June 6, 2023
I’ll probably look back at this reflection a few years down the line and cringe. Trying to act deep and shit, reflective when I’m not, sentimentalizing a moment that doesn’t really mean jack in the grand scheme of things.
You, I mean I did alright I guess. In the fall, I’ll be starting at a school that I’m reasonably happy with. You didn’t party, indulge in the degrassi-esque experience, sometimes you optimized for the wrong things, couldn’t say “no”, didn’t say “yes,” had no clue who you were and didn’t put in the work to figure it out until recently, restarted the hair growing journey from basically bald in March 2020, let your guard down, sometimes kept it a little too high, glorifed people, got too comfortable, heck, sometimes too confident, did what you thought you “had” to and viewed “knowledge,” to the extent high school learning builds this, as an instrumental thing.
I broke some "rules" and to be frank I wish I broke more. Not the rules plastered in your high school "code-of-conduct", the rules that told me I had to care about the things I did. The rules that made me overly committal, the rules that are a product of this narrative that high school is so important. Your life as a person who is coming-to-be, is, but the key word here is "life"—like to actually live it.
Inertia is a dope thing, that feeling of flow when your working on something that consumes you, the satiety that comes with good routine, friends to rely on and a groundedness in your beliefs. I say "inertia," and refer to the state in which you're in unchanged motion, but being stagnant sucks too.
But, how do you achieve this? Maybe, you embrace the nomad lifestyle because you saw that it worked for a few. Sometimes things were scary, not because you felt unsafe, but hit the reality that if you were to fall there wasn't really anyone to catch you. Sometimes this felt like pure bliss, I could do anything, but at times it was sheer terror.
Now, for too long of a spiel on jobs....
I had been pretty tied to the idea of working as much as possible as soon as I reached the legal age to be an employee. The summer before my grade 9 year, I tutored a set of twins, distributed flyers for a soccer camp, sent way too many emails in hopes of landing a proper internship which I surprisingly did, worked as an unpaid digital marketing "apprentice" for a bridal planning company based in New York (to which I fronted with a story that I was a rising civil engineering student at a local university...smh) and worked through the grade 9 math curriculum because middle school language had traumatized me.
Coupled with virtual volunteer commitments to log my required 40 hours before stepping foot on campus. I was busy, and although experience is valuable, this was a great example of quantity over quality. I suppose I clocked in the formative experience, and got pilled into cold-emailing.
I opened a notebook calculated the upper bound costs for Canadian university tuition and decided that I had to prepare for self-fund. Retrospectively, financial aid came through, and college internships are relatively more lucrative, but savings are nice. No debt (we hope) to treat my future self.
Grade 10 was over, I had watched the "Big Short" too many times to count. To anyone involved in the Hamidah-finance-Palantir memeplex, this is a large reason why. I read finance manifestos and got pretty superficially econ-pilled: oddly appealing aesthetics, I guess. I found 80,000 hours because an economics PhD was a top recommended path. Maybe being the next Michael Burry, shorting water ETFs and living my best socially awkward, banker lifestyle wasn't for me, but you best believe having the most impact was!
I started my Grade 11 year and staying at home all day, everyday, was getting to me. I would definitely call myself a homebody (maybe not so much anymore), but some social interaction was needed. A friend from school had been looking for a job, and we spent the late summer and early fall applying to the same places. It was weird, I was applying to work at the grocery store with research experience. They took forever to get back and I got hella annoyed (lol). I didn't think I deserved a job, but turns out there's quite a few other high school students looking for the same job...crazy.
We started working at the store together. She was in the Health and Beauty department, I was in the Natural Valley section: supplements, overpriced organic cosmetics, boutique snacks and too many brands of almond milk. I got somewhat unlucky with my boss. She was at the latter end of her maternity leave and we were somewhat understaffed. My average shift was from 6-10 pm, with the expectation that you stay for an hour or so afterwards to "face." Ahhh, the flashbacks are coming to me. "Facing" meaning making the shelves look presentable with the products "facing" the front. There were many aisles and I'm quite the clumsy human. My Grade 11 year was when the academics became slightly less manageable.
Quadmesters meant two courses in 2.5 months, I started the year with Functions and Chemistry. Getting back home at midnight meant completing homework half-asleep and having suboptimal eating habits. I mantained my grades and the experience has given me a model of doing "a lot" and still doing okay. At the grocery store, I didn't really have to use my brain, I could work in "almost" silence and use interactions with customers to try out different customer service voices. Overall, very productive. Get a "real" job, kids.
I "touched grass", and built shared experience. I could rant to classmates, my friend, my mom, everyone got it -- normalcy. The job environment was somewhat lacking, despite the store itself being one of the nicest ones in the city: I wasn't really taught good safety habits, not taking your breaks was common, COVID interventions were lax and my self-imposed lifting form probably did some light damage (yikes).
I had applied for a job at the recreation center a few months earlier and interviewed. They got back to me rather late and I started working at the grocery store as a result, however when they did, I made the jump. As much as I appreciated the gains that came from milk-crate hammer curls, the new job was slightly easier to get to, had better hours and had better snacks. I'm glad I switched to a near ideal highschool job.
The grocery store, although character-building, left the wrong impression of what workplaces are supposed to look like. I did concessions and "covid-screening" for a brief stint. Hands down, the best "job" ever. People always laugh when I say this, but counting change, making coffee and making conversation with kids finishing their skating lessons is just so wholesome.
The computer that doubled as our cashier station made it easy to do homework and play Slither.io during the quiet periods. Half my shifts were with a coworker and they were all sweet.
It's interesting because at the time I had started working with a Prof. as a research assistant and conversation was not "intellectual", but vibes were good. At this point, I really wasn't using social media, had been out of school for a hot minute and was semi-thrust into new waters.
My coworkers would talk about what programs they were applying to for uni, gossip about their classmates and convince me to get Snapchat - to which I vehemently refused.
My direct boss was very chill and shifts were easy to swap. The manager of the complex was my camp counsellor when I was a wee Grade 6 student, so he was a walk down memory lane. He was just such a chad. The man bun is perhaps a yellow flag, but yeah, super cool.
When you do the job, you're just the girl working in concessions, that's it. Turn your brain off, clock-in and do what's expected of you. Expectations are clear, physically holding things (lmao) and no ones putting up a front. You just can't lie to yourself, like what would be the point.
After the first quadmester, school became more relaxed. I had a wonderful French teacher. She treated me amazingly. In expectation of apathy she got a kid that wanted to up her vocabulary to impress her grandma. Writing essays for English was enjoyable, especially on the old keyboard of the computer. The time spent was fun. Times were fun. On occasion, I'd forget to clock-in and lost some salary (self-imposed) as a result.
I left the job in the spring - the last time - I'd be doing a classic minimum wage job. I miss it when I feel my brain is melting, but overall it made sense to spend more time pursuing other things and not on a decade-old computer.
Really solid times. The uniform wasn't the most flattering, but the job was worth it. I could go on forever.
I'll say the cliché thing and posit that it isn't in inertness that you grow. I don't have a perfectly articulable value system and it arguably seems dope to have one, right? Certainty. A quick response time when someone questions your "why".
I wake up from my slumber and ask myself what can I do today to save the billions of suffering shrimp. Hard-work, and it's not for the weak, but one must do what has to be done.
Yeah, like no. I want to help people, make sure that (relatively) lucking out wasn't in vain, put the energy spent on empathy to better use, do the rationally altruistic thing and give away my surplus.
I'm glory-seeking and part of me just wants to be great; connection-seeking and wants to find my people; knowledge-seeking and wants to understand the complexities of the world that I merely accept without question. But, I have no clue what all this boils down too.
You optimize because you identify this optimum and it only makes sense you put all your might into getting as close to it as possible. But, I'm dumb. Sure, there's local optima and I work for those, but it seems quite wrong to try for any given thing.
How do I say "fuck it we ball" with elegance. Work hard and have no clue what you're doing. It's fine. I accept it as a means to personhood. To the extent I have executive function, I try to complete the tasks on my to-do list while still being the person that strolls the streets until dawn.
I let it go. I tried to let whatever it was go, and the plot actually started to get good. Maybe it should have happened sooner, but hey, a drawn-out start is a novel classic.
Now, I’m here and it’s over. High school finishes with the closing of a tab. My Instagram feed is trickling in with senior year content, the first thing on my recommended is the Grade 12's account for my old high school; bittersweet energy is in the air, though most of it isn't my own.
In this moment, I’m sitting on the couch, on my laptop, typing away into my notes app as I tend to do when I break free from the curse of apathy. Aren't I adorable? Eye roll... I’m not really sure what to write, but I guess I’ll keep blabbing until some substance is reached...or not.
This year my brother started his first year of high school. He's at the school I may have gone to if staying in social comfort was a priority. I chose to go to arguably the worst out of my options for exogenous reasons of the personal responsibility flavor.
I wasn't there for long, the pandemic hit at the start of the second semester of my grade 9 year. I joined the wrestling team because high school was the time I was supposed to explore everything, and that included joining a sports team.
English class with Mr. Burnside was lit. Our classes consisted mainly of discussions. I'd ask myself when we were actually going to start working through the content we actually needed to know for grade 9 English - ENG1D. I stayed confused till near the end of the semester. His classes were just that good.
Somehow the tests were still possible for me to complete despite my not having to memorize much. He showed me what good teaching looks like and reinforced my belief that a good beard is a positive signal - lord knows of what, though (paternalism? lmao)
I walked into school on the first day, September 2019, he was my homeroom. As far as being a normal student goes, it was a steady descent from there.
March 2022, and despite the option to return back to in person school, I stayed online - classes were synchronous which meant that early morning wakes were still a thing, albeit a solid two hours later. I stayed virtual--anything not to commute.
The “opportunities” accumulated and async high school looked to be an option. I made the switch. It took a while to get into the swing of things and my junior year ended up being basically a gap year where I did very little coursework.
Summer was fun, met a ton of cool people (my own age!), finally touched grass again, and got quite comfortable travelling alone.
The last few months were spent wrapping up my classes and travelling a lot. I finally got a hit of reality and at times felt quite empty: What was all of this for, what was I excited about, what was I working on? I'll be touching the waters of structured work this summer and I’m excited.
The very last few months have been a nice balance between wholesome social life, having my mind fucked by existential dread, and indulging in actual hobbies.
I actually became an adult (crazy) and slowly realizing that all this agency that I had been taught to have when it comes to projects, learning, yadda yadda, also apply to something much more personal.
Hit up your friends, be honest with yourself and other people, and act on your own values, your own accord. I've still got so much bloody work to do in this department, but it’s nice relishing in the small emotional wins when you’re making progress.
P.S. If you're someone I've met over the course of the past four years and we vibed, much love.
Ramblings over.