My sophomore year in high school only had a few highlights – taking the bus home every day, not enjoying trigonometry, being in the “Wolf Pups” tutoring group for a semester that worked with elementary schoolers, taking World History with the teacher who hooked up with the principal, borrowing some of my stepdad’s nice clothes and going to homecoming by myself.
Sophomore year was the last time I had to use a locker in my academic career. I still remember my locker vividly. It was in the music hall, and it was next to this really weird girl who would never talk to me (and, let’s face it, I didn’t make much of an effort either). A few weeks into the year, I looked over at her locker and saw handwriting in Sharpie that read, “Big Fish” and then wrote a date.
I wondered what it was, but I didn’t ask. Then as the next few weeks went by, she started a countdown (“Big Fish – ___ days!”). And as the days counted down, I started to worry. She was a little sketchy, my judgmental self thought. What if she’s counting down to something big that’s happening at school and she doesn’t want anyone to see? What if she knows about a school shooting?
I seriously thought about alerting a school authority at some point, or maybe faking a sickness on the specified date. Then the date came around, and I realized how much of an idiot I was being:
That’s right. “Big Fish” was a Tim Burton movie.
I didn’t watch “Big Fish” until this week, and didn’t finish it until tonight. But it is very good; I’d definitely recommend! It has a great leadership principle that I would write about if the WordPress servers weren’t going down for maintenance in 30 seconds…
