It was September 4th, 2007 the first day of school. It was my first year of getting actual real grades and I told myself this was going to be the start of a all A streak from now until I’m out of school. I had Mrs. Bradley and hearing from my sister who had her 2 years before she was a tough cookie to crack. I could only remember her, back when I was in first grade as I was walking to the restroom I heard her shouting, her voice sounded like nails scratching a chalkboard. She was howling at a kid threatening to take him to the office, if he doesn't behave in her class from now on. I thought she was one of the most scariest women I ever seen.

I walked into the classroom with my tan khaki shorts and orange Old Navy shirt. Thinking I knew everything, I walked like a young Einstein with confidence and a slight simple smile on my face to show I wasn't about no games. Mrs.Bradley was dressed in a referee's uniform with a whistle around her neck like she was going to referee a basketball game. Some of my friends tried to talk to me and I ignored them with no emotion knowing what my goal was and to achieve that goal I thought I had to listen to every word. Mrs. Bradley told us that a spelling pretest was coming our way to see what we know. The chills instantly ran down my body I had no clue about a test of the first day, I was realizing that 3rd grade was a big upgrade from 2nd, so I got my mind ready, my body ready, and my pencil ready for the test. I was the last one who finished my test just making sure I had all the words spelled right I looked over them for about 30 minutes before I turned it in. As Mrs. Bradley was grading the test I kept replaying in my head to see if I spelled any words wrong because if I did I knew I screwed up my shot to get an A. Mrs. Bradley was passing the test back and she circled around the class and I was just anxious for her to get to me so I could finally just see my test and see how I did. She handed back to me and I could see the results through the paper I saw a minus one and immediately thought it was blasphemous and the teacher made a mistake. But I saw that I spelled what was supposed to be “all” al and my emotions swung like monkeys on vines. My head fell so low I as the tears started to grow. I broke down and cried knowing that I made a bonehead mistake, I put my hands over my face and started to sob I couldn't believe I let myself down by not achieving my goal. That's when I came to realize this is not just gonna be easy year, I’m going to have to work hard and earn my grade. Mrs. Bradley asked me to meet her in the hallway to discuss what was the problem, I was so embarrassed that I was in tears in front of the teacher that the words couldn't form. She didn't know what to do so she called my sister’s 5th grade teacher to have my sister come talk to me to see what was wrong. When my sister got to me she looked at me with a sad face then started to laugh at my pain, making me think that what I was crying about was dumb.

She told me, “To suck it up and move forward it was one test and I can make it up.”

I responded, “But you just don't understand.”

She claimed, “Yes I do! I’ve told you a million times CJ, you don't know everything.”

I used to believe my sister was the nicest person in the world, but I now realize how brutally honest she is. I walked in the class feeling embarrassed and ashamed of my unnecessary tears and at that moment I learned that mistakes happen all the time and they can be corrected. Also to add to my humiliation Mrs. Bradley called me out and said CJ it was a pretest I wanted you to make a mistake to see what you know and what you can learn. I was flabbergasted in my stupidity of overreacting.

Now that I am older I'm not as self conscious about making mistakes we as a people try to be so perfect with everything we do but we are simply not perfect. It's in our DNA to make mistakes, If we never make mistakes we can never learn for the future.