[High School]

[High School]

   6:52 PM       Laura

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I guess I should start at the beginning.  The beginning being the end of High School. My full senior year.  Haha.. I've mentioned before that I was pretty socially awkward.  I had a couple people I could count on to take care of me.  I guess its interesting. Many people tell me that they're not sure why things have been extremely difficult for me during the last little bit.  I can answer this.  Most people go through high school learning everything they need to know for later in life.  Rejection, Love, Hate, responsibility, social cues.   I didn't learn any of these then.  This is why I'm blogging about 4 years after high school.  I spent so much time doing extra-curricular activities that I never learned what it was like to feel pain when someone rejects you, as a lover, or as a friend.  I didn't handle these things well when they happened during the last couple years.  People knew of me, but didn't know me.  I was the weird one.  One that for as long as I can remember, was disliked by most people.  There were several cliques that I tried to get into, but was shunned for being so weird.  But the thing is, I didn't really care... it was a downfall, I was sad that they didn't like me, but it wasn't a blow, just cause I didn't know what it was like to have a group myself.


A quick background:

9th grade: I'm the one here with the grimace on my face, 3rd from the center on the left. 

High school for me started in 9th grade.  I had 3 classes at the Junior high school,  Footnotes, Newspaper Staff, and World History. Then, I was on my bike riding from Canyon View to Orem High everyday for Seminary, Pre-Calculus, and Biology. I was also speeding up and taking English 10 and English 11 online before I ever started High School.  Life cascaded.  I took AP Calc my sophomore year, AP English Lit, (which we had to get special permission for), Med anatomy, and started into what led me to graduating from UVU with an Associates Degree, a month before I graduated high school. I had all my high school credits done before I entered my senior year, except for one, AND was 5 classes away from  a degree.  We're going to look at my senior year.

This is an extremely painful picture:

And to remove this painful image from your mind, you can now look at this picture: 

The first was me in high school.  Haha. Yes.  I always wore my hair in a pony tail at the nape of my neck.  I never wore makeup, and I always didn't care about fashion.  I wore what was comfortable. Which, most of the time, looked like that which you see above.

Its 2005.  Haha.. if you look at my very first post on this blog, its kind of lame.  That was done March of 05. Fast forward to Fall. ( When I was posting on a COMPLETELY different blog...If you're one of those people who have read all of my posts, you might as well check This one out..)  I just started my senior year in high school.  And had 3 classes total.  I was taking Ballroom team, Wind Orchestra, and Government and Citizenship, but not till 2nd semester.  Alot happened this year for me.  I had a couple friends.  Mostly Socorro, (who still remains to this day as my Bestest best friend ever) Stephen, Andrew, Jared, and Liz.

"Interesting note here.... I have never made friends so fast in my life... with the exception of stephen... with stephen, I was in the library in the high school, surfing the web, when I heard a comment that dissed Star Trek.  I turned around to tell them off, and realized the comment wasn't directed at me, but at this other guy at another computer looking at star trek stuff.  He started defending star trek, and then I joined in . (this was 10th grade)  after wards... we started meeting in the library during lunch and we became really good friends.  Socorro I met a couple weeks after, when I decided to take a bus home with stephen, and I walked with socorro... (stephen and socorro were good friends)  I couldn't pronounce the rr in her name real well, so I tried to call her so.  (we made fun of stephen, and discussed what he'd look like in a tux, and in a swim suit.)  sorry stephen... you are just really tall.  " - Link for this is here

Socorro and I went and took a ballroom class over education week at BYU before school started, and somehow, I made it on to ballroom team.  Fall semester started and I was also taking classes at BYU.  I had mostly finished my Associates Degree in Computer Science by this point.  I was taking Physics 123, CS 235, and Calc 2.  Whatever the class number was called.  This semester was also the semester I met Cory, and met Bryan. But they both have a separate post and chapter.  I went through the first semester, no problem.

Our school does something called Sterling Scholars.  I was chosen as the Orem High School Sterling Scholar of Computer Science for 2006. (News Article)This involved me creating a portfolio of scholastic and community service things.  At the time, I was very heavily interested in 3d modeling.(Like this)  I had learned all by myself how to model characters, and import them onto the Quake 3d engine, and actually play with them.  This went into my portfolio.  I started moving up the ranks, I passed regional, and then made it to the state level.  This was in the beginning of 2006.  I had finished my classes at BYU, and was just prepping for my graduation in April.  And then high school graduation.

Shortly before the finals for the Sterling Scholar competition, I scored my first job.  While most people were working as sales people, or at restaurants, I somehow scored an Internship with Novell. I was a QA/Web Developer. My first job landed me somewhere around $14.00 an hour. ( I stayed the entire internship which was 6 months. :D)   Shortly there after, I scored as the runner up at the state level for the Sterling Scholar Competition.
About 2 weeks after the competition, I received a message from my mom.

Mom: Hi. People from the City of Orem want you to be in the Miss Orem Pagent.
Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.  Yeah Right. *Click*

Shortly after I received a different phone call:
People from the City of Orem: Uh, hi... we want you to be in the Miss Orem Pagent.
Me: Uh.. ok, I guess.

So, I, uh, was in the Miss Orem Pagent of 2006, randomly enough.

Here I learned makeup, and hair, and walking around in heels.  I learned how to interview... went through SEVERAL in fact.  I was asked all sorts of questions.  They took us to learn about Jewelry, and other neat things like that.   I had to do a talent. I compressed Jon Schmidt's "Gameday" down to 3 minutes, sped it up, and then went and goofed the entire thing up when I actually performed it:



I remember, going shopping with my parents, looking for an evening gown, and a swimsuit.   At the time, I had this swimsuit:

My parents wanted me to wear this one: 

I remember fighting with them SO hard to wear something that covered my legs. Notice the clear shoes they made us wear too.
Annnd My evening gown:

The interview portion, was kind of funny.

You don't need to watch the beginning, but I was caught off guard by the question: "Should sex education be taught in public schools" in which I made the audience laugh with the shock on my face.

Anyway, I ended up with the Director's Award - Which was for the girl who improved the most over the course of the couple weeks.   It was a neat experience.  So.. that was competition number 2 for the year so far. Coupled with friend problems going on, and 2 graduations, and an internship, I was VERY stressed my senior year in high school.

Anyways... Once upon a time, I graduated from Utah Valley State College.  With an AS in Computer Science, and a 3.69 GPA.

And then I graduated from High School:

And that was my high school year.  I really don't have any memories of things outside of academics... mostly because I never did anything outside of academics.  I had friends from high school, but I was so unattached to them, that if they stopped talking to me, I either wouldn't have noticed, or I wouldn't have cared... they were nice to have around when I'd stay at the high school to eat lunch or something.  I was asked out to my first dance, went to a dance,  But, my sister was behind that one.  I didn't go on tour with the band, I did some extra curricular stuff with ballroom but that extended to the ballroom parties.  Other than that, I never learned what it was like to have extremely close friends.  I regret much of my lack of social-ness in high school very much.  I listen to Kristen and Steph recount their adventures in high school, or anyone else for that matter, and say, wow, I wish I did that.

 Aug '05 to Dec '05 - Classes at BYU
Oct '05 - March '06 - Sterling Scholar Competition
Feb '06 - April '06 - Miss Orem
Feb '06 - July '06 - Internship at Novell.
April '06 - UVU graduation
June '06 - Orem High Graduation

Now, I do have to append, that I DID make other friends.  The majority of the first half of my senior year was spent on campus with people who lived in DT at the time, but that's another story.

I do have a high paying job right now. I guess that's what I get for being really good at academics. But, I work 8-5 every day for the last almost 4 years, and that cuts into a social life too, (doesn't mean I haven't figured out a way to still have one.)  But this is what I did, instead of developing, and this is why I was so socially awkward and irritating for YEARS.   I never learned what I needed to learn when I was supposed to learn it.  And, had friends that I made, that dealt with me until I could learn it during my senior year.

I should probably come up with a good way to end this post. I don't really have an ending that will lead into the next chapter of the book. * shrug *