The Curse

Forever Ago...

First day of school, no matter what level, is always extremely awkward...especially when you transfer schools with only 3 months left of senior year. It's even more horrifying when you transfer from a performing arts high school, like Baltimore School for the Arts, to a public school with a not soo good reputation, like Woodlawn. This was the case for little ole me.

Baltimore School for the Arts came into my life at a young age. I went on a field trip there, in elementary school, to see a performance of The Nutcracker, and immediately fell in love. My favorite movie, at the time, was FAME. So to learn that there was an actual school that taught you how to be an actor, singer, dancer, and artist was everything to me! I auditioned for both singing and theatre, but I didn't make it in for either. Luckily for me, someone declined their wanting to enroll, and I just soo happened to be the first on the waiting list and POOF i was now a student at my dream school, as a theatre major. Let me just tell you, that shit was NOTHING like Fame or even High School Musical. I mean we had our moments. My freshman year we danced and sang on the cafeteria tables to Beyoncé's Get me bodied, and you could definitely hear the music majors vocalizing in the halls between classes, or theatre majors going over monologues, dancers stretching, or visual artists with their big easels. Other than that, it was pretty regular. The academic portion of being at a performing arts school was what annoyed me, and i could definitely understand Leroy's tantrum in FAME. If i wanted to learn about Pythagorean theorems, or current events, then i could've taken my ass to a regular public high school. I wanted to learn to be an actor! I wanted to be on tv, and be famous, and work with the likes of Denzel, or be on Broadway with my name in lights.

Needless to say, throughout my tenure at BSA, I would skip my academic classes, and hang out at different lunch periods. From freshman year until junior year I had befriended the "It" crowd. They were the well known upperclassmen from the theatre department. That, along with my personality, I became friends with people from the other departments (dance, music, stage production, and visual arts)...and for those who I didn't know, they definitely knew who I was. There was even a time, during junior year, when I became the school's self appointed Gossip Girl. I would find out the tea around school, add my two cent (a la Wendy Williams) and post it around the school. Unlike the show, everyone knew that I was the Gossip Girl.

I was placed on academic probation, because my grades were horrendous, which meant that I wasn't allowed to perform for majority of the productions in my junior year. One of the productions being Musical Theatre Night, which upset a lot of the school. When i first attended BSA, my main focus was Broadway and musical theatre. I may not have been the best singer, but i definitely could sing, and i had an ear for harmonies. With that, and the fact that i was friends with basically half the school, everyone was excited to see me in the show. Unfortunately, because i was on academic probation, I had to sing behind the stage as opposed to on the stage.

Things got even worse during senior year. I was still skipping academic classes, I was now the self proclaimed "It" person at school, and I most certainly allowed it to go to my head. I just knew that i was the shit lol. All eyes were on me, both good and bad, and I had now taken a few "children" under my wing. Luckily my "Daughtahs", as i called them, got my more "maternal" side as opposed to the narcissistic, egotistical side...I would be there to give them advice, or encouragement...i tried to come to all of their shows...they were great young black women!

There was always a scandal going on caused by me. The main being me losing my virginity to an underclassman in the back stairwell of the school...yes...I was THAT person. My arrogant actions got to the point where I was told that I would not be able to graduate unless i got my act together and pulled my grades up. By this time I was living with my great aunt, her sister (my grandmother), and my maternal grandfather. When my aunt found this out, she immediately took me out of BSA and put me into the family school, Woodlawn. Woodlawn was the high school that practically all of my family went to: my great aunt, great uncle, grandmother, two cousins before me, and currently my younger cousin and my mom's youngest sister.