I went snowboarding today and watched people ski down with torches while the fireworks went off. I went with my father and tried not to wonder what people were thinking about me (I hate myself when I am shallow). One rocket got tipped over and all these fireworks were exploding on the ground in the middle of all the people with torches. People were laughing. I wanted to figure out why and I finally decided it is because people believe that humans are invincible in torch light parades on new year's, or maybe in general, because those tragedies you see on TV cannot possibly happen here.
No one got hurt.
A year ago today I wrote about love and how much I hated it and how fake it was. I believe in it now, but I still believe in the pain it spreads like disease. I watched those fireworks go off in the midst of pools of children on skis and heard their parents laughing and felt immobilized by love. Because Josh is someone I have been looking for a long time. Because I know the right choice is to leave him. Because I don't feel like I have a choice. I love him. I cannot leave him. I can only try to deal with the consequences.
Love will hurt me again because I am frozen and love is the thing that froze me. But there is a goodness to love.
I came home and found two messages from Charlie wondering if I wanted to do something tonight.
I felt like a slut.
I still do.

Resolutions...

What is most important is goals. Nothing is perfect in life but the possibility of transcending. I make these every year and I never seem to fulfill them, which leaves me feeling guilty. But their existance remains a constant reminder that something better is in fact possible, and that I don't have to live as a blur in the night.
Last year or the year before at church camp one of my youth leaders did this goal thing with us where instead of writing the goal as a goal you write it as a reality. It gets you used to the feeling that actualization of these dreams is possible, and that you are capable of realizing them. So I think that's what I'll do today. And if a year from now I don't achieve them, at least I'll still know it's possible.

1. I am good at debate. Not because I win, or do well, or anything, but because I am confident and love debating and can survive any sort of 'failure.' I have a safety net and can cope with all situations. Because of this I always do my best because I am not afraid of being free.
2. I don't think I'm fat. I don't throw up, don't buy laxatives at Wal Mart at the self-checkout counter, don't hate food, don't cry, don't over-exercise or under-exercise. I maintain a weight I am happy with.
3. I don't hurt myself. I may feel like I want to sometimes but I always call someone or run or throw ice cubes or draw until the emotion seeps out of me and not the blood. I have learned how to live without pain.
4. I am happy. This doesn't mean nothing ever goes wrong. It means I am okay with nothing being inherently wrong in my life. I am okay with being emotionally healthy and I know how to remain healthy without slowly decaying.
5. I know how to love without hurting myself. I know the balance between taking a risk and preserving my sanity. I know how to love with all my heart without fearing the heartache that love could possibly bring me. I trust people and am open to them completely, and because I trust them I am not afraid that they will hurt me. If they ever do hurt me it doesn't matter; it was worth it for love.
6. I am not separated from everyone else by a mental screen. I don't start talking about astrophysics or psychology to my friends unless they are friends that are interested in that. I actually participate in coversations instead of floating somewhere around Pluto. I do more on the weekends than just read and do homework. When my friends call me to do something, I actually do it. When I am depressed I call someone and say we should watch a movie or something.
7. I tell people when I'm not okay. I don't just let it build and then silently implode, or as the case has been lately, burden the people I trust with burdens they don't deserve. I am able to take care of myself, and that involves allowing myself to appear "weak," because in getting myself help I am not really admitting to weakness, but rather to strength.
8. I never take other people's medications or overdose on mine because I respect my body and my mind too much to polute it.
9. I am not afraid of the pain that can accompany taking risks. I am afraid of the numbness that can accompany stagnancy.

I may have to edit this later for more, but these are my main goals for 2006. They're not very concrete though... here's my concrete goals:
1. Go 4-1 consistently in debate
2. Exercise daily, but not too much
3. Lose five pounds
4. Get a 33 or 34 on my ACT's and something (I can't remember) on my SAT's
5. Get into the MIT summer camp
6. Apply to several colleges including MIT, Caltech, and BYU
7. Get into those colleges
8. Make varsity tennis, and if I don't be the best at JV, make those stupid coaches know my name (STOP LOSING ALL ABILITY AROUND PEERS)
9. Start practicing violin/cello/piano enough that they don't collect dust in between lessons
10. Donate to charity

I think the right thing for everyone else to do is to tell me to not date him anymore, that that's crazy, to let go of him.

And I think that the right thing for me to do (and possibly the only thing I can do and live with myself) is to throw caution to the winds and hit this head on and refuse to leave him. It seems wrong to me to leave someone that needs help. Especially when I like him too much to abandon him.

I know I'm going to get hurt. It may suck. It may all crash down around my ankels. But I just CAN'T leave him...

I think it is worth getting hurt to help another human being you care about turn their life around.

I feel hot and cold and wrong and sick.
I have all day, even as I skiied down the frozen hills today with my cousin wrecking every ten seconds on his snowboard.
I felt like crying or screaming or throwing up or all three.

I found out this morning that the boy I love and will always love with all my heart sexually abused his cousins and his brother, the most recent time being only a few months ago.

What do I say to that? I told him that I understood. The line between abuser and abused is thin. I can understand the mentality. I can forgive him for that, whether he forgives himself or not. I cannot blame him.

But still... I keep imagining him doing to his brother what my brother did to me, and it makes my stomach turn. Only partially because it makes me sick that he hurt his brother like that, screwed him up for life. The other part is that I am scared and hurting for him, because I love him, and it hurts to know that he was so messed up as to do that.

I don't know what I feel. This won't get between us, I hope, but I really need to talk to someone about it and there is nobody to talk to...

Today at church the first counselor in our bishopric was giving a talk and he said, (he meant resurrection) "Have you come unto Christ today? Have you taken the time to remember his life? His death? His erection?"

THAT was an awkward moment.

Does it make me immature that some part of me had to stifle a laugh? I was supposed to be thinking of Christ's birth and somehow my mind had coerced me into thinking about Christ's erection. I could hear the little angel on my shoulder screaming "Sacrilige, sacrilige, sacrilige!"

You give me one person in that chapel who didn't find their thoughts turned to something they didn't want to think about that was over the age of ten.

It's been a year. Since I started this blog.
The past two Christmas Eves I have made half-hearted suicide attempts.
I want to be better than that today.
In a year... I am still fighting bulimia. There are still cuts on my arms and legs. Most important of all... I still hate myself.
How to cope with failure...
The vacation was... I don't know. The rides were awesome. We went to amusement parks all day for five days. We went on all the rides I wanted to go on and more. The roller coasters were great. My favorite was at Busch Gardens. It takes you up two hundred feet and starts to roll over the ninety degree drop and then stops for six seconds (I counted) before dropping you straight down two hundred feet and into a loop. We were in the front row the second time. But the whole time I just cried because nobody could see me under the restraints. I hated myself so much. It seemed to build up every day. Every drop I only screamed because I was angry because I knew I didn't deserve to live, but I wanted to anyway, even though I knew I was selfish and stupid and incapable of enjoying life.
My mom kept telling me I was selfish, I was a brat, I was siding with my father, I might as well be his wife. And I defended myself to her but inside I knew it was true. Every night I wrote down how angry with myself I was and every night a little slipped away while I was sleeping, but there was plenty of time in the day for it to build up... and I couldn't be happy because of my mom and because of me and who I am. All I thought about was how moody she was, how volatile, and then I realized 50% of me is her DNA, and I am just like her. I thought, I don't want to grow up to be like that, and I thought, but I will...
My father talked to me at Busch Gardens after my mother told me I was 'throwing a tempter tantrum' (I was being quiet... I was angry and depressed... maybe the most angry because I was acting the way my mother does when she's mad, all quiet and lethal like that). He said, "I'm sorry she's like this, I don't know what to do, I've talked to Terry about it, I guess I'lll just have to keep talking to her." I said, "I'll be in college in two years." "But it will always be like this when we're together," he replied.
I can't explain how ominous that felt.
I felt sick every time I ate... I could see the food pasting layers on my body.
I watched my parents together and wondered how he married her and put up with the way she treats him sometimes. She treats him like she treats me.
It's so frustrating because there is so much good in her...
Anyway, Josh sent me a present (I'm going Christmas shopping this afternoon... pretty bad) and Charlie invited me to a movie and I just feel like I don't want him to love me, he loves an illusion, someone that doesn't exist. I know my thoughts, I know I am selfish, I have seen myself naked, I know I am not good enough for him, I know I don't deserve him, and I hate the part of me that doesn't care because I love him...
Progress:
I will not try to kill myself tonight. I am not suicidal.
I haven't OD'd in months.

I will only briefly mention my tests today, only that my final answer for my problem involving area between sine and cosine functions over the interval was: "I don't care, I'm sick of this, it's too much work, you do the math." Mr. George told me he'd only take off a few points as long as I set it up right if I didn't actually compute the answer.
Also, I got a B on last week's history test I STUDIED for and today's was no better as I made a ton of crap up and the multiple choice was more like close your eyes and jab your finger. Only good news: money management test was easy, midterm was straight A's, lowest grade being in money management, 95%.

My three main problems: 1)I LOVE reading. I'd rather read than hang out with friends, rather read than eat, breathe, sleep, anything. I am SO addicted to it. This means I am antisocial and don't get much sleep. I read everything. History, science, psychology, politics, fantasy, sci fi, contemporary, classics, historical fiction, anything and everything as long as it's not REALLY boring 2) I can't walk into a library without checking out a book, even if I have books at home I need to read or am way too busy to find time to read it. 3) I am addicted to the internet (in a very literal way... I can't stop sometimes... I can't resist) which makes me very angry with myself as it takes out of my reading time.

So go to this website and watch the movie... it made me smile. I'm going to be on that roller coaster in one week, and all the others there. Next Friday. My dad's going with me. He gets in for ten dollars less because he's old. My mom doesn't want to drive for an hour, like that'd kill her or something. Oh well. I'm so excited, just looking at these roller coasters... so much cooler than my calculus project.

Oh man I need to get back to looking at the amusement parks I shall be visiting... YES!

Cynical day

This is the kind of day I had.
1. I woke up really late and was, surprise surprise, yet again late to seminary. I am up for the late-every-single-day-all-year award, competing a few fierce contendors who walk in at 7:25 (Pshaw, I am so much more dedicated than that... can anyone say 7:18 EVERY DAY?)
2. I went to Friendly's amidst the Krispy Kream Nightmare, as my weight watcher's support group has officially dubbed it. Last night we talked the whole time about how to resist this epitome of pure evil to all human beings on any sort of weight loss program. Thankfully, although they were handing out free coffees and donuts, I payed my ten bucks for gas (being a high school student I have realized you rarely get to fill the tank up all the way or you have to go movie-less for a month) and left without a fleeting glance at the requiem of the thin...
3. I fell flat on my face walking into school. Aparrently I am not quite as agile on no-tread sandals as I would like to believe. There is no disputing that I am the most fantastic crasher ever, as many years of skiing and unfortunate dives into snowbanks can attest.
4. I took this math semester test I hadn't studied AT ALL (I'm being serious) for. It was very entertaining. It was mostly along the lines of: definition of a derivative? What's that? I'll just make something up using delta x's and fancy limit signs and then use the power rule to find the answer. Yeah... one half done, one cespool of integration by parts to go... (can you say boring?)
5. I wrote this essay in class in AP history in twenty five minutes instead of the allotted thirty five. This was partly because I was ten minutes late to class (without a pass of course) after pleading with my math teacher to give me some small hint on the trigonometric related rate problem, and partly because I was BSing my way through it. Last essay I made up all this stuff on how teleological, evil, corrupted, and falsely worshiped Lincoln is, because although many people view him as a hero he was just a Machiavellian political tyrant. It was quite fun. Today I went on about how cool the thirteenth ammendment was for three pages because I couldn't remember any other reforms during reconstruction. Hopefully he will give me an A for my extensive (and round about) knowledge of abolition, as that was obviously all that mattered about the twenty years following the Civil War.
6. I have seriously gone blind, even with my contacts. In orchestra the music was so blurry I decided improvisation was key. Now I'm sure there is no doubt in my teacher's mind that it will be a wise choice to place me in the back in the middle of the viola section.
7. The chemistry lab, which was supposed to involve neat little crystal models, involved instead fingers impaled with toothpicks, styrafoam balls flying every where, messy constructions falling apart with a whiff of air, and Shauna and I begging Amanda for help for every single model.
8. Money management was a very enlightening experience when I realized something was very wrong with my check book and I would never be able to reconcile it with the bank statement. I was still about three hundred dollars off when I decided that was probably good enough and turned it in.
9. I thought my English teacher was still telling jokes but apparently he was lecturing about how important reading is. I was so absorbed in Faulkner's As I Lay Dying that I didn't seem to notice him glaring at me. Eventually he dropped a very subtle comment about how in colleges professors freak out when kids do things as insulting as reading through lectures. I did not know my face could turn that particularly unique shade of pinkish-red. I view it as progress though as today when he yelled at me he called me Lindsay, and he has been calling me Jennifer all year.

That is just a small sampling of my wonderful day. I am slightly sick of school, although it is a definite good use of my time. (Hopefully that sarcasm is apparent even over the net.)

Saturday I will fly to Florida, and Saturday evening I will be in Epcot and I WILL NOT think about my failed mathtest or my floundering checkbook, or even that I managed to trip at fall in various classes a record three times today.

I really just need to write this to vent. I was so angry tonight; I still am. I felt so fat today. I gained two pounds. Today I ate a piece of pie and a cookie. There's so many reasons for all the problems I'm having... mostly that I am still used to binging, and so I want to purge. I wanted to throw up so badly tonight. I fought it. I'm fighting it.
I started crying at the weight watchers meeting. We came up with some sort of solution, some way to centrallize my meals, plan them out even better, eliminate the binges (but it is so hard, they are burned into me). I still want to purge but I know that if I keep doing that I will do it for the rest of my life, and I will never learn how to eat, and I will always have to binge and purge and feel miserable and be trapped in this bulimia forever. That can't be the solution. There has GOT to be a better way. So I will fight for it.

BUT I AM ANGRY!!!!!!!!! I AM SO MAD AT FOOD!!!! I AM SO MAD AT EATING!!!!!!!! I CAN'T HANDLE IT!!! I HATE IT!!! I HATE BEING FAT!!! I WANT TO BE NORMAL AND NOT THINK/WORRY ABOUT FOOD 90% OF THE TIME, AND NOT NEED TO BINGE AND PURGE AND NOT FEEL THIS HELPLESS AND OUT OF CONTROL...
Oh my gosh nobody ever explained to me how hard it is to recover after being bulimic for five years. It seems impossible.... but I can't give up, I just can't...

question of ethics

An interesting conundrum I wanted to add- the AP English teacher at our school (and my head debate coach) yesterday told the kids in his class that he was going to be using a slide grading scale for essays, giving the top 5 essays an A, next 10 B, next 5 C, etc. because grades should reflect actual effort and some other reasons that don't make a ton of sense. So his students believed him and were freaking out for an hour until he finally told them it was an object lesson. He related the slide grading scale to world hunger and people that ignore it and don't pay attention to what's actually going on in the world. He said everyone was freaking out about their grade when they didn't give a second thought to world hunger.
My friend was so upset about this that she wrote him this really vindictive email. She said it was an immoral thing to do that betrayed their trust.
Here's my reasoning:
1. The object lesson was totally true. Kids do care a lot about grades and tend to be blind to real-world issues. I know I am.
2. It's not really fair to make them feel guilty for this, as it is inevitable for a person focusing on something as immediately affecting as education to think about this on a more regular basis than world hunger.
3. The object lesson may have actually gotten a few kids to think about hunger, but for the most part it just ticked people off and freaked them out and made them angry. So I am not sure if it was effective.
4. Spending an hour with an object lesson to try to make kids aware of hunger may be a waste of an AP English period. Because a)If Mr. Po really cares about world hunger, would he be teaching AP English or would he be out there fighting it, like he may be advocating? b) Kids do need to focus on education. Education is an integral part, in the long run, to ending world hunger. There need to be people with degrees in relating fields in order to enact any sort of change. Making kids feel guilty for thinking about education foremost is in an indirect way making kids feel guilty for supporting the fight to end hunger.
5. Kids do live in a really protected world here in the US. Most have never really been hungry. Even the poor ones don't know what it's like to live on the street, or in the car. Very few do. And none know the kind of impoverishment that exists in Africa.
6. Is telling kids hunger exists (which they already know) actually going to make them proactive? Even if Mr. Po did succeed in making a few kids think about their selfishness, this doesn't equal proaction. Might it have been more productive to spend the period actually battling hunger proactively?
7. Was Mr. Po's point even really about world hunger, or was it about kids' fixation with the immediate? Was Mr. Po's simulation actually an attempt to make a difference in world hunger, or just to manipulate a way of thought?
CONCLUSION: I don't believe what Mr. Pogreba did was immoral or unethical. I'm not sure if it achieved his objective, as I don't know what his objective was. I don't think it was an effective way to fight world hunger. But I don't agree with writing him angry emails, which just proves his point even further that kids are selfish.

Final note: I am as guilty as the rest. I will be first to admit that I know that poverty and hungry exists in the US, and runs rampant in the rest of the world. I read the book "Ishmael" and realized how limited my view of the world is. I have no idea what it feels like to not have food or a home or clothes. I am definitely very well-off, and definitely spoiled. I am aware of all of this. I feel selfish every Christmas. I give money to charities and toys to Toys for Tots. But I, like all of us, worry mostly about my grades and my boyfriends and other selfish things and do nothing to change things. This is partly because I am not sure how to go about changing something as vast as world-hunger or the world in any way, but partly because I am selfish and cannot see past my own limited perceptions. Which makes me feel guilty. And yet I do nothing about it. Does this make me a bad person, even though it is true for nearly all teenagers and many, many adults?

I've been freaking out about my grades lately and I got to see my midterm grades and all of them were over 100% except money management (predictable). I don't know why I thought they were all so low... I seem to have deluded myself. Well, it's always a nice surprise.

School seems to be getting slightly easier... I could be wrong on that one and I will probably jinx myself, but I actually got some sleep last week. And I will next week.

I didn't think that perfection was humanly attainable. But I am no longer sure of that fact. So I'm just going to go through the whole thing, because it was SO perfect, every second of it.

As this is my blog and it is the only place I am totally honest, I will spare you no details.

So we got there Friday night at 9-ish, and all his friends were there, so I got to meet them... that was fun. Then we drove them home and our parents sat at his house and talked. This is one unperfect part. My mom apparently "felt like it was really important" that she tell Josh's parents I have bipolar. WTF?!!! Why in the world do they need to know? I asked my mom that and she's not sure, she "just felt like it." Grr...

Anyway, so we went downstairs in his basement and watched "A Walk to Remember," which is really sad but I had to go back to the hotel before the girl died so it was okay. For a little while it was really funny because his hand kept creeping onto my knee and barely touching mine so I finally opened my hand up for him and made it easy. We half talked, half watched the movie. It was so nice though, to be able to touch him after all of these months. It was hard to believe he was real. But he was... and oh my gosh he looked hot (I have to throw that shallowness in there. I am at least 5% human).
His dog kept jumping in my lap. That was funny. It was funny to see him so worried that those little things would bother me. Of course they didn't. My dog jumps in my lap and he weighs 103 pounds.
I had to be back by midnight, so we finally turned the movie off, and sat on the couch for a minute, and I thought I could have sat there forever and been happy.
So this is the difference between him and Matt:
Josh said, "Can I kiss you?" before he did it, and he waited for an answer, and I was ready in a way I wasn't that first time with Matt, and suddenly in that instant I stopped worrying so much about screwing it up (if anyone could screw up a kiss it would be me).
It was, in that instant, far better than all of the rest of the kisses in my life combined... I felt so safe with his arms around me, which is something I definitely haven't felt while kissing someone before.
He drove me to the hotel. He kissed me in the elevator until the doors opened. Like in the movie "Romeo and Juliet," the new version. I've always dreamed of being kissed in an elevator.
OH and he opened every single door for me all Friday and Saturday, ever car door, ever store door, everything, and he wouldn't let me carry anything. That's been a dream of mine too.

The next morning (I'm trying not be boring, although I doubt anyone will read all of this so it doesn't matter I suppose) I woke up at seven, took a shower etc, did my hair (which, of course, by 10:00 looked like a hurricane had hit it). He came at 8:00 with these beautiful flowers. I love getting flowers from guys even though I am a murderer of plants.
We went to breakfast at ?Smitty's? or something similar. I've been there before... in fact walking in I had the strongest memory of going there when I was... six I think I must have been... with my mother and she spent the whole time trying to get me to color outside of the lines on my menue becuase my therapist had told her it was important because my perfectionism was unhealthy (but of course coloring outside of the lines didn't cure that). Anyway I had this awesome blueberry waffle, it was so good, and I had that first pang of guilt when he paid the bill (I will never get used to people paying for everything on dates).

Then we went and played tennis for a few hours and we were all alone in this room with two courts. I sucked at first of course, from nerves and lack of practice, but I eventually got into the groove and it was really fun. Last June when I met him and I was shamelessly flirting with him even though I had a boyfriend because I'm kind of stupid like that (but oh my gosh I'm glad I did it now) when he found out I liked tennis too he said, "We'll have to play together some time!" And I thought then, that's never going to happen. The week will be over and I will never see you again. The whole time at tennis I thought about that conversation, and how impossible a day like today seemed back then when I was first falling in love with him.

We went to the mall after that. We looked at clothing stores and told each other what clothes we like, since we don't see each other that much. I love his clothes though. I love him way more than his clothes, but nice clothes is definitely a turn-on for me.
We finally found this photo booth. We had both, characteristically for me at least, left our cameras that morning. I'd had mine all out and ready to go but I pretty much forgot my name at the sight of him at the door. So you know how all the TV shows show people getting their pictures taken in those things? I've always wanted that too.
I feel kind of tacky posting this on the internet but you'll have to forgive me, they are the only pictures I really have from today, the only concrete evidence of the best day of my life. So... (needless to say I enjoyed the photo booth).

We were in Dillard's, and, also characteristic of me (it was a very characteristic day because my brain cells forgot they existed everytime I looked at him) I dropped the pictures in the middle of Dillard's in the tie section (he was trying to explain to me what an ugly tie looks like as I have this disorder where I don't think any ties are ugly, ever). So we were frantically retracing our steps around the store (how many times in my life have I retraced my steps trying to find something? It seems like if I were to graph that the day I died it would go to infinity).
Finally Josh asked one of the clerks and they said they had them and they handed the strip to Josh. I was slightly embarrassed... I mean, those pictures are awesome and I'm proud of them but this clerk didn't even know us. So I felt awkward for a moment. But her and this man were just looking at us in this odd way... like they were remembering when they were our age or something, and could have their photos taken for three dollars and totally forget there was a camera and have the photos end up like ours.

It only gets more perfect from here on out. We went to lunch at Jamba Juice (man, he knows me well... he said he went over all of our IM conversations to try to make it perfect) and we took the smoothies and we walked down by the river where the falls were frozen and the temple looked so white against the sky and the geese, like the deer where I live, were taking over the world. We got cold a bit quickly though and had to go back to the car, but he kissed me in front of the temple and (sorry if this is getting redundant but I have to remember it) my lips were numb. It was the oddest sensation ever, kissing someone with lips numb from the cold. If you haven't done that, you have to try it. When we got back to the car he picked me up and carried me to the van because I was wearing sandles and there was snow.

We went to this climbing gym then. It looked like an abandoned warehouse from the outside but it was nice inside. I haven't climbed in a long time because they got rid of the gym where I live, so it was awesome to be able to do it again. Josh is really good at those walls. It would take me five minutes to get up one and him one minute. I can use two excuses though: I'm short, and I was wearing slippery shoes.
So we switched off for a while, me climbing, him baleting (oh my gosh I have no clue how to spell that) and visa versa. It took me a few minutes to get up this one wall because it was the kind the incline that comes out towards you so you have to hang upside-down for a while trying to figure out where to put your feet next. I finally got to the top and he was bringing me down and he caught me in his arms.
I guess this doesn't sound romantic, but close your eyes and imagine being there, alone in this gym, swinging from the ceiling, caught in someone's arms. Imagine making out with someone like that. It brought making out to a whole new dimension for me. It was so perfect, all of it, the rock wall, the rope, the figure eight knot, the minute or two I spent with my eyes shut feeling like I must not be on earth anymore. It was... the most romantic thing that has ever happened to me. Somehow it was just totally me, to make out after climbing a forty foot wall (well maybe it was thirty, I don't know).
Shortly after that (we'd been climbing for an hour and a half at that point anyway) we gave up on the climbing and we took off our harnesses and we went to this back area that is like a cave and we just stayed back their for a while (you probably don't need a play by play). Anyway, I thought it was really funny because we were back there so long and the guy who worked there had seen us kissing earlier, he must have thought we were having sex or something. On that note, maybe it's a good thing I don't live in Idaho Falls with Josh because... well yeah.

Anyway, the point I'm trying (unsuccessfully) to convey is how amazing it was, and how thoughtful it was, and how much it meant to me, especially that kiss as I hung in his arms.

We left after a while, not without me turning bright red when we finally emerged from that back room (but I didn't really care what he thought). We drove to a jewelry shop and looked at rings and wedding dresses and talked about which ones were pretty. We drove to PetCo and looked at all of the animals in the store. The saddest part of the whole day was the second-hand on my watch, the way I had to see time pass when I so wanted it to stop.

We ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant, and the food was so good. It wouldn't have mattered what the food tasted like though; I was so content just to be sitting at that table holding his hand and talking.

Those last few moments in that restaurant were a bit desperate, when we knew we had to leave but didn't want to...

We drove to an empty parking lot and the whole time we sat there I just thought how perfect he is, how much I love him, how perfectly happy I would be to spend the rest of my entire life with him. I'm not sure whether we both started crying at the same time or not but the whole time I was kissing him I just never wanted to let him go... I'm sorry I'm getting all romantic and mushy here but it was so pretty... every time I opened my eyes a tiny bit I could see the sunset on the hills and the snow all around and the Christmas lights, and I just thought how perfect of a day it was, probably the best in my entire life.

I seem to be the practical one in these situations, always. When I am with a guy and we are going to be late if we don't leave, even if we do want to stay in that car forever, I am always the one that says, "We have to go." I so didn't want to say it tonight. I so wanted to stay there forever with all of that life going on around me and inside me. I wasn't in love with Matt. But I am hopelessly in love with Josh. I told my mom I don't think I'll ever find a boy more perfect for me, and my mother agreed.

When we were still in the garage his mom opened the door and it freaked me out a bit, made me paranoid, I didn't know if it was okay that he kissed me, I didn't want to screw it all up with his parents, and I was really scared but he said it was okay so I walked in the house like nothing happened.

I'll never forget those last few moments, or the entire night and day I got to spend with him. As we walked out the door he kissed me in front of my parents and his and my mother, for once in her life, did not embarrass me, but let me have that good bye.

They told me we can go up there every other month, and they'll go to the temple and I can see Josh. So two months...

Now I have to decide what in the world to do about Charlie, because I'd like to go out on a date with him or something I just can't get attached because it would be so unfair.

So. It took me an hour and a half to write this because I had to relive every moment. It was so perfect...

I'm leaving like right now for Idaho... wish me luck.
I talked to my counselor today and told her everything. It's all going to be ok. I can do this.

My mom hit our dog this morning, our little 4 pound one.

It was really scary.

Before Vlad Dracul ever impaled any people he impaled birds.

interesting happenings in calculusland/chem

Today we were attempting to talk about improper integrals (for the millionth time) but were of course led astray into a random physics discussion. Mr. George was saying that if he always moved 50% of his distance to the wall towards the wall, he would never reach the wall, and that a ball should theoretically never stop bouncing but it does (although I think that one has mroe to do with gravity etc.) anyway, everyone was arguing about it and I said, "That doesn't work though because there will be a point when 50% of your distance to the wall is a fraction of your body's diameter, so you'd just smash into the wall."
"But for a massless particle for instance that wouldn't be true."
"But you're not a massless particle." Oh joy that was fun. You'd have had to be their obviously but it was really funny, as the way I said it implied that Mr. George was far from a massless particle.

Finally, Amanda was going on today about what Archimedes discovered, and that objects that are the same size but different masses displace different volumes of water, which sure didn't (and still doesn't) make any sort of sense to me.

Also, tomorrow I have to tell my counselor I've started self-injuring again which makes me a bit nervous, as I am really sick of Armaggedons.

Tomorrow, also, I make or totally screw up the kiss of my life.
(I'm so excited just to see his face...)
Man, what an attestment of hormones- sexually abused for years, and still boy crazy at sixteen. ;-)

You know that sensation you get when your whole life blows up in your face? I've been feeling that a lot lately.

Today somebody stole my coat. It was in a locked room all freaking day and somebody still managed to steal it. I didn't want to accuse anyone of that until I was positively sure, so I talked to everyone, but someone definitely took it somewhere, becuase they took my keys out of the pocket and hung them up on the wall for me (gee, thanks, how kind of you).

Tonight after tennis I went to weight watchers where my mother paid for our membership. (Last night I told my mother either she got me some help or I was going to start throwing up again.) The people there kept asking me why I was there, and I just kept saying, "structure, I want to eat healthily." That seemed to be enough. My mom told the lady at the front (who was staring at me dubiously) that I used to have an eating disorder and I wanted to feel in control without returning to that.
"Oh, that's good!" the lady said. Then, realizing it sounded like she was saying the eating disorder was good, she said, "That you're trying to take control." I started laughing at that. She looked so uncomfortable, having in some accidental way told me my bulimia was a good thing.

On the scale I was wearing all my clothes at my sweatshirt and I weighed in at 112. They usually want you to lose 10% of your weight, but for me that is 11 pounds, and although that sounds alright with me, apparently being 101 puts me way under the healthy weight for my height. So my goal is to lose five pounds and maintain that weight, but more than that my goal is to feel in control and okay with eating and not like everything is slipping out of my hands. Once I maintain 105-ish pounds for six weeks I get to go every week for free. I really, really think it will help me in the long run. Overeating, bulimia, and undereating are all just eating disorders, so in a way I am definitely not out of place there among the overeaters.

The meeting was full of middle-aged to older women (and one man with his wife). It was fun, like an episode of Golden Girls. I have all this stuff now to write things down in, to plan meals with, to take control with, and I think that I am going to be okay. If not, I will tell my mom, and she will get me help.

Also, I have decided (with much threatening persuasion from some people) to tell my counselor on Friday that I cut and I've been having trouble with that again, so I don't know if she'll have to tell my parents, but I am going to tell her because I promised someone I would. Also because I need to be proactive about my own health and stop trying to make others deal with me. I feel like I am starting to take control a bit, with the weight watchers and telling my counselor. I know I can stop again. I stopped for nine months. I know that I can do this, especially with my counselor's help. My mom told me I could even go twice a week if I need to, and I may consider that.

I AM COMPETENT. I CAN TAKE CARE OF MYSELF. I WILL NOT LET EVERYTHING EXPLODE IN MY FACE.

OH shitzus... I just remembered we are going to Florida in three weeks... and it will be hot there... and suspicious if I wear a sweatshirt...
Oh am I in trouble...
THINK... there has to be something...

I can't look anyone in the face anymore.
Charlie asked for my phone number.

Oh no I am SO screwed.

depression...

Comes quickly, makes no sense. I just felt so weighed down all day. Nearly cried. Do you ever feel like that? There's tears in your eyes for no reason.

My whole life I have dragged people down. Anyone involved with me falls. That's why I stopped talking to people, that's why I have only one real relationship with a friend at the moment (Shauna), that's why Josh tells me everything about him but I tell him nothing about me, that's why I'm scared to get in a relationship with this boy who I like, because he's already pretty fragile, and again I'd have to be the strong one. I wish there was someone that could be there forever that was strong enough to protect me.

I've been talking a lot to Matt lately. He's somewhat explained some things and I may be able to forgive him for some of it. But I trusted him so much... I trusted him so much we I laid in the car for two hours with my head in his lap telling him everything while he held me. And now I hear it was all unravelling? I went to that camp in California that told me to open up, so I opened up to him, and now there is only regret.

I don't think I can do that to another boy. I don't think I can take that from another boy. I talked to Charlie today, the boy I like. I have to wait until I see Josh this weekend to do anything, but now is the time to decide whether I can handle getting involved in another relationship. I'm still recovering from the last. Someone is a part of your life for nine months and then suddenly turns out to be selfish, or something, and naive, and incapable of being the strength you needed them for, and it affects you.

Will anyone ever be able to handle me that is near my own age? Or rather handle me period? Why do I do this to people? I don't mean to be needy but I am...

I learned again today how hard it is to look into the eyes of someone you know you've disappointed when they don't know it. I hope they don't find out. I'm sick of being the failure.

The eating disorder is coming back. I've had a lot of trouble lately.

Today at church one of my church leaders whom I really admire who has made a difference in my life gave a speech. She is always laughing. She doesn't talk about things that may bother her or others. But today she talked about when she was younger, and this girl who was nice to her at church when no one else was, and how she died of brain cancer when she was really young, and my leader had never said thank you or told her how much she meant.

She was crying really hard. I have never seen her cry before. I could never even imagine her crying before. But I couldn't help but start crying too. And I felt like laughing. That may sound horrid but they are one and the same reaction I think, crying and laughing. Anyway, I didn't laugh, which is good, because people probably wouldn't have understood that it was the same as crying.

I hope that I can tell everyone in my life that has made a difference how much they mean to me. I'd hate to feel like that. That room was so silent when she was talking.

debate

THIS IS NOT FAILURE. (Keep telling myself this... I have to keep pounding it in...)
RESULTS:
place: 12 out of 40-ish. They broke to quarterfinals. If they had broken to octafinals, I would have broken easily.
record: 3-2. I barely lost the last round I guess... last night this girl from Idaho beat me pretty clearly to a lay judge. I don't know about the arguments, but she sure was a better speaker in that round.
speaker place: 8th. I got a nifty pink little trophy that says 8th place speaker varsity policy. (I am varsity LD, not policy, so I will have to get the 8th place policy person and try to swap at some point.) This is amazing to me. I thought I SUCKED as a speaker at this tournament. I thought I was doing horribly.
Then again I thought this morning that I was 1-2 and I was 2-1. Going into the last round I was 3-1. And I barely lost. And I should have won. Going over my flow, this is the one time I can say that without doubting that I am just trying to justify the loss: I should have one. We agreed on burdens and what should be voted on in CX, and I most definitely fulfilled it without refute.
OH WELL.
Now I have to prove to myself that I'm not a failure. 3-2 was my goal. I accomplished it. But... when you're that close to breaking... you feel angry with yourself that you didn't just get that extra point in that really close round (I should have won... grr...). And I am not happy. I should be. I got 8th out of 40-ish for speaking. There were 14 schools there. That is freaking AMAZING.
But not good enough for me.
I WILL NEVER BE GOOD ENOUGH FOR MYSELF!
There is that terrified little part in us that says, Why didn't you break? Why are you such a loser? And it is convinced that this is true because I am not perfect, because I don't break, win, go 5-0, first place speaker. This is an impossible thing to expect of myself. It is irrational. I have beat some very good people this year. How can I expect something impossible out of myself? I will never be happy. I will never feel good about a tournament.
I did not do badly at this tournament but it feels like I did. It feels like I'm a failure for being four people off from breaking. I need to somehow become okay with doing well. I am so angry at myself when I do badly, because it is proof that I suck. This tournament is proof that I have a chance to do well. I can't believe it though. I can't believe that I don't suck. That constant fear of utter failure gnaws at me.

My friend went 1-4 again. She did last year at this tournament too. I didn't know what to tell her. I didn't know how to explain to her that I felt like a failure too without sounding pathetic, and ungrateful. If I feel like a failure, what does that make her? I talked to her a little. I know she was jealous. Anyone would be. I was jealous of Will, this kid on my team that did well even though I ALWAYS beat him in practice rounds (but I like him this year; he's really nice, so I was glad he did well also).
I shouldn't have left her alone but I did. It was stupid. I walked back to the main building. I was standing inside talking to some people when I realized how stupid that was. If someone had let me wander off alone after this, I would not be doing something good. I knew she was depressed. I knew she felt like quitting, like everything was futile because it led to failure. I knew she could have been suicidal for all I knew.
I ran to the tab room. Asked for Amanda or Shea. Amanda asked what I wanted. I said, "I don't know if she's okay." "Who?" "Brittany," I said (my friend). Amanda said she was busy. I said, "Is Shea around or anyone to help me?" and Marcus said he would, but then Amanda looked at me, and looked at everyone in the tab room, and I knew she was busy, and she knew it, but I could see the conclusion in her mind, I could see that she cared more about Brittany than ballots, that she wanted to help her.
So we ran off to find her. And I don't know if she was okay when we found her but she talked to Amanda for a while and she seemed okay after that. They are a salve, those coaches. Things can be falling down around us, but I know that if they are there it will be okay. I hate going to tournaments without them because I feel disconnected, and there is no one to talk to when things go badly.

Debate is a really emotional event for me, and for my friend. Will, the boy on our team, is able to disconnect himself from the results. We aren't. Brittany was talking to me later and she said, "I thought about just quitting... I mean how can I handle this sh*t?" so I said to her the only thing that made sense.
"It's always going to hurt when we do worse than we hoped. That's probably not going to change, because of what debate means to us. We will feel inadequate. We will feel like we suck, since we have lost so many rounds. We will feel like there really is no hope for us to do well. No matter how much we attempt to disconnect from the results, I dont' think it's possible for us. But I don't do debate to win. I hate doing badly. I hate that sick feeling. I hate trying to live up to my expectations. But even if I lose every single debate for the rest of this year and next year, I will not quit, because if I debated to win I would have quit after my first tournament. I debate because I truly love debate. Because it means a lot to me. I don't think I could go a year without debating now that I've discovered it. I don't think I could live without it. In a debate round, even when I am losing, I am so happy just to be there, competing. It feels horrid when I lose but in the end I don't quit because I do it because I can't not. And I think that you do too. So I know it feels pathetic and hopeless, and I know people are telling us through ballots that we suck, that we have failed, that we are not good enough, but the second we believe it, the second we totally accept that, there is no hope left."

I don't know if I made a difference. I will not lie- if I had gone 1-4, I would have cut and I would have been miserable for a while. It would have hurt, very badly. I would have done worse things than Brittany did. But I would not have quit. I can't quit. Something in me is invested in debate now and it is irretrievable. I will do anything to keep debating. I believe I have something in me that is capable of doing well some day. I will NOT give that up. Even though I feel like a failure tonight. Even though it hurts to lose. Losing is not nearly as bad as not debating at all.

I have no idea how I'm doing, but I am pessimistic about my first and third debates, or both of my affirmative debates, which is odd, considering I think I like judicial activism (although I am not sure yet).
It seems as if I fail at the things I truly care about and do well at the things I couldn't care less about. It seems unfair.
My last round I a. wore my scarf halfway through on accident b. said "I am now open to cross-examination" after my case AND after my rebuttal c. told the judge good job instead of thank you d. said fifty other things I didn't mean.
In my second round I said, "democracy can never protect rights." I meant judicial activism. Brain in gear before mouth...
On more optimistic subjects Josh warned me his lips are chapped so he's going to wear lots of chapstick before I get there. That made me smile. These are pics of him by the way. He is on the right in that muscle picture and second from the right in the other.
It makes me happy just to look at him.

I WILL NOT BE DISCOURAGED. I WILL WIN TOMORROW.

Lime popsicles from ?Breyers? = best comfort food in the world.
I am trying to calm myself down for this tournament. I was going to sleep for an hour but my adrenaline is beginning to make itself known so I don't really feel like sleeping anymore.
(Adrenaline is the good thing about debate tournaments, becuase they sure don't give you much time to sleep.)

I'd admit it. I'm scared. I'm nervous. I'm angry this is a new resolution for me and my team and we don't know what to expect when everyone else has debated it before.

I am going go do this...

math woes

In fatal familial insomnia people eventually die because they just can't sleep. I seem to be attempting to follow that trend. I want to get to bed by 11 tonight though... that would be so nice.

STUPID FREAKING MATH PROJECT. We needed a function for a rollercoaster so I picked a cosine function dampened by an exponential decay function, in the form of (Acos(Bx)+C)e^bx. So I figured out that A or my amplitude had to be fifty because my rollercoaster needs to be 100 feet at x=0, and B had to be 7pi/500 because I want 3.5 hills over my five hundred meter-long plot of land, C had to be 50 so I could shift my height up to 100 and my bottom to y=0, and b had to be ln(.5)x/500 because over the 500 meters I needed my height to maintain at least half of the original height by the end. So all of that was just dandy. And the track couldn't be steeper than 70 degrees, so my first derivative had to be greater than or equal to tangent of -7pi/180 and less than or equal to tan 7pi/180, so I was okay there. Finally, after all that work, the slope of the track could only change by .05 per meter travelled horizontally, so the second derivative had to be greater than/equal to -.5 and less than/equal to .5. I guess when I did all that work I was just assuming my second derivative would turn out okay, but it turns out it goes from .-07 to .07. I felt like killing someone tonight. Preferably the stupid professor at Carroll that is subjecting us to this torture.

I'm so sick of school.

Random poem about physical abuse:

The print of your hand
was a lake on my cheek,
frozen over at the edges but not in the middle.

"This is life," you said.
We stood alone on a landscape of white light.

NO.

This is sanity barricading itself
in a monochrome apartment.
This is clarity struggling to hold off
a technicolor blur.
This is the final battle of reality and chaos,
one small building on a brittle tundra.

This is not life.

**
and... an angry poem I wrote to Matt:

your hands were enough
to send me- cut out- a photograph
of me at two
into the sky in the absence
of light

two weeks of numbness
one week of pain
an eternity of anger
can i hate you?
can i hate you for saying it-
saying it all-
it's all about the past and the way
your heart spins around,
a figure eight on a carousel?

it's not enough.

you are the scissors
cutting through the thick paper
of my life.
you knew better.
you knew better in the dark that night.
i was motionless,
frozen,
melted icicle stuck to vinyl in summer heat.

i can only keep asking myself
what do they think?
the men in the guillitines.
what do they think
right before the blade falls
when the sky is all around
and pale down their throat?

You know what's funny? Having tennis lessons when you've slept six hours in the past sixty (literally, I'm not exaggerating) hours. Wow. I actually did remarkably well considering the ball was moving too fast for my exhausted eyes to really discern it, so it became this green smudge in the air. I just didn't feel any motivation to move. I was playing with this girl at the end, and she cut a shot so it would have landed a few feet past the net and died. You have to run for those as soon as you see someone cut it. Also, in tennis you cannot tell usually if something is going to go over the net if it's close when you're on the other side. So if someone serves and it hits the net, your body reacts, and you move to get ready for the shot even though it doesn't go over. So today when that girl cut the shot my body should have reacted, because I knew I had to get to it. But I just sort of stood there in fascination that my body was not having any reaction at all and was in fact just standing there watching this ball. Which never happens to me in tennis, because believe or not I do have good reflexes.
Good thing it hit the net or my coach would have been annoyed.
Anyway, I only fell down a few stairs today. But my knee hurts from all the times I whacked it with the tennis racket (also something I don't usually do).

This needs to be brief, as sleep has become a commodity in my life that I cannot afford anymore. I got three hours of sleep last night, and will probably get about the same tonight. I can function okay on it, but it's really hard to wake up in the morning. That first hour I'm so dead to the world. Which means I sleep through my church class. Which is not good or respectful.
Outline of current events:
1. I hate those word recognition things because they make them so hard to discern. The letters blur into each other and it's hard to tell what letter's what, so it doesn't seem like it would help identify if no one can read them accurately. That's not really a current event but...
2. I've been talking to Shauna a lot. She wrote me a letter. She's such an amazing person... I wish everyone on the earth could know her. She's really mad at Matt and so am I, so we talked about it a lot.
3. Matt wrote me a letter saying he still cares and loves me blah blah blah. Shauna told me he somehow found out I know about what happened, so I keep waiting and expecting him to bring it up, to face it. Then I realized that would mean him not being a coward for once and caring about someone other than himself, which I am not sure is realistic to expect of him lately.
4. I wrote him a letter which I will give him tomorrow forcing him to confront the issue. I told him how mad I am and how hurt I was towards the end of our relationship and how he was using me and I feel like an object etc. It's a very honest letter and I feel better having written it.
5. I have decided to perhaps go out with one of Matt's best friends. I don't want to do this if it's immoral, but I think that at this point it is okay, and if it hurts Matt then that's just rather stupid because he keeps going after my good friends. It's not about revenge. I really like this kid. I've been thinking about him a long time but I am just beginning to make a decision. Plus I won't try to hide it from Matt.
6. School has become insane. My English grade is now floundering somewhere in Hell (yes, it has dropped that low). By that I mean I have no clue what I have because our teacher NEVER passes back assignments so we really can't control our grades and we feel helpless and I could rant about that for a while but I won't. But I have been doing badly on all of these reading quizes, because they are detailed almost to the extent of being ridiculous (like 'what was the third word of the sixth line of the second paragraph on page 20?'- not quite that bad but akin to that). I have to somehow redeem it. I will write an extra credit essay on Walden but I'm not sure how many points that will buy me. My last extra credit essay, on Middlesex, I slaved away on (okay a bit of an exaggeration) and he only gave me a measley nine points.
7. I have a 92% in money management, which is dangerously close to a B and would be a B in most of my classes. How pathetic is that? It's a vocational. It's supposed to be so easy. But it's freaking hard! I actually have to pay attention or I get screwed over. I feel deprived of a study hall. And I know absolutely nothing about banking and taxes and everything we've been studying, paychecks and W2's and W4's (well I know about that stuff now that we've learned it, but I didn't) because I am somehow incredibly naive about money matters. AHH it sucks.
8. So I work harder. I stay up until 3 in the morning every night studying and doing homework. I am not, after two years of hard work, going to let my valadictorian opportunity fall because of money management and some stupid English quizzes.

9. COLLEGE... Been thinking about it, talking about it... it's kind of this frightening thing looming in the future that I struggle to ignore. I think it will be nice getting out of this house, and I think my relationship with my parents will improve. But as to living on my own with my own finances and my own life... when I don't even know what payroll taxes are (or I didn't) how am I going to survive?

winner

I have apparently won 900,000 something pounds on the UK online lottery. Funny how I don't remember entering that and certainly don't live in the UK.

How do these people get my email address?

But 900,000 pounds is a TON of money... I wish it was true.

I have decided that there are times when I HATE bowling. I will explain momentarily. Anyway we (all my family- grandma, two uncles, cousin, an aunt, parents) all went bowling today. Part of the reason I don't like bowling is that I SUCK at it- I got 103, 103, and then was at 103 in the eigth frame when they shut it off becuase it was 8:30.

Scenarios that explain why I hate bowling:
1. You're doing horribly. You've been getting gutterballs like every turn. You just get another obvious gutterball.
Family member: OH! Nice try! That was really close!
Like you really need being reminded that you threw another gutterball, it was definitely not a nice try, and it went in the gutter about ten feet down the lane?
2. You're doing horrible, same as above, and throw another gutterball.
Entire family at once: You're curving your hand! Try throwing it slower. Try throwing it harder. Try throwing it faster. Here, come here and I'll show you how you should stand. Line it up with the arrows. No, you're still turning your hand! This is what I do... etc. etc. etc.
bad thing about bowling: you can never see what you're doing wrong, and everyone always tells everyone else what they're doing wrong and how they should fix it. And continues to tell you this after every bad throw. And will not shut up.
3. It's the tenth frame and you have a grand total of 20, whereas the entire family besides you has over 100.
Family: You've just had a bad game (no I haven't I just suck will you admit it please?). I didn't really do much better than you (what, 80 points isn't "much" in a game where the total is 300?). You just had hard luck or a bad ball (yeah, although the rest of you did fine with your crappy balls and don't seem to be suffering from this "bad luck" thing).
4. You just get nine pins down on your second turn after throwing gutterballs the last three frames.
Family: *screaming, whistling, cheering so loudly the entire bowling alley looks over and sees you scored nine and wonders what's so wonderful about that*
5. You get nine on your first turn and then miss a spare by a few centimeters.
Family: Oh, that was so close! I really thought you had it! You got robbed! (Thank you, I really needed someone to remind me how close it was, and tell me that they thought I did better than I actually did).
6. Your aunt hits a few pins on the side.
Aunt: Man, I was just a few inches off, I hit it dead on and I should have hit it on the side.
You: Actually, it really looked like you hit it on the side and should have hit it dead on.
Aunt: No, I hit it on the side.
Mother: *glares, calls you over* stop being such a brat.
7. Your grandmother's bowling ball looks a little like one of the people next to you's balls.
Grandmother (to nine year old at closest lane): I think you have my ball.
Kid: No, I really think this is my ball.
Grandmother: No, my ball is gone. You definitely have it.
Kid: This is the ball I've been using all along!
Grandmother: Let me see it.
Kid: It's my ball I swear.
Grandmother: LET ME SEE IT!
*kid hands over ball*
Grandmother: Oh, sorry. I guess it is your ball.
(This happens every time it's Grandma's turn during the three games you play).

I hate bowling when I'm doing really badly (which I wasn't tonight, at least comparatively, as I got 2nd place out of 7 twice and then 1st) because it's just not fun anymore. Last June I went with my boyfriend and a few friends, and I think I got 70 and everyone else had over 100. It was miserable.

I hate bowling becuase I feel so angry and bitter towards people that are doing really well when I'm not. I hate how cheerful they are when they give you advice.

I hate bowling most of all because it brings out this angry part of me, this part of me that is really happy when someone throws a gutterball who has been doing well. I hate feeling like that. I hate the resentment I feel. It's the most angry, miserable feeling in the world.

I like bowling with my dad, because none of those bitter feelings come. We can just have fun. And I like bowling with my brother for the same reason. And I like bowling alone.

That's it.

I was reading this article and I asked my mom what our church thought about it and she said that our church is against promoting condoms to stop AIDS too. She said our church doesn't believe if a kid has AIDS it's their fault or anything, but she said our church "has absolute standards."
I said, "How can it ever be okay to just let people die when you could do something about it?" and she said, "Becuase sinners have to suffer the natural consequences."
"What if someone gets it through intravenous drugs and then stops using drugs but has AIDS or HIV and wants to get married? Is it okay then?"
"No," my mom said, "the bible says it's better that one sinner die than to compromise absolute standards."

WTF???!!!!!!!!! I can't agree with that. I CAN NOT! People that are gay, even if I grant my church's view that it's wrong, and don't realize it's a sin (although I don't believe it is) do NOT deserve to die! If there is any way we can prevent the deaths of (what I believe are) innocent people, then we should. How can promoting life EVER be a bad thing?

I'm really pissed off at the moment. Even if I believe everything else about my religion, I can NEVER believe that. EVER.

How can anybody believe that?

So we just had this conversation, and I said I could not believe that, and my mom said, "Well then you choose to not be LDS!"

Mormanism is supposed to be perfect in every aspect. I believe 99% of it. How can I ever believe those things though, that gay people are evil, that they should face the consequences of their sins and die? That we shouldn't try to stop AIDS with condoms because it's promoting permiscuity?

It's the first time in my life that I have ever told my parents I don't agree with our religion. I feel really weird.

thank you

I suppose Thanksgiving was over three minutes ago, but I need to say thank you still.

To the two people that changed my life (and who hopefully know who they are):

Once upon a time I hated myself.
Thank you.

Once upon a time I thought that love didn't exist, and people only hurt each other.
Thank you.

Once upon a time I thought that life was inherently horrible, and that suffering was perpetual.
Thank you.

Once upon a time I didn't trust anyone because I was so afraid of getting hurt.
Thank you.

Once upon a time I thought that I didn't deserve to be loved.
Thank you.

Once upon a time I was constantly afraid, of everything.
Thank you.

Once upon a time nobody ever took care of me the way they should have.
Thank you.

Once upon a time everyone I had ever loved had left me.
Thank you.

Once upon a time I didn't think anyone would ever understand me, or try to.
Thank you.

Once upon a time I thought that I would be alone forever.
Thank you.

Once upon a time I spent all my time floating a few feet above my body, and I didn't feel anything, not happy or sad or pain or anything.
Thank you.

Once upon a time I thought it was better to be numb and never feel because the pain wasn't worth it.
Thank you.

Once upon a time I thought that I was born to be hurt.
Thank you.

Once upon a time I thought that I should just die because nobody cared about me and all I ever did was hurt and destroy people.
Thank you.

Once upon a time I thought that everything everyone did to me was my fault.
Thank you.

Once upon a time I felt like there was no hope for me.
Thank you.

Once upon a time I didn't let people touch me.
Thank you.

Once upon a time I used to cry myself to sleep every single night.
Thank you.

Once upon a time I used to jump off the roof because I thought that people might notice me if I had a broken arm and ask me how I was doing.
Thank you.

Once upon a time I believed there were no good people in the world.
Thank you.

And then I met you.

He who is capable of thinking a little more deeply will soon perceive that human desires cannot begin to be sinful simply at that point at which, in their chance encounters with one another, they occasion harm and evil; but that, if this is what they bring about, they must be originally and in their essence sinful and reprehensible, and the entire will to live itself reprehensible. All the cruelty and torment of which the world is full is in fact merely the necessary result of the totality of the forms under which the will to live is objectified, and thus merely a commentary on the affirmation of the will to live. That our existence itself implies guilt is proved by the fact of death.

That's from the Schopenhauer book I'm reading. I just wanted to post it because I think it's really contraversial. In fact, I don't really agree with much of what Schopenhauer is saying (anothing Kant worshipper... jeesh), but I think it's an interesting take on reality. He says that because humans seek a greater degree of pleasure, they are also in actuality seeking a greater degree of pain. I do agree with him when he says utopias are impossible, becuase if there was no pain and only pleasure men would go mad and kill themselves (ruining the utopia), but I don't agree with... well, the rest.

About this passage though... I don't agree with it. I think that suffering isn't something we create from the will to live. Maybe it comes with the will to live, but I don't think it's created by it. And I don't think the will to live is, in itself, corrupted and flawed.

Thoreau

This is rather random, but I just finished Walden, and although there are some boring parts, for the most part I thought the book was fascinating... it was more about the philosophies of transcendentalism than a pond, and I think the most fascinating thing of all was that he wasn't really using the pond as a metaphor of life... he was using life as a metaphor of the pond.

So there's some really good stuff in it... here's all the quotes that I wrote down that really made me think:

I never dreamed of any enormity greater than I have committed. I never know, and shall never know, a worse man than myself.

Not until we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.

The universe is wider than our views of it. ...there are continents and seas in the moral world, to which every man is an isthmus or an inlet, yet unexplored by him, but... it is easier to sail many thousand miles through cold and storm and cannibals... than it is to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one's being alone.

A voice said to him- Why do you stay here and live this mean moiling life, when a glorious existence is possible for you? Those same stars twinkle over fields other than these.- But how to come out of this condition and actually migrate thither? All that he could think of was to practise some new austerity, to let his mind descend into his body and redeem it, and treat himself with ever increasing respect.

We should be blessed if we lived int he present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us...; and did not spend our time attoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty. We loiter in winter while it is already spring. ...Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

While England endeavors to cure the potato-rot, will not any endeavor to cure the brain-rot, which prevails so much more widely and fatally?

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measure or far away.

Things do not change; we change.

No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well. For the most part, we are not where we are, but in a false position. Through an infirmity of our natures, we suppose a case, and put ourselves into it, and hence are in two cases at the same time, and it is doubly difficult to get out. In sane moments we regard only the facts, the case that is. ...However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is.

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

So, I don't really agree with what he says about how superfluous everything is, and that we really don't need houses or clothing or anything, and that we should simplify simplify simplify, but there is a lot in that book that makes a lot of sense. The conclusion was AWESOME. I think Thoreau was a bit crazy to isolate himself in some cabin (I would have been scared to death on winter nights), but I think he truly wanted to know himself, and I admire what he did, and the way he looked at the world and tried to find the meaning in everything, and tried to make so many analogies. I would have liked to know him... he seems introverted perhaps, but I think that he really understood human nature (even if I think he was off the mark on some things).

So... yeah, think about those quotes... they make you consider yourself in a different light.

Now I'm on to reading this new philosopher... I can't remember his name (sad).

-Would you rather find trUe love or $1 million? true love definitely... "i don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love"
-Would you always have to say everthing on your mind or never speak again? say everything on my mind. it would be hard, i'd probably hurt a lot of people, but i think people should be more honest. i don't think i could bear the isolation of never speaking again.
-Would you rther be gossiped about or never talked about @ all!? i'd rather be gossipped about... it would mean i'd made some sort of impact, no matter how insignificant, on the world.
-Would you rather have stars in your eyes or eyes on the back if your head? i don't really get this question... what do they mean "stars in your eyes"? I guess eyes on the back of my head would be okay (well they'd be horrible but still) if my hair covered them and such.
-Would you rather have x-ray vision or bionic hearing? x-ray vision... there's some things i don't think i should hear.
-would you rather be able to hear ne convo or take back ne thing you say? take back anything i say... sometimes (a lot of times) i say things without thinking them through the way i'd like to, and i don't really mean what i say.
-would you rather end hunger or hatred? hatred. i think it's more devastating. maybe if people had more love for each other they could share something like food. plus i'd rather die of hunger than live somewhere that emanated hatred.
-rather publish your diary or make a movie about your most embarassing moment? definitely publish my diary. maybe i could use a pen name. plus i do plan on publishing it someday with a pen name... or maybe without one depending on how brave i am.
-rather b caught singing in the miror or spying on your crush? well, everyone does both, but probably singing in the mirror because doing something embarrassing in front of a crush tends to be more embarrassing than being caught doing something embarrassing by anyone else.
-rather be a dog named killer or a cat named fluffy? umm... fluffy i suppose. cats seem so confident and sure of themselves. maybe i could learn something from them.
-rather give up movies or music? movies definitely... music is life!
-rather be stranded on a desert island alonde or w/ someone u hate? with someone i hate. total isolation would suck (unless i could get a relationship going with a volleyball), whereas i have in the past actually developed good relationships with people i'd previously hated.
-rather get even or get over it? get over it definitely. revenge just causes more hate.
-rather always lose or never play? always lose... i'm finally beginning to realize that real failure is in not trying, not in losing. it's a good thing i figured that out in time for debate this year, as my records are not stellar.
-rather b forced to lie to your best bud or tell the truth to your parents? tell the truth to my parents... although it would really suck, i think that i'd rather face the immediate consequences from telling the truth than the longer, more detrimental consequences from telling a lie, especially to a close friend.
-rather know it all or have it all? know it all definitely. there's more satisfaction for me in knowing than in having. otherwise i may not spend all my money on books.
-rather get 1st dibs or last laugh? 1st dibs. i'm not sure about this whole 'last laugh' thing. it doesn't really sound healthy to need it.
-rather give bad advice or take it? take it... i'd rather someone screwed me up than i screwed someone up any day
-rather have sand in your shorts or water in your ear? sand in my shorts... it's easier to get out i think. both are very annoying though.
-rather forget your sunscreen or your snglasses? sunscreen. i've had way too many experiences lately of all my skin peeling off and me looking like a tomato.
-rather kiss a jellyfish or step on a crab? depends on where i had to kiss the jellyfish. if it was on the top of it, i'd rather do that. if it was a tentacle, i'd rather step on the crab. plus, jellyfish (having been stung many times before) are just plain creepy and painful. i've never been hurt by a crab (although they scare me too).
-rather own a ski lodge or a surf camp? ski lodge definitely. surfing's fun, but i suck at it, and i've been skiing since i was two, and own all the equipment. but i do want to learn to surf better someday.
-rather forget who u r or who everyone else was? i think who everyone else was. because if you forget who you are, but not everyone else, you have to rebuild your identity on what other people think and know about you, which means you're never really yourself again, but if you forget who other people are, you can relearn that without any real damage... although both would really suck.
-rather have 1 wish granted today or 3 10 yrs from now? three ten years from now. i like delayed gratification. it's something to look forward to.
-rather have 1 song playing in your head forever or have to say "like" before every sentevce? hmm... that's a hard one. the song thing would get really annoying to me, but hte like thing would get really annoying to everyone else and make everyone else think i was an idiot... i'm actually not sure on that one. probably say "like" because the song would drive me insane, which is no fun.
-rather give up your computer or your pet? AAHH horrible question... umm... i'd say my pet, because i can go to the library to do computer stuff, but there's really no way to get rid of my pet and still have her with me.
-rather be the sand castel or the wave? the wave. more power. more control.
-rather overthrow a dictatorship or lead one? overthrow definitely... dictatorships are not good as long as people are corrupted by power.
-rather write the worst book in history or record the worst song? the worst song. it's less of an accomplishment in my opinion to write a song than a book. so i'd rather the book was a success and the song sucked.
-rather get free chocolate for 1 yr or free patatoes forever? i don't know. i think potatoes just because i'd get fat eating all that chocolate.

http://www.expage.com/page/true22

more sure signs of my geekiness

So today was the science olympiad competition.
This will be my new motto: "I failed the science olympiad astronomy test and all I got was a crappy NASA sticker."
:-) although the sticker looks good on my calculator.
ANYWAY... as you can tell the test did not go well. I got 10th out of 32, but I got really messed up because it was mostly astrophysics, and using spectrometer parallax to find the distance to stars doesn't work when you can't figure out how to apply the formula. I knew it was (M-m)log5^d-10 or something, and I could figure out m (the apparent magnitude), but for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to use my Hertsprung-Russell Diagram to find the absolute magnitude so I could compute the log. I didn't really prepare well enough on the math stuff, I was mainly memorizing random white dwarfs and supernovas in the universe, so it sucked. And my wonderful, dependable partner dropped out this week for no apparent reason, so I was one of the very few people taking the test alone.
Needless to say I am actually pretty impressed with myself for getting 10th. When the question is "If the Sun suddenly turned into a blackhole of equal mass, how would it affect earth's orbit and how long would it take people on Earth to notice the change?" and you write (for lack of anything more insightful) "it would warp the orbit and the people would notice pretty soon because they'd all get sucked in and die." Which obviously included the exact measurements of time and orbit warp they wanted.
WELL... we'll just forget about the whole horrid ideal. Next year I may break down and actually study.

So I was stuck at MSU with nothing to do from 9-1 and 2-3, because I wasn't double entered like most kids were. I kind of overdosed on Thoreau's bean fields so I wandered down to the bookstore. I went to the philosophy section. I found some book by Nietzsche (Midnight of the Idols or something) and just sat in the bookstore reading it for two and a half hours. It was really entertaining. I didn't really agree with what he was saying, but he said Socrates was an erotic, crazed man who deluded the world with dialectualism and only had influence because he was an ugly tyrant. That made me smile. And then he went on this long rant about Kant, that was fun. The only person he didn't degrade was Heraclitus, and Democritus to some extent. He was saying that philosophy is slowly leading people away from the truth instead of towards it (of course this is all Socrates's fault) and that God is the culmination of all of our delusions. He had this list that carefully spelled out how people managed to get all deluded.
Yeah, well, I don't really agree with what he was saying in those essay things, but it was entertaining.
Anyway, Susan and Katie found me in a corner of the bookstore surrounded in astrophysics and philosophy books laughing at Nietzsche. They asked me what I was reading and when I told them they sort of stared at all the books around me and stared at me.

I couldn't help but smile inwardly. Imagine how much of a geek I must look, there at science olympiad taking an astrophysics test reading Nietzsche in my spare time.

EDIT: (10:00 p.m.) now do I win the award for the geekiest day ever? Because after all of that, I just spent two and a half hours playing Final Fantasy X (go blitzball!). I'd say that's the cherry on the cake. ;-)

I'm slipping away on this iceburg of emptiness... no food sounds so perfect. I don't know how to fight anymore.

I've been trying to help my friend. She just broke up with her boyfriend. He calls every ten minutes and tells her he's going to kill himself and it will be her fault. He drinks in front of her and says it's because she left him. He won't leave her alone and it's killing her. She can't just let go of someone... she's lived her life to make people happy and she's forgotten herself. She says she knows it's not her fault, but in his mind it is, and she can't just let him fall apart.

I tell her, "How can you hold him together?" He tells her if she goes out with him he'll quit drinking. I say, "He has to do it for himself. You can't fix him."

She looks so sad.

She has a new boyfriend, one who respects her and loves her and would never hurt her or harrass her like that. And she can't enjoy it because everytime they're together her x-boyfriend talks.

Why can't I protect her? I want to kill this kid. I realize he's angry and hurting. But he doesn't have to hurt someone I love. It won't fix things. She may go back to him (I'm praying she won't) but she'll never love him the way he thinks he needs her to.

No wonder we keep our eyes closed to reality. If we were to keep them open, how could we ever handle that much pain without losing all sanity? With our eyes open, everything is disintegrated. Closing them is the only way we have to hold things together.

WHAT IS TRUTH?

Truth is elitist... but then if no one believed in themselves, if no one thought they were right, what kind of a loose, unconstant world would we live in?

WHY DO YOU HURT PEOPLE? When you're angry, when you're hurt, when you're sad... you resent the people that hurt you.. so you hurt others. Don't you see what you're doing? Don't you see the chain you're weaving? Don't you see how unstoppable and horrible it is? How can you take someone as innocent as you were and give them the tools to do this to someone else someday?

I want people to understand what they're doing... if they understood, maybe they would stop.

If everytime I punched someone I felt it myself, then people would probably stop hurting each other.

I'm angry at the world at the moment. For not caring. For not caring about any of its inhabitants.

One of my favorite books is I Was a Teenage Fairy by Francessca Lia Block, which is about a girl that was sexually abused and creates her own sort of imaginary friend to deal with the pain, and how she ends up fighting it and standing up for the people that are getting hurt. But there is this part of the book that I love:

"Suddenly Mab understood.... [The world] really was an uglier place than she would have liked to believe. It had no respect for its smallest and most delicate members. It would let them starve like children in the back pages with pot bellies and empty-soup-pot eyes; it would let them be touched in ways that no one should be touched, and broken like wishbones and tossed in the trash."

So that quote kind of echoes how I am feeling at the moment.

Shea I must admit I stole this from you:

Name:	Lindsay
Birthdate:	05-21-89
Birthplace:	Berkeley CA
Current Location:	Montana
Eye Color:	brown (but turning more hazel with time)
Hair Color:	brown
Height:	5"2'
Weight:	111
Piercings:	ears
Tatoos:	nope
Boyfriend/Girlfriend:	sort of boyfriend... not anything really binding though
Overused Phraze:	umm... I don't know... some days I just notice I'm repeating something a lot
FAVORITES
Food:	smoothies probably
Candy:	100 grand
Number:	77
Color:	yellow
Animal:	those things with big eyes... lemurs or bushbabies or something
Drink:	smoothies
Alcohol Drink:	all I've had is vodka... I liked it though
Bagel:	blueberry
Letter:	L
Body Part on Opposite sex:	eyes
This or That
Pepsi or Coke:	coke I guess, but diet pepsi is better
McDonalds or BurgerKing:	both are gross... if I had to pick I'd say McDonalds
Strawberry or Watermelon:	watermelon
Hot tea or Ice tea:	don't know, I've never had tea
Chocolate or Vanilla	vanilla
Hot Chocolate or Coffee:	coffee... but I can't drink it
Kiss or Hug:	hugs are nice, but I haven't been kissed in two and a half months, so that would be cool too
Dog or Cat:	depends on my mood. I love both
Rap or Punk:	punk (rap=crap)
Summer or Winter:	summer... no school. but i like Christmas vacation
Scary Movies or Funny Movies:	again, depends, I really like both
Love or Money:	LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE
YOUR...
Bedtime:	I would like to go to bed at 10 on weeknights but that's really impractical. I usually go to bed at 12 or 1 weeknights and weekends
Most Missed Memory:	one time me and a bunch of friends told ghost stories in my furnace room... oh man it was so much fun
Best phyiscal feature:	I don't know. My teeth are straight, that's nice.
First Thought Waking Up:	Oh man another day... how many until summer again?
Goal for this year:	start breaking in debate
Best Friends:	Siobhan, Shauna, Olivia, Erin, Emma, JoAnna
Weakness:	I can be selfish I think... and I seem to have trouble with addicitons
Fears:	That I will never be happy and that I will become addicted to drugs
Heritage:	I don't know what this question means... I'm mostly Scottish if that's what it means
Longest relationship:	nine months
HAVE YOU...
Ever Drank:	yes
Ever Smoked:	no
Pot:	no
Ever been Drunk:	semi
Ever been beaten up:	yes
Ever beaten someone up:	no
Ever Shoplifted:	no
Ever Skinny Dipped:	not really
Ever Kissed Opposite sex:	yes
Been Dumped Lately:	no
IN A GUY/GIRL
Favorite Eye Color:	blue or green
Favorite Hair Color:	blond or brown
Short or Long:	semi-long but not too long
Height:	about 5"8 or 9
Style:	Abercrombie
Looks or Personality:	personality... but looks are nice
Hot or Cute	cute
Drugs and Alcohol:	nope
Muscular or Really Skinny:	muscular but not too muscular
RANDOMS
Number of Regrets in the Past:	I don't really regret anything. I know that sounds lame but it's true.
What country do you want to Visit:	I want to go back to Europe and back to England/Ireland/Whales and I want to go to Scotland, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Australia, China... everywhere
How do you want to Die:	Either in my sleep or fighting for something I believe in, like someone else's life
Been to the Mall Lately:	haha our mall doesn't really count as a mall
Do you like Thunderstorms:	yes I love them
Get along with your Parents:	sometimes
Health Freak:	I like healthy food, but junk food is good too
Do you think your Attractive:	no
Believe in Yourself:	sometimes
Want to go to College:	yes
Do you Smoke:	no
Do you Drink:	no
Shower Daily:	yes
Been in Love:	I think so
Do you Sing:	I try... and fail
Want to get Married:	yes
Do you want Children:	one, at the most two
Have your future kids names planned out:	lol, of course... boys Adrian or Alexis, girls Siobhan, Ryan, Shauna
Age you wanna lose your Virginity:	haven't really thought about it (well I sort of already lost my virginity, but we'll pretend I haven't)... I'd say probably 21
Hate anyone:	not really
CREATE YOUR OWN! - or - GET PAID TO TAKE SURVEYS!