Keeping Up Appearances
Katie Tandler | Life Section Manager

Take a look at this girl.

Short. Oddly-built. Mussed-up brown hair with a mind of its own, confineable only to a mere ponytail. Wide eyes that reflect a certain shade of blue wedged between adjectives, stuck behind old scratched-up glasses in dire need of replacement. So-so skin. No makeup. Very quiet.

That girl is me. I love the way I look. Not because of some blah-blah self-esteem love-myself sort of conditioning--I know I'm far from perfect. There's another line of reasoning behind this.

When I look like this, I am my own perfect disguise.

Allow me to explain. It's no surprise that people like me were easy targets in school. We were meek, quiet, unassuming, a little strange...and we got picked on because nobody expected us to fight back. And though I hate to admit it, I suppose that, for the most part, the stereotype kinda holds true. I myself used to be like that. And then I hit high school.

It wasn't quite an instant fix. For the first half of my freshman year, I was still picked on relentlessly--most notably by these two guys in my Health class. I tried to get them to stop, but it seems that my every effort just provoked more teasing. And so it went, until about late January, when we reached our first set of exams.

Now let me explain, here...as a high school freshman, I was very high-strung. So, when faced for the first time with seven exams in the course of a week, I built up a lot of stress. I do not become a terribly pleasant creature when I'm under stress. Of course, judging from the outside, I suppose it might be hard to tell.

Leave it to Beavis and Bone-head to pick the exact wrong moment to start something. I'm walking back from the commons, poring over my notebook and trying to squeeze that last bit of math into my brain before the big test. All of a sudden, I'm jarred out of my last-minute-study trance by a shove from behind. I don't think much of it, seeing as the halls are absolutely choked with people, and it's quite possible that somebody just tripped. So, I start to settle back into my math...and then I'm shoved again. This time, I glance behind me, and see - wonder of wonders - my two favorite people. Oh, joy.

So, of course, being a Bigger Person, I attempt to employ the "ignore them and they'll go away" defense. For anyone who's ever tried said defense, you know how (completely not) effective it is. However, unbeknownst to them, I happen to harbor something of a small violent streak. I try my best to keep it in check, but something about all that was going on must've just triggered something in me. So when they shoved me a third time, I just blindly reacted with a swift mule-kick to one guy's shin.

They backed off, and neither of them ever bothered me again.

Now, by no means am I trying to say that "violence is the answer", or that any problem can be solved by stooping to their level. I don't think my actions had an effect because they were threatening so much as they were simply unexpected. And that is the philosophy I've used ever since in my quiet little war.

It's not just a war against jerks who pick on people like me. It's a discreet little battle with everyone's preconceptions. I make it a point to do things people wouldn't normally expect. At the very least, maybe they'll give other people a second glance as well. Becaue you really never know about some people.

...don't forget that Clark Kent was a pretty mild-mannered guy, too.