Worus

So I was relaxing after some Metroid playing and working on creating an XML file with PHP so that I know how to do that and can then learn how to parse my custom-made file and I got an instant message from Ashli about prom information. She’s apparently in charge of it this year. As much as it annoyed me, I never said that I wouldn’t do it this year, and it seems reasonable to me that I could have at least been asked. Anyway, I started giving her some information.

Apparently, the board has decided that the prom will be May 17, 2003. They have no reserved a venue, made contacts with a disc jockey, or a photographer; but it will be the 17th. The only thing that I can figure out from this is that having it on the last day of May was too late last year. The only reason that it was so late was because it was to make sure that everyone was out of school. Furthermore, it was the earliest prom ever. Apparently one week early isn’t early enough, and it’s going to be three weeks earlier than that.

The board has decided (without any dialogue from me, a board member) that the same disc jockey should not be used. I’m not exactly sure why. We received a check to cover the cost of a disc jockey last year from Youth and Shelter Services in Ames. That was the entire purpose of that check, furthermore we never anticipate to make money from prom, so money can’t be the issue. The disc jockey did not do anything contreversial at all and was actually very professional last year. Of course, I’m sure that the complaint was that the disc jockey sucked. First off, every disc jockey sucks, that’s just the rule. Second, things were held from me for so long last year that we couldn’t even book a disc jockey with prior approval until the beginning of May. I had someone lined up months before that, but they put up all of this red tape about the cost until I suddenly got a check in the mail to spend it on.

Last year’s venue sucked as well. Mind you that it was the exact same venue as the year previous and everyone thought it was going to be great to use the same venue again. The difference last year was that we had some younger kids coming in and dancing with us. One was dying to get ahold of a Harry Potter DVD, but that sort of thing was managable. Apparently these eight-year-olds were harrassing the guests. Of course, I never heard anything about that. No one bothers to tell me these things. Yet I find it funny that the president of the board said that the kids were asking questions and trying to learn about the whole situation. I also find it funny that oen of them grabbed the mic at the end and said, “it doesn’t matter who you are, we were all meant to love someone, and we’re all human.” Now what couldn’t be more touching than that from a really little kid?

That was the only thing that got brought up as a problem with the venue, but I wonder if it had something to do with the punk rockers down the hall. They were in no way disturbing to us. Sure, they dressed in freaky clothing, but at the same time, should we, a discriminated group, be able to look past that? I know a few people thought that the punk rockers were going to be all mean towards us. Of course, they’re just like any other group of people, if not more accepting than others. Hell, one of the guitar players at that show was gay.

So the venue sucked. My bad. I don’t know why the board is worrying about prom seven months in advance, either. It’s seven months! I mean, things are going to change and planning it this far out is not going to help. There’s no point even discussing it until the first of the year.

From the tone of what Ashli was telling me, it almost sounds like they sat around and picked at every little thing that I did last year until it was wrong. I worked very, very hard so that the people that having a prom was important to could have one. I could have cared less about having a prom, it’s not my thing, but I know that it was important to some other people. I didn’t hear one thing about last year that was positive from her, and that frustrates me because it leads me to believe that no one had anything positive to say about it.

In any case, right about now I feel like I can’t do anything right. I try my best, but it sure feels like they’ve just all turned their backs to me. I think it was kind of underhanded of them to ask Ashli to take this on when I am clearly the person with the only experience in it. I was waiting on the chance to volunteer for this and not taking part in other things because of it. I take my participation in the board probably more seriously than a lot of the much older people. If I can’t show up at a meeting, I let them know at least three days in advance and ask for an agenda (which I never get) so that I can type up reccomendations to consider in my absence.

I did offer Ashli my help though. It’s not the other people’s fault that I feel like this, and it would be a great disservice to them to provide them with a second-rate prom because of it.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 21st, 2002 at 23:37:33 and is filed under My Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.