The girl who took it differently

When I was in sophomore high school in my country, for I only came to the US for college, my friends Carla, Jackie and I made a map of our class’ desk chairs according to popularity. Our rating scale was 2 to 10, but our large spectrum was never reached because everyone got rated 6 to 10. We were extremely exigent and the popularity criteria included hotness, datebleness, and funniness – traits we thought were most important at the time. This gorgeous girl who wore tight jeans and a leather jacket and was dating a famous rock lead-singer, 8 years older than her, obviously had a 10. He used to pick her up from school in his black sports car when she came to class. When she didn’t, the gossip was that they were having hot sex on the beach in the Eastern part of the country and that she liked it from behind. We might have been biased and maybe she wasn’t that intelligent, but God, she was hot even from the front!

The guys in the class (there were only 6 among 30 girls) were all on a scale from 8 to 9, except this one blond character who sort of blew up our scale. He was a 2, but we weren’t sure if he had the Down Sindrome (in the words of the time, if he was a retard) or if he was a genius. We were giving ourselves a 6, because we were smart and we thought our jokes were good. Only we thought our jokes were good. Our rating of ourselves improved from the lousy 6 to an awesome 8 over the course of the next two years, or better said, as we all got boyfriends and changed our clothing style and manners.

Rating people in high school was easy – we were all pretty much the same sort of folk, except, as we were all envious on, the girl who was having crazy sex on the beach at night. And at day. Everyone in high school was supposed to learn by heart the same sort of crappy, useless lectures, to have the same hobbies, to wear the same decent school-clothes, to read the same required lit books, to practice the same sports and take the same classes. If you were passionate about architecture, too bad, you couldn’t take an architecture optional class because your schedule was already filled with the required chemistry class which you hated because you knew you would never become a chemistry Nobel prize winner. If you were a retard or a genius, you were never left to edify that because all you had to do was to puke out the lecture the professor had just given you. I guess you could regurgitate it on different tonalities (as this girl who later pursued acting and got our 9.5 mark for being a rebel did), but that doesn’t leave much room for personal genius. In my country, you were never given the chance to passionately dedicate your skills and will to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize.

Arrived to college in the US and found out that people were not all alike and that differences were expected and even encouraged. Be extraordinary at a different sport than anyone else is playing, and you’ll be a hero in America. Don’t read that required boring lit book because you don’t feel enriched and read a book you like and passionately talk about it in class, and you can make a difference in America. Stand up for your political beliefs and get involved in the Lib-Dem debate club in college and you’re not a revolutionary danger that must be eliminated before taking down the system. Nor are you a well-connected guy with a father in the political administration of the country and a pre-arranged job as soon as you will get out of high school. You are just a guy with ideas. Be different in my country, and you’re not respecting the community. Be different and you must be bribing that professor to let you be. Pursue your passions in my country, and are you trying to seem what you’re not supposed to be? Are you trying to play smart? Who the fuck do you think you are to distance yourself from the group?

In America, if my friends and I would start doing the rating all again, everyone would be placed all along the spectrum. There would be 7-rate students who would follow the herd and who would always read that required book. There would be 2s and 3s who would still be in search of their vocation and who would be trying out things until they found their Nobel Prize. And there would always be more than one 10-rated smart girl who would not be afraid to take it from behind.