#lynzie

Small story:

Mrs Brenner was my chemistry teach for 6 years, she helped me out a lot when I was in a bad place and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be alive without her help. She is still one of my favourite people even after we lost touch. Here are some golden moments with her:

Walked into class looked me dead in the eye and asked 'so Lucky how is your Godless life today!' (after the previous day when I asked her if she believed in a god and I told her I did not).

She used to randomly shout in the middle of class 'they don't call me anal for nothing'. Anal being short for anally retentive meaning highly concerned with small details, but she often did not explain that second part. Hence why her alternative name is Anal.

She would make hot chocolate in beakers over Bunsen Burners as a reward.

She found me crying in the hall the day after my cat died and she took me to her class, took all the sweets from the staff room and let me have as many as I wanted (she also let me miss my first period class until I calmed down).

She would let me stay with her in her class until 8pm some nights while she prepped her classes and marked tests because I couldn't handle going home (for multiple reasons).

She took a look at my work on one of the first classes I had with her and genuinely asked me 'are you dyslexic?'. My first learned language was not English so I told her that... Turns out I had autism the whole time and that's why I struggled with both language for such a long time.

She used to work as a stool sample analyser, and loved telling us about how nothing can gross her out because she worked with frozen poop all day for years.

She is holding a comb because what inspired her to become a scientist was that when she was a teenager she was combing her hair with a wet comb and noticed the running water began to curve around her comb when she went to wet it again. (It was the static electricity from her hair causing the water to pull towards it)

She used to stop teaching mid sentence to whisper to the class what teacher she thought was walking up the hall way and would then stand and make us all watch the door to see if she was right. She was always right and explained all the different ways the other teachers would walk.

She had chronic health issues, specifically issues around her blood not clotting. One time she fell through a glass door in the middle of doing the dishes at home and due to her lack of blood clotting her rubber gloves filled with blood... She told us this because she thought it was hilarious that her daughters were terrified.

She would roast teachers and students everyday.

She changed my school attendance record for me when I was going through a hard time and was late or couldn't make it into school.

She would let me borrow deodorant and dry shampoo when I was struggling at home.

She always made sure I was eating.

I drew and doodles on every piece of paper and school book so she gave me a special book to doodle in to stop me drawing on my work.

She knew I was very particular about my notes and would print me out extra sheets so I could make them perfect.

She asked the physics teacher to give me an extra class because I didn't understand the root of a theory (and was therefore struggling to apply it).