Friday was the last day of school! *jumps up and down ecstatically* Sure, the vacation is only 21 days long, and 2 of those days have gone already, but I am jubilant. I feel as though I should dedicate some song to the occasion, but cannot, for the life of me, think of a single one that fits. “Closure” by Chevelle perhaps? Nah…
Anyways, the last day of school was a lovely day. The only thing that could have made it better was news that in a very terrible accident, Clare got shot in the foot and would be unable to come to school for the duration of the Upper Six year.
“That will never happen. For one thing, I’m not that lucky…” – some movie
I decided to be a bit rebellious on my last day of school. A couple of girls and I decided to wear the wrong colour socks for our school uniforms. I know, I know. That’s about as rebellious as underwear at a nudist convention. But keep in mind – this is a strict, Catholic all-girl school with a reputation to uphold; there was a remote possibility of us getting into trouble.
But I decided to be even more daring. The night before, I washed my hair, then let it air dry. The next day, I bothered neither to comb nor brush my hair; I didn’t put a single drop of any hair product in it either. I just pulled it into one, and went to school with it just like that. Since you are not very familiar with the eccentricities of my hair, doing what I just did has roughly the same effect of taking a bath with an electric toaster that is plugged in to a 110 voltage outlet. Just about that, plus a little touch of Rasta.
Before I went to school though, I dropped in to a jewelry store to buy a present for my friend. Our clique is so smart… instead of each of us shelling out money we don’t have to buy 10 or so gifts for everyone, we simply drew names and bought for that one person. It was popular knowledge that the girl I was buying for wanted gold ganja earrings. I had the time of my life trying to find those for her. Despite the illicit herb’s popularity in this country, you’d still get some strange looks when you ask the jewelry stores for the gilded version of the grass.
On the morning of the day we were supposed to exchange presents, I gave it my last shot. It was quite funny though, going from jewelry store to jewelry store, asking about marijuana earrings and pretending you’re not noticing how the sales’ girls are eyeing your crazy hair when they think you aren’t looking.
“My algebra teacher used to roll the chalk in his hand… then he would turn to write something on the board and discreetly scratch his balls… He would turn back to us as if he didn’t do anything, but he would have these big chalk finger prints on his crotch…” – Tom Rhodes, comedian
The last store I entered, and coincidentally enough, the store I found the earrings in, seemed to have a whole bunch of brash sales’ girls. As soon as I entered, one of them looked up at my hair, and then yelled to me:
“You was in a fight or wha?”
I laughed. It’s nice to see some women with balls. After I had bought the jewelry, and the same girl was writing up the bill, she and some other girl started making some rather bold comments when they found out where I lived.
“Laventille? Oohgoood! And look whey she from. No wonder she buyin dem ganja earrings. All dem criminals round your side, gyurl. I will never go up dey. My daughter wanted to go dey with a whole set a gold on she. I say you want to go up dey with all dat gold. Dem bandits up dey have a right to beat yuh up an’ take it.”
What could I do? I laughed. For one thing, it was funny. Besides, the girls gave me a 17% discount. But they were just joking around anyways. They talked about how bad the crime situation was everywhere and not just in Laventille, and how other areas used to have the same reputation of Laventille, but not any more. They were kinda fun. Plus they gave me a 17% discount. Did I mention that already?
My father had dropped me in the shopping area in town and had not bothered to wait, so I walked the rest of the way to school, smiling slyly as I watched people quickly avert their gazes from my hair when they realised I was watching them. When I got to school, I got comments ranging from:
“You don’t have any combs in your house?”
to
“You trying to grow a ras or what?”
Before I go on, do you guys know what a “ras” is? I don’t mean to insult your intelligence, but in my short dealings with foreigners, I’ve realised that some words I thought to be exclusively Trinidadian were universally English, and some words I thought to be universally English was exclusively Trinidadian (or, in this case, Trinidadian and Jamaican). In case you don’t know… a “ras” is what we call a Rasta’s hair. But I’m sure you intelligent people have figured that out already.
Anyways, as fun as that was, it got a bit nerve wrecking at times. I went into the school’s office to see about my university applications, and lo and behold, there stood the principal herself. I developed a sudden and intense fascination with my sneakers, and my head remained down as I stared at the now brownish grey, though originally blindingly white sneakers. Sure, that gave her an ever better view of my contemporary coiffure, but it also obscured my face somewhat… I don’t know what good that could have really done, but it seemed to make sense at the time.
I got my report book back. Three As and a B… That’s very depressing for me. Although it’s not the first B I ever got, it is the first B I got in over 2 years… And all for a stinking essay I handed up late (because I was sooo preoccupied with SATs and college applications… I swear, if I don’t get into UPenn, a certain school is going to get an unmarked package Unabomber style… though I haven’t yet decided if that school will be my current school, or UPenn) so I got a big fat ZERO in it, which effectively brought my entire grade down. When I heard what the teacher did, I cried.
No, I’m not the kind of person who cries over grades… mainly because I never had to.
Yes, I am an overachiever.
Go fuck yourself.
Otherwise, the day was fun. My friends and I went out of school to buy some lunch. When we got our food and were about to make our journey back to school, the rain started to fall. So we ran back in the rain, thoroughly soaking ourselves and receiving a small cup of complimentary rain-water in the process. Jesus… I love my friends…
I’ll stop here because I don’t have much else to say. Except of course, that I was shocked as fucking hell when they got Saddam. And I was listening to CNN and BBC the night before, and *nada* had happened. Then this morning after the cricket match between South Africa and the West Indies paused for tea, or lunch, or whatever, the news came over… I had to pick my jaw off the ground. I’m quite glad they caught him though. I’m very much anti-war, but Saddam… regardless of whether or not (NOT) he possessed weapons of mass destruction (most over-used term of the year)… Saddam… was a dictator. The people who are supporting him, whether they are nationals of Iraq or nationals of other Middle Eastern countries, are seriously hampering America’s efforts to establish some sort of stability in the country. I will never support any country that tries to install democracy through the barrel of a gun, especially when they have to invade another nation, many of whose citizens do not want the invaders there in the first place, to do so. Still, these Iraqis are still human, and they are still people, and they deserve to live with some sort of civility. If America is the best country with the most resources to help them achieve that goal, then so be it.
Maybe I’ll ponder that some other time. I’ll be watching some more CNN and BBC to figure out what the hell is going on. Another thing I’ll be pondering is what to put in my bio. I’ve decided to do one. Just for the hell of it. Stay tuned for that one.