Universal Studios

For this excursion, I am taking us all the way back to 2009. It was the end of fourth grade and my teacher Ms. Burke just announced that our class was going to Universal. To explain why we were going to Universal, we have to take another step back. Throughout the school year we had a reading area. Ms. Burke would sit on a chair and we would all gather around her and listen to her read. Her favorite series was Harry Potter so, we ended up starting the Sorcerer’s Stone. To be fair it took us half of the school year to finish this book because she would only read one chapter at a time. I was very impatient though, so of course I went to the library and checked out the Harry Potter series and got to work.

Ms. Burke decided that to celebrate the class’s love of Harry Potter that she would graciously pay for all of us to go to Universal. She paid out of her own pocket to allow the class to visit the Harry Potter World that is in Universal. The only thing that we had to pay for was these shirts that said Ms. Burke’s fourth grade class that was $10. At the time in fourth grade, I was very short. I could not have been more than 4’4″. The reason that I remember this is that we were paired into groups based on our height. That means that I was paired with another girl, Jillian, that was too short to go on all the rides. That didn’t stop me though. I discussed with Jillian about how we would get around the problem of us being too short. In my head this was an easy fix. We stuff our shoes with socks.

I committed to this idea very early on. Our class took a bus to Universal and all stormed to the Harry Potter section. We all went on this ride together and let me tell you, nine year old Nicole did not enjoy the huge spiders. After our class split up, we encountered the first ride that we were actually too short for. That didn’t stop me, I knew that I was tall enough. I walk up to the measuring pole and I waited a solid minute before the attendant said I was good. Now all we needed was to see if Jillian pulled it off. She walked up and she didn’t even come close to the height requirements. What I was unaware of at that time, Jillian didn’t stuff her shoes with socks because her mom was our chaperone and she didn’t want to risk getting in trouble. Mind you, I was now a nine year old, walking like an idiot, that couldn’t go on any rides because my partner was too short. Don’t get me wrong, I still had an amazing time but it instead included the younger kids rides and looking through the shops in the Harry Potter area. I will forever be grateful to Ms. Burke for being one of the nicest ladies out there and picking my class to take to Universal.