The other day, I was sitting in the hallway, as I usually sit in the hallway. One of the teachers was conducting little one on one meetings with her students. One of the students said that she wasn't doing so well lately because it's really hard being a lesbian in highschool. [Details as to which teacher and which student will go with me to my grave.] What the teacher said to her will probably have the most magnificient indirect effect on the way I view the rest of the school year.

She said: I know how hard it is, believe me, but you can't let it affect how you get through highschool. All of those people who make it hard for you, they just want you to fail, it's all a game to them, and if you let them get to you then they have won. But if you just stick it out everything will be so much better once you are out of highschool. All you have to do is finish, then you've won.

I probably started shaking right after I heard that, because even though I was probably not supposed to hear any of their conversation, I did, and it has changed everything. I understand it now, I understand that yes it's incredibly hard to go to class everyday with kids who don't know who you are because if they knew they would probably kill you. To talk to people about your boyfriend who doesn't really exist, or that boy everyone else thinks is cute and you couldn't really care. I know how hard that is too, and now I know that as soon as I get out, and the better I do, the more I've won, than all that will be over, at least on the large all encompassing form it exists as in highschools.

But it also made me realise why I needed to return to my school this year, rather than going to Alternative. I couldn't make a visible difference at Alternative, I couldn't make any changes that really mattered because everyone changed things. But I can change things for a minority who really desperately needs things to be changed. So, I want to have a GLBTQ (gay/lesbian/bi/transgendered/queer)recognition day, because if we can have a recognition of every religious or ethnic holiday, we should be able to have a holiday for us too. My long term goal is to have a GSA, because I believe that if there had been one in place when I started Highschool things would have been radically easier. If at the very least, for one day, we cause everyone to think before they mindlessly utter the phrase "that's so gay" than it will be a success.

So yes, on with the homework, and the catching up and all that stuff I promised myself that I would indeed do.