I started to huff as I jogged down my driveway. I knew that I should have had enough sense to hop out of my bed the minute my alarm went off, but that's me, the person who turns over in their bed and slaps the alarm off. And falls back to sleep. And is now late for the bus. My feet bounce off the pavement. The bus is rounding the corner. I skid to a stop right before it does, and hop up the steps.
You know, I wonder why I write stuff like this down. This diary /book I'm writing/notebook is filled with things I wouldn't want to really know about when I'm 30. Not even when I'm in collage. So far all I have are leads to stories. No middle. No end. I really don't know what to do after I present a problem. Or even just present a problem and a solution. I really just don't know how to give flesh to the bones of my story. See, I'm poetical. But I can't write a story.
I lead a very interesting life. One where I fail at my electives and math and science and pretty much everything but ELA. In ELA, I'm the best student, and I always bring in extra-credit work, and maintain, about, around 110 average. In everything else, I do the homework. I try my best. I just don't get anything the teachers say. And those are the basics of my life.
My parents are normal. They're the kind of people who are geniuses and always beg you to do better in school, and give you the whole this-won't-look-good-on-collage-application lecture every time you bring home a grade that just barely passes. I'll let you in on a secret. My school is advanced in everything, even things like P.E and lunch. So passing grades are 75 and up. And if I don't maintain this average, I get kicked out. And I can't afford to get kicked out of the only school in the area with advanced writing classes.
I really, really, want to write a book that I can get published and get famous off of and be able to afford collage with. I never, ever would dare say this aloud. This is where I store away my thoughts, emotions, private stuff, from the rest of the world.
Here, I leave my writing loose. Not uptight, perfect English. I like writing this way. But you can't work professionally writing like this. And I know it.
"Milly Potrudos, what's 20x89?" I hate Ms. Jones. She always puts the bad students up on the spot, embarrassing them in front of the whole class, because they don't know the answer to the question.
"1,780?" I mumble.
"That's right, Milly. Maybe you did study for once. Or not. Hand over the calculator."
I pass her my poor broken calculator. I broke it ages ago, after throwing it against the wall in frustration. She glances at it. "Milly, get a new one tonight. Did you hear me? Tonight!"
Math class continues. Than I'm in science, and we have to hand in our homework, and we get an old assignment back, I've got a 70. I failed. I think I really should start to care more. And than I walk in late for social studies, ELA was sometime before math, and I lost my homework for art.
"Milly, when are you going to start working? When are you going to Care?"
The kid behind me snickers.
As Mrs. Borkman heads down another aisle, I mumble to myself, "I do care. I do work. Maybe my brain just doesn't."
Writing
Julia Borkman grew up in a poor Dakota farmhouse. She received no formal education. Want to know why? Her school was 30 miles down a ramshackle road by foot, and she had to work on her family's farm so they could survive. So when she became a teacher, of course she was hard on her students. She had to have determination to get here, and one particular student of hers, Milly Potrudos, is always the student who doesn't care. Art is, of course, a difficult subject to major in. But she did it.
