I had to go back inside my high school today. *sigh* Yesterday one of my checks was apparently made out for the wrong amount of money. I wish they would've SAID on the website that they'd updated the form/prices. I went in the afternoon today, which was the time that the freshman were checking in. It was funny, because almost all of them were there with their parents. Whereas absolutely no one comes with their parents after freshman year. There's also an almost scary amount of them. I'm not sure if seniors are just more efficient at the check-in process, so we get out of there faster, or if there really are that many more of them. The latter may just be true, since the class size grows every year. But I have no idea how we're going to fit everyone in the gym for assemblies this year--we barely managed it LAST year, and now there's another, much bigger class to replace the seniors that left.
Anyway. Seeing the freshmen got me thinking about my freshman year of high school. The only things I remember about check in are 1)My dad didn't come, but my friend Michelle had her mom with "us" and 2)We got our student ids at the now never used student store. Seriously the only time I've seen that thing open.
But as I was walking home, I started thinking about the things I loved during my freshman year. I absolutely adored my English teacher. She was the sweetest person, so easy to talk to, and she made class a lot of fun. She didn't treat us like freshmen--which did mean she graded us hard and that kind of thing, but I think it was worth it, because I was much more prepared for my sophomore English class than those who had different teachers. I mostly just loved how nice she was, even when she was dealing with rowdy freshmen. I also really loved Journalism class, even though most people in that class were just taking it to fill a spot in their schedule. I mean, I'm no longer even thinking of becoming a journalist, but it was an incredibly fun class. I loved talking to my friends for 20 minutes between 1st and 2nd periods. To some extent, there was the excitement that came from finally being in high school.
As I said yesterday, though, what I was remembering was the GOOD parts about freshman year. In my memories, I was skimming over the fear, the pain, the stress, the tears. Forgetting that that was a time of a lot of home and family issues, and definitely a time when I changed a lot and struggled a lot with knowing who I was.
Just driving home my point. I think when adults long for high school, what they remember is the joy of being young, the dances, the parties, the hanging out with friends all night, the crushes and romances. They forget the stress and the pain and all of the social and psychological issues that usually occur in high school. I think we're told "these will be the best 4 years of your life," by adults because that IS how they remember high school. But they're not remembering everything, so they don't understand why we, right now, hate high school. Just like we can't understand why they hate being grown-ups, with responsibilities and success and happiness, because we cannot imagine the pain they go through. It's so hard to show others how we feel. I definitely agree, John.
NOTE: skip the next 2 paragraphs if you do not care to hear about African politics
On a COMPLETELY separate note, I've been reading the news about the Rwanda election. I'm interested in that kind of news anyway, but I'm particularly trying to keep up with it since I'm writing my extended essay on the genocide. So far Paul Kagame appears to be winning with 90% of the vote. I can see why the journalists suspect fraud or violence or a lack of democracy, especially given the history of presidencies in Rwanda. I may be slightly biased to support Kagame since I've read all of the amazing work he did to bring his country back up after the genocide, "a model of social and economic development." I also see that his government censors the press, but I believe the foreign press are too quick to judge. He led his country through the painful and continuing process of reconciling the genocide. I think he has reason to want his own party in control, given the multitude of extremist groups (some of whom perpetrated the genocide) and the damage they could do if given too much power.
I know I'm not in Rwanda, so I don't know if his government is arresting or torturing people from opposition parties. I don't know how the citizens feel about him, although most seem to welcome his comparative peace to the past 2 republics. BUT, I also think that we are expecting too much of Kagame and Rwanda. We largely ignored the genocide as it happened, and I don't think we can expect them to just suddenly become the picture perfect democracy, even 15 years later. It's going to take some time. And while we can never KNOW, so far he seems to be doing a far better job at connecting the "ethnic" groups, stopping racism, and at least not arresting people simply for being Hutu. Yeah. Besides, he's a politician, so of course he's going to be critical and careful about his opposition, especially extremists.
And connecting this to my above quote from John Green, it's hard for us to see the situation in Rwanda because we're not experiencing the atmosphere. It's hard for them to show us how they feel or explain their actions.*
I doubt anyone reading this actually cares about the election in Rwanda, but it's very important to me. Yep. If perhaps you do care, here's 2 recent news articles: CNN and Christian Science Monitor 1 & 2
This blog post was kind of all over the place, from freshmen to nostalgia to Rwanda. So I will attempt to make a connection between all three**:
We cannot expect too much of people or times. We imagine or remember or desire a utopia, or perfect people. Perfection does not exist, and only when we stop expecting that from people or events or the future, we can be, if not completely happy, content with our lives and the people around us. We will stop being disappointed.
Right. Well, tomorrow I'm going down to Pueblo to visit with a dear friend I haven't seen in over 6 months, and I'm so excited. Then senior pictures on Thursday and coffee with another dear friend I haven't seen in as long on Saturday. And then school starts on Tuesday. Ack.
I actually am going to go read some more academic journals on Rwanda, because I'm more in the mood right now and probably won't research at all tomorrow. Since this blog post was full of a lot of thoughts,*** I think I will leave you with another fun comic:
(This is so true. I rarely say anything of meaning when I'm exclaiming about how cute my cat is)
Cheers!
(Okay, as I was about to post this, I accidently closed my Blogger tab. Thank goodness Blogger saves blogs as you time them! Panic attack avoided, narrowly)
Days left of summer: 6
Inspirational quote/photo of the day: "People throw away what they could have by insisting on perfection, which they cannot have, and looking for it where they will never find it." ~Edith Schaeffer
*Well, that connection makes sense to me, at least....
**Because that's what I try to do in my head. If I'm thinking about 3 things at once, there's almost always some connection between them
***Sorry about that. But this blog really is a lot of me just thinking on "paper." And I hope you find at least some of it interesting...
No comments:
Post a Comment