Friday, June 17, 2011

Things Modern Cinema Has Taught Me About High School

High school never ends, does it? I was at a casting the other day with a bunch of Ford models, and at first I felt like the geek who is suddenly invited to sit at the cool table* at lunch.

These were girls I've seen on the pages of magazines and that my agents had shown me and said, "look more like her if you can." And now I was at a casting with them. We were up for the same job. As in, there are people in the world who would put me in the same group as them. If that sounds like false modesty, it isn't. I think I'm pretty awesome. I just never really thought of myself as that particular brand of awesome.

No, that's not intimidating.
I sat myself down and said hi, and joined the waiting room banter but after a few minutes I realized that no one was listening to a word I was saying. I tried to join in but they just pretended I wasn't there. Suddenly I felt more like the theatre geek with braces who stumbled onto the cool table by accident.

I had a flashback to junior year when 2 girls in my class wore the same shirt and all the other girls said, "oh my god, I have that shirt" and I was the only lame weirdo who didn't shop at Abercrombie and Fitch or where the fuck ever.

As I left,  I realized how bizarre and stupid it was that I let that get to me. I mean, for Christ's sake, here I was: a model at a high profile casting with a bunch of famously stunning women and I felt like... a loser? All because some bored girls didn't pay attention to me? What the hell did I care if Lula** the Swiss plus supermodel liked me? If they didn't need to talk to me, why did I need to talk to them?


So maybe high school does end after all.  When we decide that we no longer care about the cool kids, they're not cool kids, they're just people. Maybe even people that inspire you to better yourself. I may still be a theatre geek with braces on the inside but I'm also a model on the outside and maybe even sometimes a good model and maybe even once in a while a grownup.




* Not that I know much about that since my high school had neither a cafeteria nor a cool table, but modern cinema has taught me that "the cool table" is a much hyped phenomenon in normal high schools with more than 100 students.
**Not a real name.


P.S. Is it just me or does Rachel McAdams look way too old to be a high school student? How was I so fooled when that movie came out?

3 comments:

  1. Sara, you rock. I LOOOOVE this post. I think it's possible we never completely leave awkward loser moments behind, but they are more fleeting as we learn to tell ourselves the truth about how totally awesome we are, and feel compassion for those who are so insecure they have to snub other people. Sad, really.
    Lots of love to you, beautiful from the inside out :)
    April

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  2. When I have those moments, I think to myself "I'm glad high school was NOT the best four years of my life" -- because for a lot of people, it was. And (mentally) they never, ever left.

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  3. Yes, even though I've thankfully grown out of looking the part, I'm still a geek in braces at heart. I hated it at the time, but now I embrace it, even brag about it... I'm a geek. These days, that means I have given myself permission to be ME! I have my own table, I'm not there alone, and you're welcome to sit there with me.

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