Excerpt: Gifted

As much as they want to trump this up to be some big to-do, it’s a summer camp. Just because the kids are all musical savants or breakthrough writer instead of champion swimmers and endurance runners doesn’t change the fact that it’s just a summer camp, just a respite from our normal lives for a few brief months. Nothing terribly impressive. Definitely not something that warrants dragging myself out of bed at five in the morning. I could get up at nine or ten and show up at eleven; Excell would still be here. And I could avoid that stupid "What I Did Since My Summer Vacation" idiocy, too.

Despite what it might look like, I honestly didn’t set out to write a one thousand word rant about having to wake up at five am. I’m not such a spoiled little brat. Camp Excell has been a part of my life since I was six years old; maybe it is "just a summer camp," but in a lot of ways, it’s "just" a summer camp in the same way your first pet is "just a dog," or your first love was "just a boy."

I’d be happy with Excell being "just" a summer camp, except for the fact that basically everyone and their mother (well, except mine) want to build it up to be this earth-shattering, boundary-breaking opportunity for us all to get noticed, to break our bonds and get out of Davis County. Personally, after hearing it for so many years, it’s gone beyond being just a little hard to swallow. I feel like I’m actually choking on it.

Seriously? Singing songs and dancing, writing poetry – this is supposed to get us out of here? This is our big ticket out? Do any of you live in the real world? When I was a little kid, there wasn’t such emphasis put on that part of it – it really was kind of a "play music, sing songs, have fun" experience. But once I moved up to Excell II when I was ten, it started being more about getting good, honing competitive skills, getting yourself noticed.

It seemed like more and more, what used to be a respite from "real life" life was becoming Real Life Boot Camp.
As if any of us don’t already have enough pressures piled on us the rest of the year – International Baccalaureate Program, Advanced Placement, Math League, National Latin Exam, Project Green, National Honor Society – they have to take away the one respite we have and turn it into an extension of the tension (see where my poetry has gotten me?). They have to take the thing we love and turn it into our One Ticket Out. It’s too much.

I’m sure there are kids who are going to get noticed out here; I actually heard last year that one of the Final Year girls got signed on to Deca Records because of her performance in Swan Song. But that’s not going to happen to everyone. Hell, that’s not going to happen to most of us. Sadly, wanting it, working for it – even deserving it – isn’t always going to be enough to get you out.

I don’t know. I blame sleeplessness for being this completely and utterly hormonal, because without thinking on it too long, I can pretty much ignore all the propaganda and enjoy myself. It’s still the thing I love with the people I love, and if I can keep my hopes from getting to high – if I can keep this all in perspective – I can still enjoy the experience.

It might not be my ticket out, but it’s the one thing that makes staying here bearable.