La Rochelle 2021

A F S K E I D S B OO D S K A P – H OO F D OG T E R

– B i a n c a L e i g h t o n

‘ I n l i f e w e d o t h i n g s . S o m e w e w i s h w e h a d n e v e r d o n e . S o m e w e w i s h w e c o u l d r e p l a y a m i l l i o n t i m e s i n o u r h e a d s . B u t t h e y a l l m a k e u s w h o w e a r e . A n d i n t h e e n d , t h e y s h a p e e v e r y d e t a i l a b o u t u s . I f w e w e r e t o r e v e r s e a n y o f t h e m , w e w o u l d n o t b e t h e p e r s o n w e a r e . S o j u s t l i v e , m a k e m i s t a k e s . H a v e w o n d e r f u l m e m o r i e s . B u t n e v e r e v e r s e c o n d g u e s s w h o y o u a r e , w h e r e y o u h a v e b e e n , a n d m o s t i m p o r t a n t l y , w h e r e i t i s y o u a r e g o i n g . ’ ( U n k n o w n )

I cannot believe this day has finally arrived. Our last day of school. The last day that we can all come together here as a Larrie family and celebrate one another’s presence. They were not joking when they said that time flies when you are having fun. I could not agree more. I remember my first day of Gr ade 8 as if it were yesterday. When I arrived at school, I looked for one person and one person only. That person was Stella- Maria Horvath. She was one of the few people I knew was coming to La Rochelle and I was assured that having her by my side would mean that I would never get lost and that I would always have someone to talk to, even if I was the one who did all the talking and she was the one doing all the listening! Unfortunately, we were still late for all our classes, and it took us and the rest of 8.4 weeks to get into the programme. But, eventually we found our feet. Even though we gave Mrs Naudé a hard time in Maths, because half of us did not know what the hypotenuse was and all of us would never respond ‘yes’ to her asking ‘Are you with me?’. I am 100% sure we were her favourite Grade 8 class of all time. Sorry for not ‘being as quick’ as you wanted us to, Ma’am. We really tried. Grade 9 was an interesting year indeed. We were no longer Sotte and we could finally do whatever we wanted. Or so we thought. Miss Bothma soon reminded us that we were still juniors and that we should know our place. I still remember how all of us used to avoid eye contact when Ma’am would ask questions in class. At least

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