High School

Today was like any other school day. It was the last period and I was running a pass to pull a member of my newspaper staff from class so I could discuss her latest article edits. I was the only person in the commons of the school, and the wide, empty space seemed so much larger than it normally did. And quieter. So much quieter. The only sound was my own footsteps. The sunlight was streaming through the skylights in the high ceilings and it made the place look beautiful. Almost ethereal. I looked around at the hand drawn posters announcing yearbook sales and Homecoming dances and an overwhelming sense of contentment washed over me. It was almost startling how happy I felt in that moment. I love this place. I love the friends I've met here, the teachers I've learned from, and the experiences I've had. I love this place and I'm about to leave.

There isn't a day goes by that I don't complain about some aspect of high school. No day where I'm not "completely over it" or "so ready to get out of this place." At least not until today.

As I slowed my steps, wanting to savor the moment for as long as possible, I realized how I hadn't said any of those things today.

Not during my Statistics class, not when I had to take a pop quiz I knew no answers for in my Econ class, not when half of my debate team forgot their t-shirt money, not even when I stayed two extra hours after school to help the yearbook meet their deadlines.

I had a really good day. And it won't be long before those kind of days - where I am so accustomed to being busy it's not even considered "busy" anymore, where I'm needed to answer a million different questions from my staff and my team, where I'm asked to do things that are in no way my responsibility - are nonexistent. It won't be long before the easy, practiced days of being a student at CHS are over.

And today I realized just how much I'm going to miss it. Boy, am I going to miss this place.

Single Nice Guys

“In pop culture, girls who crush hopelessly on guys they can’t have are painted as just that – hopeless. Over and over again, we’re taught that girls who openly express sexual or romantic interest in guys who don’t want them are pitiable, stalkerish, desperate, crazy bitches. More often than not, they’re also portrayed as ugly – whether physically, emotionally or both – in order to further establish their undesirability as an objective fact. Both narratively and, as a consequence, in real life, men are given free reign to snub, abuse, mislead and talk down to such women: we’re raised to believe that female desire is unseemly, so that any consequent shaming is therefore deserved. There is no female-equivalent Friend Zone terminology because, in the language of our culture, a man’s romantic choices are considered sacrosanct and inviolable. If a girl has been told no, then she has only herself to blame for anything that happens next – but if a woman says no, then she must not really mean it. Or, if she does, she shouldn’t: the rejected man is a universally sympathetic figure, and everyone from moviegoers to platonic onlookers will scream at her to just give him a chance, as though her rejection must always be unfounded rather than based on the fact that he had a chance, and blew it. And even then, give him another one! The pathos of Single Nice Guys can only be eased by pity-sex with unwilling women that blossoms into romance!”

-Lamenting the Friendzone, or: The Nice Guy Approach to Perpetuating Sexist Bullshit

You have to be everything.

“We are the girls with anxiety disorders, filled appointment books, five-year plans. We take ourselves very, very seriously. We are the peacemakers, the do-gooders, the givers, the savers. We are on time, overly prepared, well read, and witty, intellectually curious, always moving… We pride ourselves on getting as little sleep as possible and thrive on self-deprivation. We drink coffee, a lot of it. We are on birth control, Prozac, and multivitamins… We are relentless, judgmental with ourselves, and forgiving to others. We never want to be as passive-aggressive as our mothers, never want to marry men as uninspired as our fathers… We are the daughters of the feminists who said, “You can be anything,” and we heard, “You have to be everything.” -Courtney Martin

(man)kind

1.
You want him to want you, don't you?
-You want him to love you?
Keep your skin smooth for him.
Keep your hair curled for him.
Keep your body lean for him.
Keep your voice quiet for him.
And most importantly, keep your mind empty for him.



2.
Look at those hips. What are they for if not to bear children?
Or at that mouth. What is it for if not to please a man?
That laugh - that's to boost his ego, right?
That voice is to sing his praises?
Those eyes to admire his silhouette?
Look at those hands - made to care for a man in sickness and in health.
And that magnificent soul. What is that for?



3.
As girls we sit in front of the television and we flip through the magazines and we learn our place.
After all, you must start early or else she'll start developing thoughts, won't she?

As teenagers we go to parties with drunk boys and we learn our place.
After all, if she wears that skirt and she bats her eyes she's asking for it, isn't she?

As women we stand at the alter and we read our vows and we learn our place.
After all, isn't this what she's been preparing for her whole life?


4.
We are fashioned so early to understand that once a man decides he wants us, our bodies are not our own. That if a woman rejects a man's advances it must be because she's crazy. She's crazy not to want to be with this man - the one that's been giving her attention all night.

He chose you, girl. He chose you and if anything, you should be flattered.