Showing posts with label dissent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dissent. Show all posts

Monday, September 24, 2007

boys don't ever have this much fun

i hate the law.
after dinner at the OR tonight, i walked up to my car in the loyola parking garage, in the rain, to discover that i had been BOOTED. granted, this is sort of my own fault, because i dont have a parking permit yet.... but i mean, cmon! it's still pretty early in the year, right? so i had to pay $95 to get them to take it off. it was exceedingly lame.
so, i finally got on the road. i had to stop at rite aid on the way home to pick up some medicine. i walked in totally normal and didnt even notice that some lady's "HEY! PINKIE!" was directed at me! pinkie! what??? is that a racial reference, or could she perhaps have been referring to my dress... i don't know. so i'm standing in line at the pharmacy pick-up and she appears and tells me that i have to leave. why, you ask? because i am barefoot.
"you need to leave and get some shoes."
"i don't have any shoes."
"you need to leave and get some shoes."
"well this will just take one second."
"you need to leave and get some shoes."
"but i'm sick! i need medicine!"
"you need to leave and get some shoes."
i should have kicked a bitch. but instead i just rolled my eyes and left. and now i have no medicine.
here's the point: these days i have been attempting to find happiness wherever i can... it's a rare thing, so i do my damnedest to continue doing the few things i can to maintain a little glow in my day. lately (basically all summer and continuing to the present) i have tried to go barefoot as much as possible. every day i go to school with no shoes.... i've gotten scolded a couple of times at the cafeteria, but basically i ignore it. brandon just keeps telling me that i'm being dumb by not wearing shoes because i'm going to fuck up my feet and i'm automatically shortening the list of places i'm allowed to go. and i understand that it's a liability and a health issue...... but really, i don't give a fuck. you should feel my callouses!!! they are quite impressive. and it's one of the only things that brightens my day. so i'm sorry, world, but i hate you. deal with my fucking bare feet and leave me alone! one day you'll wonder where i went to. and it will be too late.
so leroy just came home with a big bundle of delicious stolen food. yes! all the soy milk in the world will soon be in my belly! bwahahahaha you just wait.

Wednesday, November 03, 2004

give me dead

today at school was horrifically depressing. it started out with a chocolate donut, conversation with my great friend margaret, and a little bit of hope. it ended in depression and near-tears into a vanilla milkshake. i don't know what's more pathetic. i really can't believe that bush is president again, and i don't know what to do. we watched kerry's concession speech in pre-calculs from the couch, holding nervous hands and trying to be light-hearted about it. my shock and sadness surprise me. everybody is stirred to act somehow. eileen's rallying people to go to the "what do we do now?" type meeting at media co-op tomorrow night. allison says she wants to start something, do SOMETHING at our school, just to put something positive in the world. there's an intense need to create, to act, to believe in something greater. i'll get behind anything right now. i was looking forward to sudan awareness week, but it's mostly just that-- goddamn awareness. watching a video, having a speaker. i feel like there's so little action. i need to DO and there's nothing doing. i predict that the play this weekend will be teeming with passion. after that i'll have no direction, and i need to not feel useless. if anyone has ideas, please get me there.
i came home to my sister, who stayed home sick (half emotional, i think) on her 15th birthday. we tried to get happy with a massive dinner at pho saigon and dessert from the cheesecake corner. i like that the cheesecake man remembers me. morgan opened purple birthday presents; we wore hats, sang songs, and made merry. a strange conclusion to a weary day.
a girl in my psychology class made a depressingly humorous joke (which i've been repeating all day -- sorry) about how since bush has been reelected and he's going to get to appoint like 4 justices to the supreme court, they're going to reinstate the draft and overturn roe vs. wade. so we'll all be pregnant and in the army. i can't wait.

Wednesday, October 09, 2002

every day i make my way through the streets of your town

i was really pumped about writing a real post until i sat down. well i'm going to try my best for you guys, because i know i'm sick of looking through blogs with no new posts! (merv's place as the exeption.) i found these 60 cent cappuccino and cream candies that brittany sort of made me buy at big lots a few weeks ago. i'd eaten two that day and that was basically it. but i found them! and i'm addicted! they're really sweet but they leave this taste in my mouth that makes me want another one. plus i'm hungry. mmmmmmm. moving on.
i already talked a little about the weekend... friday night was great. i had rehearsal and then i got to hang out with awesome people. everyone went to abyssinia, which is an ethopian restaurant, and kevin came to pick me up from home (with william's car that kevin couldn't drive) while they were there because i told them i had to eat. and they decided to go to a restaurant like. a block away from my house. because william's stomach was eating itself. so i didn't really have anything except a bite of gross cloth bread. i had to run across poplar twice and it was horrifyingly hilarious. kevin and i nearly died ten times on the way from my house to abyssinia. after that we joggled around across the street, where the creepy cuban captain d's is. and there were these drums or something and we ran all over the world trying to find where they were coming from, with no success. then we drove around listening to modest mouse. we ended up at that christ methodist church place and we played on the playground for a while. kevin and william bribed lots of soda out of this party that was ending at the church. most of it got poured on the wood chips i think. the swings were pretty great. a lot of that newfangled equipment was discovered to be incredibly dangerous! and all the swingie bar things make your hands hurt and smell. alice and i invented the word "muffin" that you have to say like robin goodwin as a kind of abbreviation for "motherfucker" but used in completely different context. then we drove around and it was some modest mouse live song and they said something about thanks to the pixies and i was all like 'THE PIXIES' and they changed the song for me. they played "debaser" for me. it was great. kevin sang it with me. i think elise was trying to get william to watch me sing in his rearview mirror. at that point we had ended up at bookstar so that william could buy smoke and mirrors by neil gaiman. i like that place but we couldnt find the mammoth book of erotica this time.
on saturday.... i went to rehearsal. that was it. oh yeah i went with morgan and mom to buy a present for morgan to take to her friend mariana's birthday, but it also ended up being a shopping trip for mom and dad's anniversary, which was sunday (october 6). morgan bought mariana a card with an old lady on it, being levitated off the ground by all the balloons she was holding. it said "get carried away on your birthday!" and mom got a card for dad that had a cow kissing another cow that said "i love you for heifer." i didn't get anything because i don't have any money. then we went to cat's music. morgan bought the nelly furtado cd for mariana. i had to help mom find the new david bowie cd, heathen, for dad. the two-disc one. with the great pixies cover of "cactus!" i didn't get anything because i DON'T HAVE ANY MONEY. it was so distressing. i tried to make morgan buy the new tegan and sara but she wouldn't. i tried to make mom buy the new bree sharp but she wouldn't. it was depressing. we blew that popsicle stand.
sunday was mom and dad's anniversary so mom woke me up around 9 or something to ask me where dad's card and gift were. i, obviously, couldn't go back to sleep so i got up. nothing really happened until 3:30. which was rehearsal. we worked on scenes 6-8. since i haven't talked about the other rehearsals i'll sum this one up: in scene 6 i'm a really bad villager because i'm not animated enough. in scene 7 i'm a really bad surrealist because i'm not loud enough and i can't say my lines right and i can't play the game very well. in scene 8 i get to play ring-around-the-rosies while the world falls apart. i've decided not to reveal anything about this scene because it needs to be surprising. i'm just like "it's creepy. we play ring-around-the-rosies and it's HORRIFYING!" actually katherine and i were talking about it when her mom drove me to davis-kidd after school today and she was like "i think i'm going to have to leave before scene 8. or maybe i just won't come at all." which is sad. i think she should come and see katherine. katherine was trying to reassure her by telling her that she's not actually IN scene 8. oh oh oh! everyone come to the momo's ball because we really need money!!! the production costs A LOT and bill has already had to cut out some of the things he wanted to do for lack of funds. moving on... right after rehearsal, dad took me to bookstar to meet laylee. she was a little late but it wasn't her fault so thats ok. dad bought a drink at the starbucks there for me and he gave me money to buy something to eat. laylee and i got cold in the cafe so we walked around the bookstore. then this guy julian who went to her school last year came up and we talked to him for a good long time and it turned out she hates him anyway. so that was an eternal waste of time. i didn't know that she hated him, or else we would have been there for a total of two seconds. so laylee finally got us out of there by saying we wanted to go eat at taco bell. she got a cheese quesadilla and i got a chicken quesadilla. laylee didn't finish hers because it was making her sick or something. i finished eating mine while we walked to turlte's music, and we got to talk a bit. outside, she got like. her fourth and fifth phone calls of the evening, on her cell phone. leath wanted to come pick her up at that very second because she was supposed to meet them at borders at 8:30 or something which basically adds up to that she'd allotted less than an hour and a half to our hangoutage time and i'd thought she had to babysit or something. her lovely mother drove me home, where morgan was watching our "get up" video again. my parents were at their anniversary dinner at cafe society. i stayed up way too late online talking to jerel.
on monday, we had the day off. as if you didn't know. i was supposed to meet margaret at the library at 2 to work on this (wretched) english project. the day before, i had realized i wouldn't be able to meet then because i would have no ride, since my parents would be at work. by the time i thought about it on sunday, i felt like it was too late to call. so i called first thing in the morning on monday and left a message. and called like 720385 times and emailed her but we never got in touch. she called here around 2:20 and i felt really really awful. she said she found a few books though. morgan and i watched "seven brides for seven brothers" and it was glorious. we did homework and it sucked.
on tuesday, ms. haughton asked me why i was still out of uniform! i was like "I TOLD YOU." so she wrote me up. when i took the thing to the office, it was fifth period and no one was there so the (EVIL EVIL EVIL) secretary told me she would call me down in sixth period. she didn't. so today i was called to the office during 3rd period (english) and i was there through like. half of 4th. and they didnt even get a chance to talk to me because they're too slow and stupid and evil. so they called me back during 6th period etymology and finally talked me and basically said i had to wear the uniform until my appeal went through. i hate ms. haughton so much right now. not only for that but because of this test we took. i actually did pretty well on it but the things i missed were because of her shit ass directions!!! we had to memorize all this vocabulary, right? the word and its genitive and the meaning. (among other irrelevant things.) so most of the words, you had to memorize the genitive SINGULAR but there were two that you had to memorize the genitive PLURAL for some reason. so on the directions she said to write the genitive singular (she underlined that.) so when i wrote iussa, i put that the genitive singular was iussi, not iussorum. and that it meant 'a command' instead of 'commands' because the woman is ret@rd*d!! and i was too scared to ask her about it today because i thought she would see my non-uniform. go figure because i was actually wearing my black moondance skirt and a grey shirt! quite a few people asked me if i was caving in on the uniform thing. i didn't really mean to be dressed like that. but i don't want to wear that skirt to school again. that skirt was not made for me. or maybe i'm just not compatible with skirts. i can't sit in my desk in the ways that i like to sit wearing a skirt. well not comfortably anyway. or without feeling like i'm going to wipe my shoes all over the thing, which wouldn't have been a good idea, as it rained all today. and like. as soon as i stepped out of the door this morning, the skirt went looser than i'd tied it and it kind of fell down on my hips and dragged the ground all day. i hate going on stairs in that thing. especially when theyre all wet and slippery from the rain. as i said previously, katherine dohan's lovely mother drove me to davis-kidd after school where i finished reading what my mother doesn't know by sonya sones. i hadn't meant to finish it, but it happened. it wasn't nearly as good as stop pretending but i forgive it because it was written in beautiful beautiful poetry form. so stuff that i normally would be bored to death reading about is made interesting anyway. i started reading this book called stoner & spaz and i had just picked up the giver when my mom came. she bought some halloween books and things for her library at school.
POTATOES ARE RADICAL!

Tuesday, October 01, 2002

i know what god wants

today was ok for the most part. ms. haughton, my latin teacher, noticed for the first time that i wasn't in uniform. she took me into the hall and asked me about things and she told me to rethink my decision to appeal and all this. it was ridiculous. if i was braver i would have said something more intelligent/intelligible. in other uniform news, i am SO SICK of hearing people (guys especially) tell me how it doesn't matter and that you can do more damage from 'the inside' anyway. i can't even go into the ridiculousness of that.
oh yeah, by the way, zak baker joined hardcore club after morgan and brittany and i told him how we hated it and how awful it was. and he won't tell us what he did to get into it. probably because he doesn't want us to tell his parents or something, is what i guess. and he asked again today about the hunter thompson video. i was like 'it sucks' and he was like 'i dont care!' but then we had to start rehearsing. in rehearsal news, he's beautiful. in performance news, i play something/someone different in every scene, but that's really typical. it's not relaly like you're suppposed to keep up with who we are. in the scene that we just started to work on today and we're going to do some more with tommorow, i am the famous surrealist poet robert desnos. i think that i am one of the characters, with (two) lines because i was so bad at the little game we did at one of the auditions that the chorus is going to be doing while the surrealists do the surreal thing. or maybe bill thinks i'm a poet haha? i'm nervous about having actual lines to memorize. also, bill said that we would be getting a sense of what part of artaud we were playing by what we had to do in different scenes and i am just completely lost, i swear to god. in the first scene in which we resurrect artaud, i have two lines about flesh and bone and all this. and, later, a line about "so the stillness of the night silences all obscenities." also i am one of lot's daughters (from the bible), in this painting and that is really horrifying. it's also my last scene. i'm going to shut up about the play now. i remember, rereading some things i said about synesthesia, how much i went on and on about nothing.
yesterday a girl named feagin in my seventh period class came up and asked me about why i wasn't wearing the uniform and we talked through.. the whole class. (people were finishing their projects that they were supposed to have finished on friday.) she's a freshman and she asked for my screen name. today we chatted a bit and i found out that she has pretty awesome taste in music (bright eyes, elliott smith, ani difranco, aimee mann, tool, a whole lot of shit i can't remember) and she made a chat with me and a few of her friends who go to white station, one of whom was the girl that used to be in my math class, that i talked to for a milisecond at davis-kidd and who has waved to me in the hall a few times (sam[antha]) point being that that was very cool and coincidental. in other news on the social frontier, i am feeling like a total r*t@rd at this moment. i swear, i feel like i should stop talking to people altogether. yes, i love sharing my music and taste with the world but, of course, i am never recognized for it and everyone else on the planet just is. because i know how to pick my friends. it's like becca's friend who was in the homecoming court that likes bikini kill becuase becca introduced it to her because laylee introduced it to HER because i introduced it to laylee. ditto with rasputina and margaret earthman the cheerleader. and today becca herself (as you can read on her blog, if you know where it is. i don't think i'm supposed to link though) was just randomly talked to by three completely awesome people just sitting at starbucks because she radiates coolness. that and she had a sleater-kinney sticker on her backpack. and they talked about bikini kill, rasputina, and bonfire madigan. katherine dohan is on the morning announcement staff and they played L'Trimm's "cars that go boom" for the song of the day when i discovered that several of katherine's friends had heard the song through her and. there's the usual, of course. i don't know i'm all jealous i guess. that and i know that when they get "famous" or at least they all turn out as really great musicians that i will be sitting around in some shit job and envying the hell out of them because i dropped oboe and never picked up guitar/bass/drums/piano/triangle/cowbell.

Thursday, September 26, 2002

pretty rain makes you smile

"September 24, 2002

Dear Mrs. Jacobs:

After careful review and consideration of your reasons for requesting an exemption from the School Uniform Policy #5150.1 for your child, a decision has been made regarding your request. The policy requires that the person requesting the exemption show he/she wants an exemption due to religious or a strongly-held belief, described as "a philosophy or set of moral principles that guides a person's decision about his/her life or lifestyle." The explanations provided in your written statements submitted on August 12, 14 and September 23, 2002, and expressed in our conversation of September 23, 2002, do not meet the requirements for exemption. Your allowing your children to wear uniforms for one venue but not for another demonstrates inconsistency and, therefore, does not qualify as a strongly held belief. Consequently, I am denying your request for exemption from this policy. If you wish to pursue your request further, you should contact the Mmphis City Schools office of the Board of Commissioners for a final ruling of your appeal (325-5447).
If I can be of further assistance to you, feel free to contact me. We thank you for your continued support and look forward to your children having a successful year.

Sincerely,
Dr. Richard Potts, Director
Zone 2 Schools"

so they denied me because mom put that i'd warn a uniform in the past on the little exemption form thing. i am incredibly upset with both of them. i don't think that wearing the goddam band uniform for one fucking day constitutes checking "yes" for "has your children worn any uniform in the past?" or whatever the damn question was. actually mom thinks that they denied it because morgan is wearing the uniform (after being bullied into it) and i'm the one requesting the exemption. either way it's ridiculous and i'm pissed off.
sticky rain steals my smile.

Monday, September 23, 2002

what matters is your uniform

well blogger just deleted my post and i'm really annoyed. it's taken me a while to come back and redo it but. at the time, mom had just come home (and gone back to work) with news of the "meeting." it turned out that she hadn't even had time to come by the house and get me. i'm really glad we didn't go film it. the anti-meeting consisted of mom giving the guy a (new) note, him reading it, and saying that they'd get back to us. mom did not seem very hopeful about it. she thinks she focused on all the wrong things. i'm going to post her note and you can tell me what you think:

"My concerns are:

1. The authoritarian atmosphere created by the school uniforms policy. Perhaps students are better behaved; they are also less exuberant.
2. The "us" versus "them" attitude promoted by the wearing of uniforms.
3. The increasingly "conformist" attitude towards thinking in classes. The school uniform policy is, contrary to what the school administrators say, fostering an attitude of "we should all think alike." This is especially troubling to me since Memphis, in contrast to other places I have lived, is a city that does not tolerate diversity of opinion well. The schools should be fostering individual thinking, not succumbing to peer pressure.

I have supported my daughter's decision to pursue exemption from the school uniform policy precisely because I believe that at fifteen, she should be learning how to think independently. I have encouraged her to make her own decisions, and not to follow the crowd. If I backed out now, what would I be teaching her? I believe that the process she is experiencing right now is an invaluable lesson about how the world works, regardless of what the outcome is. I am only sorry to see what she seems to be learning is that people in power aren't always thinking people, and that people in power sometimes use that power to bully others. A few teachers and administrators have seen the school uniform policy as an opportunity to throw their weight around.

While this policy may work in the short term, studies show it will not have any great long-term effects. We seem to be focused on the short term that we are risking the life lessons our children should be learning. Learning to make appropriate decisions about clothing would be better than instituting a narrow uniform policy.

4. The Memphis City School Board did not follow recommended procedures for implmenting the policy. There was no discussion with parent and teacher groups before this policy was established. The arbitrary notion that a school uniform policy would improve our scools is fallacious. School uniforms should be part of an in-depth adjustment of school environments.

Thank you for allowing my voice, and my daughter's voice, to be heard.

Leslie Jacobs and Alanna Stewart."

you wiped the floor with victory

i wish. i am upset because mom is supposed to be here. well i'm sure that what happened is that when she came by here, dad had not brought me home yet, so she left without me, to go to our Board meeting about my uniform exemption. the case will not be NEARLY as hopeful without me there, or without a statement written by me there. i was going to do that but i decided it would be better if i was there. and obviously i am not, since it is almost 3:30 and i'm at home. this is quite distressing. i feel useless.

Wednesday, September 04, 2002

and when you're near, no sky was ever quite as clear

i stayed home from school today. my throat is murderous. morgan, brittany, and i spent the weekend shooting and editting footage for the "get up" (song by sleater-kinney) video that morgan is directing. i would upload five seconds of it for you, i really would, but there is no server right now. so instead. you can download the song here and imagine all the great things we are doing with it.
in other news, i'm probably going to have to wear the uniform. i am very pissed off but i am glad that i at least tried.
in other other news, i just listened to the plumb cd and i like it even less than i did when i first got it.
if anyone knows where to get nice, free blog layouts/skins/templates/whatevers... please direct me. thank you.

Wednesday, August 28, 2002

satan sucks, but you're the best

well it sure has been a while. i don't really know what to say though. last week was pretty average. i got a note every single day (and this week too, so far) for not wearing the uniform. i am literally going to start a collection, put them on the wall in frames or something. last weekend was the first annual memphis digital film festival, which, as you should know, katherine submitted our short movie "romeo and juliet revisited" to. it was received fairly well, i thought. better than i had expected, what with it being shown to the indie artsy underground crowd. in fact, it was reshown on sunday as a Notable Film so that was very exciting. katherine had been giving out flyers at school for two weeks, but only melissa tuttle, alice buchanan, and elise(!) came, besides the cast (katherine, brittany, morgan, and i) and laylee. plus my parents and katherine's dad. and katherine's friend leah and her folks. but that's beside the point. real life quotes from living, breathing indie artsy types:
"...one of the biggest accomplishments of the festival." - morgan fox
"you guys kicked everybody's ass." - khyber daniel

and i can't really remember anything else but a lot of people came up and said how entertaining it was or something, and how cool or whatever. so brittany came over to my house on friday night to discover a banner that said "HAPPY DAY DAY" in purple. it was supposed to say just "happy day" because it was supposed to be a belated birthday banner. and we also had a cake for her and morgan gave her a cd by the peechees as a present (my parent's later gave her a film festival shirt). kevin and elise and robin were there and we all went to sonic and stayed there for a while and freaked some people out by being loud when kevin's window and little moon roof or whatever it's called were open. and they had my dig me out sleater-kinney cd in the car so that was awesome. laylee was supposed to join us but she had a family dinner and by the time she called and stuff she said she could get dropped off wherever we were, but she couldnt get a ride home and since the car was full, the plans didnt work out. it was quite sad. we went to black lodge and walked around cooper-young, as usual. brittany spent the night at my house. we watched rat race. the next day was the film festival, which i've already discussed in part. aside from our movie, we saw several other shorts (some of them were ok) linley's husband's movie, normal to oily which was ok, and one of the worst movies i have ever seen, called voices from the high school which was the most excruciating 72 minutes i have ever spent outside of school. it was an elongated version of one of this shitty movies they play in health class to talk about teen problems and suicide and sex and drugs and abuse. it was wretched. we literally ran out after that but we should have probably stayed for the next one, or at least to hear the man talk about the movie and let him ask us if we liked it and be able to say "TERRIBLE, EVIL MAN. DON'T QUIT YOUR DAY JOB." and anyway the next movie had something to do with this band called lucero that i know meg likes. (they're local.) we all came home and i gave laylee her birthday present (in part. i didn't have a chance to burn any cds for her yet and i still feel terrible that i couldn't find any cds she wanted.) we ate pizza and watched this punk music documentary. there was a segment about how much reggae influenced punk, but they went on and on about reggae itself and it lasted way too long. i felt kind of cheated. but there was some really great patti smith stuff and sex pistols footage. and i liked hearing the ramones talk and listening to their outrageous accents. we went to this "party" at the hi-tone, which you got into free if you had a pass for the film festival. it was not a party at all. just some free food on a table, really loud boring music, and ... pool. so we left after what felt like 10 seconds but dad's car clock said 45 minutes. it was creepy. then laylee and brittany and i were joking about how we should make a video about the White Station Hardcore Club and we "moshed" with ourselves and brittany damaged my tooth. back at home, laylee's mom came and took her away and brittany and i stayed up for like three or four hours longer than we meant to, talking. morgan's friend sara also spent the night. on sunday brittany slept incredibly late and practically right after she woke up, katherine called us and told us about our movie getting replayed. so we all went to that "did a Q&A" afterwards. the family left but katherine, brittany, and i stayed to watch the rest of the movies. this week has been boring. the end.

Friday, August 16, 2002

the ship is sinking

one of the things about uniforms that's good and bad at the same time is that i feel like people are proving themselves. now i can see who is REALLY who. so i guess uniforms kind of are an equalizer.
my discovery:
everyone is either a shithead or theyre scared.
one thing that is really depressing, for me, is that all these people who are supposed to be the "punks" and all this are wearing the uniform. now i know punk and i know that punks would not stand for that. so all these people that i knew were punk poseurs and people that i thought might be cool and some punk kinda people that still might be cool are not even who i thought they were. as a punk poseur, i thought that hunter thompson would absolutely refuse to wear the uniform and go around with his hair dyed purple or something, but it's the same gross bleach blond. and then people like ted link that i KNOW have GOT to be remotely awesome are wearing the fucking uniform, even if they are wearing ties along with it. everybody that i thought was against conforming and all this. jesus. it just kills me. how can they live with themselves?! going around listening to rancid and the dead kennedys and operation ivy and the bouncing souls and all this and not even being able to rebel against a uniform. well if the uniform thing ever does pass over, i sure don't want to see another "rebel" shirt ever again.

happy birthday, laylee. this post was not meant to offend you of all people, damn it.

Thursday, August 15, 2002

rain falls on everyone

i just realized that i haven't even talked about school yet. so uh. let's see. monday was the first day - a half day. it was sick. everyone, as in EVERYONE that i laid my eyes on, was wearing uniforms. if you don't know, uniforms consist of white, grey, or dark green collared, button-down, tucked-in polo shirts and black, khaki, or navy "slacks" with belts for guys. for more details go here. and also, if you don't know, my friends and i have been complaining and protesting uniforms since they day the board voted. and for your information, i am the only person i know who is not wearing them. yes. i guess i have turned into a rebel. the first day, i wore jeans and my sleater-kinney shirt. a girl standing with madison young told me that she liked my shirt, but i don't know if she actually likes s-k or if she just liked the fact that i wasn't wearing the uniform. no random people have said anything about it except for a guy who just read my shirt out loud as i passed by on the second day ("the dishes.") and i have no idea what that statement was supposed to do. some people that i talk to ask him why i'm not wearing it ("why should i?! i don't want to") or how i'm not wearing it ("i just didn't wear it.") or if i've got exempt ("uhh... not yet.") and i think the main reason none of my teachers have said anything yet is because it isn't going to be enforced until september 3, according to the newspaper and the board. actually, my homeroom teacher mr. starron, on the first day, said to me while giving me my schedule, "you know that's not uniform." and i told him that i knew. then during his lovely Beginning Of The Year speech, he said (OBVIOUSLY directed at me) that he would not tolerate students not wearing the uniform and that he wouldn't let us in class if we weren't wearing it. so when i was leaving class, he stopped me and said "make sure you wear the uniform tomorrow." and i told him that i didn't believe in it. i'm very proud of myself for that. i think the thing with me not wearing the uniform makes me somewhat braver because i'm openly me ALL the time and people can see it. and i can't get away with being shy or anything because i'm sticking out like a sore thumb. and it's what they expect of me now, too. like they used to expect me to be so quiet and good and whatever and now i'm like. a juvenile delinquent. aside from s-k and the dishes, i've worn my ani difranco shirt and this black polo i bought to be ironic, but i don't think anyone got it. they just thought i forgot that we couldnt wear black or something. katherine asked me if i was caving in. so much for sarcasm. my geography teacher finally realized today that i wasn't wearing the uniform and i thought it was funny because today i was wearing the most blendie shirt.
browning: are we not wearing the uniform today?
me: no
browning: are we ever going to wear it?
me: no
browning: why not?
me: i don't believe in it and my parents don't believe in it.
and i couldn't tell if she was getting at something or if she hates me now or anything because she was just smiling away the whole time.
it's very nice because i can actually look forward to seeing some people at school. i have faces to look for in the halls and people to sit with at lunch. people that i actually LIKE and i'm really looking forward to getting to know them really well. another thing too is that a lot of these people seem very music-oriented so i can't wait to slap them with my tastes and borrow some CDs. in fact, last night i burned both albums by the pixies for both meg and brock. i have no idea how they will handle it, but brock said he likes to listen to things he's never heard of and i know that meg has heard bands she likes mention the pixies because everyone loves them. including me. don't know about you, but i am un chien andalusia.

Homeroom - Starron - 25 - with crappy people and a mean teacher
Unified Geometry Honors - Underwood - 224 - with nobody that i really know. becca foerhing
Pre-AP English - Douglas - 034 - katherine dohan, margaret graves
Geography Honors - Browning - 35 - nobody really. amanda trenshaw
Latin II Honors - Haughton - 11 - meg kerr, nina verevkina, ima paydar, melissa tuttle, dan ying liu, jenny luo, frankie blalock, hunter thompson
Etymology - Blankinship - 14 - meg, melissa, frankie
Biology Honors - Tate - 226 - heather hyden