Re-Arranged

| Special Chapter | Bitter Lemons |

Title : Summer Holidays for Beginners

(a comprehensive essay by Ben Lark)

Summer vacation is a luxury we cannot afford as a family. Why? Because there is always someone busy during summer holidays – scratch that, during all holidays.

That's right, that would be me.

I am often busy avoiding the glaring sun. And what happens when you avoid the sun? You stop stepping out.

Really, you ought to have guessed as much. Do I need to spell everything out? The worst is that I have to write so much anyway. But then, this is a requirement for admission. An essay. How original.

Pardon my sarcasm, but I am sure I would be obliged to write a polite rendition filled with sunshine and rainbows for the real thing, so this is for the bitter lemon inside of me. I have to get it all out to even try (going to double underline it because it is hard to write italics on paper) the kind of essay my mother is nagging me to write.

But I am going off route here, am I not? I was telling you about my idea of a summer vacation.

First of all, summer comes every year. Every [redacted] (double underlined again) year. (Hey, even while going wild on paper, I cannot write certain things. Think I will dig my own grave at the ripe age of twelve? My glorious, moody teen years await me! ... God save my mother!)

And while I am in school, summer vacation too will come every year. But you know what does not come along with summer vacations? Office holidays! Summer is the single most annoying season because while all the schools let out kids to run rampant, the offices catch the parents in their Venus Trap jaws. Unless of course the office itself needs its employees to go out of city. For work.

All work and no play makes Jack what exactly? Anybody wants to volunteer the answer? That right there is adulthood for you.

Then again, if your parents are teachers, you are genuinely lucky children! ... then again, you cannot go as rampant as you would like. There is always a shortcoming. What a revelation!

(No sarcasm here. I genuinely did realize this while writing.)

Phew. I had to read again to see where I was heading before straying. Anyway, with summer vacation happening every year, what can be special about it?

Not to mention, you do not get to relax, do you? School has summer planned for you as it is! Summer projects they call it – how fun. (double underlined)

I remember this one project I worked on years ago. We had the topic of pollution and had to make a model to visually represent it. Like five year olds understood such things as pollution.

Still, it was fun to watch my uncle and mother work on it day and night, telling me what was what. I could not care less. I was five. I was not allowed to hold sharp things, much less shape things from it. When I saw everyone else's projects, it was pretty clear nobody had done it on their own. Some had far too intricate use of scissors!

So what had the summer project benefitted us with?

A sense of superiority because our parents would do the dirty work while we took credit for it. A false sense of pride for everyone involved. Child proud for being praised and parents proud for the child being praised. Neither did the child deserve the misguided, loving words of praise nor should the parents have to let their achievements go to someone else.

It sounds too political (is this the right word? Who cares? Nobody is reading it ever anyway, except maybe my mother, but then she would probably stop after the first line. She says she gets acid reflux hearing me talk sometimes. I tell her, it's just the bitter lemon in me. You must have noticed it by now too), so we will move on. I was asked to write an essay and before I write one approved for the eyes of the authorities, I am going to go wild. Proceed at your own caution.