I
went to a school called, Valley Christian. If you want to go solely for
academics, sports, or the arts, you should totally go there. If you are
anything like me and you LOVE to talk to people about ideas, maybe Valley isn’t
the place for you… at all. But unfortunately for me I got the opportunity to go
to this school. My parents thought it would be best for me because I was the
only one in the house who read their bible almost daily, that I should go
because it was a “Christian” school. Now I come from a Christian family but
when I was eight years old we started falling away from the faith and my
parents started to have a much more worldly view about the world. When I was
thirteen I started going to church by myself and my faith by the end of my
freshman year of high school became my own. Now, lets go back to Valley
Christian. The first thing I noticed was that people there were predominantly
white and Asian. Not really that many Black, Mexican or Pacific Islanders. But
when ever I saw them, most seemed like a “white washed” version of them. Not
that I’m saying that being a stereotypical version of your culture is okay, but
no one but myself and a small few were embracing theirs.
I felt like where I went I got a
recycled version of the last person I saw. Hence the term “white washed”. This
private school had lots of rich white kids trying to be appealing to almost
everyone they saw, except no one who really fit the “professional” image this
school was trying to give off. Just to be clear I don’t really enjoy saying
“white washed” but I really felt like no one there liked to embrace anything
about themselves or their background at this school.
AFTER SCHOOL, was almost a whole other
thing. If you hung out with anyone after school you got to pretty much see their
true colors. Not just personality wise but if anyone allowed you to even simply
walk off campus with them it was the absolutely most glorious thing ever. Why
that is so awesome is, like I said: I felt like I saw a recycled version of
everyone. Including teachers sometimes. Bottom line is, going to Valley
Christian wasn’t a great experience because I felt like I was the only
“different” one there.
I also found it almost hilarious
that almost no one there was even Christian. Seemed to me people only went
because there parents wanted them to go. People claimed that they were
Christian but they actually weren’t. Now I’m not saying that Christians
don’t need to be perfect, but we definitely need to be loving and authentic.
Lots of people at Valley Christian weren’t. It almost hurt me when I would talk
about the word of God to some one but they would nod and agree and then not
want to even hang out with me or pretend to like me but then see them not
living a Christian life. Or when I’m around people who are black and they don’t
even want to hang out with me or look at me like I’m crazy. Even though they
are also black. Don’t get me wrong though, I DID in fact have some black
friends… I just didn’t see them too often. The days were often dreadfully
boring and my classes were unnecessarily hard. I failed almost all my classed
but then did summer school to bring up my grades. (That’s not so important though.) But
my time at valley wasn’t all bad because I had piano and dance class. Having
those classes and being able to perform in front of people and them allowing me
to connect with them, at least in that way made me feel alive at Valley. My
time at Valley was a very depressing one but the art was the only thing that
made it worthwhile. One thing I’m grateful for from Valley is I noticed my
individuality and my uniqueness from everyone else. The only real good thing
that came from that was that I grew in my faith in Christ and now I want to
share that with the world, through my crafts.
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