August 27
Think the only people who are people
Are the people who look and think like you
But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger
You learn things you never knew
You never knew
- Vanessa Williams, Colors of the Wind
Today was the first day of seventh grade. And I don't know why it can't be the first day of sixth grade, or even ninth grade. Because this means that you have to come in the middle, between sixth and eighth grade, when everyone already knows each other. You're an outcast. A loser. A stranger.
And yes, I definitely got treated like one.
Last year was the last year I would be going to a private school. The all-girls Rose Academy. Uniforms and all. Everyone was smart because you pretty much had to be to get in. And I really don't consider myself smart, but I don't know. The teachers were really strict. Slamming down the fist of conformity. And I admit, I didn't like being the same as everyone like they were trying to make us be. But I got used to it.
But this public school is so... different.
From the first second, I felt lost. Washed in a sea of color. My parents had bought me this really nice pink pouffy dress, and I felt colorful and... free. But when I walked in, I felt paranoid. I felt like people were secretly, inside laughing at me. I didn't hear them. But maybe it had to do with the fact that they were all wearing tight T-shirts and miniskirts for the girls and chainy jeans and black loose T-shirts for the boys. I didn't fit in. I stood out. Out of the crowd, and out of nowhere.
I don't like to stand out. At all.
Maybe it's because I don't have much experience standing out. Of course. At a private school where everyone has the same clothes, same heart-shaped face, same personality (well we all acted boring, because of rules and things)... you just can't.
Now I know that all the Rose Academy was trying to do was protect us.
From the real world.
But, it's weird. I feel like I'm destined to be one of the Rose Academy graduates. One of those boring, conformed people with no visible personality whatsoever. Not a pink pouffy dress kind of person. A white uniform person.
I could just hear their minds. Oh. Look at that new DORK over there, in such a DORKY pouffy dress from the DORKY 1800's and with a DORKY personality and a DORKY face and a DORKY everyDORKYthing. What a DORK. I'm too cool for that DORK over there.
Maybe I am a dork.