Cool Enough, For the Moment
Keywords
high school culture, adolescent identity, academic achievement
Abstract
It was the spring of my senior year in high school, and my friends and I were so desperately cool we didn’t know what to do with ourselves. We were an honor-roll posse of over-achievers who passed around the New York Times crossword puzzle in AP Physics because, well, who needs to pay attention in AP physics? In History class we debated the new hall pass policy and compared the principal to various European tyrants. At lunch we ate our mom-packed lunches and complained about homework and the campus security guards who kept us from skipping class for a Taco Bell run. We wrote earnest articles for the school newspaper, made bad art in the photo lab, and toilet-papered houses on the weekend. We were a sitcom in bed with an after-school special— Saved by the Bell meets Degrassi Jr. High; Ferris Bueller a few decades shy of The Big Chill. We were on top of our own little world, and, I think, a little terrified of falling off.
Original Publication Citation
Franklin JC. 2015. "Cool Enough, For the Moment". Sweet: A Literary Confection. 7(3):4.
BYU ScholarsArchive Citation
Franklin, Joey, "Cool Enough, For the Moment" (2015). Faculty Publications. 10152.
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub/10152
Document Type
Other
Publication Date
2015
Publisher
Sweet: A Literary Confection
Language
English
College
Humanities
Department
English
Copyright Use Information
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