Over the Christmas break, I spent some time going through old boxes, sorting through and getting rid of a lot of stuff I haven't looked at in years. It was fun/painful/tedious, and felt good to clean things out a little. The best part of the process was laughing a little bit at younger me. I mean, I've always been rather proud of being a nerd, but my nerdiness knew no bounds when I was in high school!
For starters:
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| Senior Picture Nerdiness |
I'm fairly certain I got that ensemble at a thrift store and I remember that Del Boca Vista shirt and those corduroy pants as being very comfortable...but still! I wore that outfit with pride, though, and had several other vintage shirts just as ridiculous amazing. This picture isn't as bad as one of my indoor senior pictures (which I sadly couldn't find) where I'm posing with.......my clarinet. Doesn't get much nerdier than that.
Also, as if my outfits weren't nerdy enough, I always carried a lunch box to school. In high school. In high school!! I had three - my purple Jem & the Holograms one from kindergarten, a blue Smurf one I got at a local store, and a bright orange Police Academy one - a gift from my nerd compatriots. I still have them, and they still smell like peanut butter & jelly sandwiches and bananas.
The best thing about being a nerd in high school were my awesome nerdy friends. I really did have some great friends - fellow nerds who knew how to make the school day go by faster, who introduced me to books like 1984 and coined the phrase "nerd charisma." Around that time, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups had come out with their "There's No Wrong Way To Eat A Reese's" ad campaign, but my friends and I decided that there were, in fact, 42 wrong ways to eat a Reese's. (Apparently we'd been reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...) Some are a little gross, some a little ridiculous, but I remember laughing a lot as we came up with this list. Here's the first page of our ideas in an old notebook I found:
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| Re: #21 - Mono was going around our school... Re: #25 - Seinfeld reference! |
Our freshman year, a few of us decided that it would be super awesome to have a party a la Woodstock, but instead of lots of different bands performing, there'd be corn fields. (We lived in a farming town.) I think we just really wanted to have a play on the name "Woodstock," but didn't quite grasp the concept of what it was that Woodstock entailed.
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| A flier for the Party of the Year |
Sadly there were no subsequent Cornstalks, but we did have fun at the first one. (I believe there was a game of Red Rover played at one point, and maybe Duck, Duck, Goose. Also, listening to music and running in corn fields. MAN, we were cool.)
The nice thing about looking back to high school me is to see how I've changed since then. I'd like to think that I'm much cooler than I was back then, but I've also been able to retain my Inner Nerd and made it work for me. I'm still that girl who likes to read, and loves art and musicals and jazz and nerdy things, but I've learned to dress a little better, throw better parties, and finally figured out how to do my crazy hair.
With the new year, we focus a lot on looking forward with new goals and plans (I've got lots!) for what we want to do to improve ourselves in the weeks and months ahead. But it's nice, too, to look back on who we were, and who we've become as a result of our past experiences. I am who I am today because High School Katherine wore vintage clothes; carried a lunch box to high school; was in band, marching band, drama club, and art club; went to church; and surrounded herself with great people who had a positive influence on her.
When I look forward to who I'll be 15 years from now - wife? mom? professor? famous artist? Olympic gold medalist?** - it causes me to take a look at who I am now - Post-Grad School Katherine - and make sure I'm making choices that 15 Years-From-Now Me will be grateful I made. Those juggling lessons, for one, are SURE to pay off in the long run.
So, tell me: what were you like in high school? As cool as me??
**U.S. Canonball Team
6 comments:
i love everything about this post. I was queen of the nerds as well. I united two separate groups of nerds to build a massive nerd kingdom. Lol. We played ddr, took a rockin mini van to prom, and a lot of other random great things like that. I feel like I am still that girl and have a hard time figuring out that my colleagues were (are) not nerds like me and it is okay that we might not of hung out in HS. ANyway - great post.
That's awesome, Kristin!! Way to unite the nerds! And thanks!
Well, it's basically common knowledge that i was a pretty big deal in high school. i mean, what with being in the marching band and all. ;)
haha
Jim makes fun of me for being in marching band and I try to explain to him that in our high school marching band was cool! He just pats me on the head and say's, "ok, Heather. Sure." He doesn't understand. Lol. I honestly have no idea who I was in high school. I thought I was pretty cool, but I was far from popular. I had some popular friends but wasn't in the group myself. I have no idea. I do wish I knew then what I know now about how lame some of the popular kids are. LOl.
I was in marching band and French club. My favorite hobby was reading. Yes, I was a nerd and had a few nerd friends and some popular friends. I was happy in my very shy nerddom. But I would have liked to have been asked to at least one dance in high school. I'm not sure what I would have done when I got to the dance because I was too shy to dance in front of people. So, in retrospect, I guess it was good that I wasn't asked. Maybe the dream was better that the reality would have been.
I like to keep the illusion in my mind that I was, in fact, very awsome in high school. Which is why pictures are well hidden in a box in my parent's basement. Just so I can keep that illusion alive. Ugh. I those student picture day pictures are burned in my mind. So terrible.
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