Ananda's back! Ya-a-a-ay!
Went to the choral/band picnic for school yesterday. Had tons of fun--and I wrote a song for Melly and Bunny's not-yet-existent band.
Then we went back to Ananda's (which is more or less the same as it was in August) and slept over. It was the normal state of things: we did the stuff I wanted to do first, so that when I zonked out at an insanely early hour (even more insane than usual last night, 'cause I didn't feel that great), they weren't doing anything I was interested in, anyway, so I didn't miss anything big. *g*
Must do residual homework today (yech). Must be home in two hours so I can watch my brother (who is more than old enough to watch himself, but I suppose it's just as well, considering how much work I've still got). Am looking forward to taking a shower and having pizza for dinner.
Things always seem happier in the daytime than at 2 in the morning. Here in the sunlight, quiet because I'm the only one awake, I can find meaning in my existence. At 2 am, with minor-key J-rock in the background, all Daf and I could think of was how pointless this year had been, and wonder whether college would really be any different.
...Which is not to say that I won't be glad to see this year over. September's about gone now. About eight more months, closer to nine.
-Laurel
9.29.2002
9.25.2002
Lala. Have been looking at colleges, trying to balance nice English program and Spanish minor with the kind of place I want. Am having a bit of success, hurrah, hurrah. Still no definite choice, but I have two at least that I'm really interested in. Have seen one, and the place is great, but I'm seeing if there's anything even better out there.
Daf's right--seniorness is so blah. Blake and all who loved it can take it back, for all we care. Give us liberty or give us something meaningful to do until we get it.
-Laurel
Daf's right--seniorness is so blah. Blake and all who loved it can take it back, for all we care. Give us liberty or give us something meaningful to do until we get it.
-Laurel
9.23.2002
Oh, and by the way...
To the lovely people at FX and Hallmark who are taking my belovèd M*A*S*H away from me in 99 days for your own corporate profits in this time of corporate need (a few bad apples do spoil the barrel, I'm sure--only low millions this year for everybody? Aw...), I would like to extend a few words, first quoted by Maxwell Q. Klinger, of said show:
**May the mother of your camel spit in your yogurt!**
With greetings from one of the hundreds, if not thousands, of M*A*S*H fans without the Hallmark channel,
-Laurel Marie Christensen
To the lovely people at FX and Hallmark who are taking my belovèd M*A*S*H away from me in 99 days for your own corporate profits in this time of corporate need (a few bad apples do spoil the barrel, I'm sure--only low millions this year for everybody? Aw...), I would like to extend a few words, first quoted by Maxwell Q. Klinger, of said show:
**May the mother of your camel spit in your yogurt!**
With greetings from one of the hundreds, if not thousands, of M*A*S*H fans without the Hallmark channel,
-Laurel Marie Christensen
Right. The creepy dream I had last night. Nightmare, really, though I don't get many at all. I get one nightmare-type dream probably once every four-to-six months or something. Sometimes more, sometimes a little less.
This one opened, I think, in a room like the one I had English in in ninth grade...only it was PIG I was in. It was the first PIG class of the year--must've been start of second semester--and there was only one PIG teacher in the school (which isn't actually true of my school). His name was Mr. Young, and he looked like a convict. Shaved head, scruff of a beard, and really creepy light blue eyes that didn't seem to align just right. Whether he was wearing a bandanna on his head, I don't remember. He was in--was it a gray sweatshirt?--and jeans.
He was slowly pacing back and forth across the small room, holding a big, thick wooden stick, about as thick as a rainstick--but covered in rows of needle-sharp thorns that curled in like claws and seemed to shine at the points--thorns that could rake your back and tear your skin to bits...and, as he was letting us know nonchalantly, he meant to do just that if need be.
"You come in late?" He tapped the stick in the palm of his hand--though it didn't prick him; I think it was a small bare spot. "The stick. You talk out of turn?" He tapped again. "The stick." He went on, naming other things I don't remember. In my dream, I stared down at the course syllabus, reading along where it outlined the punishments, where it merited what was essentially a flogging, thinking, He can't do that...
But he could. In my dream, the words of all the kids who'd had him the semester before came back to me. How he did it, but no one could do anything. The kids knew, but no one would believe them. No one could change it. No one even would. And it was a required course, so you had to take it. ...Only one kid had ever managed to get out of being in his class--somehow he'd managed to convince Ms. Peterson (teacher in my school) to teach it to him...
We took a break during the class at some point to go get a drink, or take a walk, or something...and I slipped out of line, trying to hide myself from Mr. Young's sight. I had to get out of that class--no one else had done it, but if that one kid had, I would, too... I found myself there with a small group of kids in a circle...the band, which was being (illogically) headed by Ms. Peterson. (I saw no instruments, to my recollection. Whatever. It's a dream. All I know is that it was the band--well, one of them.)
I explained my plight to A.J. and Laia, whom I don't usually talk with (and who aren't even in the same band, come to think of it), but whom I guess I knew had survived Young's class. They sympathized, but they couldn't help me. What had A.J. said? Something like, "It's wrong, but there's nothing you can do about it. It's gonna happen."
...Which, of course, puts me immediately in mind of the AP English problem. As Bethie and I laughed this morning, even in my dreams I rage against the machine.
Actually, it may have been at this point, rather than before, that Laia told me about the kid who got Ms. Peterson's help. But she didn't think it'd work with me.
It was around then that I realized I'd have to try. "I have to get out of there. I'm cutting his class as we speak. I can't go back--I'll get the stick."
Where would he beat me if he got hold of me? It seemed like he'd implied the back. Bare-backed, with my shirt pulled up in the back, most likely. All those thorns across my skin...I had to get out of that class. I couldn't go back. Not ever. I'd get the stick. I got mental pictures of him, looking at me from across an empty PIG room, stick in hand...
...and went to Ms. Peterson. She wasn't optimistic. I don't remember what she said exactly--something about going to the principal, trying to get permission for independent study.
I went to my mom (somehow--wasn't I in school?)--she was sitting in a chair (gray, velvety-ish). I told her about Mr. Young and the stick (though not that I'd cut class)--and she laughed at me. She didn't believe me. I showed her the course syllabus and where I'd underlined the parts about the stick in red--she looked puzzled at that, but she still didn't believe me...
In the last part of my dream, I was rehearsing, over and over in my head, what on earth I was going to say to the principal that would convince her to let me study on my own. What I could say so she wouldn't ever send me back? I mean, sure, if I came back to her, and to my mom, with deep red gouges along my back in criss-crosses like a slave, then they'd believe me, but then...
The only thing I remember of the practice-meeting with the principal in my head is one sentence, "It's true, it's really true...no one believes us, but it's really true..." --and one of my thoughts about his being a gym teacher or something, too--how he had friends among the staff, so he couldn't be so easily taken down...
...And then, be it minutes or hours later, my alarm went off, and one of the first things I realized was that it wasn't true.
I was tired and only-semi-coherent enough to be almost disappointed, because I'd insisted so hard that it was true, and now I couldn't prove it was.
...So weird. I mean, I'm sure some of it has to do with my administrative frustration about the second AP English class (which may--may--happen as we want it; Mrs. S came in today to our class to say that something would be done, but her ideas don't follow ours so well), and considering the bit yesterday in church (I forget what it was) that had me thinking of Gethsemane, I could understand the thorns...
...but really. That's just creepy. Creepy, creepy, creepy, creepy, creepy.
-Laurel
This one opened, I think, in a room like the one I had English in in ninth grade...only it was PIG I was in. It was the first PIG class of the year--must've been start of second semester--and there was only one PIG teacher in the school (which isn't actually true of my school). His name was Mr. Young, and he looked like a convict. Shaved head, scruff of a beard, and really creepy light blue eyes that didn't seem to align just right. Whether he was wearing a bandanna on his head, I don't remember. He was in--was it a gray sweatshirt?--and jeans.
He was slowly pacing back and forth across the small room, holding a big, thick wooden stick, about as thick as a rainstick--but covered in rows of needle-sharp thorns that curled in like claws and seemed to shine at the points--thorns that could rake your back and tear your skin to bits...and, as he was letting us know nonchalantly, he meant to do just that if need be.
"You come in late?" He tapped the stick in the palm of his hand--though it didn't prick him; I think it was a small bare spot. "The stick. You talk out of turn?" He tapped again. "The stick." He went on, naming other things I don't remember. In my dream, I stared down at the course syllabus, reading along where it outlined the punishments, where it merited what was essentially a flogging, thinking, He can't do that...
But he could. In my dream, the words of all the kids who'd had him the semester before came back to me. How he did it, but no one could do anything. The kids knew, but no one would believe them. No one could change it. No one even would. And it was a required course, so you had to take it. ...Only one kid had ever managed to get out of being in his class--somehow he'd managed to convince Ms. Peterson (teacher in my school) to teach it to him...
We took a break during the class at some point to go get a drink, or take a walk, or something...and I slipped out of line, trying to hide myself from Mr. Young's sight. I had to get out of that class--no one else had done it, but if that one kid had, I would, too... I found myself there with a small group of kids in a circle...the band, which was being (illogically) headed by Ms. Peterson. (I saw no instruments, to my recollection. Whatever. It's a dream. All I know is that it was the band--well, one of them.)
I explained my plight to A.J. and Laia, whom I don't usually talk with (and who aren't even in the same band, come to think of it), but whom I guess I knew had survived Young's class. They sympathized, but they couldn't help me. What had A.J. said? Something like, "It's wrong, but there's nothing you can do about it. It's gonna happen."
...Which, of course, puts me immediately in mind of the AP English problem. As Bethie and I laughed this morning, even in my dreams I rage against the machine.
Actually, it may have been at this point, rather than before, that Laia told me about the kid who got Ms. Peterson's help. But she didn't think it'd work with me.
It was around then that I realized I'd have to try. "I have to get out of there. I'm cutting his class as we speak. I can't go back--I'll get the stick."
Where would he beat me if he got hold of me? It seemed like he'd implied the back. Bare-backed, with my shirt pulled up in the back, most likely. All those thorns across my skin...I had to get out of that class. I couldn't go back. Not ever. I'd get the stick. I got mental pictures of him, looking at me from across an empty PIG room, stick in hand...
...and went to Ms. Peterson. She wasn't optimistic. I don't remember what she said exactly--something about going to the principal, trying to get permission for independent study.
I went to my mom (somehow--wasn't I in school?)--she was sitting in a chair (gray, velvety-ish). I told her about Mr. Young and the stick (though not that I'd cut class)--and she laughed at me. She didn't believe me. I showed her the course syllabus and where I'd underlined the parts about the stick in red--she looked puzzled at that, but she still didn't believe me...
In the last part of my dream, I was rehearsing, over and over in my head, what on earth I was going to say to the principal that would convince her to let me study on my own. What I could say so she wouldn't ever send me back? I mean, sure, if I came back to her, and to my mom, with deep red gouges along my back in criss-crosses like a slave, then they'd believe me, but then...
The only thing I remember of the practice-meeting with the principal in my head is one sentence, "It's true, it's really true...no one believes us, but it's really true..." --and one of my thoughts about his being a gym teacher or something, too--how he had friends among the staff, so he couldn't be so easily taken down...
...And then, be it minutes or hours later, my alarm went off, and one of the first things I realized was that it wasn't true.
I was tired and only-semi-coherent enough to be almost disappointed, because I'd insisted so hard that it was true, and now I couldn't prove it was.
...So weird. I mean, I'm sure some of it has to do with my administrative frustration about the second AP English class (which may--may--happen as we want it; Mrs. S came in today to our class to say that something would be done, but her ideas don't follow ours so well), and considering the bit yesterday in church (I forget what it was) that had me thinking of Gethsemane, I could understand the thorns...
...but really. That's just creepy. Creepy, creepy, creepy, creepy, creepy.
-Laurel
9.22.2002
The M*A*S*H episode "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen"...last ep of the series ever. Watched it for the first time tonight. Oh, gosh.
Seriously, it was incredible beyond my descriptive power...but don't watch it yet, most of you out there. Not until you've seen enough of the series to really know the characters. You have to know them for it to mean the most.
Radar's my favorite--that's the only thing that bothered me, even a little. He's gone by then, and they don't so much as mention him.
But, just...gah. There's no right way to say goodbye to something like that. I'm so glad for syndication. *g*
Just...at one point, Hawkeye's talking to Sidney, and they start getting into Hawkeye's repressed memories of this incident that's landed him temporarily in a mental facility in Korea...and it doesn't make sense for a while, the way he tells the story...then the real story comes out...
...and I'd known it was coming--I'd read the ep summary--but I'd forgotten, though how I could have forgotten it I don't know...
...and as soon as I remembered, about ten seconds before the real version came out, I just burst out sobbing. It wasn't real, of course, but even in theory, it's this terrible thing...and I just burst out sobbing, and I hope no one heard me (my brother would think I was a nutcase). And not even because some of that stuff really happened in real life, or could have. I don't know why. Maybe 'cause I was already sensitive 'cause of the rest of the episode so far. But I don't think so.
Idiotic as this seems, a little, in retrospect...I think it was because it had happened to Hawkeye, and if he's not real in reality he's real in my mind and elsewhere.
...How do people form such attachments to characters that they have a hard time believing that they don't exist? That Hawkeye and Radar will never be more than characters that exist in a box, or in a book, or in a movie...that I could never actually really find them or touch them or talk to them...
...but, see, that's what I wish so badly sometimes that I could do.
The whole episode is very sad. The theme is supposed to be that war hurts, and as a show, it plays that out very well, but it's never clearer than with Hawkeye, with Charles, and with Father Mulcahy in the last ep.
And I saw The Four Feathers today, this other movie about war, and its war was awful, too.
It was sort of an anti-war day, really. I didn't know what to say after that, either. I think it was Daf, whom I'd seen it with, who spoke first.
"Heath Ledger," she said, looking dreamy.
"Yeah," I replied. "...He didn't smile much in this one."
"Well, it's not a very smiley movie."
"Oh, I know. Just...it's very nice when he smiles."
"Yes. It is."
I started to grin. Daffodil started to laugh. So did I.
...I don't want to be a senior anymore. But I think leaving school will be even more like the last M*A*S*H because of it. They hated having to be there...but leaving there was the problem, too. ...Some of us lost things, like in M*A*S*H. My friends and I lost the better part of our emotional innocence. I, at least temporarily, have lost my faith in the school system. ...We're all going on to different things, like in the ep, and some of us are still trying to figure out where we really want to go; most of us are still wondering what we really want to do.
And, like M*A*S*H in general, some of our best friends have already left before us.
I mean, it really is the Hawkeye-and-BJ question, saying goodbye.
"I'm never gonna see you again." says Hawkeye, sort of disbelievingly.
"Sure, we will," says B.J. [Right, this conversation is reproduced from memory, and will not be entirely accurate.]
"How?" retorts Hawkeye. "You'll be on one coast, I'll be on the other."
"Well, letters, phone calls...and Peg and Erin and I will come out and see you sometime."
"Sometime."
"Yeah, we'll get together..."
"For dinner," says Hawkeye drily.
"Yeah...for dinner."
"And we'll talk about..."
"About...well..."
"Just say it. Just say goodbye."
"Hawkeye!"
"C'mon, if I was dying, would you hold me and let me die in your arms, or just let me lie there and bleed?"
"What? What are you talking about? You're not dying!"
"C'mon, just a little 'so long'."
"Hawkeye!" [gets up and leaves angrily]
[calls after him, though not loudly] "Goodby-ye..."
...Don't worry, their real goodbye is better than that. Just...you know. Bethie, Melly, Daf and everyone. How do we scale back our lives from midnight soul-searches (though, hm, I guess that hasn't happened with Melly) to seeing each other sometime for dinner? I mean, why let it even be a sentimental adolescent memory? Why can't we do that all the time?
...Right. Am now getting chicky, like Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood or something (which my mom wasn't thrilled with, book or movie). But really. How do you do that? It's been insane enough not having Ananda and Zinni here. I heard their voices every day, or nearly so, when we were in school. The last thing I heard Ananda actually say, with an actual audible voice, was at the end of August--the last time I even saw her. With Zinni, it's been longer. And, I mean, with Ananda, I'm seeing her this weekend. But Zinni...her mental picture of me probably hasn't changed to short hair yet. I mean, heck, mine of her is, half the time, from back in ninth grade. For most of our friendship, when she had glasses and braces and wore hippie beads.
And now we get together sometimes for sleepovers. And they're wonderful, but she'll tell you, same as I will, that it's not the same. It's not her basement anymore, with Monkees playing and the four of us talking. Sometimes it gets close--but it's not her house, and so it's never quite the same.
...I have to wonder sometimes just how it would have been for Hawkeye and B.J.--Hawkeye so set in Crabapple Cove, Maine; B.J. in Mill Valley, California. ...What happens when Ananda goes to Arizona or something, following music or art? I've had two cousins, one in each program, and the one of them ended up in Florida, the other in Texas. And, I mean, heck, no one said Ananda'll be limited to states--she gets to be as Bono as she wants, she'll be off to places like Africa, with me wondering how much I'd have to give up to tag along. And Daf, and Zinni...and me? Where will Daf go for music or science or whatever, Zinni for her own career, me for my writing or teaching?
But enough of this. We aren't split up yet. ::laughs drily:: Right, as I write this, Ananda is two hours away, Zinni is at least three. But there're e-mails, phone calls, websites, blogs...
...And the occasional dinner, followed by midnight soul-searching.
...Well, that's what I expect, at least for a while. *g*
-Laurel
Seriously, it was incredible beyond my descriptive power...but don't watch it yet, most of you out there. Not until you've seen enough of the series to really know the characters. You have to know them for it to mean the most.
Radar's my favorite--that's the only thing that bothered me, even a little. He's gone by then, and they don't so much as mention him.
But, just...gah. There's no right way to say goodbye to something like that. I'm so glad for syndication. *g*
Just...at one point, Hawkeye's talking to Sidney, and they start getting into Hawkeye's repressed memories of this incident that's landed him temporarily in a mental facility in Korea...and it doesn't make sense for a while, the way he tells the story...then the real story comes out...
...and I'd known it was coming--I'd read the ep summary--but I'd forgotten, though how I could have forgotten it I don't know...
...and as soon as I remembered, about ten seconds before the real version came out, I just burst out sobbing. It wasn't real, of course, but even in theory, it's this terrible thing...and I just burst out sobbing, and I hope no one heard me (my brother would think I was a nutcase). And not even because some of that stuff really happened in real life, or could have. I don't know why. Maybe 'cause I was already sensitive 'cause of the rest of the episode so far. But I don't think so.
Idiotic as this seems, a little, in retrospect...I think it was because it had happened to Hawkeye, and if he's not real in reality he's real in my mind and elsewhere.
...How do people form such attachments to characters that they have a hard time believing that they don't exist? That Hawkeye and Radar will never be more than characters that exist in a box, or in a book, or in a movie...that I could never actually really find them or touch them or talk to them...
...but, see, that's what I wish so badly sometimes that I could do.
The whole episode is very sad. The theme is supposed to be that war hurts, and as a show, it plays that out very well, but it's never clearer than with Hawkeye, with Charles, and with Father Mulcahy in the last ep.
And I saw The Four Feathers today, this other movie about war, and its war was awful, too.
It was sort of an anti-war day, really. I didn't know what to say after that, either. I think it was Daf, whom I'd seen it with, who spoke first.
"Heath Ledger," she said, looking dreamy.
"Yeah," I replied. "...He didn't smile much in this one."
"Well, it's not a very smiley movie."
"Oh, I know. Just...it's very nice when he smiles."
"Yes. It is."
I started to grin. Daffodil started to laugh. So did I.
...I don't want to be a senior anymore. But I think leaving school will be even more like the last M*A*S*H because of it. They hated having to be there...but leaving there was the problem, too. ...Some of us lost things, like in M*A*S*H. My friends and I lost the better part of our emotional innocence. I, at least temporarily, have lost my faith in the school system. ...We're all going on to different things, like in the ep, and some of us are still trying to figure out where we really want to go; most of us are still wondering what we really want to do.
And, like M*A*S*H in general, some of our best friends have already left before us.
I mean, it really is the Hawkeye-and-BJ question, saying goodbye.
"I'm never gonna see you again." says Hawkeye, sort of disbelievingly.
"Sure, we will," says B.J. [Right, this conversation is reproduced from memory, and will not be entirely accurate.]
"How?" retorts Hawkeye. "You'll be on one coast, I'll be on the other."
"Well, letters, phone calls...and Peg and Erin and I will come out and see you sometime."
"Sometime."
"Yeah, we'll get together..."
"For dinner," says Hawkeye drily.
"Yeah...for dinner."
"And we'll talk about..."
"About...well..."
"Just say it. Just say goodbye."
"Hawkeye!"
"C'mon, if I was dying, would you hold me and let me die in your arms, or just let me lie there and bleed?"
"What? What are you talking about? You're not dying!"
"C'mon, just a little 'so long'."
"Hawkeye!" [gets up and leaves angrily]
[calls after him, though not loudly] "Goodby-ye..."
...Don't worry, their real goodbye is better than that. Just...you know. Bethie, Melly, Daf and everyone. How do we scale back our lives from midnight soul-searches (though, hm, I guess that hasn't happened with Melly) to seeing each other sometime for dinner? I mean, why let it even be a sentimental adolescent memory? Why can't we do that all the time?
...Right. Am now getting chicky, like Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood or something (which my mom wasn't thrilled with, book or movie). But really. How do you do that? It's been insane enough not having Ananda and Zinni here. I heard their voices every day, or nearly so, when we were in school. The last thing I heard Ananda actually say, with an actual audible voice, was at the end of August--the last time I even saw her. With Zinni, it's been longer. And, I mean, with Ananda, I'm seeing her this weekend. But Zinni...her mental picture of me probably hasn't changed to short hair yet. I mean, heck, mine of her is, half the time, from back in ninth grade. For most of our friendship, when she had glasses and braces and wore hippie beads.
And now we get together sometimes for sleepovers. And they're wonderful, but she'll tell you, same as I will, that it's not the same. It's not her basement anymore, with Monkees playing and the four of us talking. Sometimes it gets close--but it's not her house, and so it's never quite the same.
...I have to wonder sometimes just how it would have been for Hawkeye and B.J.--Hawkeye so set in Crabapple Cove, Maine; B.J. in Mill Valley, California. ...What happens when Ananda goes to Arizona or something, following music or art? I've had two cousins, one in each program, and the one of them ended up in Florida, the other in Texas. And, I mean, heck, no one said Ananda'll be limited to states--she gets to be as Bono as she wants, she'll be off to places like Africa, with me wondering how much I'd have to give up to tag along. And Daf, and Zinni...and me? Where will Daf go for music or science or whatever, Zinni for her own career, me for my writing or teaching?
But enough of this. We aren't split up yet. ::laughs drily:: Right, as I write this, Ananda is two hours away, Zinni is at least three. But there're e-mails, phone calls, websites, blogs...
...And the occasional dinner, followed by midnight soul-searching.
...Well, that's what I expect, at least for a while. *g*
-Laurel
9.20.2002
Mm. Am tired.
Am glad to be out of school for the day and done with senior pictures forever. One down on a long list of senior obligations, none of which I care about, all of which my parents care deeply about. Which is not to say that my parents are total pains or jerks or anything, 'cause they're not, but this is their big year-long goodbye, or something, and so they tend to make a production out of these things. ...I still maintain that while we picked the "keeper" photos at the digital picture place, I should just have been sent out to the car. It would have made precious little difference. It's their money, and I wasn't about to go against them. I hate when they ask me which of a series like that I like best, because unless it's what they like, I feel like I'm going to have to put up with them always secretly thinking that my choice pales in comparison to what they picked. My mom denies this. I still don't put it past my dad.
...I mean, they seemed annoyed that I had no opinion, but bare truth be told, I surrendered any freedom of choice the minute my mom rejected the clothes I had picked out and admonished me for not being responsible enough to tell her I needed a dress--which I didn't actually want to wear--and proceeded to pick out what I was going to wear. In other words, they acted like they were going to leave everything to me, then got angry because what I picked didn't suit them, so they dressed me themselves--which would have happened either way, really. ...I love the way my mom looked at me and just shook her head, like she was just totally speechless with shame. And the running commentary on my picture smiles ("that one's...okay" "mm, that one's definitely a grimace"). And how they had no idea why I was so annoyed at the entire proceedings. ...Two of the smartest people I know, and they just don't get it. ...And, of course, they're here thinking the same about me. That I just don't get it.
I don't want to be a senior, okay? I spent ten years of my school career liking school, but now...now it just sucks. Now I'm done. I just want to get this over with so I can get away from this awful, crowded school, with its stupid crackpot principal that followed us, horror-movie style, from the junior high. Away from rules made for 3% of the population, enforced on 100%. Away from the uselessness of my entire world. Away from everything, and finally really decide for myself when projects should be done and how my own decisions should be made, instead of them just pretending I can.
I just want to do something. Something that means something. Even if everyone else thinks it's like some childish dream.
This whole senior...thing...means absolutely nothing. For the love of all fathomable decency, it's a series of pictures, and a series of dinners, and a series of dances, and a series of undeserved points at pep rallies. Why do they do this to us? Are they going to miss us that much? And if they do, why do they show it by torturing the children who have something better to do with their time than flashy dance-picture-dinner things, party things, things that emphasize everything I've never been and hope never to be?
I just want something of substance. For the love of decency, I'm seventeen years old, and I've done nothing. And that's fine for a while, but I'm tired of it now.
...But everything I ever want, I feel like I have to ask permission. And everything I really want, I don't want to ask for, 'cause it sounds like the kind of hyperdreamyeyed thing you'd get out of a beat poet. I just want to make people happy--really happy. If it means going to another country, or being poor, or never getting married...I'd do it. I'd do it.
...Or would I, when my father's voice in the back of my head tells me just to settle down and try to get somewhere in a career somewhere, try to get a house, try to get a husband and some kids?
I don't want to hurt them. But what if I want something they don't? Would I ever even ask for it, when I don't even want to hassle them further by telling them which picture I really want, or even telling them how little I care for anything they're putting me through? They'd tell me this is ridiculous, that they support anything that I do. ...They don't with how I do my assignments, how I choose to dress (and not just for pictures; for at least three years now I've gotten my dad's hints about how I should dress, and from my mom about how much she hates shopping with me). Why do they think they'd do it with anything big?
What happens when I want something important that they hate?
-Laurel
Am glad to be out of school for the day and done with senior pictures forever. One down on a long list of senior obligations, none of which I care about, all of which my parents care deeply about. Which is not to say that my parents are total pains or jerks or anything, 'cause they're not, but this is their big year-long goodbye, or something, and so they tend to make a production out of these things. ...I still maintain that while we picked the "keeper" photos at the digital picture place, I should just have been sent out to the car. It would have made precious little difference. It's their money, and I wasn't about to go against them. I hate when they ask me which of a series like that I like best, because unless it's what they like, I feel like I'm going to have to put up with them always secretly thinking that my choice pales in comparison to what they picked. My mom denies this. I still don't put it past my dad.
...I mean, they seemed annoyed that I had no opinion, but bare truth be told, I surrendered any freedom of choice the minute my mom rejected the clothes I had picked out and admonished me for not being responsible enough to tell her I needed a dress--which I didn't actually want to wear--and proceeded to pick out what I was going to wear. In other words, they acted like they were going to leave everything to me, then got angry because what I picked didn't suit them, so they dressed me themselves--which would have happened either way, really. ...I love the way my mom looked at me and just shook her head, like she was just totally speechless with shame. And the running commentary on my picture smiles ("that one's...okay" "mm, that one's definitely a grimace"). And how they had no idea why I was so annoyed at the entire proceedings. ...Two of the smartest people I know, and they just don't get it. ...And, of course, they're here thinking the same about me. That I just don't get it.
I don't want to be a senior, okay? I spent ten years of my school career liking school, but now...now it just sucks. Now I'm done. I just want to get this over with so I can get away from this awful, crowded school, with its stupid crackpot principal that followed us, horror-movie style, from the junior high. Away from rules made for 3% of the population, enforced on 100%. Away from the uselessness of my entire world. Away from everything, and finally really decide for myself when projects should be done and how my own decisions should be made, instead of them just pretending I can.
I just want to do something. Something that means something. Even if everyone else thinks it's like some childish dream.
This whole senior...thing...means absolutely nothing. For the love of all fathomable decency, it's a series of pictures, and a series of dinners, and a series of dances, and a series of undeserved points at pep rallies. Why do they do this to us? Are they going to miss us that much? And if they do, why do they show it by torturing the children who have something better to do with their time than flashy dance-picture-dinner things, party things, things that emphasize everything I've never been and hope never to be?
I just want something of substance. For the love of decency, I'm seventeen years old, and I've done nothing. And that's fine for a while, but I'm tired of it now.
...But everything I ever want, I feel like I have to ask permission. And everything I really want, I don't want to ask for, 'cause it sounds like the kind of hyperdreamyeyed thing you'd get out of a beat poet. I just want to make people happy--really happy. If it means going to another country, or being poor, or never getting married...I'd do it. I'd do it.
...Or would I, when my father's voice in the back of my head tells me just to settle down and try to get somewhere in a career somewhere, try to get a house, try to get a husband and some kids?
I don't want to hurt them. But what if I want something they don't? Would I ever even ask for it, when I don't even want to hassle them further by telling them which picture I really want, or even telling them how little I care for anything they're putting me through? They'd tell me this is ridiculous, that they support anything that I do. ...They don't with how I do my assignments, how I choose to dress (and not just for pictures; for at least three years now I've gotten my dad's hints about how I should dress, and from my mom about how much she hates shopping with me). Why do they think they'd do it with anything big?
What happens when I want something important that they hate?
-Laurel
9.19.2002
Got O'Hara, not Elaine. But that's great, too.
Actually, because of the way the names were on the list, everyone thought I was Elaine--and that this kid J.J. (his family had Aubrey living with them for a while) was Mortimer. Bunny ruined half my day in telling me just how nasty J.J. was, and how unfortunate I was to have to kiss him.
But after psych, I went to the social studies room (well, one of them) to find my star. See, our school put stars on the wall the first week of school--each kid in the school had one somewhere. Well, a lot of them never got claimed--people couldn't find theirs, 'cause there're about a thousand kids, all told--so I went looking for mine.
Well, I only looked for a few minutes. Didn't find mine...but found J.J.'s.
So I peeked in the room. He was there, or so I judged from Bunny's description. Her description had been rather unflattering, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that he wasn't quite as bad-looking as she'd made him out to me (though I wouldn't call him cute, exactly). "Are you J.J.?" I asked.
"That's me."
"I've got your star," I said, for lack of anything else.
"Really? ...I thought somebody'd put it through a blender by now..." He came over and took it, somewhat disbelievingly.
Trying to explain about my star search (no pun intended), I tripped over my words several times, and finally said, simply, "My name's Laurel. ...I think I've been cast as Elaine."
"Oh!" He held out his hand, and I took it. ...Very much like Aubrey, him. No wonder they'd gotten along.
"I'm Teddy," he said, putting on the obligatory Roosevelt-voice.
Hope my eyes didn't go too wide. He wasn't Mortimer? ...I was, for lack of a better word...free!
"Oh!" I said. "Cool!"
"And Ben's--" he went on, giving the roles of the two boys with him.
I nodded. "Who's Mortimer?" I asked.
They all shrugged. "Don't know."
The director came in just then. I went up to him and asked if I was Elaine.
"O'Hara," he corrected, and explained the role to me. ...Originally a male role, changed to a girl because there were so many of us and so few guys. A policeman (well, -woman) who's writing a play--and it's rather mediocre, but he's trying to get Mortimer to help him write it. "It's a humorous role," he said. "I could tell from your audition that you had comic talent."
...Oh. Well, that was very nice...sort of. ...But I hadn't meant to be all that funny. ...Maybe I was being typecast...maybe I tried to be serious, like O'Hara, and ended up looking stupid. ...Hm.
I did a lot of smiling and nodding, trying to look as though I'd never really thought I was Elaine.
But O'Hara is great. I saw the movie version of Arsenic and Old Lace last night, and he's got a great role. Even if mine is a little different, and a little less, it'll be fine.
Just hope they don't make me say anything bad. There're a couple of words in there I'd rather not say. ...And the director...well, he's an English teacher, and I usually get along great with those...but I didn't have him. He scares me a little. He's serious, and grave-looking, and his voice is kind of low and serious. ...I'm trying to find a good way to say I don't want to say that--but first I'll see if he's cutting it out already.
Anyway, it's very cool.
-Laurel
Actually, because of the way the names were on the list, everyone thought I was Elaine--and that this kid J.J. (his family had Aubrey living with them for a while) was Mortimer. Bunny ruined half my day in telling me just how nasty J.J. was, and how unfortunate I was to have to kiss him.
But after psych, I went to the social studies room (well, one of them) to find my star. See, our school put stars on the wall the first week of school--each kid in the school had one somewhere. Well, a lot of them never got claimed--people couldn't find theirs, 'cause there're about a thousand kids, all told--so I went looking for mine.
Well, I only looked for a few minutes. Didn't find mine...but found J.J.'s.
So I peeked in the room. He was there, or so I judged from Bunny's description. Her description had been rather unflattering, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that he wasn't quite as bad-looking as she'd made him out to me (though I wouldn't call him cute, exactly). "Are you J.J.?" I asked.
"That's me."
"I've got your star," I said, for lack of anything else.
"Really? ...I thought somebody'd put it through a blender by now..." He came over and took it, somewhat disbelievingly.
Trying to explain about my star search (no pun intended), I tripped over my words several times, and finally said, simply, "My name's Laurel. ...I think I've been cast as Elaine."
"Oh!" He held out his hand, and I took it. ...Very much like Aubrey, him. No wonder they'd gotten along.
"I'm Teddy," he said, putting on the obligatory Roosevelt-voice.
Hope my eyes didn't go too wide. He wasn't Mortimer? ...I was, for lack of a better word...free!
"Oh!" I said. "Cool!"
"And Ben's--" he went on, giving the roles of the two boys with him.
I nodded. "Who's Mortimer?" I asked.
They all shrugged. "Don't know."
The director came in just then. I went up to him and asked if I was Elaine.
"O'Hara," he corrected, and explained the role to me. ...Originally a male role, changed to a girl because there were so many of us and so few guys. A policeman (well, -woman) who's writing a play--and it's rather mediocre, but he's trying to get Mortimer to help him write it. "It's a humorous role," he said. "I could tell from your audition that you had comic talent."
...Oh. Well, that was very nice...sort of. ...But I hadn't meant to be all that funny. ...Maybe I was being typecast...maybe I tried to be serious, like O'Hara, and ended up looking stupid. ...Hm.
I did a lot of smiling and nodding, trying to look as though I'd never really thought I was Elaine.
But O'Hara is great. I saw the movie version of Arsenic and Old Lace last night, and he's got a great role. Even if mine is a little different, and a little less, it'll be fine.
Just hope they don't make me say anything bad. There're a couple of words in there I'd rather not say. ...And the director...well, he's an English teacher, and I usually get along great with those...but I didn't have him. He scares me a little. He's serious, and grave-looking, and his voice is kind of low and serious. ...I'm trying to find a good way to say I don't want to say that--but first I'll see if he's cutting it out already.
Anyway, it's very cool.
-Laurel
9.17.2002
A much better past couple of days than the previous ones have been.
My switched-lunch problem was at least partially solved--no Daf still, but Melly's in my new lunch (she got switched in, too, a while before; I hadn't known that), as is Megan--and my Leo Club problem's mostly solved, too. We've got some real projects now, and they look to be a great time, too. The Hooligans are thrilled. ...And the other thing is, Leo Clubs aren't necessarily supposed to be full-scale, head-on, march-out-and-save-society organizations. Our advisor ended up reminding me at the meeting, with a slight amount of concern in his voice, that Leo Clubs were at least equally about having fun.
...And I can accept that. What with my three APs, administrative difficulties (study-hall-and-AP-English-wise), lack of a driver's license, and what is soon to be an insane school play schedule...fun I could use, right about now. In college, when I have a license, when I'm in with a few more of my save-the-world kind, I can do that (well, Ananda will make me amend that with a maybe...I guess time is a bit scarce there, too). Or maybe even later this year, like after May, when APs are done with and homework isn't quite the insanity it's sure to be in a few short weeks.
Anyway, the success at the play tryouts that Melly, Bunny, and I had today makes it easy for me to be happy. It was a short, easy tryout--everybody read something of their choice, then the script part they wanted. Melly's reading of the part of Abby (we're doing Arsenic and Old Lace) was especially brill--it was all Bunny and I could do to keep from bursting out laughing. We were biting our lips, looking at the ceiling, trying to tune her out...and nothing worked. Sometimes we'd just break out giggling, as quietly as we could. I don't know what it was about the way she read it, but it was just so wonderful--if she doesn't get Abby or Martha (they're two roles that go together; they're essentially the same, from what I can tell), I'll want to know the reason why. I don't just say that as her friend. Hers was easily the best script reading I heard.
The best book reading may have been Bunny's. She picked a monologue from a drama book (her family's pretty theater-oriented; I bet they've owned it for a while, though it looks pretty modern)--this first-person monologue about an ancient Roman private eye. She was the first reader to cross the stage as she talked--well, I'd call it a swagger, really!--and her voice is just...she did it very well. She didn't look up much, but she almost didn't need to. Everything else said it all.
My personal reading was a piece out of The Two Towers, predictably enough--the Merry-and-Pippin dialogue toward the beginning of the chapter "The Palantír". Not all of it, like I'd originally planned--that would have taken a little too long. ...I chose it not because of my love for Lord of the Rings so much as because that's what I read best aloud. I'd read it aloud so many times already, just to myself, back when I hurt my knee and couldn't leave my room, and sometimes late at night or early in the morning--perfecting the expressions, though I couldn't quite get the voices (especially Pippin's--I get Merry's all right, but Pippin's still eludes me a bit), playing the scene over and over in my own mental-movie version. Of everything in the entire book, I think that little exchange has to be my favorite, and I've still yet to figure out why.
So I waited until Holly and Melinda had gone. Most of the candidates had left, some of them to try out for the choir's song-and-dance ensemble. Then I took the stage. ...Well, such as it was. Not the auditorium one, but the mini-stage in another room, where all the non-musical productions are put on. I looked around the room. All friendly faces. I knew them all; they all knew me. Melly, Bunny, Jamie, and a couple others, plus the director. I told the room what I was reading and launched in.
I knew differentiating between Merry and Pippin was going to be tricky; I'd planned to look in different directions for each other, like they were looking at each other--but that was more sporadic than I'd planned. The good part was, I only really had to look a couple of times. I could have gotten through without looking at all, I think--I've read it so many times that yesterday I recited pretty much the entire dialogue, and not just my clipped-for-tryouts version, on the late bus home, to practice for today. That meant I could look up--and move around a bit. I walked a bit, but mostly stayed in the same little area--trying to look tired and sensible for Merry, impatient and twitching for Pippin as he twisted in the bracken. Mostly I concentrated on re-enacting the tones of voice exactly as I'd always planned them, down to the last nuance.
I didn't get it to the last nuance, and I accented a word out of place at one point, but Bunny's response as soon as I'd finished was a prettier compliment than I'd ever expected--especially since I'd expected silence, as part of the tryout traditions. "Oh-h! Read more!"
Reading for Elaine (the female lead) went all right. Not as well as the Merry-and-Pippin-ness I'd "busted out", as I expressed it to Bethie (and, I think, Ananda), but I did it my way, and it was different enough from the way the other candidates had done it to make my version unique.
How well the director liked it, I guess I'll see. Tomorrow the cast list comes out--and I think my name will be on it, but I don't know where. ...Could he cast me as Elaine, when I've never gotten a significant role in a play in my life?
Well, scratch that. I got a very decent part in a fifth-grade church play, and played Jonathan (yes, the Biblical David's best friend--they had quite a job concealing my longish hair), and got to sing alto for the first time in my life in a duet with the boy playing David. That was cool. ...But that was only three lines and a song. That's what sets this apart from anything I've done--this has no music, no dance. ...That means I've got a shot: I've always read fine at tryouts and then screwed up during the singing (my voice has an, uh, amusing tendency to disappear for high notes at tryouts). This time all I had to do was read. And I daresay I did that pretty well.
Melly, Bunny, and I, of course, have a total mental cast list going with them as Abby and Martha and me as Elaine. ...And I shouldn't get my hopes up, really. Easily a dozen girls tried out, and there're only three main spots, plus two other female roles.
...But the others stayed where they were when they read. And they didn't look up.
I guess we'll see.
-Laurel
My switched-lunch problem was at least partially solved--no Daf still, but Melly's in my new lunch (she got switched in, too, a while before; I hadn't known that), as is Megan--and my Leo Club problem's mostly solved, too. We've got some real projects now, and they look to be a great time, too. The Hooligans are thrilled. ...And the other thing is, Leo Clubs aren't necessarily supposed to be full-scale, head-on, march-out-and-save-society organizations. Our advisor ended up reminding me at the meeting, with a slight amount of concern in his voice, that Leo Clubs were at least equally about having fun.
...And I can accept that. What with my three APs, administrative difficulties (study-hall-and-AP-English-wise), lack of a driver's license, and what is soon to be an insane school play schedule...fun I could use, right about now. In college, when I have a license, when I'm in with a few more of my save-the-world kind, I can do that (well, Ananda will make me amend that with a maybe...I guess time is a bit scarce there, too). Or maybe even later this year, like after May, when APs are done with and homework isn't quite the insanity it's sure to be in a few short weeks.
Anyway, the success at the play tryouts that Melly, Bunny, and I had today makes it easy for me to be happy. It was a short, easy tryout--everybody read something of their choice, then the script part they wanted. Melly's reading of the part of Abby (we're doing Arsenic and Old Lace) was especially brill--it was all Bunny and I could do to keep from bursting out laughing. We were biting our lips, looking at the ceiling, trying to tune her out...and nothing worked. Sometimes we'd just break out giggling, as quietly as we could. I don't know what it was about the way she read it, but it was just so wonderful--if she doesn't get Abby or Martha (they're two roles that go together; they're essentially the same, from what I can tell), I'll want to know the reason why. I don't just say that as her friend. Hers was easily the best script reading I heard.
The best book reading may have been Bunny's. She picked a monologue from a drama book (her family's pretty theater-oriented; I bet they've owned it for a while, though it looks pretty modern)--this first-person monologue about an ancient Roman private eye. She was the first reader to cross the stage as she talked--well, I'd call it a swagger, really!--and her voice is just...she did it very well. She didn't look up much, but she almost didn't need to. Everything else said it all.
My personal reading was a piece out of The Two Towers, predictably enough--the Merry-and-Pippin dialogue toward the beginning of the chapter "The Palantír". Not all of it, like I'd originally planned--that would have taken a little too long. ...I chose it not because of my love for Lord of the Rings so much as because that's what I read best aloud. I'd read it aloud so many times already, just to myself, back when I hurt my knee and couldn't leave my room, and sometimes late at night or early in the morning--perfecting the expressions, though I couldn't quite get the voices (especially Pippin's--I get Merry's all right, but Pippin's still eludes me a bit), playing the scene over and over in my own mental-movie version. Of everything in the entire book, I think that little exchange has to be my favorite, and I've still yet to figure out why.
So I waited until Holly and Melinda had gone. Most of the candidates had left, some of them to try out for the choir's song-and-dance ensemble. Then I took the stage. ...Well, such as it was. Not the auditorium one, but the mini-stage in another room, where all the non-musical productions are put on. I looked around the room. All friendly faces. I knew them all; they all knew me. Melly, Bunny, Jamie, and a couple others, plus the director. I told the room what I was reading and launched in.
I knew differentiating between Merry and Pippin was going to be tricky; I'd planned to look in different directions for each other, like they were looking at each other--but that was more sporadic than I'd planned. The good part was, I only really had to look a couple of times. I could have gotten through without looking at all, I think--I've read it so many times that yesterday I recited pretty much the entire dialogue, and not just my clipped-for-tryouts version, on the late bus home, to practice for today. That meant I could look up--and move around a bit. I walked a bit, but mostly stayed in the same little area--trying to look tired and sensible for Merry, impatient and twitching for Pippin as he twisted in the bracken. Mostly I concentrated on re-enacting the tones of voice exactly as I'd always planned them, down to the last nuance.
I didn't get it to the last nuance, and I accented a word out of place at one point, but Bunny's response as soon as I'd finished was a prettier compliment than I'd ever expected--especially since I'd expected silence, as part of the tryout traditions. "Oh-h! Read more!"
Reading for Elaine (the female lead) went all right. Not as well as the Merry-and-Pippin-ness I'd "busted out", as I expressed it to Bethie (and, I think, Ananda), but I did it my way, and it was different enough from the way the other candidates had done it to make my version unique.
How well the director liked it, I guess I'll see. Tomorrow the cast list comes out--and I think my name will be on it, but I don't know where. ...Could he cast me as Elaine, when I've never gotten a significant role in a play in my life?
Well, scratch that. I got a very decent part in a fifth-grade church play, and played Jonathan (yes, the Biblical David's best friend--they had quite a job concealing my longish hair), and got to sing alto for the first time in my life in a duet with the boy playing David. That was cool. ...But that was only three lines and a song. That's what sets this apart from anything I've done--this has no music, no dance. ...That means I've got a shot: I've always read fine at tryouts and then screwed up during the singing (my voice has an, uh, amusing tendency to disappear for high notes at tryouts). This time all I had to do was read. And I daresay I did that pretty well.
Melly, Bunny, and I, of course, have a total mental cast list going with them as Abby and Martha and me as Elaine. ...And I shouldn't get my hopes up, really. Easily a dozen girls tried out, and there're only three main spots, plus two other female roles.
...But the others stayed where they were when they read. And they didn't look up.
I guess we'll see.
-Laurel
9.13.2002
Hurrah--got out of school way early today; our power went out.
Also burned the popsicle-stick house that Bethie, Daf, and I made (all of us at Bethie's house).
Am really tired. Not much to say.
...But oh, yeah. No card games in school anymore. Not even in study hall, and not even after school. The principal orders it.
-Laurel
Also burned the popsicle-stick house that Bethie, Daf, and I made (all of us at Bethie's house).
Am really tired. Not much to say.
...But oh, yeah. No card games in school anymore. Not even in study hall, and not even after school. The principal orders it.
-Laurel
9.12.2002
...Meanwhile, senior year hasn't started so auspiciously, either. Eleventh grade's beginnings were in sadness--and love, though I tend to forget that, since it was so short-lived.
Senior year begins in disillusioned anger. ...I know I haven't had much to say on this year yet--maybe I wasn't quite sure how to do it.
Just...my school is very overcrowded. The whole district is. Our construction project has helped some, but still not really enough. So we've been getting classes in the mid-to-high-30s range. We've taken on the principal, trying to get her to split my 34-person AP English class (last year the classes were split, and there didn't have as many as we did), but she's not cooperating, to say the least. We have all the conditions, all the people, the time, the place, the teacher--and she won't give it to us. Her reasons are many; few of them, however, make real sense; even fewer of them pertain to our problem (34 students in a class designed for 15); ...I'm not going to get into it all. Dismiss this rant as a whiny teenager out of touch with the real world if you like. Certainly the principal did. ...All I know is this: we have the English department on our side, and we have the counselors on our side. My counselor says she could make us another class in 20 minutes. But she's not allowed. Why? Nobody really knows. ...We tried parental support. We didn't get anywhere with that, either. She called my dad back and now he sides with her (though I think my mom still secretly sides with me: my dad doesn't go to parental functions as much; he doesn't know how incompetent she usually is and how sly her administrative doubletalk).
The best part? After three more weeks, if none of us drop the class, she may split it for us--but she'll take away Mrs. W from the second class, the teacher who has taught it for decades and turns every student I know who's had her into somebody who cares about her curriculum. She'll put it at the same time (which we didn't want), in another room, with another teacher. Who knows who--I've heard talk of one of the junior high administrators doing it, and this is a lady I've always found frightening (when you can look like a fish as you smile, as you simultaneously yell at somebody in the hall, you are creepy with a capital C). As Mr. K from last year puts it, "You're going to get something you don't want, either way. It's not right, but that's what's going to happen."
...We wanted AP English where we have study hall. There are 83 kids, at last count, signed up for it, and it's in a standard 30-person room. I kid you not, that's the actual figure. We've got kids all over the floor, on the windowsills, at Mr. K's desk. We mentioned it to the principal; she shrugged it off. We figured maybe we could get ten kids out of there by making another English. We were wrong.
This disorganization is rampant all over the school--and it's only getting worse. See, my one compensation for such an awful study hall was that Mr. K and Mrs. W are good friends with each other (both English teachers; had Mr. K last year, he's just as good in my eyes as she), and they make a terrible study hall tolerable. Mr. K runs it (by himself!), but Mrs. W (who's free then, which is why we wanted the English class there, and so did she) comes in to talk to him--and then talks to Matt and me, who're in her English. She's very cool, just like everyone said. They hold ludicrous conversations Hawkeye-style--totally loony, making jokes because they'll scream if they don't. The demand the school is putting on them is incredible.
...And it's only gotten worse for Mr. K, and here comes a new insanity. They decided one of the English classes at the tenth-grade level was too big--so they split it. And they gave the new kids to Mr. K, without even asking him if he could do it. Which he can't, or couldn't--all his spaces were filled--but the schedules were made out as soon as the class was split. He found out secondhand--from his new students--that he was teaching another English class.
What, of his, are they nixing for the sake of these kids? ...My study hall. Which he has fought over, managed, and expended energy for, for over a straight week now. And now he's whisked away, before he gets to enjoy any benefits he's fought for, assuming they ever arrive.
So this wonderful teacher, who somehow laughs at 83 kids and can make us do the same--is gone, and Mrs. W with him. She won't be coming to talk to us now. Not unless she gets the study hall herself, which I imagine is a slim chance, because it'd prove our AP English-fight point (that she had space for another class) instead of the administration's (that that time was supposed to be used to plan how to administer AP curriculum to a far-over-capacity classroom).
And the final parting shot? This, for no apparent reason, switches me to second lunch. Which takes away my only lunch with Daf, the only other member of our four-best-friends-together-group to be in the school, and puts me in with a lunch I have no friends in. I tell you, I'm actually considering bringing my lunch and eating it in the first part of study hall (where my lunch used to be), then going to the library during second lunch. At least there I can sit by myself without feeling stupid. ...I'm actually considering this, every alternate day, for the next nine months. I've got an in with the librarian (I'm president of Leo Club, and she runs it); I bet I could do it, too. I may. We'll see.
Just...all my scholastic career, I've put up with administrative crap so I didn't fall prey to it. And now they've taken everything anyway: by having only one English in the first place, they forced out my chance to take Piano/Keyboard; by refusing to split it now, they've denied me full effects from a course I'm basing my life on (I want to teach college-level English, like this course), as well as stranding me in a study hall of 83 shoved into a room of 30; by their other crappy planning, they've taken away my favorite teacher from last year and my favorite so far from this year; and they've taken away my only chance to see my last remaining best friend, save choir, which we sit in different sections for. And if they decide to "give us what we want", they take away Mrs. W, and put me in the horrible position of choosing between a small class (which I've been fighting so much for) and a quality teacher.
How many times can I hold back frustrated tears in study hall? It's been twice in as many classes so far that I've had to. How often do I have to go home feeling dead, popping on M*A*S*H's "Dear Sigmund" (which deals with frustration) as therapy? How often will I have to paste a smile on my face in AP psych (which comes right after study hall), so as not to get a concerned "You okay?" from the also-wonderful Ms. P, as I did today? How often will I have to paste on a similar one for my mother, who wants so much for me to enjoy this year and is so afraid I won't?
Sorry, Mom. I'm already counting the days 'til it's over. 281 left.
-Laurel
Senior year begins in disillusioned anger. ...I know I haven't had much to say on this year yet--maybe I wasn't quite sure how to do it.
Just...my school is very overcrowded. The whole district is. Our construction project has helped some, but still not really enough. So we've been getting classes in the mid-to-high-30s range. We've taken on the principal, trying to get her to split my 34-person AP English class (last year the classes were split, and there didn't have as many as we did), but she's not cooperating, to say the least. We have all the conditions, all the people, the time, the place, the teacher--and she won't give it to us. Her reasons are many; few of them, however, make real sense; even fewer of them pertain to our problem (34 students in a class designed for 15); ...I'm not going to get into it all. Dismiss this rant as a whiny teenager out of touch with the real world if you like. Certainly the principal did. ...All I know is this: we have the English department on our side, and we have the counselors on our side. My counselor says she could make us another class in 20 minutes. But she's not allowed. Why? Nobody really knows. ...We tried parental support. We didn't get anywhere with that, either. She called my dad back and now he sides with her (though I think my mom still secretly sides with me: my dad doesn't go to parental functions as much; he doesn't know how incompetent she usually is and how sly her administrative doubletalk).
The best part? After three more weeks, if none of us drop the class, she may split it for us--but she'll take away Mrs. W from the second class, the teacher who has taught it for decades and turns every student I know who's had her into somebody who cares about her curriculum. She'll put it at the same time (which we didn't want), in another room, with another teacher. Who knows who--I've heard talk of one of the junior high administrators doing it, and this is a lady I've always found frightening (when you can look like a fish as you smile, as you simultaneously yell at somebody in the hall, you are creepy with a capital C). As Mr. K from last year puts it, "You're going to get something you don't want, either way. It's not right, but that's what's going to happen."
...We wanted AP English where we have study hall. There are 83 kids, at last count, signed up for it, and it's in a standard 30-person room. I kid you not, that's the actual figure. We've got kids all over the floor, on the windowsills, at Mr. K's desk. We mentioned it to the principal; she shrugged it off. We figured maybe we could get ten kids out of there by making another English. We were wrong.
This disorganization is rampant all over the school--and it's only getting worse. See, my one compensation for such an awful study hall was that Mr. K and Mrs. W are good friends with each other (both English teachers; had Mr. K last year, he's just as good in my eyes as she), and they make a terrible study hall tolerable. Mr. K runs it (by himself!), but Mrs. W (who's free then, which is why we wanted the English class there, and so did she) comes in to talk to him--and then talks to Matt and me, who're in her English. She's very cool, just like everyone said. They hold ludicrous conversations Hawkeye-style--totally loony, making jokes because they'll scream if they don't. The demand the school is putting on them is incredible.
...And it's only gotten worse for Mr. K, and here comes a new insanity. They decided one of the English classes at the tenth-grade level was too big--so they split it. And they gave the new kids to Mr. K, without even asking him if he could do it. Which he can't, or couldn't--all his spaces were filled--but the schedules were made out as soon as the class was split. He found out secondhand--from his new students--that he was teaching another English class.
What, of his, are they nixing for the sake of these kids? ...My study hall. Which he has fought over, managed, and expended energy for, for over a straight week now. And now he's whisked away, before he gets to enjoy any benefits he's fought for, assuming they ever arrive.
So this wonderful teacher, who somehow laughs at 83 kids and can make us do the same--is gone, and Mrs. W with him. She won't be coming to talk to us now. Not unless she gets the study hall herself, which I imagine is a slim chance, because it'd prove our AP English-fight point (that she had space for another class) instead of the administration's (that that time was supposed to be used to plan how to administer AP curriculum to a far-over-capacity classroom).
And the final parting shot? This, for no apparent reason, switches me to second lunch. Which takes away my only lunch with Daf, the only other member of our four-best-friends-together-group to be in the school, and puts me in with a lunch I have no friends in. I tell you, I'm actually considering bringing my lunch and eating it in the first part of study hall (where my lunch used to be), then going to the library during second lunch. At least there I can sit by myself without feeling stupid. ...I'm actually considering this, every alternate day, for the next nine months. I've got an in with the librarian (I'm president of Leo Club, and she runs it); I bet I could do it, too. I may. We'll see.
Just...all my scholastic career, I've put up with administrative crap so I didn't fall prey to it. And now they've taken everything anyway: by having only one English in the first place, they forced out my chance to take Piano/Keyboard; by refusing to split it now, they've denied me full effects from a course I'm basing my life on (I want to teach college-level English, like this course), as well as stranding me in a study hall of 83 shoved into a room of 30; by their other crappy planning, they've taken away my favorite teacher from last year and my favorite so far from this year; and they've taken away my only chance to see my last remaining best friend, save choir, which we sit in different sections for. And if they decide to "give us what we want", they take away Mrs. W, and put me in the horrible position of choosing between a small class (which I've been fighting so much for) and a quality teacher.
How many times can I hold back frustrated tears in study hall? It's been twice in as many classes so far that I've had to. How often do I have to go home feeling dead, popping on M*A*S*H's "Dear Sigmund" (which deals with frustration) as therapy? How often will I have to paste a smile on my face in AP psych (which comes right after study hall), so as not to get a concerned "You okay?" from the also-wonderful Ms. P, as I did today? How often will I have to paste on a similar one for my mother, who wants so much for me to enjoy this year and is so afraid I won't?
Sorry, Mom. I'm already counting the days 'til it's over. 281 left.
-Laurel
Okay, today's for a better September 11th bit than yesterday's was--here's the things I wanted to refer to. These are the links I care for everyone to see:
Dave Barry's original (serious) column on September 11th
Dave Barry's column for this year, on the memorial to the Flight 90 passengers
Zinni's year-later blog entry
Ananda's reminisce of last year's emotions and this year's reactions
...These say it all for me, or nearly all. The only thing I want to add is a line from a poem I wrote about a month later, How insignificant feels my life... --that's what I remember the most, besides the wave of cold nausea I got when I saw--and only once did I ever see it--the footage of people jumping from the towers and plummeting endlessly down. What I remember most is sitting there, wanting to cry and being somehow too sad to, feeling like nothing in my little world was real, like no sadness in my life could be so much as considered bad. What they had was bad.
What I remember most about the aftermath is how much more easily I would cry. I hadn't cried for nearly 48 hours after the attacks, and suddenly little things made me go weak-lipped and tight-chested--news reports, or movie scenes. (Was very glad I'd already seen Monsters, Inc. before I went with Bryan: that movie was a perfect example. Don't ask me why.) One, two, even six months after, and even before the stress of balancing school and Aubrey taught me again what sadness was.
...True sadness isn't suffering yourself. It's having to watch other people suffer needlessly. No year taught me that better than my eleventh-grade one. How anyone can find pleasure in it, I hope I never truly know, for to truly know is to be guilty of it.
-Laurel
Dave Barry's original (serious) column on September 11th
Dave Barry's column for this year, on the memorial to the Flight 90 passengers
Zinni's year-later blog entry
Ananda's reminisce of last year's emotions and this year's reactions
...These say it all for me, or nearly all. The only thing I want to add is a line from a poem I wrote about a month later, How insignificant feels my life... --that's what I remember the most, besides the wave of cold nausea I got when I saw--and only once did I ever see it--the footage of people jumping from the towers and plummeting endlessly down. What I remember most is sitting there, wanting to cry and being somehow too sad to, feeling like nothing in my little world was real, like no sadness in my life could be so much as considered bad. What they had was bad.
What I remember most about the aftermath is how much more easily I would cry. I hadn't cried for nearly 48 hours after the attacks, and suddenly little things made me go weak-lipped and tight-chested--news reports, or movie scenes. (Was very glad I'd already seen Monsters, Inc. before I went with Bryan: that movie was a perfect example. Don't ask me why.) One, two, even six months after, and even before the stress of balancing school and Aubrey taught me again what sadness was.
...True sadness isn't suffering yourself. It's having to watch other people suffer needlessly. No year taught me that better than my eleventh-grade one. How anyone can find pleasure in it, I hope I never truly know, for to truly know is to be guilty of it.
-Laurel
9.11.2002
Feel like I should have a lot to say, but I'm pretty hurried at the moment, and anyway, I don't have much to say. And, as usual, most of what I have to say is from M*A*S*H. ...Ananda's and my talking about the episode where Father Mulcahy gave this whole spiel on Plato's ideal plane led me to another thing of his...it's this song from "Dear Uncle Abdul" that he writes, deciding that the Korean War needs its own songs, like the World Wars did. Here's what finally comes out of it:
There's no one singing war songs now like people used to do,
No "Over There," no "Praise the Lord," no "Glory Hallelu."
Perhaps at last we've asked ourselves what we should have asked
before,
With the pain and death this madness brings, what were we ever
singing for?
My point? ...Let's remember, let's honor...but it can't be all about how we're going to march into battle and be victorious. Over 3,000 died. We should think twice before taking any more lives, perpetuating violence without a very good reason.
I don't know enough about the Iraq situation to know whether we should go in. I've heard a lot of people saying no...former generals, like Schwartzkopf.
I don't want this turning into an "Over There", either. There's hope and victory in this, heroism in this...but no romance. No knights in shining armor to slay the dragon. We had knights in firemen and policemen's garb, and other heroes in normal clothes...but they perished, too, a lot of them. That's not how fairy tales go. And we shouldn't try to make it one by riding into Iraq and slaying a different dragon. Dragon, yes. ...The right dragon, at the moment? I'm not so sure.
Just...I know how important freedom is. Believe me. I was never more protective of my country than I was this time last year. But...it's more blood, more pain, more death. Maybe I've watched too much M*A*S*H...but how much of that do we really want, remembering what happened before?
It's al-Qaeda we want. I don't know if we should want this for anyone else.
-Laurel
There's no one singing war songs now like people used to do,
No "Over There," no "Praise the Lord," no "Glory Hallelu."
Perhaps at last we've asked ourselves what we should have asked
before,
With the pain and death this madness brings, what were we ever
singing for?
My point? ...Let's remember, let's honor...but it can't be all about how we're going to march into battle and be victorious. Over 3,000 died. We should think twice before taking any more lives, perpetuating violence without a very good reason.
I don't know enough about the Iraq situation to know whether we should go in. I've heard a lot of people saying no...former generals, like Schwartzkopf.
I don't want this turning into an "Over There", either. There's hope and victory in this, heroism in this...but no romance. No knights in shining armor to slay the dragon. We had knights in firemen and policemen's garb, and other heroes in normal clothes...but they perished, too, a lot of them. That's not how fairy tales go. And we shouldn't try to make it one by riding into Iraq and slaying a different dragon. Dragon, yes. ...The right dragon, at the moment? I'm not so sure.
Just...I know how important freedom is. Believe me. I was never more protective of my country than I was this time last year. But...it's more blood, more pain, more death. Maybe I've watched too much M*A*S*H...but how much of that do we really want, remembering what happened before?
It's al-Qaeda we want. I don't know if we should want this for anyone else.
-Laurel
9.09.2002
Had our first Leo Club meeting today. Having taken over the position of club president after Ananda's graduation, I decided that this year, we really were going to accomplish things. Ananda, Daf, and I had started the club to save the world, in our own little way, and it was about time the junior high Leo club stopped kicking our butts, volunteering-wise.
I got to the meeting, and found myself staring at one new member: Jen, the little sister of existing-member Jamie. The rest today? Melly, Bunny, Chris, and the aforementioned Jamie. Trina had skipped out for another club's meeting, Daf was at the dentist, and most of our prospective newbies were at the choral council meeting.
...Ten minutes later, I got the Hooligans' attention (that term encompasses everyone in the club except Daf, Jen, and me--though Jen will officially earn the title herself before many more meetings elapse, I feel) and asked my big question.
"I need to ask, guys--it'll help us know what we want to do, and how we can help."
I began the question a few times, to be cut off by various hooligans talking to each other (of particular interest, apparently, was one of Chris's senior pictures where his expression was reportedly rather come-hither; I looked at it myself and didn't really think so, but...). Finally I got all the way through it.
"Just...who did you want to help? What did you want to accomplish? ...Why are each of you here?"
There was a second of silence. Then, hesitatingly, inevitably...Melly replied, deadly serious.
"I needed something for my college application."
There was another moment of silence.
"Yeah, I'm gonna have to go with Melly on that one," Bunny said.
...And all of them went round the table and said the exact same thing.
"Oh, yeah, and hang out," somebody tacked on at the end.
"I mean, it's not like we don't want to do anything," Bunny began, "just..."
Jamie addressed her other hooligans. "Well, it seems like you guys just want to sit around eating Hershey kisses and do this much [here she held her thumb and forefinger slightly apart]..."
I didn't hear any dissent.
I buried my head in my hands.
"Aw, poor Laurel..." Melly said, sounding sort of sympathetic. "We're..." --something admonishing to the rest of the group about how they were all disillusioning me or something.
"I wanted to save the world!" I moaned. "You know, there're all these problems, and what can we do about them, how can we help solve them?"
"We can't," said Bunny, deadly serious. We stared at her. "Well, you can't! ...I mean, you can do a little thing, but..."
"Bunny, showing the wonderful Leo Club spirit!" commented Melly sarcastically. ...And I lost them to chatter.
Some five or ten minutes later, Secretary/Hooligan Melly had complied with my wishes (beggings?) and had at least had the group think of some groups we could help--they like working with kids. ...Cute little kids. They showed interest in children's hospitals. They didn't show interest in kids that weren't cute, like, say, impoverished inner-city kids...but then, I didn't really ask. Nor were they instantly enthusiastic about any non-kid group...except animals. Jen, fresh out of the junior high Leo Club and therefore frighteningly businesslike, talked us into trying the animal-shelter drive again, or something like it (oh, noooo....); we finally agreed to make Valentine's Day cards for senior citizens come February. We will help with the PTO picnic at the elementary, which is commonplace; we will march in parades, which is all the fun and no real work--and they know it, and are glad. No getting dirty, no seeing pain, no feeling pain ourselves. Forget about saving the world; let's put icing on what's already cake.
"...Every day the dreamers die..."
At 2:45, we had to adjourn; our advisor had an appointment. Everyone went home, except me (my mom wasn't coming until 3:30 to pick me up for my dentist appointment)--I got online in the computer lab and attempted to post here, except it timed out on me. Then I wandered around, lamenting the fact that, once again, reality is the ending-point of all my dreams.
...I missed Ananda. Just me, and five hooligans...Daf doesn't know if she wants to do it, and I'm not sure I blame her (she's so busy). It was like the world against me.
...The societal me-first thing, needing something in it for you before giving of yourself...isn't that what the four of us--Daf, Ananda, Zinni, and I--started this stuff to change, or at least to avoid?
We wanted to save society. We started a club for it. The club is populated by children who need college-application sparkle.
God help us all.
-Laurel
I got to the meeting, and found myself staring at one new member: Jen, the little sister of existing-member Jamie. The rest today? Melly, Bunny, Chris, and the aforementioned Jamie. Trina had skipped out for another club's meeting, Daf was at the dentist, and most of our prospective newbies were at the choral council meeting.
...Ten minutes later, I got the Hooligans' attention (that term encompasses everyone in the club except Daf, Jen, and me--though Jen will officially earn the title herself before many more meetings elapse, I feel) and asked my big question.
"I need to ask, guys--it'll help us know what we want to do, and how we can help."
I began the question a few times, to be cut off by various hooligans talking to each other (of particular interest, apparently, was one of Chris's senior pictures where his expression was reportedly rather come-hither; I looked at it myself and didn't really think so, but...). Finally I got all the way through it.
"Just...who did you want to help? What did you want to accomplish? ...Why are each of you here?"
There was a second of silence. Then, hesitatingly, inevitably...Melly replied, deadly serious.
"I needed something for my college application."
There was another moment of silence.
"Yeah, I'm gonna have to go with Melly on that one," Bunny said.
...And all of them went round the table and said the exact same thing.
"Oh, yeah, and hang out," somebody tacked on at the end.
"I mean, it's not like we don't want to do anything," Bunny began, "just..."
Jamie addressed her other hooligans. "Well, it seems like you guys just want to sit around eating Hershey kisses and do this much [here she held her thumb and forefinger slightly apart]..."
I didn't hear any dissent.
I buried my head in my hands.
"Aw, poor Laurel..." Melly said, sounding sort of sympathetic. "We're..." --something admonishing to the rest of the group about how they were all disillusioning me or something.
"I wanted to save the world!" I moaned. "You know, there're all these problems, and what can we do about them, how can we help solve them?"
"We can't," said Bunny, deadly serious. We stared at her. "Well, you can't! ...I mean, you can do a little thing, but..."
"Bunny, showing the wonderful Leo Club spirit!" commented Melly sarcastically. ...And I lost them to chatter.
Some five or ten minutes later, Secretary/Hooligan Melly had complied with my wishes (beggings?) and had at least had the group think of some groups we could help--they like working with kids. ...Cute little kids. They showed interest in children's hospitals. They didn't show interest in kids that weren't cute, like, say, impoverished inner-city kids...but then, I didn't really ask. Nor were they instantly enthusiastic about any non-kid group...except animals. Jen, fresh out of the junior high Leo Club and therefore frighteningly businesslike, talked us into trying the animal-shelter drive again, or something like it (oh, noooo....); we finally agreed to make Valentine's Day cards for senior citizens come February. We will help with the PTO picnic at the elementary, which is commonplace; we will march in parades, which is all the fun and no real work--and they know it, and are glad. No getting dirty, no seeing pain, no feeling pain ourselves. Forget about saving the world; let's put icing on what's already cake.
"...Every day the dreamers die..."
At 2:45, we had to adjourn; our advisor had an appointment. Everyone went home, except me (my mom wasn't coming until 3:30 to pick me up for my dentist appointment)--I got online in the computer lab and attempted to post here, except it timed out on me. Then I wandered around, lamenting the fact that, once again, reality is the ending-point of all my dreams.
...I missed Ananda. Just me, and five hooligans...Daf doesn't know if she wants to do it, and I'm not sure I blame her (she's so busy). It was like the world against me.
...The societal me-first thing, needing something in it for you before giving of yourself...isn't that what the four of us--Daf, Ananda, Zinni, and I--started this stuff to change, or at least to avoid?
We wanted to save society. We started a club for it. The club is populated by children who need college-application sparkle.
God help us all.
-Laurel
9.08.2002
Just got done watching Ballykissangel, this odd little Irish drama put on by the BBC. Have been rather amused by the idea for some time now and have finally managed to see an episode for the first time. ...I'm a bit confused (there're at least two regular priests, and maybe three, and all the names are more British and Irish than American, though that's definitely cool), but I liked it. ...And, anyway, the voices were wonderful. I love Irish accents. ...Nobody ever says they like American accents.
-Laurel
-Laurel
9.04.2002
9.03.2002
...Wow, got quite a response to that from Daf and 'Nanda...
...Thanks, guys, especially Daf. ...When Zinni moved away, I worried for a while about whether we'd all drift away...you with Aubrey, 'Nanda with her own grade, and leaving me to, well...whatever...but it wasn't like that. ...I guess I did the same thing with Ananda leaving--I wasn't sure about how we'd fare.
...Your blog taught me better. It's going to be all right with us.
See you tomorrow, Daffy.
-Laurel
...Thanks, guys, especially Daf. ...When Zinni moved away, I worried for a while about whether we'd all drift away...you with Aubrey, 'Nanda with her own grade, and leaving me to, well...whatever...but it wasn't like that. ...I guess I did the same thing with Ananda leaving--I wasn't sure about how we'd fare.
...Your blog taught me better. It's going to be all right with us.
See you tomorrow, Daffy.
-Laurel
My senior year feels like such a...formality.
...Not that it's started yet--it starts tomorrow--but after eleven years (plus preschool and kindergarten) of liking school, I've thought of this year, and, you know, I just don't see the point at all of going back again. Most years I've been sort of excited. This year it seems like just one more hurdle to jump before I can get to college.
I mean, what can there be left to learn in a school setting--what that really matters? Sure, there's statistics, economics, and government...but don't I know all I'll need to know of those already? There's English and Spanish, but can't I get to college, since I'm already taking the former at college level anyway? There's choir, but...I don't know. There's gym, but...so what?
...They don't teach you what to do with an aching soul, a starving boy, a crush betrayed, or a feeling of helplessness. They don't teach you how to look at the world and not become a cynic. They don't tell you how to say goodbye. I had to learn those last year on my own, in addition to school. And now I have, and I just don't see the point of going back.
Walking around campus for my job, talking to Ananda, looking at my own life and other's lives have made me see what freedom is--and it's made it all the harder to act like a child. That's why I snapped at my mom when she hassled me about my summer project--because I knew what I was doing, I knew how much/little time I had, I knew how much work I had left, and I understood what was needed. It didn't bother me. Why should it bother her? English will earn me my house, clothing, and bread, and I've always been advanced in it. After seventeen years, couldn't she trust me with one summer project?
And what about school, where our high school principal might as well make like the middle school one and address us as "youngsters", because it's obvious from her weekly-to-biweekly dressing-down of the student body over the PA system for one of the myriad infractions that about five of our thousand students commit (with the subsequent "punishment" for the whole, such as closing down the bathrooms, which never did stop smoking or vandalism, and never will) that that's what she thinks we are?
I hate the raw, undeserved ego that is inherent in virtually every senior class. Oh, yes, we won the pep rally, we won the spirit contest, this, that, all-else-under-the-sun...but, duh, it's because they're seniors. And if they're so spirited, why do I always hear the most complaining out of them about how terrible the school is, if they're going to be out of there in (fill-in-the-blank) days? ...See? Even I'm doing it.
I hate the formality of senior pictures, class rings, proms, dinners, songs, and all else like it--and what I hate even more is that it's mostly for the parents, and therefore I'll be caught in it, too. I already am--my parents, who have always cared more about what I look like than me, are making me double my acne dosages for my senior picture--never mind the hassle and the nauseating feeling it gives me right after breakfast, because a senior picture is forever, and when I'm forty, blah, blah, blah.
When I'm forty, if I'm shallow enough to sit there wishing I didn't have zits in the twelfth grade, instead of thinking of what I was and asking myself who I can still help and how I can make myself and the world better, then I will have gotten old, and this Laurel will be nothing but ashamed at that one.
And what is there to come back to, save Daf, Bethie, and Leo Club? Zinni's been gone, Ananda's gone, Aubrey's gone, and Bryan's gone. There's no ambition here, except maybe to be tenth in my class instead of eleventh, which I currently am.
I know I did a little of this in tenth grade, too (no Zinni, scary English teacher [she wasn't really], getting old), but really.
...It's just the formality of it all. I'm so tired of that--sometimes. I'm horrified at myself for being mentally rebellious, and thereby horrified at myself for being so mentally dormant before.
Why can't we just get through this so I can finally live on my own?
...Which isn't how I should think of it. I should try to find the reasons, or at least trust that they'll happen. I mean, eleventh grade was supposed to be (by my reckoning), a light, happy little year...and it was insane in nearly every sense of the word--but incredible, in a way, too. I'll probably read this entry again with a certain amount of shame (though, you know, that statement applies to fully half of my entries, sooo...). But...I don't know. Right now it looks sort of lonely and bleak. An endless succession of classes, projects, tests, homework, extracurriculars, and lack of sleep. ...But what else is there to do in my normal life but sit around and watch TV?
...The sooner I get to make my own way, the better. I never used to think that, but I do now.
-Laurel
...Not that it's started yet--it starts tomorrow--but after eleven years (plus preschool and kindergarten) of liking school, I've thought of this year, and, you know, I just don't see the point at all of going back again. Most years I've been sort of excited. This year it seems like just one more hurdle to jump before I can get to college.
I mean, what can there be left to learn in a school setting--what that really matters? Sure, there's statistics, economics, and government...but don't I know all I'll need to know of those already? There's English and Spanish, but can't I get to college, since I'm already taking the former at college level anyway? There's choir, but...I don't know. There's gym, but...so what?
...They don't teach you what to do with an aching soul, a starving boy, a crush betrayed, or a feeling of helplessness. They don't teach you how to look at the world and not become a cynic. They don't tell you how to say goodbye. I had to learn those last year on my own, in addition to school. And now I have, and I just don't see the point of going back.
Walking around campus for my job, talking to Ananda, looking at my own life and other's lives have made me see what freedom is--and it's made it all the harder to act like a child. That's why I snapped at my mom when she hassled me about my summer project--because I knew what I was doing, I knew how much/little time I had, I knew how much work I had left, and I understood what was needed. It didn't bother me. Why should it bother her? English will earn me my house, clothing, and bread, and I've always been advanced in it. After seventeen years, couldn't she trust me with one summer project?
And what about school, where our high school principal might as well make like the middle school one and address us as "youngsters", because it's obvious from her weekly-to-biweekly dressing-down of the student body over the PA system for one of the myriad infractions that about five of our thousand students commit (with the subsequent "punishment" for the whole, such as closing down the bathrooms, which never did stop smoking or vandalism, and never will) that that's what she thinks we are?
I hate the raw, undeserved ego that is inherent in virtually every senior class. Oh, yes, we won the pep rally, we won the spirit contest, this, that, all-else-under-the-sun...but, duh, it's because they're seniors. And if they're so spirited, why do I always hear the most complaining out of them about how terrible the school is, if they're going to be out of there in (fill-in-the-blank) days? ...See? Even I'm doing it.
I hate the formality of senior pictures, class rings, proms, dinners, songs, and all else like it--and what I hate even more is that it's mostly for the parents, and therefore I'll be caught in it, too. I already am--my parents, who have always cared more about what I look like than me, are making me double my acne dosages for my senior picture--never mind the hassle and the nauseating feeling it gives me right after breakfast, because a senior picture is forever, and when I'm forty, blah, blah, blah.
When I'm forty, if I'm shallow enough to sit there wishing I didn't have zits in the twelfth grade, instead of thinking of what I was and asking myself who I can still help and how I can make myself and the world better, then I will have gotten old, and this Laurel will be nothing but ashamed at that one.
And what is there to come back to, save Daf, Bethie, and Leo Club? Zinni's been gone, Ananda's gone, Aubrey's gone, and Bryan's gone. There's no ambition here, except maybe to be tenth in my class instead of eleventh, which I currently am.
I know I did a little of this in tenth grade, too (no Zinni, scary English teacher [she wasn't really], getting old), but really.
...It's just the formality of it all. I'm so tired of that--sometimes. I'm horrified at myself for being mentally rebellious, and thereby horrified at myself for being so mentally dormant before.
Why can't we just get through this so I can finally live on my own?
...Which isn't how I should think of it. I should try to find the reasons, or at least trust that they'll happen. I mean, eleventh grade was supposed to be (by my reckoning), a light, happy little year...and it was insane in nearly every sense of the word--but incredible, in a way, too. I'll probably read this entry again with a certain amount of shame (though, you know, that statement applies to fully half of my entries, sooo...). But...I don't know. Right now it looks sort of lonely and bleak. An endless succession of classes, projects, tests, homework, extracurriculars, and lack of sleep. ...But what else is there to do in my normal life but sit around and watch TV?
...The sooner I get to make my own way, the better. I never used to think that, but I do now.
-Laurel
9.02.2002
I've been outdone by a seventh-grader. *g*
Ananda linked me to her little sister's livejournal, and I was duly impressed. Her blog has all the style I wanted for mine, and does it with so much less of the seventh-grade melodrama that I not only had at her age, but ruddy still have in my journals, blogs, etc.
Link is here if you're interested. But, you know, be warned of all the anime-ness you're about to find.
-Laurel
Ananda linked me to her little sister's livejournal, and I was duly impressed. Her blog has all the style I wanted for mine, and does it with so much less of the seventh-grade melodrama that I not only had at her age, but ruddy still have in my journals, blogs, etc.
Link is here if you're interested. But, you know, be warned of all the anime-ness you're about to find.
-Laurel