Welcome to Gaia! ::

-has one for him-

School's s**t man, and just think; after high school, it only gets harder, the work is more tedious and time consuming, and you have to pay a ton of money for it, that you'll probably have to borrow from the government (if your parents don't have cash stowed away) that you'll spent the next ten years after college/university paying off with a ton of interest.

The best thing to do, in actuality, is to drop out of school, work full time at minimum wage for two years, pay minimal rent or no rent at all, apply to be a mature student so you don't have to return to high school and jump into college when you can pay it all, or most, up front. Saves you years of paying off dept, and you can jump into a career without a portion of your earnings already spoken for, allowing you to spent more on yourself, and life, as you see fit.

At least that's what I'm doing, since that's how things can work out in Canada.

I've suspected college to be somewhat better then high school; I mean, you pick the courses you get stuck in, so if you're being taught something you don't want to learn, that would be your own fault, right?

And the people should be different, since you shouldn't be forced to learn what's being taught, you'd actually want to learn what's being taught, which should cut the typical high school classroom antics out completely. There's 50% of the problem right there gone, and that directly influences another 30% of the problem, and the other 20 disappears with maturity. High school's mostly ******** because we're still kids, and we think to differently then the rules and regulations set in place by the adults, so we rebel but not only against them, but ourselves, and then you have goth kids kicking the s**t out of emo kids for stealing part of their style, and gangsta kids kicking the s**t out of goth kids because their goth kids. Urban gorilla backyard warfare.

What the hell was I talking about?

Official universal Rant thread? Oh praise YALORT, I've been needing this...

Alright. A brief summary of my general life, otherwise you won't understand my spiel.

I'm 15, a Sophomore in High school. I have A mom, a Dad, and a Sister. I'm involved in my school's drama department. I'm socially awkward, and have something akin to multiple personality disorder, making it hard for me ot connect to people since I've been known to switch sides on an issue so rapidly...

Here's how my life has been ******** up over the past month.

My mom's going deaf. And she won't stop complaining about it, hoping for sympathy from me. I gave her some, but now she wants more sympathy. It pisses me off, because I'm going through a lot of crap at school with Drama.

Tech week of our Musical. The final wire, we stay there every night until around 10:00 PM, rehearsing. My grades are starting to drop a tiny bit, becasue I have not enough time to do all my homework. Mom yells at me for this.

Opening night of the musical, right after tech week: CANCELED due to the teacher's union going on strike the thursday we were supposed to open. Almost no one goes to school, including me. My mom actually held me out of school, becuase only a few subs would be there, teaching us utterly unrelated crap to the testing we have next week. Instead of allowing me a weekend off, she makes me sit down for 9 hours a day (even Sat. and Sun.) And makes me do schoolwork that I missed, and the one/two assignments I know are due the next week.

Musical then independently arranges a rehearsal without the teacher. (not to mention the orchestra, crew, and set) This rehearsal is on saturday, and my mom arranges it so that I can finish my 9 hour schoolday when I get back. Goodbye, relaxation

Tuesday, fourth day of Teacher Union strike. My mom has finally relented last night, and is letting me have the day off. We get a call at 7:25 AM, when I'm still asleep. If it was a school day, I should have left twenty minutes ago. The call? The strike is over, all kids are expected to attend school that day. I get to school a half hour late, and have to stay in through break to finish a World history test. After school, Surprise! Musical rehearsal is resuming. We added on two new shows (one on Wendsday and another Friday) and there was a Rehearsal until 10:00 tonight. Goodbye, day off.

Show week, six shows. Four of them are sold out. This week went by relatively O.K. Then, saturday night, we strike the set. I get yelled at, multiple times, for doing something stupid. (I still don't know what it was...) I had set a piece of the set aside, so that way I could take it home and staple it to my wall as a decoration and reminder of the show. I put it nice and out of the way, with the rest of my stuff, and even put a sign on it that says Please do not move. I go off to help strike and come back to find some of the boys eagerly smashing it into a few dozen pieces with a sledgehammer. Goodbye, memories.

After strike, i called up my mom to see if she could come pick me up. It's past 12:00, she doesn't want to, so I have to go to the cast party, which is rather loud and noisy. Only highlight here is that tI got to play a couple games of billiards. I wake up at 9:00 the next morning, find out I missed breakfast, call my mom, she comes to pick me up so that way I can do all the homework I have due the next day. Takes me the rest of the night. Goodbye, weekend.

The next week passed by uneventful. Nothing much happened. Then, Last week rolled along. We were getting ready for a final in my math class, which I was going to miss anyways because I was being dragged to BOSTON to see my sister GRADUATE. I think I've mentioned this before, but my parent's compare me every singe which way to my oh-so-perfect and brilliant older sister. I mean, even right in the middle of the graduation ceremony my mom whispers to me "You know, if you tried harder we might be seeing you graduate in six years too." How rude is that? That made me angry, and I'm usually very good at keeping a check on my emotions. And then there's the fact that Boston in itself makes me angry. Navigating it is a pain in the a**. Half of the streets aren't marked in the places we need to turn, so We never know where we're going. My mom and dad are always in the front seat arguing, and then my dad turns around and gets pissed at ME because he's tired of yelling at mom. Goodbye, temper.

After the graduation ceremony and a dinner with my sister, the four of us drive up to Maine the next day, because my mom's sister lives there with my Uncle and my one-year-old cousin. This visit was... acceptable, I guess. My cousin, Isaac, is a pretty cute kid, despite his teething. Then we have to leave. Goodbye, Isaac.

My sister had gotten on a flight earlier Tuesday. Me and my dad were scheduled to fly back Tuesday night, with a layover in Denver. The first flight took forever. We had to float around denver for an extra hour and a half because a thunderstorm over the are kept us from landing. By the time we do, it's already 10:00 PM, and the net flight doesn't end up leaving until 11:00. When we leave, I'm still feeling nauseous because I don't do well with long-distance flight. It's three seats to a row on the plane, but the guy next to me (who looked like a young Benjamin Franklin as a ginger) took up two of the seats in order to sleep. Nevermind the fact that I'm a tall person forced to sit in economy, making my legs ache after 20 minutes. I couldn't see the in-flight TV, because the one within my sight range was flickering uncontrollably and gave no viewing pleasure. I tried to lean forward to get some sleep, because I knew I had testing the very next day. I fell into a nightmare where I was on a plane next to a snoring benjamin franklin with no in-slight entertainment, I wouldn't be getting any rest the whole night and i had testing the next morning... I then woke up only to realize I NEVER FELL ASLEEP!!! Our flight to the O.C. was canceled due to curfew, and we were forced to land at LAX instead, making my sister drive an extra two hours to get us. By the time I get home and flop into bed, it's 2:00 AM. it feels like 5:00 to me, because of Jet lag. I wake up four hours later, nowhere near refreshed enough to get ready for school testing. Goodbye, SANITY.

That brings you up to date to this day, today. Expect another one of the by the time school lets out for me on June 24th.

Instead of dropping out you could take a year off from school after HS and work like a dog 'under the table' (illegitimately), save up a bunch of cash from that year, then when you go to college/university go on Financial Aid.

The less you work for the year before you apply for Aid (again, Canada wise) the more you get. So, by working under the table, you'd be able to save up a ton of cash on your own and still be given a ton from the gov. Then whatever you don't have to spend on tuition you can spend on yourself, like K` said, but you'd also have an extra reserve of cash for whatever you could need. If you had enough saved you wouldn't have to work MUCH while in school, which would make it far less stressful.

~~~

School is nothing but a government funded form of conformity. I've seen it destroy creativity and individuality first hand. I'm not saying that this is the case with Wielder or Nx, but to those who will fight for their individuality the struggle throughout is that much harder because it goes against what they rightfully stand for. Having your schedule printed off for you, being told what to learn, and what you have to learn, in some cases uniforms, bells to begin class, bells to end class, the hives and cliques of lab-rat children who gather together in clothing that share the same likeness, hair done the same, with the same insults towards the other people who are different. Individuality is crushed at every turn; you either conform to what your teachers want or be labeled a difficult child, or you conform to what your fellow students conform to or be labeled a ***, or a *****, or a *****. What do you get for being yourself? Nothing really, just an understanding that you're just that little bit better then everyone else for not giving in.

Wow your lives all suck. Like I've had bat s**t happen to me but this takes the cake.

Nah, you're good.

I'm done. I'm F*cking done. I'm done with being out of shape. I'm done feeling self-conscious about my gut. I'm done with weighing 215 pounds. The next time I walk on the grounds of my high school, I will be a physical beast.

If you haven't gathered yet, I'm going to use the summer to get in shape. I'm going to f*cking annihilate my beer-gut-in-progress. I will have a flat stomach. Muscley? I don't care. Washboard abs? If that's what it takes, yes. But I'm going to shave my gut off in three months.

I've started with 100 crunches, completed moments ago. Note, it is now 12:30 at night, my time.

I will do 1,000 more tomorrow, over the course of ten hours. that is, 100 in five minutes, 55 minutes of rest, wash, rinse, repeat.

One thing: If you guys don't mind, hold me to this.