The Girl at the Pool - Part 10

I woke up on a terrible Monday to get ready for school. Luckily, I had gone to bed early and was well-rested. I put on my debating skirt, -boy, are skirts ever uncomfortable- my black pantyhose and my debate face on. I knew that talking to Mr. Forman would not be easy, so I had to be prepared. The previous night,  I had talked to my true friend and she had agreed to come with me to talk to Mr. Forman, as he had sent her an email requesting to see her as well. When I got to school, I began ranting about the issue to my girlfriend. I don't think that she was listening. She's heard me rant about so many things, so many times that I'm sure that she has a mechanism to go deaf each time I start ranting.

My classes weren't going well, all I could think of was what I would say to Mr. Forman. I was stressed,  but nonetheless, I kept a straight face. Over lunch, I saw my true friend, and she told me to not go off on a whim about the freedom to expression/speech. She told me to basically just say that I was wrong. As the gangstas would put it: "AWWWW, HELL NO!" There was no way in hell that I was going to accept guilt. I had done no wrong, and of that, I was sure.

My true friend came to my last block class to pick me up. We walked down the hall and arrived at the room. Mr. Forman was sitting there and he greeted both of us with a really nice "hey girls!" Then we got into what had happened. He asked if I understood his problem. I said no, because I honestly didn't. I couldn't believe it when he told me that his issue wasn't the emails, it wasn't my actual post, but rather that it was the comment that I had left about his "forcing". My mind flooded in disbelief. I honestly thought that he had some problems. A grown man was nit-picking over one word, telling me that he didn't force me.

I said, "okay, but then what would you call it?"

His answer was "nothing, your outburst was out of line, and apologizing was the right thing to do."

"Okay, I understand that it was out of line, but I still don't see why I shouldn't have used the word 'force', what else could I have called it?" I demanded.

"It wasn't force because it was the right thing to do, no matter what you think it was right, and I'm right. I'm done." He said, as he stammered out the door.

Wow, right? In between this issue, he had stated that he hadn't received the emails from the wretched woman until last night, and that he was upset by them. When I asked him what he intended to do, he simply responded that he wanted to forget about it. So why wasn't I allowed to forget about my outburst? Why was I FORCED to apologize for my statements? Most importantly, why was this woman getting a free pass?

The Girl at the Pool - Part 9

My cursor was headed for the "pokes" button, I poked back all the people that had poked me. As soon as I was done, I was off back to the newsfeed, with every intention of logging off. Something stopped me, a comment from my old coach at my old school. She was telling me that she was dealing with the issue, and that I have no reason to write a response. She understood my anger, but cautioned me against writing the email. Though I am not sure of the exact timeline, I believe that my ex-partner private messaged me to say that I was putting my debating career in jeopardy, if I were to send this letter. I expected him to say this, so I didn't think anything of it. I thought however, that my old coach would be more supportive and she wasn't. I don't blame her, in fact, she may be right. Okay, okay, credits to my ex-partner too.

Alright, I obviously had to explain the circumstances to them fully. So I did, and I added that I was forced to apologize by Mr. Forman, and I implied that he needed to do something about it, just like my old coach had done for her school. Look, he made me apologize for something that was actually fairly justified, but was he going to do anything about this crazy woman who was making unjustified, false allegations against my ex-partner and I? I didn't know yet, it was already around midnight, and I didn't expect any sort of answer from him until morning. I went to bed that night with a clear conscience.

I woke up in the morning, and had a really good breakfast. I gobbled it down, despite the fact that I wasn't hungry. Then, I proceeded to logging onto Facebook. I was interested in seeing if Mr. Forman had responded or not. Surely enough, there it was; a scalding, scorching, rage-filled comment from him. He told me that my comment was "out of line" and that he hadn't "forced" me to apologize, but that that was the right thing to do! I was in utter shock. I mean, I know that he isn't an English teacher, but still, is he unaware of the meaning of the word "force"?

First of all, I don't believe that my post, or comment, was out of line. I simply responded to a person's comment with clarification for why I would need to write a response to this tournament director. Secondly, I was indeed forced to apologize. Maybe I'm retarded, but from what I know "forcing" is when you make someone do something against their will. I apologized to that woman because Mr. Forman requested it of me, not because I felt like it. Mr. Forman forced me to apologize. Regardless of whether or not apologizing was the right thing to do, I didn't want to do it, hence I was forced. Also in his comment, Mr. Forman told me that he would speak to me after the weekend about the remarks I made. I was excited. I loved getting in trouble when I was right!

The Girl at the Pool - Part 8

The debates were finished, I was happy, and off to the awards ceremony. Hopefully I wouldn't make another scene. My ex-partner was sure that he hadn't made it to Provincials, but I was sure that he had.  20 kids were going to pass. They announced the novices first. Now, it was time for the juniors. The senior results had already been announced and they weren't pretty. This served as no comfort.

"Number 18, from University Hill..." Oh my, I had just barely made it!

"...Emily!" Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness! My fantastic partner had moved onto to Provincials! I was so happy!

"Number 15, from Eric Hamber…" Oh my! I knew that my ex-partner was only being hard on himself!  He had made it!

"…[My ex-partner's partner]" Good job! Even better, now my ex-parnter would definitely be on the list and higher up.

"Number 14, from University Hill…" Okay, as much as I'd like to seem humble, I wasn't. I knew that it was me!

"...Nat Mico!" I freaked out, and danced as if I had been possessed by the devil. Also, I knew that because my ex-partner was better than me, he'd for sure get through to Provincials.

The numbers kept progressing to no avail. My ex-partner had not made it through. I was heavily depressed for the rest of the night.

I arrived home that night, to a congratulations from my father. I logged onto Facebook. My true friend from the start of the this story had posted a congrats to all, and misspelled my name in the process. I commented on her post, explaining how to spell my name. Then my ex-partner chimed in and copy/pasted a comment, in which I had explained how to spell my name to him. Then when my true friend was getting annoyed, my ex-partner posted another comment, only this time in Serbian. In translation, it meant "the language is hard". My true friend was freaking out and telling us "evil little grade 10s" to "get off her post". Anyway, my partner went on to make more Serbian comments, which he would later delete for God knows what reason, and my true friend told us to "stop flirting". Okay, we weren't flirting. Up until a few days ago, I had thought that my partner was asexual - not necessarily a bad thing. Disregarding my anecdotes, let's move on to my next point.

Being the lovely human I am, I got off my true friend's post, and proceeded to create my own. I wrote a brief post on the Debate club's closed group page. In this post, I thanked my partner, congratulated everyone, and all that other crap. However, there was one thing in my post, which I would find out would come back to "bite me on the butt". At the end of the post, I explained that I wouldn't be on Facebook for the rest of the night, for I would be formulating my response to the terrible tournament director of the previous tournament (not Regionals).

The Girl at the Pool - Part 7

The next day was Regionals, it started off bad. I looked at the schedule of debates and it was tough. In fact, I'd have to face my polite partner and his new partner from two nights prior in the third round. Honestly however, I knew that I wouldn't make it to Provincials, and so I was really only coming to have fun. I regret that I ever gave up on winning. Our first match was against the school which had hosted that tournament two days prior. Guess who sat in to watch? Yes, the bitchy tournament director. I almost fainted thinking that she would be my judge, so I came up and I asked.  I was determined to have her transferred to a different room, if she was a judge. She said that she was just a spectator and I was elated. I knew that she had only walked into that debate to throw me off with her presence, but what that lady didn't know was that I feed off hate. I love it, it's motivation for me to do well. Like with all my first debates, I wasn't as good as I could've been, but I was decent. Luckily, the girls we were facing had no idea what they were talking about, so we seemed better than we actually were. My partner from my school was fantastic and gave some of the best debate speeches of her life. AMAZING JOB, EMILY!

At the end of the debate, the judges provided feedback, as they are required to. Then this old, shameless tournament director proceeded to give her own feedback.

"Oh, I didn't know that you were a judge." I stated.

"I'm not, but I have some feedback as well." She replied.

"Well I really don't feel that non-judge feedback is relevant, so I'd prefer that you don't give your feedback to me." I POLITELY declared.

She blushed and went outside to give feedback to her debaters.

My second debate had my heart racing. I was going up against the reigning champions. Oh god. As it appeared, they weren't actually all that good. I think I did really well against them, so I was super happy after that round. Then it was dinner time, and there was some damn good food. Lasagna, salad, pasta salad, coffee, tea, cookies - the works. My dinner happiness was cut short however, by the partner from my old school. According to him, he had failed in his first two rounds. I brushed it off by saying that he's just being hard on himself - as usual.

Next round was awesome! "Ex-debate partners take each other on!" I could see it in lights. Okay, so I was sort of intimidated because he is so good. I screwed that speech up so bad. HORRIBLY! Oh well, I knew that if anything, I had lost to him. He deserved it, he had prepared far more material than my 3 hour research had.

Last round was fine. A couple of good debaters, and luckily for me, a good judge. Who? My ex-partner's dad was judging me. That went down fine.

The Girl at the Pool - Part 6

So what did this terrible letter say? Well apart from all the stuff about how she was unhappy with how the night went down in general, she provided three main reasons:

A) My partner and I cheated her in order to be a hybrid team.

B) We delayed debates by taking extra time in the hallways to prepare.

C) I had an extremely embarrassing outburst at the awards ceremony.

Okay, I can't deny C, but I can say that I proudly stand by it. I voiced an opinion, as I was taught to do - both by parents and educators. My statement was justified, and required no apology to this woman organizer. The only person I may have need to apologize to -if they had requested it- was the girl who had won. I was being the change I wanted to see in the world.

Next is A, we cheated? Okay, let's look at that. She claimed that my partner had told her that we were permitted to participate as a team. Clearly, by the emails, anyone can see that we never said that. We said that there is a rule in the DSABC constitution that apparently allows hybrid teams, but that it is an unclear rule and that we are discussing it with the president of the DSABC. This unfit tournament director simply said that our registration has been accepted. She payed no mind whatsoever to the rules, and signed us up as a hybrid. Meanwhile, the DSABC president got back to us. She said "no". Why would she say such a thing when the rules clearly state that hybrid teams are allowed without restrictions as long as they are approved? Well because she is the coach of a private school, and god forbid that they don't come out on top. Officially however, she said that her "no" was because she didn't want to create "power teams". Anyway, since I knew that she was just lying, I replied to her and asked her for clarification, and why teams were allowed to compete before. She replied after a couple weeks, and avoided all the questions that she couldn't make up an answer to. Once again, the answer was "no". Fine, but we were already registered and could not change that. Because this tournament organizer hadn't bothered to check the rules, because it was too late, and because we really didn't want to not go together, we didn't say anything. Everything was rosy when we got there and she hadn't said anything about the rules. So a blatant lie from a blatantly bad person.

As for B and delaying debates. That also wasn't our fault. That was her fault, due to her terrible organization. She hadn't briefed the judges about why and how long the preparation time would be for the impromptu topic. The judges in our room looked at us and asked us if fifteen minutes would be adequate preparation time. Both my partner and I and the opposing team agreed, and we left the room to prepare in the hallway. Nice of us, eh? Anyway, this woman had now made another rampant lie without any evidence to back it up.

This whole email was obviously unacceptable and extremely unprofessional. Worst of all, it CC'd the president of the DSABC. I was deeply hurt and I immediately forwarded it to my parents. They too were appalled. Along with what I had seen, there was also a defending email in response from the Hamber coach, who I had previously mentioned has taught me everything I know about debate. Another response from my partner, who was being too nice, as usual. The woman was talking behind my back, and she was absolutely horrid. My parents asked me to formulate a reply, and I did, but I didn't send it.

The Girl at the Pool - Part 5

My parents gave me their take on things: from what I had told them, the judging sounded horribly biased, and I was right to raise awareness. My dad however, did suggest that I do it in a more civilized way next time. Thanks for standing by me guys! That was the end of that day and night. After having a late-night snack, to compensate for my sixth place shortcoming (as individual speaker) I was in a dream state. In many cases, I dream about debates, and really good speeches after I attend them. However, the debates of that day were so horrid, so bad, that I couldn't dream of anything.

This whole day had felt like one short film. The outburst, the lone child agreeing with me, the laying alone in a desolate school gymnasium, the tears, my friend calming me in the halls, the snazzy dude stopping me at the door, the look of utter shock on the faces of all these people, the undeserved apology I gave, the final goodbye from my partner, the cold, wet walk to Mr. Forman's car, the drive back, the bright, distorted lights, the crossing of the Burrard Bridge with my imaginary music playing, the ride up to my apartment in the elevator, the soothing by my parents, and my eventual sleeping.

I woke up in the morning, refreshed and feeling better. I was sick with some sort of stomach ache, so I didn't attend school. I stayed home, in bed, for I was both mentally and physically sick. I tried to busy myself with catching up on homework and other things of that nature, but was unsuccessful. All that my mind was capable of bearing was the events of the night prior. Call me unforgiving, call me Miss Grudger, call me spoiled, but I couldn't wrap my head around that night, or the apology. Being the kind person that he is, my partner had provided me with the password to his email. Being the cunning person that I am, I figured that this ass-a-holic lady would most likely send an email of disdain to my partner, for she did not have my email account. So I logged onto my partner's account. I knew that even if an email had been sent, he wouldn't let me know for some time. Why? Because Regionals were coming up the next day, and I'm assuming that he'd want me to have a clear mind, so that I could kick some Lower Mainland West booty.

Regardless, I logged onto the account, and found myself to be right. This tournament director -who had preached professional behaviour to me the previous night- had written an extremely accusing and hatred filled letter to my poor, polite partner. She is 55-ish years old. My partner is 15. Is it okay for a woman, who runs a website/company on communication skills, I might add, to send a terrible letter to a teenager? I don't think so. I mean, look, if you are really unable to overcome that outburst by this adolescent, then you probably aren't fit to be working with adolescents. If you can't take "the high road", then why wouldn't contact the child's teacher, or their coach, instead of the child himself? I don't know, maybe hormones screw up after menopause.

The Girl at the Pool - Part 4

The thoughts rushed through my head at a billion per second. Why should I have to apologize for exercising my right to freedom of speech? Why should I have to apologize for taking the initiative to state something that the majority of the people were thinking? I shouldn't, right? Okay, sure, maybe I didn't make my statement in the most civilized manner, maybe I didn't file a formal written complaint, but at least my voice was heard - literally. After much persuasion Mr. Forman, I was pressured to apologize, I was forced to apologize. I went up to the tournament organizer, a feminist-looking, short-haired, male-faced woman, and her short, fat, scrunchy-faced companion. I apologized for my "erratic" behaviour and I said that this will probably be the end of my debating career. They said that my outburst probably hurt the girl who actually won first place. I told them that that wasn't my intention, but regardless, I'd stand by what I said.

The night ended with my teary-face and a polite goodbye from the world's politest partner. I walked out with Mr. Forman and stepped into his car. As we drove through the dark, rainy night, I glanced into the nothingness (skyscrapers) through the dew-covered windows. The bright lights became distorted through the tiny water droplets, which I found to be on the outside part of the window, when I tried to wipe them away. Somehow, it was the perfect.

On the way, Mr. Forman gossiped about another boy in my school, and told me about how he hadn't expected me to act that way. According to him, I had always seemed so professional in my manner of being. I guess that makes sense, but it's a rather harsh judgement, considering that he only ever sees me debate. If only he had seen me outside of debate - I guarantee he wouldn't have said the same. I basically told him that I hope that he isn't mad at me, and that I hope that this action doesn't reflect badly on the school, as a whole. Alright, so that was the end of that. I walked the few steps to my building, buzzed my parents to let me in, and voila! I then proceeded to take the longest -and loneliest- elevator ride of my life. I got upstairs, and my awesome little sister was at the elevator door. She did some cute little move, to signify that she was happy that I had come home, and I gave her my dust-covered ribbon.

She was ecstatic! A first place ribbon! She devised a quick, little scheme: I would stay in the hallway, and she'd go into our apartment and show my parents the ribbon and then she'd say "presenting the best debater, Nat!" Then, I'd walk in, and the rest is banal. So, I walked in to the applause of three people. My mom saw my tears, and decided that they were tears of joy, so she started crying with me, so did my younger sister. I hated raining on their parade, still, I told them that I was actually crying because of the days events.

The Girl at the Pool - Part 3

So after my little ''outburst'', I stomped out of the auditorium, and started crying in the halls. It was bad. Luckily, I had a true friend with me, and she walked out to comfort me. She had just come to spectate, but she ended up taking on the role of psycho-therapist. She persuaded me to come back in for the team rankings. I listened to this wonderful, kind person, who would later prove to me that, even though she is a North American girl, she has some serious backbone. Anyways, I walked back into the awards ceremony, they announced the top teams, and my partner and I got best team. I didn't want to take my award because I have a lot of honour, dignity, pride, ego, sense of justice etc.. The North American girl was on my side, but this snazzy guy -who thinks he is really cool- came up to me with all his swagger and was all like (in an extremely sensual voice) "don't be a sore loser, go up there and accept your prize", then he sort of nudged my shoulder, and I was up at the ribbon area.

My partner and I were standing there, and they gave us these ribbons. Then they tried to shake our hands, my partner did shake hands with them, I simply could not find it in me to do that to such assholes. I took my ribbon, stuffed it in my bag, and I was out of the auditorium, to have a good cry. I ran around the enormous, foreign school, trying to find somewhere where no one could find me. I succeeded, and found refuge in the gym, which was unlocked and empty. I layed down on the gym floor, and threw my ribbon of first place through one of the basketball hoops. It got stuck in the netting, and I didn't want to get it.

After about 10 minutes, I decided that it would be time for me to go back. After all, my new debate coach - Mr. Forman, who is a champion swimmer who enjoys teaching debate- had kindly offered to drive me home that night, so that I wouldn't be subject to Vancouver's treacherous transportation system. Once I got back, I found a bunch of the people from my school and my partners schools quietly talking. I still don't know what about, but I my guess is as good as yours. I was greeted by Mr. Forman, who was going to drive me home, and told by him that I needed to apologize.

"Apologize to who?" I asked.

"To the tournament directors." He responded.

The Girl at the Pool - Part 2

I had a debate today. It was at a public high school. My partner was the one that I had discussed in the previous post "Incompetence". As I had said before, he is amazing, both as a person and as a debater. Anyway, since I don't know if I mentioned this in the previous post, and because I'm too lazy to look back, I want to mention the fact that he is extremely insecure. He's one of those people who constantly belittles themselves. I hate that, but oh well.

As a joke, he had downloaded Queen's song "We are the Champions", to prove that he was sure that we were going to win. A pretty unexpected move, coming from him. Then, when we finally begun our debates, he joked around again - saying something about how we should walk out of the awards ceremony if we aren't first place. Right, this was a joke, but it did have some merit. I knew that he was fed up with always losing, and more than anything, I knew that he deserved to win. There wasn't one person at that debate that was better than him - not one! The boy was flawless, he had every single little aspect of debate down. In fact, my peer agreed. She said that if she were a judge, she'd ask to have her scoring region moved beyond 95/100, just so that she could give him a higher mark.

Anyways, after the last round was over, I was happy. I knew that we had done really well, I knew that he had done better than me and I knew that, as a team, we deserved to win. Anybody would've known that. Also, the topics at this debate were the worst topics I have ever had to debate. The person who made up those topics is most likely retarded, or really scared of generating any controversy. So I told him that he deserves first place, as an individual speaker. Being the good religious boy that he is, he said that he hopes I win first place speaker, and I said "no, you deserve it more" and so on.   After a little bit, we all took group photos and reflected with our coaches on how our debates went.

We finally made it to the awards ceremony and they started calling the top ten individual speakers, and the top five teams, or something like that. They begun with the tenth best individual speaker, and worked their way up. They called me as number six, which was totally unfair, as I had done much better than sixth place, but regardless I didn't say anything. I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best for my partner. First place wasn't far from reach. Obviously, I was wrong because they called him as second best speaker. That was unacceptable, he had deserved better. He can't stand up for himself and so I would. I yelled out, in a very un-debatey way, something along the lines of "he should have gotten first place and I should've gotten better, this isn't fair and this sucks! The judging is so biased"

Then, I heard a highly functioning sociopath yell out something along the lines of "I agree! He should've gotten first place!" A little bit of reenforcement never hurts. My partner was accepting his ribbon and staring at me like "what the hell is wrong with you, crazy lady?" But he never actually said anything, but let's be clear, the way someone looks at you speaks louder than his/her words. I knew that he didn't really approve, but I really didn't care. He is insecure and has an issue with fighting for his rights. So let's clear the air completely, my partner is not retarded, he has the ability of telling right from wrong, but he sadly has no backbone, like many other people in North America. The "highly functioning sociopath" is not from North America, so he's pretty tough, I guess. However, it may just be the fact that he is a sociopath.

The Girl at the Pool - Part 1

As a swimmer, I get to meet a lot of people who also swim, mostly at my club. These are swimmers of all ages and all types. Since they all swim at the same time, and at roughly the same time, it is easy to determine who is worth your time and who isn't.

Many of the swimmers that I have come across are total stuck up douches, but every so often, you come across someone remarkable. As my little sister is also a swimmer, I get to hear a lot of stories about her friends from the pool and what they do. In a way, my sister's stories let me get to know a person, before actually getting to know them. I learn a lot about each one of her friends and what they do, how funny they are, etc..

One of her friend's, who she mentions most often, I have known for a long time. She is 11 years old, really tall for her age and pretty - in a funky way. She always has a smile and is always talking about stuff. Needless to say, she is my kind of girl. I like people like her.

Ever since I was little, I have had the notion that older people know more than their younger counterparts. Thus, I never would've considered the fact that one day, I'd actually be learning from someone younger than me - but that's exactly what happened.

A few days ago, my little sister came home, and begun divulging a "juicy story" to me. It had to do with the really tall girl. She told me that this girl had sworn during practice, and thus was asked to stay after practice, so that the coach could have a word with her. I was surprised, as this girl really didn't seem like the type who swears. Apparently, some really annoying boy was annoying her, and she said the dreaded words "fuck you" to him. This is no big deal in my age group, but I guess that there are higher standards for younger kids.

Personally, I would have given him more than just a swear word if he had said the things he had said to her to me. I would have punched him in the face - and I'd have every right to do so. He had said that it had slept with the girl's mom. Okay, I mean, I get "mom" jokes, but you can't just go around telling people that you got it on with their mom - especially not out of the blue.

This boy had, according to my sister, been the most annoying living soul ever since he started swimming, with his constant teasing. Anyway, the coach talked to her, and told her all about the negative effects of swearing, and you know, gave her the proverbial "slap on the wrist".

This is always traumatic as a young girl, especially one who isn't used to criticism, so she cried.

What's the point that I'm trying to get at here? Well, I talked to this girl the next time I saw her at the pool. A covenant "shower area" talk. I blatantly asked her about what my sister told me. This girl, being the amazingly wise young girl that she is, admitted. She said that she felt really bad about it. I told her not to worry, and that she's a good kid - that's when she said the stupendous thing. She looked at me and she said "well, it's probably better that I did". Such a simple phrase, but it really got to me. I asked her "why?" And she elaborated. She gave me a very philosophical statement. This really tall girl said "well, you know, if I hadn't said anything, then I just would've kept it inside. And then, one day, I'd just get a gun and kill everyone." Initially, I laughed, and I told her that I totally supported her decision.

That night, I went home contemplating the complexities of life. (I'm trying to say I had nothing to do, so I just thought about whatever I could). Then the thought popped into my mind. What she had said was true entirely. You can't live your whole life only observing injustice, you actually have to voice it  - for your own good. You need to say what's on your mind, otherwise you'll end up doing exactly what she said - grabbing a gun and killing everyone.

I really did think long and hard about this. The degree of political correctness that currently exists in our society. Everyone encourages you to speak your mind, but they don't actually want you to. If your opinion is any different from the social norm, society will eat you up and spit you out. Those people that want you to voice your opinion, only want you to do so if your opinion is the same as their's. That's BS, in my opinion. So I realized that I need to speak up. If I don't, well then I'll probably end up killing either myself, or those around me. I don't want either.
I asked myself: "what is a social injustice that I need to speak up about?" I couldn't really think of anything that was within reach. The typical ideas of world peace and poverty came to mind, but those were just impossible. The next thing that came up was probably the most prominent thing in my life. Debate. I thought about all the injustices that take place in debate. How there are always undeserving winners, and how the tournaments are -for the most part- fixed. I decided to speak up. I decided to say what the majority was thinking, but how? I knew that most of the people in my school agreed that the tournaments were fixed. I knew that this rigging had actually made so many of the debaters in my club fed-up. Some weren't even going to tourneys with the intention of winning, rather just for fun. These debates had crushed the hopes of success of so many children. Somebody needed to say something.

The Girl at the Pool - Prologue

The past few weeks have been absolutely spectacular for me. They have been jam-packed with debates and oh how I adore debates. Oh I hate the antics of debates.

As you may have noticed, I haven't been super active on my blog for the past 20 days. Why? I've been busy writing a post. A post about the debates.

During these eventful debates, I found out a lot of things about society. All of these events played out over the course of 3 days or so, and they were all triggered by a seemingly small event. My initial thought was that I should blog about it, so I did. Before I started, I thought that I would be able to fit these 3 days in one post of my usual length. I know, I know, I have really long usual posts, but they aren't that bad. 

I thought that these 3 days, regardless of how eventful they were, would fit into about 1500 words. I was so wrong. I started writing, and the words, the feelings, couldn't stop. My fingers were on fire, and before I could realize it, I was already at 3000 words. Alright, but at least I was done, right? Wrong. I wasn't even a quarter of the way through. I realized that this was going to be a huge post, but I kept on writing. I just had so much to say.

A week in,  I had 8000 words, and about 10 pages. I still wasn't done, though. Then I encountered a formatting error, and asked my mom about it. To help me, she began scrolling through my post, and noticed that there didn't seem to be an end. Then she asked me, "Nat, are you writing a novel? You can't post this. Nobody has time to read a novel, people read posts. If you really want to do this, then post it in parts." At first, I thought that she was wrong, and I kept on writing. Then when I got to 10000 words, I realized that I was going to keep going, and no one would have a whole day to spare to read my post - not even those who the post actually pertains to. So I made the decision, and I agreed with mom, who was right - as usual. 

I broke my silence with posting a post about posers, and writing a new post about people that take my food. Then I proceeded to divide my enormous post. Once that was all done and I had my parts, I needed a time frame. I decided I'd post about one or two parts of my enormous post per week. So that is what I'll be doing.

In between, I will most likely do what I always do, and post a few critiques on society. For the most part however , I will be talking about these few days of debate and the things that I learned. I figured that an introduction, or prologue, would be a necessary accompaniment my first blog series: The Girl at the Pool.

A story of about 4 days, four of the most eventful days of my short life. I am ever so grateful for these days, for they have taught me so much. I have been faced with criticism, cowardliness, anger and despise, which have all come together to help my find out what I want to be. Some people may feel that I am too young to understand things clearly - that I am too bold. Some people may think that I am suffering from a deep and terrible form of teen angst, but I don't think so. I am fed up with being constantly asked to censor myself, I am sick of seeing adolescent children being too scared to speak their minds. I am sick of seeing people exploiting others, I am sick of corruption and of the double standards that are all put forth in this place. I want it to stop.

I want to initiate some freedom. I hope that this post inspires someone to take a stand, and to be strong enough to face the consequences, all in the name of doing what's right. I understand if I fail, though. Perhaps society has killed your soul so much, and perhaps it has forced you to be a puppet, who's only service is to play the role society wants you to. Perhaps, I am dumb for hoping, regardless, I will hope. Speaking your mind is not against the law, you aren't going to jail for it, so relax. Nothing can happen to you, nothing that you can't fight. 

One girl at the pool set me on fire (figuratively). One statement I made, in which I exercised my right to free speech, set off a chain of events. One guy, who is too scared to speak his mind, shows glimmers of hope. One woman, who likes to preach, but doesn't know how to act herself seems to lose. One double standard setting coach stoops to the level of stammering out of a room. One good friend tries her best to seem good on both sides. One principal makes statements equivalent to those of Elizabeth Gilbert. And one girl fighting to be free. All of these characters play a part in this story that I have written - a journal of sorts.

The first part will be coming out tomorrow, and I hope that you enjoy it.