Often, as I watched our workshops, I could see an author’s quiet delight at hearing her writing closely examined, sometimes even borne aloft by her peers’ insights and intelligence.
and warlike tendencies. Allophilia, if its theorists are right, functions as a sort of governor on the hot engine that drives us to get out in front of or subdue others. As I read the piece I thought immediately of you and the thousand instances of kindness little and large that I have witnessed, or heard of, or received during your time at CA. Kindness has its own rewards, of course, but when it becomes a distinguishing feature many possibilities arise. Chief among them is the sort of self-exploration I mentioned earlier, a quest often mistakenly cited as a solitary pursuit. Permit me a moment of envy. Not the agebased envy usual when we, your elders, look out upon your generation, seeing growth and possibility measured in exponents. Rather it’s a narrow envy generated by comparison between your and my high school experiences. This comparison offers a small window into the way self-exploration falters in a school colored by an opposite of kindness; because it ruled my
own high school years, I’ll choose sarcasm as my high school organizer. Sarcasm, our most common form of irony, turns expression; it makes meaning snake back beneath itself where it creates uncertainty. “Did he mean that?” we often ask as we parse a sarcastic statement for its “true” meaning. Or, “How much of that did he mean?” I am sixteen years old and acutely aware . . . of everything; often I feel myself to be a quivering antenna. Among each day’s many wonderings is this central one: “Who am I?” I sit down at breakfast, weary from the night’s study, wary of the day’s tests. “Lookin’ good,” says the boy on my right. I look down at my gravyspotted tie. “Yeah, o so fine,” says the boy across from me. I notice again the red aura of a pimple emerging on my nose. “Yeah, and you were brilliant in history yesterday, a regular luminary,” says a third. I recall offering that the Mongol Horde was a treasure. They all snicker as coda
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Clockwise from top left: Visual arts teacher Jessica Straus with Molly Turpin '08; history teacher Marco Odiaga with his advisees, Nick Trkla '08, Tamer Mallat '08, and Mathis Bauchner '08; Daly Franco '08 with her parents Domingo and Luz; Clara Dennis '08 (second from left) with her brother Luke '03, her mother Rebecca Kellogg '71, her sister Charlotte, and her father Kevin Dennis