A Compilation of Essays

Rant Essay

The purpose of this essay was to rant about a day in your normal life.

I wake up in blackness, surrounded by thick blankets, in a cocoon of warmth. Next to me, the alarm clock is blaring in the quiet darkness, a glowing red six followed by two zeroes stare back at me. Under my pillow, my second alarm is telling me to get out of bed. I don't want to; the choice between a warm, comfortable bed and a cold, unforgiving world shouldn't even be considered a choice. The obviously more reasonable choice of staying in bed is discarded with the necessity to go to school for five out of the seven days in a week.

It's actually kind of depressing if you sit back and think about it. Children are being taught in an institution; sitting behind desks, learning things that will eventually land them behind another desk in the real world when they're older. But what needs to be done, needs to be done. Within thirty minutes, I'm able to coax myself into public attire, grab my bags next to the door, and walk out to catch my provided ride to the institution.

Within the hour, my gym bag is handing in my locker above my unnecessary and relatively unused Physics textbook, and I'm sitting in an unused doorway, waiting for my friends to show up. Out of my friend group, I always arrive the earliest, which means that I'll never miss them. But it also means that I have to wait for a good while before they get here.

Usually I plug my earbuds into my phone and ignore people, letting them think that I can't hear them.. It's not because I don't want to talk to them, I actually enjoy a conversation once in a while, it is because their preferred topic of conversation is always depressing. Every single time it's "Did you hear what he said?", "I hate my teachers; they give way too much homework.", "Did you see my Snap Chat story?", "Did you see the new episode of" some popular television show. Every conversation that people try to have with me is shallow and meaningless. Is almost a rarity to sit down and have a discussion with people, where you have to think before you speak and explain your position to an opposing view. The shallowness of today's world is disheartening, so I find it better to not even bother getting my toes wet.

But sometimes I can't help but listen, today being one of those days where I'm missing the thing that gives me exemption from shallow conversations. Acquaintances have slowly invaded my friends' and I's gathering spot; familiar enough with them to be able to talk with them without awkwardness, but also to know that you don't really want to talk to them. It's not that I dislike them, that's not why. It's because of their shallowness.

I listen in on their conversation, waiting to see if I could join in. "Hey, girl. Did you see the new episode of Steven Universe?" " No, I didn't! Please don't spoil it for me!" "I won't, but ...". My interest in the conversation has gone from curiosity to disappointment. I start to walk away, not familiar enough with the show to talk about it. I sit in my secluded corner and wait for my friends to gather.

It takes them a while, but they finally get here; Glasses first, followed by Bassist, Fangirl, and Heart. By the time the last one strolls over we only have ten minutes until the bell rings to go to our boxes to stare at a white board with words scrawled across them in colored Expo Dry-erase markers. But those ten minutes are more than enough to start a conversation, though I'm finding that they're becoming as shallow as the rest of them. I feel myself slowly drifting apart from my friends because of the lack of connection.

"Did any of you wanna stay after school and duel?" the Glasses sitting on the ground holds up his Magic Deck. "Nah," "Did any of you wanna stay after school and duel?" the Glasses sitting on the ground holds up his Magic Deck. "Nah," Bassist says, "I gotta practice for choir." Heart is next to him, shifting from foot to foot, her arm linked in his. They're a cute couple. "And I have practice." I offer. Glasses puts his head down, the lose frames sliding down his face. Fangirl smiles and gives me a hug before she goes to class. Then the signal bell sounds and we say our goodbyes and go our separate ways.
I trudge through class after class, doing repetitive work to demonstrate my knowledge, getting assigned mountains of homework to better demonstrate my knowledge. The work is shallow too. Eating and regurgitating information instead of actually tasting it. And if one person can't regurgitate it, then everyone tries again until everyone can. The people are even more so, slaving at the work, competing for the grades to land them behind a desk with a prestigious name behind them, validating their knowledge. I get so disgusted that I begin to hate it. We're not our quality of work; we are honest-to-god, imperfect, human beings.
The last bell rings and I change and go to practice, where being a part of the team is based on skill and athleticism, where people who can't keep up will get left behind. I escape the imperfectly shallow reality for a mere two hours, then I leave to go to a home Is barely live in. It begins to bug me, how shallow life has become, how nobody appreciates the little details in life. Sometimes I just want to stop time and savor the moment, but I can't. So I shower, go to bed, and repeat the process.