I am a Junior in high school.

My days are filled with classes and cliques, tests and talk, work and worrying (about everything). I have obligations to friends, family, clubs, activities, and school. I am the managing editor of my high school newspaper during the school day and a minimum wage office assistant in the afternoon. I wake up at the crack of dawn to write short stories that will most likely never get published and I stay up late at night watching television about people who live parallel lives to mine. There are high school Juniors out in teevee-land with an excessive (and seemingly unreal) amount of free time on their hands and I live vicariously through them. My peers on Dawson's Creek wander through life on the east coast like models in a J. Crew ad and I wonder- Where do they find time to frolic?

For the most straightforward comparison, let me compare myself with that of the show's title character, Dawson Leery. We are both ambitious about pursuing our careers in the field of communications. If we knew each other we would probably collaborate (I would write and he would direct). We are both over-achievers who analyze things to death and speak as if we are twice our age. Furthermore, we have social and family lives to fill our time while trying to do very well in school (to get into that "good" college, of course).

So where does Dawson find the time to have drawn-out discussions with friends about the meaning of life every afternoon on the shores of his creek? Shouldn't he be working at that video store?...or studying for that big test?...or making that festival-winning film?

In one episode of the show, Dawson and company are faced with an incredible amount of studying for their British Literature mid-term. Solution? Study group, of course. They gather together in one friend's house behind rows of white picket fences and get to work. Or at least they try to. They get sidetracked by taking a purity test and, after that enlightenment, other hijinks ensue. They sleep over at the house (so much fun makes for tired adolescents) and wake up late the next morning without having done any studying. But not to worry! When things become desperate in Dawsonland there is always the emergency cramming session! The six friends breeze through classics ranging from Beowulf to questions concerning which Brontë sister is responsible for Wuthering Heights. After the action-packed studying sequence is completed (to the tune of some willowy singer with unshaved armpits) they jump into the pool (in slow-motion, to emphasize the "moment") and have a water fight.

The next day in my British Literature class, a half-dozen girls were at the edge of their seats as one regaled the others about the details of the plot of the previous night's episode. It seems that most of the girls could not watch the episode because we had our own important English exam-an essay on the Canterbury Tales. Did anyone in my class have a night filled with laughs, stories, and knowledge? Not one.

By watching the show it is apparent that school ends at three o'clock and playtime begins. They have afternoons! Even more, their weekends are empty. Somehow, they are immune to such teenage problems as "family outings" and "errands." Instead, they dance and date, fight and make up, gossip and get laid. In short, they enjoy being young.

But what about my friends and I? Why are we stuck in our parallel universe, preparing for our SATs and agonizing over life in general when we should be having fun?

The answer is nestled into the WB's Wednesday night lineup. At 8pm on that evening we watch as our fellow upwardly mobile peers cavort through picturesque Capeside on a magical journey of self-discovery and enchantment. And an hour later we fall out of the trance and get back to studying for our Chemistry test, which is looming just twelve hours away.

Life does not seem fair...at least not on this side of the television screen.

Copyright © 1999 Gary Baum

Gary Baum is sixteen-years-old and currently attends Calabasas High School in Southern California. He writes a weekly manifesto (http://www.aphrodigitaliac.com/mm) on media, politics, and culture on the Internet and is currently the Editor-In-Chief of his high school newspaper, the Calabasas Courier.