I took the easy way out in my last post, and I decided that wasn’t really the point of this exercise if I could simply avoid writing what I didn’t want to discuss.
They always say that High School is the best years of your life. I would like to vigorously argue against that statement as it is clearly false and misleading. But that would reveal far too much personal information than I’m willing to expose. So I’ll just kind of skim over most parts.
Covering all of high school may be a futile exercise, but I’ll try my best to at least cover the highlights (and lowlights) in a semi-orderly fashion.
North Mason High School is located on the same campus as Hawkins Middle School, so the location was a familiar one. Two main things stand out to me my freshman year. The first is my first experience with foreign language. I took German my first year in HS, and don’t remember much at all. Learning how to recycle was probably the most I got out of that class.
I also was not selected for advanced 9th grade English second semester. Despite the fact that I got an A in the first semester English. This still irritates me to this day, and was the first time I wasn’t selected for something advanced. I blame Ms. Lauritsen for this particular incident, and deep down have a theory that she secretly hated me. The irony, of course, is that even if selected I wouldn’t have accepted because it would have interfered with my math class.
Sophomore year is even less distinct than my freshman year. I started playing soccer at this point, and basically was injured all the time. Essentially talentless and doomed to be forever at JV, I still managed to have fun on occasion. At one point we I had to learn and play goalie because our main one was out with the flu. I was selected for goalie simply because I was the player who would make the least amount of impact on the field if I was moved to this position. After two days of “practice” I was ready! We lost 30-2. Ouch. I should also mention that I was coming off of a hamstring injury and wasn’t exactly mobile.
I also finished up my third year of German at this point. I think I got my heart broken at this point too.
Junior year was one of the most important years of my life. A really close friend was almost killed in a horrific car accident, and I met two really important people who helped me get through the emotional distress I was experiencing. In the middle of the visits to Harborview, I went to Olympia for a week to page at the legislature. It was just what I needed to just escape from it all.
I also stopped playing soccer this year. It just wasn’t that fun anymore. Trying a long distance relationship failed to work in spring, but I did go to my first dance.
Senior year I got my first job, first girlfriend, and first and only prom. I was a public affairs intern at a local housing authority, and besides the fact I didn’t really know what I was doing thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I asked Katy out almost by accident (there is still an argument about what happened), but that began a 2.5 year relationship that lasted through the first few years of college. Prom, however, involved far too much dancing: something that I am not particularly skilled at.
It was probably the best year of high school as I was finally finding a group to fit in with. I took some pretty cool classes, and I took some pretty useless classes *cough cough business communication*. All too fitting that we would soon be disrupted with the specter of graduation and college.
Throughout my high school “career,” I spent a lot of time at the library during the periods before school and during lunch. I was only sent out into the hallway once, and was never tardy or assigned detention. An active participant in knowledge bowl, an active social life was not a trait of this period of my life. There’s really not too much more to say. I’ll probably add more to this post as I think of things and perhaps add some more organization as well.
Nikky's Notes 