While I was in Florida I briefly talked to Alex at the beach and he asked me if I was going to be a freshmen starting this year. I told him that I was. Then he started going on a whole lecture about how I should enjoy high school while it lasts and how he wishes he could go back. He talked like he was thirty years old or something but he was basically just starting his college experience. Even so, I thought about this for a while as I sat in the water and let the ocean waves roll past.
All my teachers at the beginning of the year went on about opportunities and not letting our high school years go to waste, that the four years go by fast. Then they showed us all the things we could join. I didn’t find interest in any of them.
Each morning on the announcements they bring a senior on to talk and as if they were reading from a script–they most certainly were–they all discussed how we should do as much as we could while we were here.
Whenever I ask the seniors after they graduate about their regrets, they always say they wish they could have done more. That’s why you shouldn’t let these years go by without doing anything.
I’m in ninth grade now so that makes me a high schooler. I was already attending a high school last year but I suppose that doesn’t count since some people just want to be picky. Nothing much has changed from middle school. It’s a lot more lonely though. The school was smaller in middle school so there was a better feeling of interconnectedness. My high school has around 1200 kids (I think) and I only know a small handful of them.
I don’t really watch any high school movies, probably because I’m not a seven year old girl who thinks high school consists of cliques and spoiled rich girls and bully jocks and nerdy losers and that high school life revolves around prom and constant drama. Actually, I don’t think I’ve watched any high school movie. But everyone knows how they typically go. I became intrigued with the idea of living the ideal, rose-colored high school life. Maybe I’d hang out with friends after school and maybe there’d be some drama and maybe I’d attend the football game where we defeat our dreaded rivals and then I’d go to prom with my date, except none of that will ever happen. I don’t have any real friends and the few people I sort of talk to probably wouldn’t want to hang out with me, or anyone for that matter. There’s nowhere to hang out too. In the movies the main cast of characters have this secret base or a designated hangout spot like a particular cafe or store that they like, but in the town I live in I can’t think of any place like that, unless your favorite cafe is Starbucks. I don’t like football and I don’t care about football and I don’t see myself ever bothering to get myself a ticket, unless one day somebody asks me to go see the game with them, which as I’ve already stated, won’t ever happen. And I’m never getting a date because I don’t like anyone since all the girls at school unfortunately have the dreadful personality of a high school girl, and if I had to spend any time with one alone then I think I’d reach down their throats and rip out their vocal chords, and then dump their bodies into the nearby river. And it’s not as if anyone would want to go to prom with me, nor do I want to go to prom.
Anyway, I thought it wouldn’t matter if none of the high school movie stuff ever happened since it’s just Hollywood and it doesn’t happen in real life. But then I occasionally hear the people walking past me talk about their experiences and drama, and I’d hear about how the kids hang out after school and do some wild stuff, stuff that I wasn’t even aware of because of course nobody invited me, and how everyone seems to be friends with each other on social media, or how everyone is in group chat with one another, or how seniors just walk in during class and my other classmates seem to know them and they start laughing together, and so it makes me wonder if I should be included in these conversations as well. And then the remarks about wasting your high school experience comes to mind and I get a little more concerned.
I knew about homecoming for a while but didn’t pay it much mind because I thought it was going to be like those middle school dances that nobody went to save for a few losers. Then I heard some people talking about going to prom and I started wondering if I should be going too. And the thought about not wasting high school flashes into my mind. I didn’t want to go to homecoming. I knew I wouldn’t have fun at homecoming. I can’t dance and I prefer listening to music alone, or if I have to, with someone who can appreciate music. I didn’t have a date. I wasn’t even sure if you were supposed to have a date for homecoming. At the very least, I didn’t have any friends to go with. Going to an event without a date is fine. Going completely by yourself is pathetic. I had no interest at all in homecoming. But it was the fear of missing out, of wasting my high school years, of being ostracized from my peers, that’s what had me worried.
I ended up not going.
August 27th:
Each morning I go into the gymnasium where I sit with all the other freshmen. I don’t have anybody to talk to. On my right sits the group of rowdy teenage boys. On my left sits a bunch of weeaboo losers that give me second hand embarrassment. Even if they are losers I’m envious of their friend group.
First period, I have math. I don’t talk to anyone since it’s a generally quiet class as the teacher isn’t the type to joke around with the students. It’s pretty boring and I just find myself constantly checking the time until I leave.
Second period is business foundations. When I first entered the class I thought I had walked into some sort of prison room because it all just a bunch of old dudes. There were about three other freshmen but I didn’t notice them until about my second week of class. The teacher is the football coach and a few football players are in the class so they’re always talking about football. We get sidetracked pretty easily, which I don’t mind, since business isn’t exactly thrilling material. There’s textbooks but we don’t use them since the teacher says they’re outdated and the business landscape has changed considerably, mainly due to advances in technology. The teacher, for whatever reason, is really into tech and AI, so we had to do a whole essay on AI and the advancement of technology, as well as their effects on the business landscape. Then we had to do a whole debate which I didn’t participate in because like I said, business isn’t exactly thrilling material. It’s a pretty laid back class though with not too much work so I’m fine with it.
Third period is history. History makes me want to kill myself. History is boring as hell.
Fourth period is English. I hate English. I have to read passages nobody cares about and write about their meaning and the author’s intent. The writing portion is fun, at least when it was a personal narrative essay. The majority of the time I have to write about something I don’t care about like what lead a character to do something in a story, and if I don’t care the writing is super boring and it makes me want to shoot myself.
Fifth period is team sports. I shouldn’t have joined team sports. I should have joined PE survey. That’s the class I need to pass high school and that’s the class all the freshmen are in now and so when I take PE survey next year I’ll be with a bunch of snot nosed freshmen. Although there is this one gut I’ve seen in PE survey that looks like a grown man. I genuinely don’t know if he’s a college aged dude or just a really old looking senior. He has a full beard and everything. For a while I thought his face looked familiar and that’s when I realized he looked exactly (and I do mean exactly) like a young Lebron James, except with a yellow afro. And he absolutely murders in kickball, to the point where I think it should be considered cheating. He kicked it harder than the teacher. Anyway, PE survey shares the gym with team sports, which is filled with seniors and juniors and sophomore. There are only five other freshmen, and I don’t talk to them. We have to do stuff like football and ultimate frisbee and dogeball and a little basketball, none of which I’m that good at, but it’s worse when I’m competing against guys who are ten feet taller than me. I’d like to say though, today the gym teacher was super mad. We have two football players in our class and he was just going off on them, screaming “55 to 6? 55 to 6?” Over and over and over again and the football player would be making excuses like “We had three sophomores on the line!” And they’d bicker back and forth constantly like parrots. Apparently the varsity team got clapped really bad at the homecoming game which I didn’t attend and the gym teacher had been fuming over it all weekend. The teacher just kept going at it saying that everybody in the stands could have suited up and even they wouldn’t have lost 55 to 6. Coincidentally, we were in the middle of the football unit. I’ve never played football so I was no good at it.
Sixth period is lunch. I sit with two other guys and we either play video games or play chess, depending on the day. There’s not too much to say about that.
Seventh period is French. I don’t mind the class, even if I am awful at French. (I hate French.) But my classmates are so annoying. They just go on and on making unfunny jokes. There’s a guy who sits next to me who is not very funny, which isn’t really that bad, but he acts just like I did in fifth grade so I can tell exactly what his thought process is when he makes these unfunny jokes and it just gives me second hand embarrassment. Then there’s this girl in the back who will not ever shut the hell up and quite frankly I want to leap out of my seat and shout that I’ve had enough but I know if I do that people will start avoiding me and my already low social standing will become decimated and I’ll be labeled as an unstable jerk, which I am not. Actually, she acts a lot like TL, uncannily so, as if they were clones. But tl is my cousin and I’ve known her for a long time. This girl just makes me want to get a fork and poke her eyeballs out. I guess that’s a little mean though, since I know she just wants to make people laugh and be lighthearted. But I don’t find her funny. The days where she was absent were pure bliss. The guy who sat next to me wasn’t all that bad. The occasional remark by one of the students wasn’t very funny but wasn’t too loud or constant or obnoxious. Then she returned and I went back to viciously scratching myself to take my mind off things. Although it’s not as if I hate any of my French classmates. I just find them a little bothersome.
Eight period is my most boring class. I’ve always hated science and thought it was super tedious; this year is no different. Science has the opposite problem of French. Everybody is an introvert. There’s only about four other guys in my class and they’re all kind of beta unlike yours truly, the sigma male. I guess that’s just the kind of crowd that honors biology attracts. The boring material combined with the complete silence for fifty minutes makes me want to leap out the window.