I won't be able to watch My Fatal Valentine due to English Orals very early on Saturday morning and a Chinese New Year celebration Saturday night. My mom won't let me go on the night before my "really important" (right) orals and she won't let me back out of the dinner party. Bleck. Let's hope it snows.

"The Last Waltz" by Malcolm Mcclinton.

My schedule is all right, I guess. I am no longer capable of feeling overjoyed or disappointed, though today was nice in that it was that First Day of School feeling we never got to have on the actual first day of school. The actual first day of school was just like a resumption of junior year. Nice having physics with Malex and Andrew and Rob and Christine. Don't know why she bothered with our group, but she's sitting next to us so she's here to stay. Strangely enough, it seemed like she was always with Dena and Sharon in middle school (perhaps just for school stuff), but there's a lot less of that now. And English with Rob. Have English with Ms. Shay... she seems okay?

Anyhow, it's nice to see Rob again, after seeing him all the time last year in history and psychology and then never seeing him last semester.

Nick is being distant, and I'm not even dating him.

I have no friends in Drawing and Design... I don't even know anyone there, not even distantly. I've tried to break the ice with Shirley, the Peruvian girl sitting at my table, but I don't think we have very much in common. But at least we know each other's names and we're basically conversational; she doesn't know anyone else there either. Neither does Janet (pronounced Janay, God knows how it's spelled), the third girl at our table, but she's less social. Nonetheless, it sounds like a fun class and I hope to make projects I'll be proud of. Damn, I'm sounding like an enthusiastic suckup art student. We're doing more than shading, shading, and more shading as Malex insinuated, probably because this is second semester D&D.

This is something I wrote on a message board, but I feel it ought to go here too. This is everything I've learned through high school, from age 13 to 17.

I'm always constantly measuring myself against other people, from the person my parents want you to be, who my teachers and friends think I am, who I think I am. It's taken me a while to seperate who I am and who I project myself to be,
even to myself.

Also. As a 13 year old kid, I, unlike a 7 year old kid, knew that unicorns aren't real, Bloody Mary doesn't come to you in a mirror, not all people are noble and other fictions that society creates to tell children. Then, though, I believed in the lies that society would tell itself. Now I know that everyone has strained relations with parents (even adults), everyone feels awkward in a romantic relationship, most people don't like having their relatives around, everyone, even people I think have perfect lives, are profoundly sad some of the time. In other words, not everyone feels what they're "supposed" to feel at an occasion. It's not like life as the media would show it. It's a bit depressing to know that there are no perfect lives, but at the same time it is encouraging to know that despite imperfection, people still go on loving their parents, having romantic relationships, and trying to achieve perfect lives.

My self worth isn't dependent on my accomplishments. It doesn't matter what grades I get, what I look like, how my relationships are going- the point is that I'm inherently worth something as a person. It's taken that long to realize what my limitations are too, because when I was a kid I wanted to be and thought I could do everything, but now I know I can't.

I've learned that retaining friendships, like maintaining a romantic relationship, takes work- constant contact, and that people will float in and out of friendships not because of hatred or strain, but just because they don't talk a lot to you anymore, and it's as natural as snow melting. People change. Friends get more distant, friends get closer, new people become friends, depending on their changes and how often you spend time with them and talk. Friends aren't forever, despite when you're a teenager feeling that your friends are the people in the world who understand you most. Friends- If there's someone wittier, nicer and better looking, they'll hang out with them and not you. It's not something to take personally, but the way things are because of the nature of friendships. Friendships are based on convenience: families are for life. The reasons families are so argumentative is because they aren't just around when it's fun, they'll stand by you no matter what.

I would also venture to guess that someone at age 18 is a lot more comfortable with their own and other peoples' sexualities than when they're 13/14, when you realize that it's natural, it's normal, it's not dysfunctional (though people's comfort levels with the subject will vary).

Yah. So to hell with academics; this is what I've learned in the past four years. I still am not emotionally mature *now* and won't be for a good long time.

I have bought four used books for 25 cents each from Aspen Hill library, meaning I spent a dollar altogether. Two are really corny fantasy choose your own adventure books... like D&D for the antisocial. I bought them for amusement value. There are blank sheets in the front where you can write in your own stats. Apparently the previous owner of this book had a bow and an axe, a rope, a lantern, a potion of.. I can't read this.. lognospian?? .. a quiver with six arrows, five fireseeds, a psychic ring, a signet ring and a war hammer. I like reading other people's character sheets- it's kind of like peering into someone else's life, like in archaeology. You take a look at the inventory and it's like, this is an exact snapshot of what was in this guy's backpack five, ten, twenty years ago when some other fantasy dork was reading this book. I wonder where he is now.. college, a career, marriage, children, a house?

Also.. I have a Forgotten Realms book (first in the Avatar Trilogy; you know a book is trashy when it has an excerpt in the front) and some children's book about a guy with plague. Hurray.

Have finished Terry Goodkind's "Pillars of Creation," which, despite having a promising beginning, severely blew chunks. This is my thirty second recap of Pillars of Creation.. "I'm running away from soldiers! I'm running away from soldiers! I'm having kinky sex! I'm running away from soldiers! Oh, wait, there aren't any soldiers. The end."

And the work begins again tomorrow. I hope it will not be as busy as it was for the last three weeks.. but... I know it will, between English orals and History IA due on February 18.

Oh, I suppose you can find an account of Josh's Party elsewhere. It was fun, I guess, but not many people I usually hang out with were there, so it wasn't especially memorable. I spent the whole time grazing on nachos. Bad Angie. Oh, we also watched American Pie 2, but not officially of course. I, with my Samelessly Conformist tastes, found it to be hilarious.