Justifications

Today at lunch I had a conversation with some of my girlfriends at school. Recently, our conversations have gone from asking about the latest gossip of the school to things that have really been bothering us. I feel like today’s conversation was really good.

Last week at our school, a picture off of Facebook showed up causing a lot of conflict. The subject of the picture is a prominent senior from our school. She is a student council member and a leader on the dance team. She also apparently likes her alcohol. When this photo reached the school administration, the tensions began; who brought in the photo? When was it taken? Who was with her?

Gossip about who brought in the photo started immediately. Not that it matters, but it is believed that a high school staff member who has had conflict with this student and her family brought it in. This sparked the conversation that if it was her place to bring it to attention.

I do not drink. I do not party. I don’t do anything of the like. It’s not worth anything, especially my life or anyone else’s. It doesn’t make sense to me why anyone would party. I mean, what do you really get out of it. A night with friends? Go to dinner, you get the same result without the DUI, hangover, and an STD.

Turning in people doesn’t often happen at our school, unfortunately. I believe that people need to suffer the consequences of their actions, and more often than not they don’t. Teacher’s and staff here seem to look the other way whenever they hear student talking about their illegal evenings. Sometimes, students will even report dangerous activites to the teachers, who take no action. It’s kind of disgusting. Actually, it’s really disgusting.

Now back to the issue-was it that staff members place to turn in the intoxicated student? I’m actually conflicted in this one. I do believe that the student deserved to be turned it. She had been up to no good for a long time without consequence, and she definitely had it coming for her. But should that certain staff member turned her in? I don’t think so. The conflict between these two is not a secret at our school. The fact that this staff member also happened to turn her in this week is a little bit strategic sounding as well. As I had earlier described, this student is on the dance team. The picture of the student was not a recent one. Also, our school enforces a three-week suspension from sports for such actions. These next three weeks for our dance team are critical, and the fact that she will not be participating kinda screws her over for the rest of the dance season. Now there’s a cruel strategy.

So was it her place to do it? No, I don’t think so. I’m glad that the person is now suffering from her actions, but the method of this torture is even too harsh for me.

My final words of wisdom (for this post):

1. DON’T Go and party. I mean what are you really getting out of it?
2. If you absolutely have to party (you better have a seriously legitimate reason), be careful. Don’t take pictures with your bottle of Jack.
3. If you do take picture at the party with your under-aged face next to your bottle of Jack, don’t put them on Facebook. Duh.
4. Don’t be friends on Facebook with teachers, especially ones that don’t like you or your family.

USE COMMON SENSE. Don’t have any? Borrow mine, I’ve got lots.

Sometimes You Just Have To Say No.

I have a 45 minute drive home from work. I have a 20 minute drive to school every morning. These long drives give me time to think about things.

Usually on my way to school I think about what I'll have to accomplish that day and on my way home from work, I think of what I have accomplished and what I have yet to accomplish. Today, I thought about the same thing both times.

I'm a busy person. It keeps me from being bored and from getting in trouble, but sometimes it catches up with me. Now would be one of those times. I know, I can't be too busy if I'm spending time typing this up here right? Wrong. I just really don't want to do what I need to.

First, and I bring this up a lot, is my online design class. I'm done Monday (whoop whoop!) which means my final is due Monday (awwwwwww....gross). Of course, like any true procrastinator I have yet to work on it. Probably because I HATE CODING. I find it to be useless, time consuming, and confusing (which makes it even more time consuming, thus making it useless.) When I signed up for the class, the description said it would be about learning the set-up of the page, including learning color options and designs that would please viewers. Not a thing about "This class is all about coding-the boringest thing in the whole entire universe! No, nothing like that.

Secondly, I have to be a good person. Why? Cause I just do. It's in the fine print. But of course you be nice to one person and suddenly you get sucked into  a vortex where everyone is asking (but really telling) you to do this and that for them and you can't say no because if you do they'll use it against you in some way or tell you that you have to because your dad is a teacher and they'll be dumb and stupid and you end up doing it for them. Ugh.  I hate that too. And I can't get away from it. Blech. It disgusts me so to the point where I can't even form real words to describe how repulsed I am about it. Like this: JABBERFLABBERWAKKAWOOTRACHERNESS!!!!! Yeah, I'm that frustrated about it.

Then there is school itself. I used (being the keyword in this phrase) used to be overly worried about my grades and my assignments and school in general, but all of the sudden I had an epiphany; I don't really care. It's probably the best thing that's happened to me for a while (Not including Steve, he's probably the best thing that's happened). The only problem is that the teachers still think that I care. They pull me aside and say "Hey Emily, you do realize that you only got an eight out of ten on this assignment, right?" Yes, I do and I don't really care as long as I'm getting the credit because truthfully, my grade on this assignment won't matter in a year anyway.

Finally, there is just life in general. People expect certain things from others and truthfully (and I do mean this) people are expecting way too much from me. I can't do it all, yet when I try and fail people ask me what wrong with me if I can't do this or that-it's because you expect me to do both this and that. It's not happening.

So what do I do? I don't really know, but I do know where to start. I'm saying no. No more doing everything to make everyone happy. Because really, I'm not getting anything out of it except for a shallow good job and the satisfaction of making someone happy for a moment. But never me. I need to be happy. I need to make time for myself. And that's really hard. But it needs to be done, and soon. It's time to say no.