For me Junior High was awful. Hopefully for Sarah, 7th and 8th grade will be like any other year and life will continue on.

Junior High, for me was a rude awakening. Leaving the polite and docile neighborhood elementary school and coming into a new school with multiple schools all coming together and factor in a lord of the flies methodology to running the place. I hated middle school. Not meaning for this PaD to turn into a therapy session but dear God of all things almighty it fucking sucked. I'll never forget shop class. What a better thing to do than put 29 immature boy 7th graders in a room with sheet metal, tin snips, spot welders and a teacher who went outside to smoke 37 of each 45 minute class. WHAT do you think happened? I have a scar on my ass from a home made Chinese throwing star being launched at me. Sad thing is there was another 18 minutes of class left. All this was on the first day of school. Yeah, my issues all emanate from 7th grade metal shop class... I could carry on here about the next few years of "middle school" but fear if my kid ever reads this she'll freak out. Good luck Sarah-

In all seriousness the shit that went on was crazy and while it tortured me, it made me who I am today albeit crazy. No prizes for everyone. No coddling. We figured it out. I finally got smart in 8th grade and just punched the bully in his face after being pushed to far. No school shootings. Just kids growing up. Amazing, I never got pushed around again. Somethings just need to be learned.