I Got In

This Thursday, I got incredibly exciting news: I got into the private school that I have been yearning to get into for a while. It is a very small, very artsy high school located right near a very quaint, very artsy town. When I shadowed there, the people were kind, the landscape was gorgeous and I felt at home in a way that I haven't felt in quite a while.

Yes, I know that I have been going to public school for two years now. This move to private school might be a little strange and random for some people and many might wonder why I didn't try for it earlier. My sudden enthusiasm about this might appear to be even stranger. They might especially wonder why I didn't try for this particular school earlier. All of which are good questions.

My reasons for going to this school are pretty simple. I could say that this school has a great art school, that the people there are strangely friendly, how it's so strange to see so many different people in one place who dress and act so differently from what is mainstream, how everyone knows each other by name and calls each other by first name (yes, the students call their teachers by their first name and it's not because they're Quaker but just because), how the whole place is so liberal and casual that it feels so freeing. All of these things are true but they aren't my primary reason for going to this school. At the end of the day, the real truth is that I don't belong at my public school and I need to get out. ASAP. I don't know how much different this school will be from my current school but it seems much better.

I don't belong at my public school. I just don't. I don't belong there and I don't believe that most of the other kids want me there. So my move will be mutually beneficial, I'm sure. The negativity of most of the people around me only serves to bring out my own depression and their artificiality only makes me want to gag. Even though the school is big enough that I should find people I connect with pretty easily, I'm pretty much isolated from everyone and can't seem to connect to anyone that well. My friends from before have started to become people I hardly recognize, getting into hobbies that I can't connect to and also becoming so bitter and cynical about everything that being around them makes me go away feeling better and not worse. My grades, for those reason among others, have went from A's and B's to B's and C's (as well as one near D). I probably should stop there before I start to sound whiny and angsty. Yes, I've been trying to shrug all of this off and get by but I can't seem to do this. And I don't think I should have to. I shouldn't have to just get by, watch my back with every step I take and just persevere. That's not living; that's just surviving. And so I wanted something better for myself.

I started looking into options and found this school. In eighth grade, when school was even worse than it is now, I looked into private schools but found their atmospheres just as horrible as public school but the brats happen to be even richer. I dismissed this school because I heard that the academics weren't as great (and that it was for less intelligent kids) and also because it's pretty far from my house. But I found out that their academics are just fine but absent of the ridiculous amount of pressure in most schools and also, my sixteenth birthday enabled me to be able to get my learner's permit (so I can drive there rather than take the ridiculously long bus drive).

So I'm pretty excited to go to this school. It will be a fresh start for me, I think, and I'll be around misfit, artsy kids like me. Maybe the smaller space will even make me feel not quite as lost as I do now. I'm still scared of the unknown, of course, and my anxious voice is thinking of everything that can possibly go wrong. But I got another sign that this school will be great for me. Not only was I told about my acceptance via personal phone call, but I was also given a free T-shirt, a personalized note and piece of artwork by one of the teachers. I considered it an incredibly sweet gesture and a sign that the people there really do seem to care.

I can only hope from here that everything will work out.