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Summer’s over: It’s time to trade in video games for school books

— Freshmen aren’t the only students getting oriented before school starts.

All of the about 82,000 Lee County students expected to start school Monday will have to adjust. No more sleeping in. No more extended family trips. No more weeks of free time.

Austin Reichart, 9, will have to put down the guitar connected to his gaming system and pick up some math books. He said math is his most difficult subject.

“I like reading a lot more than math,” Austin said. “It’s hard to do math, because I am so in to reading.”

The Three Oaks Elementary School fourth-grader said he is really good at “Guitar Hero,” the name of the game emblazoned across his T-shirt. Participants in the game use a simplified guitar to perfect the playing of songs that increase in difficulty.

“He spends a little too much time on it,” Austin’s mother and the school’s former PTO president, Lori Reichart, said.

Three Oaks Middle School sixth-grader Kaitlin Westman, 11, said she won’t miss Austin’s school, which she just graduated from. Kaitlain said she was excited about the new year.

“I get to see my friends again, and I’m going to a new school and I have more than one teacher,” Kaitlin said. Her mother butted in, saying that she would in fact be seeing her old school and friends. That’s where mom teaches kindergarten.

“She’ll get to see them,” Kitty Westman said. “She gets to do errands in mommy’s room.”

Alex Church, 16, is also excited. As she starts her junior year at Estero High School, Church is already accustomed to getting up early and working hard as part of the Wildcats’ cross country team.

“Yes and no,” Church said when asked what she thought of the next year. “Yes, because you get to hang out with friends, but no because we get to train harder for another cross country season.”

Others have no idea what to expect. Like those who have recently moved to Southwest Florida.

Moire Lawson, 14, for example, is from Vermont. How does starting your freshman year of high school in a brand new state sound?

“I’m nervous about lunch,” Lawson said. “I don’t want to be the kid that eats their lunch in the bathroom.”

Lawson worried much about finding friends other than her mom.

“It’s going to be intense,” she said.

Intensity escaped Austin, though, as his mother got him ready for school last week. Though he was excited for school, it’s the warm up — the orientation — that he just doesn’t appreciate.

“We have to go shopping today for clothes. I always have to try on a lot of stuff,” Austin said, waving his hands in the air in a mocking gesture. “My mom said there is like a big sale at J.C. Penney and stuff.”

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Are you serious put dowm my video game and pick-up the books. NEVER

“I’m nervous about lunch,” Lawson said. “I don’t want to be the kid that eats their lunch in the bathroom.”

When did they start eating lunch in the bathroom, boy things have change.

#1 Posted by allUpoliticalsockpuppets on August 17, 2008 at 8:44 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I agree RFgrad.

#2 Posted by allUpoliticalsockpuppets on August 18, 2008 at 12:15 p.m. (Suggest removal)



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