Wednesday, October 18, 2006

My life as a disorganised failure

The other day, when I was pondering my existence, I decided it was time for a little historical learning. Have I always been lazy? Have people always annoyed me? Have I always disliked & disregarded - to my own detriment - people who talk shit?

According to my Year Seven & Eight school reports, yes.

Some teachers clearly liked me, and spoke fondly of my total inability, or care, to present books, homework, school diaries, or myself nicely. 'She is a bright an enthusiastic homegroup member, and is attempting to improve the presentation of her diary, and arrive on time', states some homeroom teacher or another.

And on it goes, with a somewhat clear pattern emerging...


Completion of work - More refinement would be beneficial

...is still a little disorganised when it comes to work on time. Her book presentation could improve...

...it could be neater...

However, her written work and folio is messy and untidy.

...has problems working as an efficient team member when completing tasks.

...presentation needs improvement...

...work submitted late...

...has good knowledge of the brass quintet...

...she is rather untidy with her written work and her folio was messy...

...very interesting...

...at times rather messy.

...standard of food presentation, inconsistent.

...homework is a problem

...bible knowledge and christian understanding is developing well.

...tends to be hasty. Good progress!


But then come the mean, incosiderate, and generally nasty comments, often showing signs of illiteracy, which I imagine is not the greatest of traits for a teacher. It's fair to say that I have little, to no respect for the authors of the following comments, which is probably more regard than I had to them at the tender age of 14.


...very poor - untidy, incomplete, disorganised and scrappy.

...was rarely committed to this subject...

...produced reasoned work on a very limited number of occasions.

...contained evidence of no research.

...must improve personal presentation.

...has been tardy (!)

...has made slow progress.

...has not participated at all.


Well then. Tardy.

I have no doubt that some of these comments and accompanying marks (D's from the second set of comments) were a direct result of me not giving a shit. Who likes Home Economics anyway? That teacher was a single-woman army fighting the war against vegetarianism. Now, I dislike vegetarians as much as the next person, but still, I don't think they need to be regularly ridiculed in class for it - Christ, they'll get their come-uppance at the next BBQ they attend. I also don't think there's much point in presenting shoddily cooked, flavourless, bad cut chops fancily. Shit, unimaginitive food is still going to be shit unimaginative food, no matter how many bunches of fucking parsley you throw over the top. Who the fuck likes parsley, anyway?

But still, a D is a D, no matter which way you cut it, and in the end, I've learnt that a lot of these teachers were arseholes and probably still are, and I don't regret a thing. Which is why I'll be spending the next few weeks - or as long as I can maintain interest - completing bits and pieces of highschool coursework all over again, courtesy of my partner, Vomit Girl, the high school teacher. By the way dear, I expect a report card for this. And a pizza.

True to form, my first assignment is a little overdue, but I'm sure I'll get away with it. After all, I shag the teacher.


Creative writing assigment - Some bollocks about living on the moon, which is incidently only populated by queers, and being the only straight person:

As my space-pod landed on the crater pocked surface of the space-moon, I noted the space-dust covered city to the far north. Enclosed in a bubble, colourful graffiti lapped at the perspex walls of this serene world, rendering the dark outside plains invisible to anyone but the keen observer. The vast space-cratered landscape outside, was placed in quiet contradiction to the bustling human metropolis inside.


Off to the south, small domes stood lit by the dim light of the generators. They were the Populators, I was told. No longer deemed necessary in this world of hot man-on-man, woman-on-woman action, the Populators hid in enclaves to the south where they self governed and were free to live in their ancient ways of procreation. I trudged out of the craft, and looked longingly to the south before resignedly setting forth towards the gates to the North, to my fate.


I hated keeping up this pretence. My self loathing greatened as the days wore on in this place. I was with the one I loved, but the lies constantly ripped at our greedy souls. Family events were a nightmare. ‘You spend a lot of time with your flatmate’, my family stated with suspicion, and I urged to cry out ‘because I love her!’, but all I could do was resign myself to a defeated and deflated ‘She’s having a rough time, I’m just being a good friend’. And that’s all we could ever be; just ‘good friends’.


Myself, I was raised in the city, and trained to become a space-pilot. One of the great men of the skies! They paid me well, and I was damned good at what I did; but I never really fit in with the boys. Sure, I tried to live like them for awhile, but I just couldn’t be happy. I lived a miserable existence, until I met her. But now, our love was overshadowed by the sadness of what we were. There was no need for ‘The Breeders’ anymore, not here on our space-moon, not since the space-science revolution of 2020.


We longed to run to the camps of the south, but the cost was too great. We could not flee as exiles from our past, our families, and our futures; surely, that is no way to live. We survived in our secrecy, and took solace in the alleyways, and the darkened basements of houses, where we could find more of ‘our sort’ and feel free. But that freedom only ever lasted so long as the night. As the sun would spread its dawn across the night skies, we would retreat into the shadows of daylight, and live our lies all over again.


We lived happily ever after, the end.


So... what mark would you give me?

9 comments:

Fandango Jones said...

You didn't give it a title!
Hrmm... Queer as Moon-folk? =P

As for giving you a mark... hmm... you can take Duffel, we don't want him anymore anyway =)

(boom boom)

The Rantolotl said...

my ruled margins were terrible, too.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for saying "damned". "Damn" should never be used as an adjective, except by dimwits.

-Kipper

Anonymous said...

I take it the sudden transition from the middle of the story to We lived happily ever after. The end. is a satirical swipe at childrens writing...

The Rantolotl said...

No, more of a display of my total inability to keep to a 400 word limit.

Anonymous said...

"Greatened"? You made up that word...then again it is a clever little neologism so maybe you'd get points for creativity...
Your mark is an A, marred only by the hasty ending...which I expect you to make up after school tonight.

Fandango Jones said...

Well if we're going to get all picky here...

I have a serious problem with the comma placement in your piece.
SERIOUS!

Okay, maybe not that serious...

Anonymous said...

"We lived happily ever after" sure beats "Then I woke up and it had all been a dream". And I know we've all been there.

Anonymous said...

Instead of the "We lived happily ever after", I would have preferred the whimsical/flippant ending of "But the sex was fantastic!"; same outcome, but a better explanation ;)