I Was a Teenage Weirdo

"Nah, I wouldn't go.  On second thought, yes, I would go.  It's probably the only time that all of the people I really hate will be gathered together at the same place - and I can finally blow them all up."
- A quote from my twin sister when I asked her if she would go to our High School Reunion

 Now before you run to the police station and accuse my (obviously very bitter) sister of attempted terrorism - I just want to say - she's only kidding.  She's a proud mother of two and isn't going to ruin her life (or anybody else's) by blowing up our High School class.  But she pretty much sums up how a lot of people feel about going to their H.S. reunion.  As you have probably already guessed, my reunion has rolled around.  *It's been 10 years already?!*  And a bunch of memories have been flooding back into my mind.  Being nerdy for two years.  Coming into my own for the next two years.  Making new friends and being terrorized by new enemies.  Situations that I wish I could do over and things that I'm glad I did right the first time.  The blood, the sweat and of course the gallons and gallons of tears.  (Sidenote: Regardless of everything I've said, I will take the worst of my H.S. years over my best day of Middle School any day.  Middle School is a hell that no human being should ever have to experience.)

So I'm trying to figure out if I should go.  Why?  I have no idea.  I only had 3 real friends in H.S. and I have hung out with 2 of them pretty much since the day I graduated.  There's really nobody else on my radar - and I doubt that I'm on anyone's radar, either.

Sidenote:
Actually, me and my sis argued about this a little.  She says that people will be expecting - even hoping - that we show up.  And ironically, within 5 minutes, I received an email from the President of our class saying she especially wanted me there because we belonged to the same sorority.  I was surprised and horrified at the same time.  (And yes, I joined a sorority in college.  Why?  Because deep down inside, I'm a glutton for punishment, lol.)  So one might argue that my sister is right, but I think people have more of a fleeting Facebook interest in me.  For example, a couple of months ago, I received a friend invitation from a girl I went to school with (she was my neighbor for years and one of the rare people that was nice to me in middle school) and she asked me what I was doing with my life and extended a few pleasantries.  I accepted her invitation and told her what I was doing and asked her the same thing but received no response.  In fact, I just found out two days ago that she'd deleted me from her friend's list.  So I guess it was a quick and nosey way of seeing what I was doing but nothing beyond that.  And to be honest, I'm not upset or surprised.  That's what Facebook is about.
End of Sidenote  :-)


I would be lying if I said there's not a part of me that wants to go back and "dazzle" everyone with my new-found confidence and "great dressing" ability and impressive resume (that still won't land me a job in my field - but nobody has to know all that!  ;-).  But I know this idea would only work in the imaginary world of a 15 year old, desperate for acceptance.  In reality, it would be like getting all gussied up to go to Spain and run with the bulls.  It's only "fun" in theory.  In reality, it's a dangerous blood sport that leaves the dead and injured in its wake and the only real joy is making it out alive.  LOL - I'm being extra.  Let me reel this back in . . .

Moral to Story:
It's really not that serious. I was a weirdo in school, but now I've grown into a (still weird) but hot swan - if I do say so myself - and I didn't really like the people that I went to school with.  If I went, essentially, I would be paying 30 bucks to hang around a bunch of people that I would have paid millions of dollars to get away from 10 years ago.  I wish them all the best, and I'm sure I'll be be seeing pictures of those folks on "the book."

On a lighter note, here's what it would look like if I went to my H.S. reunion . . .








(CLASSIC!)

Last Day at Work and A Little Background on My Life

Today was my last day at work. After 5 years of blood, sweat and tears I have finally ended this chapter in my life. Everyone at my job was all pouty faced and sentimental . . . some of them (people who I've never seen acting like serious adults) telling me that they'd miss me, things aren't going to be the same without me and attempting to drop some words of wisdom on me before I took my final steps down the hallway leading out to the door. I took a bunch of pictures and got a little nostalgic at times, coming to terms with good and bad memories that will now be a part of my immediate and later on, distant past. Now some of yall might think I'm being a little dramatic right now, but this job was my whole life for 5 years. 5 YEARS!

Allow me to take you down memory lane for a minute.

In the Beginning . . .

It all started with an internship. My senior year of college, I decided that I needed to get an internship and immediately started going on hunts to look for one. At one media networking event for college students, I squeezed my way through a crowd to meet an asian reporter at one of the leading news stations in my area. She told me that I started looking for an internship waaay to late and the odds of me landing one at her station (the biggest one in town) or any station for that matter was slim to none. She then pointed in the direction of a lonely man standing in the corner and said, "Maybe you should try the people over at the WB." (Cue the "womp womp woooomp" sound effect.)

So fast forward a couple months, I managed to get accepted into an internship in a strange way. One day I was sitting at a panel discussion and a bunch of anchors, reporters, DJ's and maybe 2 executive heads were telling us college students about life working in news television, radio, and tv production. All of the students in the room were in typical college gear - you know, sweatshirts, pajama bottoms and flip flops. I wore a business suit and to this day, I think this was what helped me to stand out in this crowd of over 150 students. That and when the event was over, everyone bee-lined for the anchors, reporters and DJ's while yours truly made a bee-line over to the executive heads. "I want to be a director, how do I go about doing that?" I asked one of the executive heads that was especially staring at me during the panel discussion and handed her my resume. The lady (who'd just finished basically dismissing some dude in front of me with "yeah, yeah, uh huh, okay, thanks, bye!") said to me, "Wait one second! I am going to give you the cell phone number of our main guy. I want you to call him and if he says he's busy, you call him again and again, okay? Don't give up!" "Okay," I said and long story short, I called the guy, we arranged a meeting and the next thing you know I was getting water for the same asian reporter who told me I wouldn't get an internship anywhere.

Getting Hired . . . Or in My Case, Never Leaving

So I did my internship and tried as hard as I could to learn everything. Despite this one guy that was a major suck up in our little group of 5 maybe 6 people, I still managed to stand out amongst my peers. By the time the internship was drawing to a close, everyone knew who I was and what I intended to do. I applied for a million and one jobs after I graduated and ended up with a sucky temp job that had absolutely nothing to do with my field of study and was so boring that when I would arrive at the building every morning I would sit in my car for maybe 15 minutes crying and willing the place to implode. That didn't happen, but fortunately, an opening (for the lowest possible position) at the station I did my internship with opened up and I applied and landed the job. This was the beginning of my working odd hours. I worked Monday through Friday, from 4am to 8am earning 10 dollars an hour not counting, of course, the hour it took for me to get to the place because I lived 65 miles away. I made about one hundred dollars a week but when you subtract for toll and gas (and this was around the time gas prices skyrocketed) it was really more like 35 dollars a week. And I didn't even count the cell phone bill, because the cell phone stayed disconnected. So I did this for a while and would train on different machines for about 4 more hours after my shift ended. This and I volunteered my time to working as many major televised events as I possibly could (to the point that I am still notorious for being the girl who has at one time worked in every single department in the building). So yeah, I was hawngry!

Anywhoosits, all of that training finally paid off and I was able to land a much better paying job working overnight weekends and filling in during the week.

A Stepping Stone or a Slump?

I began this last job, hoping that it would be a stepping stone to my dream job and applied for different positions every weekend while at work. There were not a lot of responses, but I didn't care. I was working local events and busily building up my resume with special projects and live productions that my company would put on. After my resume got healthier, I began to get some feedback. I found myself driving out to interviews and at one point, was even flown out to an interview. Still, nothing. Rejection is a part of this industry, I told myself, one day I'll get something. A year passed by and I was still hungry, working as many hours as possible, applying for things and getting rejected. In the meantime, I became that friend. You know? The one that never gets out. My love life was pathetic and I found myself putting up with pretty-much anything so that I could have some kind of companionship.

Before I knew it, 3 years had passed by. At this point, I was feeling restless and worried that there was something terribly wrong with me and I would be stuck at this place forever. I was embarrassed and felt that I'd turned into the "former intern" who just couldn't seem to move on. I remember that particular year, someone said to me, "What happened? It seemed like you used to have goals but now . . . it's like you're stuck in a rut or something." That comment still pisses me off to this day, lol. Either way, I was in a strange place. A purgatory (if you will). Too qualified for the beginner jobs and not qualified enough for everything else. I worked enough to get by, but not enough to do anything more. I went into a depression, sneaking in and out of my job using the backdoor stairwell. I stopped speaking to people, would break into tears at my desk and found myself sitting outside of the building and praying for the place to explode. Also, my boyfriend at the time (who was also one of my coworkers - yeah, I know, bad idea) was cheating on me and it also didn't help that a really ugly rumor was flying around about me at work. So I did what everybody does when they're going through some ish in life . . . I took my butt to church.

This lifted my spirits to a degree and allowed me to put my energies toward something that felt more fulfilling. I started to inadvertently let things go. Like my apartment. It took up about 75% of my paycheck and at this point in my life, I started dating the man-friend and spent most of my time at his place anyway so I (verbally) decided that I was going to move into another apartment but ended up just crashing with him instead. So a year goes by, and I'm still mailing out applications to no avail. My relationship with coworkers began to cool off since I didn't see them as much and I began hanging with my church friends and involving myself in more "spiritual" activities. I decided that I didn't want my job to become my life, but still attempted to find something full-time. This time, I kept my mouth shut about any job prospects, thinking that maybe I'd been jinxing myself all these years. I stayed focused and to a degree, got a little bit of my "strength" back when it came to dealing with rejections. Within that 2 year period, I saw 4 of my closest friends get engaged, get married and have children. I never got jealous of them because I knew that wasn't my path in life, but I continued to wonder when my life was going to finally take that dramatic twist and I would land the television job of my dreams.

A Revelation

So whilst having a typical (or long) conversation with my mom about life, the topic of applying for jobs came up and my mother says, "Arnetta, I think you're going to have to seriously consider looking outside of the box."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Maybe you should look for jobs outside of this area," she replied.

"I already do that."

"Yeah, but maybe you should look into doing something different (pause) something different and far away," she said, hesitating for a moment. "I don't know . . . something told me to tell you that."

"Okay," I said.

And the rest is history.

26 Days.