Another Take on Dress Code

Today I came back from sports and took a shower. I didn't really want to, but tonight was Evensong (the hour long chapel that nobody really knows what its about), and I had to get dressed up. I don't like getting dressed up. Never have, probably never will. Whenever Seated comes around I stumble about the dorm trying to find an acceptable outfit. Its usually a challenge but I'm still always the first one ready (I don't waste my time and my youth putting on a pound of makeup). But back to Evensong. Today, especially, I was in a mood where I frankly did NOT want to put on a dress and some strappy shoes. What I really wanted to do was take a nice, long, quiet bike ride off campus to collect myself. Well I have a half hour to Evensong..I was seriously considering bagging and taking my much needed ride. Alas, I could not summon the courage.

So, in haste and also to prove a point about getting dressed up, I went to my closet and got out my skinny jeans. And a nice shirt, and some high heels. Needless to say I looked put together. I looked like I had taken my time to prepare for the service. I even put on earrings! All my friends warned me against the choice, but I held my position. I was going to wear those jeans to chapel like it was nobody's business. And you know why?

Two reasons: I don't like getting dressed up, and that I don't believe it matters what somebody is wearing, it only matters their attitude and what they bring to the table. A brief explanation of my first reason: I really just don't like getting dressed up.

But the real reason I made the decision to wear jeans? Its because in my mind it shouldn't matter our dress or our style, but how we participate and how we interact. I could have been the only one singing those hymns and paying attention to the speaker with my eyes wide open, but even so, I am not allowed to wear the outfit of my choice. Our society and community continually express the importance of being a non-judgemental and non-prejudice population. We are told constantly to effectively be blind, using our ears to get to know somebody rather than our eyes. So why should it matter what we wear? I understand that chapel is a place to respect and be respected. It is just a matter of in what form.

Looking around chapel I see close to six hundred individuals wearing the same outfit. Girls clad in floral print dresses and either sandals or pumps and boys in blazers and ties. Does that make them respect the service any more than myself in jeans? (By that time I had already changed). Those same people who had dressed respectively (and therefore conformed) are also the ones asleep in the service. Me? I was wide awake. I was paying attention to the speaker (trying; you see its really hard sitting in the antichapel) and I was reading aloud our school prayer. My clothing virtually had no role in this. I would have acted the same had I been wearing my jeans--probably even better, because I would have been comfortable in the outfit I'd chosen.

So why should it matter the clothing we wear? Respect is something much less material--respect is shown through actions. Whoever fell asleep today was disrespecting the service one thousand times that of somebody wearing jeans. Therefore, us as both students and citizens shouldn't have to waste an hour of our time dressing up for a service, we should spend our time doing what pleases us, and afterwards we'll be in a good mood. I bet you anything a whole lot more people will remember what happened during the service. A whole lot more people will show their respect through things that matter, like uniting our community by singing and praying together. This is a true case of, 'its whats on the inside that counts.'
Thank you.

This Isn't Right

She looks over at her friend and talks about how proud she is of her three year old daughter who already, at age three, can navigate the iPhone and the iPad and the iMac and the iPod and all the while I sit next to her friend who should at least have as much common sense as I do to think that this is disgusting, not normal and not right but instead as the woman keeps talking about her daughter and how she helped the eight year-old with the new iPad by showing her how to use it and the friend seems amazed and in awe but still I can't believe that the world has come to this disgusting and horrible thing and it makes me sad that I'm living in it and all I want to do right now is go somewhere else like Africa or Latin America where hopefully things are different and people are still people and families are still families and perhaps other people in this god forsaken place feel the same way that I do and if they do, why don't they speak up about it?

My Bike and Trust

Trust. I thought I trusted the SPS campus and community that I didn't have to lock my bike up everywhere I leave it. Evidently, not. Today, when I went to dinner at 5:30 my bike was sitting in front of Middle on the bike rack, unlocked. Fifty minutes later I returned to my dorm, only to see that my MOST PRIZED POSSESSION- my light blue Trek road bike- was missing. At first I was nervous but assumed that a friend, whom I'd loaned the bike to earlier in the day but had returned it, had decided to borrow it again and just didn't leave a note. During my radio show, AbiRoad, I kept calling said friend to see if he'd borrowed it, and eventually he answered. He said that he returned the bike after finding a nice bike from the bike share program. Where was my bike? It had been missing for two hours.

It was returned, thankfully, to the bike rack, without a note but with somebody's bottled water in the holder. Honestly, what scared me the most was the thought that my bike was out there somewhere without me, with somebody who I didn't know, and what was happening to it? It was almost comparable to the feeling when a loved one goes missing. As a Third Former just finding my way around SPS I have pretty much ignored the 'Trust' issue until now, when I find how much of a problem it is.

At home in San Francisco I know to always keep my bike in view, or locked up. But even then, I was pretty bad about keeping my bikes safe. I've had three bikes stolen in the past two years. In fall term I locked my bike up at the Upper, at my dorm, behind Mem Hall, and virtually any other place where I left it. By now I ride so often I've become lazy and stopped locking the bike. But that is also because I've become comfortable at SPS-I trust the amazing people here to know better than to steal my bike right under my nose. I mean, who in the world would do that?

I can't say I've met anybody yet who strikes me as a thief, because the people at St. Paul's seem to be too good for that. We talk four times a week in Chapel about the community and how special it is to us. How to everyone whose had a brush with the school has been amazed at the maturity, intelligence, and friendliness of the students and faculty. How seniors almost tear up during their senior speeches talking about what they love the most about SPS.

Well, as a Third Former, my favorite thing about St.Paul's was the people. How they smiled, and waved, and called out my name. I've never felt more welcome in a community than this one. It's spring term, and although the year is coming to an end soon enough I still wake up every morning with a smile, ready to seize the day. But since this incident I'm just not so sure. A friend of mine, who is a senior boy, once told me that he doesn't trust anybody at this school. He said that he's known everyone for four years and still does not trust them.

Is that really the mindset we want this school to have?

That although we live together, eat together, learn together, pray together, play together, we're still not united? Almost everyone I know considers SPS their home. At least in my home I know when to ask to borrow something. I know the difference between grabbing a pencil or scissors off of somebody's desk versus taking their bike for two hours. At home you generally know what people consider their most prized possession. All of my friends at school know how much I love my bike. I even color match my sneakers with my bike.

At a place as auspicious as this one, if people can't trust each other, where can they?

I Wish I Could Write

i wish i could write a poem about

my years of enduring poverty

i slept on the street

i ate from the trash

i wish i could write about

getting slapped in the face

by a drunk father

and running away to the big city

and getting into fuck knows what

i wish i could write about flunking out of

school or making some boys drool

or being just too cool

i wish i could write about how it feels

to be high or on meth

substance alcohol sex

i wish i could write about my raging sexual fantasies

and put them up on the walls of my prep school

screaming to prudes that its all gonna be fine

wake up your life, you don't know whats right

all this teenage shit,

its supposed to happen

so don't try to control you life too much now

you have adulthood for that.