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| And so begins the biggest year of my life so far. | | |
| What doesn't kill you either makes you stronger or makes you fatter.
Lately, my life has felt like a flurry of last minute doubts and stupid mistakes. I realized that I forgot to send an official transcript to the only private school I'm considering. It doesn't help my mind that it's also my top choice in terms of the schools to which I've sent applications. I sent an email to the admission office, as well as leaving voicemails there and with my high school counselor, but the truth remains that I've done all I can do, and even then nothing will really get done until two days after the deadline. I keep telling myself it happens for a reason. I will be beyond thankful if they still accept my application and completely amazed if I even get in. But honestly? If I forgot to send them a transcript and they have to turn away large numbers of students, my stupid mistake is probably enough of a reason to turn me away. I'm waiting for later to be heartbroken about it, though. I worked damn hard on that supplemental writing, and I'll be damned if I'll give up on any hope at all the day after I submitted everything else.
I feel like I need to write more poetry. Of course, it's not something I can just make happen with a snap of my fingers. These things happen. I never write well in December. It's a month full of Mondays. Vincent recently expressed that he's been writing less, as well. He's at peace with it though because he no longer possesses the same desire to write. I'm not like that. I don't think I could ever be like that. I breathe writing, but I'm also very good at holding my breath for long periods of time... like months.
I've spent a good portion of what my senior year has been so far happy. I've been feel-good, smiley, overall optimistic about life. It's great. I'm connecting with friends, becoming comfortable in my own skin, but at the same time, these stupid mistakes and the lack of attention to something I claim to love weigh me down. This winter break has been a lot of pretending to feel happy holiday vibes. I've actually just been kicking myself about college and eating when I'm bored.
Like I said before: what doesn't kill you. | | |
| and right now i am basking in them. i say things boldly, and the deeper into these moods i become, the easier it is for me to think purely. i consider this the purest form of thinking i have, where everything is unfiltered yet still clear. i am almost angry at myself for not feeling this way for a long time. because this feeling is what makes me feel more like me than most other feelings do. | | |
| It's not quite fair to say that I've never been in a group that succeeded, because I have. Concert Band last year won the highest awards in every category at the CMEA show, but I didn't quite feel the victory. I was sight-reading because Khyle never showed up, I was hot and hungry and tired pissed off because Khyle flaked. Concert Band last year was frustrating as a whole, and it definitely didn't feel like we were all a closely-knit group. But that's not what this is about.
I was watching West Side Story with Jason yesterday, and he was reflecting on the production of it he had done when he was 13. He pulled up old pictures and we talked about Justin and Kristin and I could tell that they all really loved that show. I felt familiar feelings as he showed me pictures and told me stories- feelings that I had felt whenever I heard him talk about other plays and musicals he did with KTTS and with his school.
I've talked about my disappointment in Marching Band with Jason, and he always tells me that I shouldn't be in it to win. And trust me, I'm not. I'm doing it because I love it. But after three years of being a last place band, it really sucks to be told how to feel by someone who has been part of multiple AMAZING performances with multiple AMAZING groups of people.
Life isn't about losing and winning, but I will be the first to say that constantly losing and constantly dealing with apathy, budget cuts, small numbers, and disrespect really blows. All I want is to feel a sense of accomplishment, that I'm actually being rewarded for all this effort, not only by judges, but by the people who went through it with me, and the people who saw it all happen from the outside. | | |
| I keep staring at the canvas, but nothing happens.
My art teacher was walking around the room describing art as a way to, and I quote, “purge our tenuous souls into a world of naive and petty paranoia.” Honestly? I’m just in this class to graduate. I couldn’t tell the difference between a water color painting and the water damage on my math book from that one time I “accidentally” dropped it in a massive puddle... but I digress.
I was having a staring contest with that blank slate while my teacher droned on about how the “essence of creativity lies within our own mental caverns.” All I could think about was the chicken sandwich waiting for me in my locker.
The boy at the easel next to mine tapped my shoulder. His hair was red and mousy, and he always smelled like pickles for some reason. I had taken to mentally referring to him as Pickles.
“Hey,” said Pickles. And whatever he said after that was lost to me, because all I had playing in my mind was him saying “pickles” over and over again; it suited his voice well. I nodded and turned back to my blank easel. I heard him scoff, and I figured whatever he had to say wasn’t that important and probably had something to do with pickles. Or, at least I wanted it to be. Things like that gave me my jollies during this hour long excuse for an education.
I don’t know why I was even in that stupid art class. All I did was splash some paint on the canvas, call it “abstract,” and pull out my manuscripts for my Play Writing class. I was much more interested in writing than painting. You can create fictional characters about people you hate and then kill them! That’s much more fun that rubbing paint all over a board.
I heard my teacher still rambling on and saying something like, “Your minds are fragile and episodic clusters of knowledge,” or, “release the architectural desires onto the canvas like a map of the mansion in your conscience!” Her voice reminded me of broken wind-chimes. I constantly wondered why I was there. I can’t make a stupid paintbrush work, and I can’t stand to hear my teacher’s nonsense. All I want to hear when I’m in that class is the bell, releasing me to lunch and terminating the tedium. Lunch is like a feeding frenzy in the shark tank.
Everyone has their place: the losers, the popular kids, the in betweens, the nobodys, the somebodys. The funniest thing is, at least to me, is how everyone seems to be so proud of their place, even if it’s obviously not the best. But then again, it’s high school. There’s no such thing as a good place in high school.
I suppose you could say I have some kind of reverse nostalgia. I’m fine with my past being passed, the present pisses me off like a paper cut to the cuticle, but the future? Whoa, baby. The future is exciting as hell, especially because it means I won’t be in high school anymore.
I take back what I said earlier about lunch being like a shark tank at feeding time. I think the entire high school experience is like that. Although, while most people think the students are the sharks that tear and rip at anything they can get their overly manicured or ridiculously sweaty or unnaturally beefy hands on, I think it’s the opposite.
I think high schoolers, even myself, are the chum. We are in our own little buckets, and we become torn apart by everything around us in an explosive, barbaric, and sometimes bloody, mess.
Maybe I’ll try to paint that someday. | | |
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