Star Gazing Fool

A ship is safe at harbor, but that is not what it is built for

2009-05-23T21:28:00.001-05:00

Sometimes I complain about my new school, sometimes I ask myself why on earth I didn't just stay at the other school and get my degree there, sometimes I feel like running away... But at heart I know it's for the best that I moved. I may not be quite happy with my life right now, but I'm happier than I would be if I had stayed here.

Living never wore one out so much as the effort not to live

2009-04-19T10:59:00.003-05:00

I'm actually pretty proud of myself. I've done some things that required a little bit of bravery, one of which has needed doing for a long, long time.

On Tuesday evening, I went to a Fab Four (Beatles tribute) concert all on my own. I absolutely love the Beatles, and this is the closest I will ever come to actually seeing them. They were very good, and sounded very, very close to the Beatles. Of course, you knew it wasn't actually the Beatles so that diminished the excitement somewhat, but it was an enjoyable evening and definitely worth ten dollars.

However, I had to go alone. I didn't have anyone to go with. Most people my age aren't wild about the Beatles, and I don't have any friends here that I could've dragged along.

It was fine until intermission. They had a long intermission, and I was sitting alone towards the top of the auditorium above the exit, and I felt really obvious. However, no one really cared. Any insecurities I had about it were in my own mind. I mean, if I went with a friend and saw someone sitting alone, I would barely notice. I certainly wouldn't think, "Wow, look at that loser who came here alone, what is wrong with her." If anything, I would admire her bravery and maybe be thankful that I had someone to go with. But I wouldn't be mentally trashing her. I feel better about myself since I had the nerve to do that.

I wouldn't mind going to a movie alone; however, I don't think I could brave eating at an actual sit-down restaurant by myself. I've been to fast food places and eaten alone, but I would feel too awkward at a real restaurant.

This morning I went to church alone, too. That is something that I should have done eight months ago when I first got here. But it's never too late. I wish that I had started going back then, but I did not, and I have learned that there is no point in regretting the past. It won't solve anything, and there is no better way to agonize over something that cannot be changed than wishing you had done this or hadn't done that.

I'm glad that I went. I intend to go back next weekend.

I have realized that I can live with this, the problem that bothers me every day. There are people with much worse burdens to bear. If God has led my life in this direction, then I can handle it. It's that simple. I'm not alone, never have been alone, never will be alone. It won't be easy, and I'm not saying that this is going to last forever, but while it is here I can handle it, whether it continues for two more weeks or for the rest of my life.

The difference between knowing and doing

2009-04-06T20:19:00.000-05:00

Isn't it strange, how hard it is to make what you believe and know rationally in your head influence how you actually feel?

I have so many reasons to be happy right now, but instead, I tend towards the melancholy.

I know that I have been blessed with so much, but so many times, instead of celebrating those blessings, I want more, more, more. I mope about the things that aren't great.

Something small and insignificant can bring me so low. Something that shouldn't matter makes me have really negative thoughts.

I know what I ought to do. I know that I ought to be happy. But it doesn't work out that way.

Why is that? I do not understand myself.

Skydiving.

2009-03-23T20:51:00.002-05:00

Wow.

Just, wow. I think I have discovered my One True Hobby.

I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time writing about the experience itself it in this blog because I have done that elsewhere, and because you can go online and find all sorts of tales of skydiving. But just rest assured that it was super.

Strangely enough, I felt very little fear. I was a bit apprehensive as we drove to the dropzone, and then a little more apprehensive as I signed the waivers and watched the training video, but when it came time to board the plane, and throughout the jump itself, I was not nervous at all, just ecstatic.

It's not that I'm brave, though. Never think that I am brave. My cowardice just takes a different form. I'd rather jump out of a plane a thousand times than turn around and talk to Beautiful Eyes, or approach him in Wal-Mart or at the library.

They say everything comes out even in the end, and I suppose it's true. I was fearless when it came to skydiving, but I am incapable of even meeting the eye of a cute guy at a gas station who's looking at me. I am the girl who will only go shopping on Tuesdays because she knows that a certain someone has lab that day and will not be in the stores, but is not afraid of parasailing or hang gliding or skydiving.

Everyone who went loved it, and I think almost all of us said we wanted to go again. Of course, not everyone will. I am going to, I know that for sure, but I'm not too certain about the others, even the two who organized the whole event. But it was too amazing to not go again! I can't imagine never doing that again! On Facebook, I found this quote: For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return. It's so true! Between January, when I decided to go, and now, I would look up at the sky and wonder what it was going to be like. Now I know, and now I look at the sky and think of going again.

Completing the accelerated freefall course will cost at leat $1,710, but I'm going to do it. Since I am a student and have three more years of school, it's going to be awhile. The people I went with plan to go again in the summer, and if they don't, I'll go alone. I'll get a friend to go with me and watch/keep me company. I can't avoid this.

Leave it to me to pick one of the most dangerous and expensive hobbies! Hahaha!

This may sound silly or overly dramatic, but seriously, this has made me feel a lot more favorable towards things. I now have motivation to stay in school and not drop out no matter how bad it gets, because if I don't graduate, I won't be able to afford to do this. If I do graduate, I should hopefully even be able to afford my own custom setup someday, and those start at about 3 grand. I was never suicidal, but I saw where it could develop. This gives an additional reason to keep pressing on.

I like skydiving even better than I like Beautiful Eyes. I now have that lovely memory to sink into when I start feeling bad about other things. It's something good that I can always fall back on, and motivation to keep doing what I've been doing, only better.

Of course, I haven't made a good start on that today. I've been too busy wasting my time on the internet.

One thing I can say is that I liked myself when I was doing it. I don't hate myself, but typically I don't really like myself, either. I'm always too loud, or too quiet and mousy, or too stupid, or too weird, too irritating, too fat, too lazy, too afraid... but I wasn't any of that then. I wasn't afraid. I wasn't angry or sad. There's a picture of me that was taken right after I landed, and I love it, because I looked so darn happy. I don't have any other pictures where I look like that. I want to look like that more often.

My new hobby, it was born on Saturday.

Everything was fine when you were alone, or at home, but as soon as you were with other people you were in difficulties

2009-03-16T00:21:00.002-05:00

Sometimes I wonder whether or not a group of women exists that gets along without silly little petty issues.

I am friends with several girls about my own age (21-22). We have known each other and been friends since high school, but we've all parted ways now and gone all over the state, so we see one another only rarely. We do communicate to a greater or lesser extent online, but of course that is not quite the same as seeing one another in person.

On the surface, we all get along well. We rarely fight or argue, little disagreements don't amount to much, and everyone is friendly with everyone else.

And yet, when I talk to them one-on-one, I find that resentments frequently bubble beneath the surface. Sometimes they take an incident and try to turn it into something that it is not, while other times, they dislike someone's personality or basic behavior.

I'll admit, I used to be bad about being secretly resentful and wounded. Even now, I am sometimes hurt when I find that I was excluded from something, or left out of something else. But I've basically accepted it. It's not intentional. If they don't invite me to something, it's not because they secretly dislike me or because they're mad at me, it's because they were just being somewhat thoughtless, or because they didn't think I'd be able to go, or because they forgot me. I don't really take it personally anymore. It might sting for a little while, but in general, I just let it go.

I have learned to keep my mouth shut. I am not as closely knit to the group as others because I keep my mouth shut. When I disagree with something, I don't say anything at all. When something offends me, I just take it (that's pretty rare, though).

I have learned that telling people my secrets will not necessarily make them tell me theirs, so I am very careful about sharing. I have a tendency to open up to people at random times, which is okay, except for when they don't open up in return. One friend in particular always wants to know the latest gossip, always wants to be in on everything, but she never shares anything deep about herself. I don't know what she thinks about Obama or whether or not she has a crush on anyone, I don't know why she is having a disagreement with another friend or if they have made things up, I don't know anything. She never says, but she always wants to know everyone else's secrets.

On Saturday night I referenced something (someone, to be exact- Beautiful Eyes) that I don't really want to discuss with them. Fortunately, it didn't come up again tonight. I was glad, because when I got home, I asked myself why I brought it up. I don't want them to know my problems and secrets when they haven't told me any of theirs.

I don't even know what to say

2009-03-02T20:41:00.002-06:00

Okay.

So, last semester, I did pretty poorly in school. This semester has been a little bit better, but things still haven't been liked they used to be when I was at my other school. Last Tuesday, I had a test in a class we'll call Frustrations II. It was the second test of the semester. I barely studied for the first test, but I somehow managed to get a B.

For this second Frustrations II test, I wanted to do well. I wanted to get an A in the class. Frustrations I and II have a lot of math, and it's not particularly difficult math, so I thought that I should be able to do fairly well.

So I started studying early, because although the math isn't difficult, it's easy to make mistakes. The test consisted of 100 points worth of material from Frustrations II, and 20 points of review material from Frustrations I. I spent a good amount of time reviewing the material from Frustrations I (the professor told us exactly which material it would be). I had it down! I was ready for it. I started studying on Saturday, on one of my rare weekends home! When Tuesday rolled around, I felt ready. I didn't feel confident of making 100% or anything like that, but I felt good about it.

I took the test, and it went pretty well. There were two questions I was pretty sure I missed, and one math question that was a bit troublesome, but all-in-all I thought I had done pretty well. I thought I'd gotten an A on it.

I got to class this morning, and the professor began handing back the tests. The girl next to me said, "Uh oh, this could make my day a whole lot worse." I laughed and said "Awww" because I thought that I had done well enough that it wouldn't damage my day.

Well, wasn't I just all kinds of wrong! I got mine back and flipped through it to find my grade. I got an 88 - but that's 88 out of 120, not 88%. So that comes out to a 73%.

I looked to see what I had missed. I did okay throughout the 100 points of Frustrations II material; I missed several things I hadn't expected missing, and I only got one point of partial credit for the 6 point math problem I'd messed up on.

But I did okay until the review from Frustrations I. I missed four out of the five problems, even though I had been sure I'd gotten at least 4 of the 5 correct!

We are able to rework the Frustrations I review problems and turn them in for one point of credit each, so of course I planned to do that. I finally steeled myself to look through the test to see exactly what I'd done wrong on the review.

Here's the thing: I don't even know. I fixed one of them (I hadn't realized what the professor was asking, so I missed it), but as for the other three, I have no earthly idea what I did wrong. Seriously! I have my tests from last semester, a textbook, and notes, and I still don't know what I did wrong!

How can I fix them if I don't even know what the problem is?!??

I am so frustrated. I studied for the first Frustrations II test for about 2 hours, and got a B. This time, I studied for much longer than that, and got a C. What's wrong with this picture?!

Why did I bother studying? I mean, I get Cs without studying... so why did I waste the time?

I don't know what I'm doing that is so wrong. Why does everything here blow even when I do what I'm supposed to do? I mean, last semester, my grades were so terrible because I didn't study. This time, I did study, and my grade was still awful! What more can I do? Other than sit here and cry about it, that is. I wonder how many of the people who did better than me spent as much time studying as I did? Probably not many of them. It seems that I am just a moron. I am so sick of things always being like this.

There are times when I really wish that I had just stayed at my other school, kept my freakin' sweet scholarship, and majored in something else. I was going to do business, originally. What happened to that? I should've stuck with it. I could be graduating in May, instead of having to endure 2.5 or 3 more years of this torture!

I wanted this so badly. How did my great big wonderful dream turn into this nightmare?

Always Indecisive

2009-02-28T17:54:00.003-06:00

So, as you can tell from my previous entries, I wanted to get into this school desperately. I wanted it more than I wanted anything else. I succeeded, and moved in August.

Now, I wasn't expecting it to be an easy change for me, but I was definitely not expecting to fall into a deep depression. But that's what happened. Nothing in life is ever what you expect it to be, and this was no different. I am not sure why I thought everything was going to be perfect when I moved out here, but I learned very quickly that I was very wrong.

Everything suffered. I cried all the time, my grades were absolutely awful, I didn't make any new friends, I developed a new crush within fifteen minutes of hitting the school for the first time, I had no appetite and no motivation to do anything.

Last semester was awful. I had been "depressed" before, but never anything like this. I had never lacked the motivation to make changes the way I did last fall. I didn't want to do anything but sit in my comfy chair and idle around on the internet. I didn't read any books or play The Sims, I didn't do any of my usual things. I just moped.

I was never suicidal, but I did have thoughts about how dying would be a relief.

So, how are things now, six months later? Well, I'm doing a lot better. I am more motivated to study, and I'm getting better grades. Slightly better, anyway. I don't have zillions of new friends, but then again, I haven't made much of an effort to make friends. In high school, I always had lots of friends, but back then I was involved in band and such, and I met people and spent more time with them. Here, I don't do anything but go to class.

So, we're approaching May of 09, and many of the people who are my age are graduating from college. And then there's me. One of my friends has already graduated, is married and has a baby. That makes me feel like the world's biggest loser! FYI, my pitiful "relationship" status has not changed.

If I had stayed at my other school, I could be graduating this May, too. If I had stayed with my business degree, or maybe even with my second degree choice, I could be finishing up. And I wouldn't have payed a dime for school. Instead, I'm here, paying a horrendous amount each semester, with three more years of this to look forward to.

So, if I could go back to 2006 or 2005 and stay put, would I?

I don't know. I can't say.

It's like I spend my whole life waiting for some magical event to happen so that I can really start living, but I don't even know what it is that I'm waiting for. I need to stop doing that. This move was obviously not that magical event. There is no magical event. I need to grow up and realize that this is my life, that my life is occurring now. These are my golden years!

Fearlessly the idiot faced the crowd... smiling

2009-01-31T11:59:00.000-06:00

I didn't realize it had been so long since I posted. Wow! So much has happened! I kind of cringe when I read back over my old entries. I had no idea what was in store for me, that's for sure...

Here I am, doing what I want to do, and am I happy? Well, maybe. Nothing in life is ever what you expect. I thought everything would be great when I got here, I thought it was all going to be sunshine and roses. I was so wrong!

A new semester, but the old still lingers

2009-01-08T22:34:00.002-06:00

Thinking back, the actions of last semester seem recent - for example, listening to the music that I was on, like London Calling - but the feelings seem distant. Was I really depressed like that so recently? Was I ever? It's hard to believe that it's only been about 3 weeks since I felt like that.

Someday you will find me, caught beneath the landslide...

2008-05-07T22:39:00.002-05:00

I GOT IN!!!

Yeah, that's right, after all of my agonizing (and it's been going on for well over a year, trust me on that one) I got in!

Needless to say, I am excited.

But there are some people who seem to suck the excitement out of any situation. I'm not the only person to have met people like that, am I? Sadly, my mother tends to be one of them. It's not so bad until she starts in, asking questions, worrying, etc. She is bad about worrying, which really grates on my nerves.

I have a friend, Michelle, who is even worse about it. She doesn't even have to open her mouth, her presence alone sucks the magic and special feeling out of a situation. Maybe it's just because I've been around her long enough to know that she is certain to make a comment, or ask a question, that will break the moment and make the most special, cool thing seem mundane and ordinary. She's good at bringing up the negatives, and never hesitates to do so. So now, if there's something special going on and she's there, it loses the luster. We could go to Europe and visit some magnificent building or museum, and I'd just have to look sideways at her for it to seem like nothing special at all. If Hogwarts were real and she went there, the magic would stop working because she'd make comments like, "Gee, this castle is cold. That sucks," and "Those suits of armor are really irritating, the way they clank around and sing songs" and "The candles over the house tables look tacky," and "When the people in the paintings leave, the paintings look really retarded!"

Of course, I don't see a whole lot of Michelle these days...

She is also going to be thrilled when I don't get all A's this semester. It'll be the first time, and she's going to love it. she's quite competitive, and even though she is going to a different college, she always looks up the honor roll at the college I'm attending to see who all is on it. It's absolutely going to make her summer when I'm not. The culprit is organic chemistry, and when I got that acceptance letter, my motivation to study and make an A went straight out the window. As long as I get a C, I'm good. I don't think I will get a C, but even if I do, it's not going to be the end of the world, not by any means. I'm likely to wind up with a B, which is certainly respectable in that class! It wasn't so bad that an A was impossible, and in fact I had an A until I started slacking off and didn't study for that last test... oops. Heh heh.

Now I can enjoy the summer! I am going to try my best to enjoy every minute of it. This fall, it's going to be study study study for several years, fortunately. No, I don't enjoy studying, but it's much better than the alternative! I can't wait to get out of this town...

(S)he had that hopeless look a person has who always loses at everything

2008-04-15T23:19:00.002-05:00

"Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.
Four be the things I'd been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt."
~Dorothy Parker

So, I had an interview today, for the school I want to go to in the fall.

At the time, I felt that it went fairly well. I mean, for some really strange reason, I wasn't very nervous at all. I expected to be sweating and shaking horribly, but I wasn't. I don't know what got into me. I didn't do terrific and totally wow the interviewers with my awesome, thoughtful answers, but I thought that I did much better than I had feared. I didn't even have any nightmares about this, which was a true shock! I tend to have dreams about everything... Anyway, after I left and started home and had time to think about it, I started getting nervous. One of the interviewers was a student of that school, and I started to think that maybe she decided I was a crank and not worth the time. Maybe one of my early answers made her think, forget it, and just totally dismiss everything else I said and the essay I wrote. For several minutes in the middle of the interview, she was sitting there fiddling with her bracelet or her watch or her cuffs or something. I couldn't tell exactly what she was doing, and I couldn't figure why she was doing it. I mean, what's up with that? Geez.

Times like these, I seriously wish that I had chosen something easier for my career. Why couldn't I have just stuck with business? It might have been boring as can be and might not have been exactly what I wanted to do, but at least I didn't have these kinds of worries. Plus, I have the song "Champagne Supernova" associated with this school, for some reason, and typically it's a happy song - a song for the town I'm moving to, a song for getting away. Well, the other night I had a dream and that song was in the dream, and I was sad and depressed because I had moved out and was all alone without my family. It was extremely depressing.

So now I get to worry for about a month, until I find out. It's going to be a rough month, that's for sure. At least I got this far, to even have an interview. But that doesn't mean I'll make it the whole way. I wish I could quit worrying about it. But I mean, I tried so hard. I really did. I've been working for this for a long time now! And I just... don't know. "Never be afraid to share your dreams with the world. Because there is nothing the world loves more than the taste of really sweet dreams."

For millions of years, in millions of homes, a man loved a woman...

2008-03-24T12:49:00.000-05:00

When I was young, I never really wanted kids. The idea of having children just never really appealed to me, but I always thought I'd have them because everyone does. That was how it seemed to work, you grew up, got married, and had kids. Plus, I knew that my mother was going to want grandchildren, and I loved her and so I wanted her to have them.

I never really thought about it, just went along with the assumption that I would grow up, get married, and have kids. When I was fifteen and in ninth grade, I actually gave it some thought, and I came to the conclusion that I didn't want kids. I surveyed a LOT of people, all of my friends and quite a few acquaintances. Out of them all, one of them said she wasn't sure whether or not she wanted kids, and another said she didn't. All of the rest wanted to have children someday.

A few years ago, I found the MySpace pages of those two girls, and under "Children" both of them have put "Someday."

So I figured that I was the only one out of my group of friends who didn't want kids, or at least I was the only one who was willing to admit it. In late 2005, I somehow found myself at the "Childfree" LiveJournal communities. A person who is childfree does not want children; they call themselves childfree instead of childless because childless implies that they're missing something and they feel that they aren't. "Childfree?" I thought. "A bunch of other people who don't want kids?! Wow! They're just like me!" I read those communities for several months, but eventually I got enough of the crap on them and the drama and everything else (I consider LiveJournal to be one of the great sewers of the internet), and I quit reading.

But I still considered myself to be "childfree." I didn't want kids, and I had no plans to have any.

So has that changed? Well... maybe. I think I now qualify as a "fence sitter." "Fence sitters" aren't sure whether or not they want kids. I'm in that category now. I don't want them, but I know feel that I could change my mind on that and decide that I do want them someday.

But I don't think I'll be having my own. For one thing, I don't think I will be able to have kids without doing a bunch of fertility treatments, and I won't do that. It's expensive, it has the potential to really break your heart if it doesn't work, and maybe that is God's way of telling you that you shouldn't have kids of your own. There are lots of kids that need to be adopted, and I would rather do that. It might not be "MY VERY OWN" but at least I'll be helping a child and not adding to the overpopulation on the planet. That's another rant I won't get into, other than to say that I believe God gave us this planet to use, and we're abusing it. We've trashed it, this beautiful planet, and it's just being ruined. It's sad.

I've also found myself wanting to make families that have babies or children in The Sims, and I have been looking at parenting message boards and blogs, and I even subscribed to the "Baby Blues" comic strip.

I really like parenting blogs, especially the "Because I Said So" blog here on Blogger. Well, actually, I don't like all parenting blogs. I like the ones that are amusing, and not really sappy. I don't enjoy reading about how a person's children are the best in the world, or anything like that. (And that applies to more than just parenting blogs, too. I know lots of people think that about themselves, but no one else cares.) Sweet moments are fine, but not the constant superiority or sappiness. That's more than I can take.

So will I end up having children, either my own or adopting? I don't know. It's a possibility, I suppose. I'm not going to just run out and have kids/adopt because that's what everyone else does, but I also don't have my heart set against it, either.

It follows me around. This is the way I live.

2008-03-12T22:55:00.002-05:00

My mother is no fan of television. She's not a fan of movies, either, but television tends to cause much more dislike in here. Growing up, I always kind of went along with her and her dislike of TV, but secretly, I liked it. I enjoyed watching it, even when I knew that I was watching something stupid and mindless. I wouldn't tell HER that, but I thought it just the same.

Recently, that has started to change. I watch movies quite often because my friends want to; I do enjoy movies but only some of them. I'm not one of those people who wants to see most movies that come out, in fact, if I had my choice, I'd see very few of the movies that come out.

Television is even worse. Alison loves both movies and TV, and recently we were sitting in the lobby of the dorm she lives in, watching TV. I got so bored with it that I started reading my book and a newspaper instead. There just aren't many things on TV that I am interested in watching. The stupid, mindless stuff now bothers me, even though I enjoyed it before.

There are some things that I would like to watch, though. The history channel and the discovery channel both come to mind, but I don't think there is a way to subscribe to just those two stations. It's funny, how I've come to be more like my mother, even though I didn't really want to.

I haven't yet heard anything from the college I want to go to this fall. I'm starting to get a little nervous. I submitted my application a month and a half ago, and they said they'd send a letter "shortly after the deadline." Well, it's been a month and twelve days since the deadline, and I haven't yet heard a word. We're supposed to hear from them even if we don't get in, so I probably shouldn't be worried but... what if they sent a letter and it got lost in the mail?! I think other people have gotten letters, it's just me that hasn't.

This is... the way I live.

There must be some kind of way out of here, said the joker to the thief

2008-02-16T23:58:00.003-06:00

If all goes according to plan, I will be moving out this fall and going to live in a town three and a half hours away from my home. If all does not go according to plan, I will hopefully be doing that anyway.

How I feel about this depends on my mood. Sometimes, I think that I just can't wait to move out, and that it will be the happiest day of my life. Other times, I want to cry and I feel sad and guilty because I'm going to be leaving my parents.

Typically, I feel somewhere between those two extremes. Today happens to be one of the days when I feel as though those five months can't go by quick enough. Okay, it's not quite that bad, but I am feeling as though it will be wonderful to get out of here and live on my own. Yesterday, I was told that I am staying out too late and that it's not safe to be out at 4:00 am... Maybe that's true, but I'm 21 years old, I'm NOT stupid about that sort of thing, I never go to bars, parties, or do that sort of thing. I know that "bad things can always happen," but when you're 21 you don't really want lectures from your parents about coming home early.

All that the lecturing has done is to make me absolutely determined that when I do move out, I am going to take the first chance I get to stay out all night, on purpose. Maybe I'll go to a bar until it closes, then go to a 24 hour restaurant, maybe I'll just hang out at a friend's house, but one way or another, I will stay out until the sun dawns on the next day. And best of all? My parents will have no idea!

Don't get me wrong, my parents could be MUCH worse; they aren't extremely strict, they're nosy. By nature, I am a secretive person, and their nosiness just causes me irritation.

I don't really know how it's going to be when I move out. People adapt to things very quickly, I know that from experience, so I might get used to it without a problem. I'm thinking that it's going to be difficult at first, and that I'm going to spend a lot of time crying and feeling guilty, but then I'll get used to it and LOVE IT. I think it's going to be great to have my own place and be able to do my own thing without having to answer to anybody. I'll be able to listen to my music, keep the sound on with my video games, turn off any phones that annoy me, I won't have any animals to be dealing with, and so on...

I think I will be lonely sometimes, though. I'll be going somewhere new, and I won't know very many people. In a way, that's good - new friends, getting away from the old ones who I want to get rid of, completely starting over - but in a way, it's going to be really hard. I'm picturing myself sitting in an apartment all the time, unless of course I end up having to live in the dorms. I don't know if I will be that unhappy, though; I am a solitary person and I am typically very happy alone. A lot of my favorite things are done alone: reading, playing computer games, wasting time on the internet, writing...

It will be hard to be without friends, though. Some weekends I get really bored and listless and just want to go out and have fun.

But I'll get used to it. In fact, I might get where I like it so much that I become a hermit. Don't think that I haven't thought about it; sometimes I think that the best thing to do would be to go and build a cabin in the woods somewhere as far away from "civilization" as I could get.

All the rest of us are just acting like we understand

2008-02-10T22:03:00.000-06:00

On Friday evening, I was driving one of my friends home when I saw a strange pattern of light on the back window of my car. It looked like sunlight does when it filters through leaves in the summer, or like light that is reflecting off of water and has a shimmering appearance. My friend saw it too when I called her attention to it, so I know I'm not going crazy. Despite our jokes about demons, I'm sure it was just some quality of the street lights in the area we were driving through.

But looking at it and thinking of how it looked reminded me very strongly of a description in a book I loved when I was younger: The House With a Clock in its Walls, by John Bellairs. That book was one of my favorites, and I reread it yesterday and today, and it turns out that it is still one of my favorites. (Most of my favorites are kid books. I know, I know, but I don't care.) There are a whole lot of books by John Bellairs, and I've read many of them and enjoyed them all.

After I read the book, I got online and looked it up. It has a favorable rating on Amazon, and then I decided to search IMDb to see if it had a movie adaptation. It did not, and I was relieved.

I just know that I can't be the only person who doesn't like it when my favorite books are turned into movies. I love reading, and I do have some favorite movies, but it just seems like it takes all of the imagination out of my favorite books to see them as movies.

For one thing, they never make the movies long enough, because obviously, they can't fit in ever little detail from the books, or else the movies would be like 24 hours long in some cases. Harry Potter books are a perfect example. I saw the movie this summer when it was in the dollar theater and it wasn't bad, but it wasn't that great, either. (I usually refuse to see movies of the books I like, but I make exceptions for Harry Potter because of Harry Potter. Guys who look like that are my favorite...) There was so much stuff that annoyed me because it was different from how it is in the books. Maybe I should just relax and enjoy it, but it's irritating because they're RUINING my BOOKS!!

There have been a lot that have gone in that direction, too. Harry Potter, obviously. The Chronicles of Narnia. Most recently I discovered that Inkspell, a book that doesn't seem to be that well-known, is also going to be made into a movie. ARRGH!! There's another one that I won't go to see.

What's also frustrating is that a lot of my friends want to go see these movies. They never want to go with me to see the little kid Pixar/Dreamworks movies like Ratatouille, Shrek, and Happy Feet, but they all want to go see Harry Potter and Narnia. *sigh*

Speaking of books, I recently read one that was absolutely terrible. I knew that it wasn't likely to be a masterpiece because it was at Dollar Tree which sells everything for $1, but I thought I'd go ahead and give it a try. I tend to like fantasy and it had a dragon on the cover, so I thought it would surely be entertaining enough to be worth a dollar.

I started reading it a week or so after I bought it. I didn't get out of the prologue before I realized that this book wasn't going to be the greatest. For starters, wouldn't you think that a book that had a picture of a dragon on the cover and has "Dragon" in the title would be about, well, dragons? Instead, this book has like TWO characters that can turn into dragons. One of the characters is only in the prologue and is mentioned a few times later on. The other character who can turn into a dragon doesn't do it very often, so mainly the book is about humans in a world that can only be described as stupid.

It was a huge disappointment, and it really wasn't worth the $1.07 I paid for it. I did not want that thing in my house because I knew I wasn't going to read it again and I didn't want anyone to ever find it and think that I enjoyed it, so I decided to get rid of it. I didn't want to just throw it away, though, so I decided to give someone else a chance for it. I wrote a note in it saying that anyone who found it could take it and read it and then keep it or get rid of it. I stuck a note on the cover and left it in the bathroom of the biology building at my school. Haha, maybe that was a crazy thing to do, but maybe someone took it. I hope it didn't just get tossed in the trash by a janitor or something.

I wrote an old email address in it, hoping that someone might email me about it, but so far, nothing. :-( I guess I shouldn't expect that because I probably wouldn't email some random person who left a book lying around, either, but I thought it would be cool if someone wrote to me about it. Oh well. Maybe next time.

I've been downhearted baby, ever since the day we met

2008-02-07T22:47:00.001-06:00

I've been downhearted baby,
Ever since the day we met.
-"Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in my Hand"
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LKVZ4NTfUc
Lyrics: http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3258/

This entry is going to be one that is very personal and somewhat difficult for me to write, but it's part of my life and something that I must acknowledge. It is something that is certain to come up in this blog eventually, and I might as well write about it in detail now.

I am 21 years old, and I have never been kissed, never been on a real date, never had a boyfriend, never even held hands with a guy.

I guess you could leave it there and let that speak for itself, but I will get into some detail. I think the number one reason for my having not done any of that is that I am somehow afraid to let any of it happen. I tend to run away whenever it seems that there is a chance of anything happening with a guy. It does not make sense, but it is true. I have crushes on guys CONSTANTLY and I always want something to happen, but at the same time I am afraid and I try to avoid the guy, like trying to not even meet his eye or going out of my way to avoid him.

One of the main reasons why I am so afraid is that I have no self-confidence, especially about my appearance. I don't like to say that to other people because they tend to think that I am digging for compliments (You know, women like to say "I'm sooo fat!" or "I'm the ugliest person ever!" when they know it isn't true so that other people will tell them how great they look), and it's kind of hard to admit it even online, but it's true. Part of the reason for my lack of self-confidence is that I am overweight, and I used to be REALLY overweight. I lost 70-80 pounds a few years ago, but I still have a ways to go.

I just can't imagine any guy ever looking at me and thinking, "Wow, she looks good, I like her." I just can't imagine that happening unless I lose some more weight, and I've been having quite a struggle with that for the last three years. Even if I were really skinny, I can't really imagine it happening. I honestly think that the lack of self-confidence is a bigger problem than the looks, in my case.

And I'm really shy. I blush so easily, all it takes is someone to address me in front of a classroom of people and I feel my cheeks heating up. When it comes to guys, I am REALLY shy. I have trouble looking them in the eye.

Anyway, whenever you see anything that I post, you will have to realize that, if it is about guys, I have a rather different perspective than most. I have no real experience, but I've heard a lot from my friends and read a lot, so I have some ideas, but I know that if I ever do get in a relationship with a guy, those ideas will probably make me laugh when I look back at them.

This whole "never-been-kissed" thing isn't something that I like to talk about. A few of my high school friends know, I suppose, but they're the only ones. It's obviously not something that I like to get into when I meet new people, haha..

At this point in my life, when I am hoping to leave next fall, I'm really not looking for anyone. And I don't think that I will be looking for anyone until I lose weight and actually have a little more confidence about myself. I just can't stand the thoughts of being with someone while I'm like this. "Oh my gosh!" I would think. "Fat rolls! Fat face! Yuck!" I can't stand the thoughts of it, and I won't let myself get into that sort of situation.

I've really developed a sort of block about it, and it seems possible that it will never change. But I think I can live with that. I am solitary by nature and if God meant for me to live my life alone, then I can definitely handle it. Besides, I'm not alone. Not really. Not having a "significant other" doesn't mean that your life is meaningless and worthless and that you should go shoot yourself or whatever. I still have family and friends and most importantly God, who will not let me be alone, ever.

I can say with 100% honesty that I prefer my position to that of those who go along and go too far, if you get my drift. How many girls are heartbroken and never really get over it when they give a guy everything only to find out that he was playing them the whole time? None of my friends have been in quite that situation, but there have been ones in enough situations to make me feel better about the direction my "love life" has taken. Things could always be worse, I know that for sure.

I like to give up something every month - something like pizza or candy or ice cream or whatever, but also things like swearing (which I have tried to quit altogether, and I've been doing well with) and acting weird... I gave up soda several times in 2006, and finally, in October of that year, I decided to give it up until I went on a date. I had my last soda - a cherry vanilla diet Dr. Pepper - on October 20th, 2006. It's been one year, three months, and 18 days, and I may never again taste the sweet sweet flavor of Coca-Cola Classic. But I can live with that. This is one of my weird things that I will cling to. It wasn't too hard to give up soda. Of all the things I've tried to give up, swearing was by far the hardest, which is actually kind of sad...

You get that check every week and buy a Mercedes convertible

2008-02-06T22:07:00.000-06:00

Ever since that dream I had the other night, I have spent a lot of time worrying about even getting an INTERVIEW with the school I applied to for the fall. I really ought to at least get that far; I'm not trying to brag but I'm not going to lie, my GPA is pretty spiffy. I think I have the grades and ACT for it, I just hope that I get in. But now I've started worrying about simply getting an interview!

Let me tell you a story from when I was in high school. As I mentioned before, I was in the high school band. One of the big events of the year was the audition for the All-State band. The All-State band consisted of the best high school musicians from around the state, and those who made it got to spend a few days at the state capital and play in the band. It was a huge honor, and those who made the band were likely to get great scholarships from the college they wanted. So it was a big deal, and there were hundreds of students who tried out every year.

There were two different auditions you had to go through before you found out whether or not you made it. Everyone who went played in the first audition, and after they tallied up the scores and found out who did the best in that round, they posted a list of the people who got to try out in the second round. The people who did well enough in the second round were the ones who were part of the band.

There was a guy in our high school band named John, and he was a really good trumpet player. He of course came to the All-State audition, and everyone thought he'd make the band. We all just KNEW that he would make the second round of tryouts! Well, he went to his audition, they posted the list of people who made the cut a few hours later, and John was not one of them.

Everyone was shocked! We had all been so sure that he'd make the band, we never even thought that he wouldn't get to the second round of auditions! He was upset, he went and appealed to our band director who went to check things out, but there was nothing that could be done. He didn't make it, and that was the end of it.

I'm afraid that the exact same thing is going to happen to me, with regards to the school I'm wanting to attend. I'm hoping that I get to go there, but what if I don't even get an interview? I will want to slit my wrists if that happens, and I'm not even kidding. I can promise you, without a doubt, that I will be lying on my bed wishing fervently that I had never been born. What if it's like John and the All-State tryouts all over again? What if I don't even make it past the first cut? How awful is THAT going to be?

I often find myself wishing that I had picked something easier to do, some easier way to go. And if you consider the reasons for why I chose what I did... It's just so difficult to keep trying for something, and not knowing whether or not I'm going to get to do it. I'm putting so much hard work into chemistry and all of my other classes, but what if it turns out that I just spend that time and effort for nothing? Will it have been worth it, if I spent my time trying but ended up not being able to make the final cut?

It really won't be too long before I know for sure. This semester is going to go by in a real hurry, I think. I'll know by May if I'm going to get what I want or not. Heck, I might know even sooner, if I don't get the interview like I'm worrying about now!

On a somewhat lighter note, you may have noticed by now that I don't put any exact locations on here. I don't like to mention where I'm from because I don't want anyone to find me. I have family members that are on the internet frequently, and I can hardly think of anything worse than them finding this blog and reading it. Oh, sure, it's not bad at the moment, but one of the entries I have planned is going to be very personal, and it's not going to be something that I'm going to want them to see.

And yes, I think it's possible that they could find me from small details. First of all, my mother has a way of just knowing things and finding things that you don't want her to find. And if you start in with things like "Yeah, I live in Pleasantview," and "I'm going to Sim State University and applying to La Fiesta Tech next fall," and "I went to Bluewater Village the other day" it is entirely possible to piece together the puzzle. So why risk it?

Isn't it funny how I don't mind pouring my heart out to complete strangers on the internet, people who I will never meet, but cringe at the thought of close family members finding it?

If I was a flower growing wild and free / All I'd want is you to be my sweet honey bee

2008-02-05T21:52:00.000-06:00

So today was the great "Super Tuesday" when it comes to US elections.

(Don't worry, this is not going to be a political post.)

I am not big on politics at all. I suppose I am a moderate; I've taken online surveys and that's the result I typically get. It sounds accurate; I tend to be "moderate" about a lot of things in life.

I voted today in the primary. I do try to go out and vote when the time comes. My entire opinion on this entire presidential election - and this is likely to be my last word on the subject - is that I hope the person who can do the best job for the United States is the person to win. Regardless of the winner's party, gender, race, etc, I hope that they do a good job as the president. I think that our country needs some work and I hope that the future president takes it on and does a good job with it.

I am applying to go to another school (it's in the same state as me, but it's about four hours away) in the fall, and I really want to be accepted; it's is the main concern in my life right now. Anyway, last night I had a dream about it. (I sent in my application last month; they'll look at all of the applications, take the best and interview those people, and then decide who gets in from there.) So last night I had a dream that they sent out the letters about who was getting interviews, and I did indeed get an interview. They had a line on there that ranked me as number 11 out of 50. I did not know whether to be happy or not, because from my calculations they were only going to accept about 20 people, and I wasn't happy because I wasn't as high as I wanted to be.

Of course, that would never really happen, because they would never tell you what your ranking was in your letter.

I woke up from the dream not knowing exactly how I should feel. It wasn't a bad dream, but it wasn't exactly a good one, either. I tend to have lots of dreams about school and school related things. In high school, I had dreams about band (yeah, I was one of those nerds who was in the high school band) allll the time, and last summer, before I started taking organic chemistry, I had nightmares about the class and the professor all the time. The professor is known as a strange, evil woman by many, and my dreams reflected all sorts of bad things I was afraid would happen in class and in lab.

Am I the only person who thinks that, in a way, "good dreams" are worse than "bad dreams"? If you have a nightmare, you wake up panicked for a few minutes, and when you realize that the dream isn't true, you feel relieved. If it's an especially striking dream, you might think about it off and on during the day or for a few days, but it's over and you're relieved.

But on the other hand, if it's a good dream, you wake up, realize it didn't happen, and you're disappointed! "That wasn't true? Rats!" I can't even begin to guess how many times I had a good dream about a guy that I liked and woke up to disappointment because it wasn't true! If you have something in a dream that you want in real life, you wake up and it's almost like you've lost something, so you're more disappointed than ever.

And yet, somewhat irrationally, I sometimes want to go to sleep and dream about things being really good, even though I know that I'll wake up more disappointed than ever! I'm sure that says something about me, but I'm not entirely sure that I want to know what it is.

I haven't ever really had a problem with nightmares. When I was little, I would get scared at night, but not because of nightmares. I was more afraid of "monsters" or ghosts, burglars, lightning, etc than bad dreams. I guess I'm lucky that I don't have nightmares, because I know that some people have really bad ones that have a great affect on them. I do sometimes have dreams that aren't exactly pleasant, but I wouldn't call them nightmares. Most of my dreams are just random and weird, not really good or bad.

Isn't it strange how music can really change your mood in just seconds? Even when I'm in a bad mood, hearing a song I really want to hear, or hearing one that I really enjoy, can make me feel much better instantly. Right now, I'm listening to some of the songs from the movie "Juno." I wasn't expecting to like that movie when I went to see it, but I did. The intro song, "All I Want is You" by Barry Polisar, annoyed me so much when I first heard it, but it's grown on me so much that I'm listening to it right now! There are a couple of other songs from the movie that I really enjoy too.

It is a lonely battle to fight for what one wants in this life

2008-02-03T23:52:00.000-06:00

Sometimes I get ideas in my head to do things, and sometimes they're good ideas, often they're bad ideas, and sometimes I don't know what type of ideas they are. This is one of those occasions. I've had this blog for awhile now, and I'm going to start fresh and try to write more often.

I've read a lot of blogs, especially the garden variety average person blog from others my age, and most of them are - I'll be blunt- very depressing. My goal is to have a blog that is NOT depressing. Yes, there are sure to be depressing spots in it, because life is depressing at times, but I don't want that to be the feeling you're left with when you close the page.

So I have a new layout and I got rid of my old entries (there were only six of them anyway) and I have a new about me on here. I hope I'll actually stick to writing, and that it won't be so lame.