The Pact

Thinking about the prompt given to me, and reflecting upon my friends during Middle School, I realize that academically, I was basically on my own. To my friends, I was just a source of information, and my friends were pretty much emotional support. So many bad things (that don’t seems as bad looking back on them) would happen, and they would help me assure myself that everything would in fact, be ok. But academically? No, not really. There were several incidents where one of the kids that followed one particular friend around, would ask to copy my homework. I would always say no, and I always offered to help them, but I’d never let them copy. Well, let’s just say that made him mad… I had to be careful about what I said, and where I put my homework, because after me saying no once, my homework was stolen off my desk and copied. I got in trouble for this, and the other kid got away clean (I may be confusing two incidents here, the homework stolen may have been 7th grade). But basically, the idea is the same. After a couple of months the kid gave up (thankfully).
Overall, I wouldn’t say that I was supported by my friends when it came to academics (though they tried to help when I asked for it), more like I supported them, mainly, I helped in science a lot, some of the people who talked to me were complete strangers… somehow, I gained a reputation for being the one who can help you with your science homework. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, and I’m not trying to brag, I simply love science, and math, and social studies, and literature, but I have a real good memory when it comes to science, so consequently (to end my rambling) I became the “go-to-girl” for help on science homework.
Now of course, I have to learn this skill, otherwise I won’t survive a year at ASTI. There is only one friend of mine who made it in, and a few acquaintances, so I’m going to have to learn to make good friends fast. From the students I’ve met at ASTI so far, I think that most of them understand me a lot better than the kids at Wood did, and I think they’re going to be great people to talk to. Heck, my dad says he met a couple of kids at ASTI and thought that they were better behaved and more mature than some adults he knows. That’s saying something, dad isn’t afraid to tell it like it is, and for the truth to be flattering is rare.
You want the truth? I am writing this last essay the night before orientation, after a slow start earlier in the summer. And honestly, I am completely terrified of going to school tomorrow, completely afraid of making the wrong first impression, and worried that I won’t do well. And you know who my best friends are? Aiyana, a girl I’ve known since I first moved here, 7 or 8 years ago, and Keli, my cousin who lives in Colorado. They are (at the moment) the only two people my own age who aren’t afraid to tell me something is wrong, that a paper needs to be rewritten, or that something I said is completely wrong. It’s funny, Neither of them are my “middle school friends” and they’re only being mentioned in passing, but they are my academic support, and the only two friends who have stuck around while things started to go bad. The prompt asked about my middle school friends being academically supportive, but I find that people who don’t know the entire truth about the school I went to, both the ups and downs, provide the best support. My middle school friends, though still good people and good friends (for the most part) just liked to complain a lot. Huh, I guess I did too. But looking back, and evaluating middle school life, my friends just can’t compare to people I think of as family.