March 11, 2004
And he says, "Nothing could get a girl transferred."
Since I stopped participating in drama on the stage, from time to time I feel the need to act the part of the thespian in my real life with gratuitous hyperbole.
The whole Syracuse scholarship potential thing seems unreal. I keep on saying it over and over, hoping that maybe at some point it will sink into my head.
I love several of my teachers. My Lit teacher told me I could wait until after break to turn in my paper if I want (though I probably will e-mail it to him sometime this weekend), my Euro teacher told me not to worry about anything, my Poly Rad teacher wrote "Go Girl!" on my extended absence form despite all of the headings about the evils of poor attendance, and my adviser for the literary magazine sincerely told me that I deserve to get the scholarship. Oh, and about four teachers have assured me I will in fact get it.
So that is wonderful.
More wonderful is leaving my school for a few days. Today in AP European History I learned that our freshman class, who is already quickly receiving horrible reviews from most of the teachers I talk to, started their very own gang. Specifically it is the Russian Dry Ice Mafia, a collection of about four freshmen guys who so far have been responsible for petty vandalism and jumping at least one person at a middle school (the person jumped attended my high school). They can be identified by "DI" printed on their hands with the methods of the salt and ice game, pressing compressing salt and ice together to create frostbite and blisters.
If there are any reasonable explanations for starting or taking part in a gang (like protection, etc), that reason does not exist in my community. What a bunch of thugs. And for a quick elitist moment, if these kids do not get their acts together, they are the kinds of kids that really should drop out of high school if they can only be predatory, if only for the safety of everyone else. It is horrible that education is becoming a necessity, not an opportunity for growth. Not everyone should go to college. The idea is higher learning and too many people are lost in the lower dwelling.
Also abominable are some of the spring coaches at my school. One student had a small problem with alcohol this school year; it really was small, like a beer a day...enough to be a problem but not alcoholism. The student acted out of depression, not a desire to party or a complete disregard for her other responsibilities. She confessed to a teacher her problem and then went through a great deal of counciling and rehab-like treatment. And after all of that, which would take all kinds of strength that I can only imagine, her coaches want to humiliate her and have her apologize to the whole team.
She knows she screwed up, everyone else knows that she screwed up; but what is more important is that she corrected her mistake. And while I do not think a parade needs to be thrown in her honor, I think she should be shown enough respect for her honesty and successful efforts to be spared a largely unnecessary demonstration of subordinance.
So it will be good for me to get a break from all of this for a while. This way I can read Wagner's Hitler finally, before it is overdue at the library. I may be able to even be somewhat competent when I sit in on Music and Culture of Nazi Germany at Syracuse this week.
I am excited in a distracted kind of way, just because it is so far off.
I am also starting to get more anxious about wanting my college acceptance and rejection letters already, especially when it seems like so many people I know already know where they are going to go to school next year. Enough with the suspense. Waiting until April 1st to find out seems like the cruelest April Fool's Joke of all, perhaps most foolish is that we wait so patiently and anxiously for the judgment.
But it seems like a pretty sure thing that I will be leaving Ohio and trying my hand at adapting to a new environment, so no matter what I will grow and learn and all of that other good stuff. I feel like I am nowhere when all I want is to know where.
My passion for puns is sickening, especially since I am not too talented with them.
Love,
Mandy