I wanted to go to Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. I took the test and got cut the second round.
There was a girl who lived in my neighborhood. We started off as friends, but she moved on when I got too frumpy for her crowd. One time, we accidentally set her house on fire.
There was a boy in my biology class that I had a huge crush on. He wasn't popular even though he could climb rocks. All of the letters of his last name are in my last name.
There was a girl who lived across the street who drove me to school. She only cared about my gas money and never considered me a real friend. I was jealous of how skinny she was.
My chemistry teacher thought I was too stupid to take the advanced physics class and told me so.
Some kids died in a car crash on January 1st, 2000.
Once when I was in government class, a girl shoved her tongue onto the glass panel of the door and started knocking with her tongue piercing.
Three of the very popular kids were average looking.
My highschool boyfriend dumped me for a middle schooler because I wasn't ready for sex. He also thought I was fat.
One of my friends took him to prom. I guess they liked each other.
My English teacher thought I couldn't write very well, and she commonly used the pronoun "I" as an object.
My physics partner used to shout my name across the hallways in a Chewbacca voice as a way of saying hello. I didn't think it was funny, and I hate Chewbacca, but I laughed every time because I had no idea what else to do.
In my middle school, I never caught up to the kids who had been studying French. In high school, I went through 3 years of classes never having any idea what was going on.
To get through those classes, each day I would draw a grid with 45 squares. Every 30 seconds, I would carefully color in exactly half a square. On the diagonal.
A boy took me on a date to the Kennedy Center and forcefully shoved his hands down my dress to grab my breasts. He's a well adjusted father now.
There was a girl who was the lead in the school musical. She played the flute and piano with poise and ease, and she was accepted into Eastman. She was always kind to me, like a nice celebrity.
One of my friends was a closeted lesbian then, and still is now.
One girl wrote death threats to herself to get attention. Everybody in the school had to submit a handwriting sample during the investigation.
I would have done anything to get the music teachers to notice me, but they didn't.
One of the most beautiful girls in our entire class looked like Meg from Hercules. Her period blood seeped through her tight jeans one tragic afternoon.
There was a boy in my math classes who was very clearly not in the preppy crowd. He got better grades on math tests than I did, and it was not okay.
I really wanted to be on the soccer team, but I didn't make the cut.
There was a girl who lived in my neighborhood who was an outcast. Her little brother and a bunch of his friends started bullying me once, and I told them that his sister was a loser. Although the kids left me alone, I felt terrible, and apologized to his sister. She would come to one of my piano recitals many years later and bring me flowers.f
I had a doppelganger, but she and I didn't look at all alike. There simply weren't as many half-Asian people in the 90's.
There was a boy who had the reputation of being the best artist in the school. I didn't care for any of his work.
There was a cartoon drawer, however, who was fantastic. He was sleeping with an older woman who had a child.
On the first day of school, a girl showed me how to use a combination lock. We would later grow to be best friends with a relationship so dysfunctional that she doesn't want anything to with me.
One of my friends pressured me to call a cute athletic boy on the phone. I didn't know what to say, so I hung up after he answered.
I remember one obvious teenage pregnancy.
I was friends with a boy who had big sideburns. I thought he was wonderful, but he always talked to me about the girl he liked.
I was a girl scout the entire time. I don't know why.
My friend and I stayed up all night to do an entire science fair project that was due the next day. The next day was a snow day.
I was too ashamed to wear shorts.
One of my best friends and I pretended we had telepathic powers, and we practiced them in the middle of the night in her waterbed. We're still close friends.
One time I left the cafeteria during lunch to kiss a boy in a car.
Many times I left my French class to go practice my cello in a storage closet.
My friend and I stayed after school to clean mouse cages for extra credit in biology. The biology teacher later noticed a crack in a cage and blamed it on us.
One time I wrote a book report on a book I made up. I think I got a good grade.
I threw away most of my own artwork because it failed to meet my own standards. When it was time to submit my AP art portfolio, I didn't have enough work to show, and I had to supplement my pieces with drawings from first grade. Those drawings, in a way, were beautiful. I got a 1, which is the lowest possible score.
There was a boy who sat in front of me in French. He had dreamy eyes and kissy lips.
There was a couple who wore matching Adidas winter coats. I wished I was part of a couple like that.
One of my friends was glamorous and smart. Her loser boyfriend snuck into her room in the middle of the night to sleep with her, but he treated her like crap in front of all his friends. She is still wildly glamorous and smart.
Sometimes my little sister slept in my bed.
I always ordered salads with skim milk for lunch, and the skinny girls always ordered 3 Otis Spunkmeyer cookies. It wasn't fair.
I didn't get an A in AP Music Theory the first time, so I took it again. That class taught me all the music theory I would need to know for a Masters in Piano Performance.
The boy I had a crush on from first grade rode my bus in high school. He was mean.
One of my English teachers was so crazy that during one girl's class presentation, the teacher took one of the girl's fingers and stuck it up her own nose. I think she got fired.
My government class gave out easy A's for listening to 5 minutes of news and taking short multiple choice quizzes on the clips. I fell asleep every time and flunked the quizzes.
Sometimes having a nice container of lip gloss was the highlight of my week.
I joined the powder puff team because I wanted to throw spirals. I never got the ball.
