On the Hill

There must have been a few months since I've last blogged.

I don't remember the exact date, although if I were less lazy I could search it up right now. I do remember why though. I stopped blogging because it just didn't feel right anymore, because I spilled my heart into this blog and suddenly there were things I could not say anymore because I could not let Yuma, who read my blog religiously, see those thoughts.

That is the problem with making your blog known to people you know personally. I had thought of starting other blogs on other sites, but they were too much of a hassle, too difficult to remember and too annoying to upkeep. College applications were coming up, papers to write, things to do with my life, and I didn't really need a blog, did I? Lots of people live their lives perfectly fine without one.

I read a few of Tea's last posts and they were nice. I miss the days when we all blogged like that. Julie doesn't blog anymore either. Neither does Gretchen.

Maybe I just miss those days in general.

I don't know if anyone I know will actually read this anymore. That's alright with me. Actually, it's probably better. I am writing this in hopes that Yuma will never read it, not that this will hurt him in particular, not anymore. But I would rather gain some last control over what I think and who I tell that to.

. . .

Yuma said he would be back late, maybe two or three in the morning. I told him I would wait for him. It always frightens me when I wait for someone, because I don't know if they will actually show up or not. I don't think I have ever admitted it on this blog (although I may have, I don't remember now), but I am a periodically insecure person. Yuma would attest to that. I alternate between believe I can do anything and have everyone believe me, and simply pondering over why anyone would care to even look my way.

Lately I've been thinking that I have never deserved Yuma's love. He did love me absolutely, maybe not unconditionally, but as close as you can without sacrificing yourself unreasonably. I never figured out why. Was it the way I looked? (He does have a preference for Asian girls.) Was it my intelligence, at least in terms of math and science? Was it because I talked with him a lot?

What was it exactly?

I remember telling Tea, a few days before or after Yuma first kissed me, that I did not know if I should really pursue this relationship.

Tea said, "Whatever you do, don't go into a relationship then break up and tell him, 'I've never loved you in the first place.' That hurts a lot."

I wasn't ready back then. Ten months and a world of turmoil later, I know how unprepared I was for everything that was about to happen.

And I am losing him now. I am losing Yuma, and I am afraid again. I am afraid of promising him that I will wait for him for the net four years, even though that is the romantic thing to do, because I am afraid that even if I wait these years I will still lose him.

This time, he is the one who says, "I don't love you," and he has every right to say that. I don't even have the consolation of thinking, "Oh, he's just an idiot who's making a big mistake and I'll show him."

Because I am that idiot. I made the mistake.

I don't know how this will turn out. I want to have him back again, I want to live through all those dreams we  said we would share together. I want things back to what they were once again, and I keep on thinking, "I never thought I would want to go back to my high school days again."

Because high school was hell for our relationship, but this, this is even worse.

. . .

On a more cheerful note, Fish Wings, which is what I am calling my college now, has been fine for me. I am taking five classes this year, one of which is only 1.5 hours a week and so is just half a class. I have made friends, both in my dorm and outside, and I have people to hang out with every day if I so chose.

I have been spending a lot of time in the architecture studio, because both Denise and Sam, two of my closer friends here, are in architecture. They have a very busy schedule, not just classes but actual studio work, so I drop by the studio when I'm free and just work there.

Kitty has also promised me that we would go shopping together once a week, although I might have to push off that until later because I still have lots of food in the fridge and no inclination to cook anything. Maybe I should buy more microwavable things though, to tide me over a few more nights.

I will probably be spending more time with Peter too, if he keeps on talking with me. I have already told Yuma and Tea and Reese and everyone I could possibly find who might be interested my freaky connection with Peter (we came from the same places), and considering I'll be joining Fish Wings' FSAE team, which he is also on, I'll probably be seeing him a lot and he'll be talking with me a lot.

And there are other people, like Jessica, who I am going to see a lot because she is in three of my classes. We will be working on our math history homework next Tuesday, and hopefully be as adept at figuring out problems as the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians were. And there is Ng, whose name I absolutely cannot say, and who is, in part, the reason for all of this. I do not know what to call him now.

 . . .

Yuma is back now. He is acting like he is fine now, that he wasn't ever mad at me because of what I've done. I don't know if I should believe him—and I desperately do, I really want to believe all of this is real. But I don't have much evidence to place my hopes on. I did sort of blackmail him, using his words, by using my health. I suppose it is some evidence for his still caring about me, but love and forgiveness are very different things from caring, and although I really hope this is real and I do have all three of them now, I don't know.

I don't know if this is just his way of placating me. If he is actually thinking, "Why do I have to put up with this pathetic, crazy, useless girl?"

I have fallen a long way from grace. But I do know the only way to make this even remotely true is to believe in it. I am not worthy, I know that. But I'll believe that by some miracle, I will find my wings again.

Fires and Gas Leaks

I am not sure which one it is (if it is any one of them), although I am leaning towards the latter. Mainly because nothing smelled burnt (I know the smell would also be there with the gas leak, but I am overlooking that part). Gretchen fretted over her notes for nothing, which, in the long run, is good because her notes are safe (for now).

But it was a small waste of a free-lunch-hour. Not that I did anything really productive anyway. I spent most of first lunch talking with Clay about Candide and museums, and then Yuma came along and we started to put up posters for the shoe collection NHS is hosting. But it was nearly second lunch by now, and since we were hungry, we just went down one hallway that was conveniently on the way to lunch and stapled posters on any bulletin board we could find, including the one in the music corner (also, thanks to Clay's height, we managed to staple a poster on the board above the doors when you're walking from the art wing to the music area).

We spent around fifteen minutes eating during second lunch (and also congregating with Tea, Gretchen, Dora, and Brunhilda) when the fire alarm went off. I was just done with my lunch (my lunch-eating speed has increased dramatically over the years, and I think it also applies to any-food-eating-speed as long as the food isn't too cold or hot), but unfortunately, I did not have my jacket with me, so it was a very cold wait outside. Offset slightly by the warmth Tea provided (that Bruney was not willing to take part in).

Five minutes into third lunch, we were allowed back in. Everyone else went back to their classes, and Yuma and I stayed behind for Clay to finish his lunch. Then, we circled another hallway and stapled some more posters along the way to the English/SS learning center. Completely out of convenience because there were lots of bulletin boards in that particular hallway.

The rest of the time was spent (for me, at least) reading some of the 40+ new updates from my 100+ blog subscriptions. And printing out an article for Middle East, which I should be reading and infecting with marginalia now, instead of typing this.

(P.S.: Before I go, I'd like to take this opportunity to announce that I have painted my nails three different colors, instead of two. I really like the shiny silver. Also, as I was walking down the hall to get my jacket, the girl who sits to the side behind Yuma in English—I don't know her name—told Clay that she never realized he was that tall, since she usually sees him sitting down in class. And Joss said he will probably go to the next Science Bowl meeting, since he won't have rowing anymore.)

Funny How It Just Is Like That

I walked upstairs to put my coat in my locker this morning and heard the bell ring for the 10-minute warning. My bus had been relatively early (compared to the past few days), and I still had time to go to the Chinese thing Dora asked me to go to yesterday. I thought about going, but in the end, I decided on not going. Not with what I had been musing over for the past few days, anyway.

I went down the hall, hoping to see someone else I had in mind, even though I knew he would not be there. He had never been there on Fridays. And even as I walked past the door, I thought, "No way. I'm deluding myself."

And there he was.

I backtracked a few steps and went in, said hi. Made all the formal and non-formal greetings. It was such a normal conversation, on such a trivial thing, and it was just so relieving. I wanted that—I had missed that. He left when the 5-minute bell rang, and I left too, after a while, and I saw Micro and we talked about social studies (and our shared social studies teacher).

Yesterday, I moped about not knowing what I wanted. Confusion, yes. It is still muddled. But I do know, at least in part, what the things I want feels like. And being able to talk to Micro about the most ridiculous and pointless things felt like one of those moments.

The eyes too. I can't forget the eyes, and yes, it's the other stuff that counts, but I can't forget the eyes.

Not feeling guilty, that helps too.

Our greetings are less awkward now. A small improvement. And it somehow meant all the world to me. (Although it's still in less-than-ideal situations, where we find ourselves, that is. It always is, for some reason.)

In French, I knew I had lost it again. Any semblance to rational thought. A prelude, to when I would have to pull up those rusty French skills because I could not stop at the door. I should have known better, but when invited, I just could not stop.

The insane. I don't like insanity, because it is so infuriating most of the times, but I would rather be insane than nothing at all.

I asked Clay about California, wanted to know what it was like. More laid-back, he said. Northern California, at least, especially San Francisco. He is more of a west coast person. I always think I am more of an east coast girl, not just because I have lived here for the longest, but also because I dream of letting go and being free, but I never quite am. Tied back by traditions, you might say. The good old South Carolina, maybe even Charleston, made (more) famous by homeboy Rhett Butler.

I am getting a normal backpack for Monday. No more of this nonsense. I wish I could have some more time to talk to Argon, because I miss those moments dearly, and I even miss the illogical logic Reese always sprouts. His hand-motions. The way he always manages to exasperate and amuse me at the same time. And even as I am writing this, I know this is an easily solved problem. I shall just have to spend more time with them, all other consequences be damned.

Meanwhile, I am glad for Fridays, for how it just turned out like that.

. . .

No story update today. I'm bad, I know, it's only been the third day, but I really need to finish homework as well, and do lots of other things I promised myself I would.

. . .

On a more cheerful note, we worked on proofs in multi today, as Gretchen has already mentioned. Proof by mathematical induction. Number theory. Argon has a number theory binder full of really interesting notes, and I had borrowed it for a long while but never cracked down on any of it. For an entire year. I just said to myself, "I'll get to it one day, one of these days," and it never happened.

But now we are learning about it, and I am happy.

I also need to stop turning my back to Mercle in econ (also, who came up with such a name?). That I need to remember. I like him a lot, so he should not be ignored, even if it was unintentional. From now on I propose to sit properly in my seat, unless Mr. Wollen is going to write on the board behind me. In econ, we also compared water bottle designs and the demographic/socioeconomic group each design targeted. I volunteered my Hint water bottle, and Mr. Wollen said, "See, that's the exact same product, but packaged so it'll sell for more."

"No, it's not the same," Ali said. "That water's flavored."

"Oh," Mr. Wollen said. "Then you can justify paying more for it."

Not really. It doesn't taste that good. Not enough sugar. But I guess I should have known, since it does say on the label that it is unsweetened.

Oh, there was also frisbee today. I had considered not going, but I went anyway. There were only five of us, but it was still fun. Elaine came too, although she could not stay for too long, and she left before a real game actually began, but we threw frisbees around for a while.

. . .

Pandora is getting better at predicting my preferences now.

And that is the end for today.

Here Is To NaNoWriMo And Math Meet

Math meet today! The second math meet of the—do we call it a season?—started with me missing the last fifteen minutes of Middle East (which is such a boring class, although now I know what a caliph is, finally). I went downstairs and saw Tea and Gretchen coming the other way, and we all got on the bus (and eventually everyone else got on the bus as well).

Obviously, per math meet tradition, we talked about random things. I don't remember much of the conversation, because I was attempting to read the last 15+ pages of Metamorphosis on the bus, and then proceeded to get really nauseated. Not good. (Tybalt remarked that our bus ride was extremely bumpy—more so than usual—which I believe may have contributed to the cause.)

Off the bus (and into Spearheadville), we went into the cafeteria and were going to our usual table in the banished corner when some random girl said, "Is this the nerd conference?"

That comment aside, the pre-math-rounds-math-meet-time went really well. There was lots of food, lots of fun, and lots of hysteria in general, except I believe that either Gretchen or Tea may have better things to say about this because I was rather, uh... anyway.

I will comment on the rounds though. Round 3 was really straightforward, except I did 36 - 8 in my head and got 24. No idea how that happened. Round 5 was also okay except the last question, and we did not have to know sin 75, although I do know it rather well (for the time being) thanks to Bryant's wonderfully descriptive circle (read: circle with four dots). Round 6 was also okay, although I probably flunked out on the math because I got the second question wrong.

But I'm on B-team, so who cares?

Also, while going into round 3, I waited outside for a while with a bunch of Treeburg people who were extremely tall. In matching hoodies. Argon suggested that we really should get hoodies for math team. Uh-huh. Keep on dreaming, Argon.

This is the end of my math meet recount. Someone else pick up from here?

. . .

P.s.: The 2010 midterm election results are out! But they were close to expected, so not too much surprise there.

. . .

And, of course, I mentioned NaNoWriMo, and I have been seeing it around plenty of times, so I suppose I could take part in it too. Except mine will probably be NaReallyShortAndDisjointedNoWriHalfMo, if that makes any sense. I'm sure it did.

I was supposed to have an outline and notes jotted down before November began to give me a head start or something, but since I have my characters already (yay for recycling) and I only really write about one plot, that is not extremely necessary.

So this is the first edition of my ReallyShortAndDisjointedNovel. AlsoKnownAsALongShortStory. NotEdited.

Allie's All About Apathy (note the alliteration?)

In the morning, I came upon the cliff my brother used to call "Judgment's Edge."

Or, if he was feeling creative, he would call it, "The place where all the moping people come to mope and all the idiots come to make stupid poetry about things they'll never understand."

He was never a creative one. It was either plain and straightforward, or he did not bother with it. And I never  knew how he put up with the stories we learned as little kids, but something must have stuck, because he remembered Judgment's Edge from a book our mother had read to us back when she still read. The book was about a boy and his two sisters, that was all I remembered. A boy and his two sisters, just like my brother Ciel, and my sister Celeste, and me.

I am not named after the sky. I am not a skychild. But in the book, the older brother and sister loved their youngest sister. They adored her. And that is all I remember from the book, aside from the ledge they called Judgment's Edge, where the brother and sisters went to pray for their mother's health.

Back then, we did not have to pray for our mother's health. These days, I did not have to either. I wondered if I had ever prayed for her.

I knew Ciel never prayed. Skychildren did not pray. They performed miracles because they were children of the sky. The ones who could survive anything. But Ciel did not pray, not because he believed himself invincible, but because he thought it was pointless. Or maybe the idea of it was too complex, too reliant on a faith he did not possess.

Faith brought me to here, I knew. A faith Ciel never took part in. The same faith—or lack thereof—that created this world.

Anna Marie.

I was in Anna Marie now. Kaniol. A hundred thousand worlds away from Nephria.

I was on Judgment's Edge, looking down on the glistening rooftops of the buildings of Anna Marie. The tall, pointy tower of the Sovereign's Castle. The sprawling gardens Seria Deshen took so much pride in maintaining. The grand magnolias of the DiGrant's front lawn. The town square. The bell tower of the library. The winding Crescentia that flowed through the east end of the city and sparkled under the morning sun.

It was beautiful. I wished I knew why Ciel wanted to leave here so badly.

To be continued next time I have something interesting to say.

Puntastic Days

Have I mentioned my list of favorite days of the week before? I don't think I have. Anyway, it goes like this: Tuesday, Thursday, Wednesday, Monday, Saturday, Sunday, and Friday.

Yes, Friday is last. It's because I never get anything done on Fridays (no motivation to get anything done), and I have every class so I'm aware that I have a lot of work I have to do, but I still never get anything done. Pretty horrible all-around.

But today is (thankfully) a Wednesday, so it's 3rd on my list, which is pretty good. A fun English class, where Cammie and I came up with very formulated thesis statements, a bio lab where I stared at lactobacteria, and a physics class where my hunger-and-lack-of-sleep-addled brain failed to recognize the direction of a force arrow and subsequently tried to figure out a question for ten minutes. Not fun.

At lunch, I caught up with Argon (a good deal of time we were separated—a full, uh, 20 hours or so), then went over to play go against Yuma. Brian and Clay watched on, while making horrendous go puns. Like, after hearing that there wasn't a go club meeting today, Clay said, "So it's no-go for the go club?" to which Brian said, "Shouldn't go club be 24/7, since you're always on the go?" That kind of horrendous. Although they didn't make any 5 jokes (to be expected, since neither of them know Japanese).

Then I decided I needed to get my recs envelopes settled, so I left the I-am-almost-being-choked-to-death-while-Yuma-is-still-calm-and-winning board to Clay and walked over to guidance with Gretchen and Brunhilda. When I came back to the table (where everyone was), Kathrya, Nyx, and Cammie started making name-puns. And saxophone puns, but I think explaining those would be going overboard (but 80% of my reader-base already knows this, so it's all right). Also, I believe I saw Bryant looking over at us at the peak of the name-puns loudness, which was slightly awkward (did I tell you before that I think his eyes scream, "I CAN READ YOUR MIND"? I must have).

The rest of the day picked up from there. There was a lot of cool vector operations in multi, which I must say was not my absolute favorite, but somewhere up there. And it just all makes sense now! I guess this is why it's so much harder to teach oneself with only a textbook. We're going to find areas of sections of planes in 3D tomorrow, which is exciting, but I have a McGill college rep visit (which reminds me, I've got to pick up the forms) so I'll unfortunately be missing part of it.

After multi was my free, which I spent in the learning center with Yuma and Clay. Clay attempted to do his utexas assignment (I must have also told you before how much I hate utexas), but he couldn't get the first question right (neither could I, as it turned out). After a half-hour consultation with Mrs. Cumulonimbus (I believe, because he has her for physics now), or some other teacher who has this free, he told me that it was because he forgot to add a negative to his answer.

Ugh. I hate utexas.

I also watched Yuma work on his chem lab. Oh, I miss chem so much. We'd considered switching science classes, whereupon I'd take chem again and he'd take physics again, but then I would need to switch my English class and he'd need to switch his design and tech class. Too complicated. Then I forgot that water and ethanol are miscible, which resulted in an "Oh, duh" moment.

Also, Clay's APUSH (I love the acronym) class is in the same hall as mine, so we walked down the hall together. Upon reaching my class, however, I realized that we were supposed to be in the lab, so I walked back again, where I spotted Argon. I convinced him that he had minutes to spare, so we stood in the hall, talking about random things, I'm sure, because I'm not sure what we talked about.

School Again, What A Surprise

Proper titling rules dictate that I should not capitalize the "A," but I am ignoring that for aesthetic purposes only. Anyway, after a long three-day weekend (yay for Columbus Day), I am back into the school routine. Which, thankfully, means reduced time for annoying college things, but unfortunately, also means increased time for schoolwork.

Since my morning was rather uneventful (we watched this "how to turn a sphere inside out" video and a few Old Spice commercials during communication time, but that was mostly it), I will skip right to French, where our teacher, who I shall now call Mme Pottery, spent most of the class showing us this music video (in French, of course) whose main ideas are "Why do we have to go to school and do all this work?" and "Oh, leave it to Charlemagne, he's to blame." Then we listened to this music video by the same singer who performed at the 1967 or 1965 Eurovision contest, and it's a song about a doll who complains that since she's so pretty she should be able to have so much, but she can't have boys falling in love with her. Or that was what I got out of it, anyway.

Great use of over an hour's worth of time.

I spent a good part of econ figuring out the tax graphs and how to draw producer and consumer burdens. Now I have the concepts down, so the graphs are easier. Yay! Unfortunately, we have a test on Monday, which means I will actually have to look over the practice test (it's quite a heavy bundle), and I am not looking forward to that.

I also spent a good part of my free convincing Yuma that math team was more important than frisbee. I'm not sure how well that went. But I did get to print out all the stuff I needed to print out (except the Naviance sheet), and then tomorrow morning I will have to schedule various meetings, but I think all is going well (so far). Clay took my computer (which reminds me, I hope he logged me off), so I got my envelopes written out and reformatted my lab, and Yuma and I folded paper airplanes according to that tutorial he found online, and we spent ten minutes or so throwing paper airplanes in the hallway. Archie, who was at the corner table, stared at us weirdly. When Clay came out, I finally managed to throw a successful, airborne, non-circling-back plane. I was really proud of myself.

Then I got all of my earlies letter envelopes settled, including seeing Tea and Kathrya multiple times in the process. After that, we (although Kathrya was just in it for the walk and the Gretchen-glomping time) went to math team, where everyone was already there. To our horrendous dismay, there was only one of the round 5 and 6 practice problems each left. Oh no! So we each took one and will now have to settle for next time.

Argon came over a while later and asked Tea about RSI. It was a long, rather drawn-out conversation, by the end of which we found ourselves all sitting on tables. Ms. Sherbert looked over at us and asked, "Are you guys practicing?"

Haha. I tried one of the geometry questions, but because I was too lazy to square numbers in my head, I didn't go further.

After math team, I went to the library, where I saw Zephy and Reese. Zephy was doing her physics homework (oh, utexas, how I loathe you so), and Reese was figuring out other people's chicken-scratch handwriting, because he got a huge list of rejects from his email list for tech club or something. So I sat down and tried to figure out said handwriting with him, and I think we got a couple of the emails (Reese's way of testing to see if the emails were valid was to send out an email with the subject line "test" and nothing else). We didn't get Superman though.

Pity.

We're In High School Now

Math meet recount! This technically starts earlier, around lunch-time, when we had the third installment of club rush, and math team was scheduled to recruit new members for the year. I think the new addition of froshies has made that goal not so urgent anymore, so no one even bothered setting up a table for math team for the first 15 minutes. Then I suppose Tybalt and Bryant decided that, as captains, they should take on some responsibilities, so they grabbed an empty table and put out a sheet of paper with no posters or other things advertising their intent.

They managed to get a bunch of people's friends and Jesus Christ to sign up. No one even kept track of the paper when it was time to go to class.

Then I worked my way through the rest of my classes, all the while eager for the math meet to start. First was extended multi, which was nice and always fast even though it's a long period. Then Yuma and I went to the math learning center to do our multi homework, and—yes, Tea—I did see Clay there. Big surprise. He sat at the table in front of us while he took a calc test (limits and discontinuities, very fun stuff), so I had a nice view of his side. But that was all. Really. (Well, okay, so we also talked, but that's normal and I think Dino's the only one who sometimes outright tells me not to talk to him.)

I had middle east after that, which was kind of boring because I was so eager to leave. Every math meet Wednesday I can never sit through all of my classes. The excitement is just too much. Although we did learn a bit more about Afghanistan, and also why Osama bin Laden hates us. I missed the rest of the Afghanistan powerpoint, though. Pity.

Which segues into the next, more exciting topic, math meet!

On the bus ride to Spearheadville, everyone sat towards the back, and we discussed a wide variety of things, including hair (it's always a discussion point), math problems (well, only Tybalt and Bryant were doing them), and other things that must have not been very interesting (in the long-term-interest-retaining way) because I don't remember them. When we got to our tables (in the corner, again), Tybalt, Bryant and Dino sat with us. I guess a lack of now-graduated-seniors has made sitting by themselves too lonely (that, and the only other option is the froshie table).

We ate lots of food while Tybalt and Bryant went over more math problems. Tea attempted to (re)learn Grob's name, but much to our dismay he just ignored us. Yuma and I played a short game of go, in which Yuma once again beat me (by a lot of stones, even though I had a 4-stone handicap), and then Tybalt and I went upstairs for the geometry round. Which, by the way, was a near total failure, until Tybalt realized that his approximations gave him the right answer for the last question, and so he, in that round alone, beat almost everyone else.

Which also goes to show how awful the questions were for the most part, I suppose. Round 5 was easy, and round 6? That was insane. Even Bryant didn't get any points, and that's saying something, because he was most definitely practicing the entire way there (unlike me, who fiddled around with one question and then got bus-sick and/or distracted).

Then, as we waited for the team round (or maybe after, there was so much waiting), everyone (except me) checked their IPRs. Dino got really upset because he got a B in Spanish, even though he did well in all of the tests. Despite much persuasion that: a) it was probably a mistake, and b) he should just talk to his Spanish teacher and stop moping, he did exactly that. Moping, that is. As if a B was going to kill him or something.

He's ridiculous.

Anyway, then team round came around, and there were more weird questions. I was pretty sure I had the geometry question right, but it was worded so weirdly that we got it wrong anyway (which I still think is an error on their part, not ours). Besides, it was a geometry question. Why was there percents?!

Then I figured out a question that Bryant got wrong (even after consulting me on some of the properties). It was a kind of miraculous moment. But I guess he was having a bad day (he was close on a lot of questions but not quite there).

We also found that Grob (I chose the weird name because I don't really like him) accidentally put his middle school name in the high school space. So naturally we called him by the middle school for the rest of the evening (not that we talked to him, though).

On the ride home, Tea and Gretchen tried to figure out what happened with Clay and me. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. But they wouldn't believe that. And then Argon and Joss apparently wanted to join in on the gossip fun, because Argon started whispering to Joss about something that, when questioned, he refused to tell us.

We (Tea, Gretchen, and I) concluded that it was probably something highly inappropriate. Which is weird, because I don't think Argon is ever really inappropriate, although he does laugh at inappropriate things his friends say.

And that ends this math meet recount. I've got to go finish my essays now.

I would be amiss—

—if I did not mention the math meet today. Of course, I have a lot of work, so I won't go in-depth about it today, although it was extremely fun (I can say that much).

Just wanted to mention the new xkcd comic. Went through my blog subscriptions today and saw it at the end of the list, and it is absolutely amazing. I don't know how Randall Munroe does it, really.

Also wanted to mention that I am not engaging in anything suspicious at all. None at all. Just so you know (because people *cough Tea&Gretchen cough* are doubting me right now).

And this concludes my shortest post ever.

A Take on Lighter Subjects

In multi, Nyx, Tea, Gretchen and I (counterclockwise circle!) discussed the viability of different types of notebooks. Nyx said that her favorite was the ones bound at the top, because there aren't any annoying spiral wires and it's easy to write with. I suggested that there should be notebooks that are spiral-bound at the top, but hole-punched along the side, so you could tear the pages out and they'd still go into a binder.

To which Gretchen (I think) said, "You mean loose leaf paper?"

Then, in physics, as Boris came up to Bryant to inquire about physics problems, I noticed that he had a notebook bound at the top (unfortunately, it wasn't spiral) and hole-punched along the side. So I pointed it out to Nyx, and we explained to Boris about our discussion in multi.

"I like these notebooks better," Boris replied. "It's better to write on since I'm left-handed."

"Or you could just flip an ordinary notebook over and write on the back side," Nyx said.

"Yes," Boris said, "but I still think the world is handist."

"You would say that," Ali said, joining in on the conversation.

"It's true," Boris said. "The world discriminates against left-handed people. You try being in the minority some time." And then he realized that Ali was a minority (at least here, anyway).

So the conversation devolved into an argument of whether Boris was racist or not.

That was basically the first half of my morning. It went downhill (slightly) from there, with more powerpoints, and extended French. (I was debating with Nyx earlier whether I'd be better off in French 4 honors, or 5A. They go over a lot of the same things, so there's not a lot of material differences.) I played go with Yuma for half an hour (on the 5x5 board—that is how pathetic I am with go), then spent a good part of econ defending Yuma from Julie. Then I spent my free doing math homework and playing Plants vs. Zombies on Yuma's iPod.

Oh, the joys of life.

(I can also mention that I saw what's-his-face multiple times throughout the day, and we talked about things—including French, as it turned out—but that will probably be superfluous and will plunge this blog further into the deep dark clutches of teenage girl frivolousness—if it wasn't already.)

The Long-Awaited Math Team Runoffs (Again)

There are so many little froshies at math team this year! I don’t know how long they’ll last (I’m hoping they’ll stick it out until at least states roll around), but it’s still very exciting. They’re so itty-bitty-small and semi-adorable! I don’t know their personality, so I can’t say completely adorable though.

Other than that, we had our expected run-offs. I did rounds 3, 5, and 6, as expected, and I have at least 10 points. Well, at least I passed! And since I’m doing harder rounds this year, that is a vast improvement. I attribute this to the lack of algebra. Algebra is weird (no matter what you say, Tea). Geometry is awesome.

Argon and I had a talk about how we never talk anymore, except during math team. This is an extremely sad situation. I need to remedy that pronto. On the other hand, I am seeing much more of Joss (who thinks he will be on the C team by himself), most likely because we share econ together and he is often with Reese, who I am trying to see more of as well. The end of HUSH has done horrors for keeping up with my sophomore/now-junior friends.

I do have some reservations about our “goal of the year,” which is, as always, “beat Treeburg.” Without Irving, this may get harder, but who knows? Maybe Treeburg has lost three of their really mathy people, and so we have a better shot this year.

But enough about math team. I’m sure next Wednesday will be even more exciting, so I’ll leave this for now. Oh, and, I now know how Mr. Booth got his nickname, thanks to ScriptShadow (my newest blog obsession that reviews movie scripts).

Interesting things of today:

• We did the coffee filter drag force lab today in physics! Really exciting, except for the fact that it's really hard to measure motion when the coffee filter is really light and drifty. Ali wanted Bryant to be in her group (less work for all those involved except Bryant), but Bryant flipped a coin (or maybe he flipped a coin in his calculator, not sure) and decided to go with Dan's group instead. Emmeline had a free before physics, so she made a really cool data chart and it was so exciting to fill it in (not so exciting to drop a coffee filter 45 times though).
• In bio we killed algae! Okay, so we left three bottles of algae alive (but two are wrapped up in foil and mesh, so I'm not sure how long they'll live either), but the last bottle we fixed with sulfates and all those cool chemicals that fix oxygen and burns the hand and so obviously have destroyed the poor little algae cells.
• For French, we went downstairs to listen to the violin guy (Alexander something? I forgot) in the library. As I was listening (and turning away when the sounds got too screeching), I spotted Mario. He now sports a very, very ugly hairstyle. As I was telling Gretchen, it seems that haircuts work opposite for girls and guys. For girls, haircuts usually mean prettier. For guys, they usually mean uglier. I'm not sure why that is. Maybe they need to train haircutters (that's not a word, I know) to learn better boy-hair styles.
• In econ, Mr. Wollen wasn't here, and Yuma, Joss and I drew on the whiteboard, creating quite an (xkcd-inspired) adventure. With chess pieces falling from the sky, nuclear clouds, and lots of angels with big, bouncy heads. There was also an integral composed of smiley faces, flowers, double-square-roots, and brains. Julie got a picture of that one on her phone.

And uninteresting things? All that work I've got to do, plus I'm reading Suicide Note right now, and it's 1905 pages long (almost twice as long as GWTW), so that will most likely take me a while (I'm also taking notes, and I don't have a lot of time to spare, so it's definitely taking me a long time to even read the first 20+ pages, when the first 10 or so pages are the table of contents).

Magically Mundane Mondays

Here is the start of another week, and the foreshadowing of a busy week to be. Or maybe it’s just because my free is in the mornings on Monday, so I am not actually getting any substantial work done, and the day just feels tremendously long.

There is a utexas due for Friday, and although at least we do not have 40 questions long utexases (what would the plural of utexas be?) anymore, they are getting harder (no more concepts MCs), so they also take quite some time. The lab for bio from last week is now due next week, because there is a part II (yay for growing algae!) upcoming tomorrow and Wednesday. I have 12 CDs worth of a novel to burn through (well, okay, I am not really burning anything because I have nothing to burn on CDs anyway), within the next month or so. Times like these I wish I had a portable CD-player (this has only happened once before, when I wanted a CD-player for the SAT IIs).

But those things are boring. I mean, I have to do them, yes, but that doesn’t make them any more interesting to listen to. So, onwards to the exciting things in life!

Math run-offs tomorrow! As I was telling Gretchen (and Sonny, although I am not sure how much he was paying attention and how much he just didn’t want to run up the stairs and away from us) this morning, I have been waiting for this day for almost a month. Really. Ever since we got our packets. I need to go over some of the coordinate geometry stuff still, but the regular geometry is good, and trig (this month anyway) is also pretty easy.

Also looking forward to seeing who’s going to (most likely) make the A-team roster (for most of the time). Bryant, definitely, and probably Tybalt too. Then there’s Mario (he says he’s going to take the run-offs during some time on his own, although he might presumably drop by—that is, if he goes to school, because I haven’t seen him in class in days). Dino and Tea and Gretchen and Yuma? Are there any more seniors now?

Non-seniors, there’s definitely Argon, although I am not sure about Joss. Micro, yes (he’s pretty much guaranteed for this round unless he flunks). Summer and Cheryl and Reno and the others? Well, we need at least one more person. Might as well be one of them.

Math team speculation is always fun. You know what this reminds me of? Fantasy sports. Maybe we can make a fantasy math team and bet on it?

Other exciting/fun things. Okay, this is in the past tense, but my dad hosted a semi-party yesterday (they called it “lunch,” as the little eight-year-old girl who came over said her mom told her, but as we—Onion and I—aptly remarked, “lunch” with company usually means a meal that spans until 7PM). My dad and some of the others started playing this weird card game that involves +10 points and “fishing for the suits,” whatever that means. So the three of us (Onion, little girl, and me) started playing some card game that I know how to play but have no idea what it’s called, while two other little girls sat/jumped on my bed. Then we went to play “Playing with Fire” on my laptop, then a few Orisinal games (they are the cutest ever), then slime tennis (which I won multiple times because Onion did not know how to serve), then Silversphere.

Then, when the little girls left, we started watching Youtube videos, most notably the Back Dorm Boys, Ultimate Showdown, Hamster Dance, and the Shamwoohoo. Onion then said that Taylor Swift’s music videos are weird (he is basing this off Love Story and the one where Swift plays the girl who’s got a million outfits in her closet and writes on a notepad her messages to her neighbor crush). All I can say is he has never been exposed to the world of weird music videos. Really.

So I showed/dissected-for him Rain’s Love Story for starters (guy in black suit wiggling his butt and having a girl vacuum all over him), then DBSK’s videos (Wrong Number—dipping phone in a glass of wine; O—semi-fantasy world where all five guys go, “Oooh, look at the birdies!” while everyone else vanishes; Triangle—bunch of fantasy fighters dancing and then some angel descends from the sky amongst a crowd in tin-foil hats), then Big Bang’s videos (Lies—girl kills boy-who-she-doesn’t-really-like with pineapple; Haru Haru—guy gets rejected by long-term girlfriend so he goes smashing things and tearing pillows apart).

We then decided we had enough of weird music videos (pity, I haven’t gotten to SHINee’s rainbow prism dance one yet), so we searched up Harry Potter versions of Tik Tok and ended with some quality OceanLab (you can’t beat OceanLab, really).

And when my Youtube minutes ran out on Chrome, we played Crazy Eights. It lasted well over an hour and when his parents finally ended the card game with my dad, we still had not finished. But it was too late (past midnight) so we never got to finish that game. Oh well. I was losing anyway.

Then this morning I thought I had missed the bus, because I woke up two minutes before the bus was supposed to come, but then I realized my clock is five minutes early, so I quickly got dressed and ran out the door, effectively waking up my parents (although I didn’t know that then).

For entertainment purposes, I suggest you go through all of the Youtube videos I’ve suggested (well, maybe not the weird MVs) unless you’ve seen them before. Especially the Back Dorm Boys. The one where they lip-synch to “We Will Rock You.” I’d link, but: a) it’s really hard to miss; and b) if I search it up I’ll get distracted and I won’t get anything done tonight.

Decisions, decisions...

I am deciding between two topics for my common app essay. I have one that I have already shown Gretchen (or the basic framework of it anyway), and that one is about my physical journey from China to the US to Canada to China to Canada to the US again. This is what I shall henceforth call the “concrete” one, because, well, you’ll see.

Halfway through this essay, and many “this is bad you should change it this-way-and-that-way” remarks from my parents later, I started on my Chicago extended essay. The weird one. I chose the first prompt, “Find x,” and I wrote something that used a road trip as a metaphor for life. I really like this one as well, so I’m calling it the “abstract.” And of course, I am not sure which one I should go with, because both have their merits and, of course, their pitfalls.

The concrete is my experiences, and it is physically real, but it is also somewhat complicated (because life is complicated, I know) and somewhat too serious and grandiose for my liking. I feel like I am trying to say, “This is what I went through, this is what happened as a result of that, and this is who I am now.” That is, of course, part of the point, but it seems too focused on things I am not focused on, because although my past is important, I would rather look to the future.

The abstract captures that part of me, the future. It has plenty of really cool metaphors (or so I think, anyway), and there is a lot of self-searching and adventure-trekking. It, however, does not speak much about my past except for one line about how many places I have lived in or visited, and so it may seem not quite rooted in reality. It was, after all, originally my essay for Chicago and therefore based on the assumption that whoever reads this essay has read my common app essay as well.

Of course, being the indecisive person I am, I couldn’t decide. I asked Dino if he would choose the concrete or the abstract (in those exact words, without mentioning my essay), and he said, “I’m a big concrete fan. Like 2+2=4 all the time.” Not surprising, coming from him.

So that is—

Concrete: 1
Abstract: 0

Any other votes? A sample size of one is definitely too small for any tests of statistical importance.

It's a Small, Small World

My parents went out today to get my dad's passport photos taken, but since we have Canadian passports, he had to get specific pictures that have to abide by a host of rules. Like certain size requirements, no hands in pictures, no tilted faces, and of course, no smiles. I don't know why, but these requirements somehow makes for ugly pictures. I have always hated my passport photos with a passion.

Anyway, because his photo had to follow those rules, he couldn't get them from the post office (which normally takes photos for US passports). Instead, my parents went to find a professional photographer, and I presume explain the rules to take a custom picture.

They came back an hour or so later, and as my mom walked in she asked, "Was there a freshman in your English class sophomore year?"

I, obviously confused, said, "No. Why?"

"The son of our photographer said he was in your English class freshman year. What's his name again—Camet—wait, let's see if you recognize the last name from the business card."

She took the card out, and I realized it was Cameron. We never shared an English class together, but I was in his French class, so perhaps he confused the two. I mean, English, French. Big difference.

But speaking of Cameron. (I guess this is the pitfall of having nicknames that resemble real names.)

I had this typed up already.

. . .


Again with the thoughts.

. . .

I spent my car ride to the border (a good five or six hours, not including food time) and back thinking, as usual.

We left at 11 the night before, because my dad was intent on having me come back on time to finish my homework and other things I need to write. I was bringing the pillows and blankets out to the car, and I stared up at the sky, and it was breath-taking. I can’t see very well (I need new prescriptions for my glasses), but I could still make out a lot of the stars twinkling in the sky. (Although I have read somewhere, but I forgot where, that “twinkling” is not the best word to use in these situations because it implies happiness.) Silver-diamonds against a soft, satiny night.

I wanted to cry. I think I did.

There were a lot of things I wanted to say, but instead we drove towards that small Vermont town with the funny name and lies half-here, half-there. I slept for most of the way there, sat in a small room trying to eavesdrop on two people speaking French in front of me, then stared out the window on the way back. I thought I’d read awhile, but decided not to at the last minute.

There are some things you can’t say out loud.

. . .

These nights, I dream about running. I am running away from something—I don’t know what. I am just running, and someone, or something, is chasing me, and I must run as fast as I can and climb over fences and jump across rivers. I am fleeing, fleeing, and I am not fleeing fast enough. I am a goner, I think, I am going to die. I am in the panic between running and giving up, I want to scream, to shield myself from the inevitable, and then, and then, and then I wake up.

There is a lurching in my stomach, and maybe my heart, but that is it. The feeling fades. No more. Until the next time I am running, but I do not see the pattern until several nights in, when I wake up and there is a déjà vu moment, and I realize that I have been dreaming the same things all these nights.

. . .

I saw Cammie Thursday. At lunch, with Yuma. Upset over English, and many other things, and suddenly, she was there. In a black skirt.

I called out her name. She came and sat with us. We talked about some things. English, I think. Guidance stuff. Yuma asked about math. I am not sure how well I handled the situation. I was afraid to say anything beyond the trivial. Wasn’t sure what she wanted. Wasn’t sure if I could give it to her.

I would have wanted to forget, but that is because I am constantly running away from reality. I am not sure that is what everyone would want. I am not sure if that is even the best thing. If I make the best decisions. If it even matters, because I am not as rational as I would like to be (despite Mr. Wollen’s claims that we are all rational beings).

. . .

I cut across the the narrow gap between the two cars, and as I was walking, someone called, “What’s up?” I spun around, trying to look at who was talking, and tripped over the curb and fell. The car full of boys—no doubt it was them—laughed. I had never seen them before, but they were probably seniors (or maybe juniors, but then they would be conducting illegal business in driving each other around).

Thank you. I hadn’t realized I was so clumsy before. Thank you so much for reminding me.

They drove off. I do not know if they will remember me. I don’t think I’ll remember them. I was always bad with faces.

It’s a good thing. I wouldn’t know what to say even if I did see them again.

. . .

Gretchen said that Tea looked nerdy. And that I looked smart. And that Bryant looked both nerdy and smart. I would say that Bryant always looks like he can read my mind. Every time I am doing something, and I catch his gaze, he looks like he can see some deep, dark secret I have (and I don’t have any, or at least I’m not thinking of any when I happen to be around him), and I freak out and look away.

It is getting on my nerves. He needs to stop staring at people like that. Unless he does it on purpose, to make people think he knows more than he actually does. Or he can actually read my mind, and oh my god that is not good.

I am considering transferring into his English class (not the best decision, according to him, but the other choice is Brit Lit and there is someone there I would rather not be with right now). I don’t think I will—Caribbean is not my favorite style of writing—and I don’t really want to leave my English class right now either.

But if I did, and I changed my bio class into period 8 (because then it would be free), then I would share 3.5 classes with Bryant, and maybe 4 if I changed my area studies. It is all possible, although all unlikely. With Bryant, I am unwilling to sacrifice too much. Or maybe I am, in general, unwilling to sacrifice too much now. Because there is too much pain associated with sacrificing. And it won't always end well.

. . .

This week was awful. Beyond awful, but I don't have words to describe it. But I have figured out both equations to my take-home portion of the multi test, and that is due next week, so I am grasping onto hope (even if I only have a few strands of it). I am hoping tomorrow (and the next week, and the next month, and the next year) will be better.

After all, tomorrow is another day.

A New Year, A New... Math Team?

I thought that an explanation of math team rules would be good for anyone who is not familiar with the system, because it can be confusing. However, it appears that a readily available version of the rules online is hard to find, because on my first try all I found was this Massachusetts Mathematics League (MML) site, which mentions:

MML follows the guidelines set forth by MIAA/MSSAA (www.miaa.net).

MIAA is the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association. Fitting, considering it's been proven before that math is definitely a sport.

Of course, I found the rules on Choate's site later (why does their school have a website for math team and we don't? I think this is one of the reasons why we have so few underclassmen). As it mentions, NEAML's rules are the same as the CSAML rules, which are the same as our rules (except for no calculators on team round and we follow small-school rules regardless of size). As it also mentions, "Postgraduates are not permitted to compete in the NEAML contest."

This is apparently very important, because in 1989, one school had no idea such an unwritten rule (at the time) existed and brought a postgraduate, so they won 89 points as opposed to the 50+ points the next best school had. And this rule was only enforced since 2005.

Yay for math team trivia!

Anyway, I am talking about all of this because we had math team today! I had no idea, though, until I met with Argon during lunch and he said that Micro told him. Apparently either Bryant or Tybalt was supposed to call me (this is from Ms. Sherbert, so I am not sure how well that was executed), but that is probably impossible because: a) they do not have my phone number, and b) I am not in the directory, so they can't even find me if they wanted to. Which they most likely did not, because I saw Bryant and/or Tybalt multiple times today, and they mentioned no such thing.

This lack of information also spread to "the girls," as they are now called, so at least it's not just me. And, of course, because they were not there, Argon and Micro were the only non-seniors, and that is problematic, because we can only have three seniors.

On round sign-up, so many people chose the latter rounds, so competition will probably be tough. Not that it was any surprise—there's Bryant (who will most likely always go), Tybalt, and then there's I-don't-know-about-Mario. I saw him earlier, so maybe he did not get the message either. I am aiming for geometry, as always (I don't understand why people don't like that round), and I am slightly better at coordinate geometry now. Slightly. I did one of the problems relatively quickly. Mass improvement.

I just hope the run-off questions won't be picked from past NEAML questions. Those tend to be significantly harder.

Of course, math team is also a social event. I got to see Yuma (okay, so I did share a free with him right before), Tea, Gretchen, Argon, and even Micro (who did not know that Yuma was called Yuma—he just knew what Yuma looked like). Dino also has a new, purple shirt. I like purple, and I guess it looks nice on him (although this is highly biased because by now I think anything not navy looks nice on him). Yuma also had a purple shirt, on Friday, and he had a new, grey shirt today. I like the new wardrobe change (well, I really, really like purple dress shirts and the like), which I think came from his trip to Taiwan. He also has a lot of new, cute things. Amazingly cute things.

Now why doesn't Bryant follow suit and get some new, non-back-full-of-distracting-designs shirts?

Quand nous étions en classe d'anglais

Mario insisted on talking about math.

There are, of course, plenty of Mario stories I can tell from today's English class. In fact, being in Mario's English class may prove to be a unique experience altogether, but I digress. These stories start, obviously, with Mario's arrival into the classroom, fashionably late, with a cup of coffee in his hand.

Then, during self-introduction/name-a-book time, he said, "I really like the Redwall books. The mice books. It's about a lot of—rodents—and, uh, then there's the part where you get to read about rodents killing each other."

Or something to that effect. I forgot his exact words. I think everyone was busy laughing at him, anyway.

After the introduction round, Mr. Littney tried to recite everyone's name. He came to Mario and couldn't remember his name. Mario replied, "It's a plain vanilla name," which obviously helped. Then, Mr. Littney confused Mario with Lyle, which I am not sure how that happened, but luckily Lyle had arrived late with a pink note, so Mr. Littney just referred to the note.

During discussion time, we were talking about the Aciman article, and Archie said he felt cheated because the author eventually revealed that not all that he write about (even supposedly non-fiction and memoirs) is real. Mario sprung into a detailed discussion that can, to the best of my ability, be broken down into the following points:

• people fit into templates
• different people think in different ways
• these different ways can be described as a 3D space, where the real is on a line, and the not-so-real is on some plane
• of course, this 3D space is only an analogy, and analogies don't really work all the time

This soliloquy took around 5-10 minutes, and English class promptly ended soon afterwards. I would have gladly reminded him of real/imaginary/complex numbers in a Cartesian plane to further his analogy, but I'm not sure Mr. Littney could have stood any more Mario-talk for at least half an hour (if not more). He even started to half-interrupt near the end of Mario's soliloquy.

At lunch, I saw Argon (and I finally returned his number theory notes), Gretchen, Yuma (well, okay, so we had a free together), Tea, Nyx, and numerous other people (I remember Kathrya, but not who else was there). Yuma and I played a game of go, in which I lost miserably, and then Yuma played Nyx, in which she also lost miserably. And there really isn't any purpose to bringing these people up, I suppose, except to promote equality among the number-count it was a great day, complex multi problem included. Lovely day.

All Sentimental

I am in a classroom, that I am sure of. There are rows of wooden desks and chairs—plank-like chairs that wobble and should not be chairs, should be a bookshelf instead, or a makeshift lock for backyard glass doors—and for a moment I think I am in China, because that is where I had seen plank chairs before. But it cannot be, because I see Paperclip people around me, Hank and one of his perverted, awkward teenage boy friends, and there is Dino, and Sonny, and I strain to see my friends, but I cannot find any.

So instead I walk up to Dino, and Sonny (as an afterthought, perhaps), and I say, "Hello."

My vowels are crisp. I say my "hello" with the "eh" and not as "hullo," and it somehow matters. My way of saying things, that is close, but not quite what I want it to be.

I do not remember if Dino says anything back. Sonny does, though. "Hi." Maybe a "how are you doing?" but that would be pushing it, I think. We are not that close.

We talk, the three of us, about things that do not matter, and I am talking just because I want to talk. Because I am running away from what I really should be doing, things that do matter, and I think Sonny senses it, because he asks me, "Should you be doing something?"

"Like what?" I ask, pretending to be coy.

"I don't know."

And this honesty shocks me, this admitting that he only knew a fleeting moment, but not anything substantial. And it makes Dino laugh, his cruel, monotone laugh, and I think that it is this laugh that I have fallen in love with, not his hair, or his eyes, or his back, or whatever else I have proclaimed it to be.

"There is a competition," I say, "French. I won, but I haven't gotten the scholarship yet. Haven't gone to pick it up."

It is a silly thing to hide. Silly me. Silly running away, not facing the truth. I do not know why it was so important that I not go and get what should be mine.

"Well, you should go, then," Sonny says.

I shook my head. "I don't want to," I say, while looking at Dino. I wanted him to be chivalrous, for once, and say, "I'll go with you."

Instead, it is Sonny who says that, while Dino just shrugs and laughs again. Sonny who pulls me into his arms, hugging me so tightly I am reminded of Vincent, remotely, and I hug him back, all calmed down, ready to tackle this apparently difficult task of grabbing for what really, really should be mine.

. . .

Then there are gender-bending moments, and I am a guy, and Sonny—or I think it is still him—is now a girl. We are a little cute, the two of us, together, wandering the halls, and I am not sure we know exactly where it is we are going. There are rooms, yes. Lots of offices. People. I ask for directions, and I get answers, but I forget them immediately and instead I try out every room until I think I have the right one. And then I forget what it is I am asking for, and I try to think of anything French, and I say Le petit prince, although that cannot be the right answer, and I know it even as I say it out loud.

Then my mom is calling me. She is. She says, "Ginny," although of course she does not really say Ginny, but my Chinese nickname instead. I think I responded, but I must have forgotten to, because she calls my name again.

And I wake up, and it is all gone. The hallway, the French, Sonny, the plank-chairs.

I can still feel Sonny's arms around me though, even if I know he is not a hugging kind of person. I cannot imagine Sonny hugging anyone, at least not now, and when he does it will probably be someone who is cheerful, and innocent, and not full of unspoken mysteries and little not-necessary lies. I am a little sad that I will not be able to know what his arms are like, but only a little. Barely there.

. . .

I am reading Anne Enright's The Gathering right now. The story itself has some mad quality to it, some dream-like appearance that is real but not reality. The reality is strange, detached, almost unreal, and the only things that are concrete are the blasphemies that were never real to begin with.

A softening of reality's jarring edges.

I have written before that I do not like reality, because it is too painful, and I do not like pain. I am constantly running away from pain, and maybe this is a wake-up call, that I am a hypocrite, because running away from pain and running toward Dino and his cruel laughs and this dream of golden blue are two very contradicting things. He is he and I am I, and in my dreams, at least, I am—despite my little not-necessary lies—as straightforward and innocent as I ever will be. In my dreams, I am capable of accepting someone who genuinely cares. In my dreams, I am able to stare into Sonny's eyes and not think about Dino, not think about how I wish everything were different.

In my dreams, I am content. And it is not reality, but it is real. Real enough, for me.

. . .

School is starting in over a week. On Wednesday. I still remember the first day of summer vacation, or the first half-day, anyway. I went to arena, got all the classes I wanted, then waited outside the front doors for an hour, talking to the people who came in and out, learning about the different schedules and feeling happy that everything, for me, anyway, worked out.

Then I walked over to the middle school, where I was meeting Argon, and I had taken off my shoes and was twirling in my white skirt, bare-footed, flip-flops on the side, and I felt the cool ground against my soles.

We were talking about math team. Gretchen was there, as was Mario, and Dino. I hated to admit it, but Mario and Dino did most of the introducing, the information-giving, and I thought to myself, "I am not really necessary here."

And then I thought about Matt and Kyle and Trevor, and Elaine, and all of the seniors, and I think, "They are not really necessary, either." They can be here, but if they were never here to begin with I do not think any of us would miss them. I think someone would have replaced them easily, and we would never miss them until we know of their existence. I, for one, do not yearn for someone who does not yet exist. Someone so real in another world, perhaps, he does exist.

Of course, that was exactly two months ago. This will probably be my last post before school starts, and when it does, I will probably go back to what I have been blogging about all along, except perhaps with a lot more college things and a lot less ranting about junior year and research papers, because that is in the past. There will be busy weeks, and not so busy weeks where I am constantly writing things and not doing things, and where words, for once, speak louder than actions.

Somewhere along the way, I know I want to realize dreams. I know I will want to find my way through the tangled half-truths and sticky, snarling pieces of memories, and of course, there is also the farewell, but I do not like to think about that yet. Not yet. It is not time yet. And I should be most familiar with this path, this last year of forlornness and realizing and complicatedness that will invariably snake its way into my decisions and leave me regretting some small thing or another ten years from now, until I do not remember what it was and only remember the regret. But not yet.

. . .

Veronica Hegarty has to—and it is not a whiny, hopefully-will-be but an absolutely-must-be—fall in love with everyone she has sex with. I, in turn, have to fall in love with everyone who loves me. It is as though I have no choice in the matter. Of course, that is not true. I can fall in love with people who do not love me back, who will never love me back. But I absolutely-must-be have to fall in love with anyone who loves me. No exceptions.

This has, I suppose, made me brazen at times. A daring I-don't-give-a-damn-about-you that has propelled me into worlds I am not supposed to trespass, but I have broken far more rules than I care about. I have long ago blurred that fine line between love and affection, because it is impossible to love so many people at once without having to spread myself somewhat, to say "I love you," and make all the gestures, but to be unable to say, "I'll do anything for you," because there are way too many of you and only one of me.

And I am happy. I think I am, and that is all that matters, not whether I am actually happy or not. I think I am happy, and I will be.

As long as Sonny never reads this. That would be difficult to explain.

In the Never Before Seen, Exclusive Side of Nephria

Namely, my unpublished drafts. Events and such that once upon a time merited some words, but then was either not important enough to be published (because other, more important things came up), or I got sidetracked and therefore did not find the time or effort to finish and publish them. Well, I'm doing a summer cleaning of sorts, in tune with my neighbor cutting down all the trees surrounding his house because one happened to be uprooted in the storm a few days earlier.

Other thing(s) before I begin: I passed my permit test! Well, sort of. I took the vision test first, which was basically me squinting and making up numbers, and the testing official being distracted (and talking to someone else) while saying, "All right, you passed, go on to the written part." Then I stood between two guys also taking the permit test, one of which passed, and one of which failed. After that, the testing official (someone else, I think) told me I had to wait because they were checking whether I was an illegal immigrant and other things like that. I mean, my visa (in my passport) wasn't enough? If I were illegal, how did I ever survive two years here?

Alas, it's protocol.

So I'm waiting to get my permit (hopefully) on Tuesday, the same day my dad leaves for Florida. On our way back from the DMV, my mom told me about the intricacies of turning (she doesn't use the hand method mentioned in the book) and the gas/brake pedal.

Now onto excerpts of my unpublished fun-stuffs.


Jan. 20th: Addicted to Freedom

Exams are finally over! I've been thinking about writing this post (what little time I had not cramming for calc or writing stories about Owen), and finally, it's time!

Alas, freedom is like that thing with feathers that perches in your soul, and comes out every so often, but is soon harnessed back by the chains of reality.

Well, the first part came from a poem by Emily Dickinson describing hope (which was on my English midterms), and I made the second part up.

The actual "exams" part of exams wasn't too bad, I suppose. I talked to Kyle after our stat exam, and he said it was just as he expected.

Even the fact that Mrs. MacDonald wasn't there.

But enough about them!

It's finally time to (besides finishing my EOQR) start on the miserable path of Owen-ness.

I would ask for your opinion, Owen, but considering you probably will never read my blog (or even know that you're Owen on here), I guess I'm on my own.

Jan. 23: Letters to Allie

Forty minutes to midnight.

He sat there, a piece of paper in his hand, musing. It was not in his nature to think—he was more of a do now, think later kind of person, as the twins once noted. The twins were the more contemplative types, thinking over every characteristic of the people they encountered, but he had always loved actions more than thoughts.

Right now, he wondered if it was too late to change his habits. Doing had gotten him nowhere, and now he needed answers.

Time was not waiting for him as it had always done.

He picked up the phone from his desk, stared at the glowing numbers. Who to ask? Who knew what he wanted to know? Who could he trust?

He had made enough enemies, he knew that. He had made enough mistakes. But this was one mistake he could not afford to make, one that could break his spring, crush him until he forgot who he was and why he was.

Thirty-seven minutes to midnight.


Feb. 1: Overdue-Part II

As we eventually all settled back into our rooms, with enormous amounts of junk food, we began to refocus on the problem. Or, at least, we tried to refocus on the problem. The fact that every ten minutes or so, a commercial about Saf-t-Swim, coupled with a matching "jingle" set to the tune of the Barney's theme song, would pop out of nowhere was slightly irritating.

Apparently, I was not the only one.

"If I hear that song one more time," Mogley said, "I will kill someone."

We all stared at Reese (except himself, of course).

"What?" Reese asked. "What did I do?"

"Okay everyone," Ben said. "Let's focus. What do we still need to do?"

"I don't know," I said. "Maybe search up how far our food travels? Ugh, I think I'm starting to get sick from all the cheese I ate."

I had not mentioned this before, but for lunch, I had ordered the all-cheese sandwich, because I was not a fan of turkey and I thought that cheese might have been a nice alternative. Well, the cheese was good. There was just so much of it, all dripping down everywhere. I even splattered some on the ground.

"And the candy," Joss added, motioning to the bag of candy I had in front of me.

"Hey," Reese said. "Let's turn off the lights."

I had no idea where this suggestion came from, or why, but we all agreed to it to some extent. The sun was still out by that time (although it may have been cloudy; I don't remember), so it was fairly bright in the room, especially with the light from the Smartboard. We resumed our old sitting positions, with Mogley and Ben at the desks, Joss and I on the ground, and Reese probably floating around somewhere. None of us really cared where he was, as long as he didn't distract us.

"I'm going to go get some water," Reese suddenly said. "Anyone wants to come?"

"Nope," I said.

"No," Joss said. "But get me a bag of candy while you're there."

"Oh, and get me a tea," Ben said. "What do they have?"

"Peach, lemonade, and berry."

"Okay," Ben said. "Get me a peach tea."

"Get me a berry tea," Mogley said.

"Does anyone else want drinks?" Reese asked, exasperation in his voice. But with him, it could have just been his normal voice.

"Nope," I said.

"Don't forget my tea," Mogley said.

"And don't forget my candy," Joss said.

Reese disappeared into the hallway. After a while, he came back, several food and drink items in hand.

"Here's your candy," Reese said, handing Joss a bag. He placed a can in front of Mogley. "And here's your drink."

"Did you remember my peach tea?" Ben asked.

"Oh, darn," Reese said. "I forgot."

"Cherry?" Joss exclaimed as he examined his candy closer. "Of all the flavors, you had to get cherry?"

"This tastes bad," Mogley said, after having tasted his berry tea.

"Okay, okay," Reese said. "I'll get everyone new drinks. What do you want?"

"Peach tea," Ben said.

"Lemonade," Mogley said.

"Non-cherry flavored candy," Joss said.

"They don't have anything else," Reese said.

"Another peach tea for me as well," I said.

Reese sighed and left the room again. When he was gone, I turned to look at the group.

"Did you guys really want more drinks, or did you just want him gone?"

"A little of both," Mogley said.

Oh, I can feel love in the air already. We waited for Reese to come back, and then settled back into what we were supposed to do. Which included making random outbursts over whose grammar--or lack thereof--was more correct.

Mr. Flatgrass chose this moment to pop into our room.

"Hey guys," he said. "You guys turned off the lights? To conserve energy?"

We laughed and heartily agreed. After he left, Reese said:

"He didn't realize that we had the Smartboard on. This thing uses more energy than all of the lights combined."

"Really?" I asked. Or maybe Mogley asked. I don't remember, but we were probably thinking along the same lines.

"Yeah," Reese said. He turned off the Smartboard, plunging us into darkness. It was really dark by now, which just showed how efficient we were. We all protested for Reese to turn the Smartboard back on, because we couldn't see anything.

In the end, Reese gave in, but not before putting Blackle on the projector-side of his dual screen and depriving us of more light.

We resumed our work, posting all of our sources onto an Etherpad site so Reese could MLA it all. (And I know that MLA is probably not a verb, but it's more fun as one.) We each had our own signature color (mine was purple), and originally, we had each typed our names in the spot where we identify ourselves. But of course, that wasn't going to last.

"Hey Ginny," Joss poked me. "Check out the Etherpad thing."

I turned suspicious and ctrl-tabbed on Joss's (again with the possessives) computer--only because he had Chrome and I had Opera and Opera and Google Docs are not compatible, so we had switched computers--until I reached the Etherpad tab. There, next to the red block, was the name "God."

I immediately remembered the book Tea had talked about, and changed Joss's name to "Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret," and mine to "Yes, it's me, God."

"Mogley," I said, spying our next victim. "Can I see your Etherpad thing for a moment?"

Mogley stared at me skeptically. "Why?"

"Just checking something."

Reluctantly, Mogley handed over his computer. I typed in "It's me, Annie. I hate you, Margaret."

"What?" Mogley stared at me weirdly. Lots of staring going on lately, it seemed.

I scuttled back to my computer and started typing in the Etherpad chat window. Joss punctuated every few lines with some random comment, such as SPARTA. Of course. After a while, Mogley caught on to what we were doing as well, and changed his name to "Reese, if you read this, you are going to suffer in seven days."

"You're nice," I said, sarcastically. I really liked the Annie line, so I put it in Reese's namespot instead.

"Whatever," Mogley said. He called out to Reese to check Etherpad, so, of course, Reese joined in on our chat virtually.

Annie (Reese): what Mogley? (Reese had actually used another nickname, but that would probably make Mogley's identity too clear.)

God (apparently me): hey Annie.

Annie: hey God.

God: how's life, Annie?

Annie: it's great, God.

Margaret (Joss): LOL\

Annie: :(|

Margaret: LOLOLOLOLOL

Annie: ....... (and on and on and on, but I don't like the dots so much myself.)

Reese (Mogley): yo cease.

And of course, Reese (the real one) proceeded to spam the chat with lots of dots. I offered up a virtual challenge, saying that I could probably out-spam him. Reese took it on willingly, and we started spamming the entire chat with gibberish letters (me) and lines of dots (Reese).

Suddenly, Reese said, "Who's typing?"

Oh wow. So he didn't know it was me. Joss, Mogley, and I all started laughing (rather suspiciously). Ben just buried his head into his work.

"Come on, it's one of you guys. Who's typing? Joss?"

"It's not me," Joss said.

"So it's Mogley then," Reese concluded.

"Nope," Mogley said. "I think you can tell who I am in the chat."

"Come on, who is it?"

"The one person you're not guessing," Joss said, "is actually the one you're looking for."

Mar. 4: Test Mornings

I am very, very happy I am not a sophomore right now.

There are some things I do not like about junior year (research paper, hello? and in response to my English teacher's reply to Mogley's remark of not being a "published author," I would rather not be known for my research paper, what with its present quality), but let's face it. Standardized tests are miserable. Standardized tests that last for a very, very long period of time (weeks, in fact) is downright dreadful.

Apr. 18: Undoubtedly Bored Again

Was a questionnaire. Probably didn't post it because I had other, more interesting things to talk about later (i.e. Princeton). Will post it later, maybe. Dino's not in this one. Hmm.

May 4: Santiago's Where It's At

Okay, this reminds me, we (me, Gretchen, Tea, maybe others) are right now suspended, perhaps indefinitely, above the Pacific Ocean. Not a good place to be when you're in a plane. So hopefully I'll move us out of here.

But here's the excerpt:

Ever since our trip to Easter Island, we (meaning me, Gretch, and Tea) have been stranded in limbo land because of the late onslaught of tests and such, so we (mostly me) decided that now would be a good time to actually arrive at Santiago and not be indefinitely stranded in mid-air.

Then Gretchen told me that she, too, wishes to be somewhere (mostly Japan) and not stuck in mid-air where weird currents can blow us over to Area 51 where Dino hangs out on spare weekends communicating with the other robots and aliens in a modified Morse code, so I decided that, yes, today would be a good time to arrive at Santiago.

And that's it, I suppose. This is very, very long because of that "Overdue" post that I should have posted earlier (ahem, a few months earlier), but I'd never gotten around to due to HUSH. Otherwise just a few things that I might have missed that I think should be out here and not lost forever.

Also, please, dear neighbor, plant your trees back. I don't want to die of CO2 poisoning.