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            So I’m in this Reading and Writing the Short Story class at Berkeley High School in Berkeley, California. I’m a senior there. It’s pretty exciting. So in this class we’re doing a unit on unconventional fiction and my teacher told us to write an unconventional story. Doesn’t sound that hard, right? Wrong. It may seem like you could just write some bullshit story about a desk that turns into a fairy and flies to Kazakhstan. And you can. But what’s difficult about it is that we had to categorize our stories. The one I described above would be categorized as “fantasy.” Normally I like categories. They help me understand and memorize things. But I just couldn’t grasp the whole idea of labeling something unconventional. Isn’t that just conventionalizing it? We had to fill out this story sheet and write what kind of unconventional story we were writing. So I just took one of the writing exercises we did in class and said I’d write a whole story based on that. Then, we each had to write the first half of our story and have 8 or 9 of our peers edit it. My group never showed up so only 5 or 6 ended up actually saying anything. Here’s what I wrote. I’ve included the criticism and edits of my classmates.

Berkeley

The Place

            Berkeley, California. Stuck between Oakland, El Cerrito, Albany, and Richmond. Near the city by the bay. Home to the gourmet ghetto and one of the best universities in the world. This beautiful (One classmate didn’t think beautiful was the right word. I personally think there are so many beautiful parts of Berkeley, but I was mostly thinking of Grizzly Peak when I chose the word. Watching the sunset there is amazing. Also Grotto and Indian Rock are beautiful.)  city is both rich, poor, flat, hilly, and full of surprises (this sounds pretty cheesy, sorry guys.).

The People

            Mostly ex-hippies and Jews. (one person said that there are more than ex-hippies and Jews in Berkeley. There might be, but most of the people I know fit into the above categories. Also, see the bottom of this section.)  The children of the baby boomers (my teacher didn’t know if this was the right word. She thought maybe I should say counter culture hippies or woodstockies or something that showed the wild times. I think that people know that baby boomers are hippies and I think it flows. But I honestly didn’t put too much thought into my word choice.)  are not allowed to relive their parent’s experiences, but they find ways of doing it anyway. They hang out in parks and at houses with no parents, drinking forty ounce bottles of Mickeys and smoking marijuana, or dope, as their parents call it. People spend their time discussing the horrible actions of the current government and the problem of world hunger over tea and pastries at one of the many small coffee shops, thinking that what they say will make a difference. It’s pretty sad, really. (I am supposed to show this instead of tell it.) Then they go home to their expensive houses in the hills with their expensive art and expensive (someone crossed this “expensive” out and I don’t know if it’s because they didn’t like the repetition or because they don’t think hybrids are, but let me tell you, they are very pricy.) hybrid cars. This is only one half of Berkeley. The other half lives in the flats and deals with poverty and racism. I don’t really know much about this half of the town but you can talk to people in CAS at Berkeley High School if you want to hear more. They pretty much only talk about racism and how they are all oppressed. (Not everybody liked this section. Someone said it was juvenile, other people just straight up thought it was rude. My teacher wanted me to talk about my experiences with poverty. I mean, sure I’ve given a homeless man some money. Once, I even bought a man a piece of pizza. But I’m being honest here, I don’t know much about the poorer part of Berkeley. I also don’t want to be offensive, so I crossed it out.)

Food

            Berkeley is famous for its variety of food. Home to places such as McDonalds and Chez Panisse; Berkeley has also birthed chains such as Peet’s Coffee and Tea. One of the favorite restaurants of the locals the restaurants preferred by locals is the Cheeseboard. It sells delicious pastries and cheese, but also some of the best pizza in town. Everyday the store makes one kind of pizza with explosions of flavor. People get a slice or two and sit on the grass in the median in the middle of the street. There are a lot of pizza places around, but the only other place that rivals the Cheeseboard is Zachary’s. Zachary’s sells Chicago style pizza, but its thin crust is amazing, too. It’s hard to decide which one is better. But seriously, there are so many restaurants in Berkeley it’s ridiculous. My favorite is Barney’s. It sells hamburgers, salads, milkshakes, sandwiches, etc. I usually get a caesar salad and their famous curly fries. (this apparently is a “nice description of routines”. Also, my sentence structure in the previously underlined section and the following section is “interesting.”) One of the favorites of the high school and college students is Smokehouse. It’s cheap hamburgers aren’t very good, but after a night of partying it always tastes great. Another favorite is Yogurt Park. It sells cheap frozen yogurt in huge amounts. A “mini” is plenty, and the small and large are absurd. It also has a wide variety of toppings, from sprinkles to cookie dough to wheat germ (people were surprised.). I go there at least once a week.

Cars

            A wide variety, but recently mostly Priuses and hybrid cars. (one person questioned this. I wonder if she’s ever looked around the city because every other car is a Prius. Seriously. Also, someone else said that I was being repetitive by discussing hybrid cars again. But they really are EVERYWHERE.) I personally have a light green Prius and a hybrid Highlander SUV. (By this I mean my parents do.) There are a lot of Volvos as well, mostly given to teenagers by their parents. Almost all of them have at least one bumper sticker. (Someone thought I was exaggerating. HA.) These car decorations are another way the people in Berkeley speak their mind about politics. They say things such as “Fuck Bush” and “No Blood For Oil.”  People in Berkeley decorate their car with political slogans like “Fuck Bush” and “No Blood for Oil.”

Weather

            It’s really Unpredictable. One day it’ll be sunny, and the next day it’ll be raining really extremely hard. There are no seasons which is good if you like moderate weather no seasons and bad if you like extremes seasons. Personally, I love the weather but I do like snow. (I don’t know why I put that in there. It didn’t really make sense.)

High School

            There is only one high school in Berkeley. It’s right in the middle of the city and takes up an entire block entire three blocks. Some of the buildings are really old while others are pretty (Someone said to say quite, but that’s not my tone.) new. One of the older buildings on campus is the Donahue Gym. It’s really gross. (I was told I could do better here.)  There’s mold all over, it smells like shit, and no one really goes in there. (A peer told me this wasn’t true, but I have yet to ear someone say they hung out in the Donahue Gym.) But there’s a new gym that’s really nice and it has a new, clean pool. The bathrooms are also really disgusting. There’s toilet paper on the floor and graffiti on the walls. Some people avoid going there. The school is pretty diverse, but it’s really segregated. (Sorry about all the “really’s” in there.) But there are some really good great things about Berkeley High. Some of the teachers are amazing. Most of the old ones have crazy stories about drugs, falling off of mountains, and meeting everyone in Congress. (These teachers mostly teach in academic choice, the program I’m in.) The substitute teachers are great too. One of them was an extra in the movie Rent and thinks that everything is wonderful. Another somehow knows the name of almost every student’s name in the school. And he listens to Turkish rap. (Someone wrote “talk about a specific teacher.” Really? That’s what I was just doing.) The school spirit at Berkeley High is another one of the amazing parts of the school. Berkeley High’s school spirit is one of the things (sorry, couldn’t think of a better word.) its most famous for. In the middle of October the school has spirit week. Each day during the week has a different theme – western day, tropical day, 80s day, etc. On Friday, everyone comes to school in the red and gold, the school’s colors, and represents the grade they come from. At the end of the day there’s a rally, where each grade does a dance and most of the students get drunk. It really creates a bond between the grades. (Again, I was supposed to show, not tell.)

            So that’s what I wrote. I could’ve gone into a lot more detail about things like the politics of Berkeley (that would’ve been ridiculous because, just, I can’t even get into it), its music, business, describing the houses, anything. It’s a pretty interesting city. But I just got bored of it.  My classmates did have a lot to say even if it was boring. They said it seemed like I was explaining the town to a tourist or something. Which is fine, but I don’t know if that was what I was going for. I was also told to take myself out of the story and that it was too much of my experience. But honestly, that’s what I wanted. I wanted to tell everyone what I think of Berkeley. Sorry if that’s a problem. I also did a lot of telling instead of showing which is true. But now this whole story or essay or whatever you want to call it is telling. My teacher said to me, “Just give us this, don’t explain it.” I don’t really know what it means, but I wrote it down. It sounds like I do too much explaining, and if that’s the case I should stop talking about it. Oh, I was also supposed to add voice which is weird because I was also told to take myself out of the story. Whatever.

            So what is the point of this essay/story/rant/whatever. I mean, I included that part about Berkeley because a) I spent time on it b) it takes up room and I have to fill seven pages (Just now I wrote “seven” instead of “7” to take up more room.)  and c) some parts of it were good. But the rest of this thing I’m writing, the part in Ariel font instead of Times New Roman, is to discuss the conventionalization (wow, that’s a word?) of unconventional writing. I think it’s wrong. Labeling something unconventional is wrong. It goes against the very principle of being unconventional. Now I’m just repeating myself, I’m sorry.

            So please, after reading this thing, don’t categorize it. Yes, it could be called against mimesis or metafiction because of that Berkeley section where I showed my writing process with the parenthesis and the crossing out and such. It could be against plot because, well, there’s no plot. But I beg you, don’t put a label on my unconventional writing. Just let it be.

            I still have some room so I’m going to show you a little bit of my more writing (this was pretty blunt and sounds just like me talking, sorry about that) in this short piece of writing that is a little cliché and should in no way be labeled. But if you were to give it a name, it would be a short short.

How to ask the question we would all love to know? It sits at the tip of our tongues, ready to spring off into the world around us. Once it’s there, it will taunt us. It will be the pot that never boils, or the bud that never grows. But for some reason we won’t let go. It’s like peanut butter. The words aren’t right, they don’t do the question justice.

“What is being?”