Vocabulary Assignment

  To Anyone Who Can Help,

I have been going to the same vapid Catholic School for two years now, and I am on the verge of insanity.  My body has been discolored by the long-term bruises, bulbous blisters, and deep cuts from the countless scourges I receive daily.  I have forgotten the feeling of running my hand over a smooth back with no scathing cuts and bruises.  For the past two years I have waken up every morning with tear filled eyes; school is no longer a soporific obligation, but an institution of terror.  They tell me that I break precept after precept, and that is why I am punished all the time, but nobody ever tells me what precept I’m breaking!  This school makes me look horrible and feel horrible.  I do not feel like a bad person, but why am I labeled as such? They’re out to get me, everyone is!  Help me!!

            I despise everything about my school, from the smell of the unscented candles being burned in the chapel, to the flouting tone of my fascist-like teachers, and to the blistering feel of the whip on my back.  I am labeled as a heretic for not wearing a cross on my neck, and am whipped daily for that right on the back until my warm blood makes a cross on my scarred back.  Daily before I go to bed, I dab a soaked cloth on the back of my neck, irritating the raw flesh in the process in order to prevent any infections.  I will not let myself get sick and weak, it will only make them stronger.  The way I am brutally hit, you would think I was a filch, but I’m just a young man trying to live my miserable life normally.  In the past, I was praised when I spoke of tolerance of other religions, but at my school, I am condemned for being tolerant of other religions.  My school preaches amnesty, but does not practice it.  They are hypocrites, just like my parents, who claim to love me, but in reality hate me.  When I first came to this petrifying school, I had wondered why my parents sent me here, and came to the conclusion that they hate me.  They’re out to get me, everyone is!  Help me!!

Samar Al Ansari

Grade 11.5

November 23,2004