I gave blood today. It was reasonably enjoyable, as giving blood generally is; although I was somewhat irritated to discover that the minimum age for plasma donations has been raised to 21 for girls, as opposed to the 18 it was a couple of months ago.
Keeping myself occupied as I did so was a marvellously cheap ($6) copy of this month's ELLE (America). I needed it for horoscope inspiration because I am once again writing the horoscopes for the newly resurrected Papa. Fun times for everyone.
During my blood donation, I underwent the rather disconcerting experience of having several separate people compliment me on the quality of my veins. It's indescribably awkward when a nurse tells you that she really enjoys taking your blood. Or when another tells you that 'You're the easiest girl to take blood from all day'.
I MEAN COME ON!!!
Anyway. Armed with mX, I ran down the escalators at Martin Place to catch an express to Hurstville. As I reached the bottom of the escalator, I lay eyes on the most gorgeous guy in a suit I had seen in quite a while. For those of you whose brains are going in questionable directions, he looked to be early twenties. And so, safely ensconced in the train (he was waiting on the platform for a later train) I sent my first 'Here's Looking At You' text.
Gosh I feel cool.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
Rage and Vitriol (or, Why I Was In Tears At School)
N.B.: At the recommendation of Sarah, I have removed all names from this post to ensure that I can't be expelled.
Today, after the airing of some philosophical differences with the current principal of my school, I am reminded of just how much I hate [insert name of my school]. Not the school per se, but the administration, and it's self-preserving bureaucracy.
What passes for a choir at [insert name of my school] is a depressingly tuneless bunch of girls led by an equally talentless hack who not only cannot conduct, but has failed to grasp the concept that when one is conducting a choir, one does not sing at the same time. It's just not done. Regardless, faced by this vacuum, I thought it might be an idea to start up my own little chamber choir for which I would choose the repertoire (thus immediately ensuring that there would be nothing off the soundtrack of a musical, nor would there be any ridiculous arrangements of rightly obscure songs which aim to feature someone who really oughtn't have been given a solo, nor would there be any song entirely in unison (I mean really. We are in high school now. We can handle parts); as seems to be the norm of the official school choirs), and restrict membership to only those who were ACTUALLY ABLE TO SING. Crazy, I know. Imagine only letting people who could sing join a choir.
Moving on. This choir was to have auditioned for the Schools Spectacular - the Department of Education and Training's way of saying 'Look at us!! Aren't we fantastic!! Yay us!!'. As it was, this was to be a bit of a rush job, as on Thursday, when I thought to check the website for when applications opened, it turned out that they closed the next day, with audition videos being due in a week later. Thus I spent Friday frantically getting the signatures I needed so that we could be considered. After a mild initial hitch involving the meddling of the afore-mentioned choir bitch, [insert name of the teacher who runs the school choirs], I managed to get the necessary signatures to fax off the forms.
Come Monday, I met with the girls who were interested, handed out music, assigned parts and more or less explained what we were doing. I'd spent a large chunk of the weekend working out what the audition pieces would be - there had to be two contrasting pieces - and I finally ended up choosing Eternity by Michael Bojesen (an ambitious choice, being that it ends up in 8 parts, and I only had 8 girls in the choir, and they only had until filming on Thursday to have it up to performance standard) and Little Fish by Neil Finn (the dude from Crowded House) which was a rather more accessible piece, being only in 3 parts. As far as I could tell, everyone was keen, and more than willing to put in the hard yards necessary to get the pieces up to scratch in the couple of days they had.
Today, Tuesday, was to be our first runthrough of Eternity, so as to ensure that they knew what they were practising in the leadup to Thursday. Thus runthrough was to have taken place at recess. About 5 minutes before the start of period 3, the junior on office duty came to my English class with a Go to the principal's office now/recess/lunch slip. Unlike the friendly white Go to the front office now/recess/lunch (with the incorrect options crossed out) slips, the principal forms are blue and only handed out under dire circumstances. This was my second experience of receiving such a summons, the first time being in year 11 when I was told, although not in the succinct manner which would have made the news more palatable because it would have given the impression of respect ([insert name of principal], our principal has the most nauseating habit of beating around the bush in this irritatingly magnanimous manner, as if she's so above such meniality that we should be honoured that she's taken the time to bestow such wisdom upon us lowly mortals), that I wasn't allowed to wear the school vest that I had made after cutting the sleeves off of an old school jumper (I mean honestly. It was a school jumper. It's not like I was wearing some ratty black cardigan like the majority of girls at my school) and that (although this wasn't actually articulated - but she made damn sure I knew what she was getting at) if I did not, I would lose my position as president of the SRC. Suffice to say that I don't tend to enjoy meetings with the principal. The fact that she's a raging bitch doesn't help.
But as I was explaining before that rather lengthy tangent, I was called in for a meeting in the middle of class, so I was feeling an understandable level of trepidation. I was sat down and it was explained to me in an indescribably patronising manner that I was not allowed to start this choir, that I should merely join the school choir and (verbatim) if they're good enough, see if they get into Spec (end quote). The meeting was so interminably long that I had to spend the majority of it digging my nails into the sensitive bits of skin on my hands and wrists in a desperate attempt not to cry, and in doing so, give her the satisfaction of winning the argument. As it was, no tears fell whilst I was in her office, so round 1 to me. The galling thing was that just before I was dismissed, she asked if I thought it was fair. Well let's be honest now. It's not as if I had the option of speaking my mind. So I nodded. AND THEN SHE SAID THAT IT SEEMED TO HER AS IF I THOUGHT HER DECISION WAS UNFAIR! I MEAN COME ON! OF COURSE I THOUGHT THAT. I'D PUT IN SO MUCH EFFORT AND THEN SHE JUST SUMMARILY SHUT IT DOWN. And of course the only reason why the issue would have returned to her attention after she most willingly and enthusiastically signed the forms on Friday, was that [insert name of the teacher who runs the school choirs] actually went and complained about it. Because clearly she felt threatened by the thought of a few girls getting together to sing a little. Perhaps instead of stabbing MY choir in the back, she could concentrate on making HER choir better. Wouldn't that be pleasant.
Having left her office I spent a marvellously enjoyable 10 minutes hyperventillating in the year 12 study with Carmel (I hyperventillated, she hugged) before I had to go back to class and pretend that nothing had happened. I then spent recess telling the girls that we had in fact been shut down. Do you have any idea how saddening it is to see an ensemble you put together shut down without even being given an opportunity to perform? I wasn't even given the opportunity to argue in favour of my choir.
Appartently, [insert name of principal] felt I had "manipulated her into signing off on a choir which she ordinarily would never have signed off on", because apparently I "made it seem as if this was an official school choir run by [insert name of the teacher who runs the school choirs]". And I know I did no such thing. I was open from the outset about the fact that this was entirely student run and organised. Furthermore, [insert name of principal] was "surprised that [I] had the audacity to form such a choir behind everyone's back" (now would be a good time to say that the stuff in quotation marks is verbatim).
Well fuck that. I just wish I'd thought of transferring earlier. The whole vest incident ought really have acted as a warning sign of the authoritarian nature of her purvey. The sad thing is that come next year she'll be the longest serving principal at [insert name of my school]. All she's done is fuck the school over. Both figuratively and literally. If I didn't know it would more or less shoot my ATAR to hell, I'd transfer anyway. Because I honestly don't think I can hack this school for much longer. I'm thinking as a bit of recreation I'll write some open letters to newspapers and the like. I'm thinking that would be even more cathartic than writing this has been. Because if there's something [insert name of principal] hates, it's bad press...
Today, after the airing of some philosophical differences with the current principal of my school, I am reminded of just how much I hate [insert name of my school]. Not the school per se, but the administration, and it's self-preserving bureaucracy.
What passes for a choir at [insert name of my school] is a depressingly tuneless bunch of girls led by an equally talentless hack who not only cannot conduct, but has failed to grasp the concept that when one is conducting a choir, one does not sing at the same time. It's just not done. Regardless, faced by this vacuum, I thought it might be an idea to start up my own little chamber choir for which I would choose the repertoire (thus immediately ensuring that there would be nothing off the soundtrack of a musical, nor would there be any ridiculous arrangements of rightly obscure songs which aim to feature someone who really oughtn't have been given a solo, nor would there be any song entirely in unison (I mean really. We are in high school now. We can handle parts); as seems to be the norm of the official school choirs), and restrict membership to only those who were ACTUALLY ABLE TO SING. Crazy, I know. Imagine only letting people who could sing join a choir.
Moving on. This choir was to have auditioned for the Schools Spectacular - the Department of Education and Training's way of saying 'Look at us!! Aren't we fantastic!! Yay us!!'. As it was, this was to be a bit of a rush job, as on Thursday, when I thought to check the website for when applications opened, it turned out that they closed the next day, with audition videos being due in a week later. Thus I spent Friday frantically getting the signatures I needed so that we could be considered. After a mild initial hitch involving the meddling of the afore-mentioned choir bitch, [insert name of the teacher who runs the school choirs], I managed to get the necessary signatures to fax off the forms.
Come Monday, I met with the girls who were interested, handed out music, assigned parts and more or less explained what we were doing. I'd spent a large chunk of the weekend working out what the audition pieces would be - there had to be two contrasting pieces - and I finally ended up choosing Eternity by Michael Bojesen (an ambitious choice, being that it ends up in 8 parts, and I only had 8 girls in the choir, and they only had until filming on Thursday to have it up to performance standard) and Little Fish by Neil Finn (the dude from Crowded House) which was a rather more accessible piece, being only in 3 parts. As far as I could tell, everyone was keen, and more than willing to put in the hard yards necessary to get the pieces up to scratch in the couple of days they had.
Today, Tuesday, was to be our first runthrough of Eternity, so as to ensure that they knew what they were practising in the leadup to Thursday. Thus runthrough was to have taken place at recess. About 5 minutes before the start of period 3, the junior on office duty came to my English class with a Go to the principal's office now/recess/lunch slip. Unlike the friendly white Go to the front office now/recess/lunch (with the incorrect options crossed out) slips, the principal forms are blue and only handed out under dire circumstances. This was my second experience of receiving such a summons, the first time being in year 11 when I was told, although not in the succinct manner which would have made the news more palatable because it would have given the impression of respect ([insert name of principal], our principal has the most nauseating habit of beating around the bush in this irritatingly magnanimous manner, as if she's so above such meniality that we should be honoured that she's taken the time to bestow such wisdom upon us lowly mortals), that I wasn't allowed to wear the school vest that I had made after cutting the sleeves off of an old school jumper (I mean honestly. It was a school jumper. It's not like I was wearing some ratty black cardigan like the majority of girls at my school) and that (although this wasn't actually articulated - but she made damn sure I knew what she was getting at) if I did not, I would lose my position as president of the SRC. Suffice to say that I don't tend to enjoy meetings with the principal. The fact that she's a raging bitch doesn't help.
But as I was explaining before that rather lengthy tangent, I was called in for a meeting in the middle of class, so I was feeling an understandable level of trepidation. I was sat down and it was explained to me in an indescribably patronising manner that I was not allowed to start this choir, that I should merely join the school choir and (verbatim) if they're good enough, see if they get into Spec (end quote). The meeting was so interminably long that I had to spend the majority of it digging my nails into the sensitive bits of skin on my hands and wrists in a desperate attempt not to cry, and in doing so, give her the satisfaction of winning the argument. As it was, no tears fell whilst I was in her office, so round 1 to me. The galling thing was that just before I was dismissed, she asked if I thought it was fair. Well let's be honest now. It's not as if I had the option of speaking my mind. So I nodded. AND THEN SHE SAID THAT IT SEEMED TO HER AS IF I THOUGHT HER DECISION WAS UNFAIR! I MEAN COME ON! OF COURSE I THOUGHT THAT. I'D PUT IN SO MUCH EFFORT AND THEN SHE JUST SUMMARILY SHUT IT DOWN. And of course the only reason why the issue would have returned to her attention after she most willingly and enthusiastically signed the forms on Friday, was that [insert name of the teacher who runs the school choirs] actually went and complained about it. Because clearly she felt threatened by the thought of a few girls getting together to sing a little. Perhaps instead of stabbing MY choir in the back, she could concentrate on making HER choir better. Wouldn't that be pleasant.
Having left her office I spent a marvellously enjoyable 10 minutes hyperventillating in the year 12 study with Carmel (I hyperventillated, she hugged) before I had to go back to class and pretend that nothing had happened. I then spent recess telling the girls that we had in fact been shut down. Do you have any idea how saddening it is to see an ensemble you put together shut down without even being given an opportunity to perform? I wasn't even given the opportunity to argue in favour of my choir.
Appartently, [insert name of principal] felt I had "manipulated her into signing off on a choir which she ordinarily would never have signed off on", because apparently I "made it seem as if this was an official school choir run by [insert name of the teacher who runs the school choirs]". And I know I did no such thing. I was open from the outset about the fact that this was entirely student run and organised. Furthermore, [insert name of principal] was "surprised that [I] had the audacity to form such a choir behind everyone's back" (now would be a good time to say that the stuff in quotation marks is verbatim).
Well fuck that. I just wish I'd thought of transferring earlier. The whole vest incident ought really have acted as a warning sign of the authoritarian nature of her purvey. The sad thing is that come next year she'll be the longest serving principal at [insert name of my school]. All she's done is fuck the school over. Both figuratively and literally. If I didn't know it would more or less shoot my ATAR to hell, I'd transfer anyway. Because I honestly don't think I can hack this school for much longer. I'm thinking as a bit of recreation I'll write some open letters to newspapers and the like. I'm thinking that would be even more cathartic than writing this has been. Because if there's something [insert name of principal] hates, it's bad press...
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