I left London.

I arrived in New York, this is my journey:

When I moved to Long Island New York (area not disclosed), I imagined it to be like any high school movie, cliche and cliquey. You would have the Drama geeks, the geeks, the populars, the jocks, the cheerleaders. I moved having no identity, I realised I could start again leave my closed off, posh girl, cold, stereotypical boarding school girl identity behind. However, I soon realised that I actually didn’t care and the person my school had nurtured me into being, may not have fit the classic American vibe, but I wasn’t American.

My loneliness was apparent as soon as I arrived at my new house, but I didn’t really mind, I was focused on achieving great SATs so it did not matter that I had essentially wasted my first year of A levels by moving, but I soon realised I was eventually going to be forced to leave my bed and meet new people, despite my intention being ignoring everyone and everything until I graduated and the move back to London for university, but I was fooling myself if I believed I could go unnoticed for a whole year.

The Town that I moved, I soon realised could be described as minuscule, especially in comparison to London and reminded my of an episode of ‘One Tree Hill’ or ‘Friday night Lights’, despite being in New York. There was about 10 restaurants on the high street and was nothing like anything I had experienced in London, or even at my time in the countryside.

For the first week I continued to revise, work hard, hang out with my brother who became my best friend and stay in my room (boring I know), but I wanted to keep my presence on the street limited. However it was inevitable living in a small town with a small population and a small variety of restaurants, people would begin to question who these British people were invading America. And here, begins my first proper encounter with High School life:

Me and my brother had decided that day, after about a week of living in America that we were going to a small Japanese restaurant, as we had not eaten sushi since we had arrived and were beginning to get withdrawal symptoms from avocado maki. We stuffed our faces as usual eating at an equivalent to 30 miles an hour and after half an hour receiving the check and heading to Ben and Jerry’s for an ice-cream.

This is where and when we encountered our first proper conversations with a group of high schoolers…

My initial interpretation that American teens were rude and confrontational were correct. This group of boys, who I later found out to be going into their junior year just like my brother, as soon as we had ordered ice-cream asked who we were. No Sorry, or please or polite language just a “who are you?”. This I remember immediately made me role my eyes and stereotype them as egocentric boys who were entitled. However, my brother’s relatively extroverted attitude, unlike me who would have rather walked out that shop, began to make conversation with them, leading us to discuss our future high school characteristics and characters, as well as discuss our move the reasoning behind it for a long time.

By the time I left, my initial impressions had changed, but not too fantastic boys who I admired but decent, charming boys who were obvious ‘players’. With the constant flirting from that night, I immediately understood what an mixed American High school and town was going to be like. I soon unfortunately realised that going under the radar as a ‘British senior girl’ was not going to be successful, and with the benefit of hindsight buy initial thoughts were accurate.

However, I left alone soon after, allowing my brother to socialise with his new peers, along with my melted ice-cream which forced to throw it in the bin as it was uneatable and an invitation to a ‘summer party’ that Saturday night for the future seniors and juniors in my new town.