Day 11

Favorite picture ever taken of yourself.

Want to know a little secret? I never walked accross the stage and got my high school diploma, however I AM a high school graduate. How is that possible you may ask? Well it's a very long, upsetting story, but I'll give you the short version. Me, Meredith, and our good friend at the time Alyssa decided to go to prom together. Al and her boyfriend decide to set Mere and I up with guys. My guy bales the week of prom and I meet my new date on prom night, despite my objections to even taking a date. After we have dinner we have time to kill and go to a park downtown to kill some time, take some pictures, etc... Our dates decide to drink. Mine gets exceptionally drunk. We try to get him to chill or to decide to go home to no avail. I avoid my date like the plague all night. He gets caught reaking of alcohol. The other five of us are breathalyzed and questioned. Two of the boys are arrested, one is let go, and the three of us girls are cleared of any drinking but forced to give written statements despite our parents or any other representation not being there. We are suspended for the rest of the school year and told we can't walk at graduation. We spend the next two weeks going through a series of emotions and mistreatments by Carroll High School, despite having NEVER been in trouble in all four years and having not taken part in the boys drinking. Guilty by association apparently. At the boys school, South Side, they are barely given slaps on the wrist, are allowed to participate in all end of the year activities, and are allowed to walk at graduation. We never have recieved an apology to this day.

Since we were not allowed to walk at Carroll's graduation our parents put together a wonderful ceremony just for us that was ten times better than the real thing would have been. We were surrounded by our close family and friends and eachother and took part in something really special. This is my favorite picture of myself because it is actually from that day. We had just recieved our fake "diplomas" (we had to wait until after Carroll's graduation to go to the school and get our real ones) and knew we wanted to jump in our caps and gowns on Al's trampoline, which was our favorite thing to do. This picture not only captures our friendship, but also the relief we felt to have the whole ordeal finally given some closure.