Many of the friendships I embraced in 9th grade easily transcended and manifested themselves in new and surprising ways in the 10th grade.
I was good friends with Jerick, and we bonded over our love of Runescape and The O.C. I remember him coming to my house to hang out, a rarity for someone like me with no life at the time. We were unfortunately also both quite emotionally unstable during my sophomore year, when we both ended up liking the same girl. Luckily, it didn’t really tear our friendship apart, but made us both sad and co-dependant on others for happiness. At this moment in my life, attention from the opposite gender was unexpected, and so in the rare instances that it happened, feelings quickly exploded inside my stomach.
Quite fitting that Taylor Swift would launch into the music scene with her self-titled album. I was a fan from the very beginning, teardrops on my guitar resonating with me quite a bit.
I wasn’t really bullied or picked on since leaving Pyles Elementary, but there was a jerk at our school who used to make fun of me in PE. He later became super famous as a dancer in Poreotics (Dumbo), but other than him, Rancho was a pleasant experience being in the “Honors bubble”. This meant of course I had a fantastic experience in AP European History. As my first AP class, it quickly reinvigorated my love of history, and possibly set me on the path to later become a teacher of the humanities. Thank you Mrs. Schirmer.
Myspace was the first major social media platform my generation used. I quickly got addicted, and can still recall the politics of who to include in my “top 8”. During time periods I was “emo”, I would deactivate the account, only to return a few weeks later.
My sister started an organization, the Volunteers of Orange County, and I quickly became webmaster for this club while doing various community service projects around and near Garden Grove. Little did I know I would later become President of this organization the following year.
This year ended with my first summer job at the Orange County fair, where George and I sold newspapers to vendors working the stands. My crush at the time asked for free OC fair tickets. I thought I could get them for her, but when I failed, I just ended up using my own money to buy her 4. What a crazy simp I was at the time.
