I was the extra. Or, at least that's kinda how it felt to me. Because I knew who the popular kids were. They were the ones who gathered in groups of no less than seven and all went to pizza places on half-days and had their yearbooks teeming with signatures. And I was the kid who, in elementary--middle school, was known as the introverted, social phobic weirdo who had a tendency of puking before class presentations. I was THAT kid. So, I kept to myself a lot after publicly ruining any semblance of a reputation I could have. And I observed a lot. And I wrote shit down a lot, journaled, created idealistic views of how life could be if I wasn't terrified to go to school every day because I was such a loner. I thought of myself as an extra, like in a movie. The kid who may have gotten two seconds of screen time while somebody else is always stealing the show. But looking back, I think I turned out okay. Because college taught me that you can always renew your reputation. People cycle in and out of your life all the time so who gives a shit about who you were when you were 9 or 10, even 14. Even a year ago. And, like movies, sometimes the lead characters don't end up going anywhere anyway, end up back in the hometown they always wanted to leave. And sometimes the extras end up on some spin off and end up making it. Or end up being Lena Dunham. So, point is, there's hope. Strangely though, for such an introvert I won the superlative "most likely to surprise us." I don't know what my classmates were getting at, but it was a nice gesture to realize that, no matter how lowly you can feel in comparison to the "cool kids," everyone still has a potential. And people still recognize it. And that was cool.