Three thoughts

By Drew Millard

Here at Governor’s School, everyone is better than me. They’re smarter, more mature, better looking, more cultured, and they would never make the same decisions that I would. Well, maybe that’s a bit of exaggeration, but that’s what most of them would have me believe. While there’s nothing wrong with having that kind of condescending, warped self-confidence, I’ve noticed three aspects of the place that equalize everyone.

1. Everybody here is, at their base, just a teenager. It doesn’t matter that the kids who study science can comprehend quantum mechanics or that the drama students can recite Henry VIII in its entirety or that the art students have pieces on display in a major New York gallery — they still bleed. That is, to discard the metaphors, everybody has the same feelings and problems, regardless of their self-perceived maturity. I know a girl here who is one of the best poets in the state. She is an art lover, the smartest girl at her private school, and, as somebody who knows her put it, “The Queen of Downtown Wilmington.” Yet she still can’t tell the boy she likes how she feels. Learning that the other night made me realize just how young we all really are. Maybe we’re not adults. I’ve been lying to myself for the past four years.

2. I’m not worth squat. When I was in Polk County, there was a fairly reasonable chance that I would be one of the smarter people in the room. (Well, I’d like to think so — it’s probably only true in my twisted psyche.) Not the case at G-School. The thing that worried me the most about leaving home was how different I thought this place would be. Ironically, I’ve been surprised at how many people here are exactly like me. And while it’s a comforting notion to realize that you’re not alone in the world, I’m kind of disconcerted by the fact that I’m not as unique and as incredible and as superlative as I thought I was. And the worst part about this place, I guess, is the realization that there are people who are better at being me than me. I guess that once I get out into the real world, I’ll have some kind of competition. And I thought that everything was going to be handed to me on a platter.

3. Everything is negotiable. Here, the system works like this: if you don’t like something, then you should change it. At Governor’s School East, we have boundaries for visiting the outside world. These boundaries end just before Arby’s — we’ve been denied curly fries much too long. So somebody talked to the Man (or as his wife calls him, Dr. Grymes), and a deal was made: if everyone at GSE completed the student survey, we would get to go to Arby’s. Which happened. Now I know that the only problem with my example is that the Man clearly uses Arby’s as a bargaining chip to keep us in line, and every year, he lets people go there as long as they ask for it. But the point is that you should ask for things in life without actually knowing whether you will receive them or not. So we’re kind of in the real world here, but not really — Governor’s School is almost a Stepfordian façade of college (which is in and of itself a facsimile of life), filtered through rose-colored glasses.

But I have learned one important lesson: I don’t know jack.

Maybe this whole “real life” thing isn’t that easy.