Invisible Man

I remembered back when I was in intermediate school, there was this one girl that I had a huge huge huge (did I say huge?) crush on. I can still recall the first time I saw her. I was in the 7th grade at the time. I had just transferred to Aliamanu Intermediate School from Aiea Intermediate School because my family and I moved to a different school district. I arrived to my new school on my first day and one of the counselors escorted me to my homeroom class. When I walked through the door, I could feel everyone's eyes staring at me. It was not new to me because it was the same reaction I get whenever I go to a new school (my dad was in the military and we moved many times throughout my life). My homeroom teacher, Mr. Kobata greeted me, introduced me to my new classmates and guided me to my desk. The bell rang and the teacher checked his attendance list as he informed the class of the daily announcements. Afterwards, the class resumed to talking with one another and I even had the chance to talk with some of my classmates who were sitting around me. While I was talking with them and waiting for the bell to ring, I was observing the rest of my classmates all around the room. Then when I looked toward the right side of the room, there she was...

She long dark hair, gorgeous brown eyes and a smile that can easily melt your heart. The moment I saw her it felt like my heart skipping beats. Another thing that I noticed about her was her clothes. You see in Hawaii, the norm for majority of the girls here are are short shorts and spaghetti strap tops and slippers, but this girl did not wear that kind of attire. Instead, she wore a white Adidas shirt, dark blue Adidas sweatpants and Adidas cross trainers. Now from I can tell about her, I'm sure of two things. One, the most obvious was that she loves Adidas and two she was not like any other girl. When the bell rang, everybody picked up their books and backpacks and headed straight to their next class. If there was anything that I have learned on my first day in my brand new school was this. My favorite class was officially homeroom.

It turns out both of us had the same teachers, but we had them in different periods except for one, Physical Education (P.E.). When I arrived there, the teacher assigned me to the empty desk three desks in front of his desk. I looked around the room and recognized some of the faces of my classmates. Some were from homeroom while others were from my other classes. The class was about to begin and I noticed that the desk in front of me was empty. The bell was about to ring and there she was. She walked into the classroom, in a hurry and sat in the empty desk in front of me. At the moment, I felt like the luckiest guy in the world as though I could hear a church choir in the background singing Hallelujah. Besides homeroom, P.E. is now my other favorite class.

It's been a few months and I was pretty comfortable with my new school. I was making new friends and I was doing well in my classes. There was just one problem. I had not said a single word to the girl that I had a crush on. It is not that I don't want to. It's just that I was extremely shy and I could not muster courage to talk to her. At the same time, because I was unable to talk to her, I began to think that she does not notice me. Even if we are in same classroom or even sitting behind her in P.E. class, I felt as though I don't exist. This made me sad and I felt that I had no chance with the girl that I had a crush on. Feeling defeated I went home and crashed on my bed. I woke up an hour later and turned on the radio on the nightstand close to my bed. The previous song ended and another song was coming into rotation. The next song, I remember had a smooth and cool R&B vibe to it and immediately I enjoyed the feeling of the song. As the song continues the lyrics come to play and I began to listen to the lyrics. Immediately I felt a connection to the song because the song described exactly how I was feeling at the particular moment in my life. It was as though the radio airwaves was in tuned to what I felt. It was an amazing feeling.

It turns out that the song that I heard on the radio that day was "The Invisible Man" by 98 degrees. As soon as I found out who sang it, I immediately went to the store and bought their self-titled debut. I rushed home and popped the CD in my old CD boombox, played track 3 ("Invisible Man") and put it on repeat. I think I listened to that song 100 times that night. Eventually I turned off the repeat on the boombox and began listening to the rest of the record. One of the things I really enjoyed about listening to the record is the sound. Like I mentioned earlier, the vibe was very smooth and cool. It has a strong R&B appeal with some influences of soul and pop. As I was listening to the record, I began to think of R&B artists like Jon B, Boyz II Men and Babyface because their sound was almost similar to theirs. Plus, the fact that the some of the songs on the album were written by Montell Jordan, Mario Winans and Robin Thicke, whom all three are R&B artists, it's no surprise that their presence contributed to their sound. Speaking of songs, all the songs on this record are memorable and although I enjoy listen to all of them, some of my favorites were "Was It Something I Didn't Say", "Take My Breath Away", "Dreaming" and of course "Invisible Man". Another thing I like about the album and it's probably one of the albums biggest strengths is the vocals. Nick, Jeff, Justin and Drew really showcased their vocal talents very well on this record. They boys were arranged according to their vocal type with Nick and Jeff as tenors, Drew as baritone and Justin as bass. This allows their vocals to blend perfectly and it sounds fantastic. Their vocals and the overall sound of the record meshed together very nicely. In general, 98 Degrees self-titled debut
provided a great listening experience for both R&B fans and even pop fans alike. On a personal note, this record was very special because it reminded me of a particular moment in my life and how my feelings connected with the music I was listening to. That's what made listening to it so memorable.

Now some of you are probably wondering if I ever got a chance to speak to the girl that I had a crush on. Well, I eventually did, but it did not turn out exactly how I wanted. It was the end of the school year and we all just go our year books. On one of the final days of the year, my friend took me year book and I ran after him toward my homeroom class. I ran and saw him giving my year to the girl that I like and pointing toward me. It turns out he had planned this all along and wanted to give to the girl that I like to sign. He figured that since I didn't have courage to ask her, he figured he'd do it for me. What a good friend, huh? She said hi with that wonderful smile of hers and awkwardly as usual I said hi. I was little embarrassed that I didn't have the nerve to ask her to sign my yearbook. She probably thought I was weird or something. After she was done signing, she gave my yearbook back to me and I looked inside she said "To Prince, have a great summer. P.S. Next time, if you want someone to sign your yearbook, ask yourself :)" Then she said to me and with that wonderful smile of hers again, "I will see you next year, okay?" Awkwardly I nodded with a little smile. Then she said bye and went off to catch the bus. In the end I couldn't help but smile and be a little hopeful because it made me realize something. All this time, she did notice me. She was just waiting for me to simply say "hi".