I Wore a Dress to School!

On Friday I finally decided to wear a dress, and it was the first time I had worn a dress to school since…well, preschool I guess, back when my mom got to dress me.  (After that in elementary school I rocked leggings until I was 7!)  Supposedly it was going to start raining again on Sunday so I figured Friday would be my last chance to really dress up for a little while, and wanted to end on a high note.  (though I’m still going to keep dressing nice)  I had looked at this dress in the beginning of April and told myself by the end of the month I would have the confidence to wear it to school, and I finally did wear it.  I worked up to it by wearing fancier tops and skirts first.  I know for some people wearing a dress to school is no big deal and is an easy decision, but considering that I used to dress as simply as I could so I wouldn’t get any attention for my clothes, it’s a good improvement for me.  I didn’t want to wear shirts with words on them either because I didn’t want people trying to read my shirt, especially if it said something embarrassing like “Kiss Me I’m Irish” (I’m not even Irish!) or something about cute boys that my mom would pick up and try to get me to wear.  I still think that’s embarrassing though, haha!

But back to the dress.  I decided the night before to wear it since the weather was getting really hot.  That morning though, it turned out to be really windy and a little cold even.  Why the weather always tries to make my plans more difficult I don’t know, but I was still determined to wear that dress.  My mom tried to talk me out of it though and thought I should change into something else, but this time I stood my ground on this and told her this was going to be one of my last chances to do this.  Her doubts hurt my confidence a little bit, but I walked out the door to the car, no turning back.

I was a little cold, and I did feel a little self-conscious, but I put my sunglasses on and walked through the halls telling myself that I looked nice and to remember to focus on what other people were wearing.  I did have to keep my hands down just to make sure the wind didn’t try to pull any fast ones on me though.  It certainly would have been easier and less nerve-racking if there was less wind and the dress was a little longer.

While walking to first period one of my girl friends said I looked nice today and one of my guy friends resonated with a “You do look really pretty!”  Another friend turned around and saw me and exclaimed “Oh my gosh you look so pretty!”  So that was a nice reassurance to hear in the morning, and I told them they all looked nice too.

On my way to fourth period, I had to pass through a crowd of people in the quad.  Maybe it was just my imagination, but it seemed like one of the good-looking popular guys I passed looked at me longer than someone normally would when you’re passing them, like with interest or something.  And it seemed like one of the popular pretty girls was giving me a glaring look.  It was kind of funny, and not something I’m used to.

When I saw my friend Annie at lunch, she did a double take when she saw me!  She exclaimed that I looked really cute, and then said these past few weeks I’ve been dressing really cute.  I thanked her for noticing and told her I was trying to dress more confidently.  She asked where I was getting all these clothes and I told her that I’d had them for a while but never wore them to school or anything, the only time I’d worn some of this stuff was at swing dancing.  She said she wanted to start getting some cuter clothes too since she feels like she’s been wearing the same thing for a while now.

Although I did feel self-conscious whenever I was walking, it was sort of fun standing out and looking pretty at school.  I didn’t wear any make-up and most of the time I don’t bother to wear any anyways, but I still felt pretty in my dress.  It was a bit of a pain because I had to be so careful with it, but it was worth it.

On the left: Not a dress, but one of the many notorious outfits my mom put me in.  And on the right:  What I wore yesterday, taken afterschool when it was finally nicer and less windy!

Senior Prom

Prom was amazingly fun, I had no idea how great it was going to be.

Originally, I wasn’t even sure if I was going to prom.  There was a lot of party bus drama/stress because there were only 20 spots and they had all been filled up in one day before I was included in the list.  I was irritated for being left out and I almost didn’t even want to go anymore, especially since I wasn’t going to have a way to get there.  But after some more drama there was a space for me, I got asked to prom, and decided to go.  I didn’t find all this out a week or two before prom so it was very stressful trying to get a dress and shoes so last minute.  I also thought prom might not be fun for me and wouldn’t be worth all the money if it was like the other school dances, so I thought about just not going.

But I’m really glad that I went.  I went to homecoming earlier in the year and that wasn’t much fun really, the best part was getting ready with friends.  The actual dance wasn’t great and we were surrounded by a bunch of people grinding on the dance floor and it was a little awkward and uncomfortable.  I had no idea how dirty people danced at school dances.  I danced with a group of friends but it was like the not really into it but pretending to be kind of dancing.

For prom I guess the administration got sick of it too, because they made a no dancing back to front rule and they actually were able to enforce it!  Whenever someone started grinding the DJ would stop the music and tell them to stop or our prom would end early, and it worked.  And I think people still had a really great time and had fun dancing in a different way!

We took pictures at my friend Jon’s house and then all got on our party bus that took us to San Francisco.  I thought the party bus was going to be awkward because people would be going kinda crazy but it wasn’t and I mostly talked to Ben, Ryan, Jon, and Andrea who were seated around me.  We bobbed up and down a little bit and one guy was being goofy and dancing on the stripper pole and people stuck dollars in his suit pockets.  It was funny and some other drivers could see in and we saw one girl took a picture.  🙂

The place where prom was held was amazing, there were 5 stories and it was very very fancy.  No wonder the ticket was so expensive. ($120!)  We had dinner first which was chicken, salad, and bread.  After that they made an announcement that there were some people who wanted to show us a different way to dance, and it’s called swing dance!  I was excited and the performers did a really good job, they danced West Coast swing to modern music and it was very smooth and cool.  They mixed in some salsa and Latin dance too I’m pretty sure.  Then the dancing started, and they kicked it off by playing the Pokemon theme song, which made everyone laugh and start dancing all goofily.

Then all the modern music came on as well as some other songs and it was really fun dancing.  It’s always a little awkward when you first start to dance, but after a little while I was really getting into it and just kind of let loose.  I didn’t care what I looked like, but I was having a lot of genuine fun and really danced.  I mostly danced in a group with Ben, Ryan, Jon, Andrea, Pearl, and some of our other friends.  It was fun dancing with them, we did a bunch of funny and goofy moves that made us all laugh.  I found a couple of other friends in different groups and danced with them too, but mostly stayed with Ben and our group we came with.  I slow danced to all the slow songs with Ben and we did a little bit of swing dancing too.  Ben, Ryan, and I wandered around a bit when we needed a break from dancing and picked up various desserts and gazed down at the dance floor from the upper balconies.  It was really fun, and I actually even wish there was another prom or a dance like it coming up!  Who knew it would be so much fun?

Two in a Row

In first period today I raised my hand to answer a simple math question! 🙂  I did feel a little nervous beforehand and hesitated once the room got silent.  But I did it quick enough where I didn’t have too much time to think about it. She didn’t see my hand though, so I just said it aloud surprisingly enough.  I said how to solve the problem and the answer that you would get.

It was a good thing I answered because she was starting to think we couldn’t do simple math.  She then asked if anyone had a calculator, and she looked at me and saw I had one.  So I offered to do the calculations that she asked me to put in and I read them aloud.

I spoke more all period than anyone else did in the class, though after a while I thought some of the others were probably getting annoyed with me.  But if they thought that oh well, that’s the second time I’ve ever raised my hand in her class so it’s not like I say much often.

It felt good, and the more I spoke aloud the more confident I became and could keep speaking.  I even spoke without raising my hand since most of my teacher’s attention was on me and she sort of expected me to keep answering I think.  Usually I always feel the need to raise my hand to answer questions because I’ve gotten so used to it over the years, but now in my senior year classes and college class it seems like it’s not really expected anymore.  That’s probably because by now the teachers figure we know when to talk so we’re not interrupting.  I still prefer raising my hand though.

Does anyone else feel like they still want to raise their hand even when they don’t really have to?