Some kids are cool kids, and others are not. Some, through a combination of expensive Gap dresses and older siblings teaching them premature maturity, are popular. Other kids bring Russian sardines for lunch and write "I Love Mother" on Valentine's day cards, and those kids are called dorks. I belonged to the second category, and while it wasn't my fault that I only learned how to speak English at ten years old, I take full responsibility for wearing a homemade beret and men's sunglasses with my Barbie's bracelet as a nose ring to school. I was a naive dork who trusted wholeheartedly, believed in Santa far longer than most kids, thought she had super powers at fucking fourteen years old, and got beat up and bullied for it repeatedly. I practiced my jazz routine in the field at lunch to the laughter and pointing of other kids, played Lion King with the Nicaraguan kids while my classmates learned how to French Kiss, and spent most of my free time staring off in the distance, wondering why snow is so cold, and why I couldn't fly. I spent a long time blaming my freakish ways on my immigrant status, but as the years wore on, I've slowly come to accept the fact that really, it was just
me.
