Krista Lang, my seventh grade Language Arts teacher at Bridgewater Middle School (who would go on to be my Journalism teacher in eighth grade), is no doubt my favorite teacher. She is the kindest, funniest, and craziest teacher in all of Florida. She is as crazy as a cat walking on its two feet.

I looked forward to her class everyday. I was the first student to get there, and the last student to leave. From learning the required curriculum, to learning lifelong lessons, Ms. Lang was amazing at teaching both. She made sure each student was happy, and made it almost impossible to fail.

From learning about nouns and adjectives, to taking In the News Quizzes, Ms. Lang taught me a surplus of things I would know for a lifetime. For example, she taught me to always be informed in what was going on in the world around me. I never used to watch the news, or know what was going on outside of my little world. But she made me want to watch the news and then come back the next day and tell her what I  learned.

One day in November, I walked to fifth period Language Arts and discovered two empty cat bowls outside the classroom door. This classroom was portable, so it was outside the school (along with 18 other portable classrooms on campus). I walked into the class confused, and asked Ms. Lang, “Why are there two empty cat bowls outside the doors of the classroom?”

She went on to tell me that a little, black stray cat comes by every so often, and she puts out food and water for it. This continued for about a month until Ms. Lang decided to take the cat to the vet--and adopt it as her own. This is one example of why Ms. Lang is no doubt my favorite teacher. She puts other people’s (and cat’s) happiness before her own--and she makes sure everyone is the best they can be.

When I was in seventh grade, I had eighth grade lunch because of one of the classes I was taking and I knew only a couple other fellow seventh graders. Ms. Lang used to let us come to her classroom and we would order pizzas for fun. She also encouraged me to go to the lunchroom and make new friends, so I did that often too.

Ms. Lang also liked to enforce the No Chewing Gum policy. She is a master at catching people chewing gum when they’re not supposed to be. If she caught you, you would have to put your gum into her “gum jar”-- a jar that was almost filled to the top by the end of the year-- and you would have an after school detention.
When I got the news that I would be moving within a year, she was the first person I told. She convinced me that everything was going to be okay. And then, she continued checking in on me often, as she knew it was going to be a difficult adjustment.

Now that I go to a different school, I still keep in touch with her and visit her when I go back to Florida. Ms. Lang, my seventh grade Language Arts teacher is more than just my seventh grade Language Arts teacher, she is a friend.