removed from the classroom presidency. Twice 🗑️
C is for CANDOR and coup d'état
This is me, age 11, about to become class president.
Let me do a description for my visually impaired audience:
if there was a poster child for “lil’ turd”, this would be the one.
So yeah. Things went south quickly.
A mix of charming incompetence and "too cool for school attitude" got me booted out in 14 days.
The yogurt in my fridge is older than that.
I pretended not to care, but I was hurt. I felt like a failure.
I promised myself to do better if I had another chance.
That second chance came in 1999. New school, very similar situation: 45 strangers in a classroom made me: “El Presidente.”
And you know what? This time I did alright. Not Angela Merkel, but maybe a Pedro Sánchez?
But I promised you a second time being booted out and here it comes:
I was in one of those schools where kids excelled in music, sports, math Olympics, debate clubs, or all of the above.
What was your boy playing at the time?
Magic: The Gathering.
After 3 weeks (new record), my better, more ambitious, more articulate classmates took the government away from me.
And I let them. I saw it happening in slow motion. The class presidency running through my fingers, part 2.
Demoted to class secretary of treasure, a.k.a. “The Cashier”. I carried my function with dignity. Except for one small thing.
Broke as I was, I granted myself a loan to pay for the admission fee to my first Magic: The Gathering tournament. Which -by the grace of God- I won.
I paid every penny back. I went to more tournaments, became ranked, and made some friends who did not care who was "El Presidente.”
Am I advocating for temporary embellishment to accomplish your goals?
Soft yes.
Only if you're under 15, pay everything back, and confess it 23 years later in a blog post for the world.