Emily+P's+Op-Ed+Article



media type="file" key="emilyp-muckrakers-2012.mp3"

So a lot of you guys might not know this about me, but I'm an avid mountain climber. Or... at least I want to be.

Well, actually, I don't think I'll really enjoy mountain climbing, but everyone tells me that the only people who are successful have climbed really steep, really challenging mountains, like Mt. Kilimanjaro or something like that, so I've been training to be a mountain climber since I was five. But, you know, you can't really take an over grown toddler to the Alps and make them climb something, so you have to start small by beginning with the basics: muscle growth, flexibility, altitude acclimation. And this is accomplished by walking through swamps.

Maybe you don't understand why anyone would want to climb through swamps for twelve years just for the opportunity to climb 1/2 mile mountains, but let me explain.

At first, it's pretty easy. All you really have to do is play around in water for the first three to four years. Around year four, though, you actually start the swamps. Everyday, you wake up at 7 AM, and for at least six years, all you do is trudge through muddy water, and every year, you're evaluated on a 5- point scale by an official who tells you if you're ready for the next level of swamps. And every year, the ratio of water to mud in these swamps gets smaller and smaller. That's why I moved around all of the time in my childhood, my family had to find thicker and swampier areas for higher-level training. I remember absolutely hating swamp training, but that was before I knew that society really doesn't give me any choice.

In fact, around the fourth year, a lot of us trainees were given a special test, the FENCE test, or the Found Excellence iN Climbing Education test. The officials removed all of the "good" climbing students and placed them in an accelerated climbing program. From then on, we were referred to as "FENCE" students. We were to trudge through the thickest areas of the swamps, in the fastest times, with the least amount of exhaustion afterwards. We were pushed and groomed to become the next climbers of K2, and maybe even Everest. We were pushed to our limits, and for those who were pushed above their limits, well, let's just say we never saw them in the FENCE program again.

For a long time I was proud of my label as a FENCE student, but around the ninth year, it started to become a burden. "FENCE" students were reevaluated to advance into the next level, the Glories and AG track. If you were deemed a better-than-average climber, like I was, you took the "Glories" sections of swamps through your 11th year, and Advance Grouping swamps from then on. If you were eying Everest, you pretty much had to be in Advance Grouping, no matter what. Even if you started fainting during the aggressive training, losing sleep, and whatever. The instructors like to tell us that if we can't handle it now, we definitely will not be able to get into the top 10... highest mountains, that is.

I showed promise as a climber among my group since I was very little, and because of this, I am expected to do the fastest climbing, be the least tired at the end of a course, and be accepted into the very highest mountain climbing programs at the end of 12th year. Lately, though, especially around March, a huge fatigue settles around the AG swampers. The instructors usually expect us to go the fastest around this time, but a lot of us are just tired of trudging and trudging. We're sore, the courses become boring, and and we're just exhausted. But complaints are not tolerated at training. If we want to even be considered for the Mountains of Nepal program, we HAVE to do this course, we HAVE to go this fast, we HAVE to do well, and we HAVE to get those 5-point averages, no matter what.

I'm not even sure I WANT to be a mountain climber, but I've already planned my swamp schedule for the next year. It's filled with all of the toughest, thickest AG swamps. I swear I've just become a climbing masochist. It's just that everyone's expected the best of me until I was forced to expect the best of me. Maybe I expect more than what's possible for me, but I have to try.

Maybe it's crazy that that my fellow students and I push ourselves for to the brink and over for something we might not even want to do later in life, but I want to be a respected citizen later in life with money that will carry me through whatever will happen in the future, even something like that huge economic crash we had a couple of years ago. Maybe I'll even have a family to support later. I want to support them well. And my entire life, I've been told that this is the only way to do accomplish the kind of life I want, and that I'm good at the system. I shouldn't give up a good opportunity when it comes, even if it means I won't enjoy doing whatever that opportunity entails.

So this is all a lie. But still, doesn't it sound familiar? Yeah, I think so too.