Dear Twelve Year Old Jose,

You are going to start 7th grade in about two months. Before you do, there are a few things that you should know.

First, don’t be too upset about the friend that said she was transferring schools. It turns out that you two will go to the same high school, and become great friends! Sure, she will kind of deny how good of friends you are during 9th grade, but that will change. Just roll with it.

Also, try to do better in school. In the Spring of 7th grade you will take Art. Tell the teacher to move you away from the window. Turns out that the sun shines very bright where you will sit at that time of day. This will give you severe headaches, and distract you from your work, thus causing you to fail Art with an 18%. On that note, try to do better in school. For some reason, this year you will believe that not doing your best is cool. It isn’t. You will regret it in high school.

Also, your English teacher; for some reason you will think it’s cool to be a jerk to him, however you will end up being friends with him on Facebook. Wait, you don’t know what Facebook is. Nevermind. I won’t even try to explain to you want Facebook is.

All of your late night chats on AOL, they aren’t a waste of time. You will remember them for a long time. You won’t remember what was said, but I mean, staying up until 3 am on AOL group chat won’t be for nothing. On that note, don’t worry too much about the fact that you think your hair is a mess. It will always be a hot mess. The sooner you accept that as a fact, the sooner you can move on.

One thing that you have to know though, is that when you go school shopping before 8th and 9th grade, don’t bother with the shirts that have those “cool” sayings on them. They are NOT cool. Again, the sooner you accept this fact, the better off you will be.

For the most part, the next two years will be very, very awkward. You will go through many phases. So many actually, that I can’t remember them at all. You should try to keep a journal. You will have a blog later in life, and you might want to know the things that you thought about in the past.

High School will be fine. Don’t be too worried about it. You will make it through. Sure, you will have some problems, and you will be very self conscious about what people thing, but just forget it. You will soon realize that it doesn’t matter. You will make really great friends, so don’t be afraid to open up. Don’t try to impress anyone. The people that you will be friends with post-high school will like you for who you are. The people that you think you have to impress to be your friends are just jerks. They don’t matter.

Try to stand up for all the negative things that you see throughout the next few years. You know that you want to, and don’t be afraid to. It is something that you will embrace later in life. So, you might as well get used to it now.

Your first year of college will be nothing like what you expect it to. This might sounds bad, but set your expectations low, and you won’t be disappointed.

I hope this helps settle your life somewhat.

Have a great rest of Summer 2002!

Sincerely
Jose, from 2009!