I sit here listening to Quelqu’un M’a Dit. It teases me. The album brings up a great longing within me. See, I wanted to take French. Way back in middle school I wanted to take French. Permission given, I signed up to take French only to have this permission revoked later by a council of elders (notably, my parents). Divorce will be divorce and one parent will ne’er be the other. Citing practically, one convinced the other to ‘persuade’ me to take Spanish; it wasn’t much of a choice. The emotion of betrayal in hand, I took Spanish: four years.

As such, my life has gone. School impeding education. Implementation obstructing ideas. Life frustrating living. So on; so forth. Practicality interrupting beauty, interrupting desire.

The education systems teaches not, it accesses memorization with standardized tests — because all humans are the same. The bane and yet joy of my existence over; for I love to learn, yet I hate to memorize pointlessness. Ten or more hours a day I toil, taxing my brain into an academic coma. The day now over, I find myself exhausted from the burden previous. My mind now needs rest for the morrow — exploring interests must wait: Living must wait, for I must endure a right of passage forcibly imposed by society. And so I wait, sometimes bored, often tired.

I try to overcome this by programming something here and there. It’s a short-lived satisfaction. Pushing through the monotony is a battle, the front line reset each day anew. The more days fought, the easier it becomes to gain ground — until fatigue from fighting sets in and square one is no longer behind, but in front.

I’m making progress. I found motivation to write this. I’ll find motivation to do much more. Summer will soon be upon us, and with it the joyous burden of freedom.

Je vais apprendre le français.