September 26th 2024: 2022 GRAD

It's been 2 years since I graduated, and I was looking through my old journal, and it sounds like I was really insecure about my height. I wrote about stretching everyday and seeing if I could make it to 6 feet tall. I remember thinking I can't do anything if I'm not tall. It seems super funny to me now, but in highschool it was the end of the world. Not to say I wouldn't want to be taller, but It doesn't matter nearly as much as it did before.

Grade 12 was a blast, I remember coming back to Canada in Grade 10, having no friends. I had to build up my social circle again, I was really worried I wouldn't have any fun and end up having no stories about highschool. In Grade 10 september, some kid threw this crazy party for all his friends. I wasn't invited, I still don't even know who threw the party, but I feel very left out. In my head, I made it a goal to make it to one of those cool kid parties, straight out of a movie. Where people are doing all sorts of tomfoolery. That was grade 10 and I forgot about it, but it would come back from time to time. Grade 12 comes around I'm having so much fun just going to school and doing extra curriculors that I forget.

Graduation Banquet comes along we're taking pictures with everyone, some people that I met on the day of. There's a little mosh pit(dancing area) at the end of the hall, and people are busting out crazy moves. This is when I couldn't dance to save my life. I stood there, and I think I did a cartwheel or something. It was so much fun I remember at the end my shirt was off, and I was attempting to dance. One thing I could do was I could pop my chest (flexing on side of your chest at a time). It all settles down, and the cool kid of the high school apparently thinks I can party hard. I take this as a sign that I must have done something cool during the attempt to dance. Couple minutes later, I go to the bathroom and it's the entire cool kid gang. I'm nervous, I have to keep up the coolness from before, or its all a waste. They start talking to me and I use every slang word I know to make sure they know I'm down like that. The coolest brother passes me the vape ( I don't vape at all) , it came down to this one moment. I had to prove to them I was cool. I hit the vape with all my might and after he asked me "Yo Jess, what are you doing after? ", I tell him I'm hanging out with my friends as nonchalantly as possible, and then he says "Bro come to my party". I say "word", I immediately leave because I didn't want him to rescind the invite. We're in Downtown edmonton for reference, and his party is at the southside, there is no ride, and my parents won't let me take the car. The mission started, finding a way there. I talk to my friends and I get my best friend and my twin on board. I end up making some phone calls, and somehow a friend that went to my junior that I knew for 2-3 months gave me a ride to his house. It was a bumpy ride, we did not drive the in the most legal way and did not do the most legal things for the rest of the night. WE ARRIVE, we get there, I'm wearing my dad's most expensive watch, in the full grad suit. It was straight out of a movie, an immigrant coming from India, it was all worth it. I'd always see this scene on TV and imagine what it would be like in person .It was livid, I can't go into further detail. The next day at school, apparently some kid from the party woke drenched in the back of truck that wasn't his.