I'm the Weird One

I guess you could say I was the weird one in high school. No, not a “Look she’s wearing all black” kind of weird. Not a depressed weirdo. I was weird because I cared about school.

I seemed to try harder than anyone else to work towards a career. While girls were discussing makeup or who was dating whom, I was filling a form out applying for a correspondence writing course. I was one of the one-third of applicants who made it through. For two-three years I worked on that, submitting short stories to magazines (I’ve got a lovely little pile of rejections and one ‘maybe’) and working on larger projects as well. During study halls, instead of gossiping, I’d be the one writing a chapter to a book.

Junior year, I took three more college-level classes. One was Advanced Placement English and the other two were Internet courses through the Internet. While I was doing that, my friends for the most part obsessed about Prom or whatever. Senior year I took another two classes from Marywood and took the next Advanced English. I had an art display, I had hobbies, and I still had friends. I was weird.

I wasn’t the only serious person in all of Western Wayne High School, but sometimes it felt like it. There were those who were even more serious about schoolwork than I was. My friend Debbie, for instance, was a great student who would push herself to the limits to make the grade.

People like me were weird because it seemed like the majority of high school students wanted only to party and have sex and hang out. The drama was more important than the future. I doubt most of these people even had anything they could call a hobby.

It’s okay to be “weird”. Break the mold and become someone worth living. It’s okay to have fun, but it’s also important to be serious during class. You want some sort of future, don’t you?

Besides, the good kids can get away with a heck of a lot more than the bad kids!