She was right.

My High School English teacher senior year was the very definition of a spinster. She was a cold and meticulous woman who lived alone with cats, the most obnoxious of breeds to a young student due to the fact that because she had no personal life, she had more time to grade ridiculously involved projects and assignments. I am creative though, and usually did quite well in her class. She would post our grades for the entire class to see every 2 weeks, and I was the target of many angry glares with my name at the top of the list consistently. I will say that for as annoying as she was, I retained more in her class than any other my senior year. I may not have liked her all that much but I certainly respected her. She had a quote on her wall in the classroom printed on a banner no less than 10 feet long. To this day, I recall the words and repeat them to myself often.

“If you always do what you have always did, you will always get what you always got”

Thank you, Ms. Stewart.