I feel like such a horrible person.

Seriously.

I mean, I know that I shouldn't feel like a bad person after hearing it, but still.
It kinda brought me down a bit, humbled me a lot.

Today during 2nd hour we had a motivational speaker come in and talk to us. He's apparently talked to a couple of US Presidents and is the co-editor of Chicken Soup for the Soul. He said that our group of kids were extremely respectful and that we were grown up enough where we knew when to be quiet and listen to him speak, but we were outgoing enough so that we knew when to laugh and when to give a reaction to what he had to say.

Pfft, he hasn't met half of the people in our school. We're not respectful.

Anywho, he told us a bunch of stories about courageous people, how they didn't look at the glass half empty but half full, how they took advantadge of what they had and never took anything for granted. Normally I'm indifferent to things, I don't laugh or cry either way. But this one fairy tale-like story made me tear up a bit. And that was something no other assembly has ever done for me.

It was about a group of high school kids, and how they were just a rude bunch of students. They didn't care about respect or courtesy or anything like that. At the end of an assembly, the guest speaker (presumably a friend of our guest speaker) ended it with an open mic session. The kids could come up and say a thank you to anyone or anything. After he announced it, nobody came up to the stand.

After about two minutes, this girl (according to the story, she's a typical outcast, one who just looks like it was hard for her to get through school everyday) from the sophomore section comes up, and everyone turns around to look at her. They (apparently) wanted to see if she would do anything embarrassing so that they could laugh at her.

She gets up to the mic and says this (I'm paraphrasing because I don't remember all of it), "There's this one boy I like, not as a boyfriend, but lemme see if I can find him...." She proceeds to scan the crowd for this one boy. Almost all of the guys in the audience duck down or shield their faces from her so that she doesn't pick them. She finally finds the guy in the senior section and continues her speach. "That boy, up there, I want to say thanks to him. He saved my life a week ago.

"I was yelling at my mom, one of our many fights. She had read my journal, and I was furious with her. I mean, how could she do that? It was my private property. I wrote down my plans for running away, and she tried to stop me. We had been to eight different schools in the last nine years, and this one was the worst yet. I had absolutely zero friends. I was picked on constantly. My mom said that things were going to get better, that this was a good school. My mother is a liar.

"I was so fed up with everything. I just wanted to run away and never come home. A week ago I was being pushed around the hallway, as per usual, and my books fell on the floor. No matter how many times it has happened to me, I never get used to it. Every single time my stuff falls from my grasp, I feel humiliated and ashamed. I just wanted to shrivel up and die right there. Then he comes over to me. " She points again to the boy she singled out before. "He helps me pick up my things, and even helps me stand up. He put his arm around my shoulders, and he glared at the kids who were giving me a hard time. They walked away like they were ashamed.

"I just wanted to thank you, for all that you've done, even though you may think that you haven't done anything. You have." As she finishes, she goes to put the mic back on its stand. But the cord is wrapped in an odd fashion and the holder isn't quite right, so she starts having a little trouble putting it back. Everyone starts to laugh as she fumbles around on stage, disregarding her last and powerful statement.

Slowly, the boy from up in the senior's section walks down the bleachers, across the gym and up the stage, going over to the girl. He helps her put the mic back on, and then he promises in front of the whole student body that he would defend her until the end of the year, and that anyone trying to pick on her would have to go through him first. The story ended with the boy kissing the girl on the cheek.

Incredibly cliche and fairy tale-esque, right? I thought so, too.
Yet it touched me in a way that I didn't know was possible, it hit me like a load of bricks, it made my eyes water.
I have no idea why.

Our guest speaker kept saying how we should step in when a someone is being picked on, or if someone drops their books that we should help pick them up, just being a general nice person. Before this assembly, I thought I was a pretty nice person. Definitely nicer than most of our current student body. If it won't make me late to class, I'll help someone who got their books knocked down. I'm generally nice to most people (I won't be nice to you if you take advantage of me for my intelligence or if you just brush my opinion off as unimportant, for a couple reasons). But thinking of all the people that get picked on all the time and thinking of the hundreds of times when I've seen kids get their books knocked down and even though I may have had time to spare, I didn't help them.

It made me feel so guilty that I didn't do something, that I didn't intervene.
I'm in Leadership (Student Council) for crying out loud! I should be an example for the rest of our students, I should be an all-around great person all of the time.
I used to think that I was a good samaritan, looking out for people and doing the right thing.
After that speech, I didn't feel too great anymore.

Then, to further cement the deflation of my ego, we were asked by the guest speaker himself (he made a stop into our Leadership classroom after he was done with the assemblies) to write a list of everything that you were thankful for.

The bad thing was, I kept running out of things that I though would be appropriate to place on there. We had five minutes to at least get fifty things down on the piece of paper, and by the end of the five minutes I had about twenty.

Of course, I didn't think about little details like I was thankful for my shampoo and soap and the fact that I can take a shower every day, all of which a large global population don't have. I put down stock answers that sounded like they belonged on the Miss America pageant. I put down body parts (they were the first thing that popped into my head) and close family members.

Even though I am thankful that iPods were invented and that I am able to carry around my music, that doesn't sound like something I should have put down on the list. That sounds like a pretty stupid thing to be thankful for instead of things like clothing and shelter.

Well, this journal was just to vent about what happened today. I'm in a pretty big emotional state, and I think right now I'm trying to be as helpful as I can so that I can show him wrong and show him that I am a good person. But I know it'll never work because a) I'll probably stop being so nice and friendly and helpful after a couple days, a week at most (because nobody can be extremely kind all the time) and b) I probably won't ever see him again.

If you took the time to read this, I appreciate it and whatever comments you may feel like leaving me.

<3 C