Clubs

Clubs. They are the very thing that filled me with hope about this year even if at one point it did not seem that there was much hope to go by.

In middle school, there weren't enough of them. Yet now... well it seems as if there are too many of them. I have all of these clubs picked out but not enough time to do them. I have a hunch that all the smart kids finally broke free of their constraints and demanded a place where they could be themselves in peace. Peace without strange, confused looks or snickers or eye rolls. And they got that place. Many, many times over.

I am flooded with clubs. A freaking tidal wave of clubs. There are so many clubs that not even all of them are on my school's website or in their packet of brochures. Something for every eccentricity in the student body. I'm sure to my upperclassmen it isn't nearly as scary but as a newbie to all this.... It definitely is. This is just one more layer to the mountain of change. My best friend wants me to do all these clubs with her and it's like... ah. She's a sophomore and she knows all of these juniors and seniors so she knows her way around. No wonder so many of the clubs I want to join originally barred freshmen.

It all seems like all these clubs meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which seriously sucks. That means I can only commit myself to two clubs (this doesn't make any sense. Don't they realize that kids like me have to make this kind of decision?). There's also the little matter of transportation. My school district's budget cuts meant no 5:00 buses, making it very hard on those without cars. I have no idea of when these meetings will end or any of that.

I'm letting myself worry over something silly though. Out of all the problems I could be having, this is super tiny. A good problem, almost. It would be much worse if I could find no clubs at all. The Activity Fair is coming up so I'll get a good look at the clubs then. Anyway with all the announcements, they hardly seem to be thinking of confused freshmen like me (we always have to ruin everything, don't we?).

September 11, 2001

September 11th is a day that will never be a day that is normal again. I was four when it happened so I personally can't remember a day when it ever was just a normal day. It has always been an anniversary, a moment of silence held on the announcements, a conversation in Social Studies class.

Since I'm an American, I know that I'm supposed to feel like it was a personal tragedy for me. I'm supposed to have memories of that day and I'm supposed to never forget and everything. Like I said though, I was four and in kindergarten. I suppose I must have learned the details of it over time because I don't remember experiencing it or of hearing about it (like I first heard of the Holocaust when I was about eight).

I can't relate to many of the feelings my family has felt about it. Part of me almost feels like, Well no one you knew died, so why are you so sad about it? Of course there's always the compassion and sympathy I feel for the families who lost loved ones. Yet it doesn't feel that much different than hearing of a sad event on the news except for the fact that so many people died at once (yet again I'm sure if you added up all of the dead people reported on the news across the country every day, they would probably be equivalent to the people who died on 9/11 so maybe my feelings aren't entirely misplaced). I can't imagine why anyone else would feel like it happened to them personally. The lingering feelings felt by so many adults that I know is the only thing that keeps it real.

Yet the other part of me cannot begin to imagine the terror that everyone must have felt. The terrible sadness and helpless horror that happens when you watch a tragedy unfold in front of your eyes and are unable to do anything about it (as in, what people must have felt when they saw the towers collapse and people jump). That, I suppose, was the very thread that made it a personal tragedy for all who could comprehend what was going on. I don't live in New York but I do live on the East Coast. I'm sure that everyone in my town must have been thinking that if they bombed New York and Washington D.C. then they could bomb our town or somewhere close to us. They must have been terrified that there was more of them. It's occurred to me once or twice that they hit a building where a lot of accountants worked. My mom is one so I've wondered what my life would have been like if she was one of the people there and that very thought is horrifying. I'm sure that similar thoughts have been thought after 9/11 by kids who were then around my age.

Like I said, I can't empathize with them. I can't feel like it's happened to me because it hasn't. All I can do is imagine what those people must have been thinking stuck in those buildings or in that plane or even in front of that television and those thoughts fill me with a deep sorrow for them.

I also can't fully understand a lot of the post-9/11 feelings that still linger in much of American news and culture. When one of my family members declared her disgust and fear of Muslims (and of course with the thought that being Arab and Muslim were synonymous and she therefore harbored these feelings for both groups), I couldn't comprehend why she would feel that way. It was only after thinking about how she must have been feeling that day and knowing that that was how she processed it that I began to understand. When others declared support for the TSA body scanners as well as torture/wiretapping and other similar government measures, I initially couldn't understand why they would so easily forfeit their freedoms.

I've written of my dislike for bigotry and the importance of our freedoms so I won't write of that again. What I am saying is that as we vow never to forget this tragedy let us vow never to let go of our rational thinking and to never let fear paralyze us to the point in which we cannot function (easier said than done, especially coming from someone who never had to deal with the terror left of 9/11). It's always good to be careful but not paranoid. After all, if this has taught us anything it is that life is short and can end any day. We have to appreciate every day in which we are fortunate enough to live.

Homework

It's that very thing that creeps into your life and smothers you, a silent foe. It's in that casual, dismissive wave calling out to you just as you are about to leave. It's that thing that gets your heart rate climbing and turns your hands into fists ready to pound something out of pure frustration.
Yep, that's right. It's homework. That classic, time-old opponent faced by school-age kids for as long as school's been around.

Given in small doses, it's irksome but manageable. Given in large ones, it's absolutely smothering and frustrating and panic-inducing (especially projects in which I have to race to get the right supplies. I also have this irritating compulsion to make sure everything is perfect, especially if that project is for English).

This weekend I happen to have large doses of homework and it's virtually killing me. Usually I do my homework in one sitting but it was just too much (I multi-tasked and watched one of my favorite shows Criminal Minds online to make it more bearable and make me feel like I totally wasn't wasting my time).

I don't even see the point in it. I've been told we have to do it to "practice" and whatever but I don't see why we can't do it in school. Sometimes teachers seem to give us homework for the heck of it (in these cases, they never check it).

My English teacher last year had to put so much time into grading our Holocaust research papers and it's like, why? Not to sound offensive to anyone but it's harder to fully appreciate the horror of the Holocaust when you have to deal with all the stress of writing a paper on it (I know this shouldn't apply to me as a writer. I actually happened to be pretty passionate about my topic which was how the Holocaust compared to the Rwandan genocide. For all that worrying how much it sucked, I got an A on it). We'd get the point much better watching a super-sad movie on it (we did that too, kind of. It was about these kids in the South who were trying to collect six million paper clips to represent all of the Jews killed in the Holocaust and at one point Holocaust survivors came to the school and were talking about what they went through).

I've found that the better teachers I have don't give as much homework actually. It's not that I like them because they don't give homework (plenty of the teachers who left me confused in their classes were funny and cool to be around just not that great at teaching) but because they tend to actually teach us instead of having us teach ourselves. Instead of dumping all of these projects/homework sheets on us, they'll give one sheet at most or none at all.

I confess that homework is probably a bigger deal to me because of my computer/writing addiction and the pressure/anxiety I put on myself so it's probably says more about me than about any of the teachers I have. Still... Homework's never fun other learning disability because I'm sure this has always been a lot harder for those kids than it's ever been for me.

The sad part is I know it's only just begun. I don't know what I'll do when it gets to its maximum pace (I guess I'll start skipping the lesser assignments).

A lot of the reason I freak out about homework is because I'm worried that I'll screw it up. However, I've made a conscious decision to try not to worry about school this much this year. Grades are only letters and they're definitely not worth my mental sanity. They don't define who I am as a person or as a writer or as a friend. Sure, they may be important for college but it's not the end of the world if I don't get straight- A's. I don't want to think in terms of my GPA or my current percentage or anything like that. I just want to try. If I forget a homework assignment and it lowers my grade a little, I don't want to freak out about it or let it ruin my day.

In summary, homework sucks. Here's another pleas to any teacher possibly reading this. On behalf of all kids who have a learning disability or who are spazes/perfectionists like me or even who just have lives outside of school, please don't feel the need to dump a bunch of homework on your students. Please.

Another Weather-Related Blog Post

It looks like floods have saved the day... again.

I thought all the weather-related posts would be over after Irene but I guess not. We just experienced torrential rains and apparently some areas are flooded (I don't see it). Before school was delayed two hours but just as I finished getting ready, they called school off.

So we already have to make up two days of school and we've barely been there a week. Being as I'm not nervous or stressed, I would much rather have that extra day of summer when I'll really be yearning for a break. A two hour delay would have been good because I would have caught up on my sleep and dealt with less school (but it still would have counted). But no, my school district has to go and screw things up.

At this rate, I'll be going to school in the middle of July (I heard that we ge five days so that if they need more, they'll just take more from our Spring Break. That would totally suck). There truly are four full seasons up here in the Northeast so we will be getting a ton of snow as well as super-hot summers (in other words, snow days will most definitely be used).

Oh well, I'll make the best of today.

Speaking in School

Teachers always love to pick on the poor little shy kid in the corner. Always. Even when these shy kids are alert and clearly listening to what the teacher is saying (or to their other classmates, in some cases). Now I'm sure that these teachers will come back and say it's for their own good blah, blah, blah. Something about "not being a passive learner" or whatever.

However, what teachers don't seem to realize/ remember is this. Usually the shy kid doesn't raise their hand for the following reasons: they A) don't know it or B) know it but are terrified to say something usually because they aren't entirely sure or don't want to be seen as a total geek or know-it-all by the other classmates. Either will make answering the question embarassing for them.

Lately I've been that poor little shy kid. It isn't just in Math, but in English too (obviously you might be able to figure out the standard reasons for both by the information I've given above but it's not always the case for either).

This problem seemed to have first appeared about last year or so and it's only been getting worse. High school has been a lot better in everything but this regard (oh and the anxiety and the stress I so stupidly put on myself. That's been getting worse, too but I've always been a spaz.).

Actually there are times I do force myself to speak up (usually in English and Social Studies) because I really do have something to say and I really want to say it (and prove that I'm not just sitting there like a bump on a log and that I really do have some decent ideas).

It's just that whenever I do speak in class, forced or otherwise, I sound like a complete idiot. Really I do. I feel like everyone is staring at me. My throat closes up, my heart beats super-fast and I somehow struggle to form a response with a tongue that morphs into a flapping, dried-up, super-heavy external organ. Sometimes I wish I was mute so I would have to write everything down instead because (in my logical state, I realize the downside of being mute of course). I can't stop yelling at myself afterwards.

This happened to me in English in this "informal seminar" discussing the short story we were assigned to finish reading. English, the class where I'm supposed to feel most comfortable. I mean I knew and understood the story and I think I had good ideas to offer up. It just didn't sound like it.

On the bright side, it seemed like most of those kids were nervous too and they barely noticed me. But still... I can't help but agonize over it.

It also happened in Math too when I got this super-simple problem wrong because I missed the division symbol, which was in the middle of the problem (damn PEMDAS for making a simple-looking problem so freaking confusing). My teacher there made me go up because I was one of the few who hadn't done so then. I wasn't the first to get a problem wrong but still... I felt like they were all smirking at me and thinking, "Tori is so stupid."

It's just something I really need to work on. You don't get anywhere in life if you just sit at the sidelines and refuse to do things out of your comfort zone. Maybe it'll be something that will get better in time (I mean talking's nothing compared to presenting, which I know I'll have to do soon enough).

To any teachers out there if any so happen to be reading this (which I doubt), please don't feel like you have to pick the shy kid in the back of the room. Let the shy kid raise their hand in due time.

Freedom Vs. Safety

In an ideal world, no person would have to decide. Freedom and safety would be doled out freely to all who sought it. Yet, unfortunately, this is not an ideal world. Many risk their lives every day just to go to a country where freedom can be granted (I was fortunate enough to be born into a country in which these freedoms were already granted to me). Dictators, both of the past and present, use(d) fear as a way to take control of a country, playing up a threat that was nonexistent or in reality much smaller than what it was made out to be(e.g. internal spies, Jews).

I just got done reading this book called After by Francine Prose. The book was about this school that got this grief and crisis counselor when a school fifty miles away had a school shooting. Things get stricter and stricter with all of these crazy rules. Anyone who breaks these rules goes to the mysterious Camp Turnaround. I won't write more about it except that it was one of the creepiest, scariest books I've read in a long time. If horror movies actually had decent, realistic plots like this one instead of stupid Hollywood  clichés then maybe they'd be worth watching...

It sounds far-fetched at first but it becomes more feasible the more you think about it. On a literal basis, it was just about the high school. Figuratively... I definitely see this as being post-9/11 America or at least what it could have been/can still become. After I finished this book last night, I kept thinking about this.

Obviously 9/11 was a wake-up call for harsher security in airports. A repeat of that would have been absolutely horrible and ever more terrifying than the original. It's fair to say that we can live with an extra hour going through airport security if it can prevent even one more person from ever having to go through something like that again.

Yet on the other hand, Americans were also more willing to surrender many of their own personal freedoms and privacies. The government was given permission to search e-mails and tap phone conversations despite it being in direct violation of the fourth amendment. Torture, despite it being against international law, occurred under the Bush adminsitration (and still continues under Obama) against men who often weren't even proven guilty. It would be nice to say that arbitrary arrests and detentions haven't occurred here but I'm afraid Bradley Manning proves otherwise (and I'm sure that there are other cases that have escaped my attention). And, of course, over one million Americans are currently on the watch list.

I'm not going to go as far as to say that the government planned 9/11 or anything like that. What I am saying is that 9/11 left many Americans vulnerable and afraid. That very vulnerability and fear is what made and makes Americans so easily to manipulate and be manipulated. I was talking to my aunt about the TSA body scanners when that was still a controversy. She kept telling me that she never wants to feel that afraid again and that you can't understand that kind of terror unless you've been through it.

Of course, she's right. I was four years old when 9/11 happened and I suppose my parents must have successfully sheltered my sister and I because I have no recollection of it.

Safety is important. Yet our freedoms must be too if so many men and women died for it.

As I may or may not have stated here before, I put great importance in skepticism and rational thinking. In times of fear, it's easy to be governed by emotions. For a government, t's all too easy to play up a fear and use it to control a populace. As a citizen, it's also all too easy to listen to what the media and the government are feeding you. The easy answer is to just be like, "I'll do whatever it takes to be safe. I'll do whatever the government tells me and listen to everything they say because they must be right." The harder answer would be, "I'll stay up to speed with what's going on around me, hold government officials accountable for their actions and to challenge everything I hear."

I think that Naomi Wolf is right when it comes to this topic, at least partially so. I don't agree with everything that woman says, not by a long shot. I may not think that the government is or ever was actually trying to take the U.S. over but I do think that there are many people right now who would gladly do so. I agree with her that too many Americans are too compliant and ignorant when it comes to politics, myself included, and let themselves be led around like sheeple. Defending our rights and our freedoms isn't a responsibility that we can just hand over to other people, our politicians included. It's a responsibility that all of us hold as Americans.

So here's a very important question. If someone was trying to take over the United States and turn it into a dictatorship, what would most Americans do? It's not usually something that happens overnight but that happens over a long period of time. It usually happens gradually until the day you realize that all of your freedoms are gone and by then it's too late. In the book After, many parents were brainwashed by the flood of e-mails they continuously received from the school. Even as their children were being taken by the school for breaking minor rules and  as those rules became increasingly harsher, these parents stuck by the belief that the school was only doing what was necessary and that everything was and would be alright. This can easily symbolize the average American and the influence of the media.

If someone were to try to take over the United States, I would like to think my fellow Americans would put up a fight instead of handing everything over. As the tenth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, this issue and those like it do not become any less important but only more relevant.

High School Reunions/Scheduling

So yesterday I embarked on my second day of high school. I was told by my friend to meet her in the music hall which was on the east side of the building. Half afraid that I would find the wrong spot, I entered a kid-packed hall and freaked out (fortunately, I found the right spot).

I must say high school reunions are quite... noisy. All around me friends were reuniting with friends, screaming and squealing (the girls, of course. Guys just gave each other high-fives and chest pumps). There must have been at least three hundred kids packed in the hallway, which totally didn't help my frenzied mind. It was my first taste of high school with upperclassmen.

The seniors didn't eat me though, I assure you. I'm still here. They didn't eat me today.

It wasn't as bad today, but there was still a lot of noise in the hall. Oh well. It's useful having such a network. Even if you're not exactly friends with everyone, you still have their back. And, as a freshman, it means I have connections.

Scheduling is so hard right now. Finding both reading and writing time has proven to be incredibly difficult, especially after summer was so flexible. I haven't had nearly as much anxiety about transitioning and finding free time as I did last year and I'm afraid that's going to change soon. I already have homework and I know that I'll get much more. And then clubs will come and... ah. I'll find a way, though. I have the years before.