TEENAGE RIOT: Chapt. 5
I'm pretty fucking lucky to have my parents. It's nice to know that they support me and want to help cover my ass.
We all were sitting around a table in Ms. Connelly's office. Ms. Connelly sat directly across from my parents and I and Mr. Dill served as the barrier between Ms. Connelly and I and I think I might've lost it if he wasn't there to let me take a breath.
So we all settled in and I tried to kiss ass at the beginning to throw her off. "Ms. Connelly..." "Ms. Connelly...I'd like to if I could..." She continunally ignored me until I just had the balls to interrupt her and get it over with, "Ms. Connelly, sorry to interrupt but I'd like to say something before we get started if that's okay." "Sure," she cooed evilly. "I've been thinking about what happened yesterday and with all of this and I just wanted to apologize for the way I acted. I felt like I needed to voice my opinion and I felt like the only way I could do that was through the flyers. I'm sorry for going behind your back with the article. I just needed to say what I had to say and I guess that I forgot that...uh...that...I guess, that's not possible here..." She expressed a sort of fake appreciation for that one. But hell, what did I expect? I was barely honest with my opening.
So then we got into it and boy, did it go deep. We all thought that it would just be an apology and a short discussion and that would be it. But no, this bitch was pissed. I apparently struck some kind of personal barrier that I was definitely not supposed to even come close to. She was pissed.
So she went on and on about how she felt and how she thought everything was clear and basically everything I've said about her previous meeting with me. Then she started attacking my journalist side with criticism on my researching skills. She would deliver points for me, pause for an answer, and halfway through my defense would cut me off and hammer in another point. And what pissed me off was that my defense was actually legitimate. I had something to say, I knew the flip side for every detail she pushed in me, and I could defend myself but every time she felt that I was somewhat competent on the subject she'd interrupt me and throw more shit in my face. At one point she said, "Why didn't you take into account the possibility of girls dressing more appropriately or taking other precautions to avoiding rape?" As if she was somehow insinuating that rape is the victim's fault. And at that point, I just lost it. I could not fight her anymore. I realized at that point that this was a pointless battle and I could not win it or have any effect over her. I can't change the Notre Dame rules because nobody's really looking for change in the first place. "I'm sorry, Ms. Connelly, I'm trying to be as respectful as I can, but at this point I'm just going to have to disagree with you, I'm sorry." And my Dad stepped in and said that this wasn't really a relevant issue and that maybe we should all just agree to disagree but I really don't think Ms. Connelly had that in mind.
We got the ideas across that I was sorry, I was never going to pull shit like this again, and that I still wanted to go to Notre Dame and graduate. But there was one thing that set her off still. She said what she was most concerned about was that she had an angry and unhappy student at her school. At the time I actually thought she meant she was concerned about my well-being. I'll get to that later. But she was concerned about me and saw my situation as a problem. She said, "Where did we go wrong? I thought all of this was clear." And for a moment I was grateful for her honesty. Yes, where did you go wrong? How exactly did you fuck up? Am I really the problem here? You tell me.
I'm supposed to get a call by the end of today that'll say what's going to happen. Unfortunately, at this point that looks unlikely. I really doubt Mr. Dill and Ms. Connelly are in a room right now debating whether or not they should expel me right now. So, I'm not going to lie, I'm worried. Here's why:
1) Remember when she called me angry and unhappy? Though she didn't say it, I later on got the sense that she was possibly hinting that I could become a threat in the future. That I'm the next Columbine kid or something. Which is bad news if that's what she's really thinking. My thoughts wander elsewhere though...I mean, really, if I had the potential to shoot up the school, don't you think I would've skipped flyers and gone straight to that? I mean, do I even come off as capable of something like that?
2) She's taking it personal. I hit one of her buttons, man. She's pissed. My mom went even as far to wonder if she herself had been raped. And I fucking hope not.
So I don't know what to do at this point. I'm getting applause from my friends but it's really doing little to silence my fears of being expelled. I don't see it as likely and everyone else seems to think the idea of expelling me is ludicrous but I really don't know what to expect. I'll let everyone know when I get a call.
We all were sitting around a table in Ms. Connelly's office. Ms. Connelly sat directly across from my parents and I and Mr. Dill served as the barrier between Ms. Connelly and I and I think I might've lost it if he wasn't there to let me take a breath.
So we all settled in and I tried to kiss ass at the beginning to throw her off. "Ms. Connelly..." "Ms. Connelly...I'd like to if I could..." She continunally ignored me until I just had the balls to interrupt her and get it over with, "Ms. Connelly, sorry to interrupt but I'd like to say something before we get started if that's okay." "Sure," she cooed evilly. "I've been thinking about what happened yesterday and with all of this and I just wanted to apologize for the way I acted. I felt like I needed to voice my opinion and I felt like the only way I could do that was through the flyers. I'm sorry for going behind your back with the article. I just needed to say what I had to say and I guess that I forgot that...uh...that...I guess, that's not possible here..." She expressed a sort of fake appreciation for that one. But hell, what did I expect? I was barely honest with my opening.
So then we got into it and boy, did it go deep. We all thought that it would just be an apology and a short discussion and that would be it. But no, this bitch was pissed. I apparently struck some kind of personal barrier that I was definitely not supposed to even come close to. She was pissed.
So she went on and on about how she felt and how she thought everything was clear and basically everything I've said about her previous meeting with me. Then she started attacking my journalist side with criticism on my researching skills. She would deliver points for me, pause for an answer, and halfway through my defense would cut me off and hammer in another point. And what pissed me off was that my defense was actually legitimate. I had something to say, I knew the flip side for every detail she pushed in me, and I could defend myself but every time she felt that I was somewhat competent on the subject she'd interrupt me and throw more shit in my face. At one point she said, "Why didn't you take into account the possibility of girls dressing more appropriately or taking other precautions to avoiding rape?" As if she was somehow insinuating that rape is the victim's fault. And at that point, I just lost it. I could not fight her anymore. I realized at that point that this was a pointless battle and I could not win it or have any effect over her. I can't change the Notre Dame rules because nobody's really looking for change in the first place. "I'm sorry, Ms. Connelly, I'm trying to be as respectful as I can, but at this point I'm just going to have to disagree with you, I'm sorry." And my Dad stepped in and said that this wasn't really a relevant issue and that maybe we should all just agree to disagree but I really don't think Ms. Connelly had that in mind.
We got the ideas across that I was sorry, I was never going to pull shit like this again, and that I still wanted to go to Notre Dame and graduate. But there was one thing that set her off still. She said what she was most concerned about was that she had an angry and unhappy student at her school. At the time I actually thought she meant she was concerned about my well-being. I'll get to that later. But she was concerned about me and saw my situation as a problem. She said, "Where did we go wrong? I thought all of this was clear." And for a moment I was grateful for her honesty. Yes, where did you go wrong? How exactly did you fuck up? Am I really the problem here? You tell me.
I'm supposed to get a call by the end of today that'll say what's going to happen. Unfortunately, at this point that looks unlikely. I really doubt Mr. Dill and Ms. Connelly are in a room right now debating whether or not they should expel me right now. So, I'm not going to lie, I'm worried. Here's why:
1) Remember when she called me angry and unhappy? Though she didn't say it, I later on got the sense that she was possibly hinting that I could become a threat in the future. That I'm the next Columbine kid or something. Which is bad news if that's what she's really thinking. My thoughts wander elsewhere though...I mean, really, if I had the potential to shoot up the school, don't you think I would've skipped flyers and gone straight to that? I mean, do I even come off as capable of something like that?
2) She's taking it personal. I hit one of her buttons, man. She's pissed. My mom went even as far to wonder if she herself had been raped. And I fucking hope not.
So I don't know what to do at this point. I'm getting applause from my friends but it's really doing little to silence my fears of being expelled. I don't see it as likely and everyone else seems to think the idea of expelling me is ludicrous but I really don't know what to expect. I'll let everyone know when I get a call.