Close Family

Katherine Eltsina (not her real name) is a woman with extensive worldly experience. She is one of the few people I have talked to about job opportunities to casually consider flying to Spain or Canada if it meant finding a job or internship that would be a good stepping stone into the field of behavioral psychology. She drew the line at Austria though, apparently spiders the size of dinner plates are not her thing. “My father said to me, he’ll never visit me if I moved to Australia!”

In the end, it wouldn’t matter much because Katherine does most of the visiting as far as family is concerned. If someone asked her about her family she would say that she is “Russian, a Russian German, which means that my family is pretty big.” While Katharine has a small nuclear family comprised of only her father, her mother, and herself, her mother alone has forty cousins. They “don’t live close” but they are “warm” and when they all get together it is quite an event.

Even though her nuclear family is very small, Katherine feels that it is “perfect” the way it is. Katherine’s mother and father are only twenty years old than she is. They grew up with her and she can she her own influence in their development. Older parents are somewhat set in their ways, they cannot be changed or influenced as much. The experience of growing and changing together has lead Katherine’s family to become “very very close.” For example, Katherine often shops with her mom, suggesting clothes which gives her mother a youthful look.

Katherine has an unusual mother daughter. “You know how kids will say “I want that” and the mother will do it, that doesn’t happen in my family.” To clarify, one day after Katherine’s mother did something for her like maybe cook for her or do her laundry, Katherine told her “I didn’t ask you to do it.” Afterward, Katherine’s mother didn’t automatically do the traditional motherly tasks because she no longer was obligated to do them. So whenever she or Katherine do something for each other, and whenever they say thank you “it really shows appreciation” and that they really “value” each other’s actions more so than other mothers and daughters.

As a little girl, Katherine would sometimes come home and cook for her mother who would be tired in the mid day. It is only now when Katherine goes home to visit does her mother cook three times a day. Every day there is a “splendus meal.” Katherine doesn’t know if her mother and father are happier “because (she’s) come back or because of the food.”

As she has left her home in Germany, traveled, and led her busy life style, when she goes home, she finds that she is content to spend most of her time resting at home with her family. Her friends may come over, her boyfriend Victor may beg to go out and do something but Katherine just enjoys spending her two week vacations at home with her parents and rest.

Why Some People Like Sign Language

Since I didn’t have time to take a trip on the bus before my blog was due in, I decided to go to the UC during my lunch break and try to find a good table to eaves drop on.

After awkwardly drifting from table to table, trying to find a discussion engaging enough to convince me to make like a snoop and stake it out I was drawn to a boisterous bunch sitting across from the UC Bistro. While there were five at the table, three people really seemed to be dominating the conversation while the others listened in while eating their food.

As I sat down across from them and turned on my recording device. One of the gabbing members, a tall man in a goofy hat, started to make arm gestures at another man who stood in front of the table, tall and lean, almost as if he was passing through and had not yet been convinced to sit down or move on.

“This is, hey” “Tell me if you know what this sign language is” asked Hat Man as he tapped his right fingers against his chest before he waved his left and right arms around his body.

“Uuh me? I’m not sure” Lean Man said quickly, giving up.

Then a blond headed bespectacled woman looked up from her computer to see what all the fuss was about and responded “He’s like I…its, that’s not even real sign language.”

“Yeah it is” said Hat Man resolutely.

“Not it’s not the” Blondie began but Hat Man started to slowly translate “I…Saw…” like a teacher leading a student through.

Blondie picked up and finished the translation: “Big Fucking Shark” with Hat Man simultaneously.

Lean Man then inquisitively chimed in “Wait, what’s fucking?”

“No in the, that’s not a real sign” said Blondie trying to explain as Hat Man burst out laughing.

“This is” she said as she brought her knuckles together and touched her thumbs together and began to move them as if they were pushing against them.

“Ohh” said Lean Man, “That makes sense.” It made sense to me two, the two hands looked like they could represent lovers of some sort but who am I to know.

Hat Man began to make new motions, pointing at himself, his chest, his eyes, waving his arms all around and clapping his hands together in a horizontal fashion while waving his thumbs around.

“I Saw Two Turtles Fucking” he said before laughing boisterously.

“It’s funny,” Blondie began “because if you say fail, like you got a failing grade it’s this.” I can only guess she was responding to one of the bizarre hand gestures Hat Man made.

“This is…” Lean Man began to ask, feeling out the gesture he was shown so he could understand what was going on. He was as lost as I was.

Blondie began held up her left palm and began to bounce her curiously shaped right fist against it. “This means you fail all the time”
“But this is an F?” Blondie asked one of the girls silently eating and observing, checking herself.

“Yeah” replied the Observer as Blondie turned back to lean man, “this is an F”

“So” Hat Man said as he too formed a vertical open palm and readied his right fist. “If your failing your only three fingers away from saying anal sex?” He said, smiling as he made an “O” out of his fist and repeatedly bounced his fist against his open palm.

Blondie, immediately clasped her hands against her face, her eyes mortified.
“YES!” Hat Man roared, “hahaha!”

“You…” Blondie squeaked “it’s been a solid week since I...”

“YAAAAY!” Hat Man bellowed.

“...Since I made the face…” Blondie uttered.

“It’s been a solid week since I’ve seen you,” Hat Man causally stated.

Lean Man began to chime in “Yeah, I remember, and Becky kinda made you do it a second ago with the whole senior thesis thing.”

“Ok, ok so I have, I really have to go so” Hat Man began to cautiously state.

“Okay” said Blondie, her focus still on Lean Man, “but the face is different like senior thesis oh my god I’m going to die and wow that’s really creepy you just broke my brain.”

“Hahaha! I guess that is true” Laughed Lean Man as Blondie then turned to Hat Man and implored him not to leave.

I think I should learn more sign language, think of all the fun that could be had at parties!

The Unicyclist

As I walked up the middle of the stair case leading to my residence hall, swaying and working to keep my balance in the dark, I looked towards the field to my left and saw a man riding on an enormous unicycle with a smaller unicycle in his hands.

I then ran up the stairs and then across the field to greet him, “unicycles huh?” The man laughed as he pulled up to his residence hall and dismounted, “yeah, would you like to try?” To which I responded, “sure.”

He lead me to his room explaining that it is easiest to learn how to begin by using the door frame as for balance as you mount the cycle. It was then that I decided to introduce myself and ask the man if he would be interested in talking to me about himself for the present writing project to which he accepted, unsurprisingly curious as to where a conversation about himself would go. He introduced himself as Gunthery, another student of Pacific University.

“So when did you get into unicycles,” I asked while pulling myself up his door with one unsteady hand after another to find myself in a balanced position on his cycle. He told me that he saw one in a store one he was around nine years old and the unusualness of it appealed to him.

We both talked at length on how people seem to get wrapped up in a routine of working, eating, walking and crumbling into their couches to turn on the tube. Always ruminating as they stare down through their feet and the stone beneath it, “never taking the time to look up and gaze through the glimmering tree branches above them.”

Gunthery said that this was one of the reasons unicycling appealed to him. It was one thing he could do to go beyond the routine. It was something that brought him outside to look at and enjoy the world and gave him opportunities for new experiences. Thus, he always tries to set aside a little time to roll outside and do something more meaningful or adventurous.

Also he rides to put forth an example. Showing everyone something new, a fun activity which could bring people out of their hovels and live a little on their off time. “Plus it’s a really fun way to get around,” he said, watching me as I began to continuously balance myself on the unicycle for a few seconds before my hands darted back to the rock solid doorway.

“Oh course,” he started “I’m a bit hypocritical. I mean I spend time watching tv and anime and stuff” “Aren’t we all?” I responded. He complimented me for my ability to balance in such a short amount of time and suggested I try to ride down the hallway but I figured it would be best to save that for another time.

After talking about some of the anime we liked and showing each other our DVD collections, we went our separate ways and I sat down to work on my essay. Now as I work on it, I find myself wondering if I have any time to visit and practice on the unicycle after my choir rehearsal is over.

Hi, I’m a Doorman

Whenever I leave my room, go to class, travel, or wander around, I always look back to see if anyone is behind me as I walk through a door. If there are people, it seems all too easy to hold the door and let them pass. It requires hardly any energy and the loss of time is something that can easily be overcome with a brisk stroll or a light jog. It seems like a nice thing that I am capable of doing for people and so I do it. Yet it confuses me how people continue to react to my door holding.

After I held the door open for her and we were walking back to our dorms, a friend once told me how much she appreciated my holding the door for her and how she was disappointed in our other class mates who “never say thank you” to me. I was thankful but up until that point I never really noticed or cared what people said. It was only after that conversation that I began to make note of people who did and did not say thank you. Even then, it was never something I made a judgment on.

Last year, there was another girl in my dorm who I begin to notice because whenever she saw me, she smiled. I was and still am nervous around women and so I never was able to really talk to her. I didn’t understand why she seemed to react to me. On the Halloween of that year she and her friends dropped by my room and asked if any of my roommates wanted to join their group and go to a party, on a whim I decided to go along. I thanked the group for letting me come along since I wasn’t as popular as my roommates. The smiling girl immediately responded “no not at all Weston, I mean you’re so nice! Always saying hi to people and holding doors for people. Far as I’m concerned you’re the coolest guy in the bro quad.” I was surprised, happy, and at a loss of words at this needless to say.

Don’t get me wrong, I do consider myself to be a nice person and I want that quality to be noticed by attractive girls but I didn’t feel like I did anything deserving of such praise. I just don’t feel that actions so small and ordinary are worthy of recognition. Her admiration would make more sense to me if I was already friends with the girl or if the opportune moment came where I was really able to do something for her.

Holding doors for people is just such a small and habitual expenditure for me; I don’t see how it could merit attention. Sometimes I hold a door for a person with crutches, someone who is carrying something, or sometimes I start walking away and then notice I didn’t see someone behind me and run back to open the door for people. These are cases where I’m really helping someone or going out of my way for people because I really feel that I should.

I always felt that my habit of holding doors was natural and that many people do it but since people have pointed out my habit, I have noticed that I am one of the few who is willing to hold a door open until thirty people leave a room before I feel my work is done. I still feel that my habit is natural and I don’t hold others to my standard. As far as door holding is concerned, I don’t even think my higher standards make me better than others. All this attention makes me wonder where I picked up my habit in the first place and to this day I still don’t remember where.

Despite my questions surrounding my habit, I have chosen to stop thinking about it because I consider it to be simple task. I never know how to properly react to those who pass through a door I’m holding open or those who say thank you. Can I look at them, should I look down, what do I say as they thank me? I always thank those who thank me for doing what is ordinary and ask myself these questions.

Door holding is a nice action but I never quite understood what people saw in my doing it. Logically, I would assume that my lack of understanding is part of the kindness in my habit. I’m doing something just because I believe it is nice and I don’t expect anything from it since I consider it to be something people should expect from others. After writing this out I can only imagine what people must think as I thank them for thanking me for holding a door for them. I still don’t understand it on a personal level but I suppose I can accept that.

Tests

Students know all too well that there is much work to be done when they come to school. Nonetheless, there are a few great terrors that our teachers have up their sleeves and when they unleash them we students cringe in fear of the pressure and judgment behind them. The focus of today’s blog is one of those classroom terrors, the impending tests.

In my experience, when my friends and I are assigned a test, the air changes. From then on, until the hour after the test is over, there is great pressure in everything you do, every hour you spend and every break you take. As I study and as I procrastinate, I feel like I’m not doing enough because a test is more than just a test, it is judgment. Judgment in the form of a letter grade A, B, C, D, or F which brands you, has the potential to taint your class grade, and ultimately your life options, irrevocably. It is for this reason that many students view tests in a negative light and consider them to be the low point of a week if one is assigned.

I was about fourteen when I looked beyond my own fear of tests and looked at them from another perspective.

At its heart, I think that the concept of tests is a very respectable one. If we really care about our abilities or knowledge, than it is important to make sure that we fully understand it. A test provides a way of doing that, as well as setting a minimum bar of knowledge that lets us know what we should be capable of doing. Tests test us so that we can overcome them and improve.

There is a definitive satisfaction to taking a test knowing that you have the knowledge and ability to smash it and proceed forward. If you are not as knowledgeable or able to handle an impending test, then it is a challenge, an obstacle for you to match your wits against. You are pushed to improve yourself, to be all you can be, and if you succeed in overcoming the test then you can rest easy knowing you are better and stronger than you once were.

Even if you fail, a test is valuable because it shows where you are lacking. Since I began to think of tests in this light, whenever I failed a test I make a point of talking to my teacher about the questions I missed. I may have not cared about the information before a test but after I fail one, the information I didn’t know becomes highlighted for me and as I talk to my teacher about the answers I come to understand the information for myself. I may have failed the test, but I grew from it in the end.

Between us students, our teachers, and the society we live in that pushes us to succeed, I think we have lost sight of what I consider to be the true purpose of tests. I think that tests were originally meant to serve the purposes mentioned above but as time has passed, we humans have evolved the wrong perspective on tests in thinking that they judge our worth in society and that we can be labeled with letters.

I recently had a talk with a teacher about a test I failed and I mentioned to her how frustrating it is that we are judged by our grades. She disagreed and told me that grades don’t count for everything. Perhaps she has the right perspective but knowing how we students are pressured to do perfectly by our families, teachers, and society itself, I think somewhere in that quagmire the problem of judging people with labeling persists.

The pressure is good because we wouldn’t be driven to be better for ourselves if there was no stress. It is just sad how the pressure makes us forget that the hurdles and tests that are put in our way push us forward. We only think about how they hurt us and that takes away from pushing ourselves to be all we can be.

That said, I would like to look past my own stress and frustrations and thank the concept of tests for what they do for us humans and what they do for me. If I was not pushed to meet new standards of ability, I would not be the man I am today.

Swords, Media, and Fantasy

One of the items that has fascinated me the most throughout my life would have to be a sword. I have neither a favorite brand of blade nor a favorite country of origin as it less the hunk of metal itself but the intent and style behind it that fascinates me. For me, my fascination is less about the swords themselves and more about the many fantasies and ideas behind “the sword” and the “life of the sword.”

We see a lot of “heroes” in the entertainment media who, with a sword, a gun, their fists, of even just their wits, strike down their malevolent adversaries and stand for what they believe in. While I enjoy watching a gun-man or a modern hero save the day, I always found the sword to the most fascinating. With it, warriors use their own strength and skill to strike down bandits, killers, orcs, and dragons alike.

With swords, axes, and spears of many shapes and sizes, there are many fascinating combat styles and ways of battling. It is somehow beautiful to see a master swordsman of one form or another tear down his or her opponents with waves, twists, and strikes in the various outlets of visual entertainment. Even more so, it is fascinating thinking about the mind of one of these “warriors,” what it must be like to wield a weapon and fight in battle or war, the courage they strength they must have in the trials they face, and what it must be like to take responsibility for their enormous and dangerous power.

It is odd how these characters do violent, brutal things, completely different from anything we do in normal society, and yet they are somehow role models for youth around the world. Looking at my fascination and people’s fascination in general with men who kill and objects used for killing for an objective perspective, it is very sick and depraved.

We cheer as our “heroes” wield their “mighty weapons” and brutally murder other thinking, living beings. In this sense, my fascination with swords and fantasy is rather cruel but for those of us who buy into these stories and ideas, I don’t think that blood lust is the focus.

Rather than enjoy the deaths of the villains in these stories as we marvel while a swordsman cuts a swath through his or her enemies, I think the marvel is based on the stimulation we get from seeing the astounding skill of the swordsman and of the shocking image of a villain being cut down faster and more precisely than the eye can see. My fascination is rather hedonistic in this way, marveling at a stimulating object to show me something beyond the peaceful life I live every day.

The psychology of “the lifestyle of the sword” also fascinates me. I often day dream about what it would be like to be in one battle or another, what it would be like to be a skilled swordsman fighting, what types of bravery and strength would be necessary to face the challenges I see in my entertainment.

These are situations I’d never truly wish to be in of course, but the idea of being a swordsman and being “strong” like the characters I see always appealed to me. Again, my appreciation of the swordsman in entertainment is hedonistic in many ways.

Yet, even in real life I still desire to know how to use a sword and how to fight. I imagine that there would be reassurance in knowing how to fight and physically defend my ideals. There is also that innate competitive spirit in me that wants to use my body to its fullest against someone else and prove to myself that I’m strong.

As a little kid I used to find long, straight sticks and imagine I was wielding a blade, but in the end it never gave me the feelings of strength I got from the media. Even when I was old enough to own a sword myself I still didn’t get the feelings I got from fantasy because I could never wield a real weapon and hurt someone. In the end, the swords I own are iron bars, killing tools I will almost certainly never brandish or feel at ease with.

This is the difference between fantasy and reality. I have always loved to entertain the ideas behind the sword in my mind but I know that to engage in the same feelings in real life would absolutely wrong. I’ll always enjoy thinking about and viewing swordsmen in the media though, and maybe someday I’ll take a class and learn how to use a sword and spar in friendly competition.

Stone Walkways

Yesterday night after a very productive session of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, I wandered home wondering what sort of object I should choose for my upcoming blog.

It shouldn’t be too hard, I think about stuff like this all the time. I just need to think of something good tonight so I can move fast on it in the morning. Paperclips, hair, bouncy balls, backpacks? Then, as I walked through the darkness staring pensively down at my feet, my subject hit me like the solid rock it was, Of course, stone walkways!

A stone walkway is one of the most unappreciated objects we make use of on a regular basis. Every day I walk to class, to the library, to town always focused on the task at hand, never thinking about my feet and weight grinding into the stone beneath me. Even when I look down I never see the stone. All I see is the reflection of my plans and fears against the gray slate.

For us humans’, walking becomes so ingrained that we move to our targets unconsciously, never aware of the stone that supports us. It is very symbolic of how we humans can get so obsessed with our daily routine that we lose sight of the various objects around us and the stories they have to tell.

It is almost tragic how stone walkways are so ignored after all they have done for us. It was the paved road which made the roman armies the unstoppable force they were as they could quickly travel to strike at their enemies or reinforce their territory. After they were built, stone pathways granted us a path through the dense trees, the thick brush, and the winding slopes. They allowed us to walk to our work without running our legs through the mud. Without stone pathways we would not have been able to make use of carts, carriages, and later cars and cargo trucks due to the rugged, rocky terrain. In these ways, the stone walkways gave us the ability to drift to our work, oblivious to our environment. Ironic how its function has made us oblivious to the work it does for us as it is part of the environment itself.

There is something very symbolic about stone pathways. It invokes the idea of a worker who has and continues to work extremely hard for the benefit others and is not only ignored by them but is literally stepped upon. It is a notion that the Latino workers who fuel our agriculture, the Chinese women who sew our shoes, and the soldiers who fight our wars may be able to understand. In the end however, stone does not speak, touch, laugh, cry, or complain. They just silently and diligently bare our weight as our shoes chip away at their surface.

Perhaps the stone are the servants of Atlas himself, the titan who upholds the massive earth on top his shoulders. Silently suffering our weight so that we preoccupied living don’t fall. Never to hear the words “thank you” in response.

One Man’s Potatoes are another Man’s Pride

My plate is taken forth to Aunt Nancy and returns with a potato in tow. I thank her for my serving with bated breath and ready my knife for the opening blow. My blade plunges through the rocky surface; I then rip the mass asunder unleashing a torrent of steam from the golden core. The sounds of my family complimenting Uncle Horst for the salmon flutter by as I draw in my personal bar of butter while carefully slicing and massing the potato into small mounds and lumps. The butter is meticulously spread and a rain of salt and pepper disperses itself over the perfectly spread potato. Everything in hand and my meal prepared to my liking, I begin to dig in and let in my family’s conversations.

“What do you think you’re doing?” hisses a garbled Germanic voice. My eyes wander to meet the grizzled face of Uncle Horst. “What are you doing to your potatoes?” grouses Horst with his half tongue as his muscles twist in my direction. “Uh,” Horst smashes his fork to the table and howls “Why did you put butter on your fucking potatoes!” All sound dies and all time with it, Horst is all there is, now standing, panting over me with eyes of steam. There is a heavy calm where all wonder just what sort of gunshot just shattered our American dinner, and long before anyone brought up their guard, the bomb erupts. “I made a special salmon sauce, why did he put butter on his potatoes Nancy?!” “He just likes his potatoes that way Horst!” Aunt Nancy finally spouts as if she were explaining to him how some men are white and some men are black. “He is embarrassing me!” bellows Horst indignantly as his body snaps and rages around the table before freezing on me. I’m lost for words; the screams that rage across the steam filled dinner table while my grandpa and grandaunt look on in horror are almost surreal. I’m the cause of this? “He didn’t know Horst; butter is the way he likes to eat his potatoes, Settle down!” Like any married man should, Horst let that a dose of logic give him pause. He stares at Nancy and breaths in deep, as one final word on the matter he turns to me and spits “spoiled brat!” before returning to his plate.

Everything is drowned out as my eyes flow up to the man and stare a hole through him. My nails dig into my hands and finally now that Horst has gotten his last word, the events that transpired flood into me. A whirl of sadness, fear, and anger flooded my mind. The man is a German marine and this is his house, if I start a fight this man will he go off the rails? Horsts old yet powerful frame was still taunt and pumped. I can’t fight but I can’t break down either! I can’t let this bastard get off after calling me that, after all he has done!

From the torrent of emotion in my mind “I’m sorry that I seem to have offended you Horst, I didn’t intend to insult you. If you want to blame something, blame how I was raised.” Softly but clearly emerged. I looked up to find my eyes locked with Horst’s. He stared before getting up and walking to the back of the house. The potatoes and salmon have now cooled; the food is nice and warm. “You handled him like a champion Wes” remarked Aunt Nancy. “I’m going to go read for a bit” and after I got my leave, I found myself lying on my bed, trying to finish Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

You Talk Too Much

A roaring “aw shit!!!” penetrated both my ear protection and DragonForce as I scrolled through the posts of Facebook, rolling my mouse over the unread script of No Exit on my desk. I then pulled off my ear protection and earplugs and curiously asked “how are things going fellas?” as I turned to face the roars and explosions. Without looking away from the electronic glow in front of him, Tim replied “fine” as he skillfully maneuvered his feathered avatar to evade the incoming projectiles and then he lunged into his attacker and smashed him into the air as he flew through the sky and off of the TV screen. “Shit!!!” roared Ted as he stared at his empty number of lives and sunk into the couch letting his controller fall into his lap before returning to watch Ben quickly be torn down by Tim and their brawl break come to an end.

“That was just what I needed” said Tim as he sighed and stood up to face his desk. “One more round.” said Ben. “Aww, I really want to but I have to work on some readings.” “Ah come on, ONE more round.” pronounced Ted. “No guys, I really can’t, I need to get this done” groaned Tim before he walked to his desk and begrudgingly woke up his sleeping computer. “C’mon Ben, I’ll work on my essay tomorrow.” “You want to join Weston?” asked Ben. “No I can’t, I need to work on my homework soon” as I turned to unpause “through fire and flames” and turned back to watch.

“Another final smash, we need to turn those off” said Ted. “Yeah seriously, dragoon pieces to” said Ben. “Oh, nice one!” Lights and explosions danced on the screen and reflected onto Ben and Ted’s faces. “You fucker! You got me with a suicide attack!” “Yeah that was awesome! Kamikaze strike!” I then chimed in, “you know kamikaze doesn’t actually mean suicide strike, it means divine wind. You see back when Mongol armies were active they tried to launch a navel attack on Japan but there was a huge typ…” “You know Weston, sometimes you talk too much” Ted stated matter of factly while diverting his attention back to the raging battle at hand.

“You know Ted; I don’t talk much because I’m not confident in my ability to talk. And for you to say I talk too much really doesn’t help that feeling.” Controls fell to the couch and typing hands rested as all eyes turned to me in silence. “I have homework to do” I said as I swiped my makeshift mouse pad from my desk before I walked through the open door and pushed it closed as the sound “sorry Weston” came from Ben’s mouth and smashed against the newfound barrier.

I walked as blinding white concrete walls, misty night air and the dim light of the library flowed by me until I found myself in the archives. The air heavy with the feeling of silence, focus coursed through me as I sat down, No Exit could not have caught me in a better mood.

My First Time Being Chased By Girls

It's quite amusing to me that when I looked back on my childhood in desperation to find a good topic for the deceptively arduous "your first time" essay, a group of five girls crawling towards me on all fours while smiling devilishly was the first image that came to mind.

In my kindergarten, there were no nerds, jocks, or popular groups; there were "boys" and "girls." While we boys did not segregate ourselves from the girls, I do remember that one of my "boy" friends threatened to "fire me" (my kindergarten's jargon for no longer hanging out with someone) when I invited one of my "girl" friends to my fifth birthday party. We had our pride as boys and they had their pride as girls, but there was one interaction that sticks out to me, the joint idea that the girls wanted to kiss us and had cooties and that we boys should avoid their kisses at all costs.

I remember one day in particularly sunny day around the back of the school house. There I was with three of the boys in the group, watching the girls crawl towards us out of the shed they were playing in. My friends started to turn white, break ranks, and before we knew it we were sprinting around the play area running from the girls trying to kiss us. At its heart it was all good fun. A large part of the appeal for the girls was a game which gave them an unspoken power over the boys and we guys enjoyed outrunning and eluding our enemies. I was chased by one girl who I knew was proactive in the girls group and didn’t casually associate with me much; she was just chasing me to be part of the game. So I wonder what would have happened if I just stopped running, stopped play the unspoken game, what they would do to me. Also, if it was just a game of tag at heart, why did we all go along with it if there were not so enticing steaks to go along with it for both groups?

A part of me really wanted to be caught by the girls. Sure it was fun to avoid the girls and one of the unspoken rules of the game was that you don’t want to get caught but the consequences of getting caught were a mystery and the threat of being captured and kissed up was one of the more tempting ways to go down. To me there was something very fantastical about the idea of being taken against my will by a horde of girls and letting them do what they wanted to me. It was kind of like the castle anthrax from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a trap you don’t want to get rescued from.

This is one of my more amusing and indeed embarrassing recollections from my young childhood. Looking back to it as an adult I find it hilarious how advanced I was for a five year old kindergartener. I wonder if the other boys and girls felt the same.