Looking Back Now, It Makes Me Laugh

If I'm going to talk about somewhere in Pittsburgh, I might as well start with what I know best: good ol' Mt. Lebanon, a suburb of the city about 15 minutes away from the heart of downtown. 
Lebo, as residents call it, has been my home for as long as I can remember. Seven elementary schools, two middle schools and one high school. Even with that many schools- and that many students- the municipality still seems small to me, maybe because it's all I know... or maybe because when you live there, you don't really ever leave, hence how the school earned the nickname "The Bubble." 

For at least the last two years of high school, students spend everyday complaining about Lebo: "Man this place sucks, I can't wait to be out on my own." "Yeah college is gonna be crazy, dude, I'm totally getting out of here." We talk big game about how we're going to go to college in California or Arizona or even Florida. The truth of the matter is, most of us go to Penn State or Pitt. I can shamefully admit that I was one of those kids a year ago. 

Looking back, I realize:
1. how much I complained and
2. that if I was in my parents shoes, I probably would have hated me.
I mean, how ungrateful can a kid be? Mt. Lebanon provides a great education, is a safe, beautiful town and honestly has everything a high school student could want. I think something else Mt. Lebanon instills in people is a sense of entitlement, something that needs to stop. We think college will be the easiest transition ever and that we won't ever struggle. I guess Lebo protects you from a lot of the bad stuff a good amount of school districts face. I know I felt like that and college was a pretty big culture shock. Yes, I still live in a college town, but this isn't anything like the class of 500 and some affluent, white kids that I graduated with. 

Lebo made me who I am today. It gave me my best friends, my education, helped me realize my passion of acting, my home, the best and worst memories of high school really.  I remember that first time I went on a date at Sesame Inn (the BEST Chinese restaurant ever), or that time we spent all night at the galleria, a mall for old people, waiting for multiple Harry Potter releases drinking coffee and running around. So many of the memories I'll be telling my children and grandchildren about occurred in the town that I desperately wanted to leave.

I told you we push each other around.
Yes, this was about a month ago.

So what if our field had MRSA and our pipes were infected with asbestos and the school is falling to pieces? I still love every single piece of that broken town. There's a reason the surrounding school districts HATE Mt. Lebanon and to me it's quite obvious: we're the best.
Late nights on Washington Road eating at Aladdin's or drinking coffee from Aldo's, Homecoming, Prom, Snowball, boatride, running around bird park, way too much Starbucks coffee, spending hours in Market District or Trader Joe's pushing each other around in carts, the Greek Food Festival, Panera dates, stalking Emma Watson in the summer of 2011 and getting kicked off of school property because it's after ten (the cops literally have nothing better to do) define my four years of high school-- and I wouldn't take any of it back. 

Yes, I'm leaving out the bad parts, like the time the third floor lockers flooded, or the mouse that lives in the theatre department, or that time someone drop kicked the principal, but that's all in Lebo fashion: ignore the bad. We don't want anyone bursting our bubble after all.