Senior Reflection Paper

12th grade me.
Photo by Shakanna Inman

I have thought about posting this for a very long time, now. I haven't because I have worried that people might think me self-indulgent, or pity me. But I have finally decided to post it, because this blog is a chronicle of my life, and my senior reflection paper, which is by far one of my most vulnerable papers I've ever written, is also a story of my life. So. Here you go.

    I remember that day like it happened last week. The rain is falling, and my daddy, his long legs stretched out, is walking away from our apartment. His long hair has been cut short so it no longer fits into a ponytail like he normally wears, and his once dark skin has long been bleached white from drugs. My mother, short and stalky, an ape compared to my antelope father, is standing outside the door, rain falling down her face, yelling at him. Daddy won't take Russell to the park and he wants to go. I can go, but Russell can't. Daddy won't take Russell for some reason, and Russell is running behind me and daddy crying. I don't care because he is my daddy, and Russell can't have him. Then my mom says the words that have come to haunt me every day for the rest of my life. "If Russell can't go, then leave Alexis here." My father, tired of the fight, puts me down and walks me back to my mother, the ape. With that, my father, his long graceful legs stretched out, lopes away. Without me. This is the last memory I have of my father. Flash forward ten years. In my mind, it happened the next day. I'm sitting in an office relating my life story to a police officer who is hurriedly taking notes, the principal who is working to keep up a manly facade, my counselor, who started crying twenty minutes ago, and my grandmother, who I have come to rely on most in my life. I sit in a tiny back office and tell them everything I have experienced, from being hit by my mother all the way to sharing a tiny room with three brothers and a dog, and having lice that never went away. The police tell me that I never have to go back to my mother again, and I tell there where all of her drugs are stashed. I finish up my school day and go home, to hear that my mother and her newest leech have been arrested. This is the last memory I have of the ape. In my mind, however, I have always been an orphan, and this has shaped me into who I am today.
    Growing up an orphan has allowed me to become very self-reliant. Whenever I think of myself as self-reliant I think of Shirley Temple saying "I'm very self-reliant, my mother always told me to be that way." Except it wasn't my mother who always told me to strive for independence, it was my grandmother. And because of my self-reliance I have succeeded in life. I'm graduating from high school, something that not many members of my family can brag about, and I'm not pregnant, which is more than my mother could say at my age. I have never felt worse than the moments in life when I forever lost my mother and father and I know that if I go about procreating I will ruin life for some other helpless soul. I am determined to succeed in life and be everything that my mother and father never were.
    On May 12, 2011 I am a typical teenage girl sitting in English class listening to music and texting. No I'm not supposed to be texting, but a crucial high school survival skill is learning how to text on the sly. I have become a functioning member of society, and I am driven to succeed in life. I'm so driven to succeed that I never stop going. I want to do everything, and excel in it. Until I was thirteen, I was never allowed to do anything, and once I got the chance, I kicked down the door to freedom and strutted through the empty frame. The world knew that I arrived. I have many insecurities, and I believe that these things come from my age. Every day I repeat the mantra of Captain Up from Starship, "When I look into your eyes, in the mirror, I get a pleasant feeling. You're not a failure, overall. You can laugh at yourself." I have been shaped by my past experiences, and I know that because of my drive to succeed and my self-reliance I can go anywhere I want to go in life.
    Now that I am about to graduate everyone expects me to look into the future and magically decide where I'm going to go in life. The answer I really want to give all the scholarship and college people is "hell if I know!" I know I want to go to Whitworth and get my teaching certificate. I know that I want to be a theatre and English teacher, and I know that I'll eventually graduate from college. But that's about it. No Mr. Schneider, I cannot tell you where I'll be in ten years, I can't tell you where I'll be in five years. I just know that I'm going to college, and that's all that I want, is to go college, survive, and eventually get a doctorate.



Alexis Olmstead is a 20something blogger who struggles with the reality that she is in fact old enough to do everything except rent a car. She recently took her first big trip by herself and is now contemplating bigger and brighter things for her future. For more reminiscing, rants, and updates on her life, check back often. 

The Case Against School Dress Codes

When people ask me what I hated most about high school, I cannot usually give them an answer. Honestly, I have a hard time recalling moments or events from my high school career that I actually didn't like. But I got to thinking the other day, and one thing stood out. The dress code. I really did not care for the high school dress code. I understand, reader, that at this point you are probably thinking to yourself that my reasoning was because I was constantly in violation of it. You would be wrong. I never got in trouble for breaking the dress code because I exist in baggy sweaters and skinny jeans or pants. I always just thought it was unfair that as I female I was being punished and being held to this laundry list of rules dictating how I was allowed to address because apparently teenage boys are uncontrollable.

Holding students to a standard of wearing professional or semi-professional clothing to school makes sense. Demonizing the female body does not. And if you don't agree with me when I say that dress codes demonize the female body, then please continue reading. By telling girls and only girls that they have to wear certain clothing so that school can be a place of education free of distractions, you are telling them that their bodies are distracting and that is a bad thing. I'm sorry but if shoulder blades are so distracting that high school boys cannot control themselves any longer, then I think there might be a deeper issue. Like how shoulder blades became sexual. I'm not being ridiculous by using shoulder blades as a point. Most high schools (mine included) prohibit girls from wearing spaghetti strap tank tops. If I remember correctly I was once told straps on tank tops had to be at least an inch. Excuse me, but who is going to go around and measure that? "I'm sorry, Sally,  your tank top straps are too thin, and John over there is about to die from the sexual tension between him and your very arousing shoulder blades."

Screw. That.

Telling girls they have a responsibility to wear certain items of clothing versus other options is telling them that being ogled at and possibly assaulted will be their fault if they made the wrong clothing choice. Telling young girls who are just getting in touch with their sexuality and developing their self image that if they wear short skirts that they are "inappropriate" and thus "slutty" is not going to make them feel good, it isn't going to stop providing distractions in school, and if anything, it is going to create more distractions because people are constantly judging what other people are wearing and if it doesn't fit within this pre-constructed idea of "good" that the school has set forth, then automatically the person inside of the outfit is a rebel, a slut, a girl your parents don't want you dating. And if a girl wears a skirt and looks "sexy" without trying, why is that her fault? And if she isn't pole dancing in the classroom, why is being sexy a bad thing? Teaching girls to have a positive view of their bodies and their budding sexuality should be being stressed in schools. After all, isn't high school supposed to prepare students for the real world? After 12 long years of girls being told that mini skirts are bad and strapless shirts are bad, and anything too tight is bad, they go into the real world and feel judged and dirty and bad when wearing anything against those dress codes. Why can I make that generalization? Because I can't wear my jeggings anymore without feeling mildly skanky because once, in high school, a male teacher asked if I didn't think my "pants aren't a little too tight?"

I'm sorry - wait, no I'm not - if you thinks my pants are too tight but I can breathe and I am comfortable and I don't feel like I'm being overtly sexual...in fact I didn't think anything inappropriate until you brought it up, teacher. And really, most of the time girls wouldn't be thinking about whether or not their outfits were sexy if school administrators weren't constantly policing girls to make sure that anything even hinting at sexy was immediately removed so the boys didn't get distracted. 

Because after all, boys will be boys, right?

NO.

It is not my job to not be a victim. It is not my job to worry about whether or not a boy can control himself if he sees too much of my thighs. It is not my job to worry about getting raped. It is the rapists job to not rape. It is the rapists job to control themselves. It is the rapists to make sure they do not rape me. It is not my job to avoid being raped and ogled at. It is my body. I own it. And school dress codes remove ownership of the body by employing the "modest is hottest" method of shaming girls into robotically wearing and doing whatever the school wants them to do in regards to sexuality.

The female body is not sinful, it doesn't determine her character, and it is not any more sexual than a man's body.

AND THE FEMALE BODY IS NOT A SEXUAL OBJECT FOR MEN TO ENJOY.

Why is that being stressed? Because boys don't have dress codes. Administrator's don't worry about what girls will do if a boy wears a bro tank that is so tight that their abs are defined. They don't penalize boys for wearing pants so tight we can see their junk (ew) and I don't hear about kindergarten boys being forcefully removed from outfits deemed to inappropriate for school. For some reason administrators who write dress codes are still under the delusion that boys cannot control their penises whenever they see a girl in something that might be kind of sexual, such a short skirt, or a shirt that shows a tad bit of cleavage. But being a boy doesn't mean anything except they have a different body part and a different gender.

By ensuring they we aren't wearing anything that might make a boy want to rape me, the boys will be boys excuse is not only being reinforced, but their ill behavior is then condoned and excuse me, but why are we really marveling about the high rate of rape and sexual assault?

By telling girls that they have to dress a certain way because they are at fault if they become a victim, you are telling boys that they are somehow not to blame for raping a girl. In the same breathe you are are classifying girls as sexual objects and condoning bad behavior from boys.

This is how we have rape culture. This is how we have victim blaming. This is how come boys find rape jokes funny. I'm not saying dress codes are completely to blame, I'm saying they are part of the problem. I understand not wanting a distracting environment for learning, but not at the cost it comes with. Yes, it is bad to wear underwear to school. Spaghetti straps and mini skirts that are long enough to cover a girls ass? I think one could probably let that one slide.Students go to school to learn. If all we are teaching young girls is that their bodies are bad, and showing skin makes them even worse, what are we accomplishing?

Reasons You Should See the OHS Production of "Little Women"

Photo by Nicole Leese

Tonight is the closing night of the Omak High School production of "Little Women" and if you haven't seen it yet, you definitely should. Of course, as Pioneer Player Alum, I'm a little biased, but at the same time I cannot tell a lie, and if the show was no good, I would not be writing this post.

But honestly. I've gone twice, and both times I've been absolutely blown away by the amount of talent these students have, how well they have done whilst undertaking the challenge of such a difficult show, and how absolutely perfect the casting was.

Watching the show you will realize that no one can play sweet, angelic Beth like Hunter Thomas can, no one has the spirit of Jo except Lisa Halfhill, Mackenzie Vance is perfectly suited for precocious and wide eyed Amy, Johanna Matthynssens plays romantic Meg perfectly, I was truly "delighted" whenever she came onstage, and Chelsee Johnson just gets Marmee. I don't think I can explain it beyond that. And I can't forget that Josie Buscko is the most perfect Aunt March I have ever seen....possibly ever. Watch for her fan thing. I've seen the show twice and both times I've actually thanked Josie for her awesome fan skills. And Reve Hill plays the ever dorky, but lovable Laurie perfectly. Probably because if you've met Reve in person you realize that he IS Laurie. Oh, and Darrel Joe is a perfect Professor Bhaer. He even adopted a believable accent (and sings with it!), which takes skill. The show is rounded out by an amazing ensemble who are MORE than just faces in the background, they are all a very real, very important part of the show that makes it even more fun to watch.

I could go on forever talking about how perfect the casting is, but there's more to it than that. These kids sing and act their butts off, and every time I see part of the show it's improved in some way. They get stronger and stronger the more they perform and tonight, as they close the show I can confidently predict this will be their strongest show yet.

Not only have the actors put a lot of hard work into the show, but the crew has pulled their weight, and its very obvious. The costumes (designed by Chelsee Johnson) are on point, perfectly suited for 19th century America, and the two story set (designed by Matthew Pearce) is absolutely beautiful. The scene changes are flawless and oh, did I mention that there is an orchestra for this production? Mr. Don Pearce directs the orchestra and not only does the orchestra (comprised of community members) sound amazing, but they are really attentive to the actors needs. Last night a mic change didn't happen on time (because that is a real problem when sharing mics. Trust me, I know) and instead of playing at full blast like they normally can the music was instantly softer when they realized Professor Bhaer was quieter than normal.

What's even more impressive is that for many of the actors, this is their first musical, and you can't even tell. Most notably, Lisa Halfhill, who heads up the cast as Jo March, and Darell Joe as Bhaer. If I remember correctly, Darell has at least done choir, but doing a musical is completely different. And of course, Gypsy the dog has a role in this production, and she hasn't done a musical either. But she's an amazing stage dog.

So if you're into musicals, if you're into Little Women, if you want to support a group of students that have worked hard to bring you this amazing show, then you should catch Little Women tonight at 6 pm at the Omak Performing Arts Center.


Little Women is an Omak High School Drama Club Production directed by Nicole Leese