Swim Meets and Homecoming

For the past three days, I have been subject to the exquisite torture of a swim meet—nerve wracking, long, exhausting, and just painful, yet somehow intensely fun.

    Here’s the thing about swim meets: there is a definite reason that swimming, unlike other sports, doesn't have a competition every week or every other week—or anything regularly, really. The meets are really, really long. I’m not kidding. Friday took four hours, Saturday took seven, and Sunday took six. And it wasn't even a prelim/final meet. Those take even longer. In addition to the immense time strain, they are also completely draining. On Saturday, I nearly passed out while talking on the phone to my friend. That tired. No athlete can continuously and regularly withstand that sort of physical demand, not only because it’s just exhausting, but because it impairs their physical and mental ability beyond belief. Today at school, one of my teammates with whom I share a math class basically tried to sleep the whole period. He didn't (mostly because he didn't do so well on the last test and now wanted to do better), but he looked like he was going to fall asleep any moment.  I finished my history test in record time (fifteen minutes to answer twenty multiple choice and write two essays) so I could just get done and go take a nap.

    During the swim meet, you also have to be very careful about what event they’re on. Some events take only a few minutes, while others can last up to nearly half an hour. It’s a little bit frazzling, and sometimes a little bit panicky. Another awful thing about swim meets is being comfortable and then being forced to get in the water. During the breaks between the events, we get dry and put on some heat-insulating uniforms, and most of us have fuzzy blankets or soft jackets or something. When you are very tired and in the midst of relaxing, with good music and good company (and maybe a physics textbook), and have a very soft and fluffy blanket poncho wrapped around you and you are very warm and dry, you just do not want to move. To have to not only move but get into freezing water...well, it makes you want to cry every time.

    Despite all this, though, the swim meet was pretty darn amazing. I did pretty well, relative to myself, though I am nowhere near the top swimmers in my group. And another brilliant thing—I finally realised what an amazing team my swim team really is. Because we’re actually a team.

See, here’s the thing. I've been part of a team before, but I've never been part of a family team, where everyone on the team is just completely comfortable and at home with each other. One guy brought some weird peppermint extract thing, and it was passed around for all to use (well, all that wanted it). We bring chairs to the meet and arrange them in sort of a circle, or at least a group thing, and then the chairs are free game. Anyone is welcome to sit in any chair, regardless of whose it is, because no one minds. Phones are freely exchanged among the team, which is pretty amazing, if I do say so myself, considering how attached people are to their phones. Food is sort of just a free for all. I saw several people over the weekend digging into other people’s bags for food, and no one minded. Even blankets are shared. And as long as someone isn't using them, any of them will lend you their goggles and/or swim cap, if you need it.

Even more proof of this is how close members of the team are even outside of swimming. We have one guy that literally has a permanent residence in another teammate’s house. Another one refers to his friend’s parents as “Mom” and “Dad”, because he’s so close to them. Parties (or at least meet-ups) involving members of the swim team occur often. We have a Breakfast Club, and sometimes we go to Moe’s on Wednesdays.

I got to know some of my teammates pretty well over the course of the weekend (which isn't surprising, considering the SEVENTEEN HOURS), and I must say...I’m very impressed with the unity and cohesiveness of the team.

    In other news, I was coerced into going to homecoming, because my friend’s parents decided to suddenly realise that their son was getting some semblance of a social life and started to completely freak out. And homecoming was awful. The music was awful. The people there were awful. I’m pretty sure I made at least one guy go home and cry. I went through a throng of people to see what homecoming was all about, and I completely gave up when I saw the grinding. And the shoes? Well, let’s just say I could fill a whole lake with the amount of shoes that were just lying around there.

It was awful. Just plain out horrible. Unlike the swim meet, there were ZERO redeeming qualities about this event.

Yeah.

Until next time, then!

Ranting (sorry)

I always want to write blog posts, but it seems that half the time, I forget. Well, here’s one more for the day.

Fair warning: This blog post is mostly ranting.

You know when someone does something so totally unforgivable that you can never even look them in the eye again? When just their very presence makes your blood boil and your teeth clench, when you try to avoid them at all costs?

For reasons I won’t explain here, my dad has just about hit that point. I suppose this is bad, as he and I live in the same house. I can’t stand to be in the same room as him for more than five minutes, sometimes even less. I literally make detours and go out of my way to avoid here. Luckily, I don’t eat dinner with the rest of my family, so I can mostly just pretend he’s not there. Car rides with him, however, are absolute hell. I usually just stick in my earphones and turn it up so I can’t hear him, and he just has to fume because all his attempts at any further communication with me are fruitless.

But honestly, he sort of deserves it. Once again, unmentionable, unforgivable things. I can’t stand the sight of him, I can’t stand to acknowledge his presence. Sure, I’m an awful person. Sure, I don’t like people so much. At this point, I have basically given up on trying to be nice. It never seems to go anywhere anyways.

Another thing that irks me: teachers’ favouritism. I have one nameless teacher who so obviously favours a few guys in my class that it’s not even funny. They act up and don’t do their homework and tell football stories and check their phones and hit on girls, and all she does is smile benignly at them and laugh. I pull out a physics book and start doing problems, and she starts telling me how I shouldn't do that and how this is ENGLISH class and put that away right now you foolish girl for you cannot do that. Excuse me, lady, firstly, I'm actually GOOD at English. Very good. And I’m doing PHYSICS. For something that matters to me. Something that’s actually helpful and academic, something that MATTERS. I’m not hitting on everyone of the opposite sex within a twenty metre radius, or going on about some fight the football team had, or giggling like a girl over some Instagram picture. If you want to get me in trouble, fine. But at least get the other kids, who by the way, are way worse than I am, in trouble too.

Favouritism.

Is.

Not.

Okay.

Something else that has been giving me massive headaches is just other people that I actually like and care about. My two best friends recently started dating, which sort of alienates me completely. This wouldn’t be so bad, except that I can count on one hand (not joking; literally) the number of friends I really care about, and boom, there go two. It’s not very fun; I sort of hang out with those two plus one other friend selectively; that’s it. It’s a little bit hurtful, actually, but I am happy for them. Another thing is that a friend (actually the friend mentioned in the previous sentence) is taking me to homecoming, and his parents are MORE than going all out about it (something about going out just to get new pants, I really don’t know). Said friend realizes that there is no “date” in this; we’re merely going so other people will stop irritating the two of us. His parents do not realize this. And I realised that when said friend told me his parents wanted to take me out to dinner. This bothers me greatly, since I do not want a date.

My main problem with this “people I care about” thing, however, is another one of my very, very close friends (though I’m not sure “friend” is the right term…). His problem is that he is arrogant, stubborn, slightly depressive, and has a temper hotter than the core of a hypergiant star. These traits get elevated when he’s under stress. As he’s doing college applications right now, yeah, you could say he’s under a ton of stress, especially with other conditions and expectations on him that I won’t go into. Basically, he has become a world-class jerk in the past two weeks for various reasons, and while I’m very worried about him (for both his sanity and his health), I really want to just go and punch him in the face and knock some sense into that supposedly genius head of his. And for the record, he offered to let me break his nose if I wanted to. I feel like I just might take him up on that offer.

See, here’s the thing. When he gets stressed, his emotions get frazzled, and he starts being snippy and rude. He starts accusing people of random things and then refuses to listen when they offer help. Then he starts ignoring people, generally trying to avoid them, and then tries really hard to mask it. The Mask works on other people; at least, most other people. However, it doesn't work all that well on me, because I know him so ridiculously well. He tries to pretend that he’s all right and fine and nothing is wrong, and usually I don’t push him, but I know when things are wrong with him. Quite honestly, it’s a little bit hurtful when he doesn't tell me, because that signifies that either he doesn't trust me enough or he is going through something really really bad that he should probably have help for. In any case, he’s an arrogant berk, and he’s taken up enough space here.

And as if all this isn't enough, I have a headache the size of the Local Group and then some. It’s not as if this is unexpected, really; I’m quite prone to massive headaches. Still, what an awful addition to an already awful week...

Feelings of Completely Unjustified Guilt

There are some times when you feel like the biggest jerk in the history of ever, even though things aren't your fault at all. See, I have this history class that I am taking, and there are tons of people who are failing it at present moment. There are smart people who've never gotten below a 94 in their life who are failing or just struggling to maintain a C or B. We get thrown headfirst into content, and for a lot of people, they just can’t keep up. They don’t know how to deal with the barrage of content that we get, and the fact that we get through thirty pages a week and have a test every other week. They don’t know how to write essays fast or they just can’t write. Currently, I’m one of the only people in the class who have an A. I am also one of two, maybe three, people who have a really high A (I think I have a 98.6 right now). So one of the most frequent questions I get asked is how I study and prepare for this class. The problem?

I can’t answer that question.

See, I don’t study for this class. Not even remotely. Usually, I do the homework on the day it is due. I never look back at my notes once I finish taking them in class. I don’t even really pay attention in class, because I’m folding origami or writing a story or doing calculus problems or studying physics. I don’t really read the textbook; I skim it over while I’m doing homework (usually, the homework is take notes on the textbook). I never plan my essays or think about what argument I have to make before I have to make it. I also hate history, so I feel no need to really make an effort at all.

If everyone “studied” the way I do, we’d have a class of F’s…and then me. And it’s not fair for them. It’s really not. I have a good friend who is in the same class I am, who is one of the smartest and most dedicated people I know. She has never had anything below a mid-A as an average in any of her classes before, and right now, she’s struggling just to maintain a low B. She studies the content every night for at least an hour or two, habitually going to bed past midnight just to study for this class. She rereads the textbook at least five or six times, takes the notes we take in class, retakes them, then rephrases them, makes flash cards for them, and generally goes way overboard with everything just to not fail. The first time she asked me what I did to study and I said, “Well…I don’t study...at all...”, she looked like she was going to slap me to Antarctica and back and break down crying.

I feel awful when I think about things like that. Everyone is really struggling with this class. A classmate of mine who is an amazing writer details every part of her essay two days before time and goes through every nuance of it to make it perfect…and I get a better score than her. Every time. Another classmate stresses about it greatly and goes to our teacher for advice and help at least once a week, and I still do better than her by an average of 20 points. Yet another very intelligent classmate makes timelines and notes by himself, asks questions, and generally just tries really hard, but I still get a higher score on him on tests and quizzes and analyses.

The class average is a C, and this is apparently perfectly normal and acceptable. The teacher says that if you make a B in this class, you are golden and above average. I’m the only kid he has who doesn't even listen in class (once again, origami, story, calc, phys). Everyone else hangs on to his every word just to be able to pass. My dedicated friend takes notes over and over again, and she stresses so much that she looks like she’s about to cry half the time.

It’s not fair to those people who slave and work night and day just to pass this class. It’s not fair that they have to work so incredibly hard to get a mediocre grade, and I just wing my way through and end up with a near-perfect grade. It’s not fair that they have to give up activities and time to study and do extra work, when I ignore this class in favour of other things I like to do. I make no effort at all, and I do so much better than everyone else. It makes me feel like an awful person, even though I know it’s really not my fault. Things just…come easily to me. Remembering things and writing things, taking pieces of information and analysing the crap out of them...it’s just not hard for me.

But every time I see my friend, and see how tired she is and how she constantly keeps studying her notes and flash cards, I feel guilty and awful and just generally bad. I try to help her, but I can’t do much, because, well, I don’t do anything in this class. I can’t help her study. All I can do is tell her all the things she missed and try to help her do better.

Also, in honour of two of my excellent friends, Happy National Coming Out Day!

I Am Very Nonplussed

  So you know that weird high school tradition of homecoming and football and weird things that some people actually care about? I was coerced into going. And the person I am going with? Apparently his family refers to me as "Princess Ariel".

...I have nothing to say about this. I am no princess.

And his older brother apparently calls me "Astrid". For anyone who knows me, what part of my name makes you think "Astrid"? 

   And of course, swimming and male drag suits. Enough said.

   In other news, I have got to start actually caring about school. And swimming. And violin. And basically everything else I do.