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I was friendly with a couple of people in my class at the time, but I was never good at holding a great conversation since I was much too awkward. I always have an awkward subject to talk about, it’s always been that way and it always will be that way no matter how hard I try. So I subjected to being quiet in the background, trying hard not to seem as if I was eaves dropping or being creepy in anyway. I watched the other kids hold an easy going conversation and wished that was me. There are tons of girls in our class that are so great at talking to guys, but the thing is, I’m not one of them. Someone in particular who had recently caught my eye, of whom I desperately wanted to be friends with, but like I said before, I’m an awkward gal, and I don’t do very well with light conversation.
There was a kid who was much taller than me, but I guess that would be considered normal height for most. He seemed to be the center of whatever hot topic they were currently talking about. He just happened to be one of my day old crushes of that week, and I was paying particular attention to what he was saying. I smiled at the occasional remarks that he made for absolutely no reason. I t wasn’t even as if he was talking to me, he was talking to whatever chick it was that was cute, easy going, and everything that I am not. I smiled anyway, because I always smile. Even when I try not to it seems to be a permanent expression that is crazy glued to my face. He continued to talk now addressing the class with whatever story happened to him from that weekend. I’m not sure what the story was about, because my memory doesn’t exactly work that way, but it was something extremely funny that he and his friends did that weekend and everyone began to laugh.
The thing about laughing is that I hate it. The reason why I hate it is simply because it seems to have the most retarded laugh in the world. The bottom line of the story is that I laughed, and no matter how much I tried to suppress it I laughed very hard, and I couldn’t stop. Once I get into a laughing fit it is almost impossible to stop. It’d probably be easier to reverse time and stop Michael Jackson from getting his nose job than to stop me from laughing.
There I was laughing my butt off as some would like to put it. It was about two minutes after the end of his story, and I was still laughing. I could feel everyone’s eyes staring at me and I knew that I had gone too far, but I simply couldn’t stop. I tried to cover my face awkwardly with my books and put my hand over my mouth, but it didn’t seem to help my cause. I could see people looking directly at me, than rolling their eyes trying to diver the conversation to something else. It was truly an embarrassing experience, and there was nothing I could do to stop it, so I left. I set my books down and ran to the bathroom where I finished my laughing fit. Even the people in the bathroom seemed to be creeped out by me and gave me weird stares as they dried their hands. It wasn’t until the bathroom was completely empty that I stopped laughing.
I looked at myself in the mirror and dried my tears. I had laughed so hard that tears were streaming down my face and it looked like I had been crying. I washed my hands because that was a ritual that I always do when I go to the restroom, whether I have to use the bathroom or not. I remember picturing my face in my mind and imagining how stupid I looked. Then I remembered his face and how he had been the first one to roll his eyes at me. I hoped that didn’t mean that he thought I was a weirdo or something, because for some reason I actually cared about what he thought. Self image, that’s something that I never seem to think about until I do something stupid that makes me look like an idiot.
I walked back to the classroom and saw that everyone was inside and my books were still outside the door. The teacher was inside teaching new material and I hesitated on what I should do and I eventually tuned the door knob and walked in.
“NiSha why are you so late?”

“I’m not late; I had my books outside the door I just went to the bathroom.”
There was a moment when I saw the wrinkles in his face give way to what he was thinking. He was wondering whether or not he should believe me, and I didn’t blame him. I had been in the bathroom for quite some time and he had already come to class considerably late, but he simply nodded to a nearby chair for me to take a seat.
I smiled as I sat down next to the kid who had told the story about his hilarious weekend. He smiled back, but it looked like one of those forced ones. I crossed my arms and sat at the very edge of my seat telling myself that I had simply imagined that forced smile on his face. I stared at my notebook trying to make sense of what the teacher was talking about. I turned once again to the boy and hesitated to ask but eventually it came out.

My mother always told me that the interesting thing about me is that I never like to take sides. I like to hear out both situations and make my decision on what seems fair. I just think that’s common sense however, but starting off at a new school I find that isn’t true. Have you ever been in a situation where you try to make friends with someone, but they shut you down simply because you don’t seem to be like them? I remember making that mistake earlier this year and though I’m not sour I still find it funny. I sometimes think it’s hilarious when people would rather stick to their old ways and old friends instead of stretching out a hand and helping someone out, thus making a new friend.
There was a girl during the summer time that had facebook requested me because I was currently in the PDS network. I thought that she must have been really nice to go out of the way and send me a friend request, then proceed to write on my wall and tell me that she knew I was new to PDS and that I could ask her for anything if I ever needed help. So we got to talking and I figured out that she was a very nice girl, and once school started up I was very excited to meet her.
A few weeks into the school and we barely ever talked. I wrote on her wall once, but I don’t believe she ever wrote back. I wasn’t worried or anything, there were plenty of other people that were being nice to me, but I wouldn’t have minded a hello every once in awhile.
The campus center a.k.a. the cafeteria. I never quite understood why they called it the campus center. However, at that time I thought everything about this school was odd. I thought it was odd that all my teacher’s were guys, people didn’t lock their lockers, and everyone owned a Mac laptop. But the campus center is where meals are served and eaten. In the beginning of the year there was an obvious separation of cliques. There was a table devoted to all the new kids that haven’t really made friends with each other yet, a table for all the new kids that were becoming very popular within themselves, a table for the popular old kids that already knew everything, and the rest of the tables were for everyone else that didn’t have a label pinned to their chest. You always knew where the new kid table was, because there was always a surplus of chairs crowding around a small table because no one wanted to make a new table in fear of being alone.
I was the one that normally sat at the new kids table that had not really made friends yet. At the time I didn’t really notice the distinction between the different tables, I just noticed that some tables were fuller than others. I thought twice about sitting with the kids that I normally sit with, but realized that if I wanted to sit with tem I’d have to shed off half of my body fat just to squeeze into an available opening. I wondered around the cafeteria looking for somewhere else to sit, and I spotted the girl that I had been wall posting weeks before school started. I believe I waved at her, but I don’t think she saw me, so I simply pulled up a chair and sat down right next to her.
“Hi,” I said over enthusiastically as always. As I’ve been told, everything I say either comes out over enthusiastic and happy, or extremely low and monotone. I don’t know how that works out exactly, but that’s just what I’ve been told.
“Hi,” she stated back in a tone that didn’t exactly match mine. I looked around the table and saw unfamiliar faces and made sure to introduce myself one by one to them. They all smiled and said hi, and did their job of seeming pleasant. They asked me the normal questions like, “What school did you come from? Where do you live? Blah, blah, blah.” I already had those questions programmed in my brain so that whenever they were asked my mouth would release the answer instantly.
After a moment of sitting there in awkward silence, they decided to start up their conversation again, talking about people that I didn’t know yet, and what happened in previous years that I don’t remember because I was never there. I poked around my food trying to think of something interesting, but not completely random to say. I turned over to the girl and tried to strike up a conversation with her, but she didn’t seem too interested. She kept pretending that she was too distracted by the other conversation to hear me. By that time I got the message I wasn’t wanted, but I couldn’t just get up and leave, no that would have been much too obvious. So instead I stayed there poking my food with a fork.
After awhile a couple of people left and there was another awkward silence. Once again I tried to think up something to say that would maybe make someone laugh and not make me feel like so much of an intrusive girl.

One night my mom had a break down, and later that night I had one too. The bills were simply piling up too high, and she was overwhelmed. She just finished nursing school and Christmas was around the corner, and she couldn’t find an immediate job to help to pay for all the bills. I know that I don’t treat my mom the way I’m supposed to, and sometimes I really am a brat, but when it comes to stuff like this we always make sure to tell each other what is going on. I never really saw the depth of the situation however. I never got to see how bad it really was, until one night she just started crying. She told me about all the bills she had, and how the student loans were starting to pile up, and how if she couldn’t find a job soon we might even have to move. Worst of all, she told me that I had to quit dance.
That week was hell for me as I walked through the hallways of school pretending to be happy when clearly things were not ok. Nobody knew what was wrong, everyone thought that I was just fine and dandy, but the truth was I was hurting inside. To leave dance for me was the same as deciding to ostracize myself from all my friends and join a convent that specializes in rewriting the bible over and over again. It was something that I knew was the right thing to do, but I could never put my heart into it.
I cried and cried and cried that entire week. I told my dance friends the reason why I wasn’t at dance that week, and they all gave their condolences. They all thought I was done for good too. I turned into a vegetative state. Once again I had a smile plastered on my face, but this time I only talked when spoken too, and reacted when there was an immediate cause. As silly as it may sound there were a million crazy thoughts running through my head at that time. I thought that perhaps if we moved, then my mom would have money to pay for dance classes, or maybe if I took on a job I could at least pay for a couple of classes. They were completely irrational selfish thoughts that only helped me to feel even sorrier for myself.
As the week wrapped up I became angry and agitated with everyone and everything. Some people might have noticed that I was being a tad bit bitchy, but they probably dismissed it as PMSing. I kept in my mind that I could be as bitchy as I wanted to be. This was my life, and it was being completely ruined. I felt as if my walls were crashing down and everything that I once knew turned around in new fluorescent lighting and looked completely topsy turby. I gained this negative output towards things and decided that if I couldn’t be happy than no one else can. Worst of all I was a brat to my mother, the one that tried so hard to put me in the position that I am in now.
One night I came home from school to find my mother just crying. She was sitting there and literally balling her eyes out. I had never seen her so upset in my life. When I asked her what the matter was, she told me it was me. She said that she felt so bad, because she was stripping away the little piece of me that was unique. The thing that let me stand out amongst the rest. She was stripping away my dancer, and when I heard her speak those words I felt tears swell up in my eyes, because I never thought that she cared that much about me.
We had gone through so many ups and downs, and to this day we still don’t understand each other. I sometimes wish that we had a better relationship with one another, but sometimes I feel as if the cultural differences and goals and achievements that we both have are too different for us to ever become a happy mother and daughter pair. However, in that moment, I felt a connection, and all I wanted to do was just stand there and let life pass me by. I didn’t care about my surrounding area, I didn’t care about the mental bombs were dropping all around me, I just wanted to stand there and hold my mother and remember the connection that we had right there in that moment, but then soon enough life caught up, and it was time to move again.
Perhaps that may be the reason why I felt such a good connection with the character Holden in Catcher in the Rye. I remember sitting there in class and Mr. LaMotte posing the question, “Do you like the character Holden?” I was almost the only person in the class who actually liked Holden as a character. As he went around the room, people continued to say things such as, “He seems like a jerk,” or “He says everyone’s phony, but he’s phony himself.” And when he came around to me I said that, “I liked Holden.” The truth is Holden seems to be a relatable character to me. I may not speak the same way he does, or roam the streets like he does, but I feel the same feelings that he does. Nobody ever seems to realize that the book isn’t really about what Holden says or does, it’s really about the way he feels on the inside. So sure, in the book there may be some things that are written that may sound jerk-“ish,” but it’s not him saying it. It’s him thinking it. No matter how high of an opinion you may have about yourself, the truth is you do the same thing too. You say one thing, but you think a different thing in your head, and in my opinion that isn’t a sin. It’s just simply human nature as we know it.
While other kids in the class were writing Holden down for his faults that I evidently didn’t see, I just continued to think about the connection I had with the book. As sad as it may sound, Holden is always faking, nobody ever knows what he is really thinking, and sometimes I feel like that too. When it comes to my mouth I like I have a filter that is connected to my esophagus and carefully programs each word that slips through my teeth. I only have one friend that I can ever tell anything to, and ever since she moved away, she hasn’t been there for me nearly as much as I have wanted her to be. I remember starting a diary after she left, and every word that came out onto that paper was completely uncensored. I felt my heart pour out of my pen as all my true feelings came out. In those days that I kept a diary I realized how everything just seems to be easier to come out in writing. Every time I sit down and read a book I can’t help but wonder if this story is really a past experience that accidentally spilled out onto the paper and the author simply switched a couple of names. I know if I were an author that’s how most of my stories would end up coming out.
After quite some time of being at PDS I finally began to loosen out of my shell and get a taste of real high school life. I realized that there was no point in internally moping about how I missed all of my old friends, and how nobody else at this school was like them. I embraced the atmosphere. I began to gain more friends and with more friends I gained more confidence and was finally able to be my wacky self around people. I know for a fact that I’m very random and strange; some kids think I’m a weirdo, and others think I take drugs, but I try to ignore those people. My mom told me once that I should probably get tested for ADHD, but if I do have it, I don’t think it would bother me much, because I’ve been this way my entire life. I’ve always been crazy and random, and I’ve always found it hard to focus on just one thing.

The thing that I liked about him the most was that he was so honest and open about everything. I remember during our online conversations he used to talk about the most outlandish things ever. We’d talk about topics from his newly founded crushes, to his top ten hottest girls list, or just something crazy that he was going to do this weekend. He even shared with me some of his personal information that I would never think that anyone would ever want to share something like that. He told me about all of the things that he has tried before, all the outrageous raves that he’s been at, and other small things that have gotten him in trouble.
I never thought of him as a boring kid, but rather someone who always had something interesting to say. Every day, I would IM him and tell him the knock-knock joke of the day, and then he would proceed to tell me a story of something funny that had happened that day. I loved his funny stories, about how he set his x-box on fire, or accidentally put a spoon in the microwave. Then sometimes he would tell me his other secrets and I’d swear not to tell anyone, but he told me that he wasn’t worried about me telling anyone because he trusted me.
One day I hear that he’s going out with some girl that I barely knew. I wasn’t jealous; I was just a little bit shocked. I thought that he told me everything that was going on in his life, and the girl that he was going out with was apparently number seven on his top ten list the last time I checked. I didn’t tell him any of that though, I just congratulated him and gave him kudos for “scoring big,” everything was pretty much normal until she started joining our group. Then things got a little award.
PDA wasn’t even a question for them. When they were together it was like the entire world had disappeared and they only saw each other. At some point I can admire that, but when you’re sitting there watching two people nearly make out in the middle of shepherd it can get pretty grotesque. So I tried my best to ignore their groping, but I think he took it as me ignoring him.
Gradually we grew distant and barely ever talked to each other on AIM anymore. One day I was bored and IMed him with a knock-knock joke. Instead of the normal, whose there, he responded by saying I haven’t heard that in awhile. We talked for a little bit, but he never asked who was there, and I never got to hear a new story from him. There wasn’t anything huge or a big confrontational, he just simply said I feel like you’ve been avoiding me. And I responded by saying, no I haven’t been avoiding you; things have just been getting a little awkward.
I don’t remember what happened after that, but the conversation eventually dwindled until one of us left. After that day we just haven’t been the same as we used to be. Sometimes I think I miss him as a friend. I miss having corny knock-knock jokes and insane band rehearsals online, and chat rooms with just two of us, because all the other “pansies,” as we would call the, went to bed at ten o'clock. I guess the real reason why I miss him so much is because he reminds me of a really good guy friend I used to have named Josiah.
Josiah was perhaps the best friend a girl could ever have. He was so honest and told me everything. Even when it was something he didn’t want to tell me, there was always some way to drag it out of him. And whenever it was a serious situation we could always find a way to laugh about it in the end. There’s just something about guys that makes it seem like they have it so much easier. I feel like they have so much more positive energy and less drama then girls, and those are the types of people that I tend to be friends with. Honest, easy going people that live in the moment.
As months have passed by and we’re still simply acquaintances, I see him changing every day. The truth is I don’t feel like he’s the same anymore. Something is going on with him and I desperately want to find out. His girlfriend says that he said he was just having family problems, but I know him better than that. Sometimes I wish that we were still good friends, that way he could tell me what was wrong with him, because I feel like he needs help with something. As a friend, or rather a lost one, I care about him a lot, and I miss him a lot.
As we were working on our poems in English class he came to my mind. I was frustrated today, because I was watching him space out sitting there in Shepherd. I know that that is a completely normal thing, but it has been happening too often and I just wanted to see his eyes come to life again. So I wrote an indirect poem about him and the way I felt. As I reread the poem I laughed at myself, because if anyone knew who it was for they would have probably thought it was a love note.
The most unfortunate thing has happened, and I hesitate to say so. I have been brainwashed, and my state of mind cannot be returned. It happened in the most peculiar oddity, and I’m not sure how to explain it. So excuse me if my language is hard to understand. They were crystal blue and as clear as the sky. I don’t mean a city sky, but a country sky in the mid afternoon. The sun was shining, and the sky was a blank canvas. The clouds didn’t go by and the birds kept their distance. Though it was a simple sky, it was as blue as the sea, and just as mesmerizing to me. But ever so often the sky flickered, as if it were smiling. And on those days the sun got brighter and the brighter it got the more I smiled. So I set myself to explore this blue sunny sky, and its wonders. I led my search straight to the source, the creator of it all. I asked him the reason for the clear blue skies, and he told me that behind them were plenty of storms. He told me it was sad and dreary, and no place for the likes of me. So I set to comfort him and his blue skies, and the turmoil behind them. Then I found myself obsessed and couldn’t get away. The blue skies, the thunderstorms, the turmoil, the creator, I loved them all and they all loved me. But came the time when the skies could not stay, and the thunderstorms turned calm, and the creator changed. And now I see nothing. I see no blue skies, I see no storms, and I see no man. Though this language is odd I hope you understand. That I have been brainwashed, and I do not think I can return.
To anyone else it was probably just a silly senseless poem that had no meaning to it, just as most of my poems are, but even now sometimes I look at him and ask him what’s up and I wonder what he is really trying to say. Perhaps it’s just me getting too used to being to read him like an open book. Perhaps I need to realize that he doesn’t have to downright tell me everything that is going on in his life, but all I know is that I miss him. Not because of his great stories, but because of our great times as friends.