"Yeah, you like the girl with the head gear, right?"
It was a nickname that I didn't hear until well after I graduated from High school. Doesn't make a big difference though, I didn't really like the place, or the people, very much anyway. My goal was to get good grades, get into college, and then become a doctor. But the time I spent in that place was enlightening on many levels.
I began to realize that I was different after leaving home school and being placed in a public semi-segregated high school. A few weeks before I enrolled, a black girl had been run down by one of her white male classmates who yelled racial slurs. "You gotta be kidding me" I thought to myself. Yeah, not so much.
After spending the semester there I transferred to another school in n upper-middle class area with kids who sold Speed out of their jeans pockets. This was the same year of the horrific events of 9/11. Excitement for my upcoming 14th birthday was very much overshadowed by losing contact with friends and family, 24hr terrifying news reports, and constant harassment from kids at school. Being the only Muslim girl who covered quickly made me a target.
"Do you have a bomb in your backpack?"
"It's mesh, you idiot. What do you think?"
"Are you related to Saddam Hussein?"
"Umm..I'm black. You look more like him than I do. Are YOU related to him?"
I quickly developed defensive rhetoric. I kept a few friends and some other acquaintances who I played Egyptian Rat Screw (awesome card game, look it up!) with. I began to wonder at this point, how would life be for me? If even my ignorant teachers were sending me to the Principal's office for wearing a "hat" (since WHEN is a piece of stylish chiffon considered a hat?) in class, what was I going to go through out there in the "real world". Scary times for a 14 year old girl.
This whirlwind of events and emotions was combined with my being 'discovered' by boys. Hormonal. Strange. Jovial. And to top it off, for junior year I get put back in the school with the racists.
Great!
