On Legs Part Deux

Now Playing: Falling by Florence + The Machine (sometimes I wish for falling, I wish for the release, I wish for falling through the air to give me some relief)

If you've ever sat next to me in class, or in a theatre or a cinema, you'll know that I absolutely cannot sit still. I fidget, shift in my seat, doodle on my arms and legs, attempt to start a whispered conversation.

Stockings - stockings are annoying. They're like really, really, really tight, thin pants. Your legs still feel cold, and they dig in uncomfortably when you sit, or roll into your hipbones just to annoy you. I personally prefer stay ups - you know, the ones that are like really long socks that stick to your thighs with elastic and lace and that weird gooey stuff on strapless bras - but they're the wrong colour for school, not to mention they're so thin and delicate they'd probably melt in the sheer energy of rush hour.

The problem with stockings is holes. Even if you never slip on a gumnut and dig a hole in them when you fall over (which I have done), even if you never pull a thread and end up with a hole the size of your fist (which I have done), even if you always bring nail polish and dutifully paint over every run and ladder (which I...never do), you're guaranteed holes in the toes and heels within the month. But the problem with stockings is that once there's a hole, the hole gets bigger and bigger and bigger...especially when you fidget.

Which is why it's not entirely unusual to see me walk out of class with one stockinged leg and one unstockinged leg, because I've ripped off one leg of my stockings in class. As you do. It's really not that hard. It's just a hole that gets bigger...and bigger...and bigger.

Yes, it's really cold and yes, it feels weird and yes, I always sort of regret it afterwards. But if I get one more weird look from one more year eight I'm going to scream. Why do little kids stare so much? The school rush hour should follow the same unspoken rules as the London Tube - avoid eye contact, and don't you dare try to start a conversation with me. The world would just be a nicer place without stupid, nosy people.

I swear, teachers pick on Asians more, especially about uniform. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't deliberately come to school in bright pink hot-pants and no shirt, but sometimes convenience and necessity forces me to stretch the rules a little, and they just lose their shit. Completely.

In my old school they made the stupid move to not actually say anything about shoes in the uniform code, and so naturally I wore knee high socks with purple hearts all over them, and loafers with a skull motif - I was kind of into punk when I was twelve. But I don't do anything so wacko at my extremely conservative pseudo-private school - all I did was run out of stockings, and so I wore knee high black socks. The difference between stockings and knee high socks? Negligible, when you're 5'3". The space between the hem of my (admittedly, very altered) school shorts and the tops of my socks is all of three inches. Get a life, seriously. Start worrying about the fact that our school has become a fucking dictatorship bureaucracy instead of whether I'm wearing gender-specific socks. And all that shit about not wearing stockings and shorts? Bullshit! Get a life, seriously! Other teachers don't care - maybe because they're more worried about, I don't know, actually teaching their students something. I swear, we've got to give admin more work. They don't do anything. We could lock them all in a classroom for a few hours and life would function...pretty normally.

Also, if you want me to wear school skirts, find uniform ladies who don't sell absurdly huge skirts to puny year eights in the name of modesty. I have never in my life been a size twelve, not for skirts, anyway - even when I was nearly ten kilos heavier than I am now I wore everything on the tightest buttons, and even then they were too big. I don't want to wear skirts that go to mid-calf, nobody does, and there's nothing 'modest' about a skirt that's fallen straight to your ankles, which is actually what my skirts would do now. My shorts...I swear, I remember when I couldn't button them up. Now they just balance on my hipbones, waiting to slide down. It's very annoying. So don't tell me off for wearing stockings and shorts. I've lost weight, and I'm cold.

If you think this is all petty and pedantic, well, tell the school admin that. I don't break rules for the hell of it; actually, when I know I'm not wearing regulation stuff I spend a lot of time dodging admin (which is actually really easy, just go upstairs - bureaucrats aren't fit enough to climb up two flights of stairs) because I don't like trouble. I don't like being patronized over sock colour, or that it's 'unfashionable' (seriously, what would the principal know about that?) to wear stockings and shorts. Let me do my job. Let me study. And why don't you try doing your job. Why don't you, I don't know, do something other than force feeding us croissants and trying to make us tell you how lovely you are?