I want to briefly ask a question that has crossed the mind of seemingly every single American person over the age of fourteen. Why is high school so fucking terrible? or, more importantly, why does it have to be this way? This isn't a serious self-righteous post that's taking any effort to write. It's late and I'm tired and bored and have nothing better to do. But over the past few months it's begun to dawn on me that I really don't like the school I go to at all. Took me long enough, I guess. I hated middle school. And sure no one liked middle school but there seemed a far greater amount of people who were just...ambivalent about it, I guess. Middle school was just a collection of kids in the age group no one could be bothered with. You know...between being too old to not have stuff to say and too young to have something worthy to say. Everyone vehemently defended their favorite bands and passionately read or passionately didn't read Twilight and pretended to be sugar high at dances and were loud and stuff. This isn't relevant; don't know why I'm telling you. It's interesting how high school is much more universally hated, though. I guess the reasons must be varied? Almost definitely just age. It's pretty clear I'm not the...teen drinking party hard type who has existential crises whenever they lose one of their many friends. Nothing wrong with this, I might add, it's just that this so isn't me and unless someone literally rewired my brain between now and senior year this will not be my High School Experience at all. It's occurred to me the pressure it is just to be a teenager. Not pressure exactly but, you know, being a Teenager is sold as a very very specific thing in culture. I don't know why. I don't know what I'd identify with if that pressure wasn't there? Not in a special snowflake way! Just in a This Is All So Contrived sort of way. I was thinking about Perks of Being a Wallflower and, believe me, I genuinely liked Perks, but I was always sort of put off because Charlie's supposed to be an outcast or whatever and then it's like...doing acid with the seniors. Sex. Drinking. Okay. I can't stress enough that whatever being in high school or a teenager means to you, there's nothing wrong with it, it's just that whenever anyone talks about being a teenager, they talk about "not knowing who you are yet", or something to that extent. So you're supposed to identify with stuff, right? Be it Charlie in Perks or hippies or punks or nerds, or something. I'm not referring to specifically labeling yourself with those words. And yet the portrayals of teens in the media is so fucking two-dimensional that there's sorta a paradox there. AIf you're not the most popular or cool kid in the world you're sorta expected to identify with Charlie at least partially and then it's like no, sorry, your High School Experience is too lame even for the lamest of kids.
Another problem with Perks, while I've mentioned it: the whole 'don't be passive!!!1' thing. Because people interact with the world in different ways. In Charlie's case, with the whole sexual abuse thing, sure it's different. But the theme so isn't as universal as I think the author intends it to be. I don't know what's so bad about not being particularly active one way or another. Yeah.
Problem #1 with high school and I'm not the first to identify it: shy or introverted? Sorry, you're an inferior person. Throughout middle school particularly when teachers gave like written evaluations instead of just letter grades, you can do perfectly well but if you're shy or introverted but it's always endlessly about not talking or participating or whatever. The problem runs rife in high school, too. I'm shy and introverted. Yes, I do know the difference. I just...genuinely happen to be both. Also, I can be pretty damn aloof (presumably as a result of this?) which just makes things all the worse. I have been told off for not studying in groups. Studying. The process of reading things over and trying to store information in your brain, and talking if you have a question. How much more internal can you get? We do math problems in groups. In language classes, we write poems in groups. My gym teacher thinks you're odd if you just go into gym and exercise, rather than talking your head off for half of it. If you chose to work alone on something, it means you're self-centered or, horror of horrors, 'anti-social', a word which comes across like fingernails on a chalkboard to anyone who is either introverted or has any knowledge of what the word genuinely means. This...so doesn't need to be this way. For one thing, the best thing a school can do is to try to cater for as many learning styles as possible. That just....makes sense? For another thing, introverts and most people who are shy do just fine thank you very much in the Real World. And plenty of historical people we look up to were introverts. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong or inferior about being an extrovert. Nor is there anything wrong with group work...in moderation. It's just that what we're forced to do is not moderation in the slightest. what's that you don't wanna talk the entire time? sorry literally everyone needs that in the real world and you are a failed human being without it. whatever. Introverts and people who are reversed aren't rare or anything; it's so unecessarily.
I guess if you just put all these people who are supposed to be so Unsure About Their True Selves (which means they have all these facades and pretentions and stuff) in one place and they're conditioned to socialize people are gonna end up hating it. Hmmm. education systems have a tendency to be super shitty, cause what they're supposed to do is prepare you for the real world and make you interested in stuff but they really only reinforce all these customs and what's right and wrong and how you should behave and twist your self of self into frequently terrible places. and stuff. SOCIETY, MAN, SOCIETY. I guess I don't have any good reasons to hate high school, beyond disliking the sort of one-dimensional teaching methods preferred. it's just being with people and doing tedious stuff for several hours a day several days a week several months a year which shouldn't be that bad...and yet! look what we have! literally everyone fucking hates school! and each other! hoorah!
During middle school there were few things more distasteful to me than the people who had their lives planned out by age 12. and by that I mean, the sort of 12-year olds who spoke at length about the lawyers or doctors or whatever they were gonna be when they were older. actually I'm sticking exclusively with lawyers and doctors because that was all they ever wanted to be, or what their parents wanted them to be. I live in a hyper competitive area, school wise...like it's pretty intense. doctor and lawyer parents everywhere, man. these kids were everywhere too and it always bothered me that someone could just work towards one goal in life and not just appreciate everything that came before? I was even more self-righteous when back then, which is astonishing because I'm awful with that now. In hindsight, it was up to them I guess so I had no right to complain. Also, since school has become so invariably terrible at the moment, it definitely just makes more sense to me to wanna put more effort in now to get the hell out of this place and be comfortable. not that I'm going to, of course. nah god knows what I'm doing after high school, although it probably involves a middle of the road college, a useless major, and a disappointingly benign college social life. dunno. Had to take a college careers thing for school, thinking it'd be pretty innocuous and then found out after that counselors or whoever are actually gonna look at this stuff in junior year, or something. After they make you take a personality test (Myers Briggs, actually--my personal favorite of the various pseudosciences out there!) you write down preferred careers and colleges. I've put no thought into colleges so I literally picked at random from a giant list of 200-odd colleges. They ended up being in Wisconsin, Alaska, and Canada. Yeah.
Oh, here's a particular event. On thursday my gym teacher started talking about fitness terms (yuck) and changing up exercise routines and how our effort in this class will show in our grades. Whatever. Then she said we should work out because "spring's coming up soon, and you're gonna have to start wearing shorts and bathing suits again". Honest to god. (breath in breathe out, naomi). okay. I don't have the energy to talk about this in a particularly cohesive manner. a few problems, worth outlining though. #1.) Way to alienate the guys in the room. my school offers two different types of gyms and the way things worked out with this we have less than 5 guys in our class, compared to 20 odd girls. so I dunno, maybe it's kinda shitty for them? Or not? But it's basically acknowledging this is a girl-dominated class. Another thing, it's saying guys can't be insecure about their looks. And it's taking the first point about how female-oriented the class is and playing on stereotypes. Girls care about their looks so...let's play on that! Focus on the aesthetic benefits of exercise yeah! My teacher wants us all to be the best of friends. the main thing is that you're looking straight at this group of totally average adequately healthy people and you're saying "oh what, you think you look good enough? You're a healthy weight and you do exercise and eat decently? Oh yeah you're wrong. Bullshit. Yeah no way in hell can you be happy with how you look this summer unless you change. Yeah, you've got to change. You're not right the way you are". mother of fucking god. everyone is aware of this whole body-positive thing and even if it weren't hovering in low-level media light so often it is so easy to see that her statement is so fucking wrong. An adult human being telling that to a group of teenagers. This isn't usually schooly anger. I'm sorta just disgusted by the whole thing.
gym courses in school need a revamp. I just don't know how they should be changed. I guess I'm pretty sensitive to humiliation but I shouldn't be so concerned about going to a class as harmless as gym, for gods sake. Also apparently doing no more than the requirements means I'm not working out enough. even though big brother tracks everything I do in that class and it reflects in my grade (which should be no less than an A- damnit!) no apparently numbers don't actually reflect anything.
also, this doesn't really prove much of a point, but I'd like to mention that we spent the whole week in spanish writing poems. about mexican foods. as metaphors. Like...burritos can be complicated so compare them to people because some people are deep? My teacher's example, no less. I don't understand the world.
So ends my incomprehensible letter to the american high school. ps fuck you too?
anyway.
february vacation was the best. I slept the entire time and read Slaughterhouse Five(the morning after finishing this I went and bought all of the Vonnegut books available in the closest book store. Was always slightly tentative of the idea of being a weird teenage Vonnegut geek, but who cares) and that was it. Also I went to New York City! Slightly unsure about going if only cause it robs me of sleep and stuff. It was good, though! The hotel we were staying in was crazy cause there was this teenage dance competition going on at the same time. One group (troupe?) was called A Touch Of Class; they displayed this in pink glitter pens on A4 paper outside all their rooms. I also saw Richard III; it was glorious. like awe-strikingly perfect. the play itself is okay I guess, since A Midsummer Night's Dream and R&J are they only other Shakespeare I've read I don't suppose Richard III is the best next step? it was compelling on stage. Don't really know how to talk about it, i guess. if you were in the first row you could've put you feet on the stage, which would've been pretty neat. and the actors were good and stuff. I so wanna see more Shakespeare plays now, if they're all this good! I don't even know how to talk about it; it was so much better than I could've ever expected! yeah. hmm. also Kevin Spacey was Richard III and it was set in the present day. So, so good. the rest of the trip was pretty hazy. It was super cold and windy so we were kinda restricted but we went to ground zero and just walked around and stuff? The best thing about new york is the little communities inside it. like of all of New York we just happened to find this little craft fair thing we'd been too 18 months before. the exact one! it was crazy. also we went to the same Italian restaurant and the waiter was surly and spoke in non-stop Italian to a woman about partying together in the 70s. Crazy stuff. Also Coney Island was glorious. Tiring weekend, but good. I just wanna go back yeah I could live at Coney Island sneak in and make myself a little nest in one of the old fair ground rides.
nothing much since then. Saw the Lorax. it snowed a lot and we didn't get the snow day we deserved. got tickets booked for england in the summer. got tickets for Radiohead and Laura Marling. got all nostalgic about england and summer and how I just want winter to end and I don't even know why. Most importantly I saw the Kaiser Chiefs. it was after an especially shitty few days and came as such a huge unexpected wonderful relief to life. Because Kaiser Chiefs are loud and energetic and never entirely serious but never entirely joking either and they are one of the best live bands out there that I know of, honest to god. and their support bands were even louder and stupider and were college guys who took their shirts off and people had written wars on the bathroom wars about whether or not art will save the world. (their conclusion: undecided).
And the simplicity of just being there and listening to this fun pop band you sorta loved when you were ten years old and hearing new songs and anticipating old songs and being all happy when the singer is five feet away from you is a breath of fresh air. It sounds like I’m having these uber complicated existential crises at the moment, which is not the case, it’s just I haven’t been to a gig in a while and it was such a relief. They made for a wonderful performance.
Also V lineup has been announced. Um, pretty good, you know. After three Vs the lineup tends to repeat but whatever, a festival is a festival. The Stone Roses will be headlining on Saturday...don’t know them very well at all but I guess they’ll be good. Also, Noel Gallagher that day. The Gallaghers hold no interest to me...whatsoever anymore. Not that they were ever really interesting but I was sorta into Morning Glory in 7th grade. So, eh. Sunday is gonna be amazing cause the Killers are headlining again! Ah, so so wonderful. I miss those guys, and being 12 and the first time that a band actually means something to me and then waiting for Day and Age and going to four of their gigs and watching all their interviews. I miss obsessions like that. It’s been a while since I’ve seen them and I mean, seeing them headline V (again!) is really just a nostalgia trip for me, but I’m thrilled. Snow Patrol that day, too. They’re actually pretty good live; don’t be mislead by their music. Also, Tim Minchin’s playing and I have to see him because I absolutely adore Tim and need need need to see him play again. Frank Ocean’ll be good, I’ve really liked what I’ve heard so far. Frank Turner’s a real highlight for me, I can’t believe he’s playing but I love him so much and now I have to buy everything he has ever released. Friendly Fires are always fun. Happy Mondays are absolutely excellent live, seen them before. Keane, not bad if they don’t play too much of their recent stuff. Lissie, not bad. Madness, who are sort of one of the best live bands I’ve ever known? A must see. Miles Kane, I’d see. Nicki Minaj probably ironically but mostly because it seems like everyone kinda thought Nicki Minaj was pretty innocuous and then I blinked and suddenly everyone has started to wish physical harm on her and I don’t really get it? Noah and the Whale, good. Reverend and the makers. The Enemy. The Stranglers, probably just to see Golden Brown. That is a good song. And—Tom Jones! Will I see Tom Jones? Yes. Am I being ironic? I don’t really know myself. Still rumors for the Temper Trap and Miike Snow and stuff. I’m kinda more excited reviewing it all now than I was when it first got released. I dunno, I’m basically just looking forward to a low-key weekend and just being totally happy again and stff. Ah man, it’s gonna be good.
