A memory that I happen to fall back to often is of one when I was in middle school. The subject was U.S. History and we were assigned to work on a project, if I remember correctly, that had to deal with population and human effects. I was assigned to work on this project w/ two other classmates that (like it always seemed to happen) were not chosen by me. The project which we had about two weeks to work on, and would result in 50 percent of our final class grade. Looking over to my partners I knew that this was going to be almost impossible to achieve.
The first thing we were assigned to do is choose a topic. This was followed with meetings, and job descriptions. Since these parts where to be done in class, they cooperated brilliantly. Suggesting the beatifying of oceans, the planting of new trees, recyclable materials. One was completely fascinated with the idea of street cleanup due to community service hours. He had plenty of knowledge on this subject, due to his first hand experience. This really was almost like a trade in his family that was passed down by generations. A generation of court appointed community hours.
After little deliberation we settled on the O-Zone layer and dangerous vehicle emitted fumes. (How progressive of us) We set our meetings dates, and distributed research assignments. Everything felt like it was going well, till our first meeting came up and neither of them showed up. I shrugged it off thinking maybe they forgot. So I waited till our next meeting, and again neither of them showed up leaving me to print out countless of useless data and graphs that made no sense to me at the time.
We were finally in class and I found them cornered. They couldn't escape this meeting! I approached them and asked them why they hadn't shown up to our meetings. One of the boy's response was "Um, I don't know. I don't want to do the project any more." My heart sank immediately. I could not fail this class because these idiots didn't "want" to do the assignment. But being the little weakling that my aunts would always tease me of being, I didn't speak up and just sat down to plan out our project.
After that it got awkward and awful. I could not face them in the cafeteria. All I would do is swell up in anger, and tears. I tell you, I could've quenched many a thirst with my crying.
I didn't know what to do in that situation, I couldn't tell my parents because my mother tended to overreact causing a huge scene humiliating me even further. I couldn't tell the teacher because the boys would know I had told him, and get in further trouble. I did the only thing that I knew to do (even to this day) is avoid the situation, buckle down, and get it over. Problem was even though I was telling myself to get over it, something inside me wasn't happy about any of it.
It came to the point that for a week straight food would not stay down. Any smells in the cafeteria or near would cause my stomach to twist and turn. I began to get sweat attacks when walking down the halls near the class, the teacher, or even the two boys. My parents had to take me to the hospital twice. They thought I had caught some sort of stomach virus, at one point I was convinced of that myself. Telling myself that everything was okay, and it was just a dumb virus. But then I would realize that if I were sick I wouldn't have time to do any research or even construct a simple diorama on the subject. This would make me rush to the bathroom even quicker.
When I was taken to the hospital there was another pressure of making sure I was telling the doctor everything. But I really couldn't tell her everything that was bothering me because my mother was in the room, and I really didn't want her to find out. My mother had a history of not being able to make things better when it came to school conflicts. She only exacerbated them, shared the information with my aunts, then they would begin to ridicule me together, and eventually I couldn't find a haven to escape too.
The Doctor noticed that something was odd with my behavior because she took a look at me, and then asked my parents to step outside for a moment. My mother was at first reluctant due to her overwhelming need to be involved. But I looked at her with a little anger in my eyes, and she stepped out.
The Doctor proceeded to ask me a few questions, about home, the illness, what's triggering them, and then she asked about homework. That's when everything began to spill out. I told her about the two boys, the teacher, the topic, the research, my insecurity with confronting them. I remember just telling her about so many things that were so personal and difficult for me that I was confused when I noticed she had a smile on her face.
"Don't let it bug you so much."
I didn't know what to say. I wanted to start yelling at her and scratch out her eyes, and scream "Don't let that bug you so much!"
But I didn't. I just listened as she continued.
"Trust me, just talk to your teacher, and explain the situation, and he'll know what to do. I'm sure he knows about the two boys."
I remember the entire car ride home I ran all the different scenarios in my head. There were ones where he would yell at me for being an awful partner. There was one where he reported it to the class, and they all just stared and hated me for just not shutting up. There was one where he expelled the boys out of the school and congratulated me for being able to stand up to them. And finally one where he just looked at me and said "You'll work it out."
Wait, sorry, that last one was real.
After killing myself over the damn project all he was capable of telling me was "You'll work it out." I was farther from resolving the situation than I had ever been.
But I did it. I went over to my aunts house, drew up pages of information and images, and in a very low-fi manner made a power point presentation using a VH Camera, paper, and onboard mic. My very first official PSA. And at the ends where the credits ran, my name was the only one to be found. Took me a total of three hours.
When it came time to present, the two boys did not show up. And since their presence was needed in order for them to be granted any of the grade at all, they failed.
Yep, this is what I remember every time something in my life goes astray. Such as the other night, when I had shrimp in my Thai food, and I vomited it all up. It took me back, way back.
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