strawberries are retarded

I'm sure all of you are familiar with the school system's constant desire to end physical/verbal abuse between students, right?

Several weeks ago I discovered it's merely a fa�ade to earn government funding.

I was flipping through my biology book, and I came across an illustrated figure (yeah, sorry for the low quality, my webcam is like one of those fish that clings to the side of aquariums and sucks the algae off). There also was, of course, a caption next to the picture. I took the liberty of scrawling it down on my arm during some lecture that I was apparently supposed to be listening to (I blame it on my ignorance as a freshman).

FIGURE 33-1
(a) Strawberry plants produce a fleshy, heart-shaped fruit that is covered with yellow seeds. (b) When the seeds are removed from the fruit, the growth of the fruit is retarded. (c) When the seeds are removed and the fruit is treated with auxin, growth is normal.

There's obviously an underlying message here. Normally my opinions are locked away within the Ziploc bag of my mind (I never could get those things open, damnit), but today -- today, they're revealed for public display. Please refrain from throwing foreign objects, it'd be unfortunate for you to lose whatever you chose to throw and your face.

Figure 33-1 illustrates the relationship between your stereotypical high school student and the selling of their soul to achieve popularity. The 'fleshy, heart-shaped fruit' represents the average minion of popularity. You know, the ones that spiral into this huge ring of betrayal and revenge in a bitter attempt to avenge themselves after the object of their affections went to a petting zoo with their younger cousin, which was accidently interpreted as a strip club where they allow you to pet the entertainers. Something along those lines. The 'yellow seeds' that were spoken of signify friends and connections and a general wealth of materialistic things, all clinging to the 'fleshy, heart-shaped fruit' as it strives for ripeness.

On the other side of the spectrum, we have the second strawberry, whose growth is 'retarded' because of the lack of seeds. Just as sunlight, location, and environment come into affect in the life of a strawberry, random trivial issues, the new season of Friends (is it just me, or does that show definitely not shock the monkey?), and a flashy car warp the life of a high school student.

On a side note, the majority of high school students should never, ever be allowed to so much as touch a car. I'd be safer in the Projects during a drive-by shooting than I would be in the school's parking lot. A few weeks ago, Padhraig was giving me a ride home from school, so we had to cross to the other end of the parking lot. It looked relatively safe, so I continued to walking when I got to the curb.

In mid sentence, Padhraig stopped to deliver a public service announcement: 'Don't cross yet -- student drivers.'

'What of it?'

'Kate, did you notice we have a full-time cop that works on campus?' he sighed.

'Yeah,' I replied hesitantly, not understanding the connection.

'What would you guess are the largest type of conflicts that arise?'

'Drugs,' I answered without thinking. After a moment, I added, 'Point taken.' Interesting I came to that conclusion, considering there's a vast array of those who don't need the aid of drugs to initiate mass homicide with their vehicles. Right, koishii?

But yeah, moving back to the main point of this diary entry. The aforementioned attributes that mold the life of a shallow high school student are absent in the second strawberry's life. They lack a variety of friends, if any at all, have 'dysfunctional' families (as much as I dislike clich�s), are taunted frequently, etc. Naturally, there are varying degrees of deformation. Some can function around the void, whereas others trip and fall into it. Judging by the illustration, the second strawberry looks suicidal, if you ask me.

The third strawberry is a special subcategory of the second strawberry. I have no idea what the dilly 'auxin' is, but today it's a type of chemical, all right? The third strawberry suffers the same absences that the second strawberry does, but the third strawberry fills the void with the experimentation of narcotics. It's more or less like Chinese fingertraps (those confused the hell out of me, I almost started crying when it wouldn't give me my fingers back) -- you can displace the emptyness temporarily, but if you want your life back, sorry, no dice. At first glance, the third strawberry appears to be normal, but then you realize, 'Where the fuck did all the seeds go?' The third strawberry can't conceal its lack of seeds forever, and it eventually is rejected by some foreign mother grocery shopping who doesn't want her children eating jacked-up fruit that has no hope of reproducing. The foreign mother is suspicious of the third strawberry and wants to ensure that her children aren't neutered like the alien strawberry was.

The purpose of all of this analyzation? If you don't fit the uniform gingerbread man pattern of the rest of the high school students, you're retarded.

Meanwhile, I don't agree with this song:

You could be my someone
You could be my scene
You know that I will save you
From all of the unclean
I wonder what you're doing
I wonder where you are
There's oceans in between us
But that's not very far

Like hell it's not very far.

I hope the pain ends soon.