I come from a suburb of Albany, NY called Guilderland. It’s not the most populated suburb, but not the countryside either but pretty darn close to it. There are farms here and there but nothing big, which makes Guilderland a really boring place to live in. My name is Tian Xia but I go by Max simple reason being everyone has a hard time pronouncing it. Incase you were wondering, I didn’t just decide to call myself that name.

When I was attending elementary school, a teacher had a lot of trouble sounding off Tian because quite frankly, no English word comes close to the pronunciation. Sure she tried her best, but incidentally, the year before me, there was another Asian, perhaps Chinese kid named Max. One accident after another, I eventually got used to being called Max so the name stuck with me for that year. However, what I didn’t expect is that she included my name on my transcripts from then on. Instead of using Tian “Max” Xia which symbolizes a nickname, she used Tian (Max) Xia which meant that was my middle name. It wasn’t until my freshman year of high school where I discovered this accident and took note of it. By then, I’ve already grown accustom to the name, but still used Tian on official documents. Getting my name changed back wasn’t easy. One form after another, the school treated it as an official name change without a lawful agreement. I tried contacting my elementary school but apparently they either changed their name or closed. After struggling with this accident for a couple of months, the school finally changed my name on their records and that was that.

In high school, I was shy in the beginning but got over that within a year. I didn’t have many achievements, and I’ll be honest about this, I was lazy. I had no motivation. My parents let me push myself and do my own thing when high school started and I just did the bare minimum. Sure I sustained a 90ish average, but that was pretty much my goal and didn’t take much work to achieve it either. Most teachers despised me because I wouldn’t pay attention in class and ignored their authority and yet I still get decent grades. The ones that realized I didn’t have to try hard liked me a lot and let me slide with things as long as I kept my grades up. By senior year, senioritis kicked in and it hit me hard, half way through the year I faced suspension because I didn’t like a class called Forensics. It was taught by one of the most bipolar teachers I’ve ever met and I was scared of him more than I hated the class. He wrote me up numerous times for not attending class and in the third quarter, I was excused/skipped his class more often than I went. That got me in a lot of trouble, I didn’t need the class to graduate and by that point I was already accepted into Penn State so I didn’t do work for that class, period. Suspension meant that my parents would be contacted and I wasn't about to let that happen, they have left me alone since high school and it was good and I knew if I caused any ruckus, they’d ruin the rest of my year and summer. I had to do something, so by mid fourth quarter, I forced myself to attend every class and excuse myself once or twice a week so at least I’m there for half of the time. I still didn’t do any work and when the year ended, I got a 23 in the class. Score.

Learning the tricks of the trade in education isn't easy. It takes a lot of trials and failures. While reading TowleyBlogNarrative, I identified myself to a lot of his behaviors. Just the general rebel without a cause sort of ideal that stuck to me for a few years before finally snapping out of it in time for high school. Treating people right is an important skill to have, and like Towley, I learned that in high school, the phrase "treat others like how you want them to treat you" is really true. You hear these phrases all the time but never take the time to think about it, but if you experience it enough, you'll realize it's not just crap your parents say to you, it's life.

Reading LaxerGregNarrative, I share the same thoughts on the senior year. It seems like my senior year was the best year of high school and neither junior or sophmore compared to it. Living through senior year so fast, I regret not knowing most of the people that became my best friends. Looking back now, I should probably throw myself out more in college, unforunately, as LaxerGreg says, "It’s a shame that I haven’t even made friends with people on my floor yet. It seems everyone just does their own thing."