For reasons unclear to me, this afternoon the following thought popped into my head: “Hey, I wonder what’s new with (name of my high school)?”

[Background needed in order to understand (and possibly care) about what I'm about to write: After college, I worked at my old high school for three years. I was a computer teacher (actually, the computer department didn't exist before I came along, to be perfectly honest), a coach (baseball and fast-pitch softball), and I designed the school's first website. Once I finished graduate school, I moved on.]

It shocked me a little to realize I really hadn’t thought about the school in any way, shape or form in probably two years. Understand, I used to eat, sleep and breathe this school. To not be heavily invested in the goings on at the school is something that would have seemed like madness to me years ago.

I typed the school’s URL and was shocked to see its website. My design was long gone. This I already knew (a couple years ago, when the notion to check out the website popped into my head, I saw that the school had replaced my design with a new one), but I wasn’t prepared for the amateurishness of the design I was about to see!

All totaled, I worked on this school’s website for four years. My internship during my senior year of college was spent as the “webmaster” for the school’s website. As a college student, not yet an employee, I created the school’s first-ever website. And a year later, when I graduated from college, I became an employee of the school and continued my “webmaster-ey.”

When I left the school three years later, I didn’t expect them to keep my design until the end of time. So, I wasn’t surprised when, a couple years later, they changed it. The new design wasn’t as awesome as mine (not surprising, right? Right?), but it was decent. But this…this latest one…it…it…

It stinks on ice, to use an expression I liked to use a lot as a teen. Gosh, it’s awful. AWFUL.

But fine. Whatever. The website sucks now. No big deal.

I go to the site’s employee directory to see how many staff members I remember. Gosh, there’s been MAJOR turnover. I recognize about half the names. That’s a lot of turnover in such a short period of time.

I check out the baseball page next to see if I recognize any of the players. Nope, not a single one. A few of the last names seem familiar, which likely means these are younger siblings to students I used to know.

I check out the softball page and see the same. A list of question marks.

The only name that is familiar at all is the name of the head coach. He went to school with me, although he was several years younger. I wouldn’t say I knew him exactly, though. I knew him in the same way you would know any kid you took lunch money from or stuffed in a locker.

(No, I didn’t really do that. I wasn’t a bully. Honest.)

My failed trip down memory lane did get me thinking, though. My life has changed a lot the past eight years. I remember interviewing for a job and thinking how surreal it was to be going back to the place I spent so many years as a student. I remember signing my contract and wondering if the headmaster was going to change his mind about hiring someone who still hadn’t finished college.

I remember the last week of finals in college. I remember the pressure of knowing that if I bombed horribly on any of them I wouldn’t graduate on time and, therefore, wouldn’t be able to start my new job. I remember the thrill of taking my last final on a Tuesday night, knowing I had passed all my classes, and knowing I had only a few hours to celebrate because the following morning was the first day of work for new teachers at my school.

I remember stepping in front of a classroom for the first time and not having the first clue how to process the infinite number of things I had to process at any given time. I remember the first student with whom I connected. I remember the first student I helped who “thanked” me by throwing me under a bus to his parents and the high school principal just to save his own, scrawny neck. I remember having to fight really hard not to distrust all students after that incident.

I remember my first parent-teacher meeting and coming to the realization that all parents do NOT know what they are doing. I remember my first of several “run ins” with insane parents, and I definitely remember all the times I called them on their insanity.

I remember coaching. I remember losing (a lot). I remember being baffled by how much we lost because when I was in school our baseball and softball teams were dynamos. I remember getting my first win as a coach and exhaling for about twelve minutes.

I remember all these things, but it’s as if they happened lifetimes ago.

What kind of changes will the next eight years bring? And, more importantly, will my old high school’s website still suck?