Archive - grow a beard & be somebody
RSS Feed
Nolan
If you are a “regular viewer” of 6mob or better yet even a “regular viewer” of my series, “Grow a Beard and Be Somebody,” I’m sure that you have come to expect a spirit of jest as I pick apart High School stereotypes and those whom affiliate themselves with them. Well as much as I enjoy doing this, and I really do, today I would like to attempt to do the opposite. Just try to think of this as the heart warming climax to a late nineties comedy.
You see, now that I am on the other side of the whole high school scene, every once in a great while some desperate and sorry youth pastor might invite me to come and hang out with their youth group for a weekend or so. An occurrence like this happened just this last weekend, and as much as I was headed in looking forward to gathering some new material for a massive post on the art of taking advantage of being home schooled (which I promise will be written soon), I was struck by something that I didn’t expect.
I will now set the stage. This is what I want to happen right now. I want you to close your eyes. Well actually, first go get your mom or something. Actually anyone near you will work. Now have them read the next paragraph aloud while your eyes are closed so that you can better imagine the situation. Trust me you will want to, because it involves me in a pair of ice skates. Actually I’m probably making this to complicated so forget everything I just said and read on.
So I’m at the ice rink talking to a great friend of mine, who happens to currently be a senior in High School. If you want to know why I am at an ice rink, you can come talk to me in the penalty box. Anyways, so this kid, let’s call him Nolan because that’s his name, Nolan. Nolan has always been a great kid, getting great grades, super hilarious and most definitely a lady-killer. It’s probably been about a year since I have had a “real” conversation with Nolan, so we had a little catching up to do. I knew Nolan had been applying for some pretty prestigious schools, but what I was about to hear would blow me away.
Nolan’s current resume:
-President of the 2nd largest school in the state of Washington
-Vice president of Key Club
-Senior Homecoming King
-Varsity Tennis
-Editor of the school newspaper
-Drum major
-First chair clarinet
-Founder of “man choir”
-3.98 GPA
-An SAT score that is too high for me to count
-And just to round it off, Nolan helps lead the middle school youth group and loves God as much as anyone I know.
You see, Nolan hasn’t let himself be defined by high school, rather Nolan himself has done the defining. Nolan is high school, and that’s all there is to it. So here’s to you Nolan, thanks for being one of the few who I can say have truly curb stomped high school.
With an appropriate amount of respect,
Jacob D. Loden
that guy who’s allergic to everything: someone bring me my ointment!
Everyone grew up with that kid. You know, that kid. Always a guy, never a girl. That kid, ya know? That kid who was Allergic to everything. Well at least I did, and for sake of identity we will refer to this kid as Albert. See what I did right there? I made this post relevant to all of you people who know Albert. Now you are all thinking, “Is Albert that guy??” Okay I’m done now.
So Albert (for the sake of identity protection) was on the tennis team in high school. I know this because I was also on said tennis team. That’s right, I said it, the tennis team. Anyways, I went to kindergarten with Albert, and ended up graduating high school with the kid too. Albert was always that kid who got all puffy after lunch, or had some sort of obscure rash after recess. Albert was allergic to everything.
I remember one fall day at tennis practice, when like on most days in the Pacific Northwest, it began to get a bit cloudy. Then, naturally, I began to feel some rain falling down on my head. The rain began to pick up a bit and the coach whistled for everyone to start heading back to the school building. That is when I saw it. I thought I was dreaming until some other teammates began to notice as well. Albert was sprinting from tree to tree, in route to the school building, at a speed far greater than any I had seen him run in the “snake” tennis drill (I’m sure the coach was shocked and impressed).
Everyone: Albert what are you doing!??
Albert: Can’t talk now! Just found out I am allergic to rain!
Need I say more. Just when you thought you were allergic to everything.
To those allergic to everything,
Purchase an umbrella.
Standing by with Benadryl,
Jacob D. Loden
Princess Leia Syndrome: That guy with the huge headphones that won’t leave his head.
Maybe it is just me, but throughout high school and even in the schooling I have gone through since then, there has always been that one guy who it seems has a massive pair of headphones surgically planted on his head.
We will call this Princess Leia Syndrome. Or PLS. Simply because the size of the headphones, and the positioning on the person’s head causes them to look like they are wielding the hair buns that George Lucas’ Princess Leia once wore.
The Band/Choir/Orchestra Fanatic: We’re Going on TOUR!!
My original thought was to write three separate posts on these three separate categories. When I began to think about it, I realized that nearly every friend or acquaintance that fell into one of these three categories, naturally fell into the other two as well.
May I have a drum roll please (Pun intended) … I give you, your friend and mine (sometimes)… Continue Reading…
The Senior Class President: That’s what politics will do to you…
As I brainstorm through all of the different high school students that may seem worthy of my first episode, one just keeps grabbing my attention. Almost like it “needs” to be first. No, it demands to be first. It craves attention and thrives on being the top dog. Do I even need to say it… You either love em or ya hate em, but there is no way you can do both. Ladies and Gentleman, I give you, your very own High School Senior Class President. Notice that all the words of his/hers titles are capitalized, just how they would like it. Continue Reading…
grow a beard and be somebody, the tribulations of a dying generation
Seven years ago I found myself standing in the middle of the main hallway of Auburn Riverside High School; a public high school in Auburn, a suburb of Seattle. I watched other students excitedly run by me, all of them seeming to be completely comfortable and in most cases proud of the “look” that they were pulling off. I stood amongst them all, wearing the bright colored button up, loose fitting old navy blue jeans and white shell-toe Adidas shoes, all that my mom had picked out for me weeks prior to the freshman orientation that I was currently at.
Have you ever seen the Truman show? The plot is a bit fuzzy to me now, but I remember when Jim Carrey’s character first finds out that he has been had. He notices that the same group of cars is repeatedly driving through an intersection, one after the other, in about ten varieties. The same ten cars just keep on returning through the intersection as if they were on repeat, which we later find out is true.
I found myself in a similar situation as I stood in that hallway. It seemed like the same ten students kept on running past me. I began to look around for cameras, I was sure that I was being tricked. As I looked to my left I realized that I wasn’t being tricked at all. To my amazement I saw hundreds of students all separated into about ten groups, gathering in different parts of the cafeteria.
The next four years of my life proved to be some of the most interesting to date. My interests and passions changed like the weather, and as a result, so did my haircut. I ended my high school career dubbed with the title of Mr. Auburn Riverside High School, a role that not a single person, especially myself would have guessed that day of freshman orientation.
This blog is my journey through those four years of my life…
-Jake
