Lessons

I made a serious error of judgement in Year 13, when I arbitrarily strayed from the arts path and picked up Geography. I sat by myself in the front row of seats (the back row was taken and I wanted to be as isolated as possible, to enhance my feelings of self-pity). The teacher was extremely chirpy and listed 'exercise' as one of her interests. Enough said, really.
Mid year we had to go on Geography Camp to study glaciers in the Franz Josef Valley.

When we arrived at the backpacker's we had to get into bunkroom groups, at which point something happened which made me feel like a five year old child. The teacher had to assign me to a room along with three other loser girls because I had no one to bunk with. What! There was nothing wrong with them (although one was actually horrifically racist) but I couldn't help feeling awful, embarrassed and mostly furious. Angry that I was on this fucking camp with thirty girls I didn't like for a subject that I decided to take for no logical reason. I sulked for three days, humiliated that in that setting I didn't feel like myself and became this awkward girl, trying to edge into other people's conversations and going to bed early to avoid group activities. In hindsight I have no idea why I cared. They had a fucking sing-a-long, for Christ's sake. In that moment however, I wanted to jump off the Highway 6 bridge.

The beauty of the landscape subdued that urge. Eleven kilometres of ice and rock spilling out onto a plain of shingle stretched to the coast. I hiked over the valley and climbed up a waterfall. A helicopter flew us to the top basin of the glacier, the neveé, where the snow formed a perfect, deep lake and all I could see was white. The air particles felt vibrant but everything was still so high up. Maybe I was in Antarctica, I thought. It was incredibly beautiful.

Too bad we had to stop in Hokitika on the way back.