Todo Tiene Su Como-Se-Llama

Rise and Fall of Jared's Social Interactions, Volume 3, Part 1

This is going to be the one that is difficult to get right, especially because of length. So without further ado, I'm on my way into 11th grade at a school that is both new and old now and my only friend just moved 3,000 miles away . . .

Initially I resisted the entire scheme. I didn't want to go back, and I made the fact generally known. But it was going to happen "will-he, nill-he" so I quit fighting it. I went to an . . . "Ice-breaker" I guess it was, for new students the week before classes started. There were several new students there, and some old ones plus teachers waiting to welcome us into the fold. I don't remember a single thing I did that day, other than be annoyed by a former classmate who was there.

First day of classes, there was the usual routine . . . I didn't have any idea where my homeroom was (everyone else magically knew already), I didn't know how to get into my locker, once I found it, and . . . bleah. It's the kind of thing that people are supposed to go through in, like, 6th grade, so I was running behind, and it wasn't any fun. However, I just followed the guy who had annoyed me the week before, since I was now in his class again. I got another new student from my class to show me how to open the lock (he had just moved to Guate from Georgia) and it was all good, sort of.

I believe *quick count* that there were seven people in my class who had been around in 5th grade. The other ten or so were new . . . except, of course, most of them weren't new, I was new. But I wasn't. The old hands welcomed me back, the "new" ones eyed me somewhat askance. I didn't have to establish anything, though . . . my role was apparently waiting for me right where I had left it (blast it all). Everyone from before remembered me as the Smart One, and everyone else couldn't help but notice that I had a book in my hand, like, always.

Let me tell you what I remember from an entire third of my 11th grade year: A top down view of an open book. I read in class, I read in chapel, I retreated to the library during lunch and break and read in there . . . I answered "yes" or "no" if someone asked me a question, and otherwise ignored everyone. A large chunk of that year just flew right by me while I stood aside. Heck, I wasn't even watching it.

I met Asa fairly early on in this. Actually, I guess it was on my first day. He was sitting next to me in Trigonometry and he told me (out of the blue) that I'd make a good wrestler and asked if I'd be interested in coming to wrestling with him sometime. *shakes head and laughs* I don't remember exactly what my response was . . . I think I managed to mumble something that sounded vaguely positive while communicating an equally vague negative. At some point late in the first semester we started eating lunch together in a particular spot, and it stayed that way every day for the next year and a half.

Sometime during the . . . *hesitates* . . . second semester there was a trip to the beach with the guys in my class and Mr. Fry (the principal, Asa's dad). The shell cracked a bit there . . . enough to where the other guys in the class noticed I was around. It was a really fun time. Two other times like that that stand out were Servant Days (each class goes out together for a few days to work on a service project . . . we planted trees on an orphanage that year), and Junior/Senior Skip Day at the big water park in Guatemala. There were probably a few other things, but those stand out. And then came summer, finally . . .

I say finally . . . 11th grade was the shortest school year of all time. It lasted, like, two months to my mind. I got to go to Colorado Springs and stay with the Wingers that summer . . . got a job at Burger King. Andy had a job at the library. I worked 10:00-5:00 (or 6:00, depending) and Andy was off before me, so we had a lot of fun that summer. I could stay up fairly late because Burger King was five minutes away and I didn't have to get up until 9:15 or 9:30, (that was really late at the time . . . I'd get up at 6:00 to go to school). About halfway through that summer, I realized that I missed my classmates. It wasn't like "I'm tired of being in the States and I want to go home now." But I definitely was looking forward to seeing everyone again once school got started. I also decided I was going to pretty much throw myself into things during my senior year, to make up for lost time. I say that in a very relative sense, of course . . . I was still fairly quiet and reserved. But I interacted a lot more with people.

Hmmm . . . Glances back over post. My senior year and what came after clearly deserve a whole 'nother post. So I'm going to divide volume three in half, kind of like this and finish Part 2 later . . . just because. Just one more part . . . I swear.

Posted by Jared at January 26, 2004 04:42 PM | TrackBack