Curious Times, hitting higher notes on trumpet, and having my back in bad situations. Friends are an important part of middle school and I honestly am very lucky to have them and hope they stick with me throughout my time at middle school.
My birthday was on February 29th of this year. If you haven’t already noticed, my birthday is Leap Day, which happens every 4 years. In observance of my 12th (3rd) birthday, everyone wished me a happy birthday that was a small window of 24 hours every 4 years, making it more special. It honestly shows how people in the school take time out of their day to make other’s days better.
As we humans all know, life is not perfect. There are mishaps and unexpected events that can make the year rough. Examples of events are when Ms. Schecter, Ms. Dias, and Mrs. Parker had to leave for extended periods of time. But, there was one sub that was willing to cover for these teachers: Mr. Hwang! He always came to school with his best self, with his hair gelled and his guitar, and brought our class kindness, help, and respect. He made the school year more fun with games on Friday, like Taboo and 20 Questions. So, I would like to thank him too.
Another mishap there was at 158 was a fight between two students in the cafeteria. It was the day before winter break, and there were 3 hours separating us from about 2 weeks of freedom, but that was made more dramatic when a student pushed another student into a trash bin, and then punched him repeatedly. Security came, and I retreated to the library, where library lunch was being held. A life lesson I learned from this is to avoid drama at all costs.
After all this, I was reflecting on how my year went. It was still a roller coaster, with its ups and downs, but it was a fun ride. It was a lot better than I anticipated it to be, and there were a lot of things that were memorable for the rest of my life. So, thank you to everyone who helped me along the way. Future 6th graders, see you in 7th Grade!