Once upon a time, I taught a senior elective, semester Advanced Composition class.  Pre-Hurricane Katrina, I taught the class for over seven years. Even students who clawed their way through my Advanced Placement classes where they secretly made voodoo dolls that not-so-oddly resembled me, signed on. They’d heard from their senior friends that I was human. And they trusted them.

One of the sacred rituals of the class was opening with journaling [free writing] time in response to something I’d read to them, or a word, or ideas they’d bring to class.  Somehow, one of the journal traditions that evolved was predicting where everyone would be in five years. As seniors, they were optimistic they’d be graduating from or dangerously close to graduating from college by then. So, we’d pass around journals around and share our thoughts.

Tonight, I unearthed my journal from the fall semester of 2004, and I found the entries from that class.

In no particular order, here are some of them:

1. I have no idea. Still teaching?

2. You will win the lottery and buy a mansion in the Hamptons, have a life filled with lavish parties, cool cars, and tons of former students at your beck call as your indentured servants (from all the years of torturing you).

3. You will be in Hawaii–tanning, soaking the sun and laughing at the poor ladies who are still teaching wild kids.

4. Dead. No, I’m just joking. {a note from me–fortunately, for them, these were all anonymous. . .} Still teaching or in the Bahamas.

5. You will discover your knack for Broadway performing and become a star! Then you will give all of us free, year-round passes to all of your Broadway shows.

6. You will be a retired teacher who becomes a nice old librarian who enjoys skydiving.

7. You will be an amazing aerobics instructor, you will have grown five WHOLE INCHES, and you will live on a golf course because you’ll be so darn wealthy.

8. End up hospitalized after being diagnosed with hemophilia opiatrasimplia {me again…more than likely, this is not in Webster’s},which means loss of blood, from grading AP papers. You will forever be feared by incoming freshmen who will build shrines to ward off bad grades.But, seeing that this will fail, they will just switch out of your class.

9. I think you could become a famous writer and leave Fontainebleau behind. Then all the students who never got to have you will mourn their loss.

10. Making AP students cry, and Advanced Comp students cheer. You’ll win the lottery and write that novel you never got around to.

11. You’re going to decide that teaching annoying kids isn’t for you, and you’ll become a famous writer. After your 100th best seller, Hollywood will make a movie of one of your most touching novels, and Orlando Bloom will play the lead.

12. You’ll write a long, good book and live in Hawaii. You will donate all of your jewelry to me.

Kids really do say the darndest, sometimes rightest, things.