people that influenced me
... guy named Robert, who joked about the no-brained teenagers working in 7-11's, made fun of the way our teacher dramatized the pronunciation of the Huang-Ho and Yangtze Rivers, and satirized the teacher's methodology of hand-signals for facts, generalizations, and cause/effect. Finding common ground in our senses of humor, and love of the TV Simpson's, we grew acquainted with each other. Later in the year we teamed up as the defense lawyers in a class mock trial in which Mao Zedong was charged with crimes against the people of China. To Mrs. Krawet's dismay, "legal wrangling" caused the mock trial to last two weeks, even though she had planned for it to take three days, until it was resolved by a split decision, with the jury voting 6 guilty and 6 innocent. More important than the result was the experience of friendship and shared learning. We each had a great deal of fun preparing questions for the witnesses and planning our cross examinations, and after the trial we remained good friends. Tenth grade would be a notable year. Robert introduced me to Ashley and Tiffany, our classmates in English. The four of us had a great time making our first home movie, based on the allegory Redwall, at Robert's house. Our filming day coincided with a snowstorm, so the outside scenes were hilarious. Plus, when we jumped up against the side of Rob's house, we knocked down some books off a shelf inside. In the end, we all had a great laugh watching our final product. In March, Tiffany invited me to her Sweet Sixteen birthday party, the first major social occasion that I had attended in years. I will always remember the wonderful time we all had dancing and celebrating. Later in the year, we made another movie for English class, which was more of a satire. In it we managed to include many of our history teacher Mrs. Lemma's infamous quotes by working them into the lines of Basil Stag Hare, a character from the Redwall novel who often spoke in nonsense. In June Tiffany invited Ashley and me to her house for a study party, hoping that we could learn enough of Global Studies to excel on the Regents exam. After wasting most of the afternoon watching TV, we highlighted the review book, and we were finally ready for the big test. Last fall Tiffany and Ashley convinced me to go to the Homecoming dance, and I began to realize all the fun that life has to offer. It was only natural that the group of us had an even b...