2005-06-23 - 8:32 a.m.
Torture Chamber
It's red because red light bends more than blue light - right, Wendy? (*mumble*mumble*toolazytolookituponGoogle*mumble*) This morning, the moon was so white it was dazzling. It was playing at being a Big City Moon as I was waiting to turn onto Georgia Avenue - coyly peeking out from behind the enormous (for DC) Discovery Communications building. There are nights when we're out at the farm that you could read a book by its light, and I could make shadow puppets with my hands on the lawn. The naughty bunnies one is always a crowd pleaser (I learned that one from Penn and Teller. I don't do it as well as they do, but it still gets a laugh). *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* My middle name is Diana, after the Huntress (thank heavens my mother chose that version of the name - Artemis is a bit more of a mouthful), and what with my first name, it made for some interesting moments at my parochial school when we all looked up the saints we were named after. I'm such a little heathen, just like my mother. She and I have many childhood experiences in common - being tormented by other girls at school was one of them. To this day, I am deeply opposed to same-sex schools, as I firmly believe that girls are more vicious to other girls when they don't have boys to distract them. My experience was borne out when I went to an American school - there were still assholes, but they were more equal-opportunity, and I was not the focus of *everyone's* hostility (girls are like hyenas - if they sense easy prey, they'll gang up and overwhelm them as a group. They rationalize this as "if I'm with the bullies, they won't bully *me*"). Being English - an exotic - probably helped a bit, too. I was still irretrievably weird (I spent the '80s dressed like Stevie Nicks), but I was left alone. Unless you have been bullied to an extreme in school, you can't understand what a living hell it is to be forced to go every day to a place where you will be harassed, beaten up, mocked, teased, and denied any positive social contact. Teachers? They just want you to conform so that they don't have to deal with the bullies. Even the nice kids will shun you, because being the focus of bullying is social leprosy; a bullied kid is to be avoided at all costs, for fear that it's contagious. On the other hand, I believe that being an outcast spurs one on to achieve much greater heights than the kids who are told that everything they do is perfect, and they're wonderful. An environment where a child can do no wrong is an invitation to bullying - children are animals, and need to be taught social responsibility. (I don't think there's a single girl from my mother's school who has ever come close to the brilliant career she's had.) When schools allow the popular kids to torment the "losers", they set up a system where violence is condoned, and the only way out of that violence is more violence. For an obvious example, the Columbine shootings were awful, and should never have happened, but I was deeply angered by the parents' and kids' total incomprehension that such a thing doesn't happen in a vacuum. Blame video games, blame violence on TV, but don't blame the kids that bully - they're the *nice* kids, not the weird ones that dress all in black and do weird things like read. They allow these kids to bully other children and subject them to violence, and they're *surprised* when it comes back to bite them? There's a reason why so many of us don't trust the "golden" kids from high school - and why so many movies revolve around the mean kid getting his/her comeuppance ("Revenge of the Nerds" being the apotheosis of the genre). My childhood experience of being bullied has given me a profound awareness and sympathy for the underdog. The kid who isn't pretty, isn't the best at the approved social activities, the kid who is nice, but no-one will ever notice because appearances are so important (as much as I hate to admit this, studies show that many teachers are more lenient and forgiving with attractive kids). I have a real temper, but I try to channel and control it. I think in part that temper is a legacy of my own "torture years" - my temperament is not naturally meek, but I trusted the adults around me when they told me to "ignore them, and they'll leave you alone". Hah. They finally left me alone when I went truly ballistic on them all - screaming epithets and throwing things at them. I don't condone violence. I don't. ...But it was very satisfying to let them all know what I thought of them in no uncertain terms. The boys at Columbine were assholes, no-one disputes that - but I have just a tiny bit of insight into how they probably felt in school every day. Fortunately, in England, they don't allow people to carry guns.
Dorsal - Ventral
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all words copyright Laura Mellin 2000-2005
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