Tag Archive: high school

Supposed delinquent

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Sat. February 12, 2011

Not sure why this popped into my head, but I suddenly thought about a few moments back in high school. These flashbacks are to a few moments where I stepped into my school’s chapel. Especially later on in my high school career I’d find myself with a spare period or two with nothing much going on. Sure, I often hung out in the cafeteria with classmates and acquaintances, but there were times when I just needed to get away from all of the noise. Sometimes I would take the time to venture into the chapel. The small chapel really was like an oasis of silence. It was always eerily quiet. I liked sitting there to recollect my thoughts and to just recentre myself.

The chaplain for the school was a Carmelite nun who was probably in her 50′s at the time. Whenever I ventured into the chapel she was either out and about or in her office. I didn’t really have many encounters with her. There were two though that kind of stick out in my mind. On one occasion I was just sitting there in a chair in thought and prayer. She came out and greeted me. I greeted her back. She asked what I was doing in the chapel. Before I could answer she had a follow up question: “are you in trouble?” That struck me as a bit odd. If I was a troublemaker, would I attempt to seek refuge in the chapel? Would the school administration be somehow prevented from entry? And the big question bothered me: did it look like I was a troublemaker? Maybe she asked that of all the students that entered. That wouldn’t be welcoming at all. In the end I told her that I wasn’t in trouble and that I was sitting in the chapel just to get some peace and quiet. She agreed and said that this was the place for silence. And that was the end of that encounter. Odd, no?

Now, I’m not sure whether this is a case of my memory malfunctioning, but I recall having the exact same conversation with her months later. I ducked in there for a few moments and the first question she asked was whether I was in trouble. I was frustrated that time because she obviously didn’t remember me, and again, did it look like I was a rabble rouser? So delinquents frequently hang out there? What is it? I didn’t really over think at the time, attributing her questions to a general distrust of the motives of the student body. No matter. I’d like to think I turned out to be one of the good ones. Too bad she didn’t really recognize it back in the day.

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About the shirts

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Wed. October 20, 2010

Earlier today at work I was wearing a white oxford with contrasting vertical stripes. Underneath I had a black t-shirt on just for layering and moisture control. Prior to heading out the door I wasn’t too sold on the how I looked, but I was running out of time, so I just went with it. At work, when I dropped by the washroom I took a good look in the mirror. My shirt was slightly untucked and looking pretty wonky. Overall, I decided that I didn’t like my shirt at all. Too much contrast was going on with the stripes and the shirt. And on top of the black tee it all just looked odd. I tried adjusting the shirt a bit, like unbuttoning the top button. Overall, it just wasn’t doing anything for me, but I figured I could make it through the day. Five minutes after I sat down again at my desk, I just felt entirely annoyed. I used the reasoning that the office was becoming too warm and took the shirt off leaving me with my black tee. I guess I didn’t look bad or anything, but I just felt odd. It’s not the same type of oddness that I experienced with the striped shirt. Rather, I’m not usually the type of person that goes to work or meets with people in just a t-shirt.

No, when I interact with people, I’d rather be wearing a shirt that has a proper collar on it. I don’t think I can pinpoint when this became a thing for me. Through high school, having gone to a Catholic high school I had to wear a uniform. I’m sure that probably helped get me comfortable with the idea of collared shirts. At some point after that, I think I developed an attitude that I could not look respectable without a collared shirt. It didn’t matter if it was kind of dressy or not; polos and golf shirts were just fine with me. Through university, short-sleeved collared shirts became a mainstay of my wardrobe. If I had to wear a long-sleeve shirt, I always ended up rolling the sleeves up to reveal my forearms. See, again, the look wasn’t about being formal.

Flash forward to today, and I cannot feel comfortable just wearing a tee. At work, after removing the collared shirt, it took me a few minutes of self-perceived awkwardness before I put my jacket on to regain some level of comfort. Pfft. I wasn’t going to put the collared shirt back on; putting on the jacket was a good option. This was despite saying just earlier that it was getting warm in the office.

Now don’t get me wrong, I like my cotton t-shirts. Usually I use them for layering purposes, or for stuff to wear around the house. I don’t really care if anyone else wears just t-shirts to work. Just, for me personally, I can’t take myself seriously without a collar. Necessary! Just like everybody else, I like presenting a good image to the world, and if I can’t take myself seriously, who else will?

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Other ways to shine

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Sun. July 25, 2010

When my parents moved, I had to spend a bit of time helping them out and deciding what to do with a lot of my old stuff. Seeing as how they were downsizing it didn’t make sense for them to hold on to a lot of my things. I ended up taking a lot of it back to my place just so that I could sort it out on my own schedule. As I’m lying down here in my bed, off in the corner of my room I can see a couple of boxes of fansubs that I don’t want to part with despite not having a VCR plugged in anywhere around here. I also had to take the contents of my bookshelves in the old house. I bought a secondary bookcase from Ikea a while ago in anticipation. That bookcase is now full of old textbooks that look good on display but will probably never get air again (let’s be honest, right?)

One find that caught me off guard was the big pile of notes and correspondence from high school and university. If I think about it, some of that stuff is actually more than a decade old now. Why were we (my parents and I) hoarding that kind of thing? I spend about an hour last night picking through the stuff, seeing if there was anything I might want to keep.

I actually spotted one report card from my first semester of high school. Man, I was a decent student back then. If only I wasn’t so lazy. From later on in my high school career I spotted a letter of recommendation from one of my high school’s vice-principals. It’s not like I was openly courting administration, but I still managed to get them to pay attention to me. I also found a few letters of admission from the universities that I enrolled in. Now, we all know that I chose to go with the computer engineering program at the University of Waterloo as my thing, but were you aware how that was actually my last choice? I only enrolled into three programs at the time, and all of them eventually got back to me. I had also applied to the computer science program at Waterloo, the University of Toronto, and York University. I only applied to engineering as an after thought if only because I felt that there was no way I’d get in. Well, wouldn’t you know it, of all four, it was engineering that got back to me first. The rest is history, I guess. I poked through some of those letters. Man…what could have been, eh?

There were a lot of university notes in the pile, along with a couple of exams. As I looked through it all I couldn’t help but feel like I had mentally lost everything that I had learned. Yes, I know the whole thing about how I at least know how to find the information now, but…it’ll be a tough slog if I ever had to do so. Ah, but that’s why society leaves that kind of thing to the people who continue down that path. I don’t see myself having to do any work on a microscopic level regarding substrate layers anytime soon. WHATEVER.

If I found myself to be a bright shining star in my high school years, my university years seems to see that brightness fade. Perhaps it’s a good thing, you know? If anything, that period forced me to develop a sense of humility. It showed me that I have limits, and that even if I’m not the best at something life will go on. I could choose to stay dim and live a low-key life, but I think something in me has clicked as of the last year or two. I think back then it was almost as if academics was all I had. I am thankful that I had that because at the very least it gave me something to focus on. Without that now, I have to find other ways to shine brightly to those that are around me. Perhaps it’s why I find satisfaction in running, improv, and now yoga. Running gives me drive, improv gives me a creative outlet, and yoga helps me to find peace. At this point in my life, I’m comfortable leaving behind the things in my past. They carried me this far, but they no longer serve a purpose. It’s time to look ahead. Perhaps as a sign of that I actually threw out all of the pile.

Admissions letters, mediocre exams, recommendations, reports: all gone. Moving on.

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How I’m remembered

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Fri. July 2, 2010

I was hanging out with a couple of high school friends last night. From my friend’s balcony we were able to take in the fireworks from Canada’s Wonderland. So, we sat out there breathing the fresh air in deeply. Given my current condition with my nasty cough, I was happy that I was smart enough to bring my leather jacket despite it being the middle of summer. Off in the glow of dusk, Venus shone brightly on us and our conversation. As would be the case among people that shared a common high school, we talked about that period in our lives from long ago. The names of various people weaved their way through our words. There was one person that came up and my friend mentioned that that person told her that she remembered me as the guy that had a crush on her.

¿Que?

Simply, that comment caught me off guard. In all honesty, I don’t remember ever having a crush on her. There are a handful of people in high school that caught my eye, and I can truly and honestly say that she’s not in that handful. God, I was annoyed last night. Now, you might be wondering why I seem to be making a bit of a big deal out of this. Sure, right? Having someone think that you have a crush on them isn’t necessarily a bad thing. However, in this case it’s all about context. How am I remembered?

Fine. The person in question is mildly attractive. Easy enough to say that. When we last saw each other, it was just under a decade since high school. If you’ll allow me to be a bit blunt and egotist, I had a lot of things going for me in high school. I was one of those unintentionally high profile people. I may not have been the most popular, and I might have shunned the spotlight, but God damn it, everyone knew me. Out of all the ways that person in question could have remembered me, she chooses to remember me for some non-existent infatuation? What the fuck? Remember me for being smart. Remember me for being affable or warm-hearted. Hell, remember me for getting away with wearing a necktie every single day even though it wasn’t part of the uniform. However, reducing me to every other guy that had goo-goo eyes for you?

Fuck you.

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Perception and reality

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Sat. May 29, 2010

I was visiting a friend last night, and in the process of downing two bottles of red wine and watching the movie Lesbian Vampire Killers (I shit you not) we started reflecting on what life was like back in high school. We’ve had this conversation so many times before, and yet, each time we do it seems like I somehow manage to find more and more insight into how I perceive those years. It’s become abundantly clear that my perception of myself from back then is a lot different from reality. My friend keeps reminding me that when I look back on those years I really have to look at it more objectively. I know it’s a totally human thing to do, but any analysis I do on that time is far too tainted by my emotions and memories of various hurts.

I really need to work on separating myself and figuring out what my motives for what I was doing, or what I was feeling were back then. For that matter, from a distance I should be looking at what motives other people had to treat me positively or negatively. There really does seem to be a difference in how I remember things and how they probably really were. I wonder why that’s the case. Perhaps I’m trying to mentally rewrite history just to explain why I am who I am. No clue…

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Alex Trebek’s mustache

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Tue. March 23, 2010

Back in high school, instead of taking part in all of the physical extra-curricular activities, I was more than likely a participant in the things that had more a mental bend. As such, through the first few years I was an active participant in the DPCDSB Math League. Heck, we even won the championship one of those years. Later on, I was an active participant in the school’s Reach For The Top team. I’m not going to lie, I got such a kick out of competitive trivia. I loved playing around with the various buzzers that we had. It finally seemed like my repository of useless information actually had a use. Our team actually got to the top of Peel Region, allowing us to make it to the provincials in Kingston, Ontario. Yes, we were great. More specifically, I was awesome. We didn’t do so well in Kingston. In fact, we lost a shit load of games there. I swear, if I had a stronger supporting team we would have done better, but whatever: all in the past now.

Earlier, I was hanging out with some 20SB people over at Fionn MacCools. The place was having a trivia night. I was kind of excited, because it was giving me an opportunity to dust off my dormant skills. The questions weren’t so bad, but I was kind of surprised just how many of them I wasn’t able to get. Don’t get me wrong, we did well. I’d even say we did awesomely, however, there were many teams that did a lot better. Perhaps on some level I’m just a little bit sad about not having a better handle on everything. Jason circa 1998-1999 would be able to run circles around me. I guess though, in the end, trivia really doesn’t matter. I mean, that’s why it’s called “trivia” right? Of course, I can’t lose sight of the best thing about last night: I was able to hang out with some fun and classy ladies. We had a good time.

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The necktie rebellion

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Fri. September 18, 2009

Being a student at a Catholic high school meant that I had to wear a uniform. Really, I think for someone like me it was a godsend (pardon the joke, I suppose) since I didn’t have to worry about what I had to wear, or having to stick out like a sore thumb for not fitting in whatever norms were in place at the time. Hell, given my track record in elementary, I know it would have been a daily shit fest. The uniform was sort of like a bit of equalizing armour wrapped in a cardigan. I figure that when I was starting out it helped me not be prejudged by other people. For someone nerdy like me it at least levelled things out.

The uniform was rather simple. It consisted of a white shirt, slacks or a kilt, and the maroon sweater (or approved black sweatshirt). I remember back then the uniform was always a flashpoint between the administration and the students. I’m sure it’s still that way today, but my memories are from a decade ago. Shirts always had to be tucked in. Girls’ kilts had to be an appropriate length. As a point of rebellion the girls would always hike them up as high as decency would allow–sometimes past, I guess. There are stories of vice-principals roaming the halls with rulers ready to measure just how far the kilts went above the knees. If anyone wore pants, they had to be charcoal grey slacks. I remember a friend of mine tried to get away with some same colour rose stitching on the legs of her pants. As much as they blended in, I remember her fear of being caught. Ridiculous! Why try to exert your individuality over something that you don’t really have much control over? Aren’t there other ways to stand out?

It’s probably expected, but I didn’t do anything to fly against the rules. Why would I? There was no need to get the administration on my ass, right? Well, my memory is entirely hazy on what happened, but my attitude changed on that front one day. At some point I began wearing a necktie with my uniform. I don’t recall the exact point that I started doing so back in high school, but it must have been late in Grade 11 or right in Grade 12. I wasn’t consciously giving admin the middle finger with it. There was no revolutionary statement that I was trying to make. Frankly, I think I just wanted to wear a tie. I was the only one. It wasn’t part of the uniform, but I don’t think there was a rule against it. I wasn’t doing anything that was trying to make the uniform casual or disrespectful, so really none of the teachers could bean me on it. The tie became my thing.

So, why am I having flashbacks to that period of my life? Well, over the past month I’ve been watching some old DVDs that someone gave to me of an anime from the late 90s. The main character for this show is a girl who insists on wearing a boys’ uniform to school. This is due to the fact that she wants to emulate someone she met long ago as a little child. She keeps pointing out that there’s not rule against it, but the counsellors keep harassing her about it. Anyway, somewhere late in the series they talk about another character who gained respect in school by carrying herself with an air of dignity, and doing things for herself and not for the attention of others. I kind of carried that to my experiences. The tie wasn’t for anyone but myself.

I’m not saying the tie gained me any respect, but perhaps it helped. It really wasn’t until late Grade 11 and Grade 12 that I recall feeling like I was coming into my own. Before that I was still trying to find my way around to see if I fit into any groups. Really, that endeavour was a spectacular failure, thankfully. And I say “thankfully” because if I had found a group I think I would have lost out on learning self-reliance. By the later grades it just wasn’t as important anymore. I didn’t really fit in anywhere and was more of a floater. So I ended up just having a “take me for who I am” air about me as I really focused on my academics. Hopefully it’s not imagined, but all of that gained me some respect. Perhaps the tie vaulted me to a place where I was suddenly beyond judgment. I honestly don’t know…

These days, I’m long removed from times where I had to wear prescribed clothing. Even so, upon reflecting on these days gone by I realize that there are lessons that I can apply today. I no longer have to don a necktie to get respect. I know though that maintaining my dignity can go a long way to moulding how others perceive me. Also, continuing to do things for myself and not for the approval of others just commands respect that can’t be picked up any other way.

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The long winding path

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Mon. September 7, 2009

I guess, due to the nature of the things Labour Day just ends up marking the end of one parcel of time and the start of a new one. Somehow, even after all this time, the thought of this day still dredges up memories of high school back-to-school jitters, the mental determination to perform, and the freshness of the school uniform after not having worn it for months. I can still imagine the maroon cardigan and the smell of starch in my ironed shirt. Back then, that was my life. I had nothing else to do than to study hard and to get the grades. I don’t think I even had a concept of having good grades getting me into the right universities. No, for the longest time I just did my best in my classes because that’s what school was all about. In some sense, it was all kind of like a game, wasn’t it? Life was simple in that regard.

Fast forward to today, now. Here I am thinking about my career and how I should be positioning myself. I’m wondering about how I should be furnishing my own place, and about what types of maintenance I should be doing around here during these precious days off. I was happy to have time to tidy up. Is that so wrong? I’m pondering my social statuses, and what I can do to present myself in better lights. All of these are such adult concerns. When the heck did all of that really start kicking in?

Seriously. It all kind of just sneaks up on you. It starts off with one thing, then another, and another. All of a sudden you realize that you’re pretty much an adult. I guess it’s sort of like boiling frogs, right? If you dump a frog in hot water, it’ll jump right out. If you put it in room temperature water and slowly crank up the heat the frog won’t jump out.

…or so they say.

If it all came crashing down on me all at once I’d probably freak out and buckle under the weight of it all. As it is, I can kind of shrug it off, thinking “Yeah, that’s what life is like. I’ll deal.” I guess I’m fortunate that my life took the long winding path that it took. It’s not that I wouldn’t have survived if I was forced to mature much earlier, but…at this point I can’t imagine my life turning out any other way, you know?

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