Tiempo Como Robot

My Time as a Robot
A High School Memoir
“Any automatically operated machine that replaces human effort, though it may not resemble human beings in appearance or perform functions in a humanlike manner.”
-Encyclopedia Britannica’s Definition of Robot
Most of my life so far, I had carried the misconception that the popular action was the correct action. Private school can often leadto such thinking with a restrictive environment. Everyone wears the same blue two-toned uniform. Everyone recites the same monotonous prayer at school’s start and school’s end. If you weren’t into Pokémon, so help you God, you were annexed from the circle of snotty nosed popularity. Had it not been for recess, private school would simply be an exercise in communism, but even communists get tostretch their legs. Centralized interests may hold the same for middle school but it doesn’t stop at the gates of junior high. Having an exceptional knowledge of math for a middle school student, I was accepted into the California Academy of Math and Science, where the only people more eccentric than the students were the teachers. Accustomed to the uniformity of private school, the mixture ofinterests was shocking. This was my first encounter with such unusual people, many of whose interest were Magic, World of Warcraft, Starcraft, or any other type of strategic game. I often thought most of the student’s antics were rather annoying. With the passing of time, I grew to appreciate, or rather tolerate, the different characters surrounding me. If not for the variety of people, there would beno diversity of thought. Although many people come to realize what interests them in their teenage years, these interests are few in many public high schools. What I came to believe was that you can fit into one of three categories. There are the popular people (who have been fueled by a music genre), the unpopular people who are antisocial (also fueled by a music genre), or you are a sociallyinept awkward person lurking about going to school for what you thought it was intended (to learn and nothing else). This only comes with the observation of a summer’s stay at my home high school. As I examined the world around me, I came to the realization that many people are simply middle school children with hair in areas they wouldn’t expect. I began to analyze my stance in all of this and Irealized that I too had become a robot like the rest.
Taught to not simply follow something purely on the basis that it was widely accepted, I had fallen victim to my worst nightmare. At first, especially in childhood, this desensitizing of individuality may seem welcoming, even soothing, to find yourself accepted. Although such thinking can lead people to support a progressive idea, thecluster of conformity blocks the creation of new ideas. The current state of popular culture has lead to the demeaning portrayal of women in music, the glorification of violence in television and movies, and the use of drugs as a means of escape. The message of this mass media has been accepted by many of today’s youth which has led many to follow a destructive path. During my stay at Cabrillo, my homehigh school, I realized this more than ever as it seemed more like a clash of trendy music rather than a center for learning. The variety of cliques in the school inspired by a music genre was truly astounding. These little assemblies, based ultimately on popularity, lead to many disputes having no reason beyond the scope of favorite artists. Those who wanted to be accepted, followed and those whodidn’t mind either way, still followed. Through the passing of time, there is only such a degree by which anybody can be truly unique yet the attempt to do so has been degraded to an act of heresy.
The primary teaching style of any class in my high school is based on the idea that you should not simply accept something the way it is but understand the way it works. Upon returning from...