Discover Top Posts Tagged with #class of 2009

I wanna put the kids from Class of ‘09 in a room with the kids from Bully and see what happens.

#class of 09 #class of 2009 #bully game #bully rockstar

Emily - Class of 09

;; Used CSP EX - abt an hour ish taken

#art #artwork #class of 09 #class of 2009 #emily #scene kid #emo scene #scenecore #2000s scene #alternative #alt girl #bright colors #pfp icons #pfp #silly

Is it me or do I feel like lizzy and V give jecka and Nichole from class of 2009 vibes

#murder drones #vizzy murder drones #vizzy md #vizzy #md vizzy #sd v #serial designation v #lizzy #class of 2009 #jecka class of 09 #nichole class of 09

Glitch dog

#art #artists on tumblr #gif #animation #g1ft3d #digital art #guatemala #new media #aesthetics #glitch #glitch dog #glitch art #data bending #old school gif art #gif art #old school bringing the heat #class of 2009

A High School Memory

My 10-year high school reunion took place this past Friday night, and it was a success. Earlier this morning, I started thinking about one of my last memories of being a high school student. When I drove out of Mountain Brook High School’s parking lot for the last time as a student back in May 2009, my iPod was set on shuffle mode and connected to the right radio station via my FM car transmitter. I actually remember many of the songs that played from my iPod as I drove away since I was still wrapping my head around the fact that I just completed my high school education and that I would be a college freshman soon. I even went so far as to write down a list of these songs to commemorate this day. Some of the songs that I listened to throughout that day while running errands after school were “River Euphrates” by Pixies, “Kids” by MGMT, “Love Vigilantes” by New Order, “Place to Be” by Nick Drake, “Exciter” by Judas Priest, “Alex Chilton” by The Replacements, “Falling Snow” by Agalloch, and “Kindergarten” by Faith No More. Among these songs and several others, it was Faith No More’s “Kindergarten” that made me reflect on that moment in my life. If you are a Gen-Xer who was in high school or college during the late 80s to the early 90s, there’s a likely chance that you remember the band, Faith No More.

The following lyrics in “Kindergarten” always stood out to me:

“Drinking fountains are shorter than they used to be. The swings on the playground don’t even fit me anymore. Folklore! Nobody’s supposed to believe in the next grade. Write it a hundred times. Kingdom. Kindergarten. Waiting. The bell’s not ringing.”

For the rest of that day, I could not stop thinking about these lyrics. The drinking fountains near the playground definitely no longer seem like a skyscraper or even a construction crane. Riding a swing set is not as exhilarating and breathtaking as it once was. It was also the last time that I would ever hear a school bell ring. All of these sudden realizations scurried through my head while listening to Mike Patton and company sing about one’s memories of the past. 10 years later, this song still captures all of my personal experiences and lessons from college, graduate school, and adulthood, not just elementary school, middle school, and high school.

Countering the Culture of Success at Wellesley and #LeanIn in Society at Large: Anon ‘09

At Wellesley, we are told that we are #WomenWhoWill and in the real world, we are told to take “a seat at the table” blah blah blah. What do you think about this culture? It’s a lot. How do you respond to the demands to “succeed” and pressures to climb the corporate, political, managerial ladder? What do you do to center yourself and embrace where you are at?

In my opinion, the culture of #WomenWhoWill can result in a many negative psychological effects and a propensity toward self-criticism and status seeking behaviors that is not always healthy. Specifically, in my case, as a low-income student who later became financially responsible for family members, Wellesley culture carried over into ‘real life’ was detrimental to my well-being. There were hard choices that had to be made that did not translate into jobs with fancy titles or the ability to drop out of the workforce in order to attend graduate school. Despite this I have successfully, for the most part, navigated post-undergraduate life while contributing to my local community in variety of ways, yet there is still a major part of me that thinks what I have achieved thus far is not good enough and never will be. Couple that with this constant need to look back and critique all of my previous choices from classes to jobs (even when they made sense in context) in an effort to pinpoint where I could have made a different choice that would result in a ‘better’ outcome and you have a person who is out of balance, always holding herself up to a Wellesley standard that in all honesty does not jive with who I am as a person or what gives my life overall meaning.

What gives my life meaning is being a good friend/family member and a good citizen standing up for things I believe in, not work if I am being honest. I think encouraging Wellesley students to achieve their goals and providing them the means and support to do so is admirable, particularly for marginalized groups, but I wish we could move away from conceptualizing success in very specific, narrow terms that do not honor the diversity of life choices that may be deemed meaningful for the individual, if not by society at large.

#wellesley underground #culture of success #lean in #class of 2009