Tuesday, April 19, 2005
After getting reject by two schools in one week, finding out that the local library doesn't want to hire me is not that big of a deal.
In the last week I watched The Killing Fields, read about the My Lai Massacre, bought a Nat'l Geographic about Russian Gulags and another about Pitcairn island, purchased an anthology of ecological horror, and researched the Khmer Rouge regime. Last week was definitely about feeling bad and being isolated.
When I was in elementary school I joined the debating society at my school. As a kid I always read the newspaper, watched the news, and listened to the radio in the morning before I school. I was really into being into current affairs. When the kids on my street would play TV tag, I would always try to think of the most cerebral programs to say, "McNeil-Lehrer Report!" "Meet the Press!" "NOVA!"
I wasn't particularly good at sports. I played them, but I had (and still have) terrible hand-eye coordination. I'm good at things like sailing, but terrible at baseball. The few things in baseball I was good at were picking up rocks in left field and getting hit by a pitch. I was good at debating or so I told myself. I think I was just good at thinking what I had to say was more important than what everyone else had to say.
In my second year in the debating society I was in grade six and I figured I was a shoo-in to be named the president of the society. I was a nerd, it was a nerd club, it was so fucking logical. Instead the jerks in the society (mostly grade fives) elected some other jerk (another grade five) and I felt wicked stupid. As soon as the meeting was over I head straight for the doors and home and yeah I cried.
I later realized I had no business debating when, at the 1995 Junior High Provinicials, I had to debate in favour of schools being segregated by sex. There were three of us on a team and we each had to introduce one new argument in favour of segregation. I was last so I ended up with the worst argument. The crux of which was that segregated schools, like segregated prisons, would breed homosexuality*.
Two years later while visiting Ottawa I told a bisexual acquaintance of mine that heterosexuality was natural because the parts fit. Of all the lessons learned from Public Enemy* that was the last one I should have adopted.
*Which of course is not my feelings on the matter ten years later.
*Public Enemy's 'Meet the G that Killed me' :
Man to man
I don't know if they can
From what I know
The parts don't fit
In the last week I watched The Killing Fields, read about the My Lai Massacre, bought a Nat'l Geographic about Russian Gulags and another about Pitcairn island, purchased an anthology of ecological horror, and researched the Khmer Rouge regime. Last week was definitely about feeling bad and being isolated.
When I was in elementary school I joined the debating society at my school. As a kid I always read the newspaper, watched the news, and listened to the radio in the morning before I school. I was really into being into current affairs. When the kids on my street would play TV tag, I would always try to think of the most cerebral programs to say, "McNeil-Lehrer Report!" "Meet the Press!" "NOVA!"
I wasn't particularly good at sports. I played them, but I had (and still have) terrible hand-eye coordination. I'm good at things like sailing, but terrible at baseball. The few things in baseball I was good at were picking up rocks in left field and getting hit by a pitch. I was good at debating or so I told myself. I think I was just good at thinking what I had to say was more important than what everyone else had to say.
In my second year in the debating society I was in grade six and I figured I was a shoo-in to be named the president of the society. I was a nerd, it was a nerd club, it was so fucking logical. Instead the jerks in the society (mostly grade fives) elected some other jerk (another grade five) and I felt wicked stupid. As soon as the meeting was over I head straight for the doors and home and yeah I cried.
I later realized I had no business debating when, at the 1995 Junior High Provinicials, I had to debate in favour of schools being segregated by sex. There were three of us on a team and we each had to introduce one new argument in favour of segregation. I was last so I ended up with the worst argument. The crux of which was that segregated schools, like segregated prisons, would breed homosexuality*.
Two years later while visiting Ottawa I told a bisexual acquaintance of mine that heterosexuality was natural because the parts fit. Of all the lessons learned from Public Enemy* that was the last one I should have adopted.
*Which of course is not my feelings on the matter ten years later.
*Public Enemy's 'Meet the G that Killed me' :
Man to man
I don't know if they can
From what I know
The parts don't fit
