I can vividly remember that sunny summer day just nine months ago when I began my junior year. My summer had left me high on life, and I was even excited for the upcoming year. It didn't take long, however, for me to be reminded of the aspects of high school which had practically driven me over the edge during my sophomore year. After the first month of being reacquainted with the exaggerated smiles and waves and the oblivious bodies walking past without a glance, I sensed the high spirits which had occupied my body just a few weeks previous flowing away.

I knew I had to find a way to relieve this pain if I was going to maintain some semblance of sanity. High school can be very frightening and lonely if you don't have close friends who you can experience it with. So, similar to what most people do when they are in a state of shock, I entered a mode of self-preservation. Most teenagers operate in this mode all the time by belonging to one clique where they know they will be accepted. I did just the opposite. I shifted my focus off of school and onto something more upbeat. One of my friends was spending the winter as an adaptive ski instructor in Colorado. I decided I would go visit her for New Years. I spent two months planning the trip. I had to find somebody to go with me as a personal attendant. I had to find a power wheelchair and an accessible van to rent in Colorado. I had to figure out a way to fund my entire trip myself. I spent all of my free time working on this project. I pulled it off in the end, and had a fantastic New Years.

After returning, and realizing that I still had six more months of school, I knew I had to do something else to make the latter half of my year bearable. After talking it over with my guidance counseler, Owen Bradley and my family, I decided to put together an assembly for the entire school. It was a radical idea to me at first, but then I realized the school needed something radical in order to induce the changes I was looking for. Owen and I met a lot during January and February, and we found two other students who were willing to speak at the assembly. I put a lot of effort into planning for the assembly, and as the day grew closer, I became more and more passionate about it.

A week and a half before the assembly, I experienced the loss of a close friend. About four years ago, a young man named Craig began spending time with me after school and on the weekends. He was essentially my aide, but during that time, we became very close and developed a very strong friendship. He stayed around for about a year before moving to Burlington. In the beginning of this school year, however, he came back to Montpelier and moved into a carriage house we own near our house. He provided me with the distance from my parents that every teenager needs. We would do fun things after school and on the weekends. He was one of my best friends. In early February, however, he moved out of our carriage house in the middle of the night. He never mentioned a single word to us about it beforehand, and we haven't heard from him since.

That experience flipped my already skewed world upside down. I felt confused, angered, and dejected all at the same time. The only silver lining was that I was able to take all of the emotion it generated and apply it in the delivery of my speech. The assembly was an enormous success. It united the school community in a way I have never seen before. The response it received, that day and in succeeding days, was tremendous. I am currently trying to think of ways to keep reminding our community of that day and to encourage them to maintain the attitude which it induced.

When I spoke at the assembly, I was thinking that would be my contribution to our school. I knew it probably wouldn't solve all the problems our school had, but I thought if I spoke to the entire school, my own conscience would let up on me. I thought I would be able to accept the fact that I had done all I could to better my high school experience, and I thought that alone would make me feel better. I soon realized, however, that the assembly was not the culmination of all my efforts, but rather just the beginning. I had stirred things up at the school so people would be more accepting of differences in general, but now I had to show them on an individual basis why I, specifically, am worth hanging out with. I have made a lot of progress with this, but it is an ongoing battle, and one that is not always easy to fight.

During all this, I have also been thinking a lot about college. I have visited many schools, and I have found the one I want to go to. Over April break this year, my family and I went out to San Francisco to look at the University of California at Berkeley. I fell in love with it the moment I saw it. It has an excellent disabled students' program, and the campus is beautiful. The city of Berkeley is also my kind of city. The kind people and the free attitudes are so refreshing to me coming from the east coast. So, now I am working hard to make sure I will be academically prepared when the time comes to apply. I hope to major in English, and minor in computer science, or possibly take on a double major.

I subscribe to the idea that "that which does not kill you makes you stronger". I have undergone tremendously painful battles this year, but I believe I have learned and grown because of them. I learned a lot about dealing with people of all kinds, and I have acquired a level of confidence in myself which I did not have at the beginning of the year. While I wish some things had been different, I know that the things I learned the hard way this year will prove to be useful later in life.