Journal Topic #11

High School:

Spent first two years of high school in California. I didn't have many friends. Got picked on a lot by mean girls. Tagged along with my older sisters so I wouldn't have to eat alone, but they didn't really like me hanging out with them. In the 10th grade I found out this very smart, very cute boy I liked, liked me. He didn't know I liked him and had day dreams about our getting married right out of high school. When I found out he liked me too I got scared. I pretended to like his friend instead. Flirted with him even. It broke the other guys heart... well as much as was possible. Our only contact was in our long talks we had at lunch. He stopped talking to me after that :( Funny though because I can't recall his name.

10th grade I occasionally ditched my English class. I always got good grades in English (not for my writing skills, obviously... but it was enough that I love to read and could talk about what it was I had read). My teacher was smart but kind of ditzy. Me and my friend Scott would go to Taco Bell to eat. We'd come back just when class let out, sneak into her class and mark ourselves there before going to our next class. That was the only "bad" thing I ever did in High School. An awesome thing that happened to me in the 9th grade was I got an award for BEST artist in the whole school! The art teacher loved me. I even won in an art contest I entered... I got 2nd place... which was like 3rd place because they had a Grand Prize winner, a 1st place winner, 2nd place and 3rd place. Still, it was pretty exciting for me. The theme of the contest was "The Power of One". My dad gave me the idea to do a drawing of The Little Dutch Boy, who saved a town by sticking his finger in a leaking dyke until it could be sealed. Also, in the 10th grade I was a Boys Varsity Basketball Manager along with my sister Laura and a few others. It was fun taking stats of the games.

I was very happy when I found out we were moving to Texas. I thought I could reinvent myself and keep from getting picked on. Or have a moment where I transformed from a dork to a beautiful girl, I was turning 16 after all. Lol. Though looking back I could have "reinvented" myself in California too, it's not like anyone knew me that well. All I really did was dye my hair a lighter shade of blonde... and later a dark brown.

I was in Texas for grades 11-12. Nothing really changed for me. Me and my brother Ryan ate lunch together when I was in the 11th grade and he was in the 10th. The next year we didn't have lunch together so for half of the year I ate it by myself. I finally made a few friends and ate lunch with them after that. I also went to prom with them. It was a few Asian girls and me. *note to self... upload prom picture.

English class in Texas was something else. 11th grade I took advanced English. It kicked my butt. I was used to goofing off a bit and getting A's. Here I worked my tail off and I got B's and C's. So for my senior year I decided to take regular English. It was way too easy. There was no middle ground at all. I can't imagine what a remedial English class might be like. My teacher loved me just because I actually did the assignments and showed an enthusiasm for reading. She even hugged and thanked me at the end of the year for being in her class!

Cool things that happened in Texas high school. As I mentioned before I won 1st place twice (they had several art mediums to enter and place in, I only entered the two and like I said, they both placed 1st) in a State Wide art contest which lead me to receiving a letterman Jacket from the school. I also won 1st place in an advertising art contest. I was asked by my computer teacher to join The Future Businessmen of America club so I could do the "graphic design" for the club. I had some of my lame computer artwork displayed in a local paper. Me and this other girl, despite being paired with two football players who weren't really helpful to the project, won a contest in our Economics class. It was a computer program that determined your "company's" success based on decisions you made for the company. Like what product to build, how much to charge for it, how much to put towards advertising the product etc. Also got extra points for the name/look of the company. We were Lunar Enterprises and I made an awesome logo for our team. AND at the graduation party I won a PC and printer. The PC sucked of course but still, these little accomplishments is what made me decide to graduate college with a degree in graphic design... never mind that I don't use the degree today... you never know. Besides it seemed so destined that it be my field.

I had some major crushes in high school, but only went on those two dates I mentioned in an earlier post... neither guy was a crush.