This May Vaguely Deal with Dress Codes

I have always had a certain degree of disdain for dress codes. I feel equal disdain for public indecency, to be sure, but I assume there is some happy medium between the two. Call me an iconoclast, but it seems the average school board seems to miss this fact. “God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board,” in the words of Mark Twain. My dress code complex may have been born out my Catholic school experience, in which I spent the majority of my education in Lands End polo shirts with “Notre Dame de la Baie” emblazoned across my chest with a pleated plaid skirt swinging below. I served no less than twelve detentions for not wearing socks, as I had foolishly forgotten that a flash of bare ankle easily scandalized Victorian Wisconsin. The sloths of the school praised the uniforms and exalted the evil overlord of a principal who enforced them. They no longer had worry about “what to wear” or “designer labels.” I despised these people. These heathens had never worried about what to wear or about these “designer labels” (yes, the fictional labels that high school faculty invents to justify dress codes. I will eat my generic shirt if I ever see Wisconsin dairy queen waltzing down the locker-lined halls in an Yves Saint Laurent gown, Galliano overcoat, and Manolo Blahnik stilettos.) These people could buy and wear Lands Ends polos without an enforced uniform. They could wear filthy pajamas out of pure laziness. I would never tread on their right to be complete and utter pigs. But I wanted to “express myself” (terrifyingly trite, I realize) through dress. I wanted bizarre hair and to wear a decent pair of heels without white, wooly ankle socks cramping my toes and my adolescent style. It may seem petty, but as an awkward, tin-grin freshman it meant the world. When attempting to speak to other students, I became tongue-tied and uncomfortable. I would have fit in with the cast of Lizzie McGuire with freakish ease. The only way to make any sort of statement short of carrier pigeons or interpretive dance was through dress. So upon arrival at our fair NCSA, I freed myself of the plaid and collared bondage of my former life. But the omnipresent dress code would not fade. Ballet classes had them, as did modern and drama. Daily, I was again forced to blend in with like students, in pink tights, a black leotard, and slick bun. But as it was in the days of yore, I needed to remind myself of my own humanity and freedom in simple ways. This time it was not with socks, but rather hair. My hair is a an absolute mess, and I give myself a little pat on the back every time a ballet teacher comments on how unprofessional I look because of it.
I realize that in the last 488 words I have not come close to doing the proper blog entry. Essentially, the dress code here at NCSA is constitutional, but there are more important things to learn from blathering on as I have. The more important realization that the school has made me face—although I’m sure ResLife wishes for the opposite—is that freedom is the only important thing. As Albert Camus said, “Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better.” With foolish rules (dress codes included) heavily enforced, students feel they must break them as a reminder that they have control over their own lives. Generally speaking, the rules that are broken end up causing some sort of harm to the student. With more freedom, students could stop “reminding” themselves by wearing messy buns and smoking cigarettes, but instead productively and creatively use that freedom to live fully.
But I suppose I am projecting here.