In Case I Forget (1417 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.86 on 46 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by <> (View user info) at 2006-07-25 17:36:12 EDT
I went to university because I couldn't think of anything else to do. Coming from a 'good' school where everyone wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer, the expectation was always there. But I was all about pointless rebellion during those last two years of mandatory education when the university decision was supposed to be made. I'd be thrown out of careers meetings for telling them I wanted to embalm the dead and a general reluctance to hand any homework in led to castigatory sessions with the headmistress.
She was some kind of former judge with white bouffant Dynasty hair and mascara that clumped into bug-like pellets at the end of her eyelashes, threatening to fly off at any moment. Her name was Marsha.
I spent the first and only of these supposedly weekly meetings watching the clock tick down, wishing that I could find a way of explaining to her that if she didn't incessantly point it by urging us to "Break through the glass ceiling, girls!" then maybe the invisible roof that was supposed to be keeping the female sex down wouldn't even exist. At the end of the hour she set forth her plan for us to "come together" in this way every week so she could monitor my progress but that it "would, of course, be voluntary." I didn't go again.
Grammar school was a sickening place. The fifth time you see someone in tearful hysterics because she "only" got 98% on her maths test, it really starts to turn your stomach. There was a lot of talk about forging well-rounded young ladies who would change the world, but talk was all it was. Maintaining a façade of worth was more important than actually achieving it.
So precious were the governing body over their impeccable school record that when a gang of year nine girls followed a new girl off the bus and put her in hospital with their hockey sticks, the headmistress had one meeting with the culprits' parents and then it wasn't to be spoken of again. Expulsion, even suspension, was out of the question; nothing could be allowed to damage the school image. The new girl's mother ferried her to and from the school gates every day for the next five years.
The school's reputation was all, and it hung on the hook of exam results. Not just a hundred percent pass rate but a hundred percent A to C grades, year after year after year. It was a production line of meaningless excellence where they told you to learn this answer or that answer because it was definitely going to be covered in the exam. Sit down, shut up, memorise this. No independent thought required. So instead of well-rounded young ladies they churned out fragile, hateful little girls who struggled under equal measures of arrogance and insecurity. They'd been told they were clever, but they'd been shown they would never be clever enough.
There was Angela who spent every night copying out her chemistry textbook until she'd worked through all 3000 pages and had to start again from the beginning. She'd shave her forearms and had no concept of weekend. There was Kate who'd starved herself until the back of her ankle was a razorblade and her shoulders were covered with downy fuzz. At thirteen she lost her virginity to a twenty-five year old abseiling instructor on a school trip. At sixteen she disappeared.
There was Beth who was so accustomed to being waited on by her parents that she split up with her drug dealer boyfriend in a fit of indignation because he didn't have time to make her breakfast before he went to work. She came into school red-eyed and righteous, expecting sympathy. And she got it.
There was Claire who started banging her head against the wall because she couldn't get her gym clothes to fold properly. Lucinda who said nothing but wrote constantly in a diary that she would double lock. And when mischievous curiosity got the better of us and we broke it open, every page was scribbled black.
And then there was me. We all had our own way of coping with the expectation and mine was to adopt a philosophy of "If I don't try, I can't fail." It was both foolish and foolproof. I took truancy to a level where my form tutor posted me a copy of my timetable every week "in case I'd forgotten it" and the day I did actually drag myself in for registration my deliciously sarcastic English teacher made the class give me a standing ovation.
While my classmates packed up their stereos and headed out around the country to get their degrees, I worked split shifts in a local bar frequented by old men nursing a daily pint of Brakspears for three hours and young men who knew we'd turn a blind eye to their dealing so long as the bar staff could get theirs on tick.
The long hours and social atmosphere morphed the staff into a dysfunctional family and my favourite bar relative was Andy. He was 22 and had just been let out of prison for paralysing a guy who had threatened to kill his little brother. He remains the nicest and most vicious person I have ever met. We'd stay late after locking up, helping ourselves to the spirits and talking long into the night about all the things we shouldn't have had in common. He couldn't abide a messy table and despite being a stoner, found the sight of a lit cigarette disgusting. I'd watch him rearrange the condiments into exact lines and ask stupid questions about prison life, with all the naiveté of a spoiled little girl taking a vacation on the wrong side of the tracks.
It was the most educational and interesting time of my life thus far but it had to end. Spirits moved to drugs moved to other drugs, and by the middle of my eighteenth year I was bouncing from shift to party to shift on a cocktail of chemicals, a Mars bar for dinner and an average of three hours sleep a morning. After six months of sticking my fingers down my throat because I couldn't sleep with the world spinning, my gag reflex started failing and it became harder and harder to function.
So I stopped it. I picked out a shortlist of universities where the only requirement was that I could live by the sea, and applied to the first one that would accept me. I was making a £20,000 mistake, but it's one I'd repeat.
In the first year of my English degree, I'd sit in the library surrounded by towering stacks and cower at the sheer volume of thought they supported. Seven fifteen foot sections written on Shakespeare alone. And what the hell do I have to add to that? What more can be said that isn't a hesitation, a repetition, a deviation? So I stood in opposition to it: if I couldn't build it up higher, I'd try to tear it down.
Essays were written at 5am on the day they had to be handed in. And after those weeks of not bothering, not caring, not really seeing the point, what would spew out was fuck you and no fucking way and how could you be so bloody stupid.
'To even pose this question is to misunderstand the central theme of the text'
And they'd give me good grades just for being argumentative. Because after reading ninety anaesthetised versions of what someone thought they wanted to hear, a cocky too-short tirade that spat and sneered at the question got their blood pumping again.
None of the quotes from critics I used supported my argument - because my only argument was that they're wrong, and don't listen, and you don't fucking have to accept this.
In retrospect, the only person I was trying to convince was myself.
User Reviews
Submitted by Amy (user info) at 2006-08-05 19:11:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You are proving one more time why you are my favourite poster.
Submitted by FilthyAssistant (user info) at 2006-08-05 04:27:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2006-08-04 09:44:33 (#)
Ranking: 2
However, I will say that this ended rather abruptly. I know it's "long" already, but I felt like I wanted to read more at the end. Perhaps that is a good thing.
I am also curious. Is this fiction or truth? You seem just fucked up enough for it to be the truth (I mean that in the most nicest way of course).
===
It's torn out of the middle of something that's around ten pages long - the next section refers back to a lot of shit at the beginning of the whole thing and I think it would have been a little hard to follow if I'd included any more. I might post some more of it one day but I doubt uber really wants to be flooded with my masturbatory memoirs.
And it's all true. Well, as true as my memory of it is, which is probably not very true at all.
Submitted by GetNakeddd (user info) at 2006-08-04 10:04:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-07-25 17:59:22 (#)
Ranking: 2
wow, I bet you give a HELL of a blowjob!
~~~~~~~~
I <3 Jonny
GREAT POST!
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2006-08-04 09:44:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
However, I will say that this ended rather abruptly. I know it's "long" already, but I felt like I wanted to read more at the end. Perhaps that is a good thing.
I am also curious. Is this fiction or truth? You seem just fucked up enough for it to be the truth (I mean that in the most nicest way of course).
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2006-08-04 09:41:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Every once in a while I read a post on this shitty website that makes me want to lean back and light a cigarette afterwards.
You bitch. I quit smoking a year ago.
Submitted by joedaddy (user info) at 2006-08-04 00:06:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
certain universities now require a weighted 4.25 average, and above, for admittance
i don't think the implementation of this somewhat recent policy necessarily means that
they're getting the best and the brighest
Submitted by Chillax (user info) at 2006-08-03 23:16:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Istaros (user info) at 2006-08-03 23:07:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"Lucinda who said nothing but wrote constantly in a diary that she would double lock. And when mischievous curiosity got the better of us and we broke it open, every page was scribbled black."
that's terrifying
Submitted by Maddog (user info) at 2006-07-27 08:31:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Good stuff. Well written
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2006-07-27 07:54:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"a general reluctance to hand any homework in led to castigatory sessions with the headmistress." Did no one else find that line powerfully erotic??
Anyway, nicely written...actually, REALLY nicely written. It's seriously like something I'd read in a novel, but more authentic.
Oh, and I'm still all over that "if you don't try you can't fail mentality." IT'S GENIUS.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-07-27 03:26:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by FilthyAssistant (user info) at 2006-07-25 19:40:01 (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2006-07-25 19:34:32 (#)
Ranking: -2
For fucks sake. You were a spoiled little smack head brat who needed the shit slapping out of you.
The end.
===
You say that as though it wasn't the entire point of the post.
-------
Great post, and this made me chuckle.
Submitted by rockdocc (user info) at 2006-07-27 02:31:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
my dream is to be a janitor at an all girls catholic school.
Submitted by Life101 (user info) at 2006-07-27 02:25:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by FilthyAssistant (user info) at 2006-07-26 14:55:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by c1ndy (user info) at 2006-07-26 03:53:10 (#)
Ranking: 2
I really liked this. (it's hard to write anything nice without being patronising)
Working in a school where over half of kids won't get their 5 A-Cs has made me sad about the whole exmas and league tables business- both as a way to judge schools and children.
You don't say if your good education got you a job you enjoy... I always tell the kids that I never did any work at school or university and that's why i had to be a teacher.
===
I think you're right about the league tables. They encourage schools to put too much emphasis on exams - the ability to regurgitate information is no substitute for the ability to think. I left school eight years ago and no-one has ever asked me what my GCSE results were. I've never needed to know how to solve a quadratic equation or what the genitive stem of a Latin noun is, but I would have appreciated knowing how to replace a fan belt or how to resuscitate someone.
As for your job question, I've enjoyed every job I've ever done - from working in a deli to a shop to a pub to a vets to a national newspaper group. I've got a pretty decent job right now - lots of freedom, awesome co-workers, good salary, plenty of opportunity to learn and to drive the job where I want it to go - but my qualifications didn't get me that job. They said my CV stood out because of all the travelling I'd done in my teens. On paper I look like a complete cunt who can't stick at anything (because I dropped one of my A-levels and then dropped out of uni) so I applied for a relatively low grade job and then once I had my foot in the door I showed them what I was capable of. I don't think I've ever gone a year without getting a promotion and a hefty pay rise so I must be doing something right.
Submitted by firefly (user info) at 2006-07-26 10:08:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Pentameter (user info) at 2006-07-26 08:29:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
It's almost like you awaken one day, and you realize that everything you've been doing has been a waste of time. So, you start doing something else, only to realize later that everything you've just done, that thing you have awakened to, has been a waste of time.
Well written.
Submitted by Hilarity_Ensues (user info) at 2006-07-26 07:24:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by c1ndy (user info) at 2006-07-26 03:53:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I really liked this. (it's hard to write anything nice without being patronising)
Working in a school where over half of kids won't get their 5 A-Cs has made me sad about the whole exmas and league tables business- both as a way to judge schools and children.
You don't say if your good education got you a job you enjoy... I always tell the kids that I never did any work at school or university and that's why i had to be a teacher.
Submitted by FilthyAssistant (user info) at 2006-07-26 03:19:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-07-25 20:04:38 (#)
Ranking: 2
My experiences in slackery taught me a lot I'd never have learned otherwise.
===
Yep, I'd go with that. But then actually making the effort probably would have too. You can learn something from everything.
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2006-07-26 01:13:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by SPECIALk (user info) at 2006-07-26 00:19:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
We all have different ways of coping with stress...obviously, some ways are healthier than others
My coping skills are horrible, but hey, at least I'm aware of it...yeah...
Submitted by rob_berg (user info) at 2006-07-26 00:13:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Splendidly written. You are a gift.
r.
Submitted by fried-green-potatoes (user info) at 2006-07-25 23:52:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"They'd been told they were clever, but they'd been shown they would never be clever enough."
Nice line. Well-described throughout
Submitted by KindaNews (user info) at 2006-07-25 23:38:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Very nice.
Submitted by stevie_says (user info) at 2006-07-25 23:35:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"We all had our own way of coping with the expectation and mine was to adopt a philosophy of "If I don't try, I can't fail." It was both foolish and foolproof."
---
I'm still living that life. Yesssss....
Submitted by shitfuck (user info) at 2006-07-25 22:35:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'd pay you just to be yourself.
No heavy lifting required.
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2006-07-25 20:25:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-07-25 20:04:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"We all had our own way of coping with the expectation and mine was to adopt a philosophy of "If I don't try, I can't fail." It was both foolish and foolproof."
------
I can relate to a lot of this post. My rebellion was in response to being moved from a small Catholic school where I was deemed "gifted" to a larger, more prestigious one where I learned I'd been a small fish in a big pond. Instead of trying to excel academically, I just figured who needs the pressure? I'd be a much different person today had I made another decision, but I don't know that I'd necessarily be a better one. My experiences in slackery taught me a lot I'd never have learned otherwise.
Submitted by FilthyAssistant (user info) at 2006-07-25 19:49:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
The first things I think of when someone says 'real life' are taxes and christmas dinner. For 'thug life' it's rebates and easter eggs.
Submitted by Crystle (user info) at 2006-07-25 19:41:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You're right. Often "real life" is used for to refer to something that isn't.
In this case, I was referring to the "go to work to pay the bills, make and maintain friendships that mean something, deal with family, making small memories between loads of laundry, and big memories at births and deaths" kind of real life.
But that could be entirely different from what you see as real life.
as for "getting past the angst being a form of dying" it is most definitly not. I much prefere enjoying the happy bits without obsessing over the bad bits. Life still has ups and downs - its just all in what you focus on.
Submitted by FilthyAssistant (user info) at 2006-07-25 19:40:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2006-07-25 19:34:32 (#)
Ranking: -2
For fucks sake. You were a spoiled little smack head brat who needed the shit slapping out of you.
The end.
===
You say that as though it wasn't the entire point of the post.
Submitted by TigerLilly (user info) at 2006-07-25 19:36:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
A little bit into what makes you tick.....
Good read. Bitch.
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2006-07-25 19:34:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Submitted by FilthyAssistant (user info) at 2006-07-25 19:14:39 (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Crystle (user info) at 2006-07-25 18:48:48 (#)
Ranking: 2
And then we hit real life...
===
What 'real life' usually refers to isn't real at all.
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Submitted by electrictoothsyndrome (user info) at 2006-07-25 18:56:50 (#)
Ranking: 2
Getting past the angst completely is a form of dying. """
Oh my word, you can tell these two cunts are from the same commune can't you?
Boo hoo hoo school was MEAN.
For fucks sake. You were a spoiled little smack head brat who needed the shit slapping out of you.
The end.
Submitted by FilthyAssistant (user info) at 2006-07-25 19:14:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Crystle (user info) at 2006-07-25 18:48:48 (#)
Ranking: 2
And then we hit real life...
===
What 'real life' usually refers to isn't real at all.
Submitted by DCWoody (user info) at 2006-07-25 18:59:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm often glad I dint get any education. That Andy guy sounds like good people I know.
Submitted by electrictoothsyndrome (user info) at 2006-07-25 18:56:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Getting past the angst completely is a form of dying.
Submitted by Crystle (user info) at 2006-07-25 18:48:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
And then we hit real life, and 5 years after you've left all the schooling behind, it doesn't matter any more - unless you let it.
Growing older really is better than staying young would be.
I'm so glad I'm past the angst.
Submitted by Badlands (user info) at 2006-07-25 18:23:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by snagglepuss (user info) at 2006-07-25 18:11:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
.....I felt your claustrophobia in the sweetly cynical scrutiny of your "prison"........
....... <cringe> .............
Submitted by The_Yellow_Dart (user info) at 2006-07-25 18:04:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I asked for the time, not your life story. Ugh.
You share the general anti-conventional schooling as the once young british lady who wrote this:
http://www.theabsolute.net/minefield/humevas.html
Which is terribly interesting, I find.
I'd say you were her reincarnated, but she's not quite dead yet. Maybe it's just a British flare?
Submitted by mikethescottish (user info) at 2006-07-25 18:02:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Very interesting reading.
Submitted by Soley_Trinity (user info) at 2006-07-25 18:01:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
One of these days I'm going to read through your posts from first to last. You're a very interesting woman, Miss Katherine.
Sometimes we forget because we must, and not because we will.
Someone somewhere said that once.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-07-25 17:59:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
wow, I bet you give a HELL of a blowjob!
Submitted by badassmofo (user info) at 2006-07-25 17:59:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 I suppose
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2006-07-25 17:50:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This post made me like you a lot, in some strange way.
At the present, I'm in a highly competitive private Catholic high school in North Jersey, so I know the types of people you're talking about, the ones like:
--
The fifth time you see someone in tearful hysterics because she "only" got 98% on her maths test, it really starts to turn your stomach.
--
That was me at some points, I admit. I think it's a little different between all boys vs. all girls schools. The girls of your school seem to take life far too seriously; in my school, we live happily, but still get consistently high marks and academic awards.
Our sister school works too hard, though.
Good post.
Submitted by Genko (user info) at 2006-07-25 17:42:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
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