My Bolsa Grande High School Experience: ASB, Dance, Mr. Bolsa, and Finding My Voice

By Jeremy Melodious | Bolsa Grande High School Class of 2015

Sometimes I still have dreams about the Bolsa Grande High School cafeteria.

I am being completely serious.

My brain could revisit graduation, winning Mr. Bolsa, performing in front of the entire school, or becoming ASB President. Instead, it occasionally brings me back to cafeteria breakfast and those chicken boxes I used to love at lunch.

Memory is funny like that.

The moments that stay with us are rarely limited to the big accomplishments. Sometimes the smallest details carry the strongest emotional charge: arriving before the first bell, sitting with friends while the campus slowly woke up, hearing chairs move across the cafeteria floor, and eating breakfast before another chaotic day at Bolsa began.

I attended Bolsa Grande High School in Garden Grove, California, from 2011 through 2015. During those four years, I served as Freshman Class President, Sophomore Class Vice President, ASB Vice President during my junior year, and ASB President during my senior year.

I danced in assemblies. I choreographed routines. I competed in Gender Feud and Senior Lip Sync. I helped create an American Horror Story-inspired performance for Orange County Leadership Camp that won first place. I entered Mr. Bolsa during my senior year and won.

I also laughed constantly, embarrassed myself occasionally, experienced friendship drama, survived some extremely intense ASB meetings, struggled with parts of my identity, and came out as gay during the final two months of senior year.

Bolsa Grande High School gave me leadership experience, lifelong memories, confidence, heartbreak, friendship, and enough teenage drama to fill several seasons of a reality show.

It was one of the most important chapters of my life.

I am grateful it happened.

I also have absolutely no desire to become a high school student again.

Both things can be true.

This article reflects my personal memories and experiences as a Bolsa Grande High School student from 2011 to 2015. Other students may remember certain people or events differently.

Bolsa Grande High School in Garden Grove, California

Bolsa Grande High School is a public high school within the Garden Grove Unified School District, commonly known as GGUSD. The school opened in 1959 and serves students from Garden Grove, Westminster, Santa Ana, and nearby communities.

Bolsa’s official historical profile describes a diverse student body that was approximately 53% Asian, 36% Hispanic, 7% Caucasian, and a mixture of several other ethnicities during the era surrounding my attendance. The school enrolled just under 2,000 students in grades nine through twelve.

That description closely matches the Bolsa I remember.

As a Vietnamese American student growing up in Garden Grove, I attended school with many classmates whose cultures, family dynamics, foods, traditions, and first-generation experiences felt familiar to mine. Bolsa had a particularly strong Vietnamese American and Latino presence, but the school included students from many different racial and cultural backgrounds.

The diversity never felt like a corporate statement printed on a poster.

It was simply our everyday reality.

We sat beside one another in class, formed dance groups, competed during assemblies, argued in ASB, shared food, traded jokes, and developed friendships across communities.

Bolsa Grande remains one of the district’s eight comprehensive and alternative high school campuses listed by GGUSD.

Bolsa Was Part of My Family Story

Bolsa Grande High School was not only my school.

It became part of my family’s timeline.

I am the middle child. My older brother graduated from Bolsa in 2013, I graduated in 2015, and my younger sister graduated in 2017.

That meant I attended Bolsa first with my brother and later with my sister.

There was something comforting about knowing that another person from my household was somewhere on campus. We walked through many of the same hallways, learned from some of the same teachers, and existed within the same school culture.

At the same time, each of us wanted our own identity.

When you attend the same school as your siblings, people occasionally recognize you through your relationship to them. You become someone’s younger brother or someone’s older brother before they fully know you as yourself.

I wanted to create my own presence at Bolsa.

Apparently, my freshman campaign made sure that happened immediately.

How I Plastered the Entire School and Won Freshman Class President

I did not casually run for Freshman Class President.

I launched a full campaign.

I campaigned so aggressively that, by the next day, almost everyone knew who I was. My flyers were everywhere.

And when I say everywhere, I mean everywhere.

Walls. Hallways. Bulletin boards. High-traffic areas. Any legal piece of visible wall space that could hold tape and a campaign flyer became part of my strategy.

Subtlety was nowhere in the campaign plan.

I had an entire campaign squad helping me put everything up. We moved around the school taping flyers onto every available spot we could find. By the time we finished, it looked like my name had taken over Bolsa Grande overnight.

Other candidates had flyers too.

The problem was that I had already claimed practically every location anyone could think of.

The next morning, students who had never spoken to me suddenly knew exactly who I was. Even people who knew nothing about my personality had seen my name enough times to remember it.

Was it excessive?

Absolutely.

Was it effective?

Clearly.

I went from being an extremely shy child to running one of the most visually unavoidable freshman campaigns on campus.

And I won.

Looking back through my current marketing brain, the entire campaign makes perfect sense. I understood repetition, visibility, name recognition, distribution, placement, and the importance of having a team before I knew any of those concepts as professional marketing terms.

I was essentially running an offline awareness campaign.

The school walls were my media inventory.

The flyers were my ad placements.

My campaign squad was the street team.

The election was the conversion event.

I had no analytics dashboard, but the final result suggested the impressions were strong.

That freshman campaign was probably one of my earliest experiences with branding. Years later, I would study Media Studies at UC Berkeley and build a professional career involving ecommerce, content strategy, SEO, storytelling, and digital marketing.

At fourteen years old, I only knew one thing:

If everybody sees your name everywhere, they are probably going to remember it.

The Shy Kid Who Suddenly Became Known

Winning Freshman Class President marked a major shift in my personality.

I had been shy for most of my childhood. I overthought how people perceived me and often hesitated to draw attention to myself.

Then I arrived at Bolsa and somehow became the boy whose face and name were taped across the entire campus.

That did not instantly erase every insecurity.

I was still awkward sometimes.

Actually, I was probably awkward more often than I realized.

I could be overly excited, dramatic, socially uncertain, and deeply convinced that an idea was amazing before working out any of the practical details. I occasionally said things that sounded better in my head. Like most teenagers, I was trying to build an identity while simultaneously wondering whether everyone else thought I was weird.

Thankfully, people also thought I was funny.

Sometimes my humor was intentional. Sometimes the humor came from the fact that I was being completely serious while everyone else found the situation hilarious.

Either way, laughter helped me connect with people.

High school taught me that awkwardness and charisma can exist in the same person. You do not need to become perfectly polished before other people can enjoy being around you.

Sometimes your quirks are exactly what make you memorable.

The Freshman Class That Beat the Sophomores

One of my proudest memories from freshman year was helping our class place third in a major class competition.

From what we were told at the time, we were the first freshman class at Bolsa Grande High School to place third, beating the sophomore class, which finished fourth.

To an outsider, third place may not sound historic.

At Bolsa, it felt enormous.

Class competitions were serious. Students became emotionally invested in their graduating class, performances, decorations, participation, school spirit, and final placement.

Freshmen were expected to finish last.

We were the youngest students on campus. We had less experience, fewer established leaders, and almost no understanding of how Bolsa’s traditions worked.

Then we beat the sophomores.

When the placements were announced, our reaction made third place feel like a national championship.

That experience taught me an early lesson about collective identity. When people feel connected to a shared goal, they become willing to work harder than they would for themselves alone.

It also showed me that expectations are not permanent.

People may assume you are too young, too inexperienced, too quiet, or too unlikely to win.

Their assumption does not have to become your outcome.

Four Years of Student Leadership

My leadership journey continued through all four years of high school:

• Freshman year: Freshman Class President
• Sophomore year: Sophomore Class Vice President
• Junior year: ASB Vice President
• Senior year: ASB President

Each position came with a different level of responsibility.

Class leadership primarily involved representing my graduating class. ASB leadership required me to think about the entire school.

That meant working with students who had different personalities, priorities, communication styles, and levels of motivation.

Some people were organized.

Some people waited until the last possible minute.

Some people loved performing.

Some people preferred working behind the scenes.

Some people accepted feedback calmly.

Others acted like one suggestion was a personal attack against their entire bloodline.

Leadership sounds glamorous when it is reduced to a title.

The actual experience includes staying after school, repeating instructions, changing plans, settling disagreements, motivating exhausted people, managing strong personalities, and watching something go wrong ten minutes before an assembly.

Being ASB President taught me that leadership is less about controlling people and more about creating enough trust, structure, and shared purpose for different people to move in the same direction.

Mr. Engel and My Years in ASB

Mr. Rob Engel became my ASB advisor during my sophomore year and remained my advisor through senior year.

He was connected to many of the defining ASB experiences I remember, including our practices, leadership development, school activities, assemblies, competitions, and the constant work required to operate student government.

I am aware that there have been more recent conversations and controversy involving him. I am choosing to keep what I know private and will not repeat claims that I cannot independently verify.

People familiar with the situation may understand what I am referencing.

This article focuses on my personal experiences between 2011 and 2015. I also recognize that different students can have completely different experiences with the same advisor, teacher, program, or institution.

My memories belong to me.

Other people’s experiences belong to them.

ASB CIRCLES Were Basically Group Therapy Without a Therapist

One of the most unforgettable parts of Bolsa ASB was something we called CIRCLES.

We would sit in an actual circle and discuss problems within the group.

People could address someone who had upset them, call out behavior they believed was disrespectful, explain why they felt frustrated, or finally say something they had been holding in for weeks.

In theory, CIRCLES encouraged honest communication.

In reality, they could become incredibly dramatic.

Teenagers already experience emotions at maximum volume. Place those teenagers in a circle, give them permission to confront one another, and the result can become a combination of group therapy, reality television, conflict mediation, and verbal combat.

One of the funniest and sassiest remarks I remember was directed at a student named Ellen.

Someone looked at her and said:

“Ellen, you’re not a bad btch. You’re a rude btch.”

I know I probably should not laugh.

I also cannot pretend the wording was not clever.

The distinction was delivered with such speed and confidence that it instantly became one of those lines your brain permanently saves. The frustration had clearly been building, and the comment captured it in a way that was brutally concise.

Part of me thought, Okay, that was actually smart.

Another part of me now understands that calling someone out publicly can easily cross the line from accountability into humiliation.

That was the complicated reality of CIRCLES.

Sometimes people needed to hear how their behavior was affecting everyone else. Certain types of energy genuinely do need to be addressed. At the same time, teenagers do not always possess the emotional regulation or conflict-resolution skills required to handle public confrontation safely.

CIRCLES could feel low-key unhealthy.

People became defensive. Old frustrations resurfaced. Alliances formed. One complaint could trigger five unrelated complaints. Occasionally, it felt as though everyone had arrived with a mental list and was waiting for their turn.

Still, there was something satisfying about the honesty.

People were finally allowed to speak their minds and get things off their chest. High school conflict often survives through private group chats, gossip, facial expressions, and indirect comments. CIRCLES forced people to say what they were actually feeling in front of the person involved.

The structure was messy, but the desire underneath it made sense.

People wanted to feel heard.

As an adult, I can appreciate both sides. Honesty matters, but honesty works best when it includes emotional safety, restraint, and a genuine intention to solve the problem.

That is one reason I now think so deeply about emotional intelligence from a Gen Z perspective.

Speaking your mind is powerful.

Learning how to speak without unnecessarily damaging another person is even more powerful.

Winning First Place at OCL Camp in 2014

One of the biggest highlights of my ASB experience happened at Orange County Leadership Camp in 2014.

For our performance, I helped create an American Horror Story-inspired set.

We wanted the concept to feel theatrical, dark, memorable, and completely different from what the other schools were presenting.

The performance required choreography, props, staging, rehearsals, visual direction, teamwork, and a group of students willing to commit fully to the same strange idea.

And we won first place.

That moment remains one of my favorite Bolsa Grande High School memories because it brought together so many parts of my personality.

I loved dance.

I loved performance.

I loved visual storytelling.

I loved creating an emotional reaction.

I loved taking something that only existed in my imagination and helping transform it into an experience an audience could see and feel.

Years later, I would build a career involving digital storytelling, marketing, visual presentation, ecommerce, music, dance, and content creation.

The instincts were already present at OCL Camp.

I simply did not have the professional vocabulary for them yet.

Watch the performance: Bolsa Grande ASB American Horror Story OCL Camp 2014

Chris Davalos, Sassy Moments, and OCL Practice

I also remember Chris Davalos and the many sassy moments we shared.

High school friendships sometimes develop an entire language through facial expressions. One look across a room can communicate everything two people need to know about what is happening.

Chris and I definitely had those moments.

He was also genuinely kind for allowing our ASB group to practice at his home while preparing for OCL Camp.

Hosting a large group of energetic ASB students rehearsing a theatrical performance is a major commitment. Those practices involved repeated routines, corrections, jokes, disagreements, exhaustion, and the gradual moment when everything finally began coming together.

The audience saw a finished performance.

We remembered the chaos behind it.

That process taught me something I still believe about creativity: a polished result may last only a few minutes, but the discipline, relationships, tension, and laughter behind it can stay with you for years.

Dance, Assemblies, and Choreography

Dance was one of the central parts of my Bolsa experience.

I performed during assemblies, choreographed routines, organized dancers, and spent countless hours rehearsing.

Assemblies were full productions in my mind.

There was music, staging, costumes, entrances, transitions, crowd energy, technical timing, choreography, and intense competition between classes.

Everything had to happen in the correct order while hundreds of students watched.

I loved the pressure, although I probably complained about it while living through it.

Dance gave my personality somewhere to go. It allowed me to communicate energy and emotion before I fully understood how to explain those parts of myself verbally.

It also taught me discipline.

A routine that looks effortless in front of an audience usually comes from hours of repetition, mistakes, corrections, and somebody yelling, “One more time,” when everyone knows it will never be only one more time.

I explore that relationship more deeply in How Dance Shaped My Life, My Energy, and Who I Am Today.

Senior Lip Sync and the Mermaid Dance

Lip Sync was another major Bolsa tradition.

Each class competed through music, choreography, costumes, comedy, staging, and performance. Everyone wanted their graduating class to create the routine people would still discuss after the assembly ended.

During my senior year, I choreographed the Mermaid Dance for our Senior Lip Sync performance.

That routine remains special to me because it represents what I loved about high school performance.

We could take something playful, theatrical, and slightly ridiculous and commit to it with complete seriousness.

When you are preparing for Lip Sync, every detail feels urgent.

You notice who arrives late.

You worry about whether everyone remembers the choreography.

You analyze transitions that the audience may barely notice.

You wonder whether another class has a stronger concept.

You replay tiny mistakes afterward, even when nobody else saw them.

Years later, the anxiety fades.

The feeling of being alive remains.

Watch the performance: Bolsa Grande Senior Lip Sync and Mermaid Dance

The Final Gender Feud

Gender Feud was one of the most competitive and dramatic events at Bolsa Grande High School.

The event centered on a battle between male and female students, and people took it extremely seriously.

There was so much drama.

The boys wanted to outperform the girls. The girls were equally determined to win. Students debated routines, participation, performances, judging, fairness, and final results as though an assembly trophy would determine the future of society.

During my senior year, the boys won.

As I remember it, that was also the final year Bolsa held Gender Feud in that format.

The concept would probably be approached differently today. Cultural understandings of gender have expanded, and current students have access to language and perspectives that schools were only beginning to discuss publicly in 2015.

Within the context of our era, Gender Feud was huge.

It was loud, competitive, emotionally chaotic, overly serious, and incredibly entertaining.

Watch the performance: Bolsa Grande High School Gender Feud

I Entered Mr. Bolsa—and Won

During my senior year, I also competed in Mr. Bolsa.

And I won.

Winning Mr. Bolsa represented how far I had come since entering high school.

The shy child who once feared attention was now voluntarily walking onto a stage, performing, showing his personality, and competing in front of the school.

The victory meant more than receiving a title.

It showed me that people connected with who I was.

I was funny, expressive, dramatic, slightly awkward, ambitious, and willing to commit fully to a performance.

I was not perfectly polished.

I did not need to be.

Mr. Bolsa taught me that charisma comes from presence. People respond to someone who is willing to participate wholeheartedly, even when that person is still figuring himself out.

That willingness to be seen eventually became central to who I am as Jeremy Melodious.

Mary Nguyen Showed Me What Real Friendship Looks Like

Some of the moments that affected me most at Bolsa had nothing to do with elections, competitions, or titles.

I will always remember Mary Nguyen for being incredibly real with me during a deeply sad moment in my life.

We were at the homecoming dance.

Students spend weeks preparing for homecoming. They plan outfits, dinners, photographs, transportation, dates, and friend groups. The dance is supposed to become one of those perfect high school memories.

Life does not always respect the event schedule.

I became extremely upset that night, and Mary skipped part of the homecoming dance to stay with me and console me.

She could have returned to the music, her friends, and the rest of the celebration.

She stayed.

That moment taught me more about friendship than many louder gestures ever could.

Real friendship includes the fun nights, jokes, photographs, and celebrations. It also reveals itself when someone is willing to miss part of their own experience because they refuse to leave you alone in pain.

I may never remember every song played at that homecoming dance.

I remember Mary sitting with me.

People often underestimate how long a small act of kindness can live inside another person. Mary may have felt that she was helping me survive one difficult moment.

I remember it more than a decade later.

That experience reflects something I later explored in The Power of Kindness and Art That Heals.

People remember who made them feel cared for.

Mary made me feel cared for.

Lizzie Sanchez Was Genuinely Hilarious

I also remember taking classes with Lizzie Sanchez, including Mr. Cho’s class and Ms. Wellins’s class.

Lizzie was one of the sassiest and funniest people I met in high school.

Every school has people who can transform an ordinary class into something entertaining. One comment, facial expression, or perfectly timed reaction can become the only part of the lesson everyone remembers years later.

Lizzie had that ability.

When I think about Mr. Cho’s class or Ms. Wellins’s class, I do not only remember schoolwork. I remember sitting near someone who could make a normal day significantly funnier.

That is one of the strange things about education.

You may forget the exact content of a lesson.

You remember who made you laugh during it.

Mrs. Wu, Mimi Nguyen, and the Winning Promposal

Mrs. Wu was one of the coolest assistant principals I remember at Bolsa.

She also helped me ask Mimi Nguyen to prom.

The promposal became a full production, because apparently I have never known how to approach school events casually.

Mrs. Wu helped make the idea happen, and the proposal turned out so well that we won the promposal competition.

That memory contains everything I associate with Bolsa: friendship, performance, school spirit, competition, creativity, and an administrator who was willing to participate in a student’s ambitious idea.

Mrs. Wu did not have to help me.

Her willingness to support the proposal made the experience even more memorable.

Mimi was also one of the people who made high school feel special. Promposals can look slightly ridiculous from an adult perspective, but they felt enormous at the time.

You planned the surprise.

You worried about whether the idea was creative enough.

You hoped the person would say yes.

Then the entire school watched, discussed, and occasionally ranked the execution.

Winning the competition was exciting.

Creating the memory mattered more.

The Friends Who Made Bolsa Feel Like Home

When I think about Bolsa Grande High School, I remember Mimi Nguyen, Thaomy Nguyen, Jessica Tum, Tina Kien, Mary Nguyen, Lizzie Sanchez, Chris Davalos, Kimberly Nguyen, and many other people whose names could fill an entirely separate article.

I belonged to several different friend groups.

I had ASB friends, dance friends, classmates, academic friends, loud friends, quiet friends, and friends who may never have naturally ended up in the same social circle outside of school.

That was one of the best parts of Bolsa.

At the time, seeing everyone required almost no effort.

You arrived at school and the people who formed your everyday world were already there.

You saw them before class.

You passed them between periods.

You ate lunch together.

You rehearsed after school.

You texted about drama that felt urgent on Monday and irrelevant by Friday.

Then graduation happened.

People left for different colleges, entered different careers, moved away, started relationships, created families, changed identities, and became adults with responsibilities none of us could fully imagine in 2015.

That may be what I miss most.

I do not necessarily miss high school.

I miss how easy it once was to be around everyone.

I sincerely hope that every person in my graduating class—and everyone whose path crossed mine at Bolsa—is doing well.

I hope the people I laughed with still have reasons to laugh.

I hope the people who struggled found peace.

I hope the people who dreamed big built lives that feel meaningful.

Even people I barely knew contributed to the environment that shaped me. Someone may have forgotten a brief conversation we shared while I continued carrying it for years.

We leave pieces of ourselves in other people’s memories without knowing which pieces remained.

The Teachers I Still Remember

Most of the Bolsa teachers I remember were genuinely chill.

They could become serious when necessary, but many understood that students learned better when a classroom did not feel unnecessarily tense.

Mrs. G, my Statistics teacher, was especially relaxed.

I remember taking Stats with Kimberly Nguyen. We were constantly cracking jokes and laughing. Statistics does not sound like the natural setting for comedy, but somehow that class became one of the funniest parts of my schedule.

I also remember Mrs. Luna, my history teacher.

I was deeply saddened to learn that she had passed away.

When you are young, teachers seem permanently attached to their classrooms. You rarely think about their lives continuing outside the school day or about the possibility that they may one day be gone.

Years later, you can still remember their voice, the arrangement of the desks, and the feeling of entering their classroom.

Mrs. Barker remains memorable for a completely different reason: her heels.

She regularly wore high heels that looked approximately six inches tall.

Watching someone confidently teach an entire class in heels that high was genuinely fascinating. It became one of those visual details permanently attached to my memory of Bolsa.

I also remember Mr. Cho, Ms. Wellins, Mrs. Massoud, and many other teachers and staff members whose classrooms formed the background of my adolescence.

Teachers may never know which details students retain.

Sometimes it is the lesson.

Sometimes it is their kindness.

Sometimes it is their humor.

Sometimes it is an unwavering commitment to extremely high heels.

My Time in AVID

I participated in AVID for a period of time with Mrs. Massoud.

AVID offered structure, academic organization, college preparation, and additional support for students thinking seriously about their futures.

Eventually, I left because ASB became too demanding.

Between meetings, assemblies, rehearsals, choreography, leadership responsibilities, events, and regular coursework, my schedule became difficult to manage.

Leaving AVID taught me one of my earliest lessons about capacity.

Ambitious people often want to accept every opportunity. Maturity requires understanding that time and energy are limited.

You can care about several worthwhile things and still need to choose where you are able to show up fully.

Being Closeted at Bolsa Grande High School

There was also an important part of myself that I kept private through most of high school.

I did not come out as gay until the final two months of my senior year.

That may seem surprising considering how expressive I was in other areas.

I danced.

I choreographed.

I led ASB.

I competed in Mr. Bolsa.

I performed in front of the entire school.

Public confidence in one part of your life does not automatically create safety in every other part.

I could walk onto a stage while still feeling afraid to explain my sexuality.

I could serve as ASB President while carefully monitoring how much of myself I allowed people to see.

I could win Mr. Bolsa while remaining uncertain about whether people would accept the most honest version of me.

Sometimes I wonder what high school would have felt like had I come out earlier.

Maybe I would have felt freer.

Maybe certain friendships would have become deeper.

Maybe I would have spent less energy editing myself.

I also have compassion for the teenager I was.

Coming out is not a competition. There is no universal deadline. People share the truth about themselves when they feel emotionally ready and safe enough to handle what follows.

My moment arrived during the final two months of senior year.

It came near the end of my Bolsa experience, yet it opened the beginning of a much larger journey toward authenticity.

I explore that evolution more deeply in My Story as Jeremy Melodious.

How Bolsa Shaped My Vietnamese American Identity

Bolsa’s predominantly Asian and Latino population influenced me more deeply than I understood at the time.

Growing up Vietnamese American in Garden Grove meant being surrounded by Vietnamese businesses, families, food, language, traditions, and cultural expectations.

That environment felt ordinary because it was the world I knew.

After leaving Garden Grove and attending UC Berkeley, I began examining how race, ethnicity, colorism, representation, and community had shaped my identity.

Bolsa gave me lived experience.

Berkeley later gave me language to analyze it.

The two chapters worked together.

I explore that part of my journey in UC Berkeley Made Me Proud to Be Brown.

Bolsa Grande Feels Different Today

Whenever I see Bolsa today, the campus feels familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.

The buildings remain connected to my memories.

The culture now belongs to another generation.

Teachers retire. Administrators change. Traditions disappear. New programs begin. Students communicate differently. Social media now shapes school identity and conflict in ways that were still developing when I attended.

Conversations around sexuality, gender, mental health, bullying, leadership, and emotional safety have also evolved.

The Bolsa of today cannot be the Bolsa of 2011.

It should not be.

Schools are living institutions. They change as the people inside them change.

My Bolsa existed from 2011 through 2015.

It was our cafeteria mornings, chicken boxes, wall-to-wall campaign flyers, ASB CIRCLES, assemblies, OCL rehearsals, Gender Feud, Senior Lip Sync, promposals, class competitions, and extremely serious teenage drama.

Current students will create their own version.

Years from now, they may also find themselves dreaming about cafeteria food.

I Miss Parts of Bolsa, but I Never Want to Be in High School Again

I am deeply grateful for my Bolsa Grande experience.

I also never want to be a high school student again.

Nostalgia has a habit of smoothing the past. We remember performances, friendships, music, and exciting moments while forgetting how uncomfortable adolescence could feel.

High school was awkward.

I was awkward.

Almost everyone was attempting to construct an identity while worrying about how everyone else judged it.

Small problems felt enormous because we had limited life experience for comparison.

Friendship drama could consume an entire week.

An uncomfortable interaction could feel permanent.

An assembly result could become a personal crisis.

We were expected to make decisions about college and adulthood while still requesting permission to use the restroom.

I miss people.

I miss specific moments.

I miss the effortless social world.

I do not miss being seventeen and uncertain about almost everything.

High school helped me grow.

I am grateful the growth continued.

Everything in the Universe Happens for a Reason

I believe everything in the universe happens for a reason.

That belief does not require pretending every painful experience was fair or secretly wonderful. It means our experiences connect in ways we often cannot understand until years later.

Bolsa gave me leadership experience before I knew where leadership would take me.

It gave me a stage before I became a digital creator and performer.

It gave me choreography before dance became part of my public identity.

It gave me a freshman campaign before marketing became my career.

It gave me awkwardness before I learned that authenticity matters more than perfection.

It gave me heartbreak and a friend like Mary, who showed me what genuine care looks like.

It gave me CIRCLES before I had the emotional vocabulary to distinguish accountability from public humiliation.

It gave me Mr. Bolsa before I fully understood the power of allowing yourself to be seen.

It gave me a late coming-out experience before I built a life centered on self-expression.

It gave me people who supported me, challenged me, annoyed me, entertained me, and taught me lessons they probably never realized they were teaching.

Those experiences did not remain inside the walls of Bolsa.

They became part of the person who later attended UC Berkeley, entered digital marketing, built ecommerce experiences, created viral videos, released music, and developed Jeremy Melodious as a creative identity.

I tell that broader story in My Journey From UC Berkeley to Building a Digital Brand.

Bolsa was not my entire journey.

It was one of the chapters that made the rest possible.

What ASB President Taught Me About Leadership

Serving as ASB President taught me lessons that continue influencing how I lead and create today.

Preparation matters, but something unexpected will almost always happen.

People work harder when they feel included in a vision instead of ordered to follow it.

Creativity still needs structure.

Speaking confidently does not require feeling completely calm.

Criticism can contain useful information without defining your worth.

Groups need honesty, but honesty must include empathy and emotional safety.

A title does not make someone more important.

A title gives someone greater responsibility.

Most importantly, leadership is not about becoming the loudest person in the room.

Leadership is helping people believe that what they are building together matters.

Proud to Be a Bolsa Grande High School Alumnus

Bolsa Grande High School is a major part of my upbringing.

It is where I found my voice.

It is where I discovered that I could lead.

It is where I learned how to command attention through a campaign that practically wallpapered the campus.

It is where I became comfortable performing in front of large groups.

It is where I choreographed, competed, laughed, argued, made mistakes, won titles, experienced heartbreak, and slowly learned how to show people more of who I really was.

I am proud to be a Bolsa Grande High School alumnus and a member of the Class of 2015.

High school was imperfect.

So was I.

That is part of why the memories feel real.

There was laughter in Statistics class with Kimberly Nguyen.

There was Lizzie Sanchez being one of the sassiest and funniest people in the room.

There was Mary Nguyen missing part of homecoming because she refused to leave me alone during a painful moment.

There was Mrs. Wu helping me ask Mimi Nguyen to prom.

There was our winning promposal.

There were Chris Davalos’s sassy moments and the generosity of hosting OCL practice.

There were ASB CIRCLES that somehow felt honest, therapeutic, dramatic, funny, and unhealthy all at once.

There was the unforgettable Ellen line that I still cannot believe someone delivered with a straight face.

There were cafeteria breakfasts and chicken boxes.

There was an American Horror Story performance winning first place.

There was Senior Lip Sync and the Mermaid Dance.

There was the final Gender Feud and the boys winning.

There was Mr. Bolsa.

And somehow, there was me winning it.

There was a shy freshman who arrived at Bolsa and immediately covered the school with so many flyers that remaining invisible was no longer an option.

I hope Mimi, Thaomy, Jessica, Tina, Mary, Lizzie, Chris, Kimberly, and everyone else I crossed paths with at Bolsa Grande High School is doing well.

I hope the people I laughed with still have reasons to laugh.

I hope the people who were struggling found peace.

I hope the people who dreamed big created lives that feel meaningful.

And I hope everyone understands that, in some small way, we remain part of one another’s stories.

Bolsa Grande High School is something I will never forget.

No matter how much the campus changes, it will always be one of the places where I first learned how to become myself.

— Jeremy Melodious

Explore more personal stories through Jeremy’s Perspectives, read My Story — Jeremy Melodious, or browse all Jeremy Melodious blogs.

Frequently Asked Questions About My Bolsa Grande Experience

When did Jeremy Melodious attend Bolsa Grande High School?

Jeremy Melodious attended Bolsa Grande High School in Garden Grove, California, from 2011 through 2015 and graduated with the Class of 2015.

How did Jeremy win Freshman Class President?

Jeremy campaigned with a full team and placed campaign flyers throughout the Bolsa Grande campus. The high visibility created immediate name recognition and helped him win the freshman election.

What leadership positions did Jeremy hold at Bolsa Grande?

Jeremy served as Freshman Class President, Sophomore Class Vice President, ASB Vice President during his junior year, and ASB President during his senior year.

Did Jeremy Melodious win Mr. Bolsa?

Yes. Jeremy entered and won Mr. Bolsa during his senior year.

What did Jeremy create for OCL Camp in 2014?

Jeremy helped create and stage an American Horror Story-inspired performance for Bolsa Grande ASB at Orange County Leadership Camp in 2014. The performance won first place.

What were ASB CIRCLES?

CIRCLES were structured ASB discussions in which members openly addressed conflicts, frustrations, behavior, and unresolved tension. Jeremy remembers them as cathartic, dramatic, occasionally funny, and sometimes emotionally unhealthy.

What did Jeremy choreograph for Senior Lip Sync?

Jeremy choreographed the Mermaid Dance as part of Bolsa Grande High School’s Senior Lip Sync performance.

What was Gender Feud at Bolsa Grande High School?

Gender Feud was a competitive school event in which male and female students battled through performances and other activities. During Jeremy’s senior year, the boys won what he remembers as the final Gender Feud held in that format.

Did Jeremy attend Bolsa Grande with his siblings?

Yes. Jeremy’s older brother graduated from Bolsa Grande in 2013, Jeremy graduated in 2015, and his younger sister graduated in 2017.

When did Jeremy come out?

Jeremy was not openly gay during most of high school. He came out during the final two months of his senior year.

What did ASB teach Jeremy?

ASB taught Jeremy about communication, public speaking, delegation, accountability, emotional intelligence, collaboration, conflict management, creative direction, and the responsibility that comes with leadership.