My Total Eclipse of Judgement

I'm sure that by now, the point has been so very driven into all your heads that I am unhappy with my schooling situation. I'm a freshman this year, and I've heard from a lot of people that ninth grade is the hardest year, that everyone feels this way about high school, that I'll just have to tough it out and get used to it. The thing is that I don't exactly hate Strest, but I don't like it, either. Like I said last night, I've become apathetic about it. I feel like going to this school is something that my mind has given up on fighting. That now, it's trying to prove a point and all it wants to do is sit around and write. I've been able to take my grades up from the near-all-F's that they were to a very average score. I've become average.

All my teachers like me and "believe in me," and even I admit that the work itself is not the hard part. This, that we're doing? It's not hard. I mean, I can do the annotations for The Misanthrope and write the Long Form essays, I really can. I just don't want to. My aptitude level allows for it, but I'm so apathetic about this school, I just don't see the point. What, so I can graduate? Great, another statistic of WELL DONE! to be sucked into the mindful heads of the Strest institution. I don't pledge allegiance to the banner of hazings and impressions, to the United States of Hopelessness.

I know I'm smart. I know that I am some sort of genius for being this smart without having a "developmental disorder." Andi don't got no autism and she be damn smart, hell's bells, it's a meer-cle! So I know that technically, I should be loving this school and its overly-pressured IB program, but God, how I don't. Am I not smart enough to be able to learn on my own? Am I not going to garner the attention of a college representative just because I didn't go to a certain school? Am I altogether too average beyond my test scores? Let me tell you, I've been told by seniors in my Creative Writing class that I am the best writer in that class. I've been complimented and favorited on DeviantArt more than you and your Oekakis have been, and I taught myself enough on the guitar that I can now improvise a solo just by looking at the few starting notes of it. Am I still too average for you?

I bring on this onslaught of rage because of how my mother came home last night. After Parent-Teacher Conferences, she decided to go to an information night hosted by Eats Hollowfood, and from that, she brought home not only a course catalog, but a registration packet. A registration packet for the 2007-2008 year. Was I wrong to assume that I was meant to fill it out and promptly turn it in? I did assume that, I looked through the course catalog and planned what classes I would take for the next four years in Language Arts. And then I read through the registration packet twice, like a particularly important contract, before breaking out a black pen and my contacts list. My hopes were as high as a kite. I realize this was my fatal mistake, I learned long ago never, ever, to get my hopes up, but alas! My hopes surrendered to this elevator ride that Eats Hollowfood seemed to be offering. And then my mom said this:

"The guy said that the courses would be different next year, but that'll give you a good idea of what to expect."

What to expect. What to expect. Oh. I see, because you thought it'd be FUN to see my hopes come CRASHING to the ground. I understand. Ha! How fun! Why, God, why did she place the registration packet in my lap? Why could she not have simply brought me the course catalog and be done with it? Why did she have to play such a cruel, cruel game with my expectations?

I filled out that packet anyway. I filled it out and fully intend to find some way to turn it in by the October 15th deadline, because I want my mom to know that not only am I serious about going to this school, but also that I can play her game. I can go behind her back and get signatures and insurance information. I have another parent/guardian, and perhaps he will be more likely to let my best interest be just that, MY best interest.

If she argues with me, what will I tell her? I'm going to tell her that she gave me the registration packet. That she provided me with the information I'd need, and what she didn't provide, I could find out from somebody else. I'm going to tell her that I'm making my own decisions for my own well being, and that the only person I'll blame when all of this is over is myself, that I'll always remember what it took for me to go against her wishes for me and my life. I'm going to tell her that just because she suggested I stay my freshman year at a school I can't bring myself to feel about, just because she suggested, doesn't mean that I can pull myself through and do this. I would rather be at Eats Hollowfood and hating my life than being here at Strest, and feeling nothing. This school has raped me and left me numb. This school has changed the people I thought I'd always be friends with, including myself, and she's asking me to bear another nine months of falling forever downward into a pit of apathy. I'm sorry, Mom, but I can't do that.

I'll pay the fees. I'll write down the insurance information. I'll somehow, some way, find the courage to turn this packet in, no matter what it takes.