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By Thera Ailanthus.
I began at The New School one year ago after my one and only year in public school. I was shy and scared yet excited to be part of something so new. Keeping mostly to myself, I read, painted, wrote, and dutifully had Algebra II scheduled every day at 10:00 AM. It did not take long for algebra to grow old. I began not making an effort to go to class. The staff didn't say a word, didn't call my home to report my behavior. So I hung out for 7 months. I'm not even going to begin to glorify this time period. I didn't sit contemplating the meaning of life or working on my interpersonal skills. I just sat and sat.
Like algebra, sitting around grew old. I was bored, more so than I had ever been in my life. I grew jealous of my friends in traditional school. They had mean teachers and an unfair administration. They had what I desired most--something to fight. So, I fought against nothing, and I fought hard. I wasted a lot of energy on those battles. Eventually I realized I had no hope of winning given there was nothing to fight.
With nothing to do and nothing to not do, I looked inward. I saw for the first time what I wanted. I didn't want to be the movie star or the hard-core rocker as I had always thought. I wanted to be the geek in the woods making corny jokes. For the first time I saw the path I wanted my life to follow. Now I have begun.
During those 7 months, I was free from forcing myself to fit into someone else's notion of what I should be. Before the 7 months of boredom, I was always too busy to meet myself. After going through this process, I have come to the belief that it was essential. You need time to think of what you want to do which grows into what you want to be.
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