Trials & Tribulations of a 3% Child

When I first entered junior high things at home were filled with numerous forms of drama. Interestingly enough, they didn't bother me too much most of the time. You had my older brother and sister in high school, and one in college. My mother and father were in the process of splitting up, and I was basically all alone at a new school with few familiar faces. Fortunate for me I had other teammates from my football team and people I knew from the neighborhood P.A.L. who was at the school. Outside of that I basically leaned on my smarts and athletic ability to once again excel and become a recognizable or some would say person of interest.

I now realized that junior high is where you really make your "1st" valid choice on the kind of person you are going to be. I honestly failed in making that decision for myself. I always thought of myself as an easy going, nice person who may have gotten into a little trouble here and there but nothing truly serious. All I ever cared about was sports, video games, and eventually girls. I will never forget my first teacher I had in 6th grade. Her name was Mrs. Bressler. For most kids, she is the most annoying teacher to have. Interestingly enough, looking back on it, it's only because she cared the most. I was eventually not on a good path. I fell into the bad guy mentality because for whatever reason it was more glamorous. The smart and nice kid really didn't get any interest from anyone but the teachers, and what kid really wanted that. I still was the smart kid, but the nice part quickly faded and my naturally rebellious nature turned to a more negative tune.

I became the smart kid with the even smarter mouth. I still did ok in class and for the most part did my work until I personally didn't agree with it. If something didn't make sense to me I would almost always question it, and if your response wasn't convincing enough for me I almost always had a sarcastic response in which most cases lead to some form of discipline. Although I don't remember everything clearly it eventually lead to Mrs. Bressler and I having a lot of time to talk one on one because she couldn't understand why I was acting the way I was. She saw all the potential I had and she refused to let me go down the path I was on. I ended up having to see the school counselor which in my head was laughable. They thought my rebellious attitude arose from the fact that my parents were splitting up. I really didn't let that bother me much, because I looked at the benefits more than the negatives and that startled them and confused the hell out of them at the same time. The only time that would ever bother me was when I would have to see my mother cry every now and then. Outside of that, my father literally lived in walking distance so it's not like I didn't get to see him, he just wasn't with my mother anymore. That's more her problem than it is mines at the end of the day, that's how I looked at it.

Something eventually sunk in from Mrs. Bressler and I eventually held back on the bad boy image at least in her class and I still drove for excellence for the most part that year. Unfortunately good things don't always last when you're young and still trying to figure things out in this thing called life. While sports was going well outside of school via playing football and a number of other sports with the P.A.L., school became a very persuasive influence on most of my actions. There seemed to be no avoiding becoming a bad guy. Like I said earlier, it just was more glamorous. On top of that, I quickly learned of the rivalry between the different grade levels and if you weren't connected to a group then you were really putting yourself at risk of getting picked on. I ran with various groups, none of which were looked upon as the nice guy group at all, but were all considered cool and at the end of the day that's all you really cared about as a kid.

This would lead me down a path that eventually got me arrested for something I didn't even do, but due to my already rebellious reputation and the already built up tension between me and the teacher amongst other factors I just decided to plead guilty and deal with the consequences. Using my above average intelligence I got my mom to transfer me out the school before they kicked me out, this way I could return if I wanted to. Unfortunately she decided to send me to a school further away from my neighborhood because she didn't want me to go to the junior high my older brother went to because he became what some would call a bad kid during his time there, and she didn't want me to continue down that same path. Going through all of this obviously made me sit back and think on a lot of things and needless to say, my rebellious nature just got more fueled because of the nonsense I had to go through. To sum it up, I really started to gain a stronger disinterest with going with the flow, simply because I didn't agree with everything involved in the flow. It appeared that people never wanted to admit there was a grey area in life and I couldn't stand that, and I continuously fought for exposing nonsense until it lead me to my current status. Things would get even more interesting as time went on and I would learn so much even before hitting high school than I could bargain for.