Category Archives: School / Education

That’s what I was told today standing around with people at school much smarter than I who were deconstructing some amazing art/photography students had done. A couple people had come up to me and said they had stumbled across my blog, so using that as a segue, we dived into a conversation about blogging and the new-teen-phenomenon social networking web site MySpace.

People were commenting about how weird it is to exchange emails or IMs were someone and then walk by them the next day in the hall and not say a word. In other words, was blogging and the internet creating people who only knew how to communicate behind a screen?

As I defended the medium a bit (hey, someone has to) it came out: “But Ben, I don’t want to read your blog. I want to talk to you in person. You’re a machine!” The same person also called me insensitive. Now, I have a nice friendship with this person but we would both admit that it could be much stronger. A very close (male?) friend I don’t think would ever say something like that. And herein lies the great challenge for me as I navigate the high school waters with interests and friends which largely exist outside the walls of my school: building strong relationships with people @ school requires time. I don’t have much spare energy. So I am resigned to having friends at school who share mutual activities, like basketball, or who are so awesome where I make an extraordinary effort to reach out to them (rare). For the others, who are all super smart and beautiful, I am stuck with the label of being a crazy-busy machine. The trade off is definitely worth it, but it makes me take a big, deep sigh.

There is nothing more quintessentially high school than the prom. It is a super-commercialized affair with girls spending hundreds of dollars on cosmetics, clothes, etc. The cynic in me wants to say it’s all part of that “cheap shit” that is high school social life. But the other side of me finds it all hilarious – the jousting, the social climbing, the drama, and the never ending text messages about the latest gossip. It’s pretty funny. (What’s not so funny is that racially segregated proms still exist in Georgia.)

At 6:30 PM I met up with 13 other friends, in my rented tuxedo, and had dinner at a house where endless pictures were taken (in the era of digital photography, if you can take 1 why not 100?). Then the 14-person limo pulled up and we cruised around San Fran for an hour before arriving at the Century Club, the site of the prom. An hour or two at the prom – the main goal, as I understand it, is to just “be seen” – and then in the limo again.

Arrive at the after party, wash down a Balance bar with a few college sodas, yada yada yada and I taxi it home at 3 AM. I haven’t been up that late in years. Needless to say, dragging my ass out of bed today to get to the gym – and fighting my way through all the Bay to Breakers runners (a quintessential San Francisco event) – was pretty tough.

It was Wednesday night, I was driving home from Los Altos after a night of sitting in with a local angel investment group watching three entrepreneurs pitch their wares and meeting the group’s members. As the clock struck 10 pm, I was flying up 280 in my family’s new Ford Escape Hybrid SUV (first new car since ’84!) and suddenly a wave of stress passed through me. I had a major test the next day and I was thinking to myself, “Wasn’t I supposed to put my business endeavors to the side for a bit as I try to step it up academically?” Worst of all, I felt sorry for myself.

Then I remembered. It’s immoral to be unhappy. I just had an awesome dinner with super-smart and successful people and learned a lot. I’m blessed with amazing opportunities and support. I go to one of the best high schools around. So, using the digital radio tuner (trust me – this is a step up from before) I turned the volume on high, rolled down the windows, and gased to 80 mph. As luck would have it, first Gavin DeGraw came on with “I Don’t Wanna Be” whose lyrics go:

I don’t want to be anything other than what I’ve been trying to be lately
All I have to do is think of me and I have peace of mind
I’m tired of looking ’round rooms wondering what I gotta do
Or who I’m supposed to be
I don’t want to be anything other than me

And then Kelly Clarkson’s “Breakaway”:

I’ll spread my wings and I’ll learn how to fly
I’ll do what it takes til’ I touch the sky
I’ll make a wish
Take a chance
Make a change
And breakaway
Out of the darkness and into the sun
But I won’t forget all the ones that I love
I’ll make a wish
Take a chance
Make a change
And breakaway

Over the last 96 hours I have spent 10 hours filling in little circles on standardized tests (and I’m not done yet), spent a little under 10 hours in the South Bay meeting or pitching, and a handful of hours working out in the gym leaving myself so sore I haven’t been able to walk without hurting all weekend.

All three circles – emotional, intellectual, and physical – were at empty by Saturday afternoon.

I know lots of people who are busier than I am as they require a full entourage to keep them going each day. But what makes my schedule exhausting is the changing of gears. In one day, I spend six 45-minute blocks in different academic disciplines and then different chunks of time on business, athletics, and social. All these areas require different types of focus and energy. Our Academic Dean reported that it takes on average 13 minutes for the brain to become completely assimilated in a new subject area after sitting down in a new class. I suspect this is similarly true in life.

As the craziness continues, I return to my focus on managing ENERGY not time.

A friend told me a minute ago, “[Redacted] told me that she’s going to break you out of your fucking shell this summer.” I get this a lot. I don’t have time to build social relationships with a lot of people at school. Instead, I’ve surrounded myself with a small group of guys who I trust and enjoy and for everyone else my relationship is very surface. One particular jarring incident this year is when I told someone flatly, “I am not going to commit to building a friendship with you.” Insensitive? Probably. But what my high school peers don’t realize is that building a relationship takes significant time and effort and I’d rather be upfront. I find a lot of value in my social relationships at school – but not enough to divert more time from my other endeavors just to climb the social ladder.

The downside to this is that I have a reputation to a lot of people for being…mysterious, unaccessible, or unemotional. This doesn’t bother me; in fact, it makes me laugh, because I don’t care what they think.