The zoo part II

So I went to the zoo today (see previous post). It was horrible. It made me depressed, it made me angry and just generally put me in a bad mood. When we arrived the first place we were taken was the penguin enclosure. The zoo keeper proudly told the group that there were hundreds of penguins of various species. Why was she proud of this? The enclosure was about 50x10m which is reasonable, but for hundreds of penguins?! It was cruel. I felt cruel sitting there. There was also white streaks everywhere that resulted in an unpleasant smell. I can only assume this was there shit. Lovely. Because of course penguins would walk about on their shit in the wild...

The next area was the big cats. The lions had a relatively small space and just looked bored. It was a depressing sight. The worst by far though was the tiger. There was a fully grown male tiger in the tiniest of enclosures. Literally 4x3m of steep rock face, with meat hanging from a rope in front of the viewing screen so that the tiger would come right up to the front and pull at the meat. I felt sick. All I could think about was how vast their territories would be in the wild. Literally kilometres of land to roam and to hunt. Instead, they were stuck here, in the rain, for the amusement of a few dozen middle-class bastards that stared blankly at them, unimpressed as they weren't as ferocious as the ones they had seen on the high-definition nature documentaries.

I realise I'm rather hypocritical for going but the last time I had gone I was five and had hoped the cruel conditions would have somewhat improved in the past 12 years. They haven't.

The zoo.

Tomorrow I'm going to the zoo with one of the departments at my school. When I was first asked, I just put my name down as it sounded like a nice idea and everyone else was excited. I didn't really think about it. The zoo we are visiting is in a nice city a few hours away so I thought it would be a good opportunity to visit this city. This was a few months ago and now that the trip is imminent...I am concerned I will turn into an animal rights activist and annoy everyone else on the trip.

As the trip tomorrow got nearer I began to think about the last time I went. I haven't been to a zoo in a LONG time. The last time I think was when I was five years old somewhere in a foreign country. All I remember from that visit, was being incredibly saddened by the poor polar bear stuck in a 2x4 metre glass box with water cascading down onto it. I was five and had opinions on animal rights...think how opinionated I'll be now! It is a different zoo and it has been 12 years since I last visited one but I think I may end up hating it even more now that I'm older and able to understand things fully.

The whole concept of a zoo is ridiculous anyway! Locking up wild animals in the middle of a polluted, cramped city so that lots of bored humans can go and gawk at the pretty creatures for a few hours. It's revolting! It's one of those things I believe will be abolished in the future and people will look back with disgust at how selfish and cruel we once were. I understand that some zoo's do great work for animal conservation, but when the animals are stuck in this miserable existence sometimes you wonder if it would be more humane to just let them die.

I'm really not looking forward to this trip...

p.s. I'm all for safari's and national parks that protect endangered animals. I just think zoo's merely use this kind of bullshit to persuade people they're not completely pointless.

Attention-seeking.

I have a very close friend called...Jen. So Jen and I have been friends for years, have a huge amount of history and stories. We have always enjoyed each other's company and agree on most things which has allowed us to create a strong bond. One of the things I love(d) most about her is her ability to laugh at herself. In my eyes that's a very attractive quality. Recently however, she has started to get on my nerves and takes herself far too seriously.

We're both very high achievers and are going to be studying the same course at university. Up until recently, I was very excited by this and even hoped that we would end up going to the same university so that we would have many more years together. In the past month we have received offers from several of the same universities. Instantly Jen decided she wanted to go to a medium sized university around 4 hours away. I was less certain and so considered the idea for several weeks. For some reason Jen decided that I should be offered no advice with this and instead she would repeatedly inform me that she "is definitely going to university X and so there's no point in discussing the universities with me." I respected this view but quietly felt it was unnecessarily narrow minded.

During this period, Jen also decided that every single person she knew HAD to be informed of her decision to go to university X and her acceptance there. She received continual congratulations and all eyes were on her for around a fortnight. By the end of these weeks, I had decided I wanted to go to a different university, university Y. University Y was in a bigger, more vibrant city, was nearer to other large cities and had excellent prospects after graduation. Upon hearing of my decision (and once people had stopped congratulating her), Jen decided that in fact she no longer wanted to go to university X and she may go to university Y. She expresses this change of heart by wailing about it all day long and informing everyone of how hard her decision is while practicing her amateur dramatics (hiding her face while resting her head on her desk, talking in an exasperated, panicked tone CONSTANTLY). Now, she is one of my best friends. But seriously, WHY must people cause such an issue over things! Yes it is an important decision but 90% of my year group have had to make a similar choice in the past few months yet for some reason, Jen believes hers to be 10 times more important. Her problem becomes EVERYONES problem. I can only conclude she loves the attention.

This little episode has made me think back over all the other times she has behaved in this way and I have humoured her. There are more than I would have thought:

• We were both given awards for being highest attaining male and female in our school. I was honoured and happy to accept the award. Jen cried, informed everyone, received gifts from numerous people and was congratulated continually. Despite the fact it's a joint award Jen received around 90% of the attention for it. This did not bother me at the time as I don't like being showered with compliments but now that I look back, Jen was a little too keen to inform everyone of her success.
• When Jen had to make a presentation to a collection of staff at our school she spent the entire 48 hours beforehand informing most people she knew how nervous she was. She continually looked to me for reassurance and would discuss, at great length, about how she's not capable to do this. What is frustrating is six other people (myself included) had to do similar presentations to the same staff on different days and did so without so much as a peep. Yes we were nervous, but we did not feel the need to have everyone fawn over us and tell us how great we are to overcome this. Of course, Jen performed the presentation perfectly and it was received very well...
• For as long as I can remember Jen has come out of exams telling me (and everyone else) that she has failed the exam, her life is over, she won't get into uni and she can't believe how badly she has done. A few months later the results are released and she will consistently be in the top three of every exam she takes. I have grown to take her exam worries with a pinch of salt but others who are used to only just passing exams are not so forgiving.
• When telling me about arguments with her parents, Jen will often speak of how her mum or dad asked her to clear something up or do them a favour. This was apparently ludicrous and Jen would respond by shouting and bawling her eyes out about how stressful her life is. Her parents would then be shocked and comfort her. Before, I would sympathise with her believing she was in fact very stressed. But I have realised she does no more than I do, is expected of much less than I am and still complains much, much more than I do. Nevermind the fact that breaking down and shouting is a ridiculous response to someone asking you to do a basic task for them.

I think Jen is just very immature. She only has one older brother and is much more successful academically then he ever was. She is also more successful in her studies than her parents have been. This causes her parents to spoil her when she does well and also give her a great amount of leniency when she throws a tantrum about how stressful everything is for her. They did not reach the same level she has and so take her word for it when she claims it is incredibly difficult, giving her special treatment to accommodate this. She has learnt she can get away with attention-seeking behaviour.

On the other hand, I am the youngest of four very high achievers and my parents both went to university. This means my family are aware of the stresses and, while they are accommodating, they do not put up with childish tantrums. I think my change in attitude over the past few months has shortened my patience for this kind of behaviour but in all honesty, it is incredibly selfish and I am surprised I am only noticing it now. I really hope Jen decides to stick to her original university choice as I think we are more likely to remain friends in that situation. If she does go to my university, there is no chance I will put up with five more years of “The Jen Show”.

Hi I'm Ethan, I don't think we've met.

So as I mentioned in my previous post, I'm into uni and cannot wait to leave this mind-numbing hell called high school. I think I've grown up in the past year. I'm more confident and I'm starting to care less and less what others think of me. I've realised from this change that in the past I was incredibly self conscious. I changed my opinions, my clothes, my behaviour to conform to an idea of what is "cool". I feel like a new person. A more self-confident person. A new me.

As a result of this, I've pretty much decided I'm going to come out soon. At the moment, I am very near to the end of my high school years so to avoid unnecessary stress and problems, I plan to wait until after school has ended to come out. At that point, I'll be 18 and going to university where I will have all the freedom in the world. It is when I go to university I plan to "come out". I use quotation marks as I don't plan to make an issue of it and will never actually come running out of the closet. A straight person wouldn't need to tell everyone they're straight, so why should I tell everyone I'm gay? I'm just going to simply be honest when the topic comes up. If people ask I'll tell them. If they ask if I have a girlfriend, I'll correct their error. It will be simple and painless...I hope. :)

There are a few people I will have to actually "come out" to (such as my family and few close friends). My hope is that, firstly, they will be supportive, and secondly, my freedom away from my hometown will mean any friends that are unsupportive will be easy to avoid. Or at least easy to give breathing space to till they have had time to become used to the idea. Since I plan to meet as many new people as possible and distance myself from my classmates from high school, I'm hoping there won't be many shocking revelation type moments where someone who have known me for years are surprised I am gay. I hope to meet lot's and lot's of new people and all they'll see is the new and improved me. A self-confident, friendly guy who just so happens to be gay.

High school is not that important...

So I've been off this for a while...I just wasn't very motivated to write much if I'm honest. Life's been pretty busy lately with school and arseholes and lot's of other lovely things...but I'm back! (for now :D )

I've been really busy lately and stressed to the max! Huge workload and not a lot of time= unhappy Ethan. I do work best under pressure but this has been ridiculous! Thankfully, I can relax a bit now as I've been accepted to a few universities for my chosen course :D I've always been unsure about what I wanted to do and sometimes felt I was pressured into my application, but waiting to hear has been a nightmare! Now that I know I'm in and can go where I like I'm very happy :D

I'm sick of high school. I've always been popular/liked but popular according to who? A bunch of morons I'll never see again? I don't mean to sound harsh but I am seriously sick of the immaturity, the rumours, the general crap that comes from being in a year of 150 where the majority consider the highlight of their lives to be this final year of high school. I cannot WAIT to go to university and meet new people. Here I feel stuck in this small town with this small-town mentality, I need out.

I've been distancing myself for a while now, still being friendly but distant. I don't listen to people talking about other people, I tell people when their being an arse and overall I feel more myself than ever. It's fun and I don't see the point in all the fake pleasantries when I don't actually care about the majority of my year. There are the select few sane ones who I will probably stay in touch with after we all go our seperate ways. As far as the rest of them go, goodbye and goodridance! :)