Entry 26: It's Kind of a Funny Story

“I’m like an animal.”
“We’re all like animals,” I say.  “Especially now, when we’re all in a room eating.  It reminds me of high school.”
“You’re smart, I see that. We’re all animals, high school is animals, but some of us are more animal than others.  Like in Animal Farm, which I read, all animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others? Here in the real world, all equals are created animal, but some are more animal than others.  Hold on let me write that down.”

Page 207

So I skipped the whole spiral into depression thing because it’s all too relatable.  After a night of suicidal urges Craig checked himself into a local emergency room.  He is now spending his first day in the hospital’s Adult Psychiatric hall.

Earlier, hospital staff cleared him of his personally belongings.  After losing his cell phone, his only connection to his friends and family through their saved numbers, Craig said he felt like an animal.  Before he came to the hospital, eating was physically hard.  If he felt particularly stressed he would feel a squeeze in his stomach causing him to be sick.  He feared being forced to eat in front of the other patients.  Now he is at lunch, having this conversation with Humble, a man who is more afraid of living than dying.  Humble switches his words around and uses them interchangeably.  Although this is basically the rant of a neurotic it has some validity.

Entry 25: It's Kind of a Funny Story

"The questions covered the standard junk that the test you on to determine if you're an idiot or not:
Reading comprehension. Ooh. Can you read this selection and tell what kind of tree they are trying to save?
Vocabulary. Did you buy a book full of weird words and learn them?
Math. Are you able to turn off your mind to the world and fill it with symbols that follow rules?
I made that test my bitch."

Page 51

 So a page later we get a little description of the entry exam to Craig's new high school and his gratuitous study habits. I really like YA Fiction mostly for the tone it's written in. Reading the inner monologue of a sarcastic teenager is just the best thing when you're a sarcastic teenager.  Ned Vizzini nails the vibe of a smart teenager taking a stupid test down to the last line of this passage. These rhetorical questions make the reader feel as dull as a test taker.  Craig gets a perfect score on the test.  Nerd.

Entry 24: It's Kind of a Funny Story

"Two years ago I got into one of the best high schools in Manhattan: Executive Pre-Professional High School...all you have to do to get in is pass a test.  Then your whole high school is paid for and you have access to 800 of the smartest, most interesting students in the world-not to mention the teachers and visiting dignitaries   You can come out of Executive Pre-Professional High School and go right into Wall Street, although that's not what you should do; what you should do is come out and go to Harvard and then law school.  That's how you end up being, like, President."

Page 50

Awh yes. It's time to relax with a young adult novel. oh, its about the stress of getting into a school?  Perfect.
So in New York, this is how it works:  Parents work to get you into a good pre-school so you get into a good elementary so you get into a good middle school so you get into a good high school.  Then you can get into a good college and be president or whatever. In school it feels like there is a chain of events leading to the rest of your life that you can screw up in any minute. Even though everyone tells you high school doesn't matter we are all scared out of our minds. Craig the narrator is about to feel the weight of this stress.