Why I Can't Be a Nun

In a lot of ways going to a Catholic school was pretty much the same as Uni, but there were a couple of things that were really weird. One of the main things was that they were always trying to push religious vocations on all of the kids, wanting to get the girls to become nuns and the boys to become priests. In fifth grade our big field-trip was a religious vocation field-trip -- all of the boys were going to a seminary while all of the girls went to a convent.

When we got to the convent, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. First we took a short tour and got to meet a lot of the nuns who lived there, and then we talked about becoming a nun. I didn’t think at this point I would be a nun, but I decided to keep an open mind for the trip. Anyway, by the time we were done talking, it was time for us all to go to the nuns’ daily mass with them.

I was really tired when we walked over to the church, as it was like 1:30 and we hadn’t eaten lunch yet. About ⅔ of the way through the service however, I started to feel really bad. Nausea washed over me as my lightheadedness grew even more acute, compounded by the fact that we had been kneeling for what felt like hours. I decided the best course of action was to close my eyes for a couple of seconds to regain my strength. What happened next however, I will never forget.

I vividly remember waking up lying flat on my back, confused and uncomfortable because of the cold, hard ground. When I opened my eyes I saw between five and ten nuns surrounding me, looking down. In this moment, I assumed I had died and was now in heaven, but was strangely unbothered by this fact I thought to be true. As the nuns moved to help me get up, however, I remembered where I was and what must have happened. My blood sugar must have dropped and I fainted right there, in the middle of mass!

One of the nuns led me out of the church and sat me down on the bench outside. First, she checked for a concussion, but once she was sure I was okay, she left. She soon came back with a paper cup full of grape juice. I sipped on the juice and contemplated how I was going to face any of my friends after this embarrassing moment. Luckily I later found out that no one had actually seen what happened, so now it’s just a funny story I like to tell from time to time. I know for sure now though, I am NOT meant to be a nun.

On Uni

(** Disclaimer **: When I say “Uni” or “Uni students” or anything else like that, I’m making generalizations. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but everything I say here is based on my own experiences and those of my close friends. If you feel anything here is inaccurate or misrepresented in any way, please feel free to comment or talk to me in person.)

Uni has been my home for the past 5 years, and I don’t mean that in a cliche way. Some days I actually spend more hours at Uni or Uni-related events than I do at my own house. Uni has become central to how I operate in my daily life, and to be honest I don’t know how I’m going to react to the change when I go off to college next year. But when I ask my friends, classmates, and Uni alums how they feel about Uni, I get quite a bit of mixed opinions. Most striking is that the people who are often openly critical about certain aspects of Uni are the ones that love it the most. Uni has done some pretty controversial things in the past, and if I had to generalize I would say probably a quarter of our (senior) class loves Uni, half are indifferent, and the last quarter absolutely hate it.

I don’t doubt that people who hate Uni have good reasons. Uni has done some pretty terrible stuff to some of my closest friends, and attempting to invalidate that seems like a horrible thing to do. In my opinion, Uni’s saving graces are the teachers and the academics. The teachers are seemingly unparalleled from the horror stories I’ve heard from friends who go to other schools, and on the whole Uni teachers are some of the most passionate, most intelligent, and most caring individuals I have ever had the good fortune of meeting. Uni’s academics are also another strong point. This sort of goes along with good teachers, because they are allowed to teach information that isn’t common core and therefore is actually interesting, but also I think the “lab school” is just a good idea in general when it comes to teaching new and untested material. I truly think that I've prospered more at Uni than I would've at any other high school, and I'm endlessly grateful for that.

There’s also just a lot of things wrong with Uni in general. Aside from the obvious problems with organization and the lackluster facilities, one thing Uni really needs to work on is students’ mentalities. I’ve met so many of the greatest people in my life through Uni, but I’ve also met some who I truly wonder if they display psychopathic tendencies. The pervasive idea at Uni that people need to look out for only themselves and cut down other people at any opportunity is not necessarily evident on the surface, but when you look closely, it’s there. It’s there when you hear people joke about putting the wrong answers in a class groupchat, it’s there when people give purposefully bad advice about college apps, it’s even there when friends don’t know how to interact besides roasting each other. This mindset is not only seriously damaging, but also kind of scary.

People at Uni have other flaws as well though. They’re too pretentious for their own good, don’t know how to interact with people who have different opinions than them, and they certainly haven’t learned good life skills for what the world outside of an academic environment is like. And for some people, this will never be a problem. Because here is where Uni’s flaws intersect with the very basis of the school’s mission. By siphoning off the top students from surrounding schools, we’ve inherently created an elite group that thinks they’re special, and that group will go on to be future leaders and creators. We want to point a finger and blame the people running our country right now, but unless people start taking hard looks at themselves, I don’t see our futures being much brighter.

But Uni has a lot of other problems. Uni tries to come off as “woke” and on the cutting-edge of liberal, but to me and a lot of other students it seems to be a front. Everything from the lack of diversity, to disrespect of female students by administration and peers, to microaggressions targeting students of color and LGBT+ students screams “we want to seem like we’re progressive but secretly we really don’t care”. Known abusers have been let off the hook with a slap on the wrist. I’ve had friends come to me in tears because no one will listen to their problems. Is this a problem that the administration has let get out of hand, or is the problem the administration itself? Deficit and several almost comical blunders aside, I don’t know if I can say. I hope that this is just a temporary problem that Uni will continue to work on in the coming years, but to be honest, I’m losing hope. It seems like every time some issue gets brought up, we all get angry about it, and then the amnesia sets in. No one really wants to talk about this, or work on it. I don’t know why I waited so long to say this, I’m a senior now so I don’t have much time to do anything. But I want to fix it.

another blog post about writing *eye roll* *shrug*

i should go to bed. but instead here i am, laying in the dark, typing this on my phone. this happens several times a month, nights where i desperately toss and turn in my bed before finally i give up and grab my phone. i open a new note, and start to type. it sounds cliche to say that "writing is my escape", and it’s not quite accurate either. for me, writing is and always has been a coping mechanism.

a couple of years ago while we were moving i uncovered a dusty notebook, and as i was flipping through it i came upon a page that contained the words "I LOVE [insert name of first grade crush]" about seven times, and under that "[insert name of other girl vying for his attention] STAY AWAY FROM HIM" (yes i know i know, i was straight savage even back then.) the point of all this being, writing helps me work through stuff, especially emotional stuff. if my two options are furiously rage-typing into my phone for 45 minutes straight or crying in the back of the MTD, i'm gonna pick the first one (true story, and i only cried a little bit).

overthinking things late at night is one of my specialties, and my 1AM rants are a compelling mixture of legendary brilliance and utter trash. sometimes i just have too many thoughts in my head, but if i can get them down on paper (or more likely, in my notes app) usually i can calm down enough to go to sleep. even now, i should be sleeping but i've been thinking about saying some of these things for like a month now and so i need to write them out.

however i have written endless essays, applications, and coherent arguments this way, so i guess it's both a blessing and a curse. but the fact that late at night i think i'm the best freaking writer in the world is not so good. because then if i'm looking at it in the morning, the cringing starts happening, or god forbid, i found out i sent it to someone else that night. sometimes late at night i just really feel eloquent and enlightened, but it's also my 16th hour of straight consciousness and i'm physically holding one eye open, so none of the choices i'm making are really great. i just have to write the thing then or i'll feel unbearably restless.

it's really hard to describe why writing helps me think through things so well. i think i just have the tendency to get overwhelmed and not think logically when i keep things in my head. for example, when i think i have a lot of homework and start getting really stressed over it, i'll write down everything i need to do and see if it's actually as much as i thought it was originally. most of the time it isn't, but if it is, then at least i have a list of things i need to freak out about.

writing has gotten me through some of the worst points in my life. but the soothing emptiness that follows after i finish getting all of my thoughts out and my brain goes blissfully quiet is at times essential for me to continue to be a productive human being. the urge to write might not always come at the most convenient time, but i think in the end it's almost always worth it. also, sometimes it's fun to go back in the morning and read the stupid stuff i wrote while i was in a frantic, sleep-deprived state of mind.

Superstition

I’m in general a very superstitious person. If you look up the Wikipedia Page on Superstition, it defines it as any belief or practice that is irrational, including religious belief or any action that arises from irrationality. I’ve always been fascinated by things that I don’t understand. When I was 5 I was obsessed with Scooby Doo, and “broke up” with my best friend because she started liking horses instead of Scooby Doo. In 5th grade when we got to check out books for library time, I would always check out the same three books our Catholic school library had about ghosts and paranormal stuff. I still hold my breath when we drive past a graveyard, in order to not breathe in any spirits just floatin’ around.

Unlike most people (especially at Uni) I have no problem in believing things that don’t make sense or I don’t fully understand, which is probably a result of my upbringing. Those who know me probably know that I’m Catholic, which is a huge part of my identity, and since all forms of religion are technically superstitious beliefs, often can discredit me in some people’s eyes. I am always fearful that because I’m religious people will think that I’m anti-science or believe that God planted the dinosaur bones or something, but luckily this is hardly ever the case. I personally have no trouble in consolidating my trust in science and trust in a higher power, and it actually in some cases can make things make more sense.

I may or may not believe the government has strong evidence of alien life and is hiding it from the general public by discrediting witnesses and in general characterizing believers as “crazy”. I may or may not believe that Bigfoot is alive and real, currently residing in the pacific northwest. That’s the best part -- it doesn’t matter if I truly believe in any of this stuff or not, or if this entire post is in fact a joke, because it’s all harmless fun that doesn’t hurt anyone. It’s a good way to waste five hours on a Saturday afternoon surfing Youtube, digging myself further and further into an endless hole.

In conclusion: Ghosts? Cool. Bigfoot? Rad. Conspiracy theories? Wacky. But don’t take anything too seriously, because there's crazy people like me out there.

Further info on these topics for any that are interested:

Buzzfeed Unsolved (a personal favorite)

Creepy Wikipedia Pages

Unacknowledged (available on Netflix)

The Evidence For Bigfoot

Honesty

You know when you’re telling a story, but about 3 minutes into it you realize that it’s not as interesting as you thought it was when you started? And you’ve invested too much time in it at this point to say “nevermind”, and now there’s like, a lot of people listening to you? And you can’t let them down? And the pressure just gets to you, and you end up making up an ending that 100% did not happen, but everybody laughs, and you’re filled with a sense of guilty euphoria? This happens to me more than I care to admit, but now I’m spilling my secret and facing the problem head-on.

As I was reading through some of the older blogs looking for inspiration, I noticed that a lot of people write their first post about writing. Specifically, people usually mention their problems or issues they have with writing, or their insecurity about their own writing. I struggle with writing probably just as much as the next person, but that’s not where my main troubles lie. My problem isn’t that I can’t get started, or I lack inspiration, or I’m overly critical of my own work. My problem is that I’m a dirty liar.

I’m probably being dramatic. When I think “dirty liar” images come to mind of a shadowy figure sneaking around alleys late at night, someone that you would make a deal with and they, in turn, would stab you in the back. I’m not that person, and to be honest I don’t really lie in real life that much. I do lie in my writing however, and it’s a real problem. I don’t lie about big stuff, because that would definitely make things too complicated, but lying about minute details just comes so easily to me. Whether it’s to make something more eye-catching and interesting, or to make a certain event easier to explain, or simply because I think something sounds better, most of my personal writing is spotted with tiny fibs. If I ever get questioned, or on a rare occasion, caught, I’ll usually just blame it on my terrible memory, and play it off as a “well, I thought that happened!” The funniest thing is when I’m actually writing the piece, and my brain will go “THAT’S A LIE!!!! WHY ARE YOU WRITING THAT!!!!! DUDE!!!! WHAT THE HECK!!!!!!!” while simultaneously my fingers are going “Haha :)”

In class we’ve emphasized the importance of honesty in personal essay writing, and so this is obviously a problem I’ll have to work on this semester, and probably for the rest of my life. And it’s also not something I really understand the root cause of, so that’ll be a lot of fun to unpack :). But in all seriousness, hopefully I’ll be able to stop lying in my writing, or at least cut it down? I don’t know. We’ll see.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Nonfiction Writing

Posts from now until the foreseeable future will be for my Uni High nonfiction writing class.

What Happened?

I don’t really see Macon as a hero, because none of his intentional actions were heroic - sure, he died for his cause, but he sure didn’t want to. The things he did on purpose, starting the day of apology, robbing people, were not heroic at all and had serious repercussions, often ending in injury, chaos, and death. And when it came right down to it, he wasn’t able to stand up for what he believed in, and I think his cowardice in the last chapter is enough to put any reader off. He could be seen as heroic at the beginning of the novel for robbing white people, but I see that as more of an outlet for his destructive behavior, and not really an effective method for implementing the change he was supposedly working for.

I don’t want to make it seem like I’m painting a one sided picture, because I liked Macon (or was at least intrigued by him) at the beginning of the novel. Sure, the things he did were kind of problematic at times, but I think Mansbach was showing us a person who genuinely did care, but maybe didn’t go about it the best of ways all the time. However, I feel like as one gets further and further into the novel, you see the eventual disintegration of Macon’s ability to follow his moral compass driven by his cowardice.

I guess what genuinely enrages me the most about Macon and his actions in the last chapter is the overall hypocrisy of it all -- he spent about 200 pages demonstrating how “down” and “woke” he was, and yet when any of that really mattered, he couldn’t stand up for what he believed in. It just gave me an extreme amount of dissatisfaction and sense of anticlimactic-ness, in the midst of a whole bunch of confusion over what exactly happened in the last pages of the book. Overall, while I think Angry Black White Boy was an interesting novel to talk about, but I don’t really see Macon’s actions as heroic in any sense of the word.