Strange Occurances

It's the end of May, and that means that a lot of weird things are supposed to happen. Last year, all of my year-older friends started going crazy, and I learned a lot of interesting things about my classmate's mom and the paranormal experiences she's had in her life. Now, things seem mostly normal, but there are still those little things, those small details that stand out and make you realize that something out of the ordinary is going on.

There's this kid in my grade who has always seemed really obnoxious and not very bright to me, but in reality, he's very logical and quite brilliant when it comes to science. In fifth grade, he used to come to TAG pullouts with us, and when he stopped coming for some reason, our teacher decided it was because all of the girls were intimidating or something. I still can't stand him, but my friend knows him (and all of the other people in the school I don't know) really well, and thinks that he's a good but insecure person inside. When my teacher's dad died, I realized that this is possibly true. It came as a great shock to me to find out that it was him who organized the condolence poster with signatures from every kid in the school, that it was him who went around making sure that everyone had written something on it. Just a few days ago, he showed up in TAG again and started saying really thought-out things about political issues, and apparently was the authors of one of the papers from his US History class that my teacher liked so much. They say to never judge a book by its cover, but I never guessed that it would apply to this kid.

Today was the last day of school for seniors in the county, and for the first time ever I started thinking about what it would really be like to be a senior. Sure, I'm graduating from middle school, but who cares about something like that when there's a whole new world just a few months away? I know several seniors this year, and it feels like they were just my age a little while ago, which is quite scary to think about, but at the same time I feel like they've been in high school forever. My freshman friends brought their new yearbooks to dance today, and looking at the pictures and quotes was both sad and nice at the same time. When I talked to a senior girl at dance, she seemed kind of shocked about the whole graduating thing, but really relieved, too. It seems so far away to me, and all of a sudden I feel very young again.

I also performed the miracle of jumping eight seats in the flute section today to play first part in Images by Robert Sheldon. To make a long story short, I've been playing the concert band for concerts all year, but for graduation, about fifteen members of our band will be merging with them, and we're practicing the music during our regular period, without the high schoolers. Since I've played that particular song before and know all the solos (which are pretty simple), our teacher let me play the solos, and since I was the only one in the section who actually knew it, it was like I was playing by myself. Just the fact that a few months ago I was at the back of the section, between two freshman, playing second part, and this afternoon I got to play the solos that I listened to for so long. Not to be arrogant, but gosh do I feel advanced (even though I'm really not). The flute player we have now (who's one heck of a good flute player) is graduating, so we'll be playing that piece without her, and a few others, and next year the head of the section will most likely be a sophomore-or me. I don't even see how that works. What happened to moving up the totem pole?

Last but not least, I can't figure out how everything is ending (hee hee, Chameleon Circuit moment) so fast. I feel like we just started the show, and now it's our last weekend. To be fair, we only have two, but the schedule seems so short and the end all too sudden. When we had a fire drill that turned out to be a real electrical fire the other day, my friend and I were talking about what would happen if we got locked in famed art supply closet under the stairs when the alarm went off, which we used to do to each other in sixth grade (when there wasn't a fire, of course), and suddenly realized that we only have a little bit of time left to get locked in that dumb closet. When our math teacher explained to us why we couldn't have the math final exam today, since it hadn't been finished in time, she pulled out her date book and showed us how much time in the classroom we actually have left, and how it's so stressful to actually take the exam. In some perspectives, it feels like the year just started. But in others, it was a lifetime away.

Life Isn't Fair

Today is my dance teacher's mom's 92nd birthday. She is almost a century old, and has great grandchildren. It's amazing to think that someone who seems as old (sorry, wise) as my dance teacher has a mom who is still alive, and a dad who is even older.

My science teacher's dad died last week, a month before she turned 26. My dad's mom died when he was eleven, and my mom's mom died when she was finishing up college.

How come some people can live so long and have such a wonderful life, but for others, it's over so fast?

I'm Still Here

Just to let you know, yes, I do still exist and care about this blog. However, for the past week, I have been at dance rehearsal until almost eleven o'clock each night, and still have giant exams to study for, which is why my writing has been extremely scarce. The dance show this year is Jane and the Giant Peach, in case you wanted to know (Jane because there's no boy to be James and our senior girl needed a good part), and it's been going really well for the first two shows (the third is today in a few hours). Other than that, I've been going to school, being excited about the Whovian barbeque tomorrow, and dreaming of summer. I'll try to write more later, maybe next week, when I have the time.

Being Immature

When I was ten, I somehow got in in my head that I was going to be mature. This idea probably came from being in awe of my older cousin, who was fifteen at the time and a smart, kid-loving, and witty high schooler who everyone in the family raved about. Her being my role model, I decided that I was going to be just like her, and act sweet and quiet, rather than wild and slightly obnoxious at times. This was different than my other identity that I wanted, the girl who climbed trees and ran around barefoot, but it was the new thing I wanted to accomplish. So, when my family went to Rhode Island that summer to see my family, I did just that. I tried to be sensible and friendly, and interacted with my little step cousins. Sure enough, I got my wish, and everyone started saying how nice I was, and how I had grown up. It was then that I realized that once I had gone this far, there was no going back. I was stuck being mature forever, and that was it.

There's something to be said for being a kid forever. People scoff at grown men who think up so-called "immature" ideas with their kids (Phil Dunphy style, if you will), or teenagers who crack annoying jokes, but some people never really were kids. Maybe they grew up trying to be proper, having declared themselves adults by the age of eight, and were stuck in the role of being mature forever, just to be liked better (or not, in some cases). Once you are mature, you can't just do what you would do as an immature person and get away with it. This makes me feel bad for children born into royalty in in 17th century.

Whenever my mom's side of the family (her sister and her family, no one else) came over for Thanksgiving or other dinners, the kids would request a table away, so we could tell "potty jokes", and so that there would be enough room for everyone's plate. I don't think we told that many jokes, but it was fun to laugh hysterically and be annoying. When you're seven, nobody cares that you do these things, because it's part of who you're supposed to be.

So when you you change naturally? When you people expect you, at a certain age, to start acting mature? Is it when you turn thirteen, or go to middle school? Emotionally, I don't think some people ever become mature, but at least they know how to act in serious social situations. But when do they learn that, if the date of when they have to start being mature is unknown?

Just for the record, I went out to pie yesterday after our spring concert with two other families, and since we were at a restaurant, the kids did have a separate table. I was sitting with three boys from one family, two from another, a rather quiet brother and sister, and my younger brother. Rather than trying to take charge (three of them were only a year younger than me, after all), I let them put Tabasco sauce, salt, pepper, and syrup in the water glasses, and laughed along with them. I doubt the waitresses will ever see me again and recognize me, so there's an excuse right there to act immature. When you're hidden away from society for a little break, it's okay to take a rest and break character.

Unmasking Special Ed

Up until I was in fourth grade, I thought I understood kids with mental problems and disabilities. I knew that they had their own way of learning things, that each of them was different, and that they ate lunch in a different part of the lunchroom than the rest of us. I figured that this was all there was to know, and our school seemed to separate them out from the rest of us; the “normal kids” and the “special ed kids”. It wasn’t until later that year that I realized how important they are, just like every other human being. 

Starting the year I was in fourth grade, my elementary school began an inclusion program, something that has been becoming increasingly popular in schools as of the past few years. The object is simple; you bring a student from the special education class into a “normal” classroom and give them a chance to interact with the other students, and to see what it’s like to be in your typical American grade school class. That year, we had a first-year teacher full of enthusiasm and great ideas, and she was more than happy to have our classroom host a student. So we welcomed Chris, and autistic boy with glasses and a love for old-fashioned cars.

At first, the rest of us weren’t exactly sure how to react to having a kid from the special ed program in our class. For the past three years, we had just glanced over them, assuming that they didn’t notice us. We knew that they had feelings and brains, but either we were too scared to stop and talk to them, or just didn’t have the time. It was like they were aliens from another planet, who we couldn’t really connect with.  Now, with one of these “aliens” sitting in the front of the same room as us, we began to realize that we had made a serious mistake all of those years.

Chris taught us so many things. After just a week, we were all waving to him when we saw him in the hallway, along with the other disabled kids that he was with. When we made collages about ourselves, he looked through magazine after magazine to find the perfect pictures of cars to use. “Which is your favorite?” I would ask, and he would point them all out to me, naming each one and why they were his favorite. His voice was hard to understand at times, but, by the end of the year, we knew exactly what he was talking about. And thanks to Chris, our class’s cookbook has one amazing no-bake cookie recipe, in print and on the second page.

About a year later, when I was in fifth grade, I was in a different school with different kids and a different atmosphere. Our elementary school had closed, so we consolidated with the other one in the area and created one big school. I hardly knew any of the kids in my class, and didn’t recognize any of the special education students. One day, when we were in the school library, the librarian had us all sit down so she could talk to us about a book that she had just bought. It was called Out of My Mind, she said, and went to explain the book to us in great detail. I sat there, mesmerized, throughout the entire thing. If I had thought I understood disabled kids before, then I was a genius now. I had to read that book.

Finally, a month later, I got it. Out of My Mind, by Sharon Draper; a small, blue book with a goldfish jumping out of a bowl on the cover. I was instantly drawn into the world of ten-year-old Melody, who suffers from cerebral palsy and has to spend her whole life in a wheelchair. She can’t talk, walk, or have control over her body, but her mind is brimming with brilliant ideas and words. More than anything else, Melody wants to talk, to tell everybody how she feels and what she thinks, but is easily overlooked by the other kids in her school as a “retard. Once she enters fifth grade, her teacher lets her join an inclusion program, like the one in my school, so she can be in other classes and let her smarts pay off. When the opportunity comes up for her to try out for a trivia competition, Melody is as good as they come.  The only problem is that the other kids still have trouble accepting her. Told from the eyes of one remarkable girl, this book proved itself to be one of the most inspiring I’ve ever read, but it also triggered a thought of something else.

My classmate, who I’ve known since first grade, has two sisters. One of them is adopted and hyperactive, and the other is a lot like Melody; in a wheelchair, has trouble talking, nineteen years old and still in high school. I had met her several times, and while she’s great person, I was never really sure if she quite knew what was going on, or understood us. After reading this book, though, I realized that, like Melody, she could be a brilliant person, with so much to say, but locked up inside her own little world. Not too long ago, I read a piece that she wrote for her high school’s newspaper. It was just like something anybody would write; about how much she loves the beach and how she can see it from her house. It was then that I knew that she’s just like us, only her true self is masked my the problems she suffers through.

This is the thing with these kids. They are all people. They are all human beings, with feelings, lives, hopes, and dreams. But since they can’t always have control over what they can do, or say, or decide, they are what we make them out to be. We’re in charge of taking that mask off them and showing their inner selves. So that people can see who they are, not their disabilities.

Now that I’m in eighth grade, I know for a fact that I don’t fully understand kids with disabilities. There’s so much more that I need to unlock and uncover, but until then I know that I can be as friendly as possible. It’s like saying hello to that new girl on the first day of school. A smile can change somebody’s life.

So when I’m in the hallways and I see them, that’s what I do. I wave. And smile.

A Picture In My Mind

 I wrote this for an Oregon Rivers anthology, and it got published! It's modeled after the rivers of southern Oregon.

I stand next to the river and watch it flow.

It’s a ribbon of liquid ice, winding its way down the path, pulling the crystal light from the sky and twisting it out into clear blue silk. It’s an ever-growing source of life, wide and deep in some parts and snaking through forests in others. It winds in and out of the trees, cutting little ripples as it bounces over stones, spilling down the occasional waterfall.

My feet are bare and sink into the spongy moss riverbed. I dip my hand into the water and cup the clear brilliance in my palm before letting it spill through my fingers. The sun created little sparkles, like tiny jewels, reflected from the water. They’re so dazzling, so abstract.

The river is a bed of gems, each sparkling with their own design and color. I can spot the deep tones of cobalt, layered underneath sky blue, emerald, and crystal white. Instead of being separate, though, they are blended together like only the richest of paints, illustrating a beautiful portrait. The mountains peek up in the background; tall, majestic giants overlooking everything, dusted with snow. I know that the snow will soon melt and flow down the great hillside, eventually merging with this grand body of water, giving us the sweet water we have now. It’s icy cold, but clear, letting the sunlight illuminate the bottom.

What seems like fathoms below, nature lies. Microscopic bugs dart near the surface, basking in the sunlight, nibbling on bits of plants. Small turtles and snakes lurk on the riverbed, lying in a shallow pool, well hidden away. Further out, salmon swim fiercely on, only stopping for the most urgent matters. Like stoic soldiers, they brave the current, determined to reach their destination in time. River otters, a rare treat, frolic beneath the waves, coming up to rest on shore after their fun has ended for the day.

I sit out on the bank for a long time. Far ahead, the river stretches out to embrace the land, and behind me it is just a creek through the forest. In my cutoff jeans, streaked with mud from clambering over rocks to get here, I sit on a flat stone and wait, staring off into the distance.

Eventually, the sun dips behind the mountains, letting off spectacular rays of golden orange as it sinks. Birds fly over the water, silhouetted in the light. With the absence of wind, I can see fish jumping, creating little splashes here and there. The trees are harder to make out now, just bundles of pine blanketing the hills. An owl hoots behind me, and I feel a sudden chill as darkness sets in.

“Honey, are you out here?” It’s my mother, her silhouette stepping carefully over the rocks to get to me. “It’s time to come in. It’s getting dark.”

I smile and look out over the river.

“Just a minute.”

~I was going to call it The River Song, but it has no relevance whatsoever, soooo...~

May Madness

I'm just going to let you know now that, apart from February, May is the most complicated month of my year. With impending dance shows and violin concerts and the end of the year, I barely have any time to do very much, including writing blog posts. Next week, I will be dancing every night from after school until who knows how late, and the stupid finals that you have to take to go to high school/get into the high school classes you want to get into are coming up, too. So, if I write a post every three days or four days, that's why. Until we meet again!