Aashvi is a normal looking teenage girl from India now living in the United States. She is smart, has a good relationship with her parents and little brothers but she is tired of all of the moving that she has experienced in her school years. Her parents work for the government, and they have moved a lot in her lifetime. But Aashvi realizes that she is not her mother. Making new friends is difficult for her and she spends most of her time feeling smart, but isolated. She isn’t outgoing and she doesn’t have the personality of the other women in her family, but this year she is determined to have a happy and positive experience at her new school. She has decided to take a deep breath and jump off the ledge by…making eye contact and smiling at everyone on the school bus stop. This may seem like a small step but for her, it is monumental. Who knows, this first step could turn into a conversation and then into a friendship. Friendship is something that Aashvi has not had a lot of in her life. Her parents moved too many times and too fast for Aashvi to ever build those relationships. Today is going to be different. We will be able to see the true introvert blossom. This is a coming-of-age story that shares with us the very real experiences of teenagers every day, they feel awkward, like they stand out for all the wrong reasons and sometimes all they want it to disappear. For Aashyi it may only take one day on the bus, one person sitting down and her finding the nerve to actually speak to them that changes the course of her year and potentially her life. Our hope is that within this story we see the simplicity of a smile, a conversation, and hopefully a lifelong friendship. *Heritage of performer may be changed to fit any performer with publisher permission.
A Lesson in Smiles
The most stressful thing about the first day of school depends greatly on if you have been attending school in this district for all or some of your life. Even as I stood on the bus stop this morning I watched as other people my age gathered around the bus stop so excited to see each other. It made it seem like their summer had been years long instead of months. I tried to smile and make eye contact with the groups of teenagers but when you're on this outside looking in you're really on the outside trying to look in. It really is just like that. I can see them; they're standing a couple of feet away from me but when I look at them and smile I know that we have made eye contact and yet no one smiles back at me, it feels like they can't see me. So, it's the first day of school, it's my first day in a new school, and if you haven't gathered from looking at me, I don't look like everybody else here.