Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

As sure as life itself, there was school to punish them for living. I have found myself having graduated from a living hell, to tell the story today. Earlier, I had posted my perspective on school in life... here it is:

From topic: "School D:" at the Black Roses Guild.

School... let's see...

I hated school for my 1 ~ 5th grade years. I hated the people there, and those people who would pick on me. I would be driven every day, and every day I would hold on to every door frame I could get my hands on. It took 3 people every day to pull me. I remember a few time in where people had to literally carry me into the building while I struggled to get away. And the time I jumped onto the back on my mom's car and held tight as she began to drive away... She let me back in, but It was like that almost every day...

In 6th grade, I had a major problem: My Grandma had moved in with us... what a b*tch. I am still traumatized by this. I was still very weary of school during this year, as I still hated being forced into a situation in which I had to go though 8 hours of evil... But, this year was different. During the first day, I was pulled into a meeting and I was told I would be placed into a "program" called BMC. They told me it would help me get good grades... they told me it would help me cope with school... They never mentioned what it really was. BMC: Behavior Management Classroom, or more commonly known as "Beat My Child". As part of this "program", I was allowed to leave class to go to the BMC classroom and study or take a test, I could go there to ask for help... right. What the teachers neglected to mention the torture that you were to go though as a result of having this. The BMC classroom consisted of 3 very large teachers, and 22 very small cubicles. Each student was assigned a cubicle, and was to be there every time they entered.. "Not so bad", you might think... it gets worse. Once you entered that classroom, you weren't getting out... The "teachers" would often pull all the BMC students out of class and force them into the classroom to perform meaningless tasks like "Write a 1000 word essay on why you are here"... Why was I there? I wasn't a bad student, I respected the teachers... I just didn't do my homework all the time. And if that wasn't bad enough, they gave us a time frame of 20 minutes to perform this, and we were punished if ANY of the 22 of us didn't get it done... and it was simply trashed at the end. The BMC program required us to get to school 3 hours early to, again, do meaningless tasks and get punished for merely existing. This is only the beginning. The BMC classroom had an obstacle course outside the trailer-type building that the room was. Every day for hours on end we would be subjected to "Bear Crawl" though this course. The first person that completed it would only have to do it 2 more times, second would be 4 more times, etc. I, being the largest person there always got 22nd place... you do the math. We would be forced to do leg lifts, in which you lay on your back and lift your legs 15 degrees off the floor and hold it for the amount of time specified (which was in most cases, an hour). If for any reason anyone couldn't hold out, the cycle began again for the entire class. As you can imaging, this class throughly pissed everyone off... but we couldn't do anything about it. Punishment for any rebellious action what-so-ever was to be sat on, then you were sent into a full day of BMC. Yeah, people were sat on... tiny 6th graders where sat on by teachers... Not just any teachers, these people were short of having to use a cane to remain standing. Now, this is only the part of the system that I haven't blocked out of my mind... as a result of this classroom, I gained nearly 60 pounds that year and slipped into depression. Now, I mentioned that my grandma was living with us at the beginning of this paragraph and I haven't really said anything about that yet. My Grandma was one of the worst people in the world, and probably still is. She was torture at home after torture at BMC. She demanded everything to remain perfectly spotless, she demanded everything get done FOR her even though she got payed for babysitting us. We were to do things we couldn't nor had ever done by ourselves, including Steam Cleaning the rug, Doing the dishes (I was 12 at the time), washing HER clothing by hand, changing the channel for her until she found something she liked though she had the remote next to her and a guide on the TV, dusting the fans, making EVERYONE'S beds, and anything that she wanted done. This would continue till 11:00 PM and I would wake up for BMC at 5:00 AM. She had turned us into her slaves. And to make our lives more miserable, Grandma despised my mom in general, and kept yelling at her "You shouldn't have a job, you should stay home with the kids" (this way she wouldn't have to prevent us from hanging ourselves. The worst was not over yet. Due to the fact that Grandma was my dad's mom, he always agreed with her... this lead to fighting and eventually the separation. Indeed my 6th grade year was the worst in my life.

In 7th grade, I thought I was free... I was almost wrong. The 1st day of school, I was in my new classroom talking to a new friend (he was the 1st friend I had made in 3 years), then the teacher says "Adam, I need you to go to the BMC classroom. They are pulling all the BMC students out of class for Warm-up". OMFG... I went obediently as I was instructed, and was thrown into a line. "Sit down and Shut Up" demanded the BMC teacher. After all the students were there and the teacher scolded them, we were instructed to stand and place our hands behind our heads and turn against the wall... Warm up had begun. We stood for half an hour facing that wall, and I almost got out of line and punched the teacher. I didn't however. After our wall-face event, we were sent to the obstacle course. Again, I was last, and again I faced the horrors of being last. After this, we were to write a 1000 word essay on what we had done today, and why it makes us be in the class. WTF? The day continued as such. When I got home, and during the endless tasks Grandma demanded us us, I called my Mom. I thoroghly explained that I was again placed into BMC, my mom told me she would talk with the school board. Sure enough, after a week of BMC, I was free. I still fought a little when being sent to school, and I found myself still scarred for life. My grandma called the cops repeatedly to get me to school in order to avoid doing anything herself, and I have never forgiven her. I now have "Truancy" on a police record several times, and I will have it forever.

In 8th grade, I found myself hopeless and not fight the good fight anymore, I had accepted School as my destiny. I dragged on though the year, completely hopeless and felt as if the life had been taken out of me... I was depressed. I found myself not eating, and I was always asleep. I never did any of my work, and as such, I found myself in a situation. At the end of my 8th grade year, I found that I had failed my english class for the year, and I was to repeat the grade. I slept my summer away, and did nothing. (I did lose the weight I got my 6th grade year though). The next year, the year I was to be a high-schooler, I found myself walking the halls of the middle school again nearly collapsing on myself. I attended my classes, and I felt the world was against me. A ray of hope found it's way into my life on Friday of that week. I was pulled out of my English class in the middle by an unfamiliar teacher... She had informed me that she had been keeping track of me for quite some time, and that she had pulled a few stings. "What do you mean?" I asked. "It means," she replied, "That I want you to go to the high school Monday, and go to your first class" as she handed over a schedule. At that moment, it was if the world had been lifted off my sholders. I was so overjoyed, I hugged her and smiled for the 1st time in over a year.

9th grade. I was never so happy to go to school. I went without a fight, without a grunt, without a word against the glorious building. I found myself in a study hall classroom in where I made a few new friends. The teacher was as laid back as any I had ever seen, and she even allowed us to bring our Gameboys to school. It's amazing how one thing can lead to the other, and the thing that lead to my friendships was the Pokémon games. I played it all the time on my Gameboy, and it was only when people were talking about it in a group at the same table as me that I realized that this group had something in common with me. The moment that they made a mistake with the element of one of these monsters was the key time that allowed me to find myself about to make a good deal more people than I ever thought could be my friends. I chimed in that they were wrong, and explained the answer... they were surprised to learn that I, too, played the game. So, from that point forward, I had friends... And to make things better, They introduced me to a group of people just like me. Strangely enough, it also had the girl I had a crush on since the 7th grade... I never made a move, as she had a BF already, and I didn't want to take that away from her. Now, I had a group of at least 15 friends, all sharing the interests I did, and all knew exactly what I was talking about. This reigned as one of the greatest years of my life.

That summer, we moved.

10th grade was a milestone for me, as I again had managed to chime in to a conversation that would change my life. I was sitting at the table in the cafeteria that I always sat at on the 3rd day of school, and I overheard a conversation about girlfriends and boyfriends and who did what during a relationship, and what they look for in a person... Um, yeah. Anyhow, as they paused for a moment, I piped up "I've never had a Girlfriend before." This must have stuck a chord, as a girl whom I didn't know approached me. "Would you like to be my boyfriend?" she asked. "Sure," I quickly replied. I didn't know her name, or what she was like, but I had a girlfriend now. I managed to catch her name just before the bell rung to go to class... This would change my life forever. She and I hung out a lot, and I being new to the whole relationship thing was stumped. She and I never really had much of a spark, but she and I became great friends. We didn't work as a couple, so we decided to break up... no feelings were hurt, and we now had a great friendship. Thus this ended my Sophomore year.

11th grade was also interesting. The school issue was long gone, and I now came just to be with friends. My friend/ex (I will now refer to as "TK" wink had decided to introduce me to a few of her new-found friends. I met a few, found some not very polite, but made some friends myself. One of TK's friends, I found interesting and after a while of friendship, I asked her out. Unfortunately, She and I didn't click, so we broke up. Not too much to go into detail there. Really, when I think about it, This year was rather uneventful... hm.

Now, my senior year held something great, a great scare, and One of the biggest days of my life. TK had found a enemy-gone-friend from 3 years ago had come back to this school. Why they fought years ago, they had forgotten... unfortunately it was teetering on the edge of tolerance. TK introduced me to her friend, and I talked to her a bit... After a month of knowing her, I knew I found someone that I was destined to be with. So, I asked her out... we are still going out to this day. This friendship TK found soon became a swinging ship. One day, she would be friendly towards my GF, and other days she would be at all out war. Often times I would have to separate the two girls to prevent them from killing each other, and after a class they shared, they would be joking around and having fun... sweatdrop What a weird life they lived. This continued throughout the year. The Great scare I was talking about came on the last day of the year. If found myself looking though my papers and trying to figure my grades too late. I talked to each teacher, and found my grades passing, until I came to Economics. I knew I was doing horrible in that class since day one. I had recently turned in a lot of missing work in hopes to bring my grade to a 70, but when I talked to her, I found that I had a 69... I a panic, I asked her "Did you grade all my papers?" She replied with a solemn nod. I was on the verge of breaking down crying in front of her class, but then I noticed a paper in the turn-in basket. I looked inside and saw it was mine... I turned to my teacher and said, "You missed one." I was convinced that one paper couldn't bring me up an entire grade point for the year. I handed her the paper, and he put the grade into the computer... it was just enough to make my pass for the year... omfg... I nearly had a heart attack at that point... the only thing I managed to sputter out was "Thank you", and I left the room. The Next day, I found myself at graduation practice, getting my picture taken, and almost dying of excitement. On graduation day, I followed the instruction as given at practice, and went though flawlessly. This was one of the most momentous days of my life. I celebrated by going to my GF's house and having fun at the graduation party she threw. It was all good, and had never, and will never leave my memories.

So, yes, I did once indeed hate school, but I came to accept it... even after the 6th grade year that has given me a reason to kill some people. It's a matter of how you look at it... I found my point of view.