Today provided me with a life lesson. I was thrown into a world where I didn't belong: the scene, a middle school track meet at my school. That's right: the girl who dined on shrimp cake with a sheep farmer in Iceland, who visited the nude beach in the Canaries, who struggled to ask a stranger for directions in the middle of a park in Madrid, found her match in a 5-8 track meet.
It's not that I'm athletically retarded, I've just never had a very strong interest in sports and the competition alone drives me mad. I should also mention that I wasn't participating in the events, merely helping run them. But somehow this was far worse than being a competitor, because now I had nothing to distract me from it all. Kids crying because they lost races, girls succumbing to injuries and boys turning on their friends, all over a small peice of coloured ribbon. I couldn't see the point in it all, and I had a hard time sitting in the grass with my group, watching them argue over times, records, and losses.
Exasperated, I visited with an old friend whose parents had come out to cheer her on. Her father is one of those fanatic parents who seems to forget that A) it's just a game, it doesn't matter, and B) he's 40 years old, with a beer gut and a bald head, and no teenage girl in her right mind would take his advice on how to improve her 100m time. They dragged me over to the track to watch the relays, and I was unsettled to find that the whole thing reminded me of a dog race. Parents chattered in a crowd around the finish line, noting that one girl's legs were looking a little flabby and that another seemed unnaturally skinny enough to fare well. Disturbed but intrigued, I hung around near my friend's dad so I could hear each and every comment, and I watched the race.
His younger daughter was the lead in the relay, and watching her push her little body so hard for daddy's approval was intensely unsettling. She passed the baton to a good friend of mine, and he remarked that the hand-off was sloppy and his mouth drew into a fine line at the girl's not-as-lean figure. She seemed like a great runner to me, but aparently I have an untrained eye to this sort of thing. The next girl was not that skinny either, and only about 4-foot-8, so I expected some criticism, but now there was none. Was there any science to this sort of thing? The finisher was another friend of mine, a short and tiny little thing, but, much like Darrell's daughter, an insanely swift little thign when given the right motivation.
As she threw herself across the finish line, I watched Darrell's wife patting at his arm, giddy at her daughter's performance and victory. She'd been betting on the right dog. She had won. They checked the time and came back with even more pink in their faces. One second lower than their old record! Bragging insued. Praise for their daughter. Pats on the back for the whole team. Constructive criticism about their 'sloppy' hand-off and 'poor' running.
I felt so out of place, because no one else seemed to think the whole thing was dirty or wrong. The competition is fine, really, but the amount of pressure some of these kids are put under, all for a silly little ribbon. And if they win, they move on to a regional track meet, with even more pressure, because this time they aren't competing against their friends (whom they treat like shit, this one day every year), but now against strangers.
It was like been trampled at a dog track. I'm glad it's over, and even more glad I'll never have to participate at track meets again.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Inertia
A good friend of mine is celebrating his birthday today. Living two hours away, he isn't the easiest to get a hold of, but we've made arrangements for a phone call and I'll check in then.
I do hope his day went well, because the end of the month seems to be boiling over for me. Bubbling with anxiety and frustration, I've been either lagging behind in conversation (huh?) or exploding into a variety of insults, sarcasm, nihilism and two-syllable responses that would turn a cynic's pyrotechnic display green with envy. I did homework in the cafeteria at lunch. I broke my father's compass. I blew up at a friend who meant me no harm. I poured kerosene on an inferno of a disagreement, just to watch the chain reaction that ensued. I swore. I rolled my eyes.
Basically i was a perfect brat.
The only time I meant to be a self-centered, class A specimen of jerk was in ELA, when our sub (the real, more intelligent, more experienced and much more respectable teacher is on stress leave, and hasn't been at school for several weeks) announced that, rather than follow the lesson plan which stated we would wrap up our curriculum with a short lesson on poetry, we would ignore the instructions we were left with and we would 'learn' to write resumes.
Teacher have it in their head that the key to being successful in life is having the ultimate, ungodly power of a long-winded resume. And, hey, I'm not saying it isn't important to have one, but I do think it's more important that we get through school and learn the things we are supposed to be taught rather than jump ahead three years and write these unfathomably perfect resumes. And it's not like we haven't learned it before: we were given the exact same assignment just last year, and another time two years before that. We're also to receive a credit for taking a course on it a year in the future. If these resumes are so marvelous, so desirable, why do I have to write a new one every two years (which I never use, mind you - I didn't have to so much as mention a resume for either of my two past jobs)?
Needless to say, I found the whole thing ridiculous, and she's a terrible teacher (especially in English: she butchered the point of The Tell-Tale Heart and she completely ignores my questions). So myself and several others made a point of bitching and moaning over the whole thing. I whined that I wanted my old teacher back whenever she turned to leave, and I corrected her so loudly it's a wonder the whole school didn't hear. I rolled my eyes while she struggled to get us to quiet down. I heard she's been taking over a math class as well and has been bullying a girl in that class, including failing her on an assignment because she had activist beliefs that conflicted with the rest of her war-hungry group.
I dislike her, but the school has very little staff and no one to replace her with, so even if I complained, and even if she had done something to justify the complaint, she wouldn't be so much as talked to about it. The same goes for the creepy old sub who harasses the girls. Until there is public knowledge of it and reputations are at stake, nothing is going to happen.
Here's to tomorrow being brighter, at the very least.
I do hope his day went well, because the end of the month seems to be boiling over for me. Bubbling with anxiety and frustration, I've been either lagging behind in conversation (huh?) or exploding into a variety of insults, sarcasm, nihilism and two-syllable responses that would turn a cynic's pyrotechnic display green with envy. I did homework in the cafeteria at lunch. I broke my father's compass. I blew up at a friend who meant me no harm. I poured kerosene on an inferno of a disagreement, just to watch the chain reaction that ensued. I swore. I rolled my eyes.
Basically i was a perfect brat.
The only time I meant to be a self-centered, class A specimen of jerk was in ELA, when our sub (the real, more intelligent, more experienced and much more respectable teacher is on stress leave, and hasn't been at school for several weeks) announced that, rather than follow the lesson plan which stated we would wrap up our curriculum with a short lesson on poetry, we would ignore the instructions we were left with and we would 'learn' to write resumes.
Teacher have it in their head that the key to being successful in life is having the ultimate, ungodly power of a long-winded resume. And, hey, I'm not saying it isn't important to have one, but I do think it's more important that we get through school and learn the things we are supposed to be taught rather than jump ahead three years and write these unfathomably perfect resumes. And it's not like we haven't learned it before: we were given the exact same assignment just last year, and another time two years before that. We're also to receive a credit for taking a course on it a year in the future. If these resumes are so marvelous, so desirable, why do I have to write a new one every two years (which I never use, mind you - I didn't have to so much as mention a resume for either of my two past jobs)?
Needless to say, I found the whole thing ridiculous, and she's a terrible teacher (especially in English: she butchered the point of The Tell-Tale Heart and she completely ignores my questions). So myself and several others made a point of bitching and moaning over the whole thing. I whined that I wanted my old teacher back whenever she turned to leave, and I corrected her so loudly it's a wonder the whole school didn't hear. I rolled my eyes while she struggled to get us to quiet down. I heard she's been taking over a math class as well and has been bullying a girl in that class, including failing her on an assignment because she had activist beliefs that conflicted with the rest of her war-hungry group.
I dislike her, but the school has very little staff and no one to replace her with, so even if I complained, and even if she had done something to justify the complaint, she wouldn't be so much as talked to about it. The same goes for the creepy old sub who harasses the girls. Until there is public knowledge of it and reputations are at stake, nothing is going to happen.
Here's to tomorrow being brighter, at the very least.
Monday, May 28, 2007
An Introduction to Silentology
The very few of you who have stumbled across this page are, I can only hope, the very few who still enjoy my company. If so, by all means, pull up a chair, because this is probably the only contact I can offer you with my own self for quite some time now (all will be explained below, fret not).
SZF is no longer home, but merely a resting place. You can expect to find me sleeping on its living room floor on many a Sunday morning, but expect no more than just that. I'll be frequenting the art and literature section, offering advice and raving over whatever talent I might find. Other than that, expect silence. Gone is the political activist soul who sang protest songs from the corners and margins. Gone is the self-defeatist idealist conflictist who everybody grew so tired of so quickly.
Here is what is left of that girl you all used to know.
I'm fifteen years old now, as always younger than my mentality seems to suit. I've lost a very important person this year, and the chasm he left in my life has shrunken somewhat, but is still very much present. I write songs on my bedroom floor and I record them with friends intimately, almost in secret. We also perform them at the odd town function, sometimes to applause and other times to silence, but never in vain, I think. I draw - oh, do I draw. I scribble on paper after paper, and when I finally find mself proud of one of my drawings, I transfer it to canvas and glob on the acrylics, sometimes skipping entire nights of sleep for fear I lose my inspiration, my insight, overnight.
I travel a lot, and that's what you can expect most from this journal. In addition to photos and diary entries about each new city or country, I will also supply links to my conquests online. New songs, peices of art, or maybe just an author I happen to adore. Anything and everything.
You will grow bored of me, but I don't care. I've lost my place and I need a new one, and this journal happens to be cozy.
SZF is no longer home, but merely a resting place. You can expect to find me sleeping on its living room floor on many a Sunday morning, but expect no more than just that. I'll be frequenting the art and literature section, offering advice and raving over whatever talent I might find. Other than that, expect silence. Gone is the political activist soul who sang protest songs from the corners and margins. Gone is the self-defeatist idealist conflictist who everybody grew so tired of so quickly.
Here is what is left of that girl you all used to know.
I'm fifteen years old now, as always younger than my mentality seems to suit. I've lost a very important person this year, and the chasm he left in my life has shrunken somewhat, but is still very much present. I write songs on my bedroom floor and I record them with friends intimately, almost in secret. We also perform them at the odd town function, sometimes to applause and other times to silence, but never in vain, I think. I draw - oh, do I draw. I scribble on paper after paper, and when I finally find mself proud of one of my drawings, I transfer it to canvas and glob on the acrylics, sometimes skipping entire nights of sleep for fear I lose my inspiration, my insight, overnight.
I travel a lot, and that's what you can expect most from this journal. In addition to photos and diary entries about each new city or country, I will also supply links to my conquests online. New songs, peices of art, or maybe just an author I happen to adore. Anything and everything.
You will grow bored of me, but I don't care. I've lost my place and I need a new one, and this journal happens to be cozy.
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