2nd Creative Writing

Rachael Kerr
AP English
May 20, 2010
2nd Creative Writing
Eight Defining Moments in the Life of a Spaz

One: As a kid, I loved watching my sister have to wake up every morning, put on some odd-colored jumper, and sulk off to school. I had the luxury of being underage (excluding this, never has that term been used in a good way for me). So after my sister was dragged to the legally required prison, I spent my day in one of her ballet costumes, or my pjs at my Granny Rose’s house. Here, I helped her do what would later become what is often held against me: my love of cooking. It didn’t matter how tired Granny was, or what other things she had to do; she always made time so I could memorize the recipe for scrambled eggs, or how to make really good French toast, all before I could spell my name. Maybe she saw potential in me, or maybe it was the lack of potential she saw in my sister (to this day, she still asks me to help her make brownies with the box instructions in hand). For better or worse, I was always trying to cook new things after this. Through that I learned what flavors go well together, what consistency sauces should be, and when to “give up” on your “new dish” and call a grown up to “put out the fricken fire”.
Two: Growing up with guys was so much better than any tea-party-hosting, bracelet-wearing, tiara dawning silly girls. Surrounded by boys with in-your-face attitudes, who listened to rap metal, played basketball with a hoop nailed on a telephone pole, watched WWF (that’s right, old school), and constantly wore cargo jeans two sizes too big, my character underwent a dramatic shift. If not for the long hair and shrill voice, my solid color XXL tee, bandana, bruised face, and ‘husky’ sized pants would have fooled you into thinking I hosted a Y chromosome. But wait it gets better, the boys were mostly Hispanic or black…Granny lived in Hyde Park. From them, I picked up just enough foreign words to get me in trouble, and some slang that will never escape me (ever heard me say something is ‘mad’ whatever? Yeah…got that from Marco…).
Three: Due to my rebellious stage, I never got my ears pierce as a young girl, and was far too apathetic to cut my hair. So I remained earring-less and scraggily-haired until seventh grade. Turning thirteen, I felt some changes were in order. My mother scheduled an appointment to lop off my mid-back length hair into a bob unable to be put into a ponytail. BIG MISTAKE. I have regretted doing this ever since. Yes, I am happy I donated the fifteen inches of thick waves to Locks of Love, a company for leukemia and chemotherapy patients, and yes, I do believe everyone should try a change, but this was a little much. I constantly remind myself how long my hair could have been now if I never cut it. The upside was, after losing ten pounds from my head, I looked about fifteen. I aged further after getting my ears pierced with gold studs.
“The good news is your earrings look wonderful,” the doctor said “The bad news is now you look about eighteen.”
And boy was he right, I was willing to bet I could drive my mother’s car around with no second glances. By looking older, I felt that I could act older and get away with it. This was true, and caused me to mature more quickly than my three-year-older sister. But I do not regret this in the least, I was able to connect with more mature people which made me feel good about myself. But freshman year with that hair cut was still hell…
Four: Ah high school, the place where no one’s self esteem is safe, where some kids are discovering intercourse and others are discovering deodorant, where everyone finds someone like them, no matter how weird. I was always a loner at my school, because every girl owned a “straightener”, and every boy listened to a rapper with the same name as colorful chocolate pieces. At high school, there were people who didn’t look at me funny when I’d quote Disney movies, or hum Linkin Park, or even when I seem to be reading my “comic books” backwards. In fact, I found they did the same things I didn’t realize I did (Resistance is what?). Going in, I was ready for the worst experience, every old teacher had been warning me of the difficulty of the work, and the challenges I would face remembering to do everything myself. But I was wonderfully surprised to not only see male teachers (of which my previous school had none), but to find that it was just a bigger version of grade school. The teachers were so much nicer, and all the subjects were so much more interesting. I thought it would be difficult being in an advanced English class my first year (especially when I had to sing to spell ‘banana’), but it really made me love literature all the more. And biology? It was my favorite class right next to history (something I thought would never happen). Going to high school set me up for some of the greatest accomplishments of my life; not only did I discover that I wanted to pursue a career in science, but for the first time, I played sports I wasn’t forced into! Crazy!
Five: Freshman and sophomore year, I played volleyball, a sport I always wanted to play but never had the resources. I tried once, and I learned never to try to overhand pass the setter ball. I absolutely loved playing, and each and every game was a source of entertainment and enjoyment. But there was something missing, I can’t describe it because to this day I am not sure what made me turn to soccer. Not to insult volleyball, but it was one of the best choices I had ever made. I sucked at soccer, not in the modest “I’m not all that good” sense. In the sense that hurt my ankle when attempting to kick the ball because I dragged my foot too much. I also found out the second to last game of the season that the goalie is allowed to leave the box, a fact that would have saved very many scored points. Despite the vacuum, the team accepted me and it made me feel really great. At first, I felt odd because both my father and my sister harbor an immense, nonsensical resentment for the “stupid European sport”. After I started playing, though, that didn’t matter to me. Soccer was the greatest sport in the world to me. Being the goalie, I felt every scored point was some way or another all my fault. I felt this way because I loved my team and I wanted to be the best I could for them, but unfortunately my best was far from good enough. But again, that didn’t matter to them; each game no matter how badly I screwed up (and believe me it happened often) they all made sure to congratulate me on a job well done.
Six: Also in high school, I was exposed to this curious species called “boys”. They were like me but with different genetic make-up, different tendencies, different likes and made me rouge and get all giggly. That is to say I didn’t like them…or the idea of them anyway. But somehow they entered my life. In hindsight, I should have been much more excited than I was but I understand why I wasn’t. All the “hot guys” my new girl friends talked about were people I had known all my life and acted exactly like at one point. But later when guys started to interact with me, I got where they were coming from. I slowly discovered my “type” as tall, tone, with longish hair; he liked music, video games, and just being; he knew what he liked, and wasn’t afraid to be himself, and if I was lucky, he had a sexy accent. And when I got a boyfriend, I really felt confident for the first time because I knew I had finally found someone who was just like me (and he was cute too!).
Seven: Drama. Not the snap-at-you-in-a-‘Z’-formation kind, but the spirit-fingered kind. I always wanted to get into it, but I never had the confidence or the opportunity. At my elementary school, the kids who got picked for the plays were the kids whose parents were on the PTO, which brought “getting involved with your children’s school” to a whole new level. But junior year, my high school finally decided to get together and bring the drama club back (or as they called it the “Performing Arts” club). This was fortunate for me in many ways, one being I would finally be in the literal spotlight I had always desired to be in. Another was that I would finally have someone watch me to tell me whether I had potential at acting at all, or everything I thought I could do was actually rubbish. Which brings about another perk, it finally put all of my psychotic tendencies to use. You see, I often times would run a situation (real life or what I believed to be) over in my head, which would periodically escape from my mind into my body and mouth, forcing me to act and speak as though I were a normal human being. Luckily, all that practicing faces in a mirror paid off.
Eight: Over the years in high school I had learned to express myself. The most important times were typically not in school (although once I did dye my hair red; I was called Ariel and placed under watch for fear of selling my voice by my best friend). When it came to seeing the real Rachael, you would have to catch her in between costumes, three days out of the year, in the Hynes Convention Center. Anime Boston, a convention where people who had so much free time they recreated costumes of their favorite Japanese comic or cartoon characters came to talk to other people with equal amounts of free time, and buy over-priced manga (as they were called) they could just buy at any bookstore. But it was there I was able to be myself by dressing up in whatever I felt like wearing, acting like someone else I revered as an idol, and meeting “best friends” I would remember until I left that day and slept. There was something exhilarating about being the odd one out among a group of ‘normal Bostonians’ (even if I ended up being the odd eighteenth out). After years of doing this, I brought some of that spunk back with me, and I started being the real me. I said what I felt, dressed and did my hair how I wanted, and learned that even if I wasn’t accepted by the 215 students at Trinity Catholic High School, I would always be accepted by the seventeen thousand con-goes at Anime Boston! Datebioh!