lizzz34

Everything

Oops, I almost forgot about this journal. I'm happy I
made it though. I can't post what I'm gonna write here
there because I don't want some people to see it.
Anyway, I'll explain the story to anyone who wants to
read it.
You might want to know some backround about me
before I write this all down. My name's Elizabeth and I'm
currently 14 years old. Well, I guess that's enough. So
here's the story.
Last year, when I was in 8th grade, I was about to
graduate from one of the worst schools in my area. My
teachers were ignorant, stupid, and besides that, I
wasn't learning anything. Anyway, the time had come for
me to think about what high school I would go to. I had
already known I would go to UNI, the local private
school, for awhile. When suddenly my mom came up
with a horrible idea. You see, I have a godmother
named Lila, she lives in Kenya and publishes books.
Her family is very wealthy and one day my mother was
reading a paper and went to see her and her sick
father. While my mom was visiting Lila and her began
talking about schools. Lila remembered the good ol'
days of boarding school and how much she liked it.
They decided that boarding school would be a much
better place for me than an average school. They
planned it all out before I even knew about it. They'd
split the cost, and go out the the East Coast to visit
schools. When my mom proposed this to me I was
less than excited. I hadn't even known boarding
schools still existed except as military schools. I was
more afraid than sad. I didn't really think my mom
would go through with it though, it would take so much
work, I thought it was just some stupid scheme they
had come up with. January came and we flew out to the
East Coast. We were going to schools all day every day.
I even got really sick because I was never eating or
drinking anything except for the cocoa the schools kept
giving me as we toured. We went to so many schools I
can't even remember them all. When we came home I
still didn't really want to go,but it was too late to apply to
any other school (very convenient for my mom, I kept
reminding her about it all and she always said "I'll look
into it" until it was too late) So I just lied to myself and
pretended I wanted to go. We painstakingly did the
applications for the boarding schools and my mom
stressed over it all day. It was really annoying because
she was making a big deal over nothing, she's always
so overdramatic. Anyway, I got accepted to all four I
applied to. I didn't even want to apply to all the ones I
applied to but my mom forced me. Anyway, I decided to
go to Miss Porter's. I didn't realize that that school is the
best or whatever, it still shocks me that all these people
know about it. So anyway, I went there and I hate it to
death. I'm always having to call my brother, John (22),
and his fiancee, Laarni (22), and just cry and cry. I
know, I cry over nothing a lot. The only thing that made
me feel better is that my mom promised me if I went
there for a year and didn't like it I could come home. I
came back this vacation and she took it away. I knew
she would. I feel so trapped. I know a lot of people
would love this opportunity and I feel really bad for not
taking advantage of it but I'm just so depressed when
I'm there. I'm not the kind of person who's all morbid
and depressed all the time but I really really hate it
there. John tried to talk to her, she usually listens to
him, but she didn't this time. The bad thing is my dad
actually agrees with her. I didn't think he would, he's a
really quiet, timid, type of person and never likes
anyone to have any pain whatsoever (that's almost a
fault). I feel really helpless, my life it just out of my
hands. I really was thinking about suicide, but don't
worry, I'm not like that. I remembered though, that Lila
pays half of my tuition, without her support there's no
way I'm going there, so I sent her this letter:

Dear Lila,
I’m emailing you to tell you about boarding school. I
hate it there more than anything I’ve ever known, I want
to commit suicide when I’m there. I know you’re gonna
ask the same question everyone does “ It’s unclear
what exactly you don’t like” Well, I’ll tell you. I don’t have
any friends except my roommate. Everyone else is
stupid, materialistic, gossipy, and stuck up. I really
wonder how a lot of people even got in, including me.
Everyone there is also a complete pervert. Every aspect
of my life is controlled. They control when I eat, sleep,
use the phone, and the internet. I can only go out if
someone goes with me and I have to have a specific
destination and I have to be back before sunset. In
winter, right now, the sun sets at about three thirty, but
that’s ok, it’s impossible to go anywhere on a school
day anyway.Even if I wanted to go somewhere there’s
nowhere to go, there are only two places; Naples the
pizza place and Starbucks. There’s nothing in
Blank Connecticut. As for academics, I know that’s
more important, boarding schools have the retarded
idea that you must do sports and this gets in the way of
doing work. We have to do one interscholastic sport,
that takes up two hours after school and most of your
Saturday. You often have to sacrifice valuable time for
frivolities like required concert attendance and stupid
meetings. There’s no possible way to be independant
as I said earlier, I can’t even be responsible on my own.
If I wanted to do all of my work right after school so I
could have the night off I couldn’t, I’d have to go to study
hall from seven thirty to niine thirty anyway. No matter
how much work I have I HAVE to go to study hall at
those hours. It’s almost a punishment for doing you’re
work early. When I’m not working, all of my time is
spent in a tiny room that I have to share with another
person. If I want to just get away from my room for a
moment the only thing I can do is step out into the even
smaller hall. I can’t even take a walk because I have to
have a specific destination, though that doesn’t matter,
there’s nowhere to go. There’s no separation between
school and home, it’s impossible to escape for even an
instant. I’m always there, trapped in my tiny room. My
school is exactly like college, only instead of three or
four classes I have six or seven. Sometimes I can’t
even eat or sleep. Everday seems so pointless, I’m just
waiting for all of my commitments to be over. After
school, sports, and study hall are finally over it’s nine
thirty and bed is at ten thirty. I go to sleep and another
pointless day starts again. The only thing that ever kept
me going was the fact that I could come home next
year, but then my mom took it away. It’s ok though, I
knew she would. When I knew I was going to Miss
Porter’s I knew if I didn’t like it she’d take it back
anyway. I never really wanted to go there, I was just
lying to myself and trying to stay optomistic because I
had nowhere else to go, I didn’t apply to any local
schools. I went there, and I gave my best effort, I really
really did, to like it there. But I despise it. When I’m
there, I have no time to develop my own interests or
personality. I have no spare time to learn more about
specific things I don’t learn in school or anything like
that. I live right next to a world famous zoo, I could get
an internship there and make calls to the professers
who write the books I read. If I did all this at a relatively
young age it would look really good to a college that’s
famous for at least zoology, I’d have a name in there. I’d
learn more too. Unlike my mom, I don’t believe that my
GPA is the only thing that matters (no I’m not assuming,
she very clearly stated that it doesn’t matter what I learn
as long as my GPA is high), I want to absorb knowlege,
and even though at Miss Porter’s most kids do this, I
am hindered by the way they constrict me. If my GPA
was the only thing that mattered then I obviously
shouldn’t be going somewhere where I’ll never get very
good grades at all. Currently my GPA is a B- . It may not
seem that bad, but it’s not very good either. To me, Miss
Porter’s is very close to Hell on Earth. Before I came
there I was directed and knew exactly what I was going
to do and how I was going to do everything, and I knew
where my life was going. Now I don’t know anything. My
mom acts as if, if I don’t go there I can’t go to college.
She keeps threatening me and telling me I’ll become a
secretary and serve coffee to the boss unless I get a
rich husband. And then she said “they just want us
barefoot and pregnant” My mom thinks I don’t
understand the real world. And I know that because of
my youth I probably don’t understand it as well as
adults, but I know it well enough to understand that you
CAN become successful and not go to Miss Porter’s
School. I CAN get into college. and I will. The way my
mom sees it is that all men in the world have large devil
horns and a pitchfork, they’re all out to get her and all
women. She also thinks I’m a lazy slob like Paul and
herself in the past. She combines these two together
and figures that she must send me to wherever is the
absolute best and I must become a robot no matter
how I feel. She also feels that this equation exits: Miss
Porter’s= guarantee into college, normal school= risk.
And though, to some extent, this is true, I really really
feel it would be better for me not to go there next year.
My mom really thinks that I don’t mind it there, but I’d
rather be with my friends. I would rather be with my
friends but I really hope you can see what my mom
can’t and understand that I am miserable. I get images
that I could just jump off the roof of my house or take a
glass and shatter it and take one of the shards and cut
my wrists and neck. I don’t have the courage to do
those things, and even though I really thought about it a
lot at school, I’m not stupid enough to do it either. But I
still think about it. I understand that not everything is
going to become magically better when I come home,
but I know it will be better. It’s excrutiatingly lonely there,
I cry almost every day. I try to be objective, and I’m
willing to be a robot for my own benefit to a certain
extent put there’s a certain line I crossed long ago, and
I think the scale has been tipped, it’s just not worth it. I
wrestled myself with this decision for a good three
months, I didn’t make this decision without thinking
about it. I’ve thought about everything I could do to not
go there, even if my mom and dad will me too; not go
on the plane, sabatage my grades and get kicked out,
do something to get expelled, but I know these would
just be hurting me. Please understand that I’m not
being purile about this. I’ve thought it through as
thoroughly as I could. If there were any way it could be
fixed I would try to do so, but the fact is I’m unhappy
because of the way the school sets up your life. I
couldn’t change that without becoming the principal, I
couldn’t do that without making it only a day school. I
know it’s a risk not to go, but I think it’s one worth
taking. If I have to go there for four yearss I will literally
go insane, I already feel like I’m losing myself. I’m not
writing all of this to you to make you feel sorry for me,
I’m writing this to you because my mom is being more
childish than me and is acting in a stupid manner.
Before she took away her promise she made threats
about sending me to Sylven Learning Center and how I
couldn’t get into Francis Parker anyway (then obviously
Miss Porter’s doesn’t have as much pull as she
thinks!). John has tried to talk to her, but she won’t even
listen to him.You have a part in this too, please put your
foot down for me, because she won’t listen to me.
See ya,
Liz

I hope she agrees with me. See ya!