High School Days: Sophomore Shyness

So for those of you who haven't been keeping up with things, I announced yesterday that my winning blog post prompt from Stephanie was to write about my high school days. "Great!" I thought as I thought back to those awkward awesome times. "I've got so much I want to share!" But how do you chronicle the greatest few years of your life in a single blog post?? It simply cannot be done efficiently, but I will try to break it down into three parts: sophomore, junior, and senior year of high school. I can't share with you all the great photos I'd like to. I can't write about all my thoughts and all the crazy things I did. But I decided I can break it down by what was most important to me during those times: boys, friends, how I looked, and after-school activities... naturally.

Sophomore year was really hard on me, to begin with: it was my first year in high school, I was awkwardly hitting late puberty, and I wanted to be an incredible student before I was an incredible friend. It was during this time that my friends, who now lovingly refer to me as "The Ugly Duckling" (thanks, guys), said that I started to lose my duck feathers. *Note: STARTED to.

After School: I had always been heavily into theatre and performing arts my whole life and high school was no exception. I was placed in the highest choir at the very end (a much-coveted place to be, especially by seniors) and got heavily involved with my singing at this point. I made it a goal to have a solo in choir before I graduated. I auditioned for the fall musical at school and was cast in a chorus role (only two other sophomores we cast, so to me that was a MAJOR deal). I had been involved in a theatre group since 7th grade, called Youth Performing Arts (YPA, for short), and I was working toward building up the courage to try out for a solo there as well. I tried out for the speech team and competed in the category of storytelling. I thought I would be great at it. I wasn't. I came in 4th at the tournament that could have sent me to state... only the top three moved on. Story of my life at this point.

Friends: I entered high school with one friend. Yes, you read correctly. ONE friend. Her name was Kim and we had been best friends for several years and felt that one another were really all we needed to be socially secure. When I joined after-school activities, I began to develop a small circle of close friends, most of whom were older than me and helped me adapt to the ways of the Forest Lake High School halls: shortcuts to class, what teachers to avoid, where to stand during passing time, how to get out of class and not get caught... all that important stuff. Part-way through the year, I met Katelyn, a girl who had gone to my church for several years and who had friends in common with me. She joined YPA and we started hanging out a lot outside of school and church. In the spring, I met Megan. She was THE girl that you wanted to know: she was popular, funny, beautiful, had all the guys' attention, and knew all the cool hangouts. If you knew her, you were somebody. One day, she invited me to sit with her at lunch... turns out her and Katelyn ate at the same table. I suddenly felt like I was becoming "cool". At their table was also Jessie and her boyfriend, Nick. I had known Jessie from a math class in junior high and thought she was amazing, but the chatter did not immediately evolve into a friendship. That summer, we started a strong bond, the four of us. We were inseparable, like an in-between version of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants girls and the Sex and the City ladies...

Boys: Forget about it. I was hopeless. I was incredibly shy and not the prettiest little thing roaming the FLAHS halls (I can say that now without sounding self-deprecating). I would get these INSANE crushes on guys that were WAY out of my league. If a boy so much as paid me the slightest bit of attention, I was, as my grandpa would put it, "@$$ over tea kettle" infatuated with them: this included asking to borrow a pencil, looking at my answers on tests, hitting me in the face with a ball during gym class... you know. It was not until the end of sophomore year that I finally managed to find a boy with reciprocating feelings. His name was Shawn and we had a few mutual friends. He told my friend to tell me that he liked me. It was magic, clearly. We would instant message each other online and pass notes between classes and one day even played tennis together on a hot summer day. That's about as far as that relationship developed. Classic sophomore.

Keeping Up Appearances: I was an eccentric, to say the least. This girl wore the craziest outfits anyone in Forest Lake had ever seen: furry Chewbacca boots, wrist bands, vintage skirts, multiple scarves, and pair of heels to match every single outfit. People either loved my style or thought I got dressed in the dark. Either way, I was a regular Carrie Bradshaw, and I refuse to let anyone tell me I was anything less. I had chopped all of my hair off the summer before sophomore year. Bad move. A short, flipped-out style only added to the craziness of my look. I did not wear makeup at all. Right before the school year ended, I got drastic: I invested in a hair straightener, bought some mascara, and chopped my hair into some wicked, rockin' bangs that I'm still proud of to this day (the key was to cut them dry!). I was an instant diva and was NEVER going back to bare lashes and bobs!

So sophomore year for me was about improvement and transformations: I was trying to become a great performer, look more my age, expand my social circle, find someone to flirt with, and be a straight-A student at the same time. What teenage girl doesn't want that, though? The following year was where my efforts paid off and I became less self-conscious so that I could focus more on having fun and loving life as a love-sick young lady!