Last Friday I Did Not TGIF

What happened in Moscow really disturbs me.

But I'm not sure if "disturb" is a strong enough verb, if that really, truly expresses the volume of disgust and angst inside of me. Terrorism is something I've never understood, some odd, abstract scary force that is a very real threat in my world. I remember learning about the Bible when I was young and stupid (or, debatably, younger and stupider) and I never understood the idea of evil.

The people in my life were (and are, I hope) fundamentally good people: I had fairly good friends in my hometown back then, none of my teachers were pedophiles or anything, and my parents loved me close to death. I didn't understand that evil could exist because I'd never seen such a thing. I couldn't imagine that evil was real the same way movies with talking animals frustrated me. Things that aren't can't be.

I remember the moment, exactly, that I realised Evil did exist, that it was almost an existential being in and of itself. I was six or seven and it was September of 2001. I remember not understanding what the hell had happened. I remember, very vividly, the moment I realised: someone had done this. This wasn't an accident. A group of people sat around a table and planned this, a group of people orchestrated this, a group of people killed thousands of innocents and changed the landscape of my world, and the world, forever. Every September 11th I stop and think about the Evil I saw that day and I don't understand, even after all this time, how that happened. How people, people of religion and society, could decide to do that. How could decide that the lives of women and men, fathers and sisters, uncles and wives, brothers and lovers, were worth less than a chance to destroy something, using a method that has a 100% failure rate. That they could do this while calling themselves followers of a religion that so many good, decent people also live under. If anything other than destruction of life and heart was accomplished that day, it would be that the Evil strengthened the very thing it set out to destroy.

Moscow just brought up all of those feelings again. What do you call a society where the pizzeria or aeroport you're standing in could blow up at any second? When I was little, that answer was Israel. Now, the answer seems to be: the world. Everyone is touched by something like this. When a life is cut off, it isn't a string snipped by the scissors of fate, it is a coin thrown into the still waters of everyone's equilibrium, and the ripples never stop.

Which is why, I suppose, I was so upset at school on Friday.

Pétard. It sounds like harmless enough of a word. It's a small firework, kind of like a cherry bomb. In between second and third hour, there's a ten minute recess. I usually buy a waffle or a Twix from the vending machine and listen and talk with my class. Because of my schedule, my class and I are usually at the middle school, surrounded by twelve and thirteen year old Belgian kids. And on Friday, I thought it was going to be a normal recess, I'd eat my food and try and socialize like a normal teen.

And I was doing just that, until all of a sudden, there was a loud explosion, a flash of light, and a couple of screams. One the young, supposedly-innocent Belgian preteens had set of a small explosive in the middle of the recess hall. Now, leaving aside the fact I'm bothered that none of the teachers hurried out of the staff room to maybe, check and see what the screams and the bang were, but that some kid had set this off without considering the fact that maybe this wasn't the best thing to be doing in a school?

Especially in light of the death, injury and destruction in Moscow.

I grew up my whole life hearing about kids who had their faces blown off by firecrackers and fireworks and things supposed to be harmless that can actually kill you or even just send a bright streak of blood across your face with a bit of plastic launching in the wrong direction. Did that Belgian kid understand that someone could have easily been hurt? It wasn't an empty field or a driveway: it was a school hall with young tweens and kids crowding about, unaware a blast was about to deafen them.

When I talked to my parents about it, they just kind of shrugged and said, "That's public school. Welcome to the real world, Shae."

Is this the real world? Is it normal for kids to be so dumbass, irresponsible and unaware? I've lived my high school career at Shattuck-St Mary's, home of the best and brightest. I've never really encountered the type of person that wouldn't stop and think about the consequences before pulling this sort of stunt. I've never lived in a world where teachers didn't impute the crimes to someone. Did that turn me into an elitist?

But elitist isn't the right word. That seems to imply that I think I'm better than these Belgian small children, and really I don't. I suppose I've just become used to the idea that people are decent and think a bit before they act, that they conduct themselves with a bit of pride. I can't believe that someone would endanger students like that, just for a silly prank. It's not that I look down on them; I find myself disappointed. I expected more. Am I wrong to hold these kids to such a standard?

This kind of links back to the post I made about the two ideas of the public: shiny, public healthcare and government or public, grimy phones and bathrooms. I suppose the reality is much more often gum on sidewalks and cigarette butts, but why can't I expect (or at the very least, want) it to be the shiny new pennies and dimes? Why do I always have to be that example and never see that I'm not the only one who wants the world to be like this? I'm the only one giving up their seat on the bus for the older gentleman, the girl with crutches, the pregnant mother with a stroller to boot? Why am I the one always holding doors? Picking up other people's pop cans? Cleaning up the ball of paper in the classroom?

Should it have to be my job to be the gleam on a society here in Belgium that I don't really belong to?

What should my job be? What do I want to do with my life? I'm reaching the middle of my exchange (I passed the official middle mark a little while ago, I think, but don't trust my math) and I'm not sure where to go from here. I could have up to two more years in high school. Time line dictates are that I move on to university and get a job after four years, or go to medical school or something.

But in order to go to university, I need to know what I want to do. What I want to learn. What I'm interested in. I'm only sixteen, I guess, but I have. No. Freaking. Idea.

I like writing, I like music, I like acting, I like teaching, I like language and I like travelling. I have to kind of streamline and generalize: What do I enjoy doing?  What do I love to do? What can make me happy? Do I even have a right to do what makes me happy?

That's another question that kind of plagues me. I'm, at risk of sounding incredibly stuck up, intelligent, well-off, good looking and well adjusted. I kind of lucked the heck out. I've never had to really work in my life; my parents provided enough for me to go to Shattuck and then Belgium, for crying out loud. Do I have the right to do whatever I want? Don't I have a responsibility to give back as much as I can to society, my own happiness be damned?

Or can I figure something out to please both me and my subconscious? Should I become a special education teacher? Should I work with deaf kids? Should I become a social worker?

I suppose all of this is kind of tied together by my belief that Good should be a physical, tangible thing and Evil should remain vague, small and lowercase like it was when I wasn't younger. Maybe I should find a way to make that happen.