As the eighth grade students of Monmouth Middle School and other middle schools around the state enter their fourth quarter, there are a few rights of passage left before we enter high school: the Semi-Formal dance and graduation. The Semi-formal dance is awaited by girls and boys alike since the beginning of the year. This dance is one of a few couples’ dance unlike the other dances we attend during the year. Guys are finding the courage to ask “that” girl, and the girls are all excited to go and find “that” dress. This is our first glimpse of what is yet to come in our high school years.

Shortly after this grand event, graduation. Here in Monmouth it means saying goodbye to our second home which we have attended for the last five years. No longer spending our days with teachers and staff whom we have come to know and who have come to know us way too well. We will be entering into a new building with new teachers and a whole new crowd of students.

As freshmen it will almost feel like it did when we entered school for the first time, when the third graders at Henry Cottrell seemed like such big kids. Now those third graders are Seniors and new friendships will develop. It is a scary time for us, but a necessary time. As an eighth grader, I am looking forward to this new change, but I will miss my middle school.