How to laugh at myself

This could just be a facet of my personality or high school in general, but I seem to attract awkwardness on the regular. Let’s take a trip down memory lane to approximately 14 months ago: sitting in second period, Colleen Gilligan asks me why I’m wearing two different shoes. My first reaction was that she was cray-cray, but looking down I realized that I’d somehow managed to put a weird sparkly sneaker thing on my left foot and a black and white flowered flat on the other. For the rest of the day I tried to shuffle down the hall so that anyone passing me could only see one shoe at a time, but I eventually embraced my own ridiculous awkwardness.

How to make new friends

I’ve ended up with pretty eclectic (read: strange) groups of people in my classes (shout out to second period ceramics) so I’ve learned how to connect with a lot of different people. Maybe it’s just me, but there is something incredibly gratifying about walking down the halls and being able to smile at nearly everyone I see. Plus, it’s kind of like having a collection of something. Except it’s a collection of people so it sounds weirder when I put it like that.

How to suck up to people

I probably wouldn’t need this skill if lazy teachers didn’t exist, but since there’s a substantial number of fine educators at Garfield who like to grade based on their impression of you and their mood I’ve honed my flattery skills quite nicely. I’m slightly proud and slightly embarrassed to say that a nice little chunk of my GPA has been earned on polite small talk and the occasional baked good. Don’t antagonize your teachers! You can sweet talk your way to anything if you try hard enough.

How to be proud of anything

The Garfield I got to know as a freshman was decrepit and old. Bricks in the breezeway fell on kids; the nonsensical annex actually existed; everything was faintly musty. We scoffed at the bland, institutional halls of Ballard and the Eastside schools. We flaunted the football team’s terrible record. We played our best volleyball in the layer of dust on the gym floor. Even though outsiders saw these as our flaws, we saw them as our flavor. At the Old Garfield, everything was source a pride.

How to stand up to people

On a scale from zero to intimidating, I rank pretty low. But no thank you, I don’t want to be your doormat. Garfield has taught me that if I ask for respect, I can get. Even the monstrously tall guys who stand in big scary clumps move and apologize when I say excuse me. It still takes a lot of gumption, but I’ve learned to demand apologies when people hit me with clay or shove me in the halls.

Meet Chloe*, a Garfield junior who has used marijuana heavily since her freshman year and finds it hard to relate to people who don’t smoke.

“Everyone’s so afraid of being awkward that drugs are just kind of a way to avoid that,” she says. “It gives people something to have in common, and when you’re high or drunk or whatever you can relax more.”

For Chloe and her friends, weed permeates everything they do, every time they hang out.

Mitchell*, a senior who transferred to Garfield after his freshman year, says that when he smokes, he always feels like he’s on a “grand adventure.” He’s friends with the people he smokes with more because of the adventures than because of the weed; the substance use is just one facet of the relationship. At his old school, though, weed was the only thing he had in common with his classmates, and that fact was “depressing.”

“It was a lot of fun, but it just seems like the weed is the limiting variable,” says Mitchell. “Whether or not we can have fun depends on whether or not we’re smoking weed.”

At the beginning of her sophomore year, Chloe realized that whenever her social group hung out, all they did was get high and sit around. Like Mitchell, she found this distressing.

“It wasn’t fun and I started feeling really uncomfortable around my own friends,” she says. “I tried to quit smoking. At first I was hella proud of myself, but then all my friends were like, ‘Is this a joke? You’ll never follow through and do it.’”

She started smoking again, but at the end of the year made a conscious decision to stop. Instead of telling her friends, she kept it a secret, making up excuses when everyone around her was smoking. She was afraid, though, that she would end up losing her friends altogether, so after three months she once again started smoking weed.

“Everyone says weed isn’t addictive, but that’s a f****** lie,” says Chloe. “Maybe it’s not chemically addicting, but some part of me is hooked on it. At this point I’ve kind of accepted weed as a part of my life.”

Oliver*, a senior, also considers weed an important part of his daily life. He has friends that smoke and he has friends that don’t, but he doesn’t consider a common interest in weed the most defining characteristic in any of his relationships. In fact, if it wasn’t considered taboo, he would like smoking alone as much as with his friends.

“There is now a large stoner community that has embraced the idea that marijuana is a great party drug, but the truth is it affects different people in different ways,” he says. “Sometimes I find myself getting paranoid and insecure when I’m high, which ruins the stupid happy atmosphere for everyone.”

Oliver says that people who smoke together often need each other to provide the necessary equipment (herb, pipe, lighter, water for bong, bong, etc.), thus forcing a social situation. And this is when relationships based entirely on pot can develop.

“I have called people to come kick it just ‘cause I knew they had weed, not ‘cause I wanted to hangout with them,” says Chloe.

The most lasting relationships, however, are not formed because of the drug. Whether or not weed becomes a part of the relationship, the friendship is not built on a foundation of marijuana. Even though Oliver started smoking before the rest of his friends, he remained close with them. Eventually many began smoking with him, but since then many have also quit. He insists that even when they have had different opinions about smoking, they have stayed good friends because of their other interests.

“Marijuana makes you some great acquaintances, but all my truly great friends I made outside the influence,” says Oliver.

Since leaving his previous school, Mitchell tries to avoid relationships based solely on pot.

“Josh* has never smoked weed in his life and I smoke an obscene amount and we’re still best friends,” Mitchell says. “Our friendship has really never dwindled, especially not because of weed.”

So who’s right? What exactly is the social impact of weed? Chloe says she can’t relate to people who don’t smoke, but both Mitchell and Oliver seem to have no problem maintaining friendships with nonsmokers. Maybe Oliver was right on more than one level – weed does affect people in different ways, chemically and socially.

*Names have been changed.

“We Built this City” — Starship
I don’t care if VH1 says it’s the #1 most awesomely bad song ever. I prefer to focus on its over-synthesized greatness. Ideal for road trips and all-nighters, it never fails to make you bounce in your seat and drive (or type) faster.

“Riders on the Storm” – Snoop Dogg & The Doors
Revamped with a new beat and Snoop’s rapping, this rock classic is about a crazed hitchhiker who kills a family during a thunderstorm. If you ignore the creepiness factor, it’s a catchy song.

“Redemption Song” – Bob Marley
Separating itself from the rest of Marley’s music, this acoustic folk song tells everyone to “emancipate yourselves from mental slavery.” No one intertwines history with a call to action like the greatest reggae artist of all time.

“Angel” – Flipsyde
A strangely successful combination of rock and rap, Flipsyde’s dedication to mothers is passionate and powerful. I love my mommy.

“Crazy Love” – Ray Charles & Van Morrison
One of the best collaborations on Genius Loves Company, which makes sense, I guess, since they are both straight-up geniuses.

“You’re So Vain” – Carly Simon
I don’t know what she means by “clouds in my coffee,” but I know I like the imagery and the delightful conundrum the entire song presents.

“Positively 4th Street” – Bob Dylan
With a rough voice, raw emotion, and a poet’s skill, Dylan tells it like it is. I was raised on his music, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Better Together” – Jack Johnson
He hummed and strummed his way into my life freshman year, and I’ve been in love ever since. Better chill music does not exist. Period.

“Hallelujah” – Jeff Buckley
A rare example of when a cover is better than the original. This is the most sensually tragic song I’ve ever heard and the best way to bring anything to a close.

Senioritis, a phenomenon that doesn’t discriminate by gender, race, or previous academic achievement, is characterized by a lack of motivation, excessive sleeping, truancy, and apathy towards education. “I haven’t really legitimately done homework for over a month and a half,” says an anonymous senior girl. “I routinely skip class to go out to coffee or breakfast with friends. If I’m ever late to class, I just don’t go at all and find someone who’s also skipping to kick it with.”

This trend may be ubiquitous. Yet in recent years, the concept of revocation of college acceptance has taken center stage in the discussion about senioritis. Ellen Goulding, the Associate Director of Admissions at Colorado College, says that the school takes the grades of second semester seniors “very seriously.” In the past, when admitted students’ grades “take a precipitous decline,” says Goulding, the College has revoked offers of admission.

Seniors, though, aren’t worried. Most say they’ve realized that they can earn adequate grades with minimal effort and feel secure knowing a college won’t rescind their acceptance for getting B’s. “There is less motivation because you know that the grades don’t actually matter as long as they are somewhat decent, which is completely doable without actually doing work,” says senior Veronica Galvin.

And the truth is that while colleges threaten revocation, it’s a rarity. Jim Rawlins, the Associate Director of Recruitment and Outreach at the University of Washington, estimates that only about a dozen acceptances were rescinded last year. Admission officers emphasize that rescinding an acceptance is always a last resort. At most colleges, students whose grades drop receive a letter detailing on-campus help they can get once they begin attending, or a letter asking them to explain the grade deterioration. Grade changes are not the only red flags. If a student drops a class or takes an easier schedule than he or she indicated when applying, colleges will send a similar letter.

“There unfortunately are instances where a student fails to respond to the request, or the grade drop [or] schedule change is of so much concern that we rescind admission,” explains Western Washington University Director of Admissions and Enrollment Planning Karen Copetas. “Revoking admission is a painful thing to do.” Rawlins emphasizes that when students slack off their senior year, even if only for a semester, they are choosing to take a break from their education and the very passion for education and interest in learning that got them accepted in the first place.

The collective carefree attitude and realization the high school will soon be ending for seniors has a surprisingly unifying effect. “The dynamic has really changed,” says senior Linnea Jensen-Stewart. “People are a lot more laidback and okay with each other. Everyone is also just in a better mindset, so it’s more about enjoying the time with your friends and spending this last time together than the busy work that most classes throw at you.”

Some seniors, though, claim “senioritis” afflicted them far before senior year. Casey Floresca says that last year, as a junior, her truancy got so bad that her teachers had an email conference about her. Mark Raynor traces his case of so-called senioritis back to about 7th grade, but it’s debatable whether it’s legitimately senioritis or simply laziness. At some point, the free pass that second semester seniors get is used up, and teachers become frustrated with absent students and missing work. There is little they can do, however, because students have little motivation to change.

“I spent more effort planning my schedule this semester than I put into any of my classes,” says senior Barry Garner. “If I woke up at 10:30, I woke up early. I started skipping on a regular basis last year to get coffee or go golfing, mainly because I no longer feel any responsibility for my grades.”

After 13,000 hours, seniors feel they’ve earned this break. They have a plan for the future, but until that plan can commence, filling days with sleeping, breakfast dates, and bonding seems like a worthwhile use of time.

“All the pressure is off of you, so you don’t sweat the consequences,” says senior Carver Low.

She explains the details matter-of-factly, as if the constant retellings of this ridiculous tale have worn off its novelty. Her saga started in eighth grade, when she planned out her life in a notebook. In her life plan, she included studying abroad her junior year in high school. She knew she wanted to go to Europe, and she searched for a country with a rich culture that she could embrace and a history that would interest her.

“Being white, you don’t necessarily have a culture to identify with,” she says. “I was one of those girls who would constantly sit there and be like, ‘I’m 25% Irish and 5% Dutch and blah, blah, blah.’ I decided that if I was going to an English speaking country, I wanted the most diverse, different experience possible, so I chose countryside [as the place I wanted to live].”

According to the Institute of International Education, the number of American students participating in foreign exchanges in the past decade has more than doubled, with more girls studying abroad than boys. At Garfield, the few students who study abroad each year are generally upperclassmen, who go anywhere from Mexico to Belgium to Ireland.

Stephanie’s first impression of her new home was that of a mildewing farmhouse that smelled like sewage and had “curtains from the 70’s that had never been washed.” The workshops she had been required to attend before leaving had encouraged her to be nonjudgmental of other cultures, so she tried to keep a positive attitude.

Her host mother, though, was trying to profit from the meager stipend the organization that set up Stephanie’s exchange, Youth For Understanding (YFU), gave her. She limited how much Stephanie ate and wouldn’t take her anywhere. In the rural countryside where they lived, the only place for Stephanie to go was to the Catholic church a mile away. Although she describes herself as “not religious at all,” she attended church four times a week and joined two choirs, one for children and one for elderly women. Some days when she would come home from school, her entire host family would be gone, and they wouldn’t reappear until three days later.

The one place where she was able to thrive was her school, St. John the Baptist Public School about a half hour away. Everyday, she waited for the bus next to castle ruins on a neighboring property, and she quickly made friends at her school of about 500. She also learned more about her host family. According to her friends, her host mom’s two sons who also lived at the house were well-known cocaine dealers. Stephanie’s host mother also discouraged reading because she thought it was a waste of time and bad for her eyes. When her mom met her in France over Christmas, she could tell that she wasn’t enjoying herself and getting the experience she had hoped for.

“When you make a choice like that, when you say you’re going to go to a different country and you tell all your friends, your family that you’re going to leave them for a year because that’s what you want to do, you want to know that you’re making the right decision,” she says. “I refused to accept that something could have gone wrong. I’m pretty obstinate; when I want to do something, I do it whether it’s a good idea or not.” Slowly, though, she realized that something had to change. Going over to her friends’ houses, she saw that their parents were normal and made healthy dinners. “[I realized] I should not be living with cocaine dealers; that’s not a cultural difference.”

After returning from France, Stephanie called up her organization to explain that things weren’t working out with her host family. YFU then told her parents that she had been partying too much and would be kicked out of the country, which Stephanie insisted was a blatant lie. Getting scared, she called the police, US embassy, and education department in Ireland. The embassy reassured Stephanie that she could stay in the country. The next week, a woman from her church picked her up, and without saying goodbye to Nuala or her crack-dealing sons, Stephanie moved into a new host house. Her social life flourished, and her new host mom took her sightseeing and fed her healthy food, something Nuala had never done.

“Robin [another exchange student from Michigan] and I had really big influence on the community,” she says. “Usually when people become exchange students, it’s because they don’t fit in at school, so they don’t tend to be as outgoing and try to fit in with the community. Robin and I were really happy and outgoing and we ended up being really popular at our school. We made a bigger impression on the student body than the exchange kids they’d had before.”

Stephanie’s experience in Ireland helped boost her self-confidence. Despite the rough start, she enjoyed her stay overall and was sad when it finally came to an end. Although she wanted to go to Europe to connect with her heritage, what she gained from the experience was different than she expected.

Before getting involved with Global Technology Academy (GTA), Mary Williams, now a senior, wasn’t much of a joiner, and described herself as angry about the state of America, the Iraq War and the negativity of the media. When she signed up for piano and ended up with a technology class instead, excitement was not her first emotion. She still decided, though, to sign up for one of the trips affiliated with the class because she enjoyed foreign travel. GTA turned out to be the defining aspect of her high school career, and now she is one of the random names on the whiteboard. Mary estimates she spends 30 hours per week on GTA related work. Going on a trip requires taking GTA class, weekly pre-trip meetings, and numerous work parties. Planning is left almost entirely in the hands of the students. When the students do need help, they turn to the man who has poured his heart and soul into GTA.

Kjell Rye, the mastermind behind the GTA program, paces thoughtfully around his classroom, often contemplating the giant whiteboard. Friendly but distracted, it is clear that he is constantly multitasking and that underneath his mop of straight blonde hair lies a mind that is constantly racing. Although the program, founded in 1995, originally installed donated, refurbished computers in Seattle Public Schools, student-led trips began bringing computers to communities in Africa, Asia, and the Americas in 1998. With the addition of this cultural immersion, Rye began to see the real affect and success of his program.

In a Masai village in Tanzania near the Kenyan border, Junior Shantea Cardenas encountered a man trying to speak to her in his native language. Apologizing, she repeatedly tried to explain that she didn’t understand him. He then asked her what tribe she was from. He seemed incredulous when she told him she wasn’t part of an African tribe and that her family had not lived in Africa for generations. How could she not belong to a nearby tribe? Her appearance suggested that she was surely from Eastern Africa. She had to explain slavery and African-American history to him, and when he finally understood, all he said was, “Welcome home.”

Shantea realized that any of the Tanzanian orphans she met, most of whom had lost their parents to AIDS, would jump at the opportunity to take her place in an American school. One boy still emails her often, asking if she can get him a visa. Their hunger for a better education has forced her to come to terms with the fact that school in America is worth the effort it takes to succeed. The eagerness of those children to be in a position she used to take for granted has made her work harder on her schoolwork.

Shantea and Thomas Huston, another junior heavily involved in GTA, laugh about their experience with a feisty Tanzanian they had last year. After hearing him tell his friends something over and over again in his language with a smile on his face, they finally asked him what he was saying. It turns out he was telling everyone that Ms. Jenkins, who was chaperoning the trip, was his girlfriend.

The most recent trip took 22 students to Portezuelo, Chile, where they installed 75 computers in a local school. Since coming back in the second week of January, the trip participants have organized multiple soccer games, bonded at a photo party, and watched the Super Bowl together. Seeing them snuggled together on the couch, joking with each other and taking crazy pictures while they watched the Giants beat the Patriots, it’s hard to imagine that most of them had never even met before this year.

Senior Winston Lacoste, like Mary, ended up in GTA by accident. Articulate and introspective, it’s clear that GTA is something that means a lot to him. The recent trip to Chile was his third trip with the program, and while going abroad is important to him, there’s also a strong appeal to the program right here in Seattle.

“I’m not really what you would call the stereotypical high school kid,” he says. “I’m sort of alternative and the GTA room is somewhere for me to go where I can read or do homework or play Gameboy or some weird sh*t like that. Everyone in there has their own awkward social issues and it’s really nice to get away from the random drama that goes on.”

Coming from TOPS, Winston felt like he had a “really big social disadvantage” because of the cliquish nature of all of the kids who went to Washington. Everyone already had their established friend groups and weren’t looking for anyone new. GTA changed that for Winston.

“It’s really cool because I got to make friends with people who I normally wouldn’t be able to interact with because I didn’t know them or because of my low computer nerd social status,” he says.

Mr. Rye reaches out to students to ensure that they don’t dismiss GTA. He even called Shantea’s mother to encourage Shantea’s participation in the program. Winston acknowledges that in the last few years, GTA has expanded to include a more diverse group of students, instead of just the stereotypical computer nerd. At the old Garfield, he says, the GTA room was known as the “bunker” and was much more isolated. This led to only a limited core group of students spending any extra time in Mr. Rye’s room. Now all types of people use the GTA room as a haven from the rest of the school.

“You’re walking through the halls and it’s really loud and obnoxious and people are bumping into you and hitting you and throwing sh*t at you and you open that door and close it and it’s quiet and peaceful,” he says. “It’s something to look forward to.”

Seeing the boxes brimming with multi-colored computer pieces and a constant stream of smiling students, it’s easy to see the attraction of the GTA room. It is the one place in the hectic school where a unique combination of students, culture, and calmness mix to form the perfect midday sanctuary.

Recent graduate Sean Eagan ’07, dubbed the king of high school boxing by his peers, started boxing his sophomore year after he asked his mom for a pair of gloves for Christmas. He began fighting matches against his friends at parties, and slowly more people joined in. Eventually, friendly boxing matches were occurring at nearly all the kegs he went to. Boxing even became a daytime activity at school.

“We started having boxing almost every day at lunch outside of 7-Eleven,” Sean says. “Even though we’re all friends, [people] think they can knock each other out.”

The 7-Eleven boxing matches were “short-lived,” according to senior Mark Raynor, because the cops were called and the administration found out. When the police showed up on one of the first occurrences of lunchtime boxing, everyone ran. Sean, however, was forced to stay to collect the hastily discarded gloves from the ground. Surprisingly, the police did not make a big deal out of it. One of the officers told him that he didn’t mind the boxing as long as they wore better protective gear in the future. He also mentioned that he used to box in high school and understood its appeal.

Not long after the incident with the police, Mr. Howard called a large group of students, including Sean, to his office. He explained slowly and calmly that boxing was considered fighting, could be considered grounds for expulsion, and hurt Garfield’s reputation when Mr. Howard was forced to defend his students in neighborhood meetings. He had the students sign contracts saying that they wouldn’t do it again, but this only brought a stop to boxing during school hours.

“[Mr. Howard] was looking out for us,” says Sean. “He could have expelled us right then because technically we were fighting every day at lunch even though we were all friends. That’s when fighting at school stopped, but fighting outside of school didn’t.”

Sean continued organizing fights between his friends, but made sure people were boxing others of a similar size. When he himself wasn’t boxing, he did his best to referee matches. He remembers seeing a freshman hesitantly put on the gloves to fight someone at a party last year and realizing that the inexperienced underclassman didn’t really want to box anyone. Sean and a few other senior boys were able to convince him that no one expected him to box, and that it was all right if he chose not to.

“I made sure no one got injured and no one was doing anything against their will. It was a safe environment, but we could still see who would win in a match,” says Sean.

Even with close regulation, boxing is an inevitably dangerous activity, especially when it involves teenagers under the influence. Earlier this year, a student from The Center School was knocked unconscious for five minutes by a recent Garfield graduate. Injuries of that severity aren’t common, but people do sometimes end up bleeding and swollen. Sean notes that this happens most often because people box “when they know they shouldn’t,” and that he does not get involved in or referee the most drunken matches.

“[My friend] got me with a right hook and my braces got stuck in my cheek,” says Mark about one of his first fights. “I had to go surgically remove them in the bathroom with my keys and a toothpick. I didn’t lose any brackets though – a pretty conclusive testament to how hard he actually hit me.”

Boxing isn’t as prevalent during the winter months because of the cold weather and lack of outdoor parties. Many students still enjoy boxing each other, though, and make it a matter of class pride. Sean laughs as he talks about a memorable fight last year when an ’09 boy made a ’07 student bleed, got a little over-confident, and promptly had his “ass whooped” by a much larger member of ’08.

Not only are the fights entertaining to many, but they provide the boxers with attention and excitement. “It’s pretty relieving,” says undefeated senior Jesse Bernstein. “You see these kids everyday but to just have them all looking at you at once and watching your every move is a pretty big adrenaline rush.”

While many Garfield guys feel this way about the sport, girls don’t usually agree. Many girls can’t even stand to watch others fight, and would never consider putting on the gloves themselves. On the rare occasion that girls do fight, the matches are generally shorter and much less intense. Sean has never seen a girl get hurt by anything more than being knocked to the ground.

Although most boxing is now on hiatus because of the wet, stormy weather, its absence won’t be long. Come spring, Garfield students will be out punching each other in full force. Concussion or humiliation may lie in wait after each jab. Yet for teenage boys in need of some ego-stroking, it’s all worth it for a single moment of glory.

“Noelle!” her father’s voice barks through the phone. “Why aren’t you running? You should run to class!”

Glancing back, Noelle sees her dad still parked in the same spot where he had dropped her off moments earlier. Exasperated by his unnecessary vigilance, she picks up her pace and jogs through the front doors. After all, obeying her parents is her primary responsibility.

Noelle Jung is a Garfield senior, varsity athlete, and top student. She is also the eldest daughter of Korean immigrants, who she says have unreasonable expectations and strict household rules about going out, speaking her mind, and spending time with her family. Simply hanging out with friends involves phone calls home, excessive confirmations, and detailed carpool planning. Their inflexibility invades all aspects her life, but becomes a serious issue most in regard to school, college, and the future. A normally bubbly person, Noelle’s tone becomes sharper and more bitter as she begins to discuss her family.

“I can’t apply to anywhere I want,” she says somewhat resentfully. “I have to apply to Harvard and Stanford and Yale and MIT, even though I have no desire to go to those schools at all.”

While other students filled their senior year schedules with electives and easy classes, Noelle’s parents insisted she take AP Calculus BC and calculus-based Physics. Despite her protests that she didn’t even want to take a science class, her mom claimed she needed to take one to become a doctor.

“I kind of want to go into law,” says Noelle.

Even so, Noelle’s mom and dad have their daughter’s best interests at heart. They believe that she will one day understand their pressure as encouragement.

“Teenagers sincerely believe that they are mature enough to make important decisions for themselves,” says Noelle’s mother Ellen Jung. “But when you are young you need guidance in making decisions. Parents have dreams for their children, and although the children may not appreciate the strict rules, they will definitely appreciate [the rules] when they are a lawyer at age 25.”

When junior “Mary Jones” was in eighth grade at Washington Middle School, her friends were worried about crushes, cliques, and fitting in. Mary had bigger problems. She was failing the notoriously difficult APP Washington State History class. Her Thai mother decided that the most appropriate punishment was an impromptu haircut. Mary’s formerly long, luscious hair was chopped to above her shoulders. She describes the first day back to school as “humiliating.” Another time, although the offense is long forgotten, her parents picked all her outfits for a month.

Dr. Connie So, a senior lecturer of Asian-American studies at the University of Washington, attributes this characteristic strictness to the mentality of many immigrants, not just those from Asia. She notes that most Asian immigrants are not poor and uneducated. The easiest way to immigrate to the United States is through a $50,000 sponsorship by a current citizen.

“You’re getting a certain kind of immigrant,” she says. “The most elite immigrants to America right now are from China. Elitism is based on education and the type of job they had in that country. They may start out as janitors and cooks, but they are very educated compared to the people back in their country.”

This “fall in status,” as So calls it, leads many Asian parents to push their kids even harder. They hope, through their children, to take advantage of American opportunities. The balance of power in immigrant families is often unusual because the children must act as liaisons between their parents and English-speaking American culture. As a result, parents tighten control over their children.

“[My parents] talk about how there are poor starving kids; how when they were little they walked ten miles without shoes to school; how there was no bus; how they had to work hard and study during the Cultural Revolution; how there were no books; how everyone nowadays studies way more than I do,” says junior Joe Long, who as a Chinese American has experienced this phenomenon. “Asian parents don’t lock you in your room and make you study for five hours, but they still make you work hard and they’re really strict.”

“I have to just go to school, go home, do homework, eat, and then go to sleep,” says senior Jean Belista, whose parents emigrated from the Philippines.

While this scene is commonly repeated in many Asian-American households, Belista recognizes that “there are some [parents] that totally let their kids go and do whatever they want and then there [are] some that really crack down.” She and other Asian students agree that generation impacts the parenting styles of Asian parents.

The generation of an immigrant is determined by where he or she was born. Someone who is first-generation was born in a foreign country and then immigrated to the United States. A second-generation person has parents born in a foreign country, but was born here.

“They still insist on having a miniature Korea in our house, which is crazy,” Noelle says of her first-generation parents. “It’s actually a completely different culture in America and they’ve been living here for thirty-something years, so I feel like they should understand that new generations need change. I can never speak my mind around [my mother] because whenever I try to point something out, she tells me I’m being disrespectful. Being a normal person is not feasible because you can’t speak like a normal person.”

If asked where she’s going, “just hanging out with friends” is considered a disrespectful answer. Protesting her parents’ policies is out of the question, and missing the nightly family dinner is unacceptable.

“Korean culture is the foundation of our parenting, just as American-born families raise their children under the American culture,” counters her mother. “For example, Korean culture places more value on respect for the elders, and on the importance of education. American culture is too lenient, and doesn’t place enough restrictions on what a child can do.”

Her parents’ emphasis on “proper childlike” behavior has given Noelle a different defnition of what’s “normal”. As a seventeen-year-old, she’s never stayed out past midnight.

“I don’t know what’s unreasonable anymore,” she says.

Noelle remembers hearing her mother proudly telling her friends about her daughter’s accomplishments in elementary school. Over the years, she has come to realize that this boasting is her parents’ way of proving to themselves that it’s all worth it.

“It’s all [about] how you look to other people,” says Noelle. “A big part of the culture is impressing the neighbors and beating out your parents’ friends’ children. My parents are so competitive with their friends. They always boast [about their children] to each other.”

Their bragging, though, is out of love for their children and the pride they feel over their accomplishments. Strict Asian parents are most often those who were forced to give up almost everything to give their children more opportunities and a better life. These parents expect greatness out of their children to prove that their sacrifices were worth it.

“The pressure is on for the kids,” says So. “They took the fall in status for the sake of the children. These are the people who chose to come to America, and they’re competing.”

Heather Dow

It was after lunch in elementary school, and we all headed out for our gym class. We had a brand new track, so we took a trip outside to run around and play soccer. My friends and I decided that we were too good to play with the other children, so we made up our own game climbing up and down the fence with a sliding gate. Then the boys came. They outnumbered us by just two or three, but they were all bigger, and were up to no good. They all started climbing and we scurried away giggling.

Karl, who everyone thought liked me (I do, however, deny this to every extent) grabbed hold of the gate, and pushed it open, not giving me enough time to jump off. The gate crushed three fingers on my left hand, and there was blood everywhere. I didn’t cry. I couldn’t. There were only a few minutes left in class, so the teacher did the best she could to wrap up my hand and stop the bleeding. Then, to make matters worse, someone pulled the fire alarm. So I waited for 20 long minutes, my hand caked and my dress spattered with blood.

When I finally got to go to the nurse, she gave me the option of going home, and she called my mom. I chose to go back to class because I was looking forward to recess. My teacher was not informed of the accident, and held me in the class while everyone went out to play because I had to finish my work. Then I cried.

Rachel Alexander

I have a really intense chin scar from when I was two and I banged my chin on a pot while crawling around on the floor. There was fat hanging out and everything. But the best part is I went to get stitches and I was hella pissed at the doctor, so I was kicking and screaming and he had to have four people hold me down. So then I threw up in his face. Strawberry yogurt, yum. That’s my earliest memory.

Zoe Barker-Aderem

This one time on Thanksgiving a long time ago I hadn’t eaten anything all day to prepare for the feast and we were decorating for Christmas. I found this card from my friend Henry and I was really excited about it. I ran into the kitchen to show my mom but I ran right into a cabinet, split my head open, and had to go to the emergency room. Then, because it was Thanksgiving, there were no doctors; it was just students and they were like, “Well, we’ve never done stitches before but we can try,” and my dad was like, “Hell no!” so they just glued my head back together with some sort of medical super glue.

Carver Low

I was only in second grade and my friends and I were playing a game that, of course, involved running around. As my friends sprinted off around me, I decided to take a shortcut under the play structure. Just as I was coming out from underneath it, I was hit by a force so far unknown to my seven-year-old mind. I was on the ground in an instant, and another kid a year older than me was scrambling to his feet and beginning to run away. Just as a second grader should, I immediately began to cry. My head hurt tremendously, and it felt like I had just been kicked. As a teacher ran over to me, she felt my head. As her hand came away, I looked at it and to my complete horror it was covered in blood. At this point I could actually feel the blood running down my face, and that realization only caused me to cry all the harder. I was taken to the nurse’s office where she stopped the bleeding and I got to take a look at the large gash in my head. It wasn’t pretty. From talking to the kid who landed on me, it became apparent that the gash in my head wasn’t caused by his foot, but by his own two front teeth. Amazingly his teeth were completely fine, but I had to get three stitches in my head and I still have a fairly large bald spot where the gash was.

Morgan Packer

I was three and I was looking at an Alvin and the Chipmunks VHS in Blockbuster and there was this 11-year-old running around the store. He ran right into me the corner of a sharp metal shelf cut a section of my forehead open and I had to get 11 stitches. The owner of the store ripped off his shirt and tied it around my head to try to stop the bleeding. I remember screaming at the doctor for putting the stitches in, and the next day I felt bad so I drew him a picture and my mom drove me to the hospital to give it to him. The scar is still in the center of my forehead, and I still want to kick that boy’s ass.

Zoe Storck

When I was about 2 years old, I found a crochet hook in my house and I started running with it. That didn’t turn out to be a very good idea because I tripped and fell and the hook went through my right eyelid and into my head. My dad called an ambulance and they rushed me to the hospital where I had brain surgery to take it out. I ended up with a half shaved head, 26 stitches and 4 screws. There were no lasting effects besides the screws and the scar, but people always ask if I set off metal detectors in airports. I don’t because the screws are made of a different materiel than bombs or guns or knives.

These are just a fraction of the entertaining stories that almost every Garfield student has. So what are you waiting for? Go out, do something ridiculous and get a savage scar to prove it.

Frank Warren was first inspired to start PostSecret in 2004 as part of Artomatic, a five-week-long art festival in Washington, D.C. The idea was simple: people would mail in their innermost secrets and Frank would share them with festival goers. The project spread, however, when people unexpectedly continued to mail in their secrets. In 2005, Frank set up the website postsecret.com, updating every Sunday with about 20 new postcards.

The project kept growing, and eventually in late 2005 a collection of secrets was published in the book PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives. Three more books have been published since then, and Frank has been traveling around the country with the release of the latest book, A Lifetime of Secrets: A PostSecret Book. This book includes secrets from people as young as eight and as old as eighty.

On a windy Thursday night, I headed down to Elliott Bay Book Co. in Pioneer Square to hear Frank talk about the project that has consumed his life for the past three years. The talk had the feeling of an intimate conversation, with Frank’s soothingly pleasant voice telling us, his captive audience, how PostSecret has changed people’s lives.

“All of us have a secret that could break your heart, and I think that if we could just remember that, there would be more compassion in the world,” he said. “There’s always hope but it doesn’t always come on the schedule you want it to.”

Frank was driven to create PostSecret because he was “struggling with a secret in my own life beneath my own awareness.” Appearing in the first book, his secret reads, “A charismatic boy moved into our neighborhood and convinced a few of my friends to pin me down and hold my eyelids open as they spit in my eyes.” He thinks that sharing secrets can not only be therapeutic for those who tell them, but also for those who read them.

“Under our ordinary lives are extraordinary secrets that add to our unity. They increase our humanity and strengthen the bonds between us. This collection of secrets is greater than the sum of its parts.”

Some of the most memorable secrets are not the ones dealing with serious issues, although Frank admits that he gets quite a few secrets about suicide, self harm, and eating disorders. Rather, the ones that say things like, “I masturbate to gun and ammo magazines,” and “I converted because I think I look sexy in a head scarf,” stick in our minds for the simple fact they are ridiculously absurd. And yet, that is someone’s secret.

In high school, it can be particularly tempting to bury embarrassing secrets because almost everyone wants to fit in. However, many people never forget the shameful secret they’ve kept since high school. Frank told the story of two postcards that he posted next to each other on the website. One was from a teenage girl who described all the areas in which she excelled and then said she would trade it all to be pretty. The next was from an older woman who said she finally realized that wasn’t as ugly as she’d imagined in high school. Most people don’t even realize the affect a secret has had on their life until they let go of it. Frank estimates that he has received between 170,000 and 180,000 postcards, or “snapshots from people’s lives,” as he likes to think of them, over the past three years. The most common secret, sent in by countless people, states simply, “I pee in the shower.” Many explain odd childhood habits (“When I was younger, I used to unbury my dead hamster to see if he had come back alive”) or weird obsessions (“I’m addicted to grits”). Others are just plain shocking (“Everyone who knew me before 9/11 believes I’m dead”).

When the All-American Rejects approached Frank about using postcards sent to PostSecret in the music video for their hit song “Dirty Little Secret,” he said he would provide the secrets if they donated $2,000 to 1–800-SUICIDE, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline. Another time, visitors to the PostSecret website raised $30,000 for the organization when it was struggling. Frank believes in spreading awareness about suicide, which he dubs “our collective secret.”

Frank explained to the audience that he established the blog first to capture the “fleeting nature of secrets.” He emphasized that secrets are secret for a reason, and many of the secrets that are delivered to his house daily are offensive or politically incorrect. Others, though, are simply endearing stories from childhood (“When I was a child, I was constantly terrified that my entire life was just a story being read by King Babar to his children, and that someday he would close the book and my life would end”).

“Most of us as children misinterpreted the adult world in a humorous way,” said Frank.

Even with these funny secrets, Frank says we are faced with a choice: to bury them or to share them. “Each of us has lots of secrets. Free your secrets and become who you are.”