For those of you who aren't already aware of the "Save Our Neighborhood" situation with the lights, what's going on is that the school wants to add lights, and a new PA system and possibly a parking structure in order to have night games and practices. The neighborhood doesn't want that because of the noise and the loss in property values.
In most recent news, lights are not going to be at the Homecoming game this year, so it will have to be during the day. Many Pointers are up in arms and blaming it on the "Save Our Neighborhood" group.
This is how I respond.
Dear Save Our Neighborhood Assholes,
How dare you take away our precious night games? It’s our senior year, we are teenagers and we want to have some fun while the fun still lasts. I can’t believe you all took away our one existing night, the Homecoming game. We have horrible school spirit as it is, and now nobody’s going to come out for the day game. The lights were going to save everything, and now we can’t have it for even one night.
Let’s walk out. Let’s all meander around the neighborhood, show them just how reckless and noisy teenagers can be. Let’s give them something real to complain about. We’ll show them how to rally together and make something happen.
We only have four years of high school, and because of you people, we can’t make the most of it. Because all you hoity-toity home owners made the stupid decision to buy a house next a high school, what did you think was going to happen? This isn’t the 1970’s anymore. It’s not like the student population hasn’t grown at all, or that most of the kids don’t have to drive to school. It’s not like you have to deal with trying to find a parking space. It’s not like you’re missing out on having an enjoyable Friday night.
You all are just being myopic. Just concerned with yourselves, and your property value, and your quiet neighborhood. You just want to be able to go for walks with your little shih-tzus without all of our crappy old cars that we pay for and maintain ourselves lining your streets. Plus, it’s all the same people that are parking out front of your house all day 5 days a week anyway. Who cares if they are still there for another 3 hours or so after dark? And you can’t blame us for who comes to use the field on the weekends, that’s out of our control. By law they have to loan the field out, and the money that comes in from those renters will help pay for needs the school has and better our experiences. That’s right, I’m not just a stupid teenager, I went to the meetings.
You just can’t understand our struggle. Can’t understand what it’s like to be a high school student without night games. We’ve sacrificed for the neighborhood since the beginning, agreeing to have only one night game a year. We’ve really done you a favor. All we’re asking is for it to be returned.
Just let us have the lights. We are only in high school for four years, and it’s supposed to be the best years of our lives. And then we’re going to be gone and going off to college and it’s all going to be over. We’re going to be getting a job that we have to work really hard at to become successful and live the dream. We’re going to get married, and have a dog, and move into a nice quiet neighborhood in a nice house that we paid for and earned. We’re going to enjoy the rest of our lives with our kids and our grandkids, going on nice walks to unwind after a stressful day at work. And we’re going to be smart, and not move next to a high school with rowdy kids crowding our space, ya know?
And we are going to look back at our high school years and remember how much they sucked because we didn’t have school spirit, or a night game for our last Homecoming, or lights for our field, and we are going to remember that it’s all your faults because you just thought of yourselves, and your perfect little houses, and quiet neighborhood.
Insincerely,
The class of 2014
~Kat
P.S. I've done my research on satire.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Pop Ups
Every time I click on a link a big box gets in my way. It tells me "You won!" or "Download me!" A new tab will come up, and redirect me to a page I didn't ask to see. I have to sift through all the traps just to get here. My own blog is booby trapped.
And just like my laptop, I can't seem to get anything done without something popping up in my path. It tells me lies, that it will give me just what I need, just five more minutes, you can finish that later. Then five minutes turn to ten and the pop up has morphed into a whole new direction and before I know it, I'm caught up in a new program. The homework doesn't get done, the bed is unmade, the books are left lonely on the shelf. And then finally when the weight of tomorrow is too much for me to handle today, I peak out over the dirty clothes and pile of prayers left unsaid, searching for some kind of firewall or virus protection to keep my world from decaying into an abyss of pop-ups and opportunities missed.
Blink. Refresh. This is water.
Once upon a time there was a fish. His name was Larry. Larry lived on a desk, his neighbor was a mason jar of sketch pencils. He had a balanced three-flake-a-day diet. Sometimes he would splurge and eat a dust mote. Larry couldn't believe his life, he wasn't just any other fish in the sea. He got to live on a desk.
One day the hands came, like they do on a daily basis, and they scooped Larry up and put him in a bag. Larry was a very lucky fish, he had helpful hands to clean his bowl. But Larry never saw the bowl, or the sketch pencils and mason jar again. When the hands came back, he was taken to a new place, with new neighbors. He no longer lived in a bowl, but in a tank with a bright white light and a big black box that whirred and snarled and shot out bubbles at Larry. He had new neighbors, a clock radio that flashed blue symbols that he was sure could only mean something evil and he was scared. These were new waters.
New waters, but this is still water. The same water Larry's been swimming in his whole little fishy life. His gills still work. The hands still provide him with a balanced three-flake-a-day diet.
Larry's problem is that he can't trust himself. He doesn't see that this is water. He's been swimming the whole time, his gills have always worked, and they will continue to work even in the tank. There is nothing to be afraid of. Just keep swimmin'.
My computer's problem is that it doesn't have a proper virus protector, and the pop-ups are redirecting the direction the rainbow wheel has been spinning so diligently over.
My problem is that I can't easily face my problems. That is without turning myself into a fish or a computer. But I can choose my own reality. I'm not being bagged up and taken tank to tank by the hands. I'm not infected by a computer hacker outside of my control. I can stop all the pop-ups in my life, just as soon as I can hit the red X.
Discipline is just choosing between what you want now and what you want most...
Blink. Refresh. This is water.
~Kat
And just like my laptop, I can't seem to get anything done without something popping up in my path. It tells me lies, that it will give me just what I need, just five more minutes, you can finish that later. Then five minutes turn to ten and the pop up has morphed into a whole new direction and before I know it, I'm caught up in a new program. The homework doesn't get done, the bed is unmade, the books are left lonely on the shelf. And then finally when the weight of tomorrow is too much for me to handle today, I peak out over the dirty clothes and pile of prayers left unsaid, searching for some kind of firewall or virus protection to keep my world from decaying into an abyss of pop-ups and opportunities missed.
Blink. Refresh. This is water.
Once upon a time there was a fish. His name was Larry. Larry lived on a desk, his neighbor was a mason jar of sketch pencils. He had a balanced three-flake-a-day diet. Sometimes he would splurge and eat a dust mote. Larry couldn't believe his life, he wasn't just any other fish in the sea. He got to live on a desk.
One day the hands came, like they do on a daily basis, and they scooped Larry up and put him in a bag. Larry was a very lucky fish, he had helpful hands to clean his bowl. But Larry never saw the bowl, or the sketch pencils and mason jar again. When the hands came back, he was taken to a new place, with new neighbors. He no longer lived in a bowl, but in a tank with a bright white light and a big black box that whirred and snarled and shot out bubbles at Larry. He had new neighbors, a clock radio that flashed blue symbols that he was sure could only mean something evil and he was scared. These were new waters.
New waters, but this is still water. The same water Larry's been swimming in his whole little fishy life. His gills still work. The hands still provide him with a balanced three-flake-a-day diet.
Larry's problem is that he can't trust himself. He doesn't see that this is water. He's been swimming the whole time, his gills have always worked, and they will continue to work even in the tank. There is nothing to be afraid of. Just keep swimmin'.
My computer's problem is that it doesn't have a proper virus protector, and the pop-ups are redirecting the direction the rainbow wheel has been spinning so diligently over.
My problem is that I can't easily face my problems. That is without turning myself into a fish or a computer. But I can choose my own reality. I'm not being bagged up and taken tank to tank by the hands. I'm not infected by a computer hacker outside of my control. I can stop all the pop-ups in my life, just as soon as I can hit the red X.
Discipline is just choosing between what you want now and what you want most...
Blink. Refresh. This is water.
~Kat
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Head v. Heart
"Think of a time when your emotions (your heart) conflicted with what you know (your head)."
I immediately thought uh, boys. Then I quickly thought that was dumb, for obvious cliched reasons. Then I thought, well, college and majors. That's the big one for me right now. But as of right now, there is still no resolution between my math/science brain and my creative writing/music brain that experts say aren't supposed to live inside the same head. Or else. I'm quickly learning just how difficult that "or else" can be.
So in an effort to answer the prompt with a resolution and not just circuitous "I don't know, but maybe..." Here is how I have handled this conflict before, in a high stress environment, when a decision had to be made in the moment:
Before I was Kat Shaw. Before the blog, the self-confidence, self-identity, and forward thinking, I had to learn who "Kat Shaw" was. This was one of those learning experiences.
Poetry Club Symposium, sophomore year.
The spotlight was too bright. The room was too full. The pool of peers, and ultimate judges, was too deep and dark. The fire and brimstone performance before me, preaching about struggle and hurt I was too young and sophomoric to understand, left the stage smoldering. A clammy Katherine Shaw stepped up to share her little poem about "nice guys."
Two stanzas in I got burned. The words were clinging to my tongue, the electrical synapses in my brain were static. The next line wouldn't come for the life of me.
Head: nothing.
Heart: run.
So after playing the part of the deer in headlights for a few moments, that's just what I did. I ran backstage and frantically asked my fellow poets what the next line was to my poem. Of course, they didn't know. It was my poem.
Heart: You're done for. Prepare to be the Point Loma, not so poetic, pariah. I hope you have a bag for your head.
Head finally decided to join the conversation after being fashionably late.
Head: Go back out there. Take a deep breath. Ask the audience to start over. They got out of class for this, they won't say no.
With Heart kicking and screaming inside my chest, I stepped back out onto the stage. It was considerably cooler after being stagnant so long.
Miraculously, the world did not end.
But my poem did :)
~Kat
P.S. If you're having any internal conflicts like this, and your internal organs are conversational like mine are, I really found this prompt beneficial to look back on how I handled things in the past to help how I will handle them now. I still don't know whether to follow my heart or my head with something as big as my future career and the college to get me there, but I can assure you, you all will be the first to know when I do.
I immediately thought uh, boys. Then I quickly thought that was dumb, for obvious cliched reasons. Then I thought, well, college and majors. That's the big one for me right now. But as of right now, there is still no resolution between my math/science brain and my creative writing/music brain that experts say aren't supposed to live inside the same head. Or else. I'm quickly learning just how difficult that "or else" can be.
So in an effort to answer the prompt with a resolution and not just circuitous "I don't know, but maybe..." Here is how I have handled this conflict before, in a high stress environment, when a decision had to be made in the moment:
Before I was Kat Shaw. Before the blog, the self-confidence, self-identity, and forward thinking, I had to learn who "Kat Shaw" was. This was one of those learning experiences.
Poetry Club Symposium, sophomore year.
The spotlight was too bright. The room was too full. The pool of peers, and ultimate judges, was too deep and dark. The fire and brimstone performance before me, preaching about struggle and hurt I was too young and sophomoric to understand, left the stage smoldering. A clammy Katherine Shaw stepped up to share her little poem about "nice guys."
Two stanzas in I got burned. The words were clinging to my tongue, the electrical synapses in my brain were static. The next line wouldn't come for the life of me.
Head: nothing.
Heart: run.
So after playing the part of the deer in headlights for a few moments, that's just what I did. I ran backstage and frantically asked my fellow poets what the next line was to my poem. Of course, they didn't know. It was my poem.
Heart: You're done for. Prepare to be the Point Loma, not so poetic, pariah. I hope you have a bag for your head.
Head finally decided to join the conversation after being fashionably late.
Head: Go back out there. Take a deep breath. Ask the audience to start over. They got out of class for this, they won't say no.
With Heart kicking and screaming inside my chest, I stepped back out onto the stage. It was considerably cooler after being stagnant so long.
Miraculously, the world did not end.
But my poem did :)
~Kat
P.S. If you're having any internal conflicts like this, and your internal organs are conversational like mine are, I really found this prompt beneficial to look back on how I handled things in the past to help how I will handle them now. I still don't know whether to follow my heart or my head with something as big as my future career and the college to get me there, but I can assure you, you all will be the first to know when I do.
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