List Confessions

I love lists.

That makes me sound like a compulsive person – the kind who you imagine to have an organised knicker drawer. I’m actually laughing at that idea because at the moment I’m lifting knickers from the washing line every morning.
I am illogical, horrifically forgetful and pretty random. Still though, for some reason I find listing sort of fun.

It might be due to a habit we had growing up. I was part of an amazing youth group where I met all my best friends and twice a year we’d go away on a weekend residential trip. It would be the thing you looked forward to all year, and when it was done you felt a pang that you’d have to wait months until the next one. We’d get up to stupid activities; dopey talent shows, messy games, horror hide and seek and the likes. The best fun though was when we went to our dorms at night and played ‘top 5’. We’d have to list our top 5 guys in the group and then we made an ultimate top 5 from all our confessions. It was hilarious and we still remember the secrets that came out when we were 15 years old.

Lists help me think, maybe that’s why I started The Thanks Book (which is actually still going believe it or not!)

Anyways in true listing fashion, here is a list of my 7 favourite books (lists are always better in odd numbers)

1. The Great Gatsby – F.S. Fitzgerald
2. A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
3. The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
4. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis
5. The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
6. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
7. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres

Awkwardly Watching the Cool Kids

I am currently sitting with a class of five ‘cool kids’. These are the notorious drug users, or at least they’re happy for that rumour to spread to get credibility. Usually there are seventeen kids here but there are official GCSE exams on today, so these are the ones who aren’t good enough to be admitted.

I’ve let them have the last ten minutes to chat because it’s been a busy week for them so far, but I’m almost regretting it. They’re talking about the party they went to at the weekend, and how Bobby got skunked (intoxicated) and Allie slept with a 50 year old married guy in the back garden. Then there’s me; sitting here typing and feeling once more like the 15 year old version of myself. Me, the little ‘church kid’ who looked like an idiot when my classmates talked about their weekend escapades. Except the difference is that now I have to intervene and discipline for inappropriate talk.

Looking at these kids though their lives are so pathetic, and I don’t mean that in the insulting way. It’s more that their stories break my heart. The pretty, slim blonde girl is living along with her mum’s new boyfriend who called her little sister a ‘c***’ last night. The hard lad joker of the group is really very insecure in his own ability and knows that even though he tries his best, he’ll get G grades in all of his exams. The loud, obnoxious girl with the 39% attendance mark has a deaf brother and lacks the academic ability to learn sign language to communicate with him properly. The tall lad who’s always in trouble for his anger and violence doesn’t have a supportive home. And the quiet larger guy who hands in empty exam papers has a pastoral issue that I’m not even allowed to know because it’s held in confidence by senior staff.

So I’m left thinking where this leaves me. They will have their last class here in 2 weeks time and I wonder if this place has left any mark on them for good? This is the class I probably like the best, but they are also the ones who think I hate them because I yap on at them to work hard. I guess that’s what I signed up to though and it’s my job to show them the way to their success, be it academic, pastoral, spiritual or emotional.
That’s the aim anyway.