*sigh*


Today was probably one of the most emotionally taxing days I've had in a long time.


Okay, well a bit of background first.

Basically, our school does these things called ACT Days every so often. Alternative Curriculum Time. So therefore, we're off timetable all day doing other things, generally more enjoyable than regular lessons. And they're usually themed, like one year we had a China based ACT day, so we learnt Mandarin, made kites, did Tai Chi, watched some traditional fan dancing and things like that.

This year, today, was based on Diversity and education in equality and shizzle. So we had loads of guest speaker in from like the Muslim Welfare Association, Romany Gypsies and the Holocaust Survival Trust. We also had workshops to learn how to dance Bollywood style, to cook Indian food, to learn to bellydance etc

The morning began with a talk to the whole of my year by Peter Tatchell, a famous human rights activist. Go look him up [link]
He spoke at length of equality, and how it doesn't always work, an example he spoke of was a someone being arrested and put in prision for inticing the deaths of other races. And yet, there are various music groups who have lyrics suggesting the deaths of the LGBT community, who get off scot-free.

Now this was the kind of thing that got to me. Saying about how much the world has changed, got to me. For if this was years ago, quite a large amount of my friends and people I love would have been to scared to admit the truth about themselves, or have been discriminated strongly against, even put to death, just for their sexual orientation. Even me. Though I could get by, being bi (woo that sounds cool) because I could just stick to liking men, do the whole marriage and kids thing and get by as being as what everyone saw as 'normal' by just ignoring that other half of me. But others wouldn't be so lucky. So I was almost in tears, both for the horrors of what reality was and still is for some, and in relief that we don't have to go through that. We are the safe ones. I could weep with happiness right now for that. We are the lucky ones.

And then next, I went to a smaller talk with Peter again. And yet again, the LBGT community was touched on again, and yet again, I just...
He was saying about how things used to be, the shock therapies people used to be put through to 'cure' them of their 'illness' of being gay. I'd heard about this before, of course. Yet, ontop of what I'd been thinking/feeling earlier, I was just heartwrenched and shocked. I turned to Nick, sitting next to me, with what must have been a look of disbelief on my face for he just gave me a look that said "I know, Zoë. It's just the way the world is" which broke my heart. I wanted to scoop him up and protect him from everything. I couldn't imagine a world with him not being himself, it's part of who he is. Denying it, even if it isn't exactly what you want, wouldn't work. Living a lie? No. I couldn't imagine him having to face all of that, just for being exactly who he is.

And other people. God. Nowdays, friends, nice people. "So why are you gay?" "Why don't you just stop"
Or whatever the hell it was he said. Fuck's sake. Jokes go too far sometimes and I wanted to punch him. DO YOU NOT SEE HOW MUCH THIS EFFECTS PEOPLE. IT'S NOT SOMETHING YOU CAN FUCKING CHANGE. DO YOU THINK ANYONE WOULD CHOOSE IT, KNOWING WHAT THEY'D HAVE TO PUT UP WITH?
They'd have to put up with you.
Edure you.
All those people, all those snide comments, the broken hearts, the broken dreams, the perfect ending wrecked without any actions.



Fuck.
I'm almost crying again right now.



And then.
The afternoon.
Ohhh, the afternoon.


Basically, when we came back to school after study leave, our Theatre teacher said to us she wanted us to come up with a piece of improvised drama for today's ACT Day. A piece of controversial drama. Intended to shock. Based on what Britain is REALLY like. Underneath the red phone boxes, the fish and chips, buckingham palace, scones and jam... the reality. The knife crime. The rapes. The teenage pregnancies. The racism. The hatred. The hate.

So we did. In 12 school days.

And my god, they were shocking. She told us we were allowed to swear as much as we liked, be as racist as we liked, to show an honest portrayal of Britain.

It was horrid. It was so hard. Everyone struggled with this, having to act out the racism we're all so against, we all know it's wrong, so why were we saying it? Just have to remember, it's not me, it's not me, it's just lines, it's just acting, we're making a point here...


So we had to perform these this afternoon.

There were two groups. My group based their piece on the BNP. The British National Party. Go educate yourself but don't agree [link] They basically say that Britain is for British people and everyone else should get the fuck out etc etc
So we had to say their views like they were our own, and our piece escalated into Chris, playing a Polish person living in England, being beaten and killed by our thug BNP support group. It was awful. We said racist jokes, I got into the face of a member of the audience in the front row and yelled in her face.

The other group performed after us, theirs was more about the little different horrid parts of Britain, teenage pregnancies, muggings, beatings, people standing by and not helping, the failure of the police etc and ending with a good old dose of racism.

We were performing this to our own year, sheltered children from Kent.
Did we shock them?
Dear god yes.
We made them cry.
Quite a few of them actually.
Especially a girl called Sophie, one of the only girls of race in our year.

And our teacher getting the audience to feed back on how they felt, watching that, I just broke down.
I hate it all.
I hated performing that, acting like they were my beliefs.
I know they weren't, but I portrayed them and I made people cry.
I couldn't stand having hurt people like that.
I hated myself and what we'd done.
But mostly I hated humanity.
I hate the world that lets these things happen. We are only school kids in kent. We don't actually know of the reality of it. We don't know. Everything is so much worse. And I couldn't stand to think that there are people out there who actually believe these things.
Watching Sophie cry, I couldn't stand to believe that this was true.

So I sobbed. Seriously sobbed.
It was one of those moments when I am actually so angry and shocked at the whole world, human nature in general, that I couldn't control it.
The only other time that's happened was that scene in War Of The Worlds, when everyone fights over the car, killing people for the most pointless reasons.

Rehearsing our performance, we had intended to shock. We wanted this reaction from our audience, we generated our performance to elicit it. But actually achieving it, I couldn't bare it.


And then, we had to perform it again.
To the next group of our year who had signed up to watch.
I really thought I was going to bail. The only time I would have ever bailed from a piece of theatre. But knowing what would happen, how they would feel, how they would respond, I couldn't put another group of people I know, my friends, through that again.

It was so hard, to get back up there and perform again. I kept thinking I was going to cry and I had to tell myself to ignore myself, to be able to say my lines and NOT be me. They weren't my views, so I had to lose myself completly in the role, to lose my nature, to not feel bad and bail. Which meant I acted harder, more convincing, made more people cry. Vicious circle, eh?

And again, they cried.
And again, I cried.

And it was all over.
And Nick gave me one of our well-dones, that he'd made the night before to give to me after today's performance. He had no idea I would need it as much as I did, and no idea that his word's on it "I'm sure it all has run smoothly" and "By the time I give you this we will have survived ACT day" would be so ironic.


But then I went and watched people do some Bollywood dancing, and felt much better xD
And of course Steph and Amy's amazing rice made me feel better too <3





Though now, as you could probably tell, it was all getting to me again so I had to write this out, get it out.

Thankyou if you just read all of that, I'm sure it was very boring and badly written.
I have too many feelings about all this that I really can't vent, I don't quite know how to.
I'm just so angry about it all.
But yeah, this has helped.
Along with Nick's hot chocolate ^^

Though what I really need now is a hug.



LoveToYouAll
LoveToAllTheWorld
AndEspeciallyToThoseDiscriminatedAgainst.
<sub>my heart is with you ~~






boy, i'm sorry if the first half of this was... yeah, just sorry <3
thankyou for looking after me today~~</sub>