Two words: Justin Bieber.

Ingrid, a very bubbly girl in my seventh grade class, stayed after school one day to ask me about the meaning of the Biebs’ hit song: “Beauty and the Beat.” We watched the music video on her smart phone after she teased me for only owning a “not-smart” flip phone with T9 for texting. (Psh, kids these days.) I acted out “beat” and explained that the singer “only wants a beautiful girl and music, nothing more.” Ingrid swooned, saying that she wished she could be “his beautiful girl.” We laughed and joked about how handsome the teenage heartthrob is.

“I’ve seen him in real life,” I told her.

“En serio?!” she gasped, immediately switching to Spanish to shoot off questions in rapidfire. “Why did you see him? When? Is he as hot in real life? How tall is he? How close to him were you? Could you have touched him? Did you touch him?”

I tried to hold back my laughter as Ingrid leaped into my arms for a hug, amazed that she could actually hug someone who could have hugged Justin Bieber. En serio.

I explained that the Biebs is actually a pretty cool guy, considering that the reason I saw him was he donated a private concert, loads of money and a truck-full of Christmas presents to an at-risk elementary school in my hometown. Before becoming an English teacher, I told her, I was a reporter and was there to write the story.

The next day when I arrived at school, a gaggle of seventh grade girls descended on me like those geese I’m scared of at the park. Insert a million and one questions here. I stumbled through my shabby Spanish, trying to answer all of their questions as they talked over each other, pushing each other out of the way to get closer to me … so they could video tape me. En serio.

Word has now traveled around the rest of campus that I “met” Justin Bieber, and it’s not uncommon for the kids to stop me in the courtyard to re-ask me a million and one questions. Sometimes they just forego the questions all together, and instead follow me around, introducing me to their friends along the way.

Oh, to be a teenage girl again.
Now, here’s the song that inspired all this nonsense. Try not to catch Bieber Fever.

—JDF