Unseasonable Temperatures

Are you HOT to yell or too CHILLED to speak?

By Maggie Gusman

You wake up in the morning, way late for school. You throw your least smelly clothes on, stick an empty-calorie quickie breakfast thingy in your mouth and boogie. First hour you're hit with a pop quiz that you couldn't possibly be more unprepared for, fourth hour some toilet paper decides to hitch a ride on your shoe and follow you to English, and at lunch time some nimnom cuts in front of you in the line at the caf.

You take a deep breath.

The day can't get any worse than this.

Last hour you find out that the test grade you were 99.9% sure was a B is actually a D. You sprint to your locker, warming up for the 100 meter dash out the front gates, when a girl you only sorta know asks you if that story she heard about you is true.

What story?

The really humiliating story being spread around school by the girl you thought was your best friend.

You are so upset and embarrassed that you just....

Depending on what you're like, there's a number of different ways you could act in this situation. Scream. Cry. Confront. Withdraw. Talk it out. Duke it out.  How you handle upsetting or embarrassing things, though, can get you pegged as either a class act or a class loser.

Take the gal who totally blows up, for instance. Not only does she risk hurting herself or someone else physically, but she also damages her relationships with family and friends. After a while, people get tired of getting burned by her volcanic reaction, and go someplace cooler.

That doesn't let the girl who takes it all on the chin off the hook, though. By swallowing her emotions, the non-confrontational girl poisons herself with the mental battery acid also known as anger and stress, and while her demeanor may be calm, cool and collected, she's messing up her insides big time.

Look at it in weather terms. Summer and Winter are fun seasons with lots of excitement, but they are also seasons known for causing the most problems for those who have to deal with them, like baking people or turning them into popsicles. Autumn and Spring are more mellow, a welcome change to the in-your-face of the other two seasons. A storm in the Spring is always more productive than an icing-over in Winter, and a cool Autumn breeze lets one breathe after a suffocating Summer.

So, what kind of season are you?

When I am really angry, upset or embarrassed, I...