Where to Start…The First week of High school.
So, as you all know, I haven’t blogged for about 3.5 weeks. That would be because, and I am not making this up, after BlogHer, I went to, in this order: Rarotonga, New Zealand, Australia, and High School. Which sounds the most exciting?I know. Not High school. But vacation posts are HARD. So, I’m going to start small.
High School, thus far, doesn’t seem all that exciting. Aggravating, certainly. Annoying, well, yes, what did I expect? But Exciting, that is one thing it lacks. It’s like middle school, but bigger, and the teachers aren’t completely blown over with my charm (read: schmoozing) yet. Don’t worry. It takes time. The most exciting part is wondering whether today will be the day that we stop with the team-building, and start with the learning. I would be fine with team-building, if they didn’t give you homework on it. Seriously. The best part of my week was writing an essay. I’m not kidding, or whining. (Well, maybe whining a little). Of course, this wasn’t a normal essay. Well, I guess I’ll define normal for you: it’s not the prompt, it’s what I do with it. For me, normal is: I meet the guidelines, I use sufficiently enough similes that the teacher thinks that I have a poetic spirit that needs to be freed and gives me a more interesting prompt next time. But this, this was a boring prompt: pick an image that displays your first-week ordeals, write an essay explaining why it represents them. Next time i have the chance, I’ll get the essay, but what really mattered was the feeling I got afterwards. It was this completely clean, relaxed feeling that i get after I’ve been on a roll, what my mom calls “sparkling”.
Sparkling is when you know all you lines in a play, or when a math problem just fits in your mind. Sparkling is when you write a post and you don’t even have to read it over to know it’s perfect. The feeling after sparkling is perfect though: it’s like a three day weekend without a cloud in the sky, and it’s warm, not hot, but warm.It’s like taking a long hot shower and not running out of hot water, and not having anywhere to go, or anyone in the house, and just lying in your towel on the bed and watching dust fairies play in a beam of sunshine, and cocooning in the smell of your sun-warmed skin and pink grapefruit body wash. It’s like getting just what you want for your birthday, or that fresh feeling after your done crying and ready to move on.
Sparkle afterglow is amazing, and that is why, despite any of the many things I could have loved most in this week, this essay, this ridiculous, simple essay, was the best part of my school week. Not the classes or the teachers or the freedom and knowledge that I am a high schooler, not even sitting and talking with my friends at lunch, but an essay. I think everyone has sparkled sometime. Whether they realize it or not.
Besides that, as far as school goes, boooring. Meh. Nothing else to say. Soon enough, though, I’ll post about my trips over summer vacation. Not only to Australia, New Zealand and Rarotonga, and BlogHer, but also to Florida to visit my friend Micki.
September 6th, 2010Topic: Life, Ramblings, Writing Tags: None
September 7th, 2010 at 2:06 am
whoa. sparkling. resulting from something kinda mundane given your travels and hither and yons….the perhaps whole point of day to day….aim for sparkling.
whoa.
and i thought sarah’s album gave new meaning to ‘afterglow’
thanks rj.
good to read you again.
September 7th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
Yay for things that make you feel the sparkle shimmer.
I am also bemused that you had to define “normal essay” because we all know “normal” isn’t your essay style.
A secret: sometimes the most boring prompts create the best sparkle. A leaf, a what would you have done differently, a which marker do you pick and why, a “I don’t know why this makes a difference…” can create the best shimmer.
A confession: one of my best posts ever started with the office fish, another with the play of light on a leaf, it is turning those odd random thoughts that come with the boring prompt into a piece of writing where the magic happens. I think the boring prompt helps the brain float off into more interesting realms and capturing those pixies–the sparkle.
As for charm–no one can escape it so don’t work it. High school bigger and yes–excitement can’t be locked in a building or room or even a series of them, you need to find the excitement and satisfaction for yourself.
I have already commented at length about team building and teaching of it. On one hand, tis better than when they just threw kids into a group and no one had a clue as to how to get things done in a group fashion. On the other, there’s an odd thing about it and it seems as groovy as the thinking caps they passed out for years at our schools or the “let’s create class rules as a democracy” It’s hip and the good thing? You aren’t having to do it with people you work with at some weird retreat.
September 7th, 2010 at 10:01 pm
Sparkling, I like that. Unlike the sparkling Edward does which just annoys me. But that’s another topic for another day. I like sparkling.