YOUR FRESHMAN YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL
[What year was it?] 1996-97 (taking adrienne's word for it.
[What were your three favorite bands?] i wasn't really into music. i listened to a lot of z100. i like greenday and alanis. i don't really know what else.
[What was your favorite outfit?] you know i really can't remember. this was back before i discovered flare leg pants so i'm sure anything i wore was pretty dumb.
[What was up with your hair?] it was generally the same that it is now. shoulderish, maybe layered but probably not. i think my sister cut my hair back then (she was actually good). i didn't really know how to blow dry it straight then so i had it in a pony tail for a lot of the year.
[Who was your best friend?] melissa. and jackie.
[What did you do after school?] i joined images (literary arts magazine) but those meetings were like once every four weeks. i spent a few afternoons wandering the halls, but the late bus sucked and i had to run and catch the bus every afternoon after the last period. when i was home i would watch a lot of tv and eat basically every single thing in the house. wow, i was a real loser. i think sometimes melissa came over or i went to her house or jackie's house. i also distinctly remember one afternoon walking to adrienne's house. i thought it was the longest walk ever.
[Where did you work?] was it legal to work then?
[Did you take the bus?] god yes. it was awful. AWFUL. i was the last bus stop to be picked up and the stop to be dropped off (which was supremely unfair I thought.) This meant in the mornings I was at the mercy of everyone else on finding a seat and always had to sit with someone. this also meant in the afternoons i was at the mercy of this weird goth kid, paul (he dressed up for halloween as jesus once) who made weird conversation with me and generally made me feel uncomfortable. the bus was the WORST.
[Who did you have a crush on?] haha! joel van tine! he was a senior and had the same birthday as me.
[Did you fight with your parents?] i would get yelled at by my dad a lot.
[Who did you have a CELEBRITY crush on?] meh.
[Did you smoke cigarettes?] i think i tried them for the first time this year. and no, it wasn't a peer pressure thing. i wanted to see what they were about so i took one from my dad and smoked it outside one day. i then decided that it sucked and never smoked again until i was in college. i'm glad i made that decision for myself.
[Did you lug all of your books around in your backpack all day because you were too nervous to find your locker?] high school was exciting b/c in middle school you weren't allowed to carry around bookbags. i doubt i carried everything with me, but i did love my bookbag. i know i kept my spanish book in jackie's locker.
[Did you have a 'clique'?] i hung out with jackie and patricia and melissa and those people. i also was friends with greg. i hung out with anyone who was in band basically. geek.
[Did you have a "Max" like Zach Kelly and Slater?] i can't believe no one wrote franks pizza. that was totally the place to be after school on fridays but before pre-football game-marching band practice. all wearing our grey swmhs band tshirts obviously. SOOO COOOL.
[Admit it, were you popular?] no. i accept it. i think i accepted it then too. i didn't have an desire to be really.
[Who did you want to be just like?] my sistah.
[What did you want to be when you grow up?] i don't know. i think i wanted to go into journalism then. how much thought do we put into this stuff in high school?
[Where did you think you'd be at the age you are now?] I assumed that I would be working in the city, living in a cool apartment and have a life sort of like "friends." haha. maybe not the friends part...but i assumed i'd have a cool boyfriend and interesting, intellectual friends.
[What advice would you give your freshman self?] to do better in school. to look people in the eye more. to be more confident.
i should probably not post this because it really exemplifies what a complete and utter dork i was. truth is, freshmen year was one of the more awkward years of my life. i didn't start feeling attractive until later in my high school life so i didn't have much self esteem. my best friend went in more of a "bad girl" (for a 15 year old) phase, and i was caught between pretending like i was okay with whatever she was doing b/c i desperately wanted to be friends with her still and hanging out with my more "wholesome" friends. through marching band i was friends with a couple older kids who i thought were the coolest in the world (like
chonch!!!) but i was really very sheltered at home. this was also the year that the first one of my friends did anything sexual with a boy (not kissing). i began to become more sexually aware at this age but never had boyfriends to explore with. this was also the first year that i ever did really badly in school (not completely my fault though.) through that experience it was the first time i ever felt like i let my parents down. i would get into fights with my dad fairly regularly about school things and cry often. i felt painfully skinny and just not attractive. looking back at all the changes that happened that year, i really wondered how i ever survived.
there were good things too though. mrs. pellechia was my english teacher and the first person who expressed interest in an encouraged my writing skills. she had this warm way about her and i remember her taking me aside and telling me that i was a wonderful writer. my sister started college that year and we started to see each other as friends. slowly, but it started. all of her college friends loved me and she'd take me out to dinners and stuff a lot. i went to india that year and really discovered myself. before this year, i was always slightly embarrassed about being indian, embarrassed about the way my house smelled or my dad's accent or not celebrating christmas. i was wholly uncomfortable with myself. after my trip freshmen year, i discovered that i had a family who loved me unconditionally. a huge web of a family who were all interesting intelligent people whom i could rely on, even if they were on a different continent. i discovered family that year. i also discovered my culture. i spent that trip wide eyed. amazed that my skin color didn't mean anything there and slowly realizing it didn't mean anything anywhere. i looked at colors, history, experienced smells and emotions and culture. it was the year of the birth of the person whom i was going to become. that trip uncovered a part of me that after 8 years, still exists and still grows. i think it's rather fitting that i got my period for the first time on my way home from that india trip (another good thing that happened, because i was beginning to feel like a half-boy freak b/c everyone else had gotten it.) that month, more than any other since, was that start of me growing into an adult.