Tomorrow I Graduate

As a closing assignment, my AP lit teacher had everyone write a graduation speech and present it to the class. I didn't end up trying out, but I'm proud of it, so I'll post it here for you to enjoy. There's some rah-rah-go silverwolves stuff that doesn't apply to you, but bear with me.

Graduation Speech

            Senior year is an odd stretch of life because we're supposed to live in three times simultaneously.  The past. We're still wallowing in a lot of the same ruts we fell into sophomore year. But it's not all bad-we're also reliving our greatest hits. There are times I'm walking across the Commons, slipping in between these scrawny girls who could fit into lockers and boys who could pass as teachers if the mood strikes them, nothing on my mind but getting out to my car before the parking lot gets congested, and then it hits me. I have a car. Shouldn't I be, like, eleven now?

            Then there's the present. Our last chance to do everything is now. Join a club, go to prom, write crappy chemistry essays at three A.M. But while we're trying to do all that, we've got college applications and scholarships and trying to find jobs.

            And now for the big one. The future. All our lives, we've been told that we don't live in the real world. We've said it ourselves-"Nobody uses quadratics in the real world. What's the point of math if the most we do after high school is calculating a tip?" But to tell you the truth, you're already living real lives. Adolescence is a saga, not the prologue to the rest of your life. The world you live in right now is no less valid because you're a teenager. Tomorrow looks a lot like today. The problems and passions you have at eighteen are things you'll carry with you for the rest of your life. So are the people. More than half of Americans age twenty five or older live within fifty miles of their birthplace. So sorry, you probably are going to run into your ex and backstabbing friends.

            In the media, high school is either this fluffy, happy experience where we float from football games to prom night, or a gritty day-by-day struggle. If I've learned anything in high school, it's that no life is all one thing. Maybe you'll remember high school for the year you walked through the valley of the shadow of death, or maybe you'll only recall your highlights reel from the next year, but both happened. You can't help clinging to the past. Nostalgia will never bring your best days back, but reminiscing over your good times will do more for you than reliving your worst moments over and over again. I said the passions and problems you have in high school will stay with you for the rest of your life. That's true, but it's also true that you are also the master of your own memory. You don't get to choose everything that happens in your life but you decide which pieces to hold onto. So what do you want to be? There are different truths for different people. Do you want to move forward and laugh in the face of the future? Do you want to hold onto the days where you watched your world burn down around you, because those flames turned out to be the refiner's fire and you rose like a phoenix from the ashes? Find your right answer and learn to live with it.

            I've lived in Riverton since I was born. I've known some of you since kindergarten, and some of you I never got to know at all. Some of you have full ride scholarships. Some of you barely scraped by and you see no future beyond the entry level job you have now. But that doesn't matter. Not yet. You graduated high school and that is something no one will ever be able to take away from you. It was hard for you, and it was hard for all the supposedly perfect people you think surround you. Everyone has an invisible struggle.

            When you were six, adults asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up, and you had a different answer every week. Astronaut! Ballerina! President! When you were twelve, you had more "grown up" answers. Dentist! Librarian! Doctor-lawyer-engineer! Then you're sixteen, and you're supposed to have this bullet point list of how you're going to get your perfect job, pay off your student loans, and save for retirement all at the same time. Then you ditch it two years later because you're eighteen, on the threshold of adulthood, and it's finally dawned on you that you have no idea where you're going. Most of us won't live out our childhood dreams. We'll be marketing directors and human resource managers instead of astronaut ballerinas. But I've got news for you: you will not be a job when you grow up. You will do a job.  Life is so much more than just a career.

            You will do different things over the course of your life. Missionary, college student, working man, mother-but the only thing you will ever be is yourself, and high school prepared you for that better than you think. You've learned to feel comfortable in your own skin. You've learned to march to your own beat while fitting into the rhythms of life. You've learned to "keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you." You've learned to be the hero of your own story.

            Or maybe you haven't yet, and that's just fine, because your twenties are for figuring life out, and you're not even there yet. Don't let anyone tell you life is short. Living is the longest thing you'll ever do.

            The historian Bernad Berenson said, "I would, if I could, stand on a busy corner, hat in hand, and beg people throw me their wasted hours." Time is worth far more than money. The clock's still ticking but the time's not up. You've got a hundred years to live, or maybe less, doesn't matter, because you live life in the present tense.

            You probably think you've accomplished so much less in your high school life than everybody around you. But there are six hundred and fifty people around you thinking the exact same thing. I can't tell you how many times I've fallen into that trap, and I'm an AP student, Sterling Scholar, and I joined somewhere between six and nine extracurriculars this year. I've lost count. However you've measured your life in the past, I want you to look back and think about what you have done, and how much is still left to do. Wherever you go from now, whoever you decide to be, do something with your life. Raise a child, write a novel, fight a battle, let the world know you were here-but don't spend so much time in the world that you forget how to be you. It's a tricky balance, but you'll find it eventually.

            Everyone talks about graduation like it's the end of an era. False. Remember that theme song they piped through the hallways every single day sophomore year? It's time to begin, isn't it? You've come so far and you'll go farther still. You did it, Silverwolves. So hold your head up and walk like you know what you're worth. You conquered high school-you can do anything. 

The Young Competents

Last year my piano teacher had me learn a Mozart piece. I spent weeks and weeks trying to pass it off. Finally she gave me that little gray check in the top left corner. As she did, she glanced at the date. "This is one of Mozart's first pieces," she said. "He wrote it when he was five."
Five?
Yes, somewhere in my eight years of piano education, I'd learned that Mozart started composing at the age I was chewing off pencil erasers. The facts were securely filed away in a back corner of my brain. I knew, roughly, when Mozart was a child, and the date was there for me all those months. But somehow I never bothered to put two and two together. Once she laid it out for me, I felt this sudden surge of anger. How dare he write something that I couldn't play at more than three times his age.
And then I remembered I'm not Mozart.
He was put on this earth to compose music. I was put on this earth to do other things. He was simply born with an extra shot of talent and put it to use when he was in his early years. Still, I can't help feeling jealous when I hear stories like his.
Recently I read an article about Isabella Rose Taylor, age fourteen, a fashion designer who got her creations in Nordstroms last year.

Then I switched tabs and scrolled through my twitter feed, reading the latest from Abigail Harrison. She's a NASA space ambassador, inspirational speaker, aspiring Mars astronaut, and seventeen year old.

Then I felt a little less competent. I'm eighteen. Here are three different people. two of them my contemporaries, who have done more at a younger age. 

I just finished up an internship with a local publishing company. I got it because I knew someone who knew someone, and that made me feel less competent than anyone who hauls themselves up by their own bootstraps and finds a position on their own. Still, I love it because I got to gain actual experience in the publishing industry. Another blessing came this Saturday: a free ticket to Storymakers, one of the major Utah writing conferences. I got to speak face-to-face with bestselling authors like Brandson Sanderson, Brandon Mull, and James Dashner. Even better, I got to run into smaller authors I've met at other conferences and signings.

It was my first "adult" conference and I felt like the odd one out for most of the day. I sat back and soaked up information in the beginning. I wasn't as famous and talented and competent as the people around me, but I could be a sponge. A good sponge. 

Then I ran into author David Farland at a signing table. I hadn't read any of his work, but I'd heard his name before, so I started chatting.

"Have I seen you before?" he asked.

"I don't think I've met you," I said. There were plenty of authors I'd run into before. It's a good thing they were all wearing nametags. "I'm not good at recognizing faces," I told him. 

"Don't feel bad," he said. He then proceeded to explain that everyone has a bad facial recognition memory-at least compared to him. "I was recruited by the CIA when I was sixteen."

They saw his standardized test results and came to recruit him. He was then one of six people in the US with that memory capacity who didn't suffer from audiovisual hallucinations. He could leave behind math class and work for the government, but in order to do that, he had to move to Virginia. He chose to stay in Utah. Some good came of it, though. When he joined the military five years later he was already cleared to work in intelligence.

Want to know how bad my memory is? When I was twelve, I babysat for a family that lives one street away. I knew the mom and some of the kids. My first day sitting for them, the mom walked me around the house, explaining bedtimes and what the kids weren't allowed to touch. The dad followed but my focus was on her. About ten minutes after they left, a strange man approached the door and looked through the glass. I prepared to usher the kids back, answer the door myself, and tell him the parents weren't home. But before I could, one of them opened it himself. It was their dad, and he'd forgotten his wallet.

I have a hard time with a lot of things, like following conversations and understanding how the steps of a project fit together. But memory's always been a hard blow. My whole life I've craved competence. Not knowledge or luck or talent. Competence, that combination of skill and experience. Now someone was sitting in front of me who, at age sixteen, had the competence a couch critic would call unrealistic for a teenager. But it wasn't a novel, it was his life story. 

Then David told me something that changed the way I view life: he's horrible with names. He explained the science behind it, how the part of his brain that handles audiovisual memory is so big, it crowds out the name department. I thought of how many nametags I'd recognized that day alone, how one author gave me a free copy of her book just because I mentioned we'd met at a signing back in December.

"I'm not really good at remembering anything." I said. "Except names." Words in general, actually. I've always done better in English and history because they're story based. This year I discovered that extends to lyrics. In choir, I either ditch sheet music before everybody else does or keep it around just for notes and vocal parts. I do have degrees of competence. But I'm so busy looking at the incompetent parts of my life that I forget to notice them.

As that day went on, I found another reason to feel competent: I was the youngest person in all my classes. Some people asked if I was thirteen and if I was "interested in writing too" while some asked if I was a published author or a full editor. My age isn't a handicap. It's a nod to how far I've come in less time than many of the people there. 

So maybe I'm not an astronaut of a composer. Maybe the CIA and the runway aren't calling my name. But I am good at something and I'm taking baby steps towards success. And here's the thing: I believe everyone is. We're all young competents, just in different ways. 

 

Miss? Sweetie? Kiddo?

Two days ago I went to Zupas alone. It was crowded, like any restaurant at six o' clock on a Saturday night. I was forced to stand a little closer to the people in line with me than I normally like. But then, I wasn't standing any closer to my linemates than anyone else was with theirs. When the group ahead of me finished ordering, the server passed over me and spoke to the adults standing behind me.
"What can I get for you guys?"
Okay, I thought. Apparently I look young enough to need adult supervision before I buy soup.
At first I stepped back, thinking I'd let the adults order their food and place mine when the server silently noticed her error. But she had to realize it whether I said anything or not, so I spoke up.
"I'm not with them. I'm paying alone."
So I ordered my sandwich, slid down, and got a soup to go with it. But this time, when the server turned to me, she said, "Do you want onion crisps on that, miss?"
Miss? Not sweetie? Not kid? That's what I got for years. That's what I got a few months ago. That's what I still get, depending on the stores I go into.
This happens to me all the time when I'm out shopping with my friends. One cashier says "What do you kids want?" and the one in the next store over asks, "How can I help you ladies today?"
Am I a lady or a kid? I don't know how much of this is due to my size, my age, the fact that I'm standing on a threshold between childhood and adulthood. I don't know how much of it I'll get in the future. I've heard tales of young wives who tell door-to-door salespeople "I'm the mommy" when asked to fetch their parents.
The dissonance is disconcerting. I'd just like to know what side I fall on so I know how to walk into a store. Do I have to hold my head high, so the cashier knows I actually have money and she should treat me like I intend to spend it? Or can I just slouch up to the counter and slap down some bills? There's a difference in your bearing, conscious or unconscious, whenever you walk into a store as an unaccompanied teenager. It depends on so many things-how you're dressed, the number of friends you're with, whether you're carrying a purse or just a debit card in your back pocket, what you're buying-and, of course, the mindset of the guy behind the counter. After spending so many years marking cashier reactions, I've come to the conclusion that it has less to do with all of those than the last. If two servers in the same establishment serving the same customer can come to differing conclusions, then I don't doubt that I'm right.

Windows Down

Last week, my school's choirs were supposed to travel down to another high school in two buses for our regional competition. The second bus never showed up, so our director said, "Smaller choirs, you've had transportation release forms. Just drive."
I had a car, and three of my friends didn't, so I ended up being the taxicab for that afternoon.
So I drove.
On a freeway.
In construction.
During rush hour.
With three choir girls belting off-key renditions of whatever's blasting on the radio even though they've just proven themselves capable of carrying a tune.
But you know what? I was fine with it. Because I'm doing an internship that entails driving through that same stretch on construction several times a week. I rolled down the windows, sang along with them, and even drank a smoothie for part of the way. For me, it was a party. When  I related the story to a friend the next day, she had this look of horror on her face. A lot of people wouldn't be able to stand the chaos. I know college-bound seniors who are still terrified of freeway driving. I know I was back in the fall when I first drove sans adult supervision.
When I took my internship, I did it because
1) I got to drop my math class
2) It's a stepping stone to my dream career
But as a side effect, I gained confidence and competence.

While I was singing onstage, I thought of all the experiences I've had with choir, and how I wish, despite all the drama, that I'd started sooner. I decided if I had a time machine, I'd go back and tell Sophomore Self to drop newspaper, because I hated everyone in that class except that one Goth kid and the Italian foreign exchange student who never talked. That way I could take choir instead. But if I hadn't taken newspaper, I wouldn't have transferred into foods, the only other class available, and met my friend Marina. Marina was one of those seniors who just radiated confidence down upon little sophomores like me. She talked up choir, so when registration came around, I signed up for it.
Lots of people seem to think that life choices have simple, cause-effect ramifications. But you can't just hit one pool ball and think you know where everything's headed. From the way career counselors talk, you think you need to plan out your entire life by eighth grade and stick to it through grad school. Actually, life is so much more than growing up, up growing up is so much more than what you'll do when you grow up. Do, not be.
I'm going over college housing registration in the other tab. Again. Because my first choice didn't end up being a permanent choice. Life is so much more than what you expect out of it, but don't let it hold you back. Just hit a ball and see what you get to shoot at next.

 

Yet Another Problem with Filtering

Since the minute I let it out of my hands on the day I got it, my phone hasn't had a browser. Then I went to San Francisco for a school choir trip and my dad reinstalled it in case I got stranded in the middle of the city and needed to look up directions. It wasn't complete freedom, however.
In addition to blocking all websites it considers inappropriate, it restricts me from using certain search terms. For example, a friend and I got into a discussion about the gay population of San Francisco, so I tried to look up statistics. "Gay population statistics San Francisco" gives me a restricted screen, but "San Francisco population statistics" comes up just fine.
A few days after I got back, a friend sent me a link to a website that had the word "women" in the name. The browser wouldn't let me open it, but I thought it was just one more blocked site. The filter blocked all blogs and most personal websites.
Then I tried googling the word woman and got this.

The words girl and female were also blocked.


Here's what happens if I google the word man.

I can only assume the filter thinks the only women on the Internet are porn stars.
I can look up the name of a specific woman (including porn stars) but I can't search for a woman if I don't know her name. So if I want to look up the lady who invented fire escapes, I need to know that her name is Anna Connelly, and if I knew that I wouldn't be googling her. If I want to look up a news story about a local woman, I have to google key words about the story and hope one of the results won't be blocked for having a woman in it.

What I get for similar searches about men

It disturbs me that someone would make a filter that restricts women. So I went to my dad and asked him to remove the filter. He told me I was entitled and spoiled for wanting unrestricted Internet, I can't ask him to make changes to it because I live under his roof, and I should be grateful that I have a browser at all.
I love my dad, he's a great parent, but this post can't be about that. This happened on a Sunday and my getaway options were limited, so I went to church in a different neighborhood than my family. When I came home three hours later I was finally able to talk them my parents into a modified filter.
I can now look for women and read my own blog. Still, it's the principle of the thing. Once they have their own house, their own money, their own rules, adults forget what it's like to be crushed by someone else's will. It's not I can't look up women. It's that I'm considered entitled for wanting to do so and I have no bargaining chips. The only method to get what I want is a bowed head, a hushed tongue, and utter submission. Then I have to pray they're sympathetic.
They tell me I can come to them and they'll add any website I want to access onto the filter's "approved sites" list. This is handy for some websites I want to view every day, but sometimes I need something in the moment and I'll only google it once.

There are no perfect filters. Every filter out there blocks more and less than it should. Any phone user with the tech savvy of an eleven year old can find a way to get porn around them-because porn is the only thing worth blocking, I don't honestly think anyone can be damaged by reading a history site about Queen Victoria.
Putting a filter on a phone is like putting a bandaid on a paper cut. It makes you feel better knowing it's there, but its presence doesn't do much.

Stop

When a kid jaywalks while I'm driving, I veer out of their way, toss a smile, and hope they get where they're going. When an adult jaywalks? I kind of want to kill them. Oh, come on. You've felt the same. It's very straightforward. Kids, mercy. Adults, malice. The only time my conscience comes into conflict is when I see kids and adults jaywalking at the same time.

You know, as in parents.

Last year, my friend Ashlin needed to show up early at the middle school for a service project. My high school's right down the street and I already needed to go down that road at that time, so I dropped her off. Between our two lovely schools is an elementary. The thing about elementary schools is they start later than both middle and high schools. On my way back, I saw a mother and a little boy with a backpack standing patiently in the middle of the road. She was holding his hand. With three schools and a busy intersection on one road, we've got a ridiculous amount of crosswalks and a streetbridge. But no, here is his mom, leading him by the hand across multiple lanes of traffic.

Today I was cruising down the street on my way to work, nothing but green lights ahead, and here are two women standing in the yellow lane. One of them had a toddler in her arms. They were nowhere near a crosswalk or street corner and must've decided to cross it directly rather than look for a better place.
Even though I had a green light, I stopped, waiting to see if they would cross, but they didn't until I finally started moving. What bothered me wasn't that they were in my way, but that they thought it was okay to carry a toddler through several lanes of traffic.
I live on a very slow street. We're the last stretch of civilization before my suburban neighborhood gives way to cattails and thorn trees. There's no through traffic. Still, my mom always taught me to look both ways and never cross in the middle of a busy road. Most parents do that, I think. I know a seventeen month old baby who will play right up to the edge of her lawn, say "street", and stop at the curb. It's universally accepted that young children shouldn't cross streets-unaccompanied.
Was that toddler safer with two women guarding him than he would've been alone? Yes, but he's learning a horrible lesson. There's this idea that nothing is wrong for children if they're supervised. That an edgy movie won't affect them if a parent's sitting on the next cushion over. But every competent parent I know teaches by example, not by throwing out hypocritical rules.

Stare Straight Ahead

I've mentioned my religion a few times on this blog. Today I'll have to dive deeper to give a little context. I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, popularly known as Mormons. Twice a year, church leaders address the fifteen million worldwide members from a conference center in Salt Lake City via Internet, radio, TV, and satellite transmission. The conference center itself seats over twenty thousand and is the largest non-stadium assembly building in the United States.

Listeners in the conference center cast a sustaining vote

Mormons don't have paid clergy. Members are called to serve in church offices. Every calling in the church, from the twelve year old boy who's a secretary over all the other twelve year old boys in his class, to the prophet and church president, is "sustained" by church members. How this works is the church leader present will state the person's name, what office they're been called to, and ask the entire congregation raise their right hand in support.
After that, the leader asks the congregation if any of them are opposed. Any who is supposed to manifest "by the same sign." AKA raising their right hand. So if you you know that twelve year old boy has been smoking behind the church and is unfit to serve as secretary, you'd raise your right hand and quietly talk to the leader after the service. Though this is called a sustaining vote, we're not really voting the person into an office. By raising our hands we're showing them we will support them in their calling. Raising a hand in opposition is like crying "I object" at a wedding and happens about as often.
This Saturday was the spring conference session. Nine members of a group called Any Opposed showed up after receiving donated tickets, took their seats, and watched second counselor Dieter F. Uchtdorf read off the names of various church leaders. When asked for opposing votes, most of the group stood up and shouted "Opposed!"
Breaking protocol.
In front of twenty thousand people.
While fifteen million watched abroad.
Uchtdorf knew they were coming-they have a website and ask for donations, so it wasn't exactly a secret-so he carried on. The group shouted "Opposed!" twice more (though their numbers dwindled each time) despite specific reminders to manifest their opinion "by the same sign". At this point, they expected to be escorted out, but the session proceeded as normal. So they sat there, feeling and looking stupid, until it ended two hours later. Here's a video of the first two oppositions:

Mormon social media and the outside world lit up. But when interviewed, Any Opposed leaders declined to comment. So, basically, they wanted their voices to be heard, but once they were they didn't have anything to say. This reminds me of a Not Always Right post about a man who drove up to a bookstore, told the cashier "No one likes books anymore", and walked out.
The video is from the official church recording that was broadcast across the globe. The other fifteen million members applauded Uchtdorf for carrying on so calmly. But I have a different hero.

This is a cell phone camera video taken by a participant. Uchtdorf and the other leaders are far off blurs. In the foreground, we see a blonde girl who looks to be on the lower end of the teen spectrum. At the first cry, she glances halfway over her shoulder, but doesn't look directly into the camera. She doesn't know she's being filmed. She knows the opposed are there, but in the next round, she calmly raises her hand. When they cry out once more, she doesn't bother. She stares straight ahead.
Twitter exploded minutes after. News media clamored for interviews. But here she is, in the heat of the moment, in the eye of the storm, and she doesn't even turn around.
If you've been following my blog for a while, you know I can be a bit of a watchdog and an oppression seeker. I rarely read articles from sources I actually agree with. I live for those moments when I get riled up and pound out fiery retorts. I have a stutter that gets worse in heated conversations, so in my personal life, I practice out arguments for confrontations that might happen. When they finally crop up, I'm well prepared.
In an age where everyone is clamoring to be heard, this girl is an example to me. She knows what's going on behind her. If she had turned around, if she had shouted a retort, her voice would have been heard by all the group's followers, whether she wanted it to or not. Instead, she stood as a witness by staring straight ahead.
I wish I knew her name. Carry on, Blondie. Carry on.