middle cyclone

My day was not good.  I actually broke into tears at one point.  There is that constant feeling of panic, and it feels like I am hurtling into barriers at such great speed that I don't realize the pain until I take a second and stop, and truly feel the full impact.  My body has been trembling uncontrollably at times; the other night I woke up to feel my body convulsing and unable to stop.  When is everything going to stop?  I can't wait to escape, to get away and forget about life just for eleven days, at least.  I can't cope.  My day did not feel good because none of my days have been feeling good.

But I am listening to Neko Case, and things feel okay.

listening to:  fever - neko case

f-f-f-factoid of the day

I figured I'd just lay out a list of things about myself for this post.  I think it'd be interesting to go back on it later in my life and think about how much I've changed.  So here goes:

1. I hate yogurt.  Although it's been like this for pretty much all my life, I doubt it'll change anytime soon.  I hate the way it smells.  I think I had it once when I was seven or something like that, and it was the grossest thing ever.  I also dislike pie; I don't have good vibes about cooked fruit.
2. When something is bothering me, I get extremely introverted and I stop talking about anything.  I think it's because when something is bothering me, it will occupy the majority of my mind, and I hate talking about my problems so I'll end up not saying anything at all.  This was discovered in the summer.  Whenever Gavin and I went for a walk or hung out at his house, and something was upsetting me, he'd always ask me why I wasn't saying anything.  And then sometimes I would open up to him and we'd start having conversations again.
3. I have a hard time saying no to anything, which always leads me into conflicts or doing things I don't actually want to do.  I hate disappointing people.  I'm pretty spineless.  I wish I could tell people I don't want to do things they want me to do, but usually I just suck it up and do it.  Whenever people make plans, for example, and I don't want to go, I'll go anyways because I don't want to tell them the truth.
4. I worry a lot about how people think about me.  Probably more than what's natural.  It leads me to be pretty timid, and a lot of the time I will formulate an action in my mind but I won't act on it until I confirm that people will approve.  It's terrible, I know, but I can't help it.  Everything I say is thought and contained in my brain minutes after they are conjured, and aren't released until I have triple checked that it's alright to say it.
5. When I hear a really catchy song, I have to listen to it a million and one times, and I still would love it after that.  Case in point:  Willow Tree by Chad VanGaalen.  I listened to that song over 200 times.  In a row.  And I still love it.  I think I listened to Lemonade by The Neighbourhood Council like 50 times in a row.  Right now I am hooked on Stuck For The Summer by Two Hours Traffic.  If you have time you should check it out.

So that concludes my list for now, I am tired and today was not a good day so I'm going to go to bed and hopefully start fresh tomorrow.

checkmate checkmate!

It honestly irritates me when people set their Facebook statuses to announce to everybody that they did extremely well on their diploma exams.  I don't know why, but it's almost as if somebody is just rubbing it into everyone else's faces that they did better than anybody else.  Are you expecting people to congratulate you for beating them?  

I wish I did better on my diplomas, because I studied so extremely hard.  These marks are basically telling me the limits of my abilities.  I wish I was better, but I always wish I was better.  Right now, accepting the marks I have feels like accepting mediocrity.  I'm pretty sure I got the lowest mark on my diploma out of everyone else in my chem AP class (but then again, they all probably got in the range of 97-100%), which doesn't feel great.  Speaking of chem AP, it's pretty stressful.  I have my first unit exam tomorrow, and I'm not sure how prepared I am for it.  I think it's going to go terribly wrong.  I am almost considering dropping the class, because I don't need it for university.  Also, if I drop it, then it would give me time to learn calculus AP, which would be beneficial in university.  It's conflicting, because I really love being in that class.  And I can't say no to everyone.  It's just that in this case, there are people telling me to drop it, and people telling me not to.  And I don't know who to listen to.  Chem AP isn't turning out the way I thought it was going to, and right now I don't have enough time to work hard at it.  I need to focus on English and Math 31, because those are the marks I need to get the scholarship.  I guess this class is kind of like a free one; it doesn't really matter what happens in it, kind of like in bio last year.  I'm uneasy about how great this class is going to be, though.  

This weekend has been pretty weird.  Last night I felt pretty shitty.  I'm such a dick sometimes.  I really tried to study chem for most of the weekend, but it's been going slower than I thought it would.  I don't want to go to school tomorrow.

listening to:  lloyd i'm ready to be heartbroken - camera obscura

what the what?

Today did not feel like a good day.  It wasn't a terribly bad day, but right now I have a headache, I just finished my chemistry homework and I am really tired.  And it just feels like a lot of things sucked.

Band was boring today, which was disappointing because we played Do Not Go Gentle the entire time.  I guess it's nice to listen to the whole band play, but it's not when you listen to the same part ten times and you don't get to play for forty five minutes.  And you count every single bar to make sure you don't get lost only to get stopped two bars before you come in.  And when Mr. Willms is glaring down all of the percussionists because they are still idiots who don't know how to be quiet or not chew gum.  Honestly.  Anyways, it wasn't very fun.

I walked into English, almost late, only to realize that we were having a vocabulary test that I totally forgot about.  It was really lucky that I (really lightly) reviewed the vocabulary words, and that they were matching, or else I would have been so screwed.  We started Othello today and I'm going to have to get started on my ABC's, which is going to be a killer project that I realized I would probably have to finish earlier than I thought because I won't have spring break to do it, pretty much.  And there's like a bajillion other things to do in English during then.  And I just realized that I have to do a written piece in class tomorrow, and I have seminar.  

Math was okay, because it's never too confusing once you realize what Kotow is talking about.  But during then, I was talking to Susan and Sarah about how I'm not really taking chem AP for any reason at all, and they almost persuaded me to drop it.  If I dropped chem AP, I could use my spare to study calculus AP, which would be more useful for university since I'm taking math-based courses and no chemistry courses at all.  Plus, chemistry AP is stressing me out so badly, and I don't know why I don't understand any of the concepts.  It's like if I'm staring at everything, I see the formula but it just doesn't connect.  Which is weird, because last semester everything made so much sense to me.  I don't know what happened that made me lose so much confidence in myself, and in the fact that I am (or was) good at chemistry.  I finally struggled through my chemistry homework, and I still have to go to tutorials tomorrow to ask for help still.  I told my friends in my chem AP class that I was considering dropping it, and they all tried to persuade me not to.  And Schrottner called me the "ray of sunshine" in our class, and told me to just hang on and keep fighting through.  And I want to fight through; I really hate giving up.  But it's just so hard and it feels like I'm barely staying afloat right now.  Maybe I just need to fix my study habits and discipline myself.  

I started driving lessons today.  It's just the in-class lessons though, so they are pretty boring.  I think my instructor is from India, and sometimes you can't even understand what he's saying.  He also has long chest hair.  And he makes us all read aloud from the powerpoint or the book, and I already made a fool of myself twice.  I made a friend, though.  The girl who was sitting beside me was very nice, and she goes to Bowness, and we had a conversation about band and travel and school.  Oh, and before I went, my mom deep-fried pork for dinner so I reeked of Chinese food.  I felt really bad for everyone sitting around me because even I was getting a headache.  Yikes.

"show me the awkward"

This long weekend has been pretty good.  In short form:

a) Thursday I went to Cailey's house and Tess, Megan, Cailey and I baked an amazing cake only to realize that we forgot to grease the pans.  So we decided to just make a mountain cake and put dinosaurs on it (we were celebrating Darwin's birthday, if that makes the dinosaurs logical) and it turned out to just be a mess.  Also, our icing was extremely sweet so it was really hard to eat, although the cake was good!

b) Friday I played a lot of Guitar Hero and drew a design for our band trip t-shirts.  I like it, so hopefully they decide to use it!  My sister kept coming up with weird ideas for me to draw, but I don't think I'm going to do them.  Then I went to Golf Town in the evening and hit a lot of balls.  So many that my hands were raw and tired, and the next day every muscle I used was sore.  I haven't golfed in a while.

c) Saturday I worked for the first time in like three weeks, and it was kind of boring although nice to see Jenna again.  We played Text Twist for the last two hours, which actually helped make the time go by.  After that I went to Gavin's birthday party and had a blast.  We played a lot of Guitar Hero (World Tour), fooseball, pool, and darts.  It was overall a good time.

d) Today I watched High School Musical 3, which is ridiculous but I'll probably watch it again in like ten minutes just because.  After that I went to Gavin's house to play some music, which was pretty good.  We made a new song today!  It sounded nice.  My sister killed my records for Cliffs of Dover and so I tried to beat her, but I can't.  She is the king.

I guess that wasn't really short form, but there were a lot of little things that went on.  The most hilarious thing happened today, though.  While my sisters, my mom and I were in the kitchen, I went to go get a glass of juice.  My older sister was having peanut butter on bread.  When I left my glass at the counter to put away the box of juice the fridge, I heard a slurping sound only to turn around and see my sister accidentally spill all of my juice from her mouth because she was laughing so hard.  It was so weird.  I laughed really hard, which hurt because my ribs still hurt a lot.

"how are you?"

I just have to say I am so thankful I have Mikalina Carss in my life. She writes me notes when I least expect them. She asks me if I am fine, not just to hear that I'm fine, but to make sure that I'm not going through things alone again. She brings me a carton of ice cream to cheer me up, or a container of homemade chocolate chip cookies when I am at my lowest point. She hugs me and makes me feel so good about myself, so comfortable and so assured that things will be alright. She laughs at my jokes and puts up with my harassment, and she is just an amazing friend. I am so lucky. I cannot wait forty-five more days, when we get to spend two weeks in Germany just hanging out pretty much 24/7.

Speaking of band, that class is at the same time so great yet so frustrating. I love when we get to play through Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, top to bottom. That song doesn't feel like twelve minutes long. Even though we still have a lot of stuff to fix and we make so many mistakes, the skeleton of that song sends chills down my spine. There are so many great parts in that songs, and when I listen to it, my skin turns cold and trembles. It's a weird sensation. But then, when we have to work on small parts of the song, it drives me crazy because we always have to spend such a long time focusing on just one tiny part of the band. I know that it'll make us sound so much better when those things get fixed, but I get so impatient when I have to wait half an hour for the bass line to correct themselves. Honestly, if you can't get your part right, why don't you practice? It would benefit yourself and then entire band. And what is up with the percussion section? They drive me nuts, especially since I always get grouped with them when they act like idiots. They can't even count rests, or play dynamics, or just clue in to the fact that when the band is playing, you should shut your mouth and maybe listen to how things are coming along. It is so frustrating.

But enough about me ranting about band. This week actually hasn't been too bad. Calculus is way easier than I imagined it would be, and now I just sit in the back with my friends and try really hard to listen to Kotow go on about limits and approaching zero. English isn't as bad as I thought it would be either, because we have been doing so many personal responses, and this year I just have so many experiences that I can relate to so many things. I guess some good does come out of heartbreak. I don't know why I always feel compelled to complain about English, though. I do like Writers Workshop because we get to write for the entire period. I guess I've just been so accustomed to disliking being forced to write. I am so bad at writing songs, or poems, or stories when I have to write them. Usually I write better when the idea just spontaneously comes to mind, and everything just flows together. I haven't written anything great in the past year or so, though, so maybe I need to try harder.

Chem AP is the only class I am worried about right now. There are so many complicated concepts to know and understand, and I am a terrible listener when it comes to notes and lectures. Today Mr. Schrottner wasn't at school, and pretty much nobody in my class (which is like, seven people out of the nine) understood anything that we had to read last night. Looks like tutorials until May. Fantastic. I thought that chem AP would be my favorite class, because I really like chemistry and I love small classes, but it's looking to be a real struggle and I am too lazy to try to work hard. Although I am trying.

"a reason to be closer"

I just realized.

There's a much bigger picture that my life is painting.  I'm just living this tiny, concentrated square.  I wish I could take a step backwards and see where things are taking me.  I am working so hard for a purpose I don't even know.  I really hope it works out.

What if I am wrong about everything?