December 1, 2004

• my high school 10th reunion was this past friday.  since i have yet to marry a model or become a billionaire, i did not attend. 

  i've mentioned this numerous time before, but i absolutely hated high school.  hate is a strong word, but i do not hesitate to use it when it comes to my high school experience.  i still have dreams to this day where i'm still in high school, wondering why the heck i'm still there. 

  it's not like i was a social pariah - i was never bullied or disrespected in any overt manner.  people were friendly, they treated me well, and i was respected and well-known for both academic and extra-curricular reasons.  nor was i ever unfairly passed over for awards or recognition.  indeed, i was chosen by peers into a number of leadership positions which might otherwise be reserved for those more popular.

  so why all the bitterness?  blame it on a sense of loss.  high school should be some of the more memorable years of one's life, yet mine were pathetically dull.  even though i did well in high school from a college application perspective, i never felt truly part of a social community.  perhaps it was due to excess pride and arrogance - i couldn't accept my lack of acceptance in the 'popularity' structures of my class.  in a nutshell, i was popular, but not really popular - everyone knew me and respected me academically, but that didn't mean they were going to invite me to their parties.  and forget about dating - there were no asian females in my class and only a few asian males, so minority stereotypes presented formidable barriers.  this didn't mean i couldn't have friends or couldn't date - just that i would have to hang out or date less popular people.  being very prideful and immature, that's not something i could let myself do.  if i couldn't be friends with the pretty or popular people, i wasn't going to have any friends at all.   

  so in a way you could say my future personality was affected a great deal by my high school years, in both positive and negative ways.  my sister and i always joke about how we were traumatized by our high school and became socially awkward as a result.  if nothing else, high school probably didn't allow my natural social skills to be futher developed.  but you could also say the opposite, that my trials of youth allowed me to grow and mature in certain ways.  i sometimes think that if i went to a more fun or socially accepting high school, i might be more confident and outgoing, but conversely more obnoxious and arrogant.  instead, my high school years gave me humbling perspectives on concepts of popularity, what it means to be a friend, and what we all seek in terms of inclusion in a community. 

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