First, let me give credit to the duo Cherub for the excellent lyric, from the song Doses and Mimosas, which has come to be my title!
No, it's not my opinion, but it is the opinion of many of my peers. And it's so sad.
To wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, I will be posting a series of Drunken Tales. Each day, until the end of my break, I will be releasing a Tale of Intoxication to tickle your fancy this festive time of year. Surely, a few will induce laughs, a few will induce shock and a few will induce a delectable mixture of both. So, the next time you are stumbling on your walk of shame in the new year, think back to one of the stories you read here - it might just make you feel a little better about yourself!
Before Tale #1, I've written a preamble, so read this first, then enjoy tale #1.
To wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, I will be posting a series of Drunken Tales. Each day, until the end of my break, I will be releasing a Tale of Intoxication to tickle your fancy this festive time of year. Surely, a few will induce laughs, a few will induce shock and a few will induce a delectable mixture of both. So, the next time you are stumbling on your walk of shame in the new year, think back to one of the stories you read here - it might just make you feel a little better about yourself!
Before Tale #1, I've written a preamble, so read this first, then enjoy tale #1.
About a week ago, Winter Break started here in Vancouver. I'm in grade 12. This is the last Christmas Break I will ever get to have as a high-schooler. One would expect for this to be the best Christmas Break ever! I should be out there partying, enjoying various activities and spending dear times with dear friends, who I may not get to see around the same time next year. Except I'm at home, rotting away. Actually, I'm blogging, but it's not like that is so much better.
I have successfully managed to alter my sleeping schedule to the point that I am basically nocturnal. I go to sleep around 3am and I wake up around 1pm. It's not hard to do that here in Vancouver: the sun hasn't showed it's bright face in this city in a while. It is fair, at this point, to say that the sun does not rise in Vancouver. All 24 hours of our day here are dark and grey. The sky is grey, and all it does is cry. You need to have the lights on all the time because you can't see in the light. I feel like I'm living on the set of some murder mystery, like True Detective. It's ugly. Naturally, it impacts mood greatly. Lack of sun has been scientifically proven to lead to terrible things - more car crashes, more suicides, more tears which mimic the ones falling from the clouds above. People become sadder. What escalates the sadness? The fact that there isn't much to do; you can't break free from your misery by busying yourself with some activities because there isn't much to do.
From what I've heard, the situation is different in other places. Some cities really come alive in the winter; in this festive time. New York is famous for having a great set of things to do lined up in the cold months. Shops stay open for a while, people go and pass the time in an almost mesmerizing way. The beautiful lights, the beautiful trees, and so on.
Vancouver shuts down in the winter. Store hours get shorter, so there isn't an ability to hang out in places past 7pm. It's too cold to sit outside, so that's not an option. No new activities pop-up during the season, so there is nothing to break oneself out of the mundane-ness of life.
Does this make sense?
The gloomy weather, paired with the fact that there aren't options to make your life brighter, makes everything all the more dull. You're stuck in a rut. Nothing new to do for fun. Weather that seems almost denouncing of fun. And, one very sad atmosphere. This is Vancouver in the winter. It is a city in hibernation. So, unless you yourself can dream up some incredible things to do, you are a forced to join the hibernation of the season. It's so depressing.
During school, the situation is a little better because, frankly, there is something to do. You must go to school, and therefore use approximately 6 hours of your day. Sometimes, you use even more because of after-school activities, such as clubs and sports. Once school lets out, you're on your own, though. There is no body to dictate what you must allocate your time to. It's completely up to you. And therein lies the problem.
When you're young, you don't ask for freedom and you don't care what it is you do. Everything seems brand-spanking-new and shiny. Winter break rolls around, and it excites you. Your parents give you a sort of schedule. Mom offers to take you skating, you set up a play-date with your friend, you sign up for some camp, or something else along those lines. You have something to do. As you get older, those things lose their luster. You no longer want to go skating with your mom because that's so lame. You have had so many play-dates with your friends by now that another one is just so routine. There aren't really any camps available to you, and even if there were, it would be so un-cool of you to take part in one. So, what is one to do? You have to find some way to break free from the cycle. You have to discover something brand-spanking-new and exciting that can transport you to the wonderful world you used to live in constantly as a young kid.
I know first-hand how boring it is to be on break.
A few days ago, my mom, after seeing me surf the web with the blankest of stares on my face, asked me why I wasn't maximizing the time I have on break. I told her I was maximizing it by relaxing. I was catching up on the sleep I had missed during school, and I was catching up with what my friends had posted on Facebook. Both my mom and I knew that this was just me living in denial. I was denial of the fact that I was brain-dead, and of the fact that I was allowing my precious and much-awaited 2 weeks of break to rot away. I was allowing the time to pass by, but what else was I to do? I explained that to my mom. I told her that my options were very limited. She told me that, when she was my age, she used to hang out at the discotek and dance. How enticing. My mom unfortunately seemed to omit one small detail - we're not in Europe anymore. I am a child and places like discoteks are strictly off limits to my age group. Mom found that notion stupid. I agreed with her. Why not let us teenagers let off some steam in clubs? Better we get out the desires now, than when we're older, right? Well, too bad.
In that case, she asked what I do when I go out with friends. I told her the truth - I have coffee. Seriously, that is what my friends and I do. My girlfriend calls me, and asks to hang out over a latte. I agree. My mom thought that this was for old women. Apparently, calmly sipping on a cappuccino, was an action reserved for senior citizens. I asked her to, in that case, offer me some legal suggestions (i.e. no dancing). That's when she started to think and arrived at a loss for words. She herself realized how narrow the scope of things to do for teenagers was. I told her that, to celebrate the last day of school, my friends and I had gone for a lunch at a nice restaurant in town. This was also apparently extremely unbefitting of my age category. "Since when to 17-year-olds dine out fancily?" she inquired. In all honesty, that dining out had been the best thing I had done in a while, simply because it was something a little out of the ordinary.
Regardless, yesterday, I went to my friend's house and I made banana muffins. We sat on her couch for a few hours and talked about random things. She asked me to read some stuff aloud to her and she fell asleep. She woke up and we ate some more muffins, watched some YouTube videos, listened to some of my music, discussed premonitions and our breaks thus far, and then parted ways. It was very relaxing. The day before, we had met up and sipped on lattes. I love my friend; we're very close. But, since we see each other so often, we run out of things to talk about occasionally. I know all about her, and she knows all about me, so there's not much to say that would be new. I see her everyday at school, so she can't surprise me with a story about a teacher, since I probably witnessed it firsthand. Our conversations now revolve around other people: Who said what, who did what, and so on. Luckily, we've known each other for quite long, so we can always mention past memories and laugh. Still, it would be better to make new ones instead. That's why we so eagerly hope to do things like go on 3 day vacations with friends to places like Pemberton. Pemberton, at least, is something that isn't so plain.
When my friend Nima had moved to Victoria a few years ago, people were sad. Nima wasn't the sexiest of guys; he was no jock. Nonetheless, every long weekend, when Nima was due to visit, people got thrilled. Just a week ago, Nima had announced his looming arrival to Vancouver for the break. I was giddy. I told my mom and sister how delighted I was with the news. My mom thought I was over-dramatizing, but the fact is that Nima is something different. The reason that people wait so anxiously for Nima's arrival is because it is something different. When Nima arrives, he has fresh stories; stories that we haven't heard before, stories that aren't being recycled for the 17th time. That's why everyone loves him (OK. charm and likability are also part of it).
So, finally, I'll write something here that will make my title, make more sense.
After hearing my mom's words, and thinking about all this, I began to wonder if everyone else was in the same predicament as me. Was everyone else stuck in a rut, and if so, what was the remedy? It's as simple as the title: drugs and alcohol.
Now wait: before you run off to call 911 and report underage drinking, hear me out: I'm not going to click the publish button on this post and then run off to chug down a liter of vodka, nor am I going to go and smoke a pound of weed. I'm probably going to go and have another London Fog Latte. I'm just writing about this to express the current situation in an average teenager's life through a series of examples:
1. Who Knew?
As school was winding down, one of our teachers gave us all a study block. He said that we had finished the stuff we were supposed to learn in the term, and that we were free for the next two classes to do as we pleased. This particular class happened to be one in which I didn't have many friends. In fact, I'm not sure of the names of the kids in the class yet. Being that the class is one I have a knack for, at the start of the year, a lot of kids wanted to sit next to me. One boy successfully elbowed his way to being next to me, and throughout the term, we have gotten to know each other. So, on this free day, we decided to go to the library and just sit. He wanted to introduce me to some music he enjoyed, so he gave me one of his headphones and played me some songs. I gave my opinion about each after he played it, and our time passed by nicely. So far, so good. Then he asked me the perfectly normal question of what I had in mind for break. I explained that I would like to go to Pemberton again, as I had done in the summer, and that I'd like to hang out with friends and catch up on sleep. He looked at me almost inquisitive. I ignored the look because I knew what it meant (I'll explain later), and proceeded to ask him about his plans for the break. This is where I was shocked.
This boy was not the "bad apple" kind. He was a good kid, who did his homework, cared about getting into university and payed attention in class. He was a little different in the sense that he was a little more chilled out than the rest of my super-intensely-academically-oriented school. I just hadn't expected such a strong response from him to my question: "I'm just gonna get completely fucked up. Smoke some weed, maybe do some molly, LSD, a little cocaine, you know..."
Well, shit. Have yourself a merry little Christmas, eh? Who knew? I didn't think that even good kids did this kind of thing. But hey, I guess I was wrong. School is so dull; why not brighten it up a little with a selection of uppers, downers and hallucinogens?! I didn't realize that even these types of drugs were used by youth. I thought weed was the only thing.
From what I've heard, the situation is different in other places. Some cities really come alive in the winter; in this festive time. New York is famous for having a great set of things to do lined up in the cold months. Shops stay open for a while, people go and pass the time in an almost mesmerizing way. The beautiful lights, the beautiful trees, and so on.
Vancouver shuts down in the winter. Store hours get shorter, so there isn't an ability to hang out in places past 7pm. It's too cold to sit outside, so that's not an option. No new activities pop-up during the season, so there is nothing to break oneself out of the mundane-ness of life.
Does this make sense?
The gloomy weather, paired with the fact that there aren't options to make your life brighter, makes everything all the more dull. You're stuck in a rut. Nothing new to do for fun. Weather that seems almost denouncing of fun. And, one very sad atmosphere. This is Vancouver in the winter. It is a city in hibernation. So, unless you yourself can dream up some incredible things to do, you are a forced to join the hibernation of the season. It's so depressing.
During school, the situation is a little better because, frankly, there is something to do. You must go to school, and therefore use approximately 6 hours of your day. Sometimes, you use even more because of after-school activities, such as clubs and sports. Once school lets out, you're on your own, though. There is no body to dictate what you must allocate your time to. It's completely up to you. And therein lies the problem.
When you're young, you don't ask for freedom and you don't care what it is you do. Everything seems brand-spanking-new and shiny. Winter break rolls around, and it excites you. Your parents give you a sort of schedule. Mom offers to take you skating, you set up a play-date with your friend, you sign up for some camp, or something else along those lines. You have something to do. As you get older, those things lose their luster. You no longer want to go skating with your mom because that's so lame. You have had so many play-dates with your friends by now that another one is just so routine. There aren't really any camps available to you, and even if there were, it would be so un-cool of you to take part in one. So, what is one to do? You have to find some way to break free from the cycle. You have to discover something brand-spanking-new and exciting that can transport you to the wonderful world you used to live in constantly as a young kid.
I know first-hand how boring it is to be on break.
A few days ago, my mom, after seeing me surf the web with the blankest of stares on my face, asked me why I wasn't maximizing the time I have on break. I told her I was maximizing it by relaxing. I was catching up on the sleep I had missed during school, and I was catching up with what my friends had posted on Facebook. Both my mom and I knew that this was just me living in denial. I was denial of the fact that I was brain-dead, and of the fact that I was allowing my precious and much-awaited 2 weeks of break to rot away. I was allowing the time to pass by, but what else was I to do? I explained that to my mom. I told her that my options were very limited. She told me that, when she was my age, she used to hang out at the discotek and dance. How enticing. My mom unfortunately seemed to omit one small detail - we're not in Europe anymore. I am a child and places like discoteks are strictly off limits to my age group. Mom found that notion stupid. I agreed with her. Why not let us teenagers let off some steam in clubs? Better we get out the desires now, than when we're older, right? Well, too bad.
In that case, she asked what I do when I go out with friends. I told her the truth - I have coffee. Seriously, that is what my friends and I do. My girlfriend calls me, and asks to hang out over a latte. I agree. My mom thought that this was for old women. Apparently, calmly sipping on a cappuccino, was an action reserved for senior citizens. I asked her to, in that case, offer me some legal suggestions (i.e. no dancing). That's when she started to think and arrived at a loss for words. She herself realized how narrow the scope of things to do for teenagers was. I told her that, to celebrate the last day of school, my friends and I had gone for a lunch at a nice restaurant in town. This was also apparently extremely unbefitting of my age category. "Since when to 17-year-olds dine out fancily?" she inquired. In all honesty, that dining out had been the best thing I had done in a while, simply because it was something a little out of the ordinary.
Regardless, yesterday, I went to my friend's house and I made banana muffins. We sat on her couch for a few hours and talked about random things. She asked me to read some stuff aloud to her and she fell asleep. She woke up and we ate some more muffins, watched some YouTube videos, listened to some of my music, discussed premonitions and our breaks thus far, and then parted ways. It was very relaxing. The day before, we had met up and sipped on lattes. I love my friend; we're very close. But, since we see each other so often, we run out of things to talk about occasionally. I know all about her, and she knows all about me, so there's not much to say that would be new. I see her everyday at school, so she can't surprise me with a story about a teacher, since I probably witnessed it firsthand. Our conversations now revolve around other people: Who said what, who did what, and so on. Luckily, we've known each other for quite long, so we can always mention past memories and laugh. Still, it would be better to make new ones instead. That's why we so eagerly hope to do things like go on 3 day vacations with friends to places like Pemberton. Pemberton, at least, is something that isn't so plain.
When my friend Nima had moved to Victoria a few years ago, people were sad. Nima wasn't the sexiest of guys; he was no jock. Nonetheless, every long weekend, when Nima was due to visit, people got thrilled. Just a week ago, Nima had announced his looming arrival to Vancouver for the break. I was giddy. I told my mom and sister how delighted I was with the news. My mom thought I was over-dramatizing, but the fact is that Nima is something different. The reason that people wait so anxiously for Nima's arrival is because it is something different. When Nima arrives, he has fresh stories; stories that we haven't heard before, stories that aren't being recycled for the 17th time. That's why everyone loves him (OK. charm and likability are also part of it).
So, finally, I'll write something here that will make my title, make more sense.
After hearing my mom's words, and thinking about all this, I began to wonder if everyone else was in the same predicament as me. Was everyone else stuck in a rut, and if so, what was the remedy? It's as simple as the title: drugs and alcohol.
Now wait: before you run off to call 911 and report underage drinking, hear me out: I'm not going to click the publish button on this post and then run off to chug down a liter of vodka, nor am I going to go and smoke a pound of weed. I'm probably going to go and have another London Fog Latte. I'm just writing about this to express the current situation in an average teenager's life through a series of examples:
1. Who Knew?
As school was winding down, one of our teachers gave us all a study block. He said that we had finished the stuff we were supposed to learn in the term, and that we were free for the next two classes to do as we pleased. This particular class happened to be one in which I didn't have many friends. In fact, I'm not sure of the names of the kids in the class yet. Being that the class is one I have a knack for, at the start of the year, a lot of kids wanted to sit next to me. One boy successfully elbowed his way to being next to me, and throughout the term, we have gotten to know each other. So, on this free day, we decided to go to the library and just sit. He wanted to introduce me to some music he enjoyed, so he gave me one of his headphones and played me some songs. I gave my opinion about each after he played it, and our time passed by nicely. So far, so good. Then he asked me the perfectly normal question of what I had in mind for break. I explained that I would like to go to Pemberton again, as I had done in the summer, and that I'd like to hang out with friends and catch up on sleep. He looked at me almost inquisitive. I ignored the look because I knew what it meant (I'll explain later), and proceeded to ask him about his plans for the break. This is where I was shocked.
This boy was not the "bad apple" kind. He was a good kid, who did his homework, cared about getting into university and payed attention in class. He was a little different in the sense that he was a little more chilled out than the rest of my super-intensely-academically-oriented school. I just hadn't expected such a strong response from him to my question: "I'm just gonna get completely fucked up. Smoke some weed, maybe do some molly, LSD, a little cocaine, you know..."
Well, shit. Have yourself a merry little Christmas, eh? Who knew? I didn't think that even good kids did this kind of thing. But hey, I guess I was wrong. School is so dull; why not brighten it up a little with a selection of uppers, downers and hallucinogens?! I didn't realize that even these types of drugs were used by youth. I thought weed was the only thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Any thoughts? Want to tell me something? Start a debate and get talking! Comment below!