2007/07/11 21:21
Seventeen
In high school, you're defined by your primary activity. Wear a letter jacket with more than two sports pins? You're a jock. Spend passing period playing games on your graphing calculator? You're a nerd. Write poetry, dress in black, and work to convince your classmates that you're certifiable? You're either a stoner or a drama freak, depending on the length of your hair.
So obviously I was a band geek. But for my senior year, that changed a little bit when I made the Academic Decathlon team.
There were nine of us from all walks of life. We had your standard well-rounded smart kids -- the pre-med, the pre-law, the pre-doctorate researcher. And sure, there was a geek among us. But we also had a jock, a stoner, a drama freak, and one of those kids who's so far beyond high school that you're astounded she's actually participating in a school activity. And me.
Obviously, I've overcompartmentalized us. Our coach needed well-rounded students, after all. If all Mike knew was wrestling, or if all Marissa knew was Renaissance period dress, or if all Jennie knew was which gas to introduce to a solution to start a reaction, we never would have made it to nationals. Our breadth of experience led to our success -- but it also led to friendships we would have otherwise never known. By the end of the year, we seriously loved each other, and we loved the woman who brought us all together.
I've always regretted that I never had a class with Paula Karmiol earlier than my senior year. But what I missed early on I made up for in 1995 -- besides my AD coach, she was my mentorship coordinator, my independent study advisor, and basically my personal therapist. More than any other teacher I'd ever had, more even than the counselor I saw in elementary school, I felt comfortable opening up to her, telling her my conflicted feelings about everything in school and asking for advice. We all felt that way, which is partly what made us so close.
Of course, all good things must come to an end. We finished eleventh at AD nationals in May 1995. And then the seniors among us graduated, and we floated apart.
And then PK died of lung and bone cancer just before my eighteenth birthday.
We all promised we'd reunite more often after that. But it never happened. I get periodic e-mails from the crew these days, but I never stop thinking about it, how for one gleaming year in the otherwise tarnished morass of high school, a group of kids who couldn't be more different stopped being our labels and started just being friends.
So obviously I was a band geek. But for my senior year, that changed a little bit when I made the Academic Decathlon team.
There were nine of us from all walks of life. We had your standard well-rounded smart kids -- the pre-med, the pre-law, the pre-doctorate researcher. And sure, there was a geek among us. But we also had a jock, a stoner, a drama freak, and one of those kids who's so far beyond high school that you're astounded she's actually participating in a school activity. And me.
Obviously, I've overcompartmentalized us. Our coach needed well-rounded students, after all. If all Mike knew was wrestling, or if all Marissa knew was Renaissance period dress, or if all Jennie knew was which gas to introduce to a solution to start a reaction, we never would have made it to nationals. Our breadth of experience led to our success -- but it also led to friendships we would have otherwise never known. By the end of the year, we seriously loved each other, and we loved the woman who brought us all together.
I've always regretted that I never had a class with Paula Karmiol earlier than my senior year. But what I missed early on I made up for in 1995 -- besides my AD coach, she was my mentorship coordinator, my independent study advisor, and basically my personal therapist. More than any other teacher I'd ever had, more even than the counselor I saw in elementary school, I felt comfortable opening up to her, telling her my conflicted feelings about everything in school and asking for advice. We all felt that way, which is partly what made us so close.
Of course, all good things must come to an end. We finished eleventh at AD nationals in May 1995. And then the seniors among us graduated, and we floated apart.
And then PK died of lung and bone cancer just before my eighteenth birthday.
We all promised we'd reunite more often after that. But it never happened. I get periodic e-mails from the crew these days, but I never stop thinking about it, how for one gleaming year in the otherwise tarnished morass of high school, a group of kids who couldn't be more different stopped being our labels and started just being friends.
