In middle school, I did a very good job of blending into the background as an introvert. In many ways I felt like I was a side character in my own story. High school would be where the true evolution of myself would begin.
I was part of FACT (the Freshman Advanced Curriculum Team), which was basically an honors cohort where we travelled from class to class together. The benefits was of course being surrounded by the same people and more easily able to form close relationships. The downsides of course meant limited interactions outside of the atypical nerdy friends I had. But that was fine with me.
I had a notorious reputation now as first and foremost the nerd that created and distributed study guides to everyone and secondly Jojo’s #1 fan. As a result, I slowly was able to talk to more members of the opposite gender and normalize myself.
One standout moment for me was a class project where equal participation was expected from both partners. Unfortunately, my assigned partner faced difficulties, leading me to take on the entire workload. Regrettably, the teachers were displeased with this and penalized our score from 8/10 to 4/10, citing that only one person had done all the work. As an educator myself, I firmly believe in valuing students’ efforts, especially in group assignments. It’s natural for roles to vary, and punishing a student for contributing more undermines the spirit of collaboration. This incident left me frustrated, and I carried those feelings towards my teachers for the rest of the year.
A sense of dread comes over me when I think about the immature moments I had this year, most notably declaring war on two of my friends dramatically. One, for revealing my crush to other people (leading to my 2nd rejection in life). And another one, for calling my friend a “stupid slut” after she supposedly almost overdosed on painkillers. Not sure if that actually happened or was a cry for attention, in retrospect.
With dial-up internet, I had a good time chatting with my friends on AOL Instant Messenger every night. Maybe it’s the nostalgia, but I truly believe it was the best platform to communicate with people, far superior to the mass exodus of social media applications we have today.
My 2nd major obsession started this year, when I started watching the television series “24”, which remains to date, one of my favorite TV shows of all time.
Anyway, the weirdness didn’t stop, as I made a name for myself, creating FACT newspapers for my class, compiling articles written by many of my classmates.
DOWNLOAD THE FACT NEWSPAPERS UNEDITED HERE.
No longer a side character, I was standing out in eccentric and unique ways in the 9th grade.
