Ok. Youth Chapter.
Overall, I did not apply myself fully to academics and came out just fine. It was confirmed for me that I came out just fine a year ago when I ran into a former high school classmate in the halls of my DC job. He had taken every advanced placement (AP) class growing up and went to a prestigious university, where I had dropped my only AP course two weeks into freshman year because I didn’t realize people would actually do the summer reading. Here we were with the same job and grade. I get a mild inner chuckle whenever I think about how different our lives were during those teenage years, have fun actually reading the Scarlet Letter?
But good for him, I wouldn’t realize I enjoyed school and learning until my second semester of college, when I would veer in the opposite direction and dedicate myself intensely to each class, in place of socializing like a normal person. It was what happened when I could choose my area of study and start my classes mid-morning. I eventually balanced out socially.
What do I remember from high school? Who was I? Does it matter?
I remember being really tired during school and only really waking up in the afternoon once the day was almost over. Junior year, I had one science class in the morning and I was awake a total of 60 minutes during the class...60 minutes for the entire semester. I passed and probably got a B.
I remember I had a friend who hated the smell of ketchup, so during lunch, while she was in the bathroom, we dunked her jacket sleeves in ketchup, then dabbed off the excess so she couldn’t tell. The rest of the day, carrying around her jacket, she was in a state of nearly vomiting, unsure of where the ketchup fumes were coming from. The next day, she told us about her nauseated state and we kept straight faces for a few moments before bursting into crying laughter as we explained what we did. She got red with anger and then began cracking up too. “You guys suck!” We tended to say to each other with a weird sisterly love. These were friends from soccer and we had a mischievous way of bonding.
I remember some girls got each other balloons on their birthdays and I usually forgot to bring my contribution on the right day, once unemotionally apologizing that, “I don’t do birthdays,” to a very angry and disappointed birthday planning enthusiast. I like to say my lack of participation in birthday balloons was part of being exhausted and having to wake up at 5 am to make it to school before 7, but I still don’t do birthdays well. I have two best friends I’ve known for 18 years and I know the months of their birthdays, but no idea the dates. I have a birthday card for my mom from two years ago in my desk drawer. Not being able to participate in this stuff isn't personal, it is the equivalent of being bad with names, which I also am.
Being miserable in school meant I applied myself to figuring out how to spend the least amount of time there as possible. In the winter, this meant being a snowboard instructor at one of Ohio’s minimally vertical ski resorts (that I loved and still respect from a distance). With this position, I obtained a note from the ski school confirming that I needed to leave early from high school to tend to my job. Naturally, once I left school after lunch, I got to warm up with some snowboarding runs before the schools got out and bussed over kids to whom I would teach lessons to for a few hours.
The instructor cadre was a mix of the same kind of people for the most part, kids who wanted something else going on and didn’t mind that they paid $200 for an instructor jacket then made about $15 for each of their 15-20 lessons throughout the season. The instructors came from all the suburbs and I have to say I learned from each one - from the hilarious entitlement of Solon kids to the street smarts from Twinsburg kids (sorry, Ohio references). Overall, it was a group of people escaping the same nonsense and enjoying some outdoor adrenaline. Some instructors hustled harder for tips and cash, some less. My best friend notably put in a request one day for us to leave early from work because we had dinner reservations (See comment on Solon).
I applied myself in this area of my life. After the initial certification, I took informal lessons from the other instructors, pushing myself to carve deeper and learning how to be a better teacher. I reaped the benefits of having the snowboarding skills once I moved close enough to Tahoe to make weekend trips to their mountains. I also identified my strength and passion for teaching and developing ways to teach people who learn differently.
Snowboarding had been a man’s sport for many years and thus much of the instructor informal guidance was aimed at a group a dudes. As one of very few female instructors, I was impressed with how the older crowd of male instructors realized it was time to tailor their language and attitude to be more inclusive of women. Before they could fully mature though, the dudes club gave me and introduction to understanding and remembering the different ways in which people learn, a memory aid that was regrettably still in my head during a psychology exam in college:
But good for him, I wouldn’t realize I enjoyed school and learning until my second semester of college, when I would veer in the opposite direction and dedicate myself intensely to each class, in place of socializing like a normal person. It was what happened when I could choose my area of study and start my classes mid-morning. I eventually balanced out socially.
What do I remember from high school? Who was I? Does it matter?
I remember being really tired during school and only really waking up in the afternoon once the day was almost over. Junior year, I had one science class in the morning and I was awake a total of 60 minutes during the class...60 minutes for the entire semester. I passed and probably got a B.
I remember I had a friend who hated the smell of ketchup, so during lunch, while she was in the bathroom, we dunked her jacket sleeves in ketchup, then dabbed off the excess so she couldn’t tell. The rest of the day, carrying around her jacket, she was in a state of nearly vomiting, unsure of where the ketchup fumes were coming from. The next day, she told us about her nauseated state and we kept straight faces for a few moments before bursting into crying laughter as we explained what we did. She got red with anger and then began cracking up too. “You guys suck!” We tended to say to each other with a weird sisterly love. These were friends from soccer and we had a mischievous way of bonding.
I remember some girls got each other balloons on their birthdays and I usually forgot to bring my contribution on the right day, once unemotionally apologizing that, “I don’t do birthdays,” to a very angry and disappointed birthday planning enthusiast. I like to say my lack of participation in birthday balloons was part of being exhausted and having to wake up at 5 am to make it to school before 7, but I still don’t do birthdays well. I have two best friends I’ve known for 18 years and I know the months of their birthdays, but no idea the dates. I have a birthday card for my mom from two years ago in my desk drawer. Not being able to participate in this stuff isn't personal, it is the equivalent of being bad with names, which I also am.
Being miserable in school meant I applied myself to figuring out how to spend the least amount of time there as possible. In the winter, this meant being a snowboard instructor at one of Ohio’s minimally vertical ski resorts (that I loved and still respect from a distance). With this position, I obtained a note from the ski school confirming that I needed to leave early from high school to tend to my job. Naturally, once I left school after lunch, I got to warm up with some snowboarding runs before the schools got out and bussed over kids to whom I would teach lessons to for a few hours.
The instructor cadre was a mix of the same kind of people for the most part, kids who wanted something else going on and didn’t mind that they paid $200 for an instructor jacket then made about $15 for each of their 15-20 lessons throughout the season. The instructors came from all the suburbs and I have to say I learned from each one - from the hilarious entitlement of Solon kids to the street smarts from Twinsburg kids (sorry, Ohio references). Overall, it was a group of people escaping the same nonsense and enjoying some outdoor adrenaline. Some instructors hustled harder for tips and cash, some less. My best friend notably put in a request one day for us to leave early from work because we had dinner reservations (See comment on Solon).
I applied myself in this area of my life. After the initial certification, I took informal lessons from the other instructors, pushing myself to carve deeper and learning how to be a better teacher. I reaped the benefits of having the snowboarding skills once I moved close enough to Tahoe to make weekend trips to their mountains. I also identified my strength and passion for teaching and developing ways to teach people who learn differently.
Snowboarding had been a man’s sport for many years and thus much of the instructor informal guidance was aimed at a group a dudes. As one of very few female instructors, I was impressed with how the older crowd of male instructors realized it was time to tailor their language and attitude to be more inclusive of women. Before they could fully mature though, the dudes club gave me and introduction to understanding and remembering the different ways in which people learn, a memory aid that was regrettably still in my head during a psychology exam in college:
“The different types of learners are simply the story you tell yourself when you’re picking a chick up at a bar: see-er, think-er, feel-er, do-er. First you “see-her”, then you “think” about her, then you “feel her,” and eventually you “do-her.” You guys are all set for the exam.”
Outside of snowboard season was soccer season and my high school class had an awesome group of athletes. Our JV coach was an elementary school gym teacher who was better suited for blowing the whistle at third graders who misused the gymnastics springboard than understanding soccer, so we more or less coached ourselves.
We went undefeated one or two seasons, had some intense games, but even with the success, the strongest memory for me had nothing to with the sport. The memory that still makes me laugh out loud today is when on a long bus ride to the game, we used one of the girl’s eyeliners and drew huge, thick, hairy unibrows on both our goalies. The goalies were fully aware and in on the stupidity. They avoided the coach during warmups, shook hands with the ref and opposing team at the coin toss, and I’m pretty sure played the game this way.
There were sports and there was art. The most memorable class for me was art class and that passion for art continued into college, where I managed to nearly obtain a minor in art, but was scared by the 20 pound art history book and ended up dropping the required class. In high school, there were two art teachers - the one where everything you did was creative and interesting and deserved more attention and the other to counter balance, where everything you did was less than satisfactory and you would never make it in the real art world. I showed one of my paintings I thought I had finally finished to the less than impressed teacher and she told me, “I really just hate it.” It was an ocean scene with bright colors and textured words about longing for the beach. I painted it after my first trip to Hawaii and thought it was alright. Apparently not. I ended up darkening it so that it didn’t shine so brightly on my angsty teacher’s dark depression clouds.
I don’t remember many more of the projects, but I know I was in art club and must have been some sort of volunteer as well because I had a permanent hall pass signed by the cool art teacher which meant I could roam the halls throughout the day, free of punishment.
If I had to sum up high school, we were weirdos, but successful, and had a good time. I like to think at the core of myself, one thing I developed from these friends and experiences is not to take myself too seriously.
Outside of snowboard season was soccer season and my high school class had an awesome group of athletes. Our JV coach was an elementary school gym teacher who was better suited for blowing the whistle at third graders who misused the gymnastics springboard than understanding soccer, so we more or less coached ourselves.
We went undefeated one or two seasons, had some intense games, but even with the success, the strongest memory for me had nothing to with the sport. The memory that still makes me laugh out loud today is when on a long bus ride to the game, we used one of the girl’s eyeliners and drew huge, thick, hairy unibrows on both our goalies. The goalies were fully aware and in on the stupidity. They avoided the coach during warmups, shook hands with the ref and opposing team at the coin toss, and I’m pretty sure played the game this way.
There were sports and there was art. The most memorable class for me was art class and that passion for art continued into college, where I managed to nearly obtain a minor in art, but was scared by the 20 pound art history book and ended up dropping the required class. In high school, there were two art teachers - the one where everything you did was creative and interesting and deserved more attention and the other to counter balance, where everything you did was less than satisfactory and you would never make it in the real art world. I showed one of my paintings I thought I had finally finished to the less than impressed teacher and she told me, “I really just hate it.” It was an ocean scene with bright colors and textured words about longing for the beach. I painted it after my first trip to Hawaii and thought it was alright. Apparently not. I ended up darkening it so that it didn’t shine so brightly on my angsty teacher’s dark depression clouds.
I don’t remember many more of the projects, but I know I was in art club and must have been some sort of volunteer as well because I had a permanent hall pass signed by the cool art teacher which meant I could roam the halls throughout the day, free of punishment.
If I had to sum up high school, we were weirdos, but successful, and had a good time. I like to think at the core of myself, one thing I developed from these friends and experiences is not to take myself too seriously.
