Post by Harley Scarow on Oct 25, 2007 13:43:23 GMT -5
Peter Dang
October 25, 2007
Writing (7)
Bullying Essay
Spray Paint on a Blackboard
Have a minute? That’s great—because that’s all that it takes for happiness to swell into rage. As an unsullied and untainted freshman entering the halls of DeWitt Clinton High School, I knew gossipers and “cool” people would be omnipresent wherever I walked, waiting behind the corners of the hallways to rain down emotion-scorching words on me. This ineludible mountain of fear would eventually tumble down on me in mere “harmless” words. Everybody in my Einstein classes accepted me for who I am, but I was beyond thoughtless in my “perfect world” to accept the fact that they were the only ones in high school that I would ever converse towards. Sadly, I decided to open up eventually; that resulted in one of my tragic flaws.
At least a fortnight before that beloved day, I was waiting in the lunchroom line with some of my friends, talking about the nonsense we always did for time to past by in the wind. I always had what people would call, an "outlandish voice," or "awkward movements," like cherry blossoms in America. Even sometime later that situation, on a fun-filled trip to Oval Park with my peers to celebrate our victory over freshman year, my friend Lena pointed out that delinquent strangers asked me for the time or the streets, even on occurs in which they knew when or where they were, for the sole purpose of hearing my flamboyant, "effeminate voice." That day, as sour and inconstant as any other high school day, welcomed a team of "cool" kids to debilitate my nature. I tried to ignore any abhorrent comments from those abominable "haters."
I hated lunch. A fraction of "fine diners" in that lead poisoned room came for fights. A teenaged degenerate put his festering hand from an all-time low status onto my shoulder, with some prank intention to call my attention. I refused to turn my head around myself for a grotesque hand of my foil. This unappealing man took my shoulder and flipped it around, and I saw this hideous face, a blimp-faced caricature of Fat Albert appeared upon my eyes, and immediately, I wanted to vomit at this unsightly surface that could contest the putrid bathroom toilets. His cowardly facade of "cool people" stood "composed" in their "normal and cool" poses.
"You're gay, and you know it," was the one sentence that he uttered from his mouth before I regret batting an eye at this eye-repelling obese. His friends then erupted into a storm of laughter, but I didn't care if I was the center of their enjoyment or whatever they wanted to inflict upon me. He continued, "You're gay, and you show it."
The lunchroom did spin around me for at least a minute, but maybe that was because I turned around and kept talking to my friends on the stretched lunchroom line.
"That was screwed up, Peter," my friend Ryan boomed. "Say something back."
Should I have? Sometime earlier that year, Lena told me, "Peter, some people in this world are going to hate you, but don't forget that many people in the world will care for you. You have friends, Peter. You can't let something small like a comment injure your feelings. If a phrase can stab you, then you might as well give up on life because you've already lost. If you ignore the half that heal your feelings with good words, then you're a careless person. You need to notice us too—the ones that do care. Don't be weak and fall to a dramatized phrase."
I did listened to Lena's wise advice, which beyond passed her youth, and sounded like an anime friendship monologue that got too tiring. However, it was true, so I listened to her. My ears were penetrated shields, but my single heart abandoned those words.
I forgot couple of days after that horrible incident. Behind my back, those academic failures sniggered with the sad thought that they had broke through me. I secretly prayed to Lena, the wise mistress, happy to know I had that peace of advice. My sexuality wasn't something to be tossed like gossip, but it wasn't as if I cared that other people knew. I am a proud gay, and as much as the underappreciated sun can rise every morning, I'm proud of it. I wasn't going to let this break my heart, because it was true. It was all fact—and if it took even a month for these high school ghetto belligerents to figure that out, then may hell rain blood on those epithetical speakers and lightning from a hair dryer strike me when I'm nude after a morning's bath.
Although I was unaffected that day, sometime later, I felt this uncalled punishment on an innocently but extravagantly glorified day of high school. I was invited to some important event that would take place in the school auditorium during third period. Being the carefree person that I was, I forgot what it would be about. Then I leaped in liveliness as I remembered.
It was the day when those who earned awards would receive their honors certificates with pride—and I was a fortunate adolescent to obtain one. The awards ceremony, which took place during third period of that day, acceptingly deserved that spot where it indeed took place—in the shriveled but privileged auditorium that stood in the center of the undeserving mess that walked through the halls. It was the day to give the Fall Semester Honors Award.
However, I was too drunk in my own paradise of praise to accept the fact that an old “friend” waiting down the corner—a stranger that could be judged too “normal” so he would camouflage into the crowd of ghetto degenerates of the school.
"Savio Hoang!" "Ryan Torres!" "Sabrina Islam!" the names piled up as high school principal Ms. Geraldine Ambrosio called students one by one to earn gaudy fashioned certificates and a handshake. "Peter Dang!" I went up as she called me up.
“Sabrina, what did you get?” I would weakly ask Sabrina, one of the many people who got an award ranked higher than mines. Although I did pour enough effort to get into the Honor Roll, it wasn’t enough. I always strived to get higher—I felt weak at Sabrina’s overshadowing intelligence that marked higher than me on the walls of the school.
“Oh, it was nothing—just a little bit of hard work and effort,” Sabrina answered in her common and unreflecting mood, fitting to her usual nature of being modest and kind. “You did pretty good too, Peter! Don’t be sad; most people in our Einstein classes didn’t even get one!” Regardless of the stabbing intimidation that rushed from her, a friend, to me, a nuisance, she was only a good friend that cared. My disappointment of entering merely Honor Roll, as opposed to receiving Full Honors transformed to exuberance.
“And that’s all that we have for today,” Ms. Ambrosio announced to indicate that the long awaited awards ceremony finally finished. “I once again congratulate each and every one of you Macy Honors students for taking that extra step to earn your emblematic certificates. You role-model for the lower-level students. Please get to your next class.”
Ms. Phyllis McCabe, having seen insightfulness upon me as I strolled out of the auditorium, shook my hand, "Peter, how are you doing? Congratulations on earning the Honor Roll award; may that lead you to greater things. Stand tall for what you believe in."
"Thank you, Ms. McCabe!" I praised with some conceit emerging within me, making my bow as I left the auditorium. "Ms. McCabe congratulated me personally!"
The overrated nightmare room commonly called the lunchroom would eventually carpet my steps as I readied to brag about my rainbow-flashed Honor Roll award to my friends whom Ms. McCabe later that day referred to as “the other students.” Of course, I never thought of my own peers that way—regardless of the narcissistic psyche that rushed to my head. That day of all the days I would had rather be spending quality time in the school library, I decided to go to lunch—as I carried a paper cup of fruit punch in my first hand and a mountain of cookies in my second. Many of my friends, like Sabrina and Lena, were already trailing with me on the lunchroom entry line that eventually led to a machine in which we would swipe our student ID cards through, successfully skipping through the masses as every time-hungry student would.
Behind me, that arid ogre appeared once more. Tipping my shoulder in the same uncreative way that any threatening fool would, I turned around, being a fool myself to think that the hand could've come from one of my friends. The scent of his sweating hand was enough to make me lose my appetite, and I guessed who it was, as I saw the same bloated mark on his obviously overused right hand. He tipped me around like before, this time, with all of my friends along with the other people awaiting entry boring their eyes on me and this under-evolved man.
He uttered to me with the same threatening tone as before, but this time, "You're gay, and now everyone knows." It wasn't a secret; I felt blood temper up to my cranium.
Lena fainted words to my ears, "Peter, say something back. Tell them the truth."
Lena Ramdas, Macy Einstein freshman, my age at the time, the one who told me to let go of petty words and treat them like a year's leftovers—telling me to counter? Well, I took back to what she said before. If I can treat the ones that remove my burdens with respects, then I can treat those that cause those burdens just the same.
"You want to know the truth?" I began. "You and your shallow-minded friends are ignorant to the people in this world. You're broken sticks and shattered stones."
The facially-challenged instigator had nothing to say back. I took a sip of my fruit punch and gobbled down a cookie before swiping my student ID card to enter the lunchroom, regaining my momentum. What happened less than a minute ago faded away like a grain of rice in a desert during hours of night; the reason why I wanted to go to lunch that day resurfaced from the sea of knowledge and worries that my mind consisted—to brag about my Honor Roll certificate. Comically saddening, that will to brag rushed to my head far too much.
Luckily that day, I was the first to enter the lunchroom in my usual effeminate ways, so I didn't have anybody to bluster bloated words of self-praise at. I closed my eyes as I walked in with pride and knowledge that were indeed the traits that blinded me. However, that man, the one who turned instigation into an infamous art, stood behind me, taunting me in the entry line. He made earthquakes of both weigh and threats as he strolled towards me, with his bulging right hand becoming a rock. My heart began to beat as he approached, but I stood sternly.
From afar, Lena was telling me something—another piece of advice. "Come on, Peter. You should be proud of who you are. Don't let a guy as stubborn as a crippled mule who thinks he can walk break down your pride. You're in Einstein, so you should be able to defend your position in more ways than just school! Others would say the same!"
"You're gay, you fag," the unsightly creature began to thunder at me. "You're gay, and your friends know that you're gay, and you know that you're gay. You...are...gay!"
The rock-headed head in which even shallowness and denseness were too much of genuine compliments to him began to throw that bloated right fist at me, in which it landed huge on my face. Did I care? No, I already stood up for what I believed in. I'm gay, and he can call me a fag or any other phrase-turned-pejorative at me, but if he thinks it's wrong, that's a sin marked in blood under this nameless, putrid committer of dogmatism!
"There's a fight!" some brain-dead stereotypes yammered. Tumult usually generated at fights sparked as everybody trampled the inactive school staff. I bloomed with inflamed rainbow showers bloodshot confusion amongst others for a barren reason of entertainment, as opposed to me defending myself against stubborn discrimination.
Some of the my fruit punch spilled over myself, and I pitched whatever remained onto this lackluster of a human's hogged out face, bloated by his disgusting habits and putrid with the people who taught him "homosexuality is wrong." His face was marked with ruby juice that failed to wash away his inequality of what he calls an "it," I could see his infuriated face grow mindlessly fury red. If he still thought my face was marked with gay as a ridiculous term, then he was a swine that collided on the wall of shame.
The moment before the nameless goon would throw generic fists at me, my friend Sabrina got a lunchroom staff member to come over to my side. Miraculously, these undeserving staff members actually did something for once, as opposed to benching on the corridors of the lunchroom doors with nothing to do than stare at the lead-painted ceiling walls until the period ended. The staff member didn’t notice the fruit punch soaked face of my adversary, but I was somewhat "saved," if not only physically. The discriminating degenerate, who's name remained an unlisted poison in my notebook of a brain, was taken away by two staff members. I was sorrowful, but a scrap with this swine was an experience as my friends came to consul me.
"Peter, I saw what happened, and I hope you're okay," Sabrina in a pacifying voice whispered to me. "I know that it's only been the first semester so far, but know you for the one peculiar guy that's not afraid to tell others about who you are and how you feel."
"You should write a report on that guy," Ryan brought up. 'I don't know why you fought him or whatever, but he deserves a beating. That thing was screwed up."
Lena finished, "Are you okay, Peter? I hope you fought to defend your own beliefs than to protect what you call, 'an eternal sanctuary of beauty.' It doesn't matter, though. We're your friends and we'll help you get through this." Lena's voice reassured me luck.
That guy, whose poison still leaks, was found to be suspended later that day. Whenever I saw that guy in the hallways, I would past him with ignoring eyes, even if he did say something stabbing to me seconds after, like "fag" or "faggot." On a different hour, I had a nosebleed out of nothing of the cause, and even inflicted upon this thug's record that it was a result of his forcible fist. I felt like I deserved to be struck by that lightning storm, and if anybody I didn't call my friend knew about my lies without my reason, they would label it prejudice of a different flavor.
I was the Honor Roll student that stumbled onto a little incident that day. After that day, I became less shy to who I would tell my secrets, but I was constantly reminded about the people in the world that were blind to individuality. Those people tragically think others should blend in, and that fear can put a bullet into “unique” trait. If I gained something, it's that the person who can remain sane when their own fists are flying usually wins. I'm a proud queer; if I don't defend a choice-less trait about my own self-being, then I'll be stuck in the world to weep about why I fell through the many doors that changed me into the person that I am today. If you don't defend who you are, then who will? I'm myself, and only I can defend my name—and who I am.
Eventually, I met Julia Benedict, a girl that shared my beliefs—to stand up for oneself against prejudice. We were in quite an awkward predicament—Julia considered herself a “good man,” and I wanted to be a girl. Julia and I ultimately joined the School Newspaper Workshop, and we continue to let others hear our voice. Together, we spray paint on the noir hallways of the school with world-encircling words—and we continue to declare our voice, even to this day.
Julia enlightened me, “Words make the world go round! And so should your beliefs.”
October 25, 2007
Writing (7)
Bullying Essay
Spray Paint on a Blackboard
Have a minute? That’s great—because that’s all that it takes for happiness to swell into rage. As an unsullied and untainted freshman entering the halls of DeWitt Clinton High School, I knew gossipers and “cool” people would be omnipresent wherever I walked, waiting behind the corners of the hallways to rain down emotion-scorching words on me. This ineludible mountain of fear would eventually tumble down on me in mere “harmless” words. Everybody in my Einstein classes accepted me for who I am, but I was beyond thoughtless in my “perfect world” to accept the fact that they were the only ones in high school that I would ever converse towards. Sadly, I decided to open up eventually; that resulted in one of my tragic flaws.
At least a fortnight before that beloved day, I was waiting in the lunchroom line with some of my friends, talking about the nonsense we always did for time to past by in the wind. I always had what people would call, an "outlandish voice," or "awkward movements," like cherry blossoms in America. Even sometime later that situation, on a fun-filled trip to Oval Park with my peers to celebrate our victory over freshman year, my friend Lena pointed out that delinquent strangers asked me for the time or the streets, even on occurs in which they knew when or where they were, for the sole purpose of hearing my flamboyant, "effeminate voice." That day, as sour and inconstant as any other high school day, welcomed a team of "cool" kids to debilitate my nature. I tried to ignore any abhorrent comments from those abominable "haters."
I hated lunch. A fraction of "fine diners" in that lead poisoned room came for fights. A teenaged degenerate put his festering hand from an all-time low status onto my shoulder, with some prank intention to call my attention. I refused to turn my head around myself for a grotesque hand of my foil. This unappealing man took my shoulder and flipped it around, and I saw this hideous face, a blimp-faced caricature of Fat Albert appeared upon my eyes, and immediately, I wanted to vomit at this unsightly surface that could contest the putrid bathroom toilets. His cowardly facade of "cool people" stood "composed" in their "normal and cool" poses.
"You're gay, and you know it," was the one sentence that he uttered from his mouth before I regret batting an eye at this eye-repelling obese. His friends then erupted into a storm of laughter, but I didn't care if I was the center of their enjoyment or whatever they wanted to inflict upon me. He continued, "You're gay, and you show it."
The lunchroom did spin around me for at least a minute, but maybe that was because I turned around and kept talking to my friends on the stretched lunchroom line.
"That was screwed up, Peter," my friend Ryan boomed. "Say something back."
Should I have? Sometime earlier that year, Lena told me, "Peter, some people in this world are going to hate you, but don't forget that many people in the world will care for you. You have friends, Peter. You can't let something small like a comment injure your feelings. If a phrase can stab you, then you might as well give up on life because you've already lost. If you ignore the half that heal your feelings with good words, then you're a careless person. You need to notice us too—the ones that do care. Don't be weak and fall to a dramatized phrase."
I did listened to Lena's wise advice, which beyond passed her youth, and sounded like an anime friendship monologue that got too tiring. However, it was true, so I listened to her. My ears were penetrated shields, but my single heart abandoned those words.
I forgot couple of days after that horrible incident. Behind my back, those academic failures sniggered with the sad thought that they had broke through me. I secretly prayed to Lena, the wise mistress, happy to know I had that peace of advice. My sexuality wasn't something to be tossed like gossip, but it wasn't as if I cared that other people knew. I am a proud gay, and as much as the underappreciated sun can rise every morning, I'm proud of it. I wasn't going to let this break my heart, because it was true. It was all fact—and if it took even a month for these high school ghetto belligerents to figure that out, then may hell rain blood on those epithetical speakers and lightning from a hair dryer strike me when I'm nude after a morning's bath.
Although I was unaffected that day, sometime later, I felt this uncalled punishment on an innocently but extravagantly glorified day of high school. I was invited to some important event that would take place in the school auditorium during third period. Being the carefree person that I was, I forgot what it would be about. Then I leaped in liveliness as I remembered.
It was the day when those who earned awards would receive their honors certificates with pride—and I was a fortunate adolescent to obtain one. The awards ceremony, which took place during third period of that day, acceptingly deserved that spot where it indeed took place—in the shriveled but privileged auditorium that stood in the center of the undeserving mess that walked through the halls. It was the day to give the Fall Semester Honors Award.
However, I was too drunk in my own paradise of praise to accept the fact that an old “friend” waiting down the corner—a stranger that could be judged too “normal” so he would camouflage into the crowd of ghetto degenerates of the school.
"Savio Hoang!" "Ryan Torres!" "Sabrina Islam!" the names piled up as high school principal Ms. Geraldine Ambrosio called students one by one to earn gaudy fashioned certificates and a handshake. "Peter Dang!" I went up as she called me up.
“Sabrina, what did you get?” I would weakly ask Sabrina, one of the many people who got an award ranked higher than mines. Although I did pour enough effort to get into the Honor Roll, it wasn’t enough. I always strived to get higher—I felt weak at Sabrina’s overshadowing intelligence that marked higher than me on the walls of the school.
“Oh, it was nothing—just a little bit of hard work and effort,” Sabrina answered in her common and unreflecting mood, fitting to her usual nature of being modest and kind. “You did pretty good too, Peter! Don’t be sad; most people in our Einstein classes didn’t even get one!” Regardless of the stabbing intimidation that rushed from her, a friend, to me, a nuisance, she was only a good friend that cared. My disappointment of entering merely Honor Roll, as opposed to receiving Full Honors transformed to exuberance.
“And that’s all that we have for today,” Ms. Ambrosio announced to indicate that the long awaited awards ceremony finally finished. “I once again congratulate each and every one of you Macy Honors students for taking that extra step to earn your emblematic certificates. You role-model for the lower-level students. Please get to your next class.”
Ms. Phyllis McCabe, having seen insightfulness upon me as I strolled out of the auditorium, shook my hand, "Peter, how are you doing? Congratulations on earning the Honor Roll award; may that lead you to greater things. Stand tall for what you believe in."
"Thank you, Ms. McCabe!" I praised with some conceit emerging within me, making my bow as I left the auditorium. "Ms. McCabe congratulated me personally!"
The overrated nightmare room commonly called the lunchroom would eventually carpet my steps as I readied to brag about my rainbow-flashed Honor Roll award to my friends whom Ms. McCabe later that day referred to as “the other students.” Of course, I never thought of my own peers that way—regardless of the narcissistic psyche that rushed to my head. That day of all the days I would had rather be spending quality time in the school library, I decided to go to lunch—as I carried a paper cup of fruit punch in my first hand and a mountain of cookies in my second. Many of my friends, like Sabrina and Lena, were already trailing with me on the lunchroom entry line that eventually led to a machine in which we would swipe our student ID cards through, successfully skipping through the masses as every time-hungry student would.
Behind me, that arid ogre appeared once more. Tipping my shoulder in the same uncreative way that any threatening fool would, I turned around, being a fool myself to think that the hand could've come from one of my friends. The scent of his sweating hand was enough to make me lose my appetite, and I guessed who it was, as I saw the same bloated mark on his obviously overused right hand. He tipped me around like before, this time, with all of my friends along with the other people awaiting entry boring their eyes on me and this under-evolved man.
He uttered to me with the same threatening tone as before, but this time, "You're gay, and now everyone knows." It wasn't a secret; I felt blood temper up to my cranium.
Lena fainted words to my ears, "Peter, say something back. Tell them the truth."
Lena Ramdas, Macy Einstein freshman, my age at the time, the one who told me to let go of petty words and treat them like a year's leftovers—telling me to counter? Well, I took back to what she said before. If I can treat the ones that remove my burdens with respects, then I can treat those that cause those burdens just the same.
"You want to know the truth?" I began. "You and your shallow-minded friends are ignorant to the people in this world. You're broken sticks and shattered stones."
The facially-challenged instigator had nothing to say back. I took a sip of my fruit punch and gobbled down a cookie before swiping my student ID card to enter the lunchroom, regaining my momentum. What happened less than a minute ago faded away like a grain of rice in a desert during hours of night; the reason why I wanted to go to lunch that day resurfaced from the sea of knowledge and worries that my mind consisted—to brag about my Honor Roll certificate. Comically saddening, that will to brag rushed to my head far too much.
Luckily that day, I was the first to enter the lunchroom in my usual effeminate ways, so I didn't have anybody to bluster bloated words of self-praise at. I closed my eyes as I walked in with pride and knowledge that were indeed the traits that blinded me. However, that man, the one who turned instigation into an infamous art, stood behind me, taunting me in the entry line. He made earthquakes of both weigh and threats as he strolled towards me, with his bulging right hand becoming a rock. My heart began to beat as he approached, but I stood sternly.
From afar, Lena was telling me something—another piece of advice. "Come on, Peter. You should be proud of who you are. Don't let a guy as stubborn as a crippled mule who thinks he can walk break down your pride. You're in Einstein, so you should be able to defend your position in more ways than just school! Others would say the same!"
"You're gay, you fag," the unsightly creature began to thunder at me. "You're gay, and your friends know that you're gay, and you know that you're gay. You...are...gay!"
The rock-headed head in which even shallowness and denseness were too much of genuine compliments to him began to throw that bloated right fist at me, in which it landed huge on my face. Did I care? No, I already stood up for what I believed in. I'm gay, and he can call me a fag or any other phrase-turned-pejorative at me, but if he thinks it's wrong, that's a sin marked in blood under this nameless, putrid committer of dogmatism!
"There's a fight!" some brain-dead stereotypes yammered. Tumult usually generated at fights sparked as everybody trampled the inactive school staff. I bloomed with inflamed rainbow showers bloodshot confusion amongst others for a barren reason of entertainment, as opposed to me defending myself against stubborn discrimination.
Some of the my fruit punch spilled over myself, and I pitched whatever remained onto this lackluster of a human's hogged out face, bloated by his disgusting habits and putrid with the people who taught him "homosexuality is wrong." His face was marked with ruby juice that failed to wash away his inequality of what he calls an "it," I could see his infuriated face grow mindlessly fury red. If he still thought my face was marked with gay as a ridiculous term, then he was a swine that collided on the wall of shame.
The moment before the nameless goon would throw generic fists at me, my friend Sabrina got a lunchroom staff member to come over to my side. Miraculously, these undeserving staff members actually did something for once, as opposed to benching on the corridors of the lunchroom doors with nothing to do than stare at the lead-painted ceiling walls until the period ended. The staff member didn’t notice the fruit punch soaked face of my adversary, but I was somewhat "saved," if not only physically. The discriminating degenerate, who's name remained an unlisted poison in my notebook of a brain, was taken away by two staff members. I was sorrowful, but a scrap with this swine was an experience as my friends came to consul me.
"Peter, I saw what happened, and I hope you're okay," Sabrina in a pacifying voice whispered to me. "I know that it's only been the first semester so far, but know you for the one peculiar guy that's not afraid to tell others about who you are and how you feel."
"You should write a report on that guy," Ryan brought up. 'I don't know why you fought him or whatever, but he deserves a beating. That thing was screwed up."
Lena finished, "Are you okay, Peter? I hope you fought to defend your own beliefs than to protect what you call, 'an eternal sanctuary of beauty.' It doesn't matter, though. We're your friends and we'll help you get through this." Lena's voice reassured me luck.
That guy, whose poison still leaks, was found to be suspended later that day. Whenever I saw that guy in the hallways, I would past him with ignoring eyes, even if he did say something stabbing to me seconds after, like "fag" or "faggot." On a different hour, I had a nosebleed out of nothing of the cause, and even inflicted upon this thug's record that it was a result of his forcible fist. I felt like I deserved to be struck by that lightning storm, and if anybody I didn't call my friend knew about my lies without my reason, they would label it prejudice of a different flavor.
I was the Honor Roll student that stumbled onto a little incident that day. After that day, I became less shy to who I would tell my secrets, but I was constantly reminded about the people in the world that were blind to individuality. Those people tragically think others should blend in, and that fear can put a bullet into “unique” trait. If I gained something, it's that the person who can remain sane when their own fists are flying usually wins. I'm a proud queer; if I don't defend a choice-less trait about my own self-being, then I'll be stuck in the world to weep about why I fell through the many doors that changed me into the person that I am today. If you don't defend who you are, then who will? I'm myself, and only I can defend my name—and who I am.
Eventually, I met Julia Benedict, a girl that shared my beliefs—to stand up for oneself against prejudice. We were in quite an awkward predicament—Julia considered herself a “good man,” and I wanted to be a girl. Julia and I ultimately joined the School Newspaper Workshop, and we continue to let others hear our voice. Together, we spray paint on the noir hallways of the school with world-encircling words—and we continue to declare our voice, even to this day.
Julia enlightened me, “Words make the world go round! And so should your beliefs.”
