Monday, September 15, 2008

My Little Sister Rocks!

Today Kate and I got to get up early and go see my little sister Ali who is a senior , compete in the homecoming pageant at Wasatch High. Kate was really into it and loved dancing along to all the contestants talents, but of course none compared to Ali. She sang and played a song she wrote and - no bias here- honestly was the best, most purely talented contestant. She rocks! She won though she probably would prefer not to be the homecoming queen in the end, but she certainly seemed to have the most fans in the audience. I have had the song she sung stuck in my head all day- now that is a good song. I should see if she has uploaded anything to youtube and put the link here so you all can hear.

It was a little fun to be in the same high school halls I attended 9 years ago, with a child in my belly and another in my arms. I can remember being in those same halls being so concerned about silly things in contrast to now and how happy I am just to hang out with Kate. I thought this would be a great post to add my high school tag post too. I feel like I have been tagged with this 5 or 6 times in the last two weeks by family and friends. I would say I don't like doing these tags, but I sure enjoy reading other people's so maybe my opinion of them needs to not be so negative. Here goes..

High School Tag
1. Did you date someone from your High School? Someone- to many someone's I think. Two in particular I continued to date off and on through high school and college. It was fun to have boyfriends in high school and it helped make me the person I am, but I surely took it too seriously and wish I wouldn't have been so dramatic. I thought at 17 my life SHOULD be like an episode of Friends and that was silly.
2. What kind of car did you drive?
Amy and I shared a really decent Ford Explorer it was turquoise and gray. It didn't have an air conditioner or a very good heater, but it did have a tape player. Funny enough I can only remember us fighting over who got the car maybe two times.
3. What was the most embarrassing moment of High School for you?
Thankfully I was not often embarrassed back then even though I did a lot of stupid things because I thought I was too cool, but my mom coming to soccer practice to get some kind of coaching license is most likely to still make me cringe.
4. Were you a party animal? I was always at a party with lots of people, but partying in Heber would not be considered a good time in most places. There were no drugs or alcohol, or even really loud music.
5. Were you considered a flirt? No, at least I don't think so. Others might say otherwise.
6. Were you in Band, Orchestra, or Choir? Not a one, although I think it would have been fun maybe, at the time I viewed them as less than worthy (meaning kind of nerdy) activities.
7. Were you a nerd? No, at the time I would have likely told you I was one of the most popular people at school, but looking back I am sure this is completely inaccurate and I was likely not quite as cool as I perceived myself.
8. Were you on any Varsity teams? I did play soccer all four years and lettered, but I didn't really "play" all that much. I wasn't a star, but I did enjoy running around in the cool crisp Fall air with some of my favorite girls.
9. Did you ever get suspended/expelled? No, although I did break into the high school once with a few friends in the middle of the night my senior year to pull some April Fools jokes on some of our fav. teachers and administration. We were fingered, but didn't get in trouble like I think we maybe should have. The administration thought me and my friends were pretty cool too, so we got away with a lot.
10. Can you still sing the fight song?
Not a chance. In fact today they sang it at the homecoming assembly and I had no idea what they were singing about. I don't know if I ever could sing it.
11. Who were your favorite teachers? Mr. Moss who taught television and Mrs. Southerland who taught AP English. They were the kind of teachers who treated me and my friends with respect and like adults.
12. Where did you sit during lunch? I feel like esp. towards the end of school we hardly got lunches trying to get everything done with all the club meetings and stuff. We did eat at Wendy's a lot, and the grocery store, but the best thing we ever did was a too short lived Joy Lunch Club, where 10-40 of my closest friends showed up at someones house and had their mom's make us lunch. It kind of got to big and the mom's couldn't keep up, so we went back to Wendy's drive thru.
13. What was your school's full name? Wasatch High School: Home of the Wasps.
14. School mascot? A wasp. When people ask me what High School I went to and i say Wasatch no doubt their next question will be "Aren't you guys a bee or something?" Apparently a wasp didn't strike fear into the hearts of neighboring schools.
15. Did you go to Homecoming? With who? My school had I think four or five formals each year. I went to all of them, but we didn't always go with the person we were dating. I could get asked by anyone and pretty much was expected to say yes no matter who it was. When I explained this tradition to Jake he said "asking someone else's girl to a dance would seriously have got you shot at my school". Yes but it made it lots of fun in Heber, plus it was hardly an intimate date because we usually went in groups of 30 or more people.
16. If you could go back and do it again, would you? No, it was fun, but I wouldn't trade it for being with my hubby and daughter now. Although it was nice to have the most stressful thing in my life be deciding what to do on the weekend.
17. What do you remember most about graduation? I remember being really sad, and had a hard time splitting up my time between everyone I wanted to be with.
18. Where did you go Senior Skip Day? The school had a trip to Lagoon but I was with 15 or so friends in Moab and Mesa Verde for the long weekend and it was so much fun
19. Were you in any clubs? I was in a lot of clubs, but never did too much with them. I feel like for the most part they were just college resume builders for me.
20. Have you gained some weight since then? No- well at the moment only because I am pregnant, but I think I actually lost 5 lbs or so since my Senior Year of High School. I think because I worked at a delicious cafe where I could eat for free whenever I worked. Between having to buy my own food and not eating at work freshman year of college was like an automatic diet. Either way I like the body I have (when I am not prego) more now than then. I am surely more comfortable with it.
21. Who was your Prom Date? I went to both Prom's funny enough with boys who were not at the time but later became serious relationships. Prom was fun, but not that big of a deal, like it seems to be in other schools. Except that we did do promenade Jr year, where we learned a dance with our dates and performed them in front of our parents and grandparents. I actually like learning formal dance, so the learning was fun plus it was just hours with all our friends, but the performing seemed silly.
22. 10 year Reunion? I hope I will go, I hope we have one, but I have been lucky to see most of the people who I was closest too at least once a year since then at little get together, weddings and christmas parties.
23. Looking back, what advice would you give yourself? I would tell myself to have more fun. Not make things so dramatic, and not try to do everything and work so much but to spend more time with the people who were most important to me then. I would also tell myself to be nicer to people, I was not the best friend to my closest friends sometimes.

Some of my blog followers are friends from this era in my life. It would be interesting to hear how their memories differ from mine. I wouldn't want to do High School again, but I might not mind doing college over. It was fun, and there are things I would change. Somebody should make a college tag post, I would enjoy even more talking about then. Jake and I- especially since we share several years of college together often say when we are stressed about jobs and money and such that we wish we were in college again. I guess ever era of life has something we will miss as we move on.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Ali does rock...she is so cute and talented, sometimes I wonder how she and I are related.

KEYSHA said...

Great post! I loved it. Good 'ole days at Wasatch High. (When people hear I was a 'wasp' they are puzzled....Why the wasps? It is kind of hard to say!) I always thought you were such a fun girl (both you and Amy). You were always nice to everyone and had such a great group of friends.

I am very proud of your sister. I still think of her as the long-haired Ali that came to the soccer games. She is super talented!

We'll have to see if I get around to this post. Sometimes I 'cringe' when I think too much about High School!!!

errin julkunen-pedersen said...

Man. If Keysha cringes, I should be mortified, she at least tried to maintain a semblance of cool. Not so much me.

And choir may have been for nerds, but student government was SO just as nerdy! ;)

Unknown said...

Ahh man! I was in both choir and student government. And on top of that theater and even 1 year of band. I never realized how nerdy I really was...

Amy said...

That's so awesome that Ali played and sang... that's real talent. I'd love to hear her! It was fun to read your HS post, I loved my days at WHS, but I wouldn't ever want to go back!

Unknown said...

that was fun reading that about you. I also enjoy reading other's
more than having to write them.