Smile On His Lips and Cuts On His Hips (Jalex)

Twenty Five - Follow Your Bliss

“Barakat, don’t bring up the rear!” DeGirinomo shouted, uselessly trying to encourage me to run faster. Or simply break out of my current slow jog that closely resembled tired speed walking, probably, as Alex, Josh, and I lazily worked on our three laps of the field.

I was pretty sure that our gym teacher did not actually know my first name. This was extremely odd, considering that he read my entire name on his roll sheet every repetitive day, and my second name was substantially more complicated than the common Jack. In fact, it was apparently so ethnic and abnormal that DeGirinimo could not pronounce it properly and frequently called me Bur-ah-kit. At least it was funny to be accidently associated with the president.

Alex laughed loudly next to me, having no right to his projected humor, since he was slumping along at exactly the same pathetic pace as me, hopelessly scuffed running shoes barely leaving the rough grass as he teased, “Yeah, Barakat, don’t be so slow!”

I rolled my eyes, pulling my arms out of the typical jogging position to reach over and jokingly thwack his exposed arm. Josh yelped when he accidentally got hit, unfortunately stuck in the middle.

Amused chuckles flitted into the snapping air, breezing over the grass field that was clinging to life as the weather tried to shut it down. Every other person in our P.E. class besides one group of impressively lazy girls, who had seemingly never done anything other than slack during school,   were absurdly ahead of us on the snow sprinkled field.

Gym had never been my strongpoint, and, luckily, I literally did not care about my grade in that pointless class at all, therefore having no motivation or reason to put in an effort. Three years to graduate high school and colleges had no requirement for the subject – I could get straight C-‘s and it would not matter in the least, besides pulling down my GPA, but who considers that?

As second semester of Junior year jolted into process, I was forced to start seriously looking into colleges and begin picking out a selection of schools that I desired to apply to, which had caused me to come to exactly one conclusion: I did not want to write college applications, because I did not want to go to college.

I had become increasingly aware, over the course of that painful school year, that I was not interested in getting an extensive education. I had absolutely no drive to get decent grades; the only reason I put any effort into my class work and its immaculate completion was because that was what was continuously expected of me. Although I was the first to proudly proclaim that I was not a very smart person after wondering aloud what seven times eight was, I was not exactly jumping at the chance to get a D in math and have all my peers and every adult that was aware of my academic performance frowning upon my existence and apparent stupidity. 

My moderate skills, as it was, definitely existed in the arts, and I had come to accept that I had no passion for technical subjects.

If my big, fantastical dream was to go off and live in some cute little coffee-shop town where I could hunker down with my laptop and write a bestselling book, why, exactly, should I be pushed through  boring calculus?  How does knowing the miniscule parts of an atom benefit precise sculptors? Who decided that those who love perfectly playing instruments and creating head shocking, heart stopping music necessitated enduring physical education? Or, as that useless class should accurately be called, a medieval form of torture.

Nonetheless, since I had absolutely no talents that would not improve from further schooling and would, unfortunately, have to suffer more despairing math, I was going to bear through the application process. Hopefully, I'd be cheerfully accepted to a decent school that I did not want to attend even less than all the others.