Tendencias Neoliberales de la evaluación docente

In the morning, I wake up mad. Mad at myself. Mad that I wasn’t angrier last night. Mad for kicking everyone out. Mad for cleaning up. Mad at Jem. Furious at Jem. Why couldn’t she have just done what I asked? Why did I think she would listen to me? Because she’s my friend? Because it was my birthday? Why did I let her talk me into leaving Jodie’s? Where I was having fun. Where I was actually enjoying my birthday. Why didn’t I just do what I wanted to do? She’d managed to ruin the rest of my night, while taking no part in it. It went from being one of the best birthdays of my life, with Jodie giving me the second best gift I could ever have asked for, to… I felt like I was Mary Lennox and I had just been given the key to The Secret Garden. To me fighting with drunks and cleaning up their mess, while my best friend, who’d thrown me a party I didn’t want in the first place, was passed out.

I wish I’d just gone home. That I’d left it all for her to clean up. Because what’s making me really angry is that Jem will probably wake up this morning with no memory of what happened. She won’t know what Sean, Claire and I did for her and she certainly won’t know that she ruined my birthday. She’ll get away with it because I won’t say anything and that makes me the angriest of all.

Claire knocks on my door and slowly opens it. She knows I’m awake because everyone in our apartment complex would be able to hear me taking my anger out on my furniture as I clean my room, slamming drawers, dropping books on my desk and throwing shoes into the back of the wardrobe.

‘Everything okay in here?’ she asks, popping her head around the doorframe, shielding herself in case I decide to throw something at her.

‘Fine, just cleaning up,’ I say, as I start chucking dirty clothes into the corner. ‘How are you this morning?’ she asks.

‘Pissed,’ I say.

‘Thank God,’ she sighs. ‘What?’ I ask, confused.

‘Well, you were so calm last night, about everything, that Sean and I were starting to think you were a saint. That you were just too nice. That or a psychopath,’ she laughs. ‘Either way, we were starting to think that we had made a terrible decision letting you move in.’

‘Ha, no. Nothing like that. Perspective I guess. It all got to me the more I thought about it this morning.’

‘So you are normal, just like the rest of us. We were starting to wonder.’ ‘Of course I am. But you’ve seen me get mad before – with my dad.’

‘I probably did overreact about Dad,’ I admit, ‘but I guess it means I’m just like everyone else. Getting frustrated at your own family for no reason.’

‘Well you have every reason to be angry about last night,’ she says.

‘Yeah, but the more I think about it, I’m not that surprised. It’s just Jem being Jem really.’

‘There you go again being too nice. That’s not an excuse. Sometimes I’m not sure she deserves a friend like you.’

‘How can you say that, Claire? She’s your friend too,’ I say.

‘She is,’ she says, dropping her head, ‘but we aren’t as close as the two of you are. We never have been. And we’ve never spent as much time together as you two have. I learnt early on that it was best not to,’ she says.

‘I know that she can be unreliable and that she’s a bit selfish, but she’s my best friend. And mostly she’s a great one. She’s usually there for me and she understands me. She’s just been through a lot.’ I say, thinking back to that morning after Jem’s birthday.

‘But you’ve been through a lot too Lucy, and you’re still always there for her, even when you shouldn’t be, like last night. And it’s not like she has a good reason not to be there for you,’ she says.

‘What do you mean?’ I ask.

‘Well last night, it was your birthday and she couldn’t even wait until you got there before she went and got high.’

‘She… she doesn’t usually do that stuff when I’m around,’ I say.

‘And that makes it okay? What? Because she didn’t do it around you, because she did it before you got there?’

‘Well, no. That’s not... I mean, I’ve been thinking about what Sean said. She knows how I feel about drugs so her and I… we don’t usually talk about it. It’s not like it’s that big an issue.’

‘You really don’t know, do you, Lucy?’ ‘Know what?’ I ask.

‘How bad it is.’

‘No, it’s not that bad. Jem said, she said she only takes stuff at festivals and at some gigs. Only a couple of times a year.’

‘Oh, Luce, it’s more than a few times a year. Since she moved to Melbourne, it’s more like a few times a week.’

‘Well, maybe, but she says it’s only if she’s with other people who are doing it. She doesn’t buy anything herself.’

‘Maybe. But then she chooses who she hangs out with because of it.’ ‘No. No I don’t think so,’ I say.

‘Why do you think she’s still spending so much time with Dan? It’s not because he treats her so well,’ she scoffs.

‘But she said she’s not with Dan anymore. At the tattoo place she was all over Zeb. She said she likes him now.’

‘So why was Dan there last night?’ she asks.

‘I don’t know, why were the rest of them there? It seems like she invited anyone she could.’

‘Yeah maybe. But from the sounds of it Zeb doesn’t seem like he’d be much better for her either.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. I’ve only met him a couple of times, but he seemed nice. They looked like they have fun together.’

‘They didn’t look like they were good for each other at the Forum the other night.’ ‘What do you mean? When was this?’

‘I don’t know, a couple of weeks ago. You were out at Jodie’s. We were all at a gig, but Jem and Zeb spent most of the night in the back fighting.’

‘About what?’

‘Well Jem wouldn’t tell me, but Sean said she was holding some pills for Zeb in her bag, that he was meant to be selling to people and when he went to get them back off her there were a few missing. Zeb was pissed. Jem said that’s how many he’d given her to start with. I don’t know, but anyway Jem wrote herself off after that so who knows?’

‘But, it just doesn’t sound like Jem.’

‘Maybe not to you, but how many times have you been out with Jem since you moved up here?’

‘I haven’t really. We’ve only just had drinks at bars together, or that time the four of us went out on Chapel Street.’

‘Yeah, well maybe that’s why it doesn’t sound like her. You said yourself she wouldn’t do it around you, that she knows you don’t like it.’ I don’t know what to think. She picks one of my textbooks up off the desk.

‘Look, Lucy, don’t get me wrong, I love Jem. She’s my friend too. But I just want you to know what’s going on. You’re too nice and I think you’re too good to her. So just be careful, will you?’

I don’t know what to say, it’s like Jem has this whole other life outside of our fr i endshi p . Is she really hiding that much from me?

Claire puts the book back on my desk. She knows she’s right, that I really have no idea about Jem.

She’s about to leave my room when she notices the box sitting on my desk next to the pile of books.

ask.’

‘Hey, what’s with the box, Lucy? I saw you with it last night, but didn’t get a chance to ‘It’s a present from Jodie. She put together a few things that she kept about my mum from over the years.’

‘Lucy! Wow!’ she says, her eyes opening wide. ‘That’s fantastic. What a perfect present. So what’s inside?’

‘Oh… I haven’t opened it yet.’ ‘What! Why not?’

‘Well… Jodie told me not to. She said to take it home and open it when I had the time to go through it all properly. But then last night happened and this morning, I was too mad. I didn’t want to open it like that.’

‘That makes sense. But it must be hard for you, that’s basically all you’ve ever wanted right there tied up with a pretty bow.’ I sigh, because she’s right.

Last night on the train all I could think about was opening it and what would be inside. But each time I thought about it, Jem was there with me. It was always her and me, in my room, sitting on the floor, the box’s content spread out around us.

‘Are you going to open it today?’ Claire asks. ‘I’m not sure, I want to make sure I’m ready.’

‘Ready? It sounds like you’ve been ready to open it your whole life.’

‘Yeah, you’re probably right. I guess I just thought there would be someone there with me when I finally got to learn about my mum.’

‘Of course, your dad,’ she says. But no, I hadn’t thought about Dad at all. This had nothing to do with him. If he had just told me about my mum from the start I wouldn’t need a box to get to know her.

‘No,’ I tell her, ‘not my dad.’

‘Jem,’ she says, slowly, realising why I haven’t opened it yet. ‘Does she know you have it?’ she asks.

‘No. It’s not like I got the chance to tell her about it last night. I didn’t really think it was worth mentioning while she was coming in and out of consciousness.’

‘So call her now. Surely she’d be here straight away to open it with you if she knew. She wouldn’t want you to have to wait any longer to open it because of her.’

‘You’re right,’ I say, and I tell Claire that I’ll ring Jem and tell her straight after I’ve had a shower.

But I don’t. All weekend I keep coming back to the box. When I go to get some books off my desk. When I’m feeling sorry for myself and decide to bake something bad for me. When

Sean and Claire both go out Saturday night and I stay home, alone. With nearly everything I do I feel the box pulling me back into my room. Drawing me to my desk.

I wanted to wait for Jem; I wanted her to be there with me when I opened it. I’m still too mad at her to tell her about it. Maybe Claire’s right, maybe I’ve gone too easy on her in the past.

So by Sunday night I’ve given up on her. Given up on her calling. Given up on her apologising. Why should I wait for her? She ruined my birthday and she hasn’t even rung me to see how I am. If Jem can apologise to me first, for basically ruining my birthday, then maybe I’ll tell her about it.

Once Sean and Claire go to bed on Sunday night, I get the box off my desk and take it into the lounge room. I sit cross-legged on the floor and place the box in front of me. I think I’m ready to find out what’s inside, but I can’t seem to bring myself to even undo the bow. There’s still something stopping me. For now, I take the box back to my room and slide it under my bed, out of sight.