Happy Anniversary! Source.

The first day of class after vacation is always rough, particularly when your mind is still with all the Polish dumplings and medieval castles you experienced on one of the best trips ever. So I didn’t prepare much in terms of teaching on Monday, and preferred instead to let the students talk about their (less than epic) 2-week vacations. I had them each write down three things they did: most went to the movie theater, visited their respective “pueblos” (second houses in other towns), and played soccer games. One boy, though, had some really thrilling news:

“I celebrated one year being best friends with X.”

Say what??

When I asked what in God’s name was a best friend year and how you would even go about counting the exact days you’ve been friends, all the classmates defended him. So here is the run-down, apparently, on middle-school best friend pacts:

One day, you sit down with a really good friend. You talk it over and decide, yes, this is truly going well. Want to be best friends? Done. You remember the date, and from that day on, you are a platonic love-friendship couple. If you make it to the one-year mark, it’s cause for celebration—everyone knows how volatile middle-school friendships can be. Is it as important as a one-year anniversary with your boyfriend or girlfriend? Not quite, but we’ll take what we can get.

Congratulations to this student of mine. So glad he could maintain a friendship for 365 calendar days.

About The Author

Jenny

Jenny Marshall studied Language, Culture, and Society at the University of California Santa Barbara, and now teaches English in Spain. Here she writes about the intersection of language and culture, and lives a life translated by travel.