All I Ever Had...Redemption Songs

Today was a shitty day. And the worst part is I knew it was going to be from the moment I woke up. I'm longing to sing songs of freedom after another day in the prison that is the Aquinas Institute.

I attempted to break the firewall in order to look at "innapropriate" websites (Facebook and MySpace, not to mention scoping out concert tickets for The Police and Third Eye Blind). So I get a detention for breaking a rule. That's fair, I brought it upon myself.

The thing that pisses me off and sets every dissident molecule in my body aflame is when I'm coerced into doing something even though I broke no rule.

Now I believe in rules and guidelines and all that shit because without them comes chaos and anarchy. Law and order is good and right.

Since my school is a private one, I automatically hand over my personal liberties at the door, and this, too, is ok. I've learned to live with it.

What's not ok is being told I need to "trim my bangs" despite their legal length. The rules stipulate that hair must not be covering the eyes. Ok cool, but mine isn't. My bangs are long, yes, hence the swoop motion. I push them to the side, fully revealing my eyes but just covering my eyebrows.

So tell me, almighty holy administration, what fucking rule have I broken?

Now since our principal is more of a puppet and a mascot for the Board of Trustees (money is God at AQ!), he is more concerned about the appearance of students out of fear that any non-conforming student may offend an alumnus or visiting parent or prospective student.

In other words: all students must be in full dress code at all times. God forbid any alumni should see you walking around with your top button unfastened or shaggy hair. Though if they did, their response would probably sound like this:
"When I was a student here I had respect for the rules and the tradition! You kids nowadays have no respect for anything!"

Guess what Mr. Random Alumnus, class of '67, we're the ones that will be running this world when you're pissing all over yourself in a retirement home. We know damn well what we're doing, and we don't need anyone to hassle us. We're going places, far further than anywhere you could have ever dreamed of.

So I'll serve my jug, get my haircut, button my top button when asked to, but the one thing I will never do is be silent about injustice. This is a free country, and because of that, I can legally be saying this without consequence. This is not China where I'd be killed after the first sentence of this blog. This is America.

Oh shit, who's in that unmarked black van rolling into my driveway now?