10 Years After

Yesterday was my 10 year high school reunion dinner. I went to a private school in Toronto and therefore the event at it's core is nothing more than maintenance of a network, and fundraising.

I was made especially uncomfortable by the fact that I had been rejected from a teaching job there the day before. That and the fact that I knew very few would remember me, or would even care that I was there.

The first person I spoke to was the head of the association (jargon for: head money suck). The conversation went like this:

HoA: (looking intently at my name tag) Mark, how are you? What are you up to these days?
Me: Well, I'm fine, things are continuing as always. I'm a teacher. I just moved back to Toronto from Saskatchewan at the beginning of July.
HoA: A teacher? That's great. Where?
Me: Nowhere. I'm still looking for that perfect job.
HoA: Really? Well we're always looking for great teachers. Send me an email and I'll put you in touch with some of the people that you'll need to see about a teaching job here. Send me an email. You're on our email list, right?
Me: Oh yes, I'm on the list.
HoA: Well send me an email and I'll put you in touch with our people.
Me: (slight pause, while considering my options) That would be great. Thank you.

My tongue now sore from biting, I proceeded to the bar. My friend Mark can verify that above story as true, and, in fact, I am quite surprised and proud of my restraint.

Things hadn't changed a bit at the school. The groups were exactly the same. All the people that I didn't want to see were loud and obnoxious at their table, and the kind fun-loving people sat at another couple of tables. When it was time for class pictures, I did manage to notice that the Asians (at whose table I was sitting) all managed to not be asked to join in. I could didn't care one bit about not being in a picture, but the half a dozen Canadians with Asian ancestry (all who speak perfect English; some are unilingual Anglophones) were notably missing from the picture. A good example of the mentality of the evening.

Now I'm not trying to make any grave statement about anything here, but the whole event just kind of made me sad. I chatted with my friends, and said hello to the others who cared enough to listen to what I had to say. At the end of the evening, the four classmates whom I see regularly went to a bar. The five of us had some drinks and laughs, but there wasn't anything unusual about it; it could have happened any other night of the year, since I see these guys all the time.

Things continue on as they always do. The loudmouths and still loudmouths, the quiet are still ignored, and I'd still rather have six great friends rather than hundreds of fake acquaintances.

At the end of our evening at the bar, I bumped into an old housemaster, who had heard that I was returning to the school to teach. I set him straight and he was really nice about it. I realized that it might not be the right job for me and that something better will come along, but I really had my hopes built up and to have them ripped away is going to take sometime to repair.