Being an A day as it were, I could slide complacently through school without too much of a headache. I was fairly productive, finishing off essays and almost finishing my next book for English, and when Volunteer came up at the end of the day I was in a fairly good mood. In that class, I make my way over to the middle school to sit through a speech class and a resource, hopefully getting a chance to talk to my teacher after school. During the speech class, students were asked to explain what their Explanation Speech was going to be about in the next class. This tall, good-looking 8th grader made his way to the front of class, wearing a grey printed hoodie with black and red stripes lining the insides. He had tighter pants on, black converse shoes and a silver bangle bracelet. Earlier that week, his nails had been painted black. His hair hung straight and in his face. By bowing his head back a little, he could see everyone, and his eyes would look heavy-lidded and hooded in a smug stare.
"When I was thinking about what to do my speech on, I at first thought about doing the life of John Lennon, because his life has always interested me." Inwardly I winced, thinking how boring that would be, especially to those who have no interest in rock music. He quickly dismissed that idea, however, and moved onto the subject of food.
"I was thinking about making some sort of food, but I'm a vegetarian and I don't know how all of you feel about that, and it's not like I was going to make anything out of meat. If you eat beef you are evil and have no soul, because beef is killing baby cows that moo and cute little pigs and that's bad."
Now, I'm all about trying new things and being open to people's views, but this was one incident that ticked me off. Even though I've only been a vegetarian for a few days, and I'm likely not to stay as one, I really really dislike when people are aggressive about their views like that. You don't become a vegetarian just to strut around boasting about your lifestyle change and trying to impose it on others, and tell them how awful they are for not agreeing or following you; that's just seeking attention. That much was obvious with this little boy.
At the end of his speech, after talking about how he was going to make white chocolate macadamia nuts ("and anyone with nut allergies just sucks and too bad for them") he said, "And if you don't like my cookies I will make you like them, because I made them and I'm amazing."
Well aren't you the special haughty asshole? He was exactly the kind of person I resented through middle school and freshman and sophomore year. A kid who thought he was so good-looking and so amazing and so loved popular and loved by everyone. Maybe I'm jealous, since I was never that kid? Or maybe I just don't like assholes who believe the world owes them a million favors.
Regardless of the incident, my vegetarian diet is going fine. I haven't met any other temptations or setbacks. I still need to purchase a scale for the next phase of my dieting experiments, but that can wait until I get a job.
--E
P.S. Chocolate soymilk is amaaaaaaaazing!
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