I was shaking the whole two minutes it took to walk down stairs and around the corner. I was in tears when I opened the door to Ms. Nickel’s office.

I thought the world was about to end, that I wouldn’t be allowed to graduate, that I would forever be known as the horrible, trouble-making, eighth-grade girl.

See, our eighth-grade English classroom also functioned as a seventh-grade religion classroom. I found out that I sat in the same desk as a seventh grade boy named Seth, and I wasn’t hesitant to start up a conversation with him.

My crime: using pencil to write on top of the wooden desk.

I’d wait until my teacher wasn’t looking and quickly write a casual “hey what’s up?” He would then erase it and respond when he sat in the same uncomfortable green chair. We got away with it a few times, but then my English teacher noticed writing on the desk and connected the dots that I sat there.

She wrote me up a detention for defacing school property. She lectured me for ten minutes on how disrespectful I was and finally sent me downstairs to the principal’s office.

I thought it would just get worse with the principal. I thought she would furiously yell at me, call me a vandal and reduce me to hysterical tears.

But like everyone says, the principal is your “pal.” At least that’s how I learned to spell the word. Ms. Nickel wasn’t mad. She never raised her voice or called me any names, she just explained how my actions weren’t “Christ-like” and how I could better use my “Christskills.”

Crisis avoided. For then at least.

Fast forward to junior year. I got a Moodle message from Ms. McCormick saying that she would like to see me in her office.

Okay. This was a lot more serious than writing on a desk. People only got called to the principal’s office in high school for big problems.

I was freaking out. Was my AP literature grade really that bad? Did she think I plagiarized one of my papers? Was I about to get a level three SBR and be expelled from STA?

I walked to the left when I entered Donnelly that day so I didn’t have to pass by her office. I considered pretending that I didn’t even get her Moodle message.

But I figured she would track me down somehow, even if it meant calling my name over the announcements during class time. So I decided to face my fears and go into her office.

My hands were shaking, and I couldn’t stop messing with the watch I had on. I couldn’t look Ms. McCormick in the eye and when I went to speak, nothing came out. I had never been so nervous.

She handed me a copy of a Moodle message conversation I had with Brie Sandridge sophomore year. Now keep in mind, we didn’t even have netbooks then.

Brie had asked where I was, and I had responded, “In the ceiling of the third floor Donnelly bathroom.”

Ms. McCormick told me how much of a safety liability it was to be in the ceiling and how dangerous it was to be climbing around. She told me that she had a maintenance man go up to that bathroom with a ladder and check the ceiling, and how she wasn’t even sure how I had managed to get in the ceiling.

For one thing, that ceiling is made of cement. Seriously, go check. For another thing, I would have had to be on a desktop computer up in the ceiling for that to even make sense.

I finally convinced Ms. McCormick that it was all a joke, and I left her office SBR-free and laughing. As for now, I hope I never have to go to Ms. Bone’s or Ms. Hoecker’s office for anything serious. Because I can’t even begin to explain how nervous I was the first time I got sent to the principal’s office.