Memoirs of an Outstanding* Teen

Chapter 5: Joy In Speaking Up For Others

The following week we started practice for our grade-8 concert. My school, and many other schools in Namibia, seem to think the best way to initiate grade 8s is to make them perform for the whole school. So that they can flop in front of the whole school and be ridiculed all through the 5 years of high school? I don't know.

Our performance was going to involve some dancing, and if you didn't guess by my antics at the athletics meet, I'll tell you now: I don't have any coordination. That means I'm terrible at sports and I can't dance. These are just facts that I have come to accept. I am that person that never learned the Macarena or the Stanky leg or any of the popular dances. I am the person that will two step only no matter what music is playing. I am the person that will forget simple choreography that was taught to me two minutes ago. It was inevitable that I would be the one making everybody repeat everything during the rehearsal.

But there was somebody else who was struggling to master the choreography just like me. Her name was Jana, a girl from Australia that had joined our class a couple of days late. I was sandwiched between her and Ms. Annoyed Face in register class. Other than the fact that she liked to bring raw pepper to eat during break time, I didn't know much else about her.

Now, I can handle someone badmouthing me behind my back, but it upsets me most when someone is picking others apart, especially innocent people who clearly can't help that they're not So You Think You Can Dance contestants. So, when I overheard one of the girls gossiping and laughing around with her about how terrible me and Jana were at the rehearsal, and how we were going to make the entire class look bad, I couldn't help but confront her. "Hey if you thought we were so terrible, you should have told both of us to our faces during the rehearsal. You don't have to gossip around behind our backs." To be honest, right after I said those words, my heart started racing, and my stomach started doing somersaults. I was thinking of retracting them, but before I could, she said, "I was just saying that Jana didn't do the moves very well."

To which I replied, "But still, you could have told her that to her face. You don't have to wait until she's gone to gossip." I got quiet for a while, and she said nothing. But apparently, I was still upset, because I went on and said, "I know we aren't the best dancers, but you still don't have to talk about us like that. We're just trying to learn also."

"Okay, sorry!" she replied.

It was empowering to successfully stand up for someone like that. It made me forget my own struggles and my own awkwardness just for a second.