This is what I love about the blog-o-sphere.
I get to know crazy smart people who are more clever than me, who constantly stumble upon brilliant ideas, and who share them.
Today’s Brilliant Idea, courtesy of Leanne, Clay, and Kris, is School Photo Day. Bloggers and blog-readers everywhere (it’s international!) are posting pictures of themselves, for better or for worse (mostly the former), in their most formative and/or awkward years growing up.
I managed to scrounge up a few old pictures, as well as one single solitary yearbook, for your viewing pleasure.
I started out as Data from The Goonies. For some reason, my hair was really, really thin until I was about three years old, and my mom, who feared I would be bald for the rest of my life, kept cutting it super short, apparently thinking that will thicken it. It must have worked, because now I have a mammoth head of hair.
Presenting: Data, as a girl in Kindergarten in south Alabama. See Exhibit: Hey, you guys!
Exhibit: Hey, you guys! / Data didn't have this rad turtleneck.
You would think being mistaken for a little boy until I was in second grade would have been enough to traumatize me into keeping my hair long forever and ever amen, but instead I developed a detachment to my hair and often grew it long, long, long only to chop it all off (see Exhibit: Mushroom Head).
Exhibit: Mushroom Head / Sophomore Year
I still have that hair-chopping mentality, only I’ve stopped going to the JC Penney’s to get it done, all for $10.
Luckily, I had that chain link fence removed from my mouth later that year, and my hair grows super fast, as evidenced in Exhibit: Sporty Spice.
Exhibit: Sporty Spice / Sweet Sixteen S is for Soccer (be jealous of my alliteration skillz)
If you look really closely, you’ll see a giant band-aid on my leg, just below my knee. But that’s a story for another post, and it is hilarious. Especially if you have a lax definition of “hilarious”.
Aaaaaand, there you have it. I do have my college yearbooks around here, but that somehow felt like cheating.
Hey, you guys! Share your School Photo Day posts in the comments!
Meet the Buttrams 
Nice! I was hoping you’d get up in this mix. You so rad JButt. Gotta get that bandaid story eh?
Totes. I like to keep you hanging like a run-on sentence wondering where the punctuation is gonna pop up Shooter McGavin wore sweater vests amen.
Haha, you’re so funny! Chain-link fence removed… I never thought my braces were that bad, although I was thankful to see them go. I think you’re beautiful in all your photos! I didn’t know they made college yearbooks. And, I agree with Clay, you should share your story – I’m sure it’d be hilarious! Besides, it doesn’t take much for me to laugh. Thanks for swinging by my page earlier (http://www.newlifecalu.com/?p=734)!
Thanks, Kim! Your tweets inspired me to dig deep…in my closets and unpacked boxes for those gems. I hated my braces. Of course I never gave up popcorn, so I popped those brackets off my teeth almost monthly, and my orthodontist would tighten those suckers everytime he had to replace one. Payback, I guess.
Oh the haircuts…I actually asked for a Dorothy Hamill haircut. What was I thinking? Probably the same twisted thoughts that prompted me to shave half of my head and sport a rat tail in high school. Oof.
Thanks for sharing your story (and for stopping by earlier!)
Oh, the half-shave! I was never brave enough. I played soccer with a girl who shaved half her head and I thought she was so badass. I figured it was my full head of hair that was keeping me from soccer glory.
I too sported a rat tail. I’m shuddering.
Hi Jessica. Love your pictures. I had the mushroom haircut, too, for a while. Toni Tenille started that one, if I recall correctly. Looking forward to the band-aid story.
Thanks, Piper! And I have to tell you how much I loved your description of Holmes. Ambiguously ethnic is always a good description.
You are adorable as you are now.
But in case you worry I’m getting sappy, I’d like to comment publicly on our Words with Friends game. Talk about an If You Know What I Mean game. Hilarious. Glad I’m sharing it with you. It’s my first time, iykwim.
Hahaha awesome. And I love that I’m your first. Ahem.
You may not have a particular attachment to your hair, but I *know* you have an attachment to your hair dryer. Since Clay pegged me as a Goonies castmember today, I guess I’m in good company! Thanks for stopping by my blog and for joining us on School Picture Day.
P.S. Looking forward to the bandaid story. 😛
I know, it’s paradoxical, isn’t it. And The Goonies? Only one of the best little movies from our childhood. Good company indeed.
Hey Data! You got it up there! (TWSS!) Yay! ANd I am so jealous that you are playing “Words with Friends” with Leanne! Didn’t we talk about doing a IYKWIM game? Dang it! Take a screen shot of it when you are all done! I hope you are laughing with every move.
Great pix.
xoxoRASJ
We totally discussed it. Let’s do it. And great idea about the screenshot. Will definitely take one just for you. Leanne plays like a pro, despite it being her first time, iykwim.
So Data from Goonies is better than Data from Star Trek? I didn’t think so, either.
Because these have to be appreciated by the world at large, I’m gonna self-plug my own awkward photos (SPOILER ALERT: I had a mullet).
sorry forgot the link: http://afterfb.blogspot.com/2011/06/mullets-et-al-chronicle-of-bad-hair-and.html
Thank you for sharing.
Truly. Thank you. That mullet was spectacular.
Data from the Goonies…
Mushroom head….
I’m dying!
My mother and grandmother subscribe to the same hair theory as your mom. They have always longed for me to chop my daughter’s hair off.
This weekend, while we were all together, my mother commented that she LOVES my nephews hair. It is long and bushy and in his eyes.
She was serious.
I said, “Mom. You beg me to cut Karly’s hair shorter than that all the time.”
She looked at me like this was an insane non-sequitur and then sipped her wine.
And therein lies your explanation.
Hah! Your mom’s response? Perfect. I will adopt this you’re-insane-where’s-my-wine response to many things in life from here on out.
I’m going to assume my hair was on its way to thickness all on its own. I had a teacher in high school who used to grab my ponytail whenever she passed me in class and cry, “It’s a rope!”
Yeah, she was an art teacher.
Aw, great photos!
Until VERY recently I had no idea school photo day even existed.
So I’m unprepared.
That’s my story, and I’m sticking with it.
On an annual basis. 🙂
Lucky you, Clay has made it School Photo Week. 🙂
Aren’t you photographers supposed to be comfortable around cameras? Or was that behind them…
D-oh! How did I manage to leave this comment on the wrong post???!!! Did I mention I’m feeling a bit woozy?! 😦
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OUCH!!!
I’m not going to lie… I skipped over a large portion of the wound description… feeling a bit woozy…
(as you’ve probably guessed I didn’t do very well in first-aid classes)
🙂
You probably just skipped all the way to the next post. 😉 It’s okay, I still can’t touch my scar, over ten years later, because it makes me feel a little lightheaded.