Ignorance in Your High School Principal My trip to his offi

I walked into his office. The look on his face was distasteful. He made me feel inferior to him. Not the way you should feel around your high school principal. I didn't feel welcome, or even accepted. His beady eyes burned holes in my skin. I sat. He gazed into my tired eyes, and he asked me the following, "What's going on?" How am I supposed to respond to this sort of question? If I say "nothing," it's a given that there is something. However, if I try to speak with him about anything, it will be like talking to a brick wall. Authority figures never have any compassion. They care only about the person that rules them. In this case it would be the superintendent.

I reply with a comment which is very versatile, "Not much, and yourself?" He gives me a look of disappointment. The kind of look you get when your parents find out you've been skipping school for the whole first semester. He turns his back to me. I hate it when they do that. They always think you are going to be sitting there waiting for them to turn around. Like you think they are the most important person in the world. I don't do that though, I just admire all the hoaky pictures and quotes on his white walls. Yeah, if he actually believed in all these sayings he wouldn't be working here, I think.

Suddenly, I feel my ears begin to burn. I try to do a play by play in my head of what I am going to say to him. I don't know why I do that, it never helps. I always end up shooting off my mouth, and getting into trouble. He turns back around and informs me that I was absent this past Friday. LIKE I don't know. He tells me I have to serve seven hours of detention. "Excuse me, Mr. Principal, Sir..." I begin. Only to be cut off with another, "I don't want to hear it." I shut my mouth and let him ramble on. I have a lot of better things to do with my time, I think to myself. Listening to people you really don't care to listen to is quite boring. So, I let my mind wander. I think of how many runs I could be snowboarding down at this very moment. I think about what I need to get when I go shopping tomorrow after school. I think about what Katie said about skipping. Finally, I become increasingly bored and begin to conjugate everything he is saying to me, from English into Spanish. I am always doing this. It's like a game for me, I like to test myself, and believe it or not, it helps me in class.

When he is through with his spiel I speak up again, "Sir, I had a note for Friday." "Yeah, we'll see about that." is coldly shot back into my face. This is the part I love. I know that I turned in a note to him, and now he is going to be wrong. Something I always like to witness, I like to see people like him show some humility once in a while.

After waiting in the office for what seams like hours, he returns. "Oh, you did have a note for Friday, nevermind about that then." he says. He doesn't even apologize for wrongly accusing me. What a jerk. The nerve some people have. So there I sit, the bad little girl in the principal's office. The girl with the attitude. The girl with the "chip on her shoulder." The girl with the screwed up family.

He regains his position in his desk. He hides behind his little playing field. His desk is cluttered with detention, ISS, and make-up slips. It's truly a disaster, how unprofessional, I think. He informs me that I have five hours of detention to make up. He would like to schedule them now. I think for a minute. I can't schedule them, because I don't even know my own schedule. I sit there, and he repeats himself, "When do you want to make these up?" As with all other authority figures, he repeats himself. I sit. "I can come in tomorrow morning and schedule them. I am very sorry, but I don't know my schedule at this point and time." Again, he repeats himself, "I need these scheduled now."

I look up at him with a "Who are YOU?" look. I don't even know this person, and he is telling me that I have to schedule these detentions now. I once again remind him that I don't have my schedule for next week yet. He won't take my answer. I feel my face begin to burn. I feel all of my frustrations from the past six months of school build. I think of all the times I left this heel hole in search of some sort of relief. I think of all the assignments, essays, papers, tests, and lectures. I think of all the teachers, and I think of how illogical and ignorant most of them are. I think of all the people in my school, and I wonder if they really are people.

Then he begins with the, "You need to get your priorities set straight." speech. Like I haven't heard that one before. I know what I need to do. I don't need to be told by some jerk that doesn't even know the first thing about me. He doesn't know me; he doesn't know my family, or my life.

I look up and stare at him. His face reminds me of an elf. A little elf, with big, round ears. His eyes seem cocked. He looks as though he has been looking at chalk boards from the wrong angle his whole life. I sit, and stare.

He tells me what a bad kid I have been, put in Lamen's terms, of course. No person of authority will ever actually come out and say, `you're a bad kid.' They will say something like, `your making bad decisions.' I stare. He insists that if I don't schedule these five hours of detention immediately, they will be doubled. I sit up in my chair, my back is hurting me from slouching. I can do one of two things, let down my pride and let him schedule those five hours. Or, I can tell him to go ahead. I try for the more exciting of the two. "Go ahead, give me ten hours, I can't schedule anything right now." He marks me down with his devilish eyes, he stares at me, like I can't say that to him.

But, I think about it. Why can't I? I mean we are both people. Two people in an office. One older, one younger. One with a sheltered outlook on life, one with a free spirit. I turn my head and stare at the floor, which is quite exciting compared to listening to some idiot's rules, boundaries, and aspects on life. He tells me to look at him when he speaks. I feel like I am in the army and he is my drill sergeant. I can see it now, "hit the ground, and give me fifty!" No, I stand up and exit his office. No one deserves that, not anyone.

We both have jobs to do. Him to try and control the kids, and me to disobey him. Him to enlighten me with the ever popular, "your in trouble," me to try and get out of it. Him to sit behind his cowardly desk and have the backing of power, and time. Me to be alone and try and base my life on myself. Him to have a book to follow, and a phone to call parents on, and an infinite amount of stamps to send letters home with. Me with the ability to check my answering machine, and get my mail.

When the confrontation is complete we both walk away the same. However, he has to deal with all the "ME's" for the rest of his career. But me, I only have one of him.