Welcome to the Humans of K-Park podcast. I’m your host, Paisley Thomas, and today our special guest is sophomore Rya Johnson. Thank you for joining me today. Yeah of course. Okay, so first question
Q: If someone were to ask you to describe yourself, what are some traits you would describe yourself with?
A: I’d describe myself as aggressive. I have been told that I am aggressive; also creative. I don’t like saying this because I sound cocky when I say this – being creative and very outgoing. I want to help people. I have a very one on one type vibe. You know? I like talking to people. I like trying to figure out people’s issues, people’s problems. And, I think I’m a pretty happy person. Okay.
Q: So, being a Silver Star, how is the environment? Do you love it? Is it something you want to do moving forward with your life?
A: “It seems pretty wholesome, the environment does. Of course, we’re all teenage girls from 14 to 18, so there’s going to be something, but, mostly it’s a very, how do I describe? It’s a family-type environment. So obviously you will bicker, you will have these little tiffs with people, but they’re always out of love. If you mess up, of course there’s going to be a little tension with the director, but like, morally, like holy. We all bond as a team and we all feel like we are together most of the time. There’s never really a time where our team is not together unless we haven’t, you know, cleaned the dance.
“We’re always one so that’s really awesome.”
Q: When did you first start getting into dance?
A: “I got into dance my sixth grade year, and I just didn’t want to do athletics because… no. So I joined the dance program that they just recently put out and made it an option in my middle school. I was like, okay, fine, we’ll do this. And I met friends. I made friends with people that I was not particularly close with in elementary school. And I kind of just made friends in dance and realized I like doing this. There was also a dance team, and my friends wanted to try out for the dance team, and they were like, ‘I’m not doing it unless you’re doing it.’
“And I was like, well, you want to do it? So, of course, I’m going to do it with you. During tryouts, I became very invested. Apparently because I messed up on tryout day and I got so upset. It was bad. I got really, really upset because I messed up but then I got called back.
“So I got very invested in dance and realized I like this very much. Flash forward, I made the team with most of my friends who tried out for this wonderful team and the next year, like that year went fine. I met new people because of it.
“And the next year I tried out for an officer position and I became an officer. And then the years went on. I tried out for Silver Stars, I made JV my first year and this year I made varsity. And I intend to go up and continue with going into social officer and eventually becoming in the like higher type of social officer.”
Q: I feel like with high school there’s always a negative connotation with any sport, like cheerleading, track, football players. What’s one way you felt misunderstood as a Silver Star at KPark?
A: “So Silver Stars is great. I’m just going to put that out there. It’s very healthy. It seems to be very healthy, like a respectable environment. But while I was on JV, I didn’t feel like varsity respected JV as much as they should have, probably because I was on JV and I didn’t really have the full experience.
“So I didn’t feel like they thought we were good at anything, that they didn’t want to hang out with us. They thought we were really annoying, but now that I’m on the varsity side, I know like literally all the JV Silver Stars, but now that I’m on the varsity side, I can see, oh, we just don’t know them very well.
“Like we never spent time with them. We only get to know them in the summer when they came to join us for these little gatherings that we do, we don’t see them at all normally, so we don’t know them. And it’s really hard to see, like the levels of how aggressive we can be with them. Like saying that we thought they thought we were annoying.
“So saying that they would get bothered with us because they don’t know us, they’re not used to us being there. So when we are there and we’re in their way, naturally a person would get bothered, especially after they’ve been tired from dancing. So it’s different, but I understand it now. So I did feel misunderstood in JV, but I understand why I was being dramatic and I know that now.”
Q: Do you think being in such an extroverted sport has helped you become more confident in who you are or outgoing?
A: “Oh, yeah. Absolutely. It’s really, really helpful. I sing and I have very bad anxiety.It’s like, I have stage fright. I guess it’s a type of anxiety. I usually don’t feel comfortable singing in front of people. Like,I’ll sing under my breath with you there, like I do not care, but if I’m singing for you, like, if I’m singing for all these people and I have a microphone in front of me, I get really, really nervous.
“It’s helped me to just let it go. You’re fine. This is where you are comfortable and you know that you don’t need to be worried. And eventually it’ll go by and you’ll pass through and you just get to meet a lot of cool people. So it’s kind of, I don’t know, helped me be a little more outgoing and be a little bit more extroverted myself.”
