November 29

This idea started out as:
backwards,
twisted,
ironic.
But as I think more and more about it, it actually makes perfect sense.

I was in public school for 12 years. 12. Over half of my life.
Today, I talk to 1, 2, or maybe 3 people that I met over those 12 years. I talk to them on occasion. I never have meaningful conversations with them, I never feel quite comfortable when I'm with them.
My senior year of high school, upon returning from a summer trip to Nepal, I knew I couldn't even bare one more year. So I switched to an alternative school in St. Paul. I started out intimidated, shy and I felt completely out of place. All that being said, I had this gut feeling that if I stuck it out, I would learn a lot.
I did. Oppurtunities presented themselves, the director of the school got me obsessed with politics, which has turned into a life-long thing, I finally had the chance to create; to use the part of my brain that had been in opression by the public schooling system.

But, it didn't, and it hasn't, stopped there.
Everyone that I became friends with at Jennings was SO completely different. I was with one of my friends the other night, and talked to another one of my friends last night. I read something that another girl had posted on the internet, and I've just begun to realize, each friend that I gained from being at that school, is brilliant. They are the ones that stand out to me as thinkers. They have lived through hellish circumstances, and they have come out of it with something to say.
The reason the thought started out ironic is because the school is an alternative program. There is no painful application process, we weren't sorted through- anyone is welcome. We all found ourselves there, and the "man" would never give our school the time of day. It's not about a 4.0, nor is it about the student who does community service in thier spare time. It's the drop-outs, the kids who the mainstreem couldn't handle, the offbeats.
My measurement of intellegence is not skewed. I have had conversations with so many different people, my life is filled with human interaction. I don't spend too much time with people that the world counts "sucessful" because life has proven that there is not much for me to learn there.

I feel so much when I think about how backwards the systems in our country are,
but one thing I feel for certain is thankful.
Thankful that I got out of there, even if it was only for my last year. Thankful that I had the chance to meet these people, and thankful that Jennings was a part of my journey of opening my mind.