Discredited

I don’t have any lessons timetabled on a Thursday so I stayed at home until eleven, half-wanting to go down to school, half-hating what would inevitably happen when I did. I did my Art homework, listened to records and decided to go.

I really hated it: Angela Reid's prattling and sneery jibes about my clothes and my attitudes, Jeremy’s stony silence, Deborah’s total indifference, as if I don’t exist. I sat there silently, watching it all pass me by and yet helpless to alter things. I went and played football in the Sports Hall with Peter and Abbott. It's all so sour, and when I think back to last year at this time everything seemed so good, Deborah, Claire, everything so much easier, so much more enjoyable. And now. . . .  I must have changed or something. At least Art was quite enjoyable.

At eight Mum and I went back to school for a parents’ evening to discuss my report and "career prospects." A typical stifled and forced situation. As I was waiting, Claire arrived with her Mum and as she passed she said bent down close to say something to me--that feeling in my stomach, the thought that sometimes I seem so near, at others completely out of it. The usual good-humoured criticisms, Gledhill telling Mum that the staff thinks I’m knocking off because I’m always missing registration. Barkston wanted to see me and we discussed the usual thing, my American Studies/Politics dilemma, and things seem to be tilting towards the former. Apparently Mr. Giles has been on an American Studies course. I need to see people to discuss all this with, and it’s all so horribly confusing.

I got the usual lecture from Mum on the way back, “you're a fool to yourself,” etc., etc., and it’s all true, but I just CANNOT motivate myself. We ended up angry at each other, and I felt like a slob, discredited, vowing once again to work hard yet feeling absolutely overwhelmed at the prospect of all that revision. . . . I’m at the point now where school is just a drag. But I MUST work, the pressures are so heavy. It's no wonder people commit suicide.