Spring fever in the computer lab

Coming to you once again from the computer lab. The Internet at my house is broken; therefore, I couldn't post a blog yesterday and I'm very sorry.

Today is the last day of school before we go on spring break, and you can really tell. Everyone's been getting restless, and not just the students. A lot of the teachers have just decided they don't really care anymore, at this point--The quiz in APUSH was cancelled, because the teacher didn't want to write one, and now our English teacher is just setting us loose in the computer lab, because nobody wants to do anything.
He's even letting people go on Facebook. This is crazy.

I can't pretend I'm not as excited as everyone else for spring break. I can't wait. Therefore, this post is going to be short, kinda crappy, and not very deep, because I don't have the capacity of thinking deep thoughts right now. I try, for the purposes of making these ramblings sound interesting, to not just record random disconnected observations about a person, but that's probably what this is going to be.

Anyway, next week, since there's no school, I probably won't be posting at all. If I find a stranger to observe, I may stalk them for a few minutes and then whip up a blog about them.
In the meantime... I'm still stuck in the computer lab with my English class.

Let's see what everyone's doing.

Doodle Hands and her best friend are sitting to my right. They've been browsing DeviantArt, reading online comics, and now they're playing Addicting Games.

The Paper Passer was watching YouTube videos of people playing mandolins and harps, but now she seems to have disappeared. Her stuff is still here, though. Her cute brown flowery bag, and her battered Calculus book.

A boy and a girl who are both wearing Letterman jackets are sitting at the same computer, sharing a pair of earphones. The air is thick with sexual tension. They're both attractive, and they're both aware of it. Letterman Girl's knee is just barely brushing against Letterman Boy's. I can't see what site they're on, but they're trying not to look at each other--only at the screen. Letterman Boy is typing. Letterman Girl checks her phone.
The guy next to them, who is one of those Late-Bloomer types whom everyone is friends with but nobody really likes, keeps bothering them, and Letterman Girl jokes with him while Letterman Boy keeps typing, trying to ignore him.

The Only Asian Kid In Class was playing a maze game, probably on Addicting Games or a similar site. Now he and the kid next to him are spamming each other with gibberish in Facebook chat. ...And now he's leaving. Might have to leave early for a sport, might've gotten bored.

Some girls are online shopping for prom dresses.

Brown Bag is looking at pictures on Facebook, next to another popular misfit. I can't see her face from here.

Remus isn't at a computer. He's sitting in a swivelly chair, behind two of his friends, watching their screens. He's just turning back and forth, occasionally voicing a thought about whatever they're doing. Eventually, he gets bored, scoots backwards across the classroom, and props his feet up on an empty chair next to another group of boys.

Somebody in this class just said, "I don't think you're a pickle." It's fun to listen to conversations out of context.

I don't know what the Loner's doing. Maybe I should go find him. I'm willing to bet that he's getting a head start on the spring break history homework.

Well, this has been fun, readers, but frankly I'm getting bored, and you probably are, too. Hopefully I'll get the chance/inspiration to blog again soon, but in the meantime, I can't say it enough: Thank you so much for reading. I hope those of you who are on spring break have a great vacation, I hope those of you who celebrate it have a great Easter, and I hope that everyone in general has a great week! This is Your Faithful Observer, signing off for the week. <3

The Loner

This is your faithful observer, coming to you live from the computer lab at my school. This is where the Loner spends most of his lunchtimes.

He's actually sitting two computers down from me right now. In an unrelated story, I feel like a total creep, though that should be nothing new.

I was a little hesitant to call him the Loner, because the word "loner" tends to have certain connotations that don't apply to him. Change one letter, and "loner" becomes "loser." While the two words are not entirely mutually exclusive, "loner" and "loser" are very different things.
And I don't think anyone would make the mistake of calling the Loner a loser.

Sure, he spends his lunchtimes in the computer lab, sitting among underclassmen boys who play computer games and show each other viral videos and online manga every day during lunch hour. Some people might call those boys "losers," but it's evident that the Loner isn't one of them. He's not really one of anybody.

He's got very neatly trimmed hair, with a little product on the top that guides his hair into a teeny little mohawk (more of a faux-hawk, I guess). His skin is very oily. His nose is pink and shiny, and around his mouth are a couple of those painful-looking zits, the kind that sit just under the skin so you can't pop them.

(I'm so going to need to edit this later. Urgh, my thoughts are really scattered today and it’s hard to concentrate. Especially with all the World of Warcraft geeks around. You've gotta love 'em.)

Part of me is completely paranoid that he'll glance over and notice what I'm writing. However, he seems to be completely absorbed in his work. He's doing his AP US History homework, like always. He carries his APUSH textbook with him everywhere. Like an accessory. Always tucked under his arm, always with him. When he's got a spare moment in class, he takes it out and reads it, as though it's a novel.

I heard a rumor that he has a hundred and eleven percent in APUSH. (Of course, I don't know if that's true or not, but if it is, wow. I was stunned at the Paper Passer's hundred and three.)

He's got his textbook open now, and two Internet tabs open on his computer screen. The Google homepage, and a new email message. He mostly just sits and reads, his elbows on the desktop and his arms crossed, his shoulders leaning over the book. He looks up only occasionally, to type some notes into the message box or to look something up on Google search.

I wonder why he does all his APUSH at school. (He comes here after school, too. He probably stays until he finishes up the chapter notes.) Does he not have a computer at home? Or maybe just no Internet? Then why does he type his notes into an email, if not to send the file to himself so he can print it later? Is he sending his notes to someone else, maybe? If so, who? He’s the Loner. He lunches alone. Not a soul comes near him. He does nothing but his history homework. Who would he share that with?

It’s entirely possible that he has friends somewhere. He didn’t go to the same elementary and middle schools as most of us; he didn’t even come to this high school until sophomore year. Maybe all his friends are at his old school, and he just didn’t find it worth it to make any friends here. So he’s a little anti-social. Not really in an awkward way, though-- He doesn't initiate conversation, but he doesn't turn bright red if anyone says a word to him, either. He just smiles and answers in that deep, sort of monotone voice. Maybe makes a joke, if the situation allows it, and then returns to his work. He's okay with talking, but he just chooses not to. Somehow, people seem to understand that about him.

People don't make fun of the Loner. That's the thing. That’s why he’s not a loser. Nobody makes fun of him, nobody feels sorry for him. They just let him be.

The way he reads the history textbook, the way he studies constantly, doesn't seem like he's desperately trying to prove anything. It’s more like... It's just a part of who he is. And he's chill with that. He's not self-conscious about it. He doesn't seem to really care about anyone around him. Therefore, they don’t really care about him, either. Since he seems to be okay with being alone, most people are okay with letting him alone. He's just sort of there. Constant, strong, and silent.

Ha-Ha

Choir classes are usually filled with a hodgepodge of students from various social cliques. You tend to get students from the far ends of the spectrum--some of the most popular kids, and some of the geekiest ones. Always the extremes; it's kind of rare that you find someone who's sort of in between.
That's Ha-Ha. He's an in-between.

Music classes just welcome lots of bad jokes. Especially music jokes. The musical nerds make composer references with the teacher, the not-so-musical nerds try to be funny and end up just making bad puns, and the nerds and teachers laugh while the cool kids roll their eyes.

Ha-Ha doesn't make jokes, probably doesn't even understand most of the jokes, but he's not mean enough to roll his eyes at them or make rude comments. So instead, he laughs along. But he laughs extra-loud, extra-fake, like he's trying to drop a hint to the nerds: You're really not that funny.

He usually waits a beat, after everyone stops laughing, before he starts in; as if it took him a little longer to get the joke. Then his fake laugh just fills up the room. "Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!" Some of the other boys join in, and then he looks around, seemingly confused.

"How can you fake a laugh like that?" a girl asks him.
"What fake laugh?" he says, raising his eyebrows to punctuate the irony.

The boys in choir are famous for being obnoxious, but sometimes I think Ha-Ha is only obnoxious because he knows he's supposed to be. He's not really friends with anyone in this class, but he's found his niche here and he just wants to blend in with them and maybe have a good time until he graduates.

The hardcore choir nerds tend to hate him, because sometimes he seems to care about choir even less than the other boys. The laughing. The goofing off with the other boys. And also.
Sometimes, when the director's in the middle of a lecture or is working with another section on something, Ha-Ha just gets down from the risers and walks away. He goes over to the window, and leans against the glass, looking out at the sunshine and taking deep breaths, like he'd give anything to be out of here. It makes one wonder why he even joined choir in the first place.

Before class, he sometimes sits at the piano and tries to play Jason Mraz songs, making the freshman girls adore him and the junior and senior girls complain about cliché chord progressions. Whenever the freshmen ask him to sing, he gets a little nervous and makes excuses. They love him anyway, but he doesn't care one way or another.

He has a girlfriend. They're always making out in the hallways during passing periods. When the two of them are together (which is whenever they're not in separate classes), they're not affiliated with anyone else. They're always talking and laughing softly when they're together, but I've never actually heard her voice. I don't know if she talks to anyone other than him. They always make sure everyone can see them, but really, they're private about everything else.

After the spring concert, which was pretty much a failure, the choir director had everyone listen to the recording of the concert and write out what they thought was the problem. When Ha-Ha was called on to read what he had written, he kind of shuffled to his feet and wouldn't make eye contact with anyone, just stared at his paper.

"Uh...This is gonna be sort of a downer," he said. "Sorry. But uh...yeah, this is just what I wrote. Um." He cleared his throat. "I joined choir because I thought it was going to be a fun experience, but it isn't fun, because we all have really bad attitudes, and a lot of people hate each other. Music classes are supposed to be like a family, but we're not. This class always has a really bad feeling. I want to enjoy choir, but instead every day when I leave this class I just feel depressed about life. And that makes me want to just quit."

Nobody really knew what to say after that. The director frowned and said, "I'm sorry you feel that way, [Ha-Ha]."
Ha-Ha nodded awkwardly, blinking, and sat down. The director tried to start a discussion about what Ha-Ha had said, but it probably didn't make much difference. Ha-Ha still walks over to the window every day and leans against the glass, taking deep breaths, and trying to drown everything else out.

Buttons

A note from your faithful observer--
Thanks for your well wishes! I stayed home Thursday and Friday, but now I'm back and feeling better. Thank you so much for continuing to read and comment. Now on to today's entry!

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When she was in eighth grade... There's not really any way to put this lightly... Her breasts became sort of huge. I'm sure she's had to endure thousands of rude comments about it over the past few years, but she never mentions it. She must've gotten used to it. But I don't think that it stopped bothering her.

When you're in middle school especially, who you are to everyone else is almost as important to you as who you actually are. If not more so. Whether you're the Cute Sporty Kid or the Paper Passer or the Girl With Way Too Much Mascara, that label is important.
So this girl enters puberty, and for a long time, through no fault of her own, she is known as The Girl With Huge Tits.

She must've made a decision, at some point, to change their minds. To show them who she really was. And since then, she's spent all her time, focused all her energy, into creating a new image for herself. An image that means so much more, an image that shows who she really is.

Not many people are capable of creating an image like that, but she's done it.

She dresses in bright colors--big colors, and lots of them, all shining yellows and grass-greens and vivid purples. She usually wears a big necklace or two, in clunky, abstract shapes, and earrings that match. Nobody else dresses like that, and nobody else ever could. Her style is so different, but it's all hers.

She asks lots of random, unrelated questions, that often spur discussion all around her. For example, "In action movies, when the hero steals some random guy's car to chase after the villain, what happens to that guy? Does he ever get his car back?"

A lot of people don't even bother thinking about those kinds of questions. But she does. And not only does she think of them, she also asks them, throws them out into the world to see what people do with them. Instead of just keeping them in her head.

It's rare that you find someone like that. Someone who is so weird, so beautifully weird, yet so unafraid of really being who they are. It's that kind of bravery that keeps her weirdness from being awkward.

Around freshman year, she started collecting buttons, and sewing them all over her clothes. Her mission was to make an outfit covered entirely in buttons. Almost two years later, she finished. Pants covered in buttons. Shoes covered in buttons. Shirt covered in buttons. Hat covered in buttons. Buttons for earrings. Buttons all over her bag.
And no two buttons alike.

Sometimes she wears her buttons outfit to school, just because she feels like it. And you laugh when you see her, because it's so awesome--Ridiculous, in a way, but awesome.
Because she's not The Girl with Huge Tits anymore. She's the Girl with the Buttons.

One day recently during a passing period, I was walking to class with Buttons and a few friends. It was cloudy, and the wind started blowing, and suddenly Buttons burst out, "Oh my god, I want to FLY!"

She squeezed her eyes shut, pressing the tips of her index fingers against her temples, concentrating. "I know I can do it. I know I have the ability, somewhere. I just need to let it happen."

She concentrates. The wind catches in her yellow cardigan and lifts her dark hair from her face and her earrings clatter and she spreads her arms wide, a smile creeping across her face.

Then her eyes pop open, she sees she's still on the ground, and groans in disappointment. "Damn it!"

Sometimes, I forget what an incredibly beautiful person Buttons is. And I never ever should.

Doodle Hands

Doodle Hands is a mystery. She sleeps in class, which makes a lot of teachers hate her; her eyes glaze over, she listens to her iPod whenever she can, and she never speaks up and usually gets a zero in participation grade. When she is awake in class, she and her friends spend their time drawing crazy doodles on each other's hands, and laughing with each other--nobody knows what about.
Every day, she goes out galavanting with friends and they have the weirdest adventures.

"[Ryan] and I dismembered a dead raccoon yesterday," she whispered to me this morning.
I laugh, just because that's really all you can do when she says things like this. "What? What'd you do that for?"
"We wanted to make a necklace out of its teeth."

Yeah. That's the kind of weird thing she and her friends do every day after school.

"What, you were pulling out its teeth with your bare hands?"
"Nah. We were poking it with sticks. Its brains came out. It was awesome."

She doesn't talk to many people, but the people she does talk to all love her, just for the incomprehensibly amazing and hilarious things she says.

It seems, with all these things she does after school, that she wouldn't have any time to do her homework. When you're in three AP classes, as she is, homework usually takes up four to six hours of your day.

But somehow, along with doing legitimately crazy things with her friends every day, she finishes it all. Before quizzes and tests, she always says she didn't study--says she didn't even read the chapter.

But then she just completely aces it. Gets a better score than most people who did read the chapter.

"You're kidding me!" the guy next to her exclaims, when she shows us her 14/16 score on an AP history chapter she didn't read. "I read it twice and got eleven! You have to have read it."

"No. I didn't."

"You're lying. You've got to be."

"No, seriously. I didn't read the chapter."

"How'd you do it?"

"...I just knew the answers already."

And therein lies the mystery. How does she do it? She sleeps in class. She doesn't speak a word to most people. Teachers hate her because of her couldn't-care-less personality. She's in three AP classes and zero period jazz band, and she spends her weekday afternoons the way most people spend their weekends in the summer.

And somehow, she gets straight A's.

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I don't have much to say other than that. I'm sorry this post is short and not up-to-par, but, sadly, there is a nasty flu going around this high school, and during third period today, I was struck down and sent home with aches, chills, and a horrid sore throat.
I'm feeling a bit better now, but there's a high chance that tomorrow Your Faithful Observer won't be observing anything but the TV screen. Hopefully by Friday I'll be back. :)
Thank you so much for reading. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.
Love, Your Faithful Observer

Remus Lupin

*If you're confused about why I'm calling him Remus, and his friends James and Sirius, read the blog post titled "James Potter" first.

Remus wears a brown striped hoodie with white fuzz on the inside of the hood.
He has skinny scraped knees that bounce up and down under his desk. He taps his thumbs on his desktop, flips his pencil over in one hand and taps the eraser on top of his notes. Pulls both of his hands into fists, knocks his knuckles against the desktop, and then pulls the sleeves of his hoodie over his fists. Despite his collected appearance, Remus has very restless hands.

He’s not as cocky and mischievous and arrogant as James and Sirius. Mostly, while they make jokes, he just sits back and laughs, almost to himself.

He has a generally calm feeling about him. Most of the time, he seems happy—happy in a quiet way, an unassuming way.

He tends to sit behind his friends, instead of right with them. In history, James and Sirius sit next to each other, but Remus sits one row behind them, so when he wants to talk to them, he has to lean forward. He grins and leans towards the back of James's head and says something clever, and the three of them laugh.

Remus always does seem to be a bit on the outside of a conversation. Not just in history--almost anywhere. It's like he's there, he's still a part of the conversation, but he just has to lean in a little bit in order to take part.
I don’t think he feels left out. Maybe sometimes he does, but most of the time he seems okay with it. I think he wants it that way.

When the class quiets down a bit, when James and Sirius stop making jokes, Remus leans against the back wall, his head tilted down but his eyes tilted up. When the teacher goes off on a tangent, he lets his head fall back and widens his eyes at the ceiling for a second, like he’s asking God why teachers have to be such idiots.

Then a cute girl catches his eye, and he smiles and laughs a little, embarrassed. She laughs, too; he stretches, glances back towards her, and then looks away quickly.

He doesn’t really want anyone to look at him. That’s why he’s okay with being a little bit on the outside of every conversation. While he does seem generally happy, he also seems a little bit worried. Just a little tiny edge of worry to his eyes. Looking around to make sure nobody’s watching him, nobody’s noticing him.

If he knew that a classmate of his whom he barely knows was watching him in class all day today, and then writing a blog about him, he'd probably toss and turn all night.

While he is mostly calm, there’s an energy behind it. The drumming. The knee jiggling. He does have a lot of energy in him, but, like everything else about him, he sort of keeps it private. He's just quiet, calmly smiling, and he lets things be.

I can totally see him having a furry little problem. What exactly that furry little problem might be, though... is still unknown.

The Paper Passer

Sometimes it's a bit surprising how little some people change over the years.

In middle school, she was annoying. She would rarely shut up. She’d get upset with people, and then she’d cry and complain, and even the teachers hated her for that sometimes.
She used to read in class. Which isn’t such a weird thing to do, but when she read, she would start whispering the words out loud to herself. She wouldn’t even realize she was doing it. It freaked the other kids out. Gave them more reason to hate her. When you’re in middle school, you can hate someone because of anything.
She used to get caught with a novel under her desk all the time, because her whispering would give her away. Teachers used to get really frustrated with her, snapping at her multiple times to put the book away, and then her eyes would get all red and she’d just stare at one spot in the classroom, blinking.
Some people’s eyes wander when they daydream in class. Not her. Her eyes zoom completely out of focus, staying fixed on one thing, never moving. She stares at nothing, sitting up perfectly straight, her mouth hanging slightly open, both of those clunky black earbuds in her ears as she listens to her iPod.

As long as I’ve known her, she’s been the kid who passes back papers. People made fun of her for that, too, but she never stopped. It never mattered what class she was in, or who the teacher was, or whether or not there was a TA who could do the job for her. She just did it. She still does it. To this day, after all these years, the Paper Passer still passes back papers.

She had braces for something like nine years. When she finally got them off, they were replaced with a drooly set of retainers that make her speech mumbly and slurred. She doesn’t read in class anymore; she doesn’t even talk anymore, really. She must've realized it gave people a basis on which to humiliate her. When she does talk, it’s to answer a question in class, and if you’re sitting more than five feet away from her, you can’t understand a word she says because of those retainers.

She used to ramble on about the most awkward subjects. Now she's just shy. She blushes when anyone talks to her, and can't make eye contact for long.

She doesn’t do any activities. She just does homework. She wants nothing more than to get good grades. Not just good grades—the best grades.
When she takes notes (which she always does, no matter what the teacher’s talking about), she crams in two or three lines into one college-ruled line in a notebook. All those words squeezed so tight together you can barely read them. When she types her notes on each history chapter, she fills up four of five pages of tiny font, and adjusts the margin so there’s barely any white space around the edge of each page.
She has a hundred and three percent in AP US History. Yeah. That's completely unheard of. It's a bit scary.

It’s these things about her that freak people out today. Not her being loud and annoying or crying about everything or whispering as she reads. It’s the way she tries so hard in these classes. Like they’re all that there is, like they’re all that matters.

Also, she still passes back papers.

"Why does she do that?" a girl whispered behind me in English today, as the Paper Passer darted around the classroom with an armful of graded essays. "He's got TAs; they're just sitting there. Look." She pointed to the English teacher, as he sat droopily in front of his computer screen. "He doesn't even notice she's doing it."

And that's why she does it: because she wants him to notice.

It probably started way back. Third or fourth grade. Maybe one day, seeking attention and wanting to be a good student, the Paper Passer volunteered to pass back papers. And in response, her teacher smiled and said something like, "You're so helpful, [Paper Passer]. You're always so on top of it. Thank you so much."

And that struck a chord with little Paper Passer. She was hungry for that kind of appreciation, and now she'd found a way to get it.
So she kept doing it. She kept passing back papers. And she's still passing back papers. She's spent the rest of her school career trying to get that moment back. She passes back those papers day after day, hoping one day a teacher will notice and thank her again.

Sadly, though, none of the teachers ever notice. They think she’s doing it just because. But she's not.

The Frenchman

The Frenchman is not from France. He's from Belgium. But his first language is French, and nobody really knows the difference.

He TAs for Madame French Teacher. She refers to him as Monsieur Dictionnaire, because whenever anyone has a vocabulary question they can just consult him, instead of looking it up in the dictionary. Sometimes he doesn't really understand the questions, though, which the girls in French class find sort of adorable.

Some of the exchange students who come to our school have been studying English for so long that they're practically fluent. Like their brains can completely slip over and start thinking in English instead of their first language. The Frenchman still thinks in French, according to Madame. I mean, he's not bad at English, but there is a bit of a language barrier. Which is probably why he doesn't talk much.

He just sits quietly in French class, correcting papers or doing homework. He scrolls through his iPod, one earbud in and the other hanging down by his knees. His brown sneakers are crossed, one over the other, in front of his desk; the laces are wadded up in thick knots instead of just tied. His lips are always pooched forward a little, turned down. His cheekbones are thin, with a bit of a dark beard edging down from his sideburns. He wears two watches, one on each wrist--one tells what time it is here; the other probably tells what time it is in Belgium.

I wonder how much he misses home.

Exchange students always talk about how much they like it here. But you never know if they're just being polite.
When the Frenchman was interviewed for the school paper, he told them he loved it here and he's having a great time. But he always seems a little sad, and more than a little lonely. I guess you would, if you're alone in a foreign country five thousand miles from your home.

"It was actually pretty hard for me to make friends," he says in the school paper, "because I'm from a place so different than here, and I don't have much in common with anyone. A lot of people wanted to talk to me just because I'm an exchange student."

Well... probably not just because he's an exchange student. He's a remarkably attractive exchange student.

“DAYUM. Where did he come from?” a friend of mine asked, after the Frenchman passed us in the hall.

“Belgium,” I said.

“That. Is so. Hot.”

Yeah, there is the foreign aspect of him that people like, it's true. The Frenchman brings a sort of air of mystery with him. He’s from somewhere really different, and you can tell just from listening to his voice--or even just looking at him. It’s special. It attracts.

He's not incredibly social, but just because he's from somewhere different, everyone finds him sort of exciting. When he leans over a girl's desk in French class and points out a mistake on her paper, she looks up at him and turns bright red. Girls swoon over his accent, melt when he puts on his reading glasses, burst into giggles when he's reading the class a quiz and says the word "caterpillar."

“What’s so funny?!” exclaims Madame.

“He said ‘caterpillar,’” says one of the girls, still laughing.

“Well, that’s not funny! Don’t laugh at him; at least he’s trying!”

“No!” protests another girl. “It was cute!”

The Frenchman looks confused, then smiles a little bit and looks down, embarrassed. He doesn't really like the attention. He just wants to blend in, to be normal, but he can't--not in a place like this, where if you're the slightest bit different, everyone either torments you for it or treats you like the coolest thing in the world.

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Until Monday--Thank you so much for reading, and I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! -Your Faithful Observer

James Potter

He snacks in class, even when it’s not allowed; he’s one of the few people who can get away with it. He sits slouching slightly, with his long legs sticking out from under the desk. Big feet, big shoes with bright green laces, next to his light brown Indiana Jones-style bag with holes worn in the bottom. His three best friends sitting next to him. They goof around in class and the teacher doesn't really mind.

My friends and I refer to the four of them as the Marauders.
He, of course, is James Potter.*

His right-hand man is not quite as popular as he is; he’s a little scruffy-looking. He’s the Sirius Black in the group, and he and James are so inseperable that some people think they’re gay. Their next best friend, Remus Lupin, is more reserved, less attractive, and probably smarter than both of them put together.
And, of course, there’s one little Peter Pettigrew who follows them around, cracking jokes and trying to make them laugh.

They’re all in the band. James plays the trumpet.

James is the band geek who is infamously dashing. Every band has one.

Let’s squeeze in a quick physical description here: James has silky chocolate-colored hair that looks like it would be really fun to tousle. His eyes are a little darker, like espresso, and they have long black lashes. He has very white teeth, and dimples. He typically wears collared, button-down shirts, with the collar unbuttoned and the sleeves rolled back, to show off his Manly Hairy Arms and his Manly Hairy Hands.

Most of the girls in band wouldn’t mind squeezing on tight to those Manly Hairy Hands.

But, like most cute boys, it isn’t just his looks that attracts the ladies. It’s his confidence. Margo Roth Spiegelman said it so well: “You’re cute when you’re confident. And less when you’re not.”

There are lots of musician jokes about trumpet players. For example: What do trumpet players say when they shake hands? “Hi. I’m better than you.”

Sure, one could say that James has got the classic trumpet-player Hi-I’m-Better-Than-You swagger down pat. You could call him arrogant, or you could call him confident. Happy, even.

He has a generally cheerful feeling about him. He's playful. In class today, he takes an empty plastic water bottle and sticks it in his mouth, and just sits there looking at the teacher, like everything is normal, with a water bottle hanging out of his mouth. Like a dog with a bone.

It's simultaneously obnoxious and charming. Which is why he's the James Potter.

He’s not exactly the type who would suspend Severus Snape in the air and take his pants off if he had a magic wand. But he definitely would become an unregistered Animagus to help Remus, or create a hardcore map of the school grounds.** He and his friends are playful and mischievous, and probably get away with a lot more than they should, which irritates some people. But it's hard to stay mad at him.

It’s just little things about him. If you bump into him, he smiles and holds out an arm in an “after-you” kind of way. If you say something and he doesn’t quite hear you, he doesn’t say “What?” He says, “I’m sorry?”

"I've figured out why [James Potter] is so cute," a friend told me tonight, at the spring choir/band concert.
"Why?"
"It's because he's British."

Upon further investigation, I found this to be true. Granted, he doesn't have the accent because he grew up here in Nowheresville, USA, but his mom--mum?--does.

There’s something about a British guy. Or really, a guy from any foreign country. It’s not the accent necessarily. It’s not even the politeness and chivalry. It’s the mannerisms. The way he feels a little bit different. In the slightest little ways.

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*If you haven't read the Harry Potter series, you probably won't understand the character references in this blog.
**You know... if our school had secret passageways :)

Glass

I haven’t actually spoken to Glass since freshman year, when we were sort of friends. We were in PE together, and being scared freshmen of similar personalities and similar social status (at least at the time), we clung to each other and stuck the year out.

One time during freshman year, she was crying. I don’t really remember why, but I put an arm around her, and she didn’t sob, she didn't make any sort of noise; just kind of looked at me with her eyes glassy, tears dripping down her face with black eye makeup mixed in, and then she turned away, wiping her eyes, and walked to the bathroom to fix her face. Taking careful steps, and pushing on the bathroom door gently, as though anything coming into contact with her could break her.

She’s changed since. She’s become a cheerleader, and she joined the band—making her both a popular kid and a geek, giving her sort of an identity crisis, and making football season the craziest time of year for her.

But even though she does different things now, she’s never really changed in my mind since that moment. Walking into the bathroom, her shoulders a little quivery, her body sort of fragile, her eyes full of melting glass.

Glass and I don’t have any classes together anymore; actually, I don’t really have any sort of way of observing her at school. So instead, I’ve been observing her in a different way: through what she posts on the Internet.

On Twitter, Glass quotes Miley Cyrus songs. Gushes about Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. Posts vague things about how much she hates her life. Makes giggly refereces to her friends and how crazy and obnoxious they all are.

Once in awhile, a little low self-esteem drips in.

i’m fattttt ugh.

She’s not fat.

note to self: be happy and healthy and buy cute clothes in smaller sizes. yes. ok wish me luck :)

Granted, she’s fatter than most of the other cheerleaders, but that’s because she doesn’t have an eating disorder. Though, based on some of the things she posts, she’s well on her way to getting one.

Cheer was lame. I left my stuff outside when i went to talk to my counselor, but everyone went inside. do you think anyone put my bag inside? nope because i have no friends.

When you think of cheerleaders and band geeks, you think of people who really have a place where they belong. They have a strong, centered group of friends. Glass is both a cheerleader and a band geek, but feels like she doesn't have any friends.

How many people feel this way? Even among the people who are supposed to be their teammates—their family?

So today i woke up at 7.30 haha it was strange, but i went to school anyway and it was weird. i just hate school so much anymore. i feel like i still don’t know who i am, even though i should. i just feel like a blob who doesn’t say anything. i wish i could start over.

Brown Bag

The stereotype about cheerleaders being loud, obnoxious, and generally intolerable doesn’t quite apply to this girl. Well, she may be obnoxious, I don’t actually know—I don’t think we’ve ever actually spoken, in the seven and a half years we’ve gone to school together—but if she is obnoxious, she’s obnoxious in her own, sort of private way. She’s not a loud cheerleader. She doesn’t have the happy, chatterboxy personality they’re supposed to have. She doesn’t really speak at all.

In classes, she sits quietly at her desk, her legs primly crossed, with her brown designer bag on her desk, to cover up her hands so teachers won’t know she’s texting on her pink iPhone. (Two major clues that she’s a rich girl. If the iPhone doesn’t give it away, then the rich girl usually carries her school stuff in a huge designer purse—typically leathery—instead of a backpack.) Brown Bag’s wrists are decked in bracelets of various colors. Her nails are painted black, the color chipped in places; her eyebrows are trimmed thin, and end before they should; her eyeshadow is light brown, almost flesh-colored, but very thick. The mascara is even thicker.

Her hair is like that of an anime character—flat, with spiky layers, and a little puffy on the top. It’s dyed white blond, with very obvious dark roots. Which is weird, because I don’t think she’s ever had dark hair. In elementary school, it was naturally gold.

She doesn’t talk, doesn’t even look at the other kids in AP English, really. But it’s not because she’s an outcast. Maybe she’s an outcast in smart kid classes, but she’s not an outcast in the grand scheme of things. She's got that brown bag and the iPhone. She’s always texting somebody, and she is a cheerleader, so she can’t be entirely friendless. She just doesn’t talk in AP English because she doesn’t really have much interest in these people.

At lunch, she joins a friend or two, and they walk to the local burrito joint where everybody goes. There, she talks; her voice is quiet, but it exists.

Sometimes, though, even with her friends, she goes silent. They keep talking, and she stands off to the side, or behind. Looking in, but none of them looking out.

Brown Bag doesn’t "belong" in AP classes because she’s a cheerleader. But she doesn’t really "belong" with her cheer friends, either…why not?

Is it because she’s so smart? Because she is smart—She got a hundred percent on the Great Gatsby exam. I saw her test on the top of the pile, and I was surprised.

Do they know that she’s smarter than them, and that’s why they exclude her? Or does she know that she’s smarter than them, and that’s why she feels like she shouldn’t be there?

Does she just know that she should be somewhere else, and that’s why she steps out and looks wistfully in?

Does this girl have a place anywhere?

Fedora

She comes to first period early every single day. She's the first person to enter the classroom other than the teacher. She walks in with her huge backpack slung over one shoulder; she rarely says anything. Her backpack is set down with a heavy thunk. She takes off her Fedora hat--the kind that annoying junior boys wear--and slips it into the metal crate under her seat. She always wears a Fedora hat. Maybe she just wears the same one every day, or maybe she has a plethora of them--If she does, they all look the same.

The hair under the Fedora is dusty blond, and boyishly short. It still feels awkward to see it so short; it used to be long. She came to the first day of semester with it all cut off. Wearing the shoes, the vest, the Fedora. Completely new image, completely new person. Most of the girls in the class were whispering about her.

"It looks like she's trying to be a boy."
"Yeah. A boy from the 80s."
"A boy from the 80s with really bad style."

And there is some truth behind what people say about her. But it's not so much her clothes or her hair or the awkward pink tinge on her face with no makeup to cover it up. The clothes do have something to do with it--I mean, the girl literally wears plaid pants and orange T-shirts, for God's sake--but it's not her appearance. It's just her. Like most outcasts in high school society, there's something about Fedora that just weirds people out.

She's quiet most of the time. She just sits in class, bent over her desk, getting along with her work. One leg crossed over the other, her left hand squeezed in between her knees, her right hand writing. She doesn't say a word.

But she does look up.
She's always looking up.

She's always watching everybody else, with these very intense eyes. Eyes that you can feel on the back of your head from a mile away. Eyes that always seem like they're going to narrow and make something explode, like Matilda Wormwood's. Eyes that look like they know everything. No. Like they want to know everything.

When somebody feels her eyes on them and turns to look at her, she hides with a yawn. Scratches at one eye like a sleepy toddler, and then turns back to her work.

She doesn't belong to any group. When the class has to pair off into partners, she's always the one who has to wander around looking. But she's always listening to the separate groups. Watching them. Paying very close attention to their conversations.

I think what makes people the most uneasy about Fedora is, she always seems like she's about to say something.

You can always tell when she's watching you, when she's listening to your every word. It's like she's silently leaning her way into the conversation. You always feel as if she's about to say something, add her thoughts, tell a story, ask a question-- but she never does. Those hard-staring eyes just keep. on. watching.

When she does speak, her voice is very firm, her words are pre-planned, and the smile never leaves her face, but the words are always a little shaky--like she's scared she won't say it right. Her phrases always end with just the slightest rising inflection...not like a question?... But more like...an ellipsis...like she's just about to say something else... So you can't just look away... You have to keep listening...

And then she goes on...

She leans closer towards you, just a little bit, praying that you'll keep listening. Her intense, slightly-crooked eyes getting even more close together. They just keep. on. watching.

It doesn't matter if Fedora's talking or not; her eyes are always the same. They're always looking at everyone. But they're not seeing anyone. They're just staring hard, secretly, desperately, screaming, LOOK AT ME.

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So, why am I starting this blog?

It's an experiment, of sorts. Mostly because I'm bored to death with seeing the same people every day. I've gone to school with these kids every day for three years at the least, eleven at the most. I don't even like most of them.

The seniors always talk about how they can't wait to get out of this hellhole. Because then they'll never have to see any of these idiots again. I don't blame them. But...I don't know if you ever fully escape them. I think these people are probably everywhere. They'll be there when we go to college, they'll be there when we start our careers, they'll be at our grocery stores and holiday parties and offices. Just in a different form, that's all.

Because all people are the same.

But...
I think, maybe, if I look at them a little closer, they might look like something different.