Wednesday, October 14, 2009

It's Time to Vote!

Tomorrow is quite a special day in a way. See, we’re going to be voting for school captains. This is quite a big thing I guess, especially if you put your name down as one of the candidates.

I did.

I put my name down for school captain and also cultural captain.

I remember in grade seven when I was such a big girl who was so important, I wanted more than anything, to be School Captain. I was devastated when Ellen got School Captain. I didn’t even get Vice Captain. I cried for at least an hour in the toilets when I found out that I didn’t get a captain of any sort. All my confidence was crushed because I didn’t get School Captain, which I wanted so badly. In the end I got Green House Captain which was pretty good I suppose, but in a small school where there were only four girls in Green House in grade seven anyway, it really wasn’t that much of an achievement. Every person in the grade got a captain of some sort, whether it was the Arts Captain, who was in charge of all the music and stuff, or whether it was the Recycling Captain, who, funnily enough, was in charge of emptying our class recycling bin into the big recycling bin. Everyone got a badge with a title on it. I did get over the fact that I wasn’t School Captain, and I swore that I would do everything I could to get School Captain in High School.

I got to High School. Going from a small primary school with 200 kids to a HUGE high school with 700 kids was quite a shock I guess. In primary school everyone knew everyone else. We all knew each other’s names and what each other’s parents looked like. We knew where most people lived and what family members they had. Everyone could identify everyone else, and even if you didn’t know a person directly, as in never spoken to them before, your best friend did, so you knew everything about that person from your best friend. At High School, I could hardly tell you everyone’s names in my grade until about half way through grade nine. I remember marvelling that still at the end of grade nine, there were faces who I had never seen before. Almost every day I saw a face which was totally unfamiliar. When we farewelled the year twelves I remember commenting to Courtney that I had never even seen half of them before and they were already leaving.

Gradually, after watching the School Captains one after another, talk on assembly, do certain things around the school, hear them talking about what they did because they were captain; gradually I decided that being School Captain in high school would be too much. Too much responsibility, too much time, too much effort, too much stress. So when nominations came around a few weeks ago I had already decided that I didn’t want to be School Captain. But then I thought about it.

If I was being honest, and not modest which I have a bad habit of doing, I have quite a good chance of being a captain of some sort. The amount of extra school activities I do is quite large. I’m not exactly getting D’s in my school work either, and most of the sports and music I do I’m a fairly valuable asset. I’m not the best at anything, but I’m certainly nearer the top than some others.

At first I wasn’t sure if I want a captainship. This year I have had a bit of trouble with my schoolwork; as in its certainly much, much harder to get an A this year than it was last year. I seem to have got more distracted this year and I seem to want to pay more attention to my social life rather than my school work. So my usual marks of mostly A’s have slipped back a bit to mostly B+’s with a few A’s and the occasional C. If I was a captain I would have to do quite a lot of extra stuff on top of what I already do. As it is, I now only have one free night a week to do homework because I am either at band, choir, sport or work. Being a captain would put a huge amount of pressure on me and I know my school work would slip, if even slightly.

In the past few days leading up to the voting day I have been quite nervous about voting. The main reason for that is that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a captain. I put my name in only because I have nothing to lose if I do. If I didn’t there would always be that niggling What if? in the back of my mind. And if I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be captain, then should I really be captain? Would I be a good captain? Would I be a good leader? What if I wasn’t? What if my school work really slipped down?

So I was nervous. Actually today I was really nervous because I had become convinced that I would get School Captain and I didn’t want to be School Captain anymore. But it was too late to pull out.

But thinking about it now, I’m not so nervous anymore.
If I get School Captain, great! I will use that to have opportunities that I would have before. I will use that to get better at public speaking and at juggling school work and social life and at being under stress. I think I wouldn’t make a bad School Captain, certainly not one of the worst.

If I don’t get School Captain, great!
I will be able to concentrate more on my school work that what I would if I was School Captain. I will have more free time and I won’t be so stressed.

I can see the pro’s and con’s of getting School Captain and not getting School Captain and I am going to choose to look at only the pro’s in both situations.

So wish me luck on trying for School Captain!
I hope my primary school wish comes true!

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