I’ve spent two hours tonight going through a big box that my parents and I filled with various pieces of my personal history. What a treasure trove. I remember some of it, but some of these envelopes I’ve never opened.

It’s an amazing box full of report cards, school photos, any correspondence that my parents got from the schools … even weird stuff like year-recap score sheets from the bowling league I was in from age 7-18. Programs from the plays I was in. Certificates, greeting cards, class trip mementos (Disneyland park map and Magic Music Days schedule from 1990, anyone?) and a ton of other awesome crap.

A lot of the report cards and progress reports have comments written in, and they’re just lovely. There are even a couple of letters that teachers wrote to my parents. I’m so delighted to read this stuff, and actually got a little tear in my eye a couple of times.

A few tidbits:

Kindergarten report card: “Missy has a great sense of humor. We thoroughly enjoy her ventriloquism.” (WHAT?) “Knows all tables except 9×4.” (Curse you, 36!)

6th grade report card: “Missy should concentrate on improving her penmanship.” If you’ve seen my penmanship, you’d know why I find this hilarious. But I never enjoyed cursive, and this teacher was a fiend for cursive.

11th grade progress report: Phsyics 1&2:
“Student needs to speak more in the foreign language during class.”
“Private instruction would be beneficial.”
(The responses were those standardized choices, and Mr. Smith was both hilarious and a lech.)