What I'm writing instead of my essay...

...is this blog post. Because after the dreams I've had SEVERAL nights in a row, followed by a particularly traumatizing few minutes of facebook-album gazing, I feel compelled to put into words just how thankful I am that I am no longer in high school. Though really, there are no words that can adequately express my feelings.

As it is for many adolescents, high school was a somewhat hideous experience for me. I don't mean that *I* was hideous-- au contraire: after rifling through my old photo albums before moving to London, I discovered that I was a hot little shit (after I got the braces off anyway). Oh how I wish Grad School Jocelyn could've appeared to High School Jocelyn and let her know she was smokin' (I'd also probably slip High School Jocelyn a flask of wine and tell her to use it in emergencies). But the fact that I was a) a cutie-pie and b) awesome didn't stop high school from being a tragic train-wreck of a four years. Of course it wasn't all bad-- it rarely is, right? (My mom always likes to remind me that 'life is like train tracks-- parallel-- good happening along with the bad and vice versa.' She's a smart lady.) I had some awesome friends, some awesome teachers, an awesome voice that allowed me to compete in super-fun competitions, and by senior year i had so awesomely over-achieved academically that I only had to spend half-days at high school and spent the rest of my time taking community college classes and naps.

But oh how high school stifled my free little spirit... the cattiness stifled it, the idiotic dress code stifled it, and though I didn't know it at the time, the legalistic evangelical-osity stifled it. My sophomore year was particularly bad-- my Benedict Arnold of a former best friend stabbed me in the back big-time, and then decided to spread some fun rumors about me, one of which was that I stuffed my bra. Several things are wrong with this: first of all, what are we, TWELVE? I mean okay we were only FIFTEEN, but even for a 15-year-old, that's pretty low and lame; second of all, even then my self-esteem was too high to think I needed big fake boobs; and third of all, if I were gonna stuff my bra why in the hell would I stick with an A-cup? Don't you think I'd go for the gold and show up in like a C or a D? Honestly. (Not to mention that my former best friend herself consistently sported a tragic pointy, lumpy, Madonna-esque bra, so she had absolutely no room to talk about boob appearance. Whatever.)

But as if sophomore year hadn't crushed my spirit enough, for my junior year the administration decided to institute what was lovingly referred to as 'standardized dress.' AKA you have to look boring. If you have met me, you know that 'looking boring' is just not something I do. Or am even capable of. So I took their dress code as a challenge and decided to find fun ways around it, like showing up in the most interesting and awesome shoes ever, because that was the one and only thing not regulated by their dumb code. I even sat myself down and went through the handbook line by line, making a list of loopholes in the rules (my law professor would be so proud! Though at the moment he'd probably prefer me to be writing my LAW essay...). What was super-fun was when they started having to come up with new rules for the code JUST FOR ME. After I put up a fuss about not being able to wear my fabulous fur-trimmed jacket (THERE WAS NOTHING IN THE HANDBOOK ABOUT JACKETS), the next year you better believe they popped in a line stating that students couldn't wear 'outerwear' in the classroom. (Don't worry, that didn't stop me-- I got a note from my doctor saying I was exempt from that one due to poor circulation.)

I also used to get super-pissed when my Presbyterian Bible teachers (YEP that's right, we had BIBLE CLASS) would try to tell me that some babies were going to hell because they weren't 'predestined.' Um... WHAT? Call me crazy but I'm pretty sure God has more important things to worry about than condemning little babies to an eternity of torment-- and I don't even like babies that much. Now, in high school I was still pretty conservative (SHOCKER, I know), so a lot of the stuff that would really set my blood boiling now really didn't get to me then, which was probably for the best. But now imagine that you're not High School Jocelyn, you're Grad School Jocelyn, and you're being told you have to go BACK to high school... back to the cattiness, back to the place where people's highest aspirations are to get married at as young an age as legally possible, pop out some kids, and stay in Colorado forever, back to the place where you're not allowed to wear your awesome new fur coat and you're told your dog probably won't be with you in heaven (WHAT??).

Well, that is what happens to me ALL THE TIME in the hideous recurring dreams that I have about being forced back to high school. That's right- I have recurring dreams in which I am told that in fact my high school diploma is missing some credits and I've got to go BACK for a semester. Ohhh the inhumanity! Now, people often relive the most traumatic parts of their lives repeatedly in dreams, so I guess if my most traumatic event so far is high school, I can count my blessings. And I do. But that doesn't mean these dreams are pretty. THEY ARE NOT. I currently have two facial piercings (CRAZY I KNOW), a tattoo (not a stupid cliche' one), a fierce fashion sense that does NOT involve khaki pants and polo shirts, and a whole host of liberal views that would shock the socks off the administrators of my alma mater; NONE OF THESE THINGS are even remotely compatible with returning to the high school from whence I came. (Not to mention that it's in Colorado Springs which- in case you're confused by geography- is in the MIDDLE part of America, which in itself just scares the crap out of me.)

So when I have these dreams (nightmares?) of returning to high school, it's as if some big evil THING is trying to force my hard-won sense of self back into the mold I sprang from. (Though let's be honest, I never *really fit* the mold in the first place.) I'm far away from my family, I miss my American friends, and sometimes I think life would be a lot easier if I had jumped on board the Conservative Marriage and Family Wagon and settled down in some suburb in America... but then I shudder and realize that that is not even remotely what I want my life to be about. I love my life, I love where the path I've chosen has taken me, I fought long and hard to get here and I'm glad I did. It's taken a lot of time, a lot of thought, and a lot of therapy to get to where I am (maybe I'll write about that when I'm procrastinating my next essay ;)), but it's amazing to (sometimes) feel at peace with yourself, with God, with the world (okay maybe not the world- when you study human rights you KNOW the world is f***ed up). Not that I always feel all zen about myself- if we were always at peace with ourselves we would never grow and change, and unfortunately (or fortunately?) what I've come to realize is that change is necessary, and uncomfortableness is necessary for change; but in the (often too-short) lulls between the uncomfortable changes, I like what I see in myself. So what I just have to keep telling myself is, "Don't worry, Grad School Jocelyn. No one can ever make you go back to high school, or live in Colorado, or start thinking that little Bailey won't be there in heaven because of some made-up doctrine." Besides, if they tried, I would claim violation of my human rights and get my law professor on their ass :).

Human Rights Overload: my latest affliction

What a week, ladies and gentlemen. What. A. Week. It began with me shutting myself up in my room all last weekend so I could focus on writing an essay on ritual shrine slavery in Ghana (upbeat, right?), followed up by attending the premier of a new film on human trafficking on Tuesday, followed on Wednesday by quite possibly the most frightening lecture EVER about climate change. By this point I was suffering from what I can only term as 'human rights overload.' Obviously, I knew when I decided to study human rights that a lot of it would be upsetting and obviously, the reason I decided to do it anyway was/is because I firmly believe that something needs to be done about these upsetting things. And usually, I can handle it; I can manage to take in the disturbing facts and statistics and practices without getting overwhelmed to the point of non-functionality. But after being inundated with horrific stories of trafficking and slavery and then being told that we're all basically going to be underwater in 50 years unless our carbon footprints are virtually eradicated, I passed overdrive and went into a sort of human rights coma. I skipped my Wednesday seminar, came home, and took a nice long nap. Then I got up, drank what could only have been the equivalent of an entire bottle of wine, and went back to sleep. I had high hopes for myself on Thursday and even set my alarm to wake me up in time for class. HA. I got up and realized I just didn't feel the need to show up for lecture- I needed a little more time in denial. So I lazed about and did nothing all morning and made myself generally useless to the world for a while, and then I pulled it together and went to my afternoon seminar and made myself resume functioning as a contributing member of society.

I have found that this is what I do- what I need to do- every so often. Sometimes something will happen, or several somethings will happen, or I'll come up against something that's bigger than my ability to process it, and I'll just shut down for a little while. I'll avoid human contact and I'll shut myself in my room and I'll sleep and sleep and sleep. I used to feel guilty about these intermittent hibernations- like I was somehow avoiding things, being unhealthy, taking the easy way out. But then I realized that it was my way of processing things... when my conscious mind can't handle something, it takes a break for a while so that my subconscious can deal with it. Then after a little while, I suck it up and deal with it on a conscious level, in whatever way it needs to be dealt with. This time around, that meant that I started being super-anal about recycling and sustainability and transportation (yes I know that my flight to the US for Christmas is going to basically use up my carbon allowance for the entire year, but I cycle everywhere to try to make up for it!), and that I went back and finished the book on trafficking that I'd had to take a break from when I was in my pseudo-coma. Because I know that sometimes I need to take a break from the human rights world I've chosen to immerse myself in, but I also know that I can't stay comatose forever... as Kasey Chambers says in 'Ignorance': "You can turn off the TV, and go about your day, but just cause you don't see it, it don't mean it's gone away."