The turning point.

I had reached it.

At the ripe old age of 7 I decided I had had enough of playing games. I was tired of trying to play the game for the prize and losing to brown nosing, little, cheating kids. I was ahead of the game since before I started school. In kindergarten I was sent to study with the first graders to practice reading because learning ABC's was something to be learned at home. I was already far ahead of the kids that were sitting in the play house peeing their pants barely capable of scribbling half of the letters in their name.  Don't parents prepare their kids for school before sending them?  I guess that would partially explain the dumbing down of America.

I had my eye on the prize. The prize was citizen of the month. I was an ambitious little girl.  I was taught to work hard for what I wanted and that with hard work anything is possible.  In order to get citizen of the month you had to be chosen as the student of the month in your class. The teacher chooses, at their discretion who they feel is the best student and awards them the student of the month at a monthly assembly. All the other students of the same grade level that are chosen for student of the month stand up on stage and then the principal awards one of those students The Citizen of the Month. If you are chosen as The Citizen of the Month, you get to have lunch at the Far Western Tavern with the other Citizens and the principal.

Basically if you are a kick ass student, you should win right? Well hell, I was on my best behavior! I was well ahead of the learning curve, I was a shoe in right? Once I made student of the month, I just needed to be selected from the pool of other kids. Then I could sink my chompers into a juicy burger from the only steakhouse in town. So from kindergarten when I learned of this magnificent prize, I behaved. I knew it was only a matter of time before I got the coveted student of the month award and ultimately citizen of the month.

I was in for a rude awakening. I also realized that what I perceived to be happening in kinder and 1st grade would continue throughout my life. I was an observer and you know what I saw? I saw that it was not the early bird that gets the worm. Oh no, it was the little brown noser, whose head was so far up teacher's ass that even on the walk home from school she still smelled of shit, that got the worm. My grades were solid. My behavior was good. I was further ahead academically than the rest of the class. But I was not selected for student (ass-kisser) of the month because I was not schmoozing the teacher. I was not showing up to school early, first in line, wearing a mock uniform (one was NOT needed for our school) in an effort to wear a sphincter as a necklace.

It was at that moment that I realized what life would be like and I wasn't happy about it. I was taught that those who do well are rewarded. Not those who schmooze well are rewarded. What made it worse was the schmoozer was also the class tattle tale. If you sneezed and didn't cover your mouth, the teacher knew about it before you were done wiping your nose. Where is the pride in that?! Well I was raised with a little more self respect than being a brown nosing idiot. I was also raised not to tattle, it's bad form. After two years of patiently waiting for my prize I gave up. I decided I would do things on my terms. I was going to study for myself and not for someone else.  I was going to work at what I felt needed to be worked on not fall in line with the rest of the little pencil pushing, ass eaters.  I was going to earn merit not have it handed to me for being a schmoozer or rat-fink. 

So in 2nd grade I did as I pleased. Which consisted of reading every kids book I could get my hands on at the Guadalupe Public Library. There was a Book Worm contest at school that year. For every 25 books you read you could choose one to keep. If you read 100 books you got a t-shirt. I took home loads of free books that year. But only 1 t-shirt, they should have specified that the shirt was only valid for your FIRST 100 books. I didn't care I had a shirt and I didn't need another one. I was just slightly annoyed that they didn't phrase things logically. I was a 2nd grader not a moron. Say what you mean, not what you think I am capable of comprehending; I comprehend quite well.  Just because my teacher did not have mastery of the English language does not mean I did not.

Don't even get me started on my 2nd grade teacher's inability to speak English fluently. Words that had an 'f' or 'ph' were pronounced 'p'. I won't get into things that may come off as racist but:


I am a first generation American. I was taught to learn English well; at home I could learn Spanish but in school you learn English. We were taught to strive to speak without an accent so we were not discriminated against. We were raised to speak the language of the country we were raised in. Obviously the teacher didn't try as hard as my family to get a grasp of the English language. How is this person supposed to teach me the basics of English grammar if he himself could not pronounce half of the vocabulary words correctly? I refused to learn from this man. As far as I was concerned I was not learning as well as I could have been because HE could not say the words correctly. In my 7 year old mind, he needed to go back to school.  I had no faith in his ability to prepare me for my future in communicating properly in my native tongue.

If public school allowed it I think the teacher would have force choked me right out of his class every single day.  He had it out for me because he knew, HE KNEW I was better than he was at communicating verbally.  He also knew I sucked at math.  Which leads me to another story, for another time, now that I have derailed this post.

For now, moral of the story is: I hate brown nosers.  HATE them!  I do well with the skills I have because I can.  I have not gotten this far in life by wearing shit (or pearls) as a necklace. 

Thank you grammar school for showing me how fucked the world is.

Work hard to prove to yourself that you can do it.  You don't have to prove yourself to anyone but yourself.