No matter how hard I try I know that I'll always be looking in from the outside. No matter how nice they try to be, the wall is too tall, too thick for penetration.

For a part of my life I truly believed I was one of the naturally smart ones. That time being the time I moved to Richmond after being in a national Indo pre-school class doing page long math addition problems every night. And then came years of cruising through projects, essays, and tests. Eventually though, learning became something I wasn't forced to do. University life with its worldly professors, cramped dorms, late nights, and intellectual discussions had attracted my efforts. That was what I made university life to be in my mind then. And for that I actually tried spending hours stuffing my head with random facts to appear to look smart when I would dish out useless information to my friends about dead guys in history. I knew I wasn't naturally gifted but I'd like to think I fooled a lot of people. Here and now I know where I stand in school's social-academic ladder. But that lure of university facade is calling me back and has actually led me to think I can achieve that level of scholarly stupor. Something that seems to be seeping out of that particular group.

Ironically, I'm not sure they realize how exclusive they actually are. They try to be quite inclusive actually, warming up to strangers and sharing polite smiles to those of different social cliques. No matter how friendly and just darn nice they are though, it won't take away from the fact that anyone who dares venture into their realm will undoubtedly feel more excluded then they were before. They exude an air of confidence and intelligence that equally amazes and intimidates. They are the humanitarians, the debaters, the politicians, the orators, the leaders. They are the ones talking Nietzsche and foreign affairs in a Starbucks Saturday afternoons and the ones staying up on school nights to watch 'feed-me' TV only to analyze it and come back the next day ranting about how the last episode was so the Edgar Allen Poe horror.

Each individual of that group adds something dynamic to the table. Some are really school smart and it shows. The others are perpetual idea machines. Some are drama queens, while some could probably be identified as professional cynics if there ever was such a thing. Their tastes in music, movies, clothes go from one end of the spectrum to the other but it's their thirst, their hunger that unites them.

Not to say also that I'm not one any of those things or I couldn't do any of those, but they certainly have a certain spark that most people seem to lack.

On the surface they're just another clique in this high school circus. If you look deeper - really get to know who they are and why they're here - it becomes obvious that when you sit down to have a real conversation with them the enigma sitting in front of you will begin to unravel its many layers.

If nothing else deserves one's envy in this school, they certainly would be the closest.

Labels: cliques, high school