a-ahmad

My High School Years [] My life these last 4 years is largely a function of what’s happened to me outside of school, outside the impenetrable social sphere. I used to be a bookworm, then I realized that the knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in the world, and not in the funny smell that resides between the pages of newly-inked tomes.

All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was but vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible. This, I have done.

The world looks with some reverence and awe upon a man who appears unconcernedly indifferent to home, money, comfort, rank, or even fame and power. The world feels not without a certain apprehension, that there is someone outside its jurisdiction, before whom its allurements may be spread in vain; someone strangely enfranchised, untamed, unrestrained by convention. This quality of character is present in us all and is established through a belief in one’s own virtues and accomplishments, recorded in memory if not in some tangible form.

I spent so much time trying to find my place in the social sphere, looking for a space like a car in a parking deck. I learned that finding such a space required some indefinable quality of character which I clearly did not posses. It’s amazing really, that in my own lifetime the aspirations of teens have morphed from being able to pull off a pretty good beer mix trick to successfully parading one’s self around like Lady Gaga crossed with God, if for nothing other than social recognition or acceptance. “rancid tarts” seems to be the popular phrase with which to refer to these people. My venture into the unknown began with my amateur writing career. I spent quite a bit of time rummaging through the banal thoughts in my head for some inspiration, though the words always fell flat. Prose or poetry, it didn’t matter; I was a feckless neophyte and my ideas were punishingly boring. I met with my first success when I began writing science fiction in my sophomore year. I wrote “Merely Disassembled” with a few others under a collective alias for an online gaming community called EVE Online, and it was a smashing success. I wouldn’t have made it there without support from my older sister, a decidedly stark hater of all things printed and bound. Junior year was a hellish experience which, for the sake of description, we might simply call Academic Seal Training. The number of kids taking just as many or even more AP’s than you had the potential to make you feel suicidally inadequate, but such is Green hope. The weird thing is it seems that’s how the school wants you to feel; it’s almost more efficient at creating instant hate-figures of the top 10 in the class than Big Brother, and that says a lot.. I managed to move beyond this and found a fondness for science and thirst for technical knowledge of the universe. Mr. Rush’s APES class provided me with the tools I needed and good friends to boot. Now for Senior year. At first glance, Senior year appears to be a sugary bit of reality about one’s future, but the truth comes out very quickly. The further into the year you go the more you realize it is actually a stone-hearted expose’ of everything that’s gone wrong with our faltering so called civilization. Each day that passes makes your mind feel like a rotting piece of wood, slowly petrifying. You begin to look down on the underclassmen when you hear them say things like “WE GONNA PARTY!” in the halls, as I once did. Yes, they are the sort of driveling unpardonable cretins who use the word “party” as a verb, and when I’m in charge and establish my reich, those people are going to be punished, as will anyone who farts for comic effect, men who wear flat caps, and people who consider comic sans typeface acceptable. Still, there is college to look forward to and plenty of opportunity ahead. I’ll miss you guys, you’re the best and bri"ghtest friends a guy could ask for. http://animoto.com/projects#videos&ui-page=0-0