Know Your Worth

08

Founder's Day had arrived after a blur of lectures, tutorials, study sessions in the library, essay assignments, readings and nights filled with little to no sleep.

Waking up in the early morning at July 30 was invigorating for me, simply because there were absolutely no lessons. None at all.

It made all the difference in my mood. I got up earlier than Kayla, which was a rarity.

I brushed my teeth, showered and put on my beige cashmere sweater and high-waisted, black jeggings.
Instead of leaving my hair in its regular high ponytail, I actually took the extra time to put it in a french braid.

The chocolate brown balayage that I'd gotten recently with Sam a fortnight ago looked really nice, and it made me feel a lot better about my appearance.

As much as I'd like to pretend that my appearance doesn't matter, putting in some effort in how I looked did make me feel a little more confident in big social situations like Founder's Day.

Even if I botched the small talk with others and completely embarassed myself with my stutter, at least my hair looked good and my outfit looked somewhat put together.

I decided to be a little more indulgent with my outfit, and took out my sacred black suede boots with ample heel- one of my more extravagant purchases, along with the beige cashmere sweater.

It felt good to be able to own a few lavish things. It might be materialistic, but being able to afford a few fancy things now and then did make me a little proud of my mom and myself for managing to achieve some sort of social mobility.

No longer were we on unemployment checks and food stamps and ratty, worn-out clothes from scavenging in charity shops. My childhood had been full of handouts from others, and the jealousy of seeing other kids being able to have higher quality bags, shoes, stationary, well-planned lunches and pocket money.

While my childhood did drill the importance of frugality in me, my earlier teenage years did allow me some semblance of luxury with my clothes and footwear finally being bought from actual retail stores and my school bag purchased from my middle school's bookstore instead of a hand-me-down from a neighbour.

Deciding to be even more fancy, I applied some very light makeup. Just a swipe of eyeliner, mascara and a light pink liquid lipstick.

I forwent my spectacles and opted to wear clear contacts instead. After a couple of failed attempts and watery eyes, I managed to pop my eye wide open enough to place the contacts on my cornea. The struggle to put on contacts was tedious and it always left my arms aching from holding them up for too long.

Kayla complimented my look, and it made me smile wider.

It was going to be a good day.

"Ready for Founder's Day?" I grinned.

"Obviously. If I had to code again, I was going to lose my mind,"

"You're a computer science major?"

"Yep. Statistics is my minor, and don't ask me why I chose them. I regret it, but I'm decent at them, so I guess I could do a lot worse. I'm still standing here, aren't I?" She shrugged a little too forcefully for a casual conversarion.

Well, it must be a touchy subject for her then. I made a mental note to not bring it up in the future.

We both went to the Parade Square together, meeting up with Sam and Troy on our way downstairs.

Troy was stuffing his face with a chicken burrito and Sam was, suprise suprise, drinking masala chai.

After a scrumptious breakfast consisting of a  bowl of fruit and a tall glass of hazelnut milk, we went to line up in the middle of the rows.

The middle part of the rows was the best place to stand. You're not at the very front to be noticed by the speakers on the stand, and you're not at the very back where you might as well be forgotten.

Sam and Kayla stood by either of my sides, with Troy next to Kayla.

Needless to say, the entire event of assembling the students was very noisy. It reminded me of the start of Orientation Week, where the noise was deafening enough to be a very intense form of static.

I could already feel a headache beginning to form.

Thankfully, we were allowed to use the chairs that were stacked at the walls after the first ten minutes of solemn standing for the school song and pledge.

The dean began prattling about Blackwell's prestige and accomplishments. Frankly, it was just him recycling the same speech from Fresher's Week but with a few modifications.

It was beyond boring, and others echoed the same sentiment with me when some started to shake their legs, use their phones, close their eyes or in my case, yawn a little and zone out.

After the speeches by the dean and the alumni, we were finally allowed to leave.

I was more than ready to have my cheat day of junk food and drinks, and maybe even watch the first few rounds of the ice hockey matches, just to see what the fuss was about.

Kayla disappeared with her own group of friends and Troy was talking to a bunch of guys at the corner of the student's lounge.

Sam and I went straight to queue for the buffet food, and piled our plates with eclairs, tiny sandwiches, small cube cheesecakes, creampuffs and mini chocolate chip cookies.

We even got chocolate milkshakes with whipped cream and sat comfortably in the plushy chairs.

Some of Sam's friends from her Linguistics lectures came over and said hi, and I unexpectedly hit it off with one of them.

Parineeti was a stunning, tall girl with the glossiest black hair and biggest hazel eyes.
I asked if she was a model, and she just laughed and shook her head.

She had a wicked sense of humour, and we both talked a lot about our love for fashion and beauty products. We exchanged numbers and promised to stay in touch.

I had the fleeting, sinking feeling that she might not actually mean what she said about wanting to see me again and was just doing that out of courtesy, but when she texted me and asked if I was free next Saturday did make me trust her a little.

After eating until we both started to feel the beginnings of a food coma, we trudged our way to the ice hockey rink.

Quite a lot of people were ready there, but the games hadn't started yet.

Not gonna lie, I was pretty excited. I'd never seen an ice hockey game before.

I couldn't wait!

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