you know you make me wanna shout

I am apparently an embarrassment to the family. Why? Because, my mother recalls, on ensemble concert night, when the principal came up to us, my hair was a mess compared to the other members of the orchestra, who were "good girls" with "nice neat hair". In particular she would like me to be more like Ellen and Theresa, whose hair was "immaculately combed back to hide their partings, with not a stray strand in sight". She thinks my hair looks like Hilary Duff's and even Avril Lavigne's hair is better-kept than my own. Last night I plaited it up, and today I woke up with semi-curls, which she claims turns my head into a ball of fuzz.

Well, what about Hermione Granger? What is my hair's neatness compared to hers?

The other thing she's lecturing me about is my voice. It's not only too high-pitched, it's too loud volume-wise. She would like me to be more like Jamie, who is quiet and docile. I, on the other hand, always have something to say, and I have this compulsive need to say what is on my mind.

"It will scare the nice boys away", she claims. Well, I don't give a damn. Her idea of "nice boys" are those mutes in my little brother's class who only speak when the teacher asks them a multiplication question. Even the Ruse boys didn't fit the definition of "nice boys". They were too confident. Remember my mother's ageless words, which I still repeat up until today: "You're not going to James Ruse. There are boys there."

I think the only boys she would like me to associate myself with are those overdosed, drugged Ritalin kids, because they're had their growth stunted, their primal instincts hindered and their brains put to sleep. Of course, she won't admit it fully, because of the fact that "ADHD is caused by poor parenting."

Now what I like are the boys who answer back, who dare to speak their minds. What use is it concealing your ideas in this world? If you shut up, nobody will hear you, and your ideas will die with you, and the world will be that little bit shallower. Even if you have wacky, insane ideas, like the Raelians who think we're descendants of an Alien experiment, you should have a chance to be heard.

Literature is that much richer thanks to insane people; insanity is entertaining and it makes us think.

By the way, I just finished Enduring Love by Ian McEwan, and it's much better than I expected; I rather like Atonement better, though, and not because of that evocatively explicit library scene.

I like guys who break out of the group; misfits like me. What a misfit I am; how rude have I become lately?

So, now my mum looks like a conductor, waving her hands around, demonstrating whether I should shush down my voice or lower my pitch. Listen, at my age, most teenagers [including me] are so immature that the only efficient way to get your point across is TO USE SOME VOLUME. So what if Mrs M and Mrs B said I lack maturity? Don't I have a right to be a teenager anymore? I know, I'm normally a level-headed girl who preaches about how teenagers here are too "young" - how teenagers on the other side of the world are housekeeping, getting married and having babies while we [not me personally, just teenagers here] are partying, getting drunk and having abortions. Oh, I'm so torn at the moment...

But I honestly think, if you have something to say and you're not afraid of speaking out, WHY NOT SHOUT IT OUT?

We have the chance to. We're not hindered like our sisters of the developing world.

Let's not waste this opportunity...

<> "...You know you make me wanna SHOUT..." [we're singing that for choir when we go back - can't wait to get back to school!] < / randomness >