The Real Game Starts

I think that one of the things about growing up is realizing that there is a world beyond my own.

When I was small, everything that I did was for the here and now. If I played for a prize, it was some candy that I was going to get in a couple of minutes. Otherwise, it was for the fun of playing... and everything was a game. I do not just mean the tag and Nintendo, but the schoolwork and lessons. Even in high school, I did not take classes that I did not like. Alright, I did strategize in order to make the best college application that I could, but I only did that because it was like a really big game. It was either strategize for that or take them randomly. I have always been a fan of order, so I planned, not because I was particularly ambitious, but because it was fun.

Then that fun changed. At the end of my junior year, I started applying to college, and figuring out where I could apply with realistic chances and… well… life turned serious. My game of high school turned out to have real consequences. I was looking at test scores on collegeboard.com’s college profiles, trying to find a reach school, and well, I could not. Even at Yale, my scores were at the upper end of their range. Suddenly, my game turned out to be real.

This completely rocked my boat. I had brushed off the private school as something that I could do, therefore it was no big deal. Then I realize that I can do the Ivy Leagues too. If nothing else, their fame forced me to see that I was not playing a game. I always thought that my friends were joking when they said that they wanted to go to Harvard or Stanford. Then I find out that they actually have a chance, a realistic expectation to go there. My world is turned upside down! Things that I thought were just fanciful dreams, hopeless ambitions, they are real.

When I was small, I found out the Santa Clause was my mother, Camelot never existed, and light-speed travel has yet to be invented. I also made the conclusion that New York City did not exist. It followed the trend. When people think nobility, they think Camelot, but there are no historical artifacts from that mystical city. When people think of the new world and technology, they think space travel, but the moon is the furthest a human has gone. Whenever someone thought of a city, they thought “New York”, but I did not personally know anyone who had been there. When I found out that it did, in fact, exist, I pushed it to the back of my mind as “well, nobody goes there”.

Then came that fateful junior year.

BOOM! (that was my world exploding.) Suddenly, I find out that the coasts are real possibilities. Many of my friends fully intend to leave and never come back. This is even more of a shock, to find out that I was expected to continue the Midwest brain-drain. First I find out the rest of the world exists, then I find out that I am supposed to go there? Somewhere people do not know how to play Euchre? Where the ocean is a weekend destination? Where crime is rampant and people are rude? Where it is possible to survive without a driver’s license? Where you have to pay for everything, but can buy anything? I am not sure that I will be able to survive in such a foreign world.

However, I am now nearing the end of my senior year, and am getting used to the prospect of the rest of the world, even enamored. If I were able to get into Yale, actually attend there, what else might I be able to do? Now, I listen to the radio on the way to school, not thinking about those silly people on the coast, but thinking, “that could be me.” I look at an atlas, and see all the roads and cities and population and think that there are actually people living there. It is not just a political force or a vacation destination, but a home and way of life. I have always known these facts, but have only recently come to realize their implications. I know that this is my youth speaking, but I feel like I can go out and do anything. The rest of the world is just as real the climbing tree in my yard.

Student of Integrity Essays

Recently, I just wrote an essay for the “Student of Integrity” award. That was probably the most difficult essay that I have ever had to write, even though it was only 300 words. How, exactly, do they expect me to sum up my entire philosophy of life in a single page? Not only that, but like any other college essay, I had the responsibility to make it look like I was perfect. That was hard with the academic ones, but trying to do that when I am supposed to be demonstrating my integrity???? Impossible. Anyway, I thought and thought, and by the time the due date was near, and the office wanted to get it sent out, I just wrote what I thought. I knew this essay was going to get me in trouble, but I did it any way.

I do not think that I deserve a Student of Integrity award. The people at school who nominated me for this think that I am more virtuous than I am because I do my best to be polite. I follow rules. I do not do either of the above because I have a particular affinity for rules or politesse, I just do not have the energy to fight it.
I grew up with a mentally handicapped brother who had violent tendencies and absolutely no idea how to control them. If he wanted something, then he would go for it with all of his might. If I wanted the opposite, then I would have to fight with all of mine. This means that I had to learn very early on how to prioritize what I fight for. I am not going to risk bruising in order to watch Arthur as opposed to Star Trek, but I might be willing to fight for an episode of Sabrina for which I have been waiting an entire week. I was bombarded with these priority conflicts for my entire childhood.
From these experiences, I have learned how to distribute my effort. My school has a particularly strict dress code that I do not particularly care about. However, many teachers notice that I follow it fairly well. It is not because I have any underlying belief in the sanctity of rules. I just do not particularly care, so I am not going to cause conflict over something as silly as tucking in a shirt.
I am not a virtuous person. I do not care about rules. I do not go through the conflict of breaking them, but I do not go out of my way to make sure that they are never broken.

That essay was completely true. However, the college counselor still did not like it, understandably. It went against everything that he has been trained to do for his entire career, gloss things over, make students look perfect. Here I was, butchering my image for a scholarship. He was having a hard time controlling his temper.
Anyway, I rewrote the essay, trying to make myself look a little better and appease the counselor:

What is this essay? Am I supposed to tell the committee how virtuous I am? How I am better than all of the other applicants? I cannot do that. I just do my best to follow what I believe. That trait sometimes this gets me into trouble.
The most prominent time this has happened was when I asked for my membership to the ACC to be removed. I did this for a number of reasons. Mainly, it was because I did not like pretending to believe one thing while doing another. I did not like pretending to wear a head covering and a skirt all the time, even though I only wore them on Sunday, even though this is the inconsistent practice of the vast majority of female ACC members. I did not like nodding my head, pretending to agree with all ultra-conservative positions. I did not like pretending that I did not play sports. I did not like pretending that I intended to become a housewife. So I stopped pretending, and asked for my membership to be removed.
There are a lot of people who disagree with my action. They tell me that many members play sports and vote democratically and wear jewelry. One should not talk about those things in church, but those liberal views do not warrant leaving. I should go with the flow and not cause discord. But I was tired of hiding who I was, smiling and nodding and grinding my teeth. So, I did the only thing that I could think of. I gave up my membership. I broke my uninformed, sixth-grade oath, but I was true to myself and to my beliefs. I do not know if that was ethical or not, but what I did was my best guess at morality.

It was still not good. Too controversial. That was what the High School Director said. So I rewrote it again. He told me that I was thinking too much in terms of obeying rules. He said that in his experience directing the Honor Committee, of which I am a member, he has noticed that I do, in fact, try to do the right thing. I should write my essay about that. I went to the art room computers and typed up this silly thing.

A lot of people think that having integrity means following rules and doing what you are told. Rules have their place, but they are not the things that make a person moral. Instead, it is the type of decisions that someone makes when there are no rules to follow.
Sometimes, that means looking beyond an immediate situation to the purpose of it. If someone asks a question on a moral dilemma the purpose is not providing a confidant response, but a solution the questioner is willing to follow. If she is asking about homework, the purpose is not to provide the answer, but to provide understanding. Understanding the purpose of a situation effects the attitude with which you approach it.
Another important attribute is the willingness to sacrifice time, effort, and money for the greater good. I could be selfish with my study time so that I can get the best scores possible. However, I often prefer to help friends who are struggling in that class. That is a small price to pay for their success, the ensuing relationship, and the success of the class as a whole.
Self-sacrifice and patience are nothing if it is done in the wrong spirit. I do not do things because I want to be better than other people. I do them because I want the people around me to succeed. I want them to help me when I fall short of an ideal. I sin. I fail. However, because I do not look down on my fellow sinners and failures, those faults are kept to a minimum.

I know that it is not well organized, but I just wrote it out because I was too emotionally strained. It is hard when the office thinks that I am trying to sabotage myself, trying to annoy them, trying to make them mad. All on a paper over integrity. Frustration!
Anyway, they accepted it, and sent it in. I do not know if it will actually win anything, but I can hope. I do not know if they accepted it just because they were tired of fighting, or if it actually has some sort of quality about it. I did not stick to any sort of thesis statement. Oh well. I will just hope for the money and be glad that I do not have to fight with the office any more.

Relations with the Church

When I lost my temper for the second time in my life, I was dealing with my very strict, very unique church. It all started with a moral dilemma I was experiencing. My brother had just lost his membership in the church because he had joined the army, something that our pacifism forbade. I was having a hard time supporting the Church’s judgement because I love my brother, and because the logic behind the tenant was not clear. It is based of the commandment “thou shalt not kill.” War implies killing. Therefore war is against the Ten Commandments. However, King David, one of the most revered Biblical figures, went to war many times, and is not considered a sinner because of that. Something seemed inconsistent.

These were my honest thoughts, but I did not want to rebel from the Church. It was possible that I was wrong. I wrote an e-mail to the Elder, Phil, asking him to present a counter-argument so that my faith in the church would remain intact. That never happened. The response I received completely ignored my question, and instead included veiled hints that I was starting down a path of sin. Phil told me that it was possible to question any aspect of the church, but that they were still “basic Biblical truths of scripture.” As examples, he listed tenants of this unique church that have the least Biblical support: literally kneeling in prayer, never wearing any jewelry, and never dating.

That response got me hopping mad. I could barely think straight. Not only did he ignore my question, not only did he generically accuse me of sin without a real basis, he was saying completely untrue things as if they were straight from the mouth of God. My church’s custom of marriage without a dating period has almost no biblical support! I paced. I screamed. Finally, I wrote a furious e-mail, pointing out his blatantly wrong logic and ranting on, using as many biting Biblical references as I could, using no self-restraint to avoid offence. Later, I had to apologize for my disrespect to the highest position in the church, but I do not regret my outburst.

Since then, I have never been able to trust the pulpit as I once did. I do not hate it. I simply do not trust it. I know that the church is not God. For four years, I silently disobeyed any rules which I did not believe until, early in my senior year, I finally made the decision to withdraw my membership. After a summer of participation in social events meant to replace the dating system, after four years of listening to the sermons in church, refusing to let my blood boil, I revealed my beliefs to my parents. Now I know that, even under incompetent, uncompromising authority that nobody has the courage to challenge openly, my decisions and my beliefs are my own, and I will not be frightened into changing them.

My Intentions

Recently, I have tried to make it known to the world who I am. Well, that and figure out who I am in the first place. Well, this is one attempt. I am going to try and explain to all of you compleate strangers who I am. Hopefully, I will keep up on my posting. Anyway, this way, I can say what I think without fear of retaliation. I can reveal parts of my life without fearing what people will think, or how it will change their opinion of me. These are my hopes. I am going to start with my college application essays so that I will have some sort of semblance of length to this thing.

Julie