Ultimate Friends

So I watched my sixth grade end-of-the-year elementary ensemble video today with my little sister. WOW. Talk about throwback! I forgot how incredibly high my voice was back then. It's a little scary. I'm surprised I never broke any glass with my squeals.

Yeah...Wow. Baby me was pretty adorable.
I'll admit, I got pretty involved in watching the video. I might've sang along. I might've yelled at the TV screen. I might've cringed at the "oohs" we were singing. And I also might've cried...
My favorite part, however, was listening to my final speech. I was chosen to give a little speech on "what ensemble means to me" during the awards ceremony of the concert (yes, I even watched that part. So sue me). I was captivated by my little whiny voice proclaiming how much an elementary singing group had meant to me. I loved recognizing the definitive Kaila flavor my writing had even then. My favorite line could've been pulled off of a page of my blog: "I met so many new friends when I went to Ensemble. Of course, Mr. Dennis is the ultimate friend, always ready to crack a joke or make us all smile."
The phrase "ultimate friend" really got me thinking about how much my teachers have meant in my life. I can still remember every single teacher I've had since Kindergarten, and I can point to where certain habits, interests, jokes, and sayings have come from.
Seriously. My teacher's voices still haunt me.
When I'm running, literally running, late for 8 am class, and I'm running past weird looks and stares, I hear Mr. Dennis's voice in my head: "Better to be thirty minutes early than one minute late".
When I'm curled up in a ball on my bed, one sentence away from giving up, and I yell at the world "I can't do this anymore!" I get slapped back into action by Mrs. Holcomb's voice telling me, "Can't is not an option". So I get up and write one more sentence, then one more paragraph, then on and on until the essay's done.
When my friends ask me, "Where's it at?", I reflexively respond with "10 cents. Don't end a sentence with a preposition", and I answer their confused looks with "it's alright, Mrs. Sweick will buy us a pizza party with the money." Sure, no one gets it, but I do.
When I hear someone mispronounce the word "potable", I smile and remember Mrs. Smith's inside joke with us about how even news casters screw up the word, but we never would.
Over and over again, I hear their voices in my head.
That's why I think my little sixth grade self was spot-on when she called Mr. D an "ultimate friend". My teachers have truly proven to be friends through the thick and thin. They have seen students instead of statistics, seen potentials instead of points, seen futures instead of failures. They are the people that make my #collegeprobs possible, for are they are the people that helped me get into college in the first place. They got me into BYU, and their voices in my head will help keep me there.
So pro tip high schoolers: be thankful for your teachers. They do more than any of us will ever know.