What Felt Like 15 Minutes- The First Day of Seventh Grade
Interesting title, but... I think a longer period of time here might show the tone of the piece better.On September 4th, 2007, I stepped in the class with drops of sweat
shrieking according to the American Heritage Dictionary, "shriek" means; a screaming, often frantic, cry. Sweat was screaming on her forehead? Please, replace this with something different. on my forehead, terrified of what was going to happen next. When I first opened my eyes that morning I was scared stiff and now I was standing at the door,
on the first day of 7th grade in a completely new classroom, in front of the scariest teacher known to walk on school premises
I like this description of the teacher.. Twenty-five unknown faces were staring at me. Where was my friend,
I had asked myself? Huh? Either your tense is wrong here or you just got confused. I think you might have been going for "I asked myself". The "had" in this sentence is unnecessary and confusing. I was scared out of my guts!
I've heard "scared out of my pants" and "scared out of my skin", but "scared out of my guts" is a new one... Everyone that I had caught a glimpse of was so grown up! I probably looked like a little girl with my sneakers, jeans and pink shirt. At that moment, I wished I could
really close my eyes and become invisible. I didn’t know anyone! I started to walk down the individual aisles searching for an empty seat. I wish I hadn’t noticed the eyes following me like ducklings following their mother. To my content, I found a seat near the door. I made a plan to make a run for it as soon as the first period bell rang.
The girls sitting around me stared in my direction
, Sentence fragments make the flow too choppy here. observed my every move like there was no tomorrow
"like there was no tomorrow" doesn't quite fit in this context. If you do something "like there is no tomorrow", you do it remorselessly without thought of the implications or consequences involved. This doesn't quite work here . Why me? Out of all the other days, it had to be that day. That day was the day I was late.
My heart thumped rapidly as the teacher babbled on about her previous classes and how they impressed her
This is first hour on the first day of school. She hasn't had any previous classes . It seemed like hours before she finished her conversation about her first class, but again, to my disappointment, it had only been five minutes
First, the word "conversation" denotes that she was exchanging with one or more people, and in this case it doesn't like this is so. Try "speech" maybe? And, again, isn't homeroom first hour (we don't have homeroom at my schools.)? She wouldn't have had a "first class", because this is her first class. I tried to listen. I tried to focus, but the pairs of eyes circled me vigorously. Was there something wrong with me? I had asked that question about every time I stepped into a new classroom, but that day it was a little too much of an obvious question. I tried to analyze myself in the little space that I had.
My outfit seemed normal, I had spent all summer trying to do away with my pimples and I had succeeded, so I knew it wasn’t that. In the thirty seconds I had before the teacher instructed me to pay attention, I had sniffed my hair and checked my clothes to make sure there weren’t any stains. “What is wrong with me?” I muttered to myself once again.
As nervous as I was, I finally realized-after what seemed like forever- what was off beam. I knew what I was lacking
, and it wasn’t materialistic
; Ellipses aren't terribly effective in punctuating sections of narration, even when a pause is called for. it was my confidence. I was slouching, my breathing was heavy, I was sweating like it was the end of civilization
Again, this simile is off. Try something like comparing this classroom experience to being in a physical activity, maybe? and I chewed my nails until they went numb! No wonder everyone was looking at me like I was some awkward child from another planet! I spent the next ten minutes trying to better my posture. Or so I thought. To my surprise, the period was over! I was horrified! I had managed to skip the first five minutes of school, but now I had to face time in between classes! I began to have that can-the-floor-just-open-up-and-swallow-me-whole type of feeling. As I nervously sneaked my way around the freakishly large students, I heard a brushed out dim voice behind me, “Hi!” I turned with
shear The word you're looking for is "sheer". To "shear" means, in essence, "to cut", as in cutting hair off a sheep. anxiousness. I paused. I smiled. I had finally gotten that first moment of comfort.
After that, everything else was a
n If you're planning on using "a", think of the next word. If you start with a vowel sound when you say it aloud, make the "a" into an "an". indistinct memory. I guess what felt like the first fifteen minutes of the first day of school weren’t so bad after all.
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