The state put the youth in a harness.

Here's the thing. I don't like you telling me that I should be a doctor or an engineer just because I'm smart enough to be a doctor or an engineer. I don't like your top 5% theory. Being brainy doesn't mean I would be good at treating patients with terminal diseases, or at building better bridges, or at any of the things that you consider a worthwhile use of my time. If I want to be a teacher, I will. If I want to go to U Vic instead of McGill or Queen's, I will. If I want to smoke weed on Pender Island for the rest of my life, I swear I will. Just because I can be whatever I want in the whole wide world doesn't mean I should do the thing that's the hardest, or that people would be the most impressed by.

YOU, on the other hand, are a gem. I like that you keep the other "you" in line, and tell me that I can be whatever I want to be, and tell me my hair looks fantastic, and call Kate a tea belly.

I don't like bruised tendons, and looking like an idiot walking upstairs. I don't like 2 page essays and 14 slide Power Points on the CCF that are due 3 days after they are assigned. I kind of like thinking about what the Hindu woman represents, and I kind of like my group, and how it's unexpected but we get along, and how I used to know her really well, and now we aren't friends but we're still the same basic people we were in grade 7. I still like physics.

So far, that's my week summed up.

"And oh you got so much going for you going right,

But I know at 17 it's hard to see past Friday night."