AHHHHH AWESOMENESS
So last night was possibly the best night of my life. I co-hosted (and also performed this poem) at the first ever poetry slam/open-mic night at my school. IT WAS CALLED THE FRIDAY NIGHT PANDA PARTY. P.S. I'd just like to point out how great that name is. People performed music, spoken word (whether it was rap, slam poetry, or just poetry) or short comedy acts. Those who set it up (mostly me, my friend Kelly and our kick ass teacher) expected only the creative writing kids to show up (which is about 15 including us) but 50-ISH PEOPLE WERE THERE. WHAT IS THAT! Crazy.
Hopefully later there'll be videos up of all the performers so I can show you all how freakin' cool the kids at my school are (and also how freakin' cool everything was decorated. We had Christmas lights. Christmas lights!) But the main reason I posted this entry is because I wanted to talk about how awesome it is to actually be a part of something.
I am not into the whole school spirit/footballfootballFOOTBALL thing and I am involved in a total of zero after school activities, so I am not necessarily at the top of the Participation Hot 100.
Being able to put together a movement of sorts is really powerful. Having a creative outlet is really important and I think a lot of high schools forget that. (Actually, in the closing slam poem, this guy Tom stated that public schooling is the worst thing to happen to the arts department. And I would have to agree with that.)
Anyway, I feel really... cool right now. A lot of the kids that I expected to go and boooooo at the performers didn't do that. Everyone was applauded for and everyone listened to what the performers and hosts had to say. (By the way, being the host of an open-mic night is SUPER INTENSE AND NERVE-WRACKING AND I NERELY POOPED MY PANTS ABOUT 8 TIMES.)
So now that this has turned into an essay and no one has read this, I'll stop talking.
Hopefully later there'll be videos up of all the performers so I can show you all how freakin' cool the kids at my school are (and also how freakin' cool everything was decorated. We had Christmas lights. Christmas lights!) But the main reason I posted this entry is because I wanted to talk about how awesome it is to actually be a part of something.
I am not into the whole school spirit/footballfootballFOOTBALL thing and I am involved in a total of zero after school activities, so I am not necessarily at the top of the Participation Hot 100.
Being able to put together a movement of sorts is really powerful. Having a creative outlet is really important and I think a lot of high schools forget that. (Actually, in the closing slam poem, this guy Tom stated that public schooling is the worst thing to happen to the arts department. And I would have to agree with that.)
Anyway, I feel really... cool right now. A lot of the kids that I expected to go and boooooo at the performers didn't do that. Everyone was applauded for and everyone listened to what the performers and hosts had to say. (By the way, being the host of an open-mic night is SUPER INTENSE AND NERVE-WRACKING AND I NERELY POOPED MY PANTS ABOUT 8 TIMES.)
So now that this has turned into an essay and no one has read this, I'll stop talking.