Hey everyone! How're your weekends going? Mine's been pretty quiet so far. I posted my catch up review for What If...? over on Josh's Movie Review Corner and the weather is really nice today. Which is a bonus. So this post is going to be something a little bit different. I'm going to be talking about my first day of high school, which I was on my way home from at this exact time, on this day, 20 years ago. So let's get into it.
On Tuesday, September 4th, 2001, I started high school. I was 14 years old and couldn't wait to get away from middle school. That had been a miserable two years despite having some really good teachers both years. It was my classmates who were the problem. Puberty turned them into real jerks and I ended up not getting along with the vast majority of them even though I wanted to really badly.
It's funny because going into high school I had ideas in my head about how it would go. My friend, Andrew, was already at the school because even though we're the same age, I was in the grade behind him. So I already had one friend at the school going in, with my other friend, Garrett, joining us the following year as he was in the grade behind me. I knew that Andrew had a girlfriend so I figured it'd be me, him, her, and one other girl with maybe one other guy to make a group of five, with Garrett joining us later to make a group of six. A nice, round, number to make a Power Rangers team. Of course, I didn't say THAT part outloud considering it was 2001, not 2011, and people would look at me weird, if they weren't already doing so because of my wheelchair and the fact that I had two backpacks, with one that had a tube coming out of it, with the other end connected to me. So I figured that that's how high school would go, because TV and movies promised me that that's how it would be. Surprisingly, for the first few weeks that's how it looked like it would be for me too. After that things took a drastic turn and when I got back to school after I had surgery to repair my left foot (as much as possible anyway) I found I had a group of ten or more people to hang out with which was bizarre.
Anyway, on that first day of school I connected with Andrew before going into the school and once inside, we met Claire, who was Andrew's girlfriend at the time, and a friend of theirs named Simon. I actually didn't get to spend much time with them that day because I had grade nine orientation activities going on for most of the morning and into the lunch hour. I ended up meeting a ton of grade 12 students because the grade 12s were basically leading the grade nine orientation activities, and would also end up sitting with some of them at lunchtime that day. One of the girls was actually a neighbour of mine, who lived on the street behind my place, though I didn't know her from my neighbourhood since she was older than I am.
Going back a little bit to homeroom, Andrew and I were in the same homeroom for the first month or two and then my homeroom teacher moved us into another classroom after that for whatever reason and that's where I stayed for that period until my final year or two of high school. I had a surprise waiting for me. One of the girls in my homeroom, who was about the same age as the grade 12s that I met later in the day, was someone I'd actually known at Greely Elementary School back in grade 2 or grade 3. Her name was Melissa and I knew her from there. So I ended up sitting with her most mornings, until one particular morning, but I'll get into that another time.
Looking back on that day, it was really overwhelming because I was at a new school, which was bigger than either school I'd been to prior to this, I had new teachers, which rotated every day seen as how I had a different teacher for each class, and new classmates. Plus I stood out like a sore thumb because I was the only person in the entire school who used a wheelchair. So everyone knew who I was, even if I didn't know them. Which was bizarre, but something I was used to since it was that way at Greely Elementary School. Heck, Claire and Simon knew who I was before I met them, because Andrew talked about me apparently. What helped me get over the feeling of being overwhelmed was having Andrew, Claire, and Simon there with me, and that group of grade 12s being friendly helped as well. I remember being tired when I got home, luckily I didn't have any homework to deal with that night.
Then again, if I'd known what struggles would be coming my way over the next five years, I might not have been as excited as I was to start high school. I survived though and made some lifelong friends along the way, so that was a bonus. That would come later though as I have a few more milestones coming up in the next few weeks to talk about too.
That my friends is it for me for today. I might be back tomorrow or Monday to post details on how I'm going to handle both blogs. In the meantime go check out my latest post over on Josh's Movie Review Corner, where I reviewed the first four episodes of What If...?. I'll post the link down below. Until then have a wonderful weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.
Josh's Movie Review Corner Link:
https://joshsmoviereviewcorner.wordpress.com/2021/09/04/what-if-episodes-1-4-review/
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