Ranting rambling thoughts
I'm staring at this essay--this jumbled mess of an essay with no structure, no point and no meaning--that's due tomorrow, and I'm stuck with the same thoughts that plague my head every day I wake up and go to school.
What the ever loving hell am I doing here?
I think about my siblings at home--people who dropped our or quit, people who got kicked out, people struggling to get a GED and force themselves to focus because of this need to have a highschool diploma, or just working in construction, in tobacco fields and smokeshops. I think about my sister: on welfare and disability, working as maids, raising other people's children; and the one sister who went through the school system, working with the community and secretly going through hundreds of dollars worth of perks behind everybody's back.
I think about all the people back home who can't afford school because they don't qualify for funding. The people who missed the cut-off dates for applications. The people who just plain don't want to go to school because they're afraid or they just don't care enough. And I think that I'll get my education, I'll go back and I'll help my community. The more of us who go to school and get an education, the more we can prove that any of us can, we just have to try harder and prove to ourselves that we can do anything.
And then I remember how much I hate my community because we discriminate against one another. We're too pale, we're too dark, we're doped up, suicidal, "crazy", we're too Christian, we're trying to be too damn traditional, we don't know what we're talking about, we're stuck up, we have no right to speak, we have no right to be on the reserve, we don't have any values, we don't know the language, we're snooty because we do, we speak the "wrong dialect", we're too rich, we're dirt poor, we're whores, sluts, abusive fucks, rapists...we're shallow, we're all drunks and addicts...and on and on and on.
I hate myself a little because I do it too. I stare at my skin and I look around at my family and I just get sad. I look at myself and laugh, knowing deep in my heart that I'd never be able to help my community when they don't even care about themselves. I don't "look native" enough--and I know that's a crock of shit, but my own damn community believes it.
And I think again: what's the point of being in school?
The education, obviously. But it bothers me so, so much that it's just so damn expensive to buy a book and pay a professor to talk to you about it. Then they grade your ability to soak it up, to regurgitate it back at them. They say so we learn? But how does forcing us to write essays and take exams and do projects and slides and such make us learn? Please, somebody tell me. Because I don't understand this part of school.
What's stopping somebody from coming in off the street and sitting down in a lecture absolutely free of charge? There's no way of knowing who's a student and who isn't in the larger classes. I could bring a friend to a lecture and nobody would bat an eye.
What's stopping people from going into a university bookstore and picking up a copy of a book in a field they want to know more about? The insane prices of the books aside, nobody asks for student ID when buying a book.
Why do we pay so much for aspects of a school we don't use? I'll never enter the school gymnasium or the pool, and yet, that portion of my tuition money is non-refundable.
There are so many things about the schooling system and greater society that I cannot comprehend, things that I despise with every piece of my being. But here I am.
And I don't know what I'm doing here at all. "Get an education, you'll regret it if you quit, I wish I had gone to school"...and I'm just sitting here. Staring out at the world with this intense urge to cry, because I don't know what I'm doing here, I don't have a clue where this will take me, and I'm not happy here at all.
I love what I'm learning about. But I don't know why I'm learning about it like this. I'm too afraid to go out and learn things first hand, but the second hand experience feels cheap and meaningless.
And at the end of the day, I just accept that I don't know anything. I never will known anything. And I just go through the motions and wait for some sort of explanation that I know isn't coming.
I hate the education system. I hate how it's exclusive to those who can afford it or who are lucky enough to have some other way of going; being funded, getting a loan, wining a scholarship...this hoity-toity club that so many people long for but just can't get because of so many problems in their lives that are out of their control. I hate how we pay people to make us feel worthless and stupid, how we pay people to judge our personal values, our ability to contribute to society and on what level. This illusion of superiority that it grants those who can make it through versus those who can't handle all the bullshit. I hate how people throw money at this institution and just dick around, because it's not their money, it's their parents' or some shit, while meanwhile, others work their fingers to the bone just to afford the goddamn money to apply.
I can't stand the education system. Every day I think about this and I stare at the work in front of me and wonder what the hell I'm doing, where I'm going, how is this helping anything?
And I don't know.
So I just bow my head, and try to scrape by, hoping like hell that one day, I'll have some sort of answer, but knowing I never will.
What the ever loving hell am I doing here?
I think about my siblings at home--people who dropped our or quit, people who got kicked out, people struggling to get a GED and force themselves to focus because of this need to have a highschool diploma, or just working in construction, in tobacco fields and smokeshops. I think about my sister: on welfare and disability, working as maids, raising other people's children; and the one sister who went through the school system, working with the community and secretly going through hundreds of dollars worth of perks behind everybody's back.
I think about all the people back home who can't afford school because they don't qualify for funding. The people who missed the cut-off dates for applications. The people who just plain don't want to go to school because they're afraid or they just don't care enough. And I think that I'll get my education, I'll go back and I'll help my community. The more of us who go to school and get an education, the more we can prove that any of us can, we just have to try harder and prove to ourselves that we can do anything.
And then I remember how much I hate my community because we discriminate against one another. We're too pale, we're too dark, we're doped up, suicidal, "crazy", we're too Christian, we're trying to be too damn traditional, we don't know what we're talking about, we're stuck up, we have no right to speak, we have no right to be on the reserve, we don't have any values, we don't know the language, we're snooty because we do, we speak the "wrong dialect", we're too rich, we're dirt poor, we're whores, sluts, abusive fucks, rapists...we're shallow, we're all drunks and addicts...and on and on and on.
I hate myself a little because I do it too. I stare at my skin and I look around at my family and I just get sad. I look at myself and laugh, knowing deep in my heart that I'd never be able to help my community when they don't even care about themselves. I don't "look native" enough--and I know that's a crock of shit, but my own damn community believes it.
And I think again: what's the point of being in school?
The education, obviously. But it bothers me so, so much that it's just so damn expensive to buy a book and pay a professor to talk to you about it. Then they grade your ability to soak it up, to regurgitate it back at them. They say so we learn? But how does forcing us to write essays and take exams and do projects and slides and such make us learn? Please, somebody tell me. Because I don't understand this part of school.
What's stopping somebody from coming in off the street and sitting down in a lecture absolutely free of charge? There's no way of knowing who's a student and who isn't in the larger classes. I could bring a friend to a lecture and nobody would bat an eye.
What's stopping people from going into a university bookstore and picking up a copy of a book in a field they want to know more about? The insane prices of the books aside, nobody asks for student ID when buying a book.
Why do we pay so much for aspects of a school we don't use? I'll never enter the school gymnasium or the pool, and yet, that portion of my tuition money is non-refundable.
There are so many things about the schooling system and greater society that I cannot comprehend, things that I despise with every piece of my being. But here I am.
And I don't know what I'm doing here at all. "Get an education, you'll regret it if you quit, I wish I had gone to school"...and I'm just sitting here. Staring out at the world with this intense urge to cry, because I don't know what I'm doing here, I don't have a clue where this will take me, and I'm not happy here at all.
I love what I'm learning about. But I don't know why I'm learning about it like this. I'm too afraid to go out and learn things first hand, but the second hand experience feels cheap and meaningless.
And at the end of the day, I just accept that I don't know anything. I never will known anything. And I just go through the motions and wait for some sort of explanation that I know isn't coming.
I hate the education system. I hate how it's exclusive to those who can afford it or who are lucky enough to have some other way of going; being funded, getting a loan, wining a scholarship...this hoity-toity club that so many people long for but just can't get because of so many problems in their lives that are out of their control. I hate how we pay people to make us feel worthless and stupid, how we pay people to judge our personal values, our ability to contribute to society and on what level. This illusion of superiority that it grants those who can make it through versus those who can't handle all the bullshit. I hate how people throw money at this institution and just dick around, because it's not their money, it's their parents' or some shit, while meanwhile, others work their fingers to the bone just to afford the goddamn money to apply.
I can't stand the education system. Every day I think about this and I stare at the work in front of me and wonder what the hell I'm doing, where I'm going, how is this helping anything?
And I don't know.
So I just bow my head, and try to scrape by, hoping like hell that one day, I'll have some sort of answer, but knowing I never will.