#41 (aka: Odd-kosh mah-gosh)

Today marks what is probably the strangest day, emotion-wise, for me. EVER. Curious? Here we go:

- My personal fitness class was just ending, and one of the head teachers comes up and tells one of my fellow senior classmates and I that we need to be in the auditorium for a class meeting (aka: lecture). So, we go in there, and right away I can tell that this is just like all the other "class meetings" we've had, where the administration are the ones talking, and we, the class, are sitting silently without an opportunity to submit any input. The meeting is about a couple of incidents that have happened in the last week or so that both the administration, as well as the majority of the class ourselves, are quite offended by. But, a big reason for our offense is that, frankly, the majority of us also don't know exactly what happened to require this meeting in the first place! That is how it usually goes with class meetings, though -- the people who know what's going on don't say anything, and those of us who don't just sit back and listen, hoping to understand but at the same time staying out of it so we don't become suspects. But today, I got angry. I finally became furious with the administration. I realized fully, This isn't right. Those of us who are innocent should not be held accountable for stuff we don't know anything about. Then I felt myself getting more worked-up than I knew I should in a crowded setting like the meeting, so I got myself out of there. I started to cry, and hyperventilate, and I got out of there. Needless to say, it was a difficult half-hour.

But then.......

- After the meeting, and after the seniors were permitted to have lunch (because, yeah, the meeting occured during the large part of what should have been our lunchtime), I went to chorus. I was expecting to be made even more pissed off, but it turned out to be really fun -- we laughed and sang (moderately, so we don't wreck our voices) and joyously carried on. I'm realizing now that my chorus teacher is not the reason that I go to chorus, because if she was, I'd be long out of that class by now. I've realized that the reason I keep going back there is because of the other high school chorus members. All eight of 'em. I was thinking about school today, looking around at my class during our meeting, and it came to me: There's a chance that I'll never see some of these people, some of which I've just started to become friends with, ever again. I need to be supportive and respectful of them, and I need to make as much of these last nineteen days of our schooling together as positive as it can be. And that's the same mentality I had going into chorus today, as well. Tonight will be our last concert together. It will be the last one I'll be in with them. It will be the last event where I can stand next to one or two of them and look at them as we take our bows and think, I'm so proud of you; of us. After tonight, as I watch future concerts and see them graduate, I'll still be proud. But, tonight is an end for us. And I'm going to give all of my voice to our songs. And I'm going to look into that crowd as they sit at their tables and in the bleachers as we sing, and I'm not going to think about my chorus teacher at all. I'm going to lead, and I'm going to follow, and I'm going to sing the songs like it's my last time, because it will be.