Emily Paine Carter

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Even for those whose K-12 years are long gone, many stay programmed for the ol' academic calendar.

Sure, things have changed. But oh, we recall the rush of New Hopes and Fears (see below). Unlike glib politicians, we indeed feel your pain.

Heck, your elders may still have scholastic nightmares! Take former Salemite Mack Banner -- now chief executive of Southeast Asia's largest hospital -- who replied for a recent column: "Please thank Mr. [Walter] Robinson for not flunking me in my last semester of his [1966 Andrew Lewis High School] English class ... [I] still have nightmares of unfinished reports on unread books and unstudied for finals. It's refreshing to wake up and know I just have a hospital to go steer vs. an unwritten English term paper."

I'm not sure if that particular bad dream is in "The Pop-up Book of Nightmares," a weird coffee-table book I gave my son. State Commissioner of Mental Health Dr. James Reinhard, former Salemite, also recommended "The Pop-Up Book of Psychoses" -- maybe you'll study those this year? -- a big hit at national psychology conventions, he said.

We pay big bucks for your education. Maybe by school's end you could draw a pie-chart of the piles and piles of tax dollars spent to educate you, dear student.

But we have also made piles and piles of mistakes -- maybe your social studies and history classes will inform you. Feel free to help solve them ASAP.

Now, more about your New Year:

• New classes: some fascinating, some flat-out brain-biting, all educational -- even if you only learn danged endurance, that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

• New teachers: some cool, some not so much; see above. A possible essay topic for you: Teachers versus entertainers as heroes.

My own very late-breaking (40 years later!) moment of crystallization: Realizing that I could not sing, clever Broad Street Elementary School music teacher Karen Johnston pulled clueless me from her choir to play piano notes before each song. Bless her subtle heart.

• New clothes? Suggestion: Don't be so proud of them that a hot school day finds you slow-roasting in your finery. Trust me on this; after a few foolish autumns, I finally, um, let a cooler head prevail.

• New friends. Old friends. New relationships with old friends.

Bullies-in-training, come here: Yes, girls; you, too. Quit being mean, y'all! As sainted Nancy Wheeler has told many a preschool class at St. Anne's Episcopal Day School, "Blowing out someone else's candle doesn't make your own candle burn brighter." So there.

• Anything can change -- as classmate / movie reviewer for this paper Chris Gladden has stressed. I tell you, those Gladden men are sages; if you can find even one such wise friend, hang on!

And hang on to all the good things you'll learn this year. To your dreams, not fears. To as many quotations as your cranium will hold -- say, from trusty Shakespeare: "We are such stuff / As dreams are made on."

So, have a great year! Hey, make it a great year!