Friendship Part 2

I was originally going to write this about the friends that I've made since graduating from High School (well, the ones that stand out), but after posting a link to Part 1 on my Facebook, a friend, Brittany Watson, requested the following:
"I was looking forward to more detail about the social connections in high school. I'll stay tuned".
With that in mind, I'll try my best, though I'm guessing you meant how they related to me--if you meant in general, then I might not have that much to write. As you know, it's been less than 4 years since I've graduated, and quite a few of those details are pretty fuzzy, even if you account that I wasn't exactly that aware of what my friends' social lives were like. And if anyone's reading this, thinking, "Who are all these people?", sorry--I'm somewhat writing this for the sort of people who know at least some of these people already.

Freshman Year:
As I said before in Part 1, I came in mostly knowing the friends I had from Pomerene, although there were a couple of people I knew from 4th grade in Benson (basically, Mitchael Richards and Megan Ellsworth). Through the various classes I took (English, Math, Biology, History, Journalism, and probably one other), I started making quite a few of my core friends from High School during this time; I may have still kept to myself more often than not, but at least I could say that my social circle was widening. I'm not sure how relevant this is, but during this time I was on the Basketball team and the Golf team (during fall and spring, respectively).

Sophomore Year:
I can't really remember there being any additions made to my number of friends (aside from what I'll say below--I'm just typing this down from memory), so I'm pretty sure this was a point where I was developing to what I had. To be honest, I can't remember much about this time, although... If it wasn't Freshman Year, this was the year that the Melvin Klan (a group of friends who liked to joke around, play pranks, and such) formed--I wasn't a member, but I got to know pretty much all of them. At the time, I wasn't really used to that sort of thing; in retrospect, however, they weren't too bad--I just prefer to keep my distance from them these days.

Junior Year:
This is when things get interesting. In Part 1, I mentioned how I ended up joining the Drama Club and was in Concert Choir. I already knew Nathan Walls and Alex Heckman since Sophomore Year (those two were in both Drama Club and Choir; I'm sure I knew a couple others that were in both, but I can't remember), although the reasons for joining Drama Club was because my mom wanted me to be in an extra-curricular activity--I didn't do that in Sophomore year. What resulted from this were a number of changes. For one, I made quite a few friends in both Drama and Choir--in the former, not only did I practice with my troupe, but actually got to work together doing something constructive and helped bond with some of my peers. All that, plus acting sort of makes you break out of your shell--you're sort of expected to express yourself in these sorts of conditions. Another thing was having a Spanish class. Now, for those who have never been in a class like this, you're expected to talk--with your neighbour, to the teacher, and to the class--in a language you're not completely familiar with; in my case, I barely knew anything about the language beforehand, so there was that added factor.

Senior Year:
In some ways, this was like my Sophomore year--not so many friends added aside from some of the exchange students, so it was more development. The things I learned from the previous year with regards to not being so withdrawn had changed me. I can remember being in Algebra class that year, and hearing Mr. O'Callaghan's comment towards me--that I had gone from someone who mostly kept to myself and never really talking with anyone around me to someone who felt more comfortable chatting and helping out my friends with their math problems. On the down side... (Stay on topic! Stay on topic!) Okay, on the down side, my emotional maturity wasn't the best. I don't care what you call it--hormonal flux, needing to get my head out of my backside, or whatever. In some cases, I was honestly not as good of a friend as I should have been. I don't want to get into detail about some of that, but let's just say that those were parts of my life that I do not miss.