so, some of my friends seeing this might be thinking, why sklique? it’s sort of a not-so-secret secret name of mine for around 10 years now.
when i was in middle school, i was a part of my school’s gifted program for reading and english. in the program, a group of students in my grade had the same teacher for a block period every year of middle school. this meant that myself, my classmates, and one teacher spent time together every school day for three years. while our other classes separated the group, included other students, and changed each semester, many of our schedules shared more than just ELA and some of us spent our entire days together.
naturally, the structure of this program created quite a close knit group of kids. many of my closest friends today were in that class with me 10 years ago. our teacher encouraged this closeness, and we all got to know each other very well. there were days when we spent the entire block going around and sharing stories, jumping from one topic to the next. i’m sure that my family would be horrified to hear the details i shared to my entire class, but it was just so natural for us all.
one day, a friend in that class shared a story where her and her older siblings had convinced their youngest sister that most (maybe all) words ended in a silent letter “q”. in my memory, we all found this hilarious and somehow i ended up signing most of my papers in that class with a q at the end of my last name.
sometime later, i think i was setting up my own profile on my brother’s old xbox 360, and i needed a gamer tag. “sklique” stuck out in my mind as interesting, and probably not taken because to others it looks like nonsense. since then, it has been my a name i use for certain social medias that i want to be slightly less connected to my identity. i’m not looking for total anonymity here, but some would be nice.
looking back at that class now, as i am about to finally graduate college, i am nothing but grateful for it. in middle school when everything different about you is “weird”, that class was a place where i could be myself a bit more. so, keeping this name kind of feels like an homage to my 13-year-old self in a small way. in a way, im making my own space to be myself again, and letting myself be a little odd.