Oh my, it's just been so long, hasn't it? I love to blog, and so many times something has happened and I've said to myself, "I want to blog about this," but, it just never pans out. Life gets in the way. I've had 2 subjects in my head lately, so today I will talk about both because they pertain to the same thing.
To fully understand we need to start at the beginning…
First grade was a whole new start for me. A new school had been built up the street and I was going to be attending with all my friends, exciting, I know! I remember the smell of crayons and to this day I love to open a box and smell them. My friend Tiffany sat beside me on the first day and we compared school supplies. I believe I had a pink backpack that year with an actual Cabbage Patch head coming out of it. Sounds weird, but I loved it. Unfortunately though, later that year I was diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis and was unable to participate in sports at all. I had my good days and I tried my hardest. I actually got a PE award from good ol' Coach Koelling (which, by the way, was stolen from a boy who pushed me down on my way home from school that day). I'm not sure at what point and time I began to fear gym class, I think it was when I left the security of Truman Elem. & Coach Koelling and moved on to middle school. There, is where a whole new world began and where my views on jocks, coaches and gym class as a whole changed.
So, here we go, this, my friends is my soapbox…
P.E. class is a class of favoritism. The problem I have with it still lingers to this day and bothers me often. Many, many times I have thought about contacting the school district regarding it, and I guess my views have resurfaced and begun to churn again since Madyson just entered middle school. First off, the coaches/gym teachers pick their "favorites" to be captains, at which point their "favorites" pick their fellow jock friends to be on their teams. Who, you ask, is left standing until the very end, sending telepathic messages to the captains, God, and whoever else will listen? Me, kids like me, handicapped kids, fat kids, geeky kids. To me, all that does is make them/us feel littler than they are. Not literally, of course, but mentally, emotionally…Do you know what it feels like to be one of the last kids standing there against the bleachers with your cheeks burning from embarrassment? Now, don't feel too sorry for me, I had plenty of friends, I wasn't necessarily geeky and surely at the time not fat, but who wants the girl with braces on her legs to play sidelined soccer for their team? Schools these days are trying like mad to cut down on bullying to end childhood suffering, suicide, etc. but let me tell you what, standing there was suffering! I would have rather been bullied! The fact that they, the schools, haven't picked up on this type of team selection being hard on kids self esteem astonishes me! I would stand there and act like I didn't care, and thank God I usually had Kelly by my side, (for whatever reason we usually had gym together) we, the rejects that Coach Vanleer's protégée's didn't want on their team. (I'm not doing us much justice Kelly, am I? We weren't dorks, just not athletes.) Anyway, all I'm saying is with the school systems changing things so much to accommodate all children, yet overlooking something, in my eyes, to be so hurtful is nuts. I mean, look at me, all these years and it still bothers me. That's how much of an impact it had on me, and it kills me to know they are still doing that and that there are still kids standing there, like me, wishing to drop dead as they stand against the cold brown bleachers.
Onto soapbox numero dos…
Cheerleaders. Why is it okay for them to wear skirts that their asses hang out of when all the rest of the female (or male drag) population have to wear skirts and shorts that go down to their middle finger fingertip? Seriously, why is that? I have ALWAYS wondered. Once again, don't get me wrong, most of my friends were cheerleaders, but it is such a double standard! Just because they are wearing bloomers under their skirts doesn't make it okay! The dress code these days is hilarious! Madyson actually got in trouble by a teacher b/c her bra strap was showing from underneath her tank top. The tank top, mind you, was not a spaghetti strap; it had inch and a half width on the shoulders. I almost want to send her to school in a mini skirt just to see what they would say, I would put bloomers underneath of course, which I guess would make it okay, right?
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