By Jenny Brundin
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kuer/local-kuer-954637.mp3
Salt Lake City, UT – Transferring to a new high school is hard. Especially when the new school is about 56 times larger than the one you're coming from. And when your only memories of public school are how much you were bullied. Over the next two days, we'll plunge back into high school, in all its anxious, awkward and exuberant glory.
Tonight, there's one thing on 17 year old Rhea Hermann's mind: her big day tomorrow, her first day at a new high school. She digs her class schedule out of her back-pack and goes over the list of classes: Voice, AP English, Spanish, Chemistry, Algebra, Theater, Ballet and American History. Rhea, a junior, has decided to transfer to a new school, the School for Performing Arts that's part of Highland High, which has a population, nearly 1800 kids.
"I'm a very shy person in general," said Rhea. " While I do want to interact with people - I do see this new school as a sea of faces I get to know but at the same time, I don't know how to approach these people, like what do I do? "
Rhea's most comfortable alone, reading, drawing, writing, and thinking creative thoughts. Or chatting with her parents or best friend on-line, a teen-aged girl from California whom she's met several times. Rhea's basement bedroom is black. Completely black. But two of the walls are coated in black chalkboard paint, so she can scribble colorful designs, pictures, and notes. The obligatory teen rock and roll poster features Rasputina, her favorite band, also known as the Traveling Ladies' Cello Society.
Their lyrics are quirky, rife with historical allegories. They write about the Victorian era a lot, which Rhea fine.
"I'm kind of a geeky kid in general and I really like Victorian type clothing and so that and cyber-Goth are wonderful," said Rhea.
Cybergoths wear primarily black clothes, sometimes with a neon accent. Rhea's got plenty of Victorian style black tights, black vests, and long black skirts. She's a little too modest for fishnet stockings and lace, preferring bloomers and over the knee wool socks. She rummages through thrift stores, putting together unconventional styles, like steampunk.
"It's a clothing style based a lot on the industrial revolution," said Rhea.
It's a 19th century look that may include a time piece, goggles, or industrial aprons. It might make you look, says Rhea, like you grew out of a clock or some other machine. Tall and pencil thin, Reah stands out in a crowd. Her wardrobe, intellect and independence made an impression at her old school, Realms of Inquiry.
"I just felt like,'Oh what are we going to do without Rhea!?" said Rachel McKeen, Rhea's literature teacher at Realms of Inquiry.
McKeen and other teachers were crushed to hear Rhea wasn't coming back for 11th grade. But Rhea says she was going stir crazy after several years there, and McKeen says she was ready for a change.
"I really think it was a self challenge," said McKeen. "Because I know she said a lot of people say you won't like it you shouldn't try that, you won't fit it, you won't be as comfortable, but she takes on challenges."
But Rhea wasn't always ready to take on challenges. When she arrived at Realms five years ago, one teacher describes her as tiny, almost gaunt, and vulnerable. She's just come from a public elementary school where the bullying was severe and constant. She was known as thumb-sucker' and four eyes. The teachers, Rhea says, didn't seem to notice or care that she spent a fair amount of time crying in the bathroom.
"It was too the point where I wouldn't go outside at recess anymore because I didn't like being around people anymore," she said.
Her family eventually, scraped together the money, to send her Realms, a small, protected environment where she thrived and grew stronger. But Rhea's early experiences in elementary school still haunt her.
" I hated that school and so I'm a little nervous but I think that my high school experience, I know I was very socially awkward back then, I know I'm still pretty socially awkward, I think I've improved in my ways a little more, and I think I'll be able to survive high school," said Rhea.
Rhea "shadowed" Highland High last spring - that's where you take a tour and observe classes.
"I found that when I shadowed I was claustrophic and agoraphobic and the same time," Rhea said.
Compared to her old school, Highland was...
"So massive," said Rhea.
The walls, Rhea says, were gaping, and she felt small and insignificant. Her friend told her that feeling goes away after a few months. Teenagers often have one perception of themselves and their surroundings, while adults have quite another. While Rhea describes herself as shy, and says someone recently described her as a wallflower, her old teachers see her as anything but.
"I think she just doesn't know that she's not a wall-flower," laughed Jim Snyder, Rhea's humanities and philosophy teacher at Realms. He found her engaging, at the center of activities, fun and eccentric. Which she is. She sometimes acknowledges you with a cat's meow. But Rhea seems unaware of how others may interpret her eccentricities, and that makes Rhea, well, Rhea.
"I might wear some of my tutus to school at some point," said Rhea, as she digs through her drawer stuffed with black clothes, thinking about what she'll wear on the first day. "And this shirt I really like, God, I have so much stuff, I have this jester hat I'm going to wear, and we're going to spike my hair in hard-core Goth for picture day."
Rhea's excited, nervous, and optimistic about her new life at a big public high school, something she says, she's only seen on the big screen.
"I'm looking forward to meeting new people," Rhea said. "And experiencing something that I've only seen on Disney channel and wondering what it's like, if it's true or not, I kind of want a little romance, maybe a bit more romance than I have in my life."
Tomorrow, Rhea's first day at school.