So this was it. One more year of school to go before I would head off into the wild blue yonder and paint it red. Senior year was finally here, but, as mentioned before, it did not live up to my expectations.
From everything I had ever seen and read about being a teenager, this was supposed to be the best year of my life. Unfortunately, there were too many obstacles that kept me from enjoying my youth. One job was great, but two jobs was too much and it didn't help that I hated my second job.
The whole year, I just didn't want anything to do with anyone. I figured that if I felt like I wasn't missing out on anything, then it wouldn't really matter if I did. I almost felt worse than I did the previous year in which I considered suicide, but my entire attitude really showed it on the outside.
Things were so bad, I wouldn't even listen to music on the radio. I had almost no clue what the most popular songs of my senior year were because I was just so into my own music. When I worked at a radio station two years after graduating high school, I was surprised at the songs from that period that were big hits.
I can say that I learned how to deal with so many consecutive disappointments that year. The first one was the Drama Club. The last two years, we produced seven plays each year and performed them publicly. (Most of those plays were one acts that were one-shot performances, like at the Festival at Eastern New Mexico University and various events around town.) We did two main-stage productions and the children's play for the schools. Before my junior year ended, my Drama teacher told me we were going to do "You Can't Take It with You" by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. I was really looking forward to acting in that in my senior year. That play has a lot of great roles in it.
However, when I saw my teacher over the summer, she said, "Oh, I found this really funny play for us to do." It wasn't "YCTIWY." It was some other play that was a parody of TV show detectives. It sucked so much, I'm not even going mention the title of it here. And then, she told me that the only other main stage production we were going to do that year was our children's show. I WAS FURIOUS! On top of this, I didn't even get the lead role in either one of the plays!
In January, we started practicing our one act play for the Festival at ENMU. I wanted to be recognized for my acting ability and win an award. The one act play she picked (I can't remember the name) was decent, but wasn't a good fit for our acting skills. It was more of an ensemble piece, and while I didn't have the lead role, I was sort of playing the leader of the group in the drama. I was trying like the dickens to give an outstanding performance, but I wasn't backed up by the rest of the cast. We were all rather bewildered by the choice of play as it was very dark and brooding. In the middle of rehearsals, the teacher was sick for a couple of weeks. We continued to rehearse, but the substitute had no idea how to direct. (Actually, our Drama teacher didn't know how to direct, either, but at least she knew what we were supposed to do on stage.) After she came back, we ran through a rehearsal of the play. When we finished, the teacher decided we would go to Festival, but we wouldn't be putting on the play. DANG IT!
I guess that the Drama department's budget had been slashed, so there wasn't enough money to mount another production that year, and one of the areas in which we probably had to cut was in paying royalty fees. She likely had to pick something that could be really done on the cheap. However, she never explained this. As I've mentioned before, the Drama class and club disappeared the next year, so I guess I should consider myself lucky that they didn't do away with it my senior year.
As for Choir, I was disappointed in the musical the teacher chose to do. It was "No, No Nanette." It was okay, but not as much fun to do as "The Music Man" or "Bye Bye Birdie." This was my senior year and I should have gotten one of the three male lead roles. I got stuck in the chorus. My heart really wasn't into doing my best for that show.
I know how all this looks, like I'm some prima donna who thinks he better because he's a senior in high school. I really felt like I was entitled to those perks after spending all those years waiting for the other upperclassmen to leave so I could have my moment to shine. However, the underclassmen took the spotlight away from me without even trying.
And then, no girlfriend. I had one prospect for a girlfriend late the previous year. She was in the ninth grade at the time and I met her while she was in the Artesia Arts Council's production of "Annie Get Your Gun." She actually seemed interested in me, and she was smart and talented. I thought I would be able to get to know her over the summer, but she took off to be a part of the "Young Americans" performance group FOR THE ENTIRE BREAK! When she came to high school the next year, she was dating one of the football players in her class.
In the end, I guess I'm glad I had such a lousy senior year. It gave me little to look back on as I moved toward my future. It kept me from re-living glory days, Springsteen-style, because I really didn't have any. I would just continue my quest for good times. Sometimes, I would find a few.
In my upcoming breakdown of my classes, you'll also get to see how my discontent led to many unethical dilemmas. It got really bad.
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