High school brings many challenges. Maintaining a friendship seems to be the hardest.

I had my friends from elementary and junior high school. We were ready for the big kids.

But when ninth grade came, I noticed my friends started to treat me differently. I stopped being invited to parties and being told what was going on at school. I didn’t understand that my friends had been giving me a hard time because I started to branch out and do different things, like joining student government, going to class on time and keeping up with my homework.

I was considered a nerd -- and not the cool kind. I wore glasses and didn’t wear my backpack as a fashion statement. I wore it to carry my books.

Having advanced classes and becoming class president might be cool to some people, but to my friends, I was violating the creed of high school. It seems like I had to be a slacker to be down with them.

Were these still my friends? Cause it sure didn’t feel like it.