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Chaz
Dee
Miguel
Becca

 

 

 

 

Entry #2: Does Becca know I lied?

 

The hypocrisy of this school is so bad. If I could, I'd be outta here in a hot minute. Being 16 sucks. Can't drive, can't drink, can't do anything. When I turn 18 I am splitting from here so damn fast. Not like my parents would even notice or anything.

Anyway, this journal isn't supposed to be the story of my life. So be "responsible" and stick to the "important" stuff, Chazz-ster!

I'm supposed to be making a record of my impressions about the English project, which I couldn't give a @#$% about. It's all so meaningless just like everything else that passes for "learning" in this school. (Nothing personal, Ms. Phipps. This place isn't any worse than my last school. Or the one before that.) It's just that all schools waste kids' time. Nobody can learn anything sitting on their butts all day, pretending to be really interested in listening to a bunch of old fogies who haven't done anything real in years, while the old guys pretend that what they're saying is some kind of revolutionary new thought. And the kids in their classes are either frantically taking notes, trying to figure out what's going to be on tomorrow's meaningless test OR staring into space and wishing they were somewhere else right now doing something real.

What is education about, anyway? Aren't we supposed to be preparing for the "real" world, or something? But what do we get to do instead? Make up a play, like in preschool... dress up and pretend to be somebody else. Nobody in this school has the first clue about being their "real" selves, so what can they possibly learn about life pretending to be a bunch of unreal characters that we made up in the first place? It totally makes no sense. But whenever I start thinking about the stupidity of it all, I feel myself getting all tense and closed up. And if I can, I get on my board and fly away. But if I'm in prison... I mean in school... I just close my eyes and do some slow deep breathing and inside my head I chant my mantra..."Om mani padma hum." My friend Cosmo taught it to me last summer, right before I moved. He said it means "The Jewel in the Lotus"... Like the purest, realist part of who I am... right there, in the very center of my being. And no matter how weirded out I get, when I chant it, I get right there. And words work like the most powerful laser, busting through all the walls I put up to protect myself from all this crap around me. That's why I need to chant, to myself of course, that's the only thing, in addition to being on my board, of course, that gets me to my essence and makes me feel alive.

Becca and Dee had this fight about who had a better idea for the play. They got all worked up about it. Miguel didn't really say how he felt... and me... I couldn't care less. It's all a bunch of bull.

It's like "The Wasteland," this poem we read last year.

"We think of the key, each in his prison,

thinking of the key,

each confirms a prison."

That's what this place is, a prison. In a total wasteland.

I passed Becca in the hall after lunch... she looked at me like maybe she knew I didn't really mean to vote against her. I don't know.

 

 Chaz

 


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