The Secret Survival Guide for the Undercover Freshman

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Burn after Reading

First off, I know what you're thinking (No, this book is not psychic.) This is not another journal/diary/oh-woe-is-me sob story book that might have accidentally have found somehow placed between Percy Jackson and Twilight in the library while you hide from the lunchroom because you don't fit in or have any friends.

This book is for your own good, my innocently mistaken freshman. You think you're all that and a bag of chips? Well, you're not. Sorry, it's the truth. This is the book you've been waiting for; this is the book that will save your freshly chewed butt from becoming extremely well acquainted with the slime in the bottom of the trashcans outside.

The Rules

I want to be the first to welcome you into the secretive society that you have just inducted yourself into by opening this book. For the time being I'll be your semi-metaphorical fairy god-person and you can call me...Cheeto. Don't ask questions, especially in this place known as high school. That will be your first lesson you must learn as you enter the gleaming tiled halls of your resident torture chamber.

Rule # Uno. Don't ask Questions...EVER.

Especially to the teachers outside of the classroom environment, there may just be a method to their madness or they've finally gone mad, but I'll leave that up to you to decide.

WARNING: Approach with caution!

Now if you're anything like me; you'll be showing up to school and will see everybody that you've ever met, talk to, or even befriended and then was dumped for a better friend since Kindergarten, but still have no 'close' friends. So I'll summarize the groups that you will encounter in the morning Cafeteria where the teachers round up all of us students like the wild hormonal animals that we truly are.

You've got the Preps

JocksCheerleadersPopular peopleOverall super perfect perky snotty people

These people you WILL encounter sometime during your stay in high school. I'm sorry to tell you this, but it's the truth. To avoid a majorly awkward beating, verbal smack, or overall embarrassment from these people, try to avoid them. If you're given the chance to somehow use big words in front of them, do IT! This will slow them down and decrease their comeback speed by like 20%, just enough time to run away!

Example: The cheerleaders that surround you in Algebra 1 finally have taken witness to your awesome knowledge of math that you've actually taken the time out of your day to hear the teacher say the answer 15 billion times in a row and answer the same question correctly. They turn to you and start trying to suck up to you so they can cheat off of your test coming up in the next 15 minutes.

Cheerleader A: Geez, you're so smart.

Cheerleader B: Yeah, how'd you become so smart?!

This is where you come in saying something like "Oh, it's nothing. I just think outside of the quadrilateral parallelogram." Then don't say another word. They may just figure it out; if they do, they'll keep cheating off of you no matter what!

You've also got the Athletes

Football playersLacrosse playersSoccer playersBasketball playersetc.

These people you really don't have to worry so much because they can basically be anybody, like a ninja! But it's still best to keep an eye out on the football players just in case their last brain cell decides it can't take it anymore and commits suicide. You might be able to sell it on E-bay if you get lucky.

Band Geeks

These people you can pretty much point out of a crowd with either by their toilet paper white skin or the boiled lobster look of their skin from band camp (enter joke here). These people make good company, but if you ever encounter an odd conversation about something utterly perverted just nod and smile, my friend. Nod and smile like you like it!

Nerds

If you're really up for a challenge then it would be looking for these guys. Some of them hide in plain sight and other times it just might be the person sitting next to you. You know the one you've been ogling at all class period long? Oh yeah, that one.

They're almost as sneaky as the athlete's and just as proud of it too. You can find them everywhere and anywhere depend on their nerdiness.

The last growing group that you might find in the average American lunch room would be the...

Manga Freaks

Now if you did not know this already, manga is a form of Japanese comics that are often not made for your kid siblings' eyes. They are widely popular and the fans that you find in high school are most likely die-hard fans like you are over you're Pokémon cards that you still keep under your bed.

Manga Fans are notorious for squealing like little girls, arguing which character or manga is better, and holding a full out trade market faster than you can say 'Yaoi fan girls unite!'.

General Population

There are many, many other subgroups in the cafeteria on the first day of school but too many for one measly little freshman to understand until they are fully explained or, better yet, experienced. Thus I introduce you to...

Rule #II: Choose Carefully

It's almost like one of those pop quiz questions that your teacher mentions the answer while she's handing out the test and you're not really paying attention but now you REALLY wished you had.

Rule #2 kind of rolls back onto Rule #1 because since you can't ask questions without getting death glares, evil eyes, or labeled social outcast, you have to choose SUPER carefully.

Go with what your gut tells you and don't go with the school fried chicken (Trust me, there's a reason why there are no birds around the school on chicken day. Just don't do it, man.) Seriously, just go with what you want and make sure not to conform to one particular group's idea of what you should be because it's considered cool.

Choose a group that suits you!

Friendly Fire! Don't kill me!

Also it helps to befriend seniors and upperclassmen in general (since you're just a freshman that means everyone's an upperclassman). Aren't you lucky? Here's a helpful hint when dealing with the upperclassmen, don't show fear but know that you ARE on the bottom of the food chain next to single celled organisms and the gum on the bottom of your desk.

Okay, now I can explain to you the webs of the school. One friend from a group, if you play your cards just right, can deal you 15 friends, all from different groups.

Example: Say you meet a friend, who we'll call Yaoi Princess (I'm evoking rule #1!), Yaoi Princess will then introduce you to her friends Edward Stalker, Mayola, Skittles, and the Hulk. Then these friends introduce you to their friends and so on so forth and now aren't you just the social butterfly!

Hiding Your Super Genius Lair

I hate to tell you this, my friend, but the bathroom is taken along with the Olympic sized swimming pool on the roof of the school with the secret elevator entrance in the library. So when you're looking for a place for your lair, try something original like...your locker but you'll have to move it every year and make sure to remember the combination.

If you're looking for something a little more permanent, may I interest you in using your own little bedroom? Just make sure younger siblings and nosy parental units can't find anything like that dinky little diary you have hidden under your pillow or your mattress.

Make sure to be imaginative and personalize it to the most terrifying possibilities! Those are the best, evil and menacing! Just don't over-do it, leave room for improvement for the rest of the things you might learn in high school, you never know what that might be.

Trashcan sanitation

Now a sensitive subject to any self-respecting nerd who has met the wrong end of the trashcan so many times they can tell you the exact days that the janitors' actually take out the trash. When it comes to bullies, don't be the innocent kid on the sidelines but don't try to play Superman either or else that trashcan might get a little fuller. But the number one thing you don't want is to be is the first one in the trash can.

If you find yourself being hunted down by the school bully, don't be the fat kid behind the skinny tree even though that's a totally awesome hiding spot that I wouldn't mind having. So keep that in your back pocket just in case but have a REALLY good hiding place where they won't be able to find you, like the library!

Wait that's why you're in here! I knew you were smart; you don't need me after all! Wait, you do? Okay, I'll keep going just because I'm that kind of a nice person, and I like you kid.

No bully would dare enter a library unless they wanted to be stripped of their bullying privileges by the Godfather for having a brain! For those that aren't fast enough, you'll be glad to know that your school (hopefully) cleans their trashcans with the utmost care and cleanest sanitation product available to the el cheapo school budget that they have and maybe someday you'll find that retainer that you lost last week. There's always hope!

Don't make me puke!

Another thing that is ultimately inevitable in here is stupid, drooling, hormone raged, puppy love. For those who have yet to get to that section in Health or their Biology class, this is when boy meets girl, girl falls for boy, boy breaks girls' heart, and the rest is like shampoo. Lather, rinse, repeat. That was just the basics, if you ever find yourself in this situation or any situation involving a person you like, don't like, or might possibly like, I always say deal with the consequences later, and this leads to another lovely rule...

Rule #C: Don't do anything stupid

Please! For the sake of the quarterbacks last brain cell! Don't do anything so stupid that it ends up with you on the Prime Time News, hanging from your underwear somehow on the school's flagpole with a helicopter flying over. Just don't do it man, you've got to be smarter than that, but hey! You never know. And how does this relates to teen wannabe relationships? I have NO IDEA!

Example of possible date asking situation:

For the sake of this example, we'll call the asker in this situation Peanut Butter. You meet Peanut Butter in math, away from the cheerleaders, and Peanut Butter likes you. The two of you talk for a while and become well acquainted and he eventually asks you out. Happily Ever After, right? I don't know, I wasn't part of that fairy tale!

Another Example could be Peanut Butter just showing up out of random and asking for a date, then begging, then if you don't say yes by then, begging turns to stalking, and that turns to even creepier things. By that point, I think it might have been best to put the poor protein paste out of its misery and just say yes already. That would almost be like torture!

Choosing an Alter Ego

Alter Egos, while being an undercover freshman, may seem hard because you think people will just look at you and in that instant when your eyes meet theirs a radar somewhere in their head will go off screaming 'FRESHMEAT! SIC 'EM SENIORS!' and you're right! The key about blending in and having an alter ego is not caring what they think.

Now, you may be a nerd but on the inside your super cool hotshot alter is tearing through that last barrier to finally be released! Remember, it's always the quiet ones. I don't know what the quiet ones are but I just know that it's them so stop pestering me about it! Gosh, stupid freshmen. Oh, I'm sorry! I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to the one reading over your shoulder, I swear!

Another thing that can help is a new wardrobe. It'll feel awkward at first but the alter ego is like a new layer of skin growing, it takes some time to get use to. Then the next thing you know you're meeting people named Mayola, and Hulk, and Yaoi Princess, heck you may even meet me!

Rule #Δ: It could happen

The Clothes under Yours

No, I am NOT talking about your Thursday underwear that you just so happen to be wearing on a Friday. (#1, not asking.) I'm talking about your super awesome alter ego, super spy, hero clothes that you 'happen' to have under your own.

Can you imagine, suddenly an innocent kitten gets stuck in a tree while you're walking by, look there's Emo Man! Screamo music playing in the background as you climb the tree using razor blades as grappling hooks and saving the kitten which then magically turns into you super awesome robot snow leopard! (#4)

Anyway, CHEETO! BACK AWAY FROM THE DAYDREAM AND NO ONE GETS HURT! Sorry! Any who, when you're picking out your superhero costume, try to make sure that there isn't some obscure other superhero that just so happens to have the EXACT same costume as you. Don't you just hate when that happens?

Gadgets, Gotta have 'em

Just like Emo Man's razor blade grappling hook, Batman's awesome utility belt, and Ironman's shiny suit, we all need to have a little technology to save the day; in your pathetic case, surviving a single day of high school.

The average nerd can get you started up if they're really geeky about what they do. PDA's, cell phone, games, high voltage radiation gun; you know the usual. (They help you stay sane sometimes while waiting for your bus in the afternoon if you haven't found a friend yet). Or help you defend your school against its archenemy, a giant, city destroying robot!

Example: The Robot crushes the wall you're sitting next to in history class and wakes you from your mid-afternoon nap and you were having a good dream too! You get mad at this oversized Christmas toy and pull out some random tinker toy that your nerd friend set you up with.

He told you not to press the red button but you did it anyway, and suddenly the giant robot is now a couple of screws and bolts taking up space in your school's parking lot and you get a detention slip for use of technology in the classroom. GOOD JOB!

Ending on a Sappy Note

You want to know something freshman, you and I are very much alike. I mean, I wrote this, you're reading it, tada! Similar interest! But what I want to warn you is that there are evils in high school; just don't get lured into them. Listen to the Cheeto when I say high school may be Hell for you, it may be a refuge from somewhere else, or it may just be another place to lay your head and get some shut-eye, but remember the rules. Live by them. Use them. They work, believe it or not.

Uno: Seriously, Don't Ask

II: Choose Wisely

C: PLEASE! Don't do anything stupid!

Δ: Yep, It could happen

When you're no longer a freshman and you've actually survived the first year, always remember there 3 more to go. Haha, there's a happy thought huh? When you meet a new lost freshman, do ME a favor since I imparted my ultra-super-valuable knowledge onto you, pass it along!

Signed The-Notoriously-Awesome-and-Elusive-Teenage-Superspy,

Cheeto!

~If Found, Return to the weird kid in the back of the class~

~ (He's my decoy) ~