When a grasshopper has your back

The nightmares have finally stopped. I’ve regained my sense of security in the world. I don’t check around each corner to make sure a physics test is waiting to pop up out of no where. After a solid two weeks of Christmas vacation, I’ve recovered from the trauma of first-semester grade 12.

The scary thing was how school had infiltrated my mind. I couldn’t play Splinter Cell on xbox without realizing that there was a poetic device of alliteration in effect at the beginning of each word. I couldn’t watch the Bourne Ultimatum without thinking about how getting shot, falling 18 stories, hitting a body of water and then surviving (without getting all ugly and incapable of being a cool action hero) broke over a dozen laws of physics.

And I couldn’t watch The Golden Compass without thinking it was kind of unfair that, in a world where people have specific animal spirits that follow them around, if the guy with a grasshopper spirit gets into an argument with the guy who has a tiger spirit, a tiny crunchy exoskeleton is all that can defend his honour. And yes, that has nothing to do with school. And yes, I’m sure there must be some sort of social stigma attached to having your animal representation being an insect.

I couldn’t read Winds of War without feeling guilty about Hamlet, which I knew I should be spending all my reading time on in preparation for my exams. That, or exploring the poetic intricacies that exist within No Great Mischief. I was shell shocked.

But after watching movies that weren’t attempting to deeply move me or prove how clever and imaginative the director is, and after lots of xbox, I managed to slowly recover from the shell of a person that I had become.

Related Posts

Five basic kitchen supplies every student should have

You don’t need a Le Creuset Dutch oven to whip up a delicious meal for one (or, say, eight). A few key items are enough to launch your cooking career—and some of them may even last you a lifetime.

The grassroots food insecurity initiatives putting an end to the ’starving student’

Student and admin-led efforts are leading the charge to stop food insecurity on Canadian university campuses

And in four days, I’m going back.

BIO NOTE: 16-year-old Scott Dobson-Mitchell writes a weekly newspaper column for the Seaway News and welcomes reader comments at: scott.dobson.mitchell@gmail.com