damage face, The lighting
d'now you can e who or play the e most feature
by once worlds
ers will
secrets of
bosses of
liked
seen in
o come
Moore
Nose-deep in holy water
Britney Spears ruined everything for me. She had to release her first tasty pop anthem just as I was trying to adjust to life at an all-girl Catholic high school. She
pranced about in a plaid uniform in her video, imploring the world to hit that Catholic school-girl fantasy one more time.
I didn't have blonde pigtails.
And if I had worn my shirt and skirt like Britney's, the nuns would have branded a scarlet "A" onto my midriff. When I put on my uniform every morning, I figured I might as well give up on maintaining my street cred.
By Samia Khan, Jayplay writer
When my family moved to
Omaha the summer before I started high school, I was still one of those jaded, hardcore, public-school kids. That's when my mother dropped the news. "You need discipline and a good education, so we're going to put you in a Catholic school." She wasn't done. "Oh, you'll have to wear a uniform." She paused once more before unleashing the last piece of her Holy Trinity. "One more thing. It's an all-girls school."
Both my mother and sister had gone to
Catholic school. But we weren't Catholic and I already had years of socialization in the public school system. My grades were good and I wasn't pregnant. I could see no
reason for this change except some sinister desire my mother had to punish me for sins she thought I was predestined to commit.
So I made it my goal to be as undisciplined as possible at Duchesne Academy of the Sacred Heart. But within two years,the comrades I met gradually transformed my plans for revolution. These women were my saving grace.
In a class of 56, we couldn't afford
to have cliques. But humans always gravitate into loose packs. Our pack of 11 girls was the token diverse group the school touted in every recruitment video and photographed for every pamphlet. Among my friends were a Protestant, a Buddhist, an Irish immigrant, an Italian-Iranian and me, the daughter of Indian immigrants. We stood out in every sense, so we took on the role with gusto.
Our boisterous group dynamic was proof to me that I didn't have to tear down
The almost tame confessions of a Catholic school girl
the system to avoid being bland. We were childishly rebellious, but we attempted patience and restraint when needed. The synthesis didn't always meld with the traditional routine of our school's establishment.
Take Mass, for example. We had one almost every week. My friends and I tried not to be disrespectful. But Mass just felt so long when the administration cruelly decided to schedule it right before lunch, making it harder for us to skip. We whispered jokes and passed notes in our pew. Nobody ever noticed — that is, until the day the priest read scripture from Matthew 6:3. The only part of the passage our finely tuned ears picked up was, "Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing." We immediately took that to a not-so-holy-place.
Glancing at each other, we knew what the others was thinking, and we laughed raucously in unison. Everyone turned and stared, including the long, somber row of faculty sitting to our right. The math teacher, who sounded like a pirate when she talked, frowned and grumbled an unhappy, "Yarrgrh," at us. Other girls smiled and choked back muffled laughs. The priest interceded and looked confused.
Our outburst earned us an immediate trip to a conference with the dean of students and the counselor. They sternly reminded us to be respectful in church. Laughing during the homily was not conduct becoming a proper young lady.
My high school friends became the closest friends I would ever have. They supported me through every part of my public-school-kid-meets-private-school-lady metamorphosis. They were there for my punk phase, helping me start mosh pits at prom. They cheered my urban phase, when instead of a report on Beowulf, I wrote and performed a rap about it.
I wish I could tell the pubescent boys of the world that the Catholic school-girl fantasy is always true. But after four of the best years of my life, I discovered we found joy in the mundane rebellions, not in the skanky pop stereotype.
We became young ladies while making jokes during Mass. We were confident women when we refused to wear crew socks on hot days. We embraced our individuality while arguing the merits of Ethan Frome. And when images like Britney threatened our street cred, we snuck out to the parking lot for a smoke.
12.2.04 Jayplay
19