Double O Seven

Yeah, it's 1:46 AM and I'm posting. I just got home.
I guess that ever since I saw Rent I've wanted to have some sort of amazing, defining New Year's Eve. I've wanted to be with all my friends for one last year, to see them all together.

It didn't exactly happen tonight. My friends were scattered about the city. Some (Shauna, Ellie, etc.) were at a party getting wasted. Some were home alone. I love them all.

As for me, I was hanging out with three of my friends watching Mulan. I forgot how good that movie is. It wasn't quite the Rent New Year I was dreaming of, but it was nice. I knew I was with people that cared about me. None of that middle school poser crap.

I'm so glad my friends care. I hated those few years when I was 11-12ish when I didn't really have any real friends besides Olivia. Now, I am so grateful for them.

Happy New Year's. Everything is possible in the middle of the night. Everything is possible because the world hit 2000 and the computers didn't crash. Everything is possible because there were bombs in Hong Kong and the world didn't fall apart. Millennium with a capital M is coming, but it's not here yet. For one more year, one more night, one more moment...
everything hangs in a pure space of possibility.

I'm going to be happy this year.

Happy freaking 2007.

"Maybe this year will be better than the rest..."

New Years Resolutions

I have copied in last year's resolutions so I can first see if I've accomplished anything this year. After that I'll address this years.
Written last year: (December 2005)
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.

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.
Have I accomplished this? I think so. I believe I am good at debate, whether I do well or not. I have become confident this year, these past few tournaments. I kept debating even when I wanted to quit because I believed I was a huge failure. I haven't cut over debate at all. I'm starting to do my best.
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.
I still think I'm fat, but I haven't OD'd once this year (aka I haven't thrown up) that I can remember. I haven't bought any laxatives in a few months. I certainly haven't overexercised... I'm probably underexcercising. I maintained a weight I was happy with (110) until September. Now I'm not happy with my weight, but I'm trying to deal with it in a healthy way.
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.
I have only cut twice in seven months (since I cut my wrist). Before that, I was cutting very infrequently. I have learned to call people. I still haven't entirely learned to live without pain, but I'm doing much better than a year ago.
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.
I have been intermittently happy this year. Lately I haven't been because I haven't been taking my meds the way I should (I really need some angel to make me take them twice a day). But I am learning to be okay without being sick. I haven't really been slowly decaying. I've had a few minor breakdowns, but nothing terrible besides the cut wrist.
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.
I do believe I have learned how to love this year. That's one thing I think I've definitely accomplished. I believe it's worth it to love even if it hurts. I have opened myself up completely to the people I love, specifically Josh. I love Josh, but I don't let him hurt me at all anymore. I have learned.
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.
This one is a bit more difficult as I am convinced that sometimes it is sewn into my very personality. I have gotten better at choosing friends that think they way I do. I have been more openly myself with those friends. I have been doing a lot with my friends on the weekends. I have attempted to make contact with people when depressed. I'm getting somewhat better. But somedays I don't think I'm getting better at all, so I don't know.
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.
I have gotten much better at this. I have been trying to talk to people when I don't feel well. This blog has helped a lot, because several of my friends read it, and I try to be really honest on here. I don't believe asking for help is weak anymore. I do believe it's the strong action.
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.
I have, I am fairly certain, done very well at this one except for that one day when I took xanax in the morning and ran into the mailbox. Other than that, I don't think I've abused drugs in any way. In fact, at the moment I should take more of them.
9. I am not afraid of the pain that can accompany taking risks. I am afraid of the numbness that can accompany stagnancy.
I'm still working on this one, but I believe I've made progress.

1. Go 4-1 consistently in debate
I have gone 4-1 at three out of the four past tournaments.
2. Exercise daily, but not too much
I haven't been exercising... :-( at least not very often.
3. Lose five pounds
I've gained five pounds... but I love myself anyway!
4. Get a 33 or 34 on my ACT's and something (I can't remember) on my SAT's
I got a 33 and a 2240, both adequate scores.
5. Get into the MIT summer camp
Didn't get in...
6. Apply to several colleges including MIT, Caltech, and BYU
I have applied to six colleges and gotten into three so far!
7. Get into those colleges
See above
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)
I sort of did this for a while, but then failed. But I think that quitting was the hard choice for me, and the right one, no matter how much I hate quitting.
9. Start practicing violin/cello/piano enough that they don't collect dust in between lessons
I definitely have failed this goal :-(
10. Donate to charity
I still need to do this as well.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the progress I've made in the past year. I really do believe I have made progress in most areas of my life.

And here they are, the 2007 Resolutions:
1. Break to sems at state and win five debates at NFL's
2. Stay close to Josh, and open with him.
3. Stay in touch with my friends when I go to college.
4. Don't drink one drop of alcohol or coffee, don't abuse drugs in any way (that includes laxatives, caffeine pills, diet pills, OD's, self-medicating etc), don't smoke anything (although I certainly never plan on that ever).
5. Be happy consistently.
6. Be outgoing and friendly (especially the first few days of college)
7. Don't live for grades or anything. Stop conforming to the American chaotic culture. Don't stress myself out to badly or overwork myself at all. Know when to say NO. Don't get overinvolved.
8. Don't watch any movies compromising my standards.
9. Be a valadictorian (I will know about this in three weeks, but it will still be next year).
10. Start exercising regularly.
11. Stop sleeping through seminary (I don't care how I have to do it, I really need to stop sleeping through that class!)
12. Put more effort into my hair, face, clothes on a daily basis
13. Get to know people I would otherwise regret not getting to know before I left.
14. Not be too nostalgic/moody/homesick my first few weeks of college.

IT'S 2007, BABY!!! This is the year I graduate from high school!!!! This is the year everything changes! This is the first year of my life I live alone!!!
I'm going to make it the best year yet.

will i snap?

That is the question: will I snap?
Tonight I was talking to someone on IM. It is like hanging up on someone on IM if you just leave without telling them. So I told them I'd be right back so I could take my dog to the bathroom, which my mom asked me to do, and when I got back she had taken the computer, even though she knew I was talking to someone, which has happened on multiple occasions.

Maybe I'm just easier to anger lately, but I got angrier and angrier as thirty minutes went by (she told me she'd take five) and I knew the person I was talking to was probably gone. So I very calmly said, "Mom, next time will you tell me if you're going to take the computer without me knowing so I can say good bye to people?"

She said, "I didn't think I was going to take this long."
"All the same," I said, still calmly, "please tell me. It's really rude of me to just leave. And I was talking about something I cared about."
"She has signed off," my mom said. "She said [etc.]."
"Please don't read my IM conversation."
"You little sh*t, you can't tell me what to do."
"Please don't call me names."
"Well don't act like my mom! You can't tell me what to do!"
"That doesn't justify you calling me a name."

I was very calm. But I didn't feel calm inside. I am very good at making the way I'm feeling very different from the way I act, though. I feel a turmoil of confusion. Some part of me says I'm exaggerating this, making anyone that reads this believe it's worse than it is just so I can get some sort of pathetic validation for the anger I feel. Some parts of me knows I'm not exaggerating. Some part of me doesn't understand why, if my mom loves me, she does these things to me. Some part of me believes I'm provoking it (I am). I need consistency. If you love me, don't hurt me. That's the way it's supposed to be.

I am angry.
It is okay to be angry.
It is okay for me to feel this way.
I will be angry for a minute or two.

Anger v Faith

X-Men 2:
Storm: Sometimes anger can help you survive.
Nightcrawler: So can faith

I'm thinking about it.

what really makes me angry

Overheard conversation from upstairs:
Craig (my brother): I did get Lindsay the right size of pants!
Trista (my sister-in-law): Well fine.
Mom: Well you know why. Lindsay's gained five pounds in the past few months.

GAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
(that is a scream of frustration resonating within me)

I am so angry about that! About the gaining of weight. I don't even really know how I let it happen... I guess I was just fascinated, wondering if I could keep gaining weight forever and hating myself for it. But now I don't know what to do. I don't want to go back. I want to keep moving forward. But not if it means gaining weight. I can't handle that.

I'm so redundant. I post ten million times about the same thing. But it's my blog so people can just deal with it. If I posted as many posts as all of the times I think about food or weight or any of that, this blog would be thousands and thousands of posts. It's like a sound loop in my head. It never rests. It just goes on.

I always used to liken an eating disorder to a lizard's tail. You cut it off and cut it off and cut it off. You think it's gone but it always grows back.

It gnaws on your brain; it feeds on your insecurities; it breeds on your distraction. If you forget it, just for a moment, it multiplies and multiplies.

I don't even remember what it was like to not obsess about eating. It feels as if I always have, even though I know that's not true.

bipolar Christmas

I do have troubles with Christmas every year, but this years troubles seemed to come mostly on the 23rd. The rest of my troubles were just good old bipolar troubles. The trouble with bipolar is really that if you quit taking some of your medicine, it is nearly impossible to start again, because when you are depressed you don't have the energy or motivation or something, and when you are hypomanic you don't want to take it so you won't come back down. At least I am taking some so I'm not suicidal or psychotic. And I'm really working on getting back into my medicine routine.

Christmas was pretty nice when I wasn't really depressed. What I love most about Christmas, in addition to the decorations and general feeling, are the traditions. On Christmas Eve we followed our usual routine. We passed out mismatched song lyrics and sang for two hours. That's always fun because the verses are always different in different versions. Everyone is supposed to sing their lyrics, so usually by the end of the song everyone is singing different words. It's very fun. After that we went to look at Christmas lights, and I was rather depressed and nostalgic and then angry momentarily because when I tried to tell my mom something I haven't told her before (how very afraid I am of next year) she elbowed me very hard in the stomach and told me to shut up because her favorite song was playing on the cd player. But it was still fun.

I got a lot more than I was expecting to get for Christmas. I like receiving gifts of course, but I hate feeling selfish or greedy, so there are negatives and positives to receiving more than was expected. What I enjoyed the most was seeing my family open the gifts I got them, because I tried really hard this year to buy people things I believed they would like.

I got (I'm sure I'll forget a few minor items) a $15 itunes gift card, a $50 Starbucks gift card, an iron, and ironing board, a sewing machine, sewing scissors, pins, thread, a new 30GB video ipod (my old ipod broke), and a new laptop. All of that except the giftcard and the ipod were things I needed for school.

I was very excited about the ipod and the computer. My parents told me they were going to give me their old laptop, and they were going to try to fix my old ipod, so I really wasn't expecting either. I immediately started setting up itunes on the laptop and transferring all the awesome CD's Morgan gave me onto it. I also bought two TV episodes for my ipod (Galactica and Law and Order SVU). The resolution on the ipod is amazing. I feel really appreciative of my parents. Not because they give me stuff, although I really appreciate that, but because they really care. I know they make me very angry sometimes, but they really do love me unconditionally, and they really would give up anything for me (including the house and the piano, which they are talking about selling).

Today I went snowboarding with my cousin. It was pretty cool because I didn't have any problems carving, which I was concerned about since I didn't snowboard at all last year, I only skiied. I had some problems at the top of the mountain because the snow was choppy so I didn't dare carve, so my calf muscles got pretty sore and I ran over some rocks and scratched up my beautiful board.
I am not sure exactly what it is about boys (I'm probably being sexist, but it is a personally observed phenomenon) that makes them believe they can do things like go off jumps when they have only been snowboarding a few times just because they believe they are fantastic at snowboarding. But my cousin has fallen prey to this dellusion, and he went off a jump on the last run of the day and broke his arm. I felt bad for him, but at the same time I think he learned his lesson.

Tonight I went to coffee with someone. I won't say they're name because I'm going to divulge some of their personal information. Anyway, this person told me their sister attempted suicide last week. This person was very sarcastic, so I could tell it was really hurting this person (sorry, I don't want a pronoun to tell you the gender). We had a very good talk though, and I'm really glad we went to coffee (non-caffeinated beverage). Life kind of sucks sometimes. This person is very angry with his/her sister. I could definitely relate.

Then I got to debate Brittany. I had a splitting headache so my first speech was very slurred, but Amanda gave me drugs so it stopped hurting as badly and things got better from there. And Amanda gave me a coat that doesn't fit her from Maurices, and it's very cute.

Sorry, I'm giving a very mechanical description of these past few days but I kind of don't feel like making it any more interesting.

I plan on working on my senior project all day tomorrow, except I have an interview with the newspaper at 2 becuase I'm apparently a "person worth knowing" just because I got into MIT, even though I can name a lot of people as smart/smarter than me at our school that are worth knowing as well.

I WANT ALL OF THIS ANGER IN ME TO LEAVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so angry at my mom. About everything, everything, everything.

She just called me a BITCH.

I AM SO ANGRY.

I want to cut my arm. I want to cut my heart out. I want to take all of the parts of me that care what she says, that are so angry, that hate and hate and hate, and make them die.

Nothing good is born out of anger. Everything bad is born out of hate. Everything good is born out of love.

I LOVE MY MOTHER!!!!!!!! I LOVE HER SO MUCH I WOULD DIE FOR HER, I WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR HER, I WOULD DO ANYTHING SHE ASKED ME TO IF SHE REALLY, REALLY CARED, I CARE WHAT SHE THINKS, I WANT TO MAKE HER HAPPY...

I LOVE MY MOTHER
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

God... Take away this anger... make it go away... make it dissolve in all of the love I have in me... Please, God, let me not be angry anymore...

never-ending...

I guess that you could say I'm doing much better with my eating disorder. I don't actually purge very much anymore. I have been fighting it. But the way that I eat is still the same. I don't know how to change that. Somedays I eat nothing at all; somedays I eat and I eat and I eat. Although I am not purging anymore, the binging behaviors that necessitated purging are still very much present in my daily life.

I feel like I have tried nearly everything, and somehow I still cannot make myself eat the way I used to eat before this mess started in sixth grade. I don't even remember what it felt like to not constantly obsess about food. Ironically, when I was hard-core bulimic two years ago, I probably thought about food 90% of the time. I obsessed about when I was going to eat, and how much, and I berated myself when I lost control. Now, those same mentalities, that same loop, still characterize me.

I tried to approach my parents on this yesterday morning, and it didn't go well. I told them I needed to see a dietician, and this was the ensuing conversation:
Mom: Why do you need to see a dietician? They're just going to tell you the same things we tell you.
Me: But maybe they can help me to really apply those things.
Mom: We've already told you everything you need to apply them.
Me: But I can't. I'm trying and I can't.
Mom: Well you should be able to! You did last year in weight watchers!
Me: Weight watchers only made things worse.
Mom: But you lost weight and then held your weight constant!
Me: That wasn't because I was following weight watchers.
Mom: Yes you were!
Me: No, I tried very hard to follow it at first but it just turned into more pressure so I went back to the way I was eating.
Mom: You mean binging and purging?
Me: Yes.
Mom: You didn't tell me that!
Me: I told you I wanted to quit because I felt like it was pushing me back.
Mom: Well, if you had followed weight watchers you wouldn't have this problem!
Me: I tried.
Mom: You should have been able to!
Me: But I can't.
(Yelling begins)
Mom: You shouldn't need to see a dietician! We should be helpful enough! The dietician can't tell you anything we haven't!
Me: But nothing else has worked! Maybe they can help me!
etc.
The scene ends with my mom and I yelling at each other and me slamming the front door.

I just don't know what to do anymore. I feel like maybe bulimia is never-ending. I feel like I'll never change the screwed up way my mind views eating; I'll never shift the behaviors I have developed over the last six years.
I don't know if a dietician or nutritionalist would help. My therapist suggested one. All I know is they're my last hope, and nothing else has worked. I can't change. I'm trying; I swear to you I'm trying.

I have to go to debate right now.
Small happenings: I'm going to remind my parents about the dietician. I feel myself sliding back, and I don't want to go back there.
School was really long today, and I realized I read the wrong sixty pages for English, so I have to read ninety pages tonight, and I am procrastinating.
I checked out one book about Taoism and one about Buddhism and almost one about Sartre/existentialism, but I made myself stop because I'm half way through an astrophysics book and really behind in English.
I made muffins for our debate Christmas party!!! And then I ate one. :-(

I have been searching blogger for blogs, and it amazes me how connected we all are. I feel like I'm a part of other people's lives when I read their blogs. It's like I don't know them at all, but I know them very well. I know I'm not alone. It makes me so curious when people's blogs end abruptly. I wonder where they are now, and who they are now, and where they are going, and if they are happy.

It makes me feel so... serene, serenely nostalgic. Maybe I really do believe in Buddhism. Maybe we are all part of some organism, and some part of me feels for people I don't even know.

I read on the internet/heard on the news about some Bulgarian medical people who are accused of deliberately infecting 500 children with AIDS. It made me think of V for Vendetta. It also made me wonder, a lot, about how to reconcile the organism that writes blogs with the organism that kills. How are we all the same?

But I think we are. The same that is. I really do.

UC/debate/sickness

Before I go on about debate, I got into the University of Chicago, which I was excited but not surprised about.
Friday when I went to school I was struggling not to throw up. I was very sick all through seminary and chemistry. In the middle of government I went to the bathroom to call Amanda to ask her whether I should go to the debate tournament. I couldn't get ahold of her, and I wanted to continue the success I had at the Carroll tournament, so I went.
For a long time on the way there I had to just focus on a cloud in the distance and hold a bag in front of my face. I was positive at one point that I was going to throw up. At first I was pretty upset, because I knew it would be embarrassing, but eventually I came to peace with it in my mind. Everyone around me was sleeping, and I honestly just longed for the relief of throwing up.
I didn't throw up, though, until right before my first round. I felt so terrible by them. The rest of the tournament swirled by in a haze of nausea, puke, and confusion. I became extremely familiar with the corner toilet on the third floor becuase I had to run there very frequently. I went to the third floor because there weren't any people using that bathroom. I felt safe in the stall. It also felt, though, like when I used to be bulimic. All of the feelings of dependency on and worship of the toilet came back and made me feel even more miserable.
I had my dad call in an anti-nausea/barfing prescription and Amanda and her boyfriend Geno picked it up for me. Jill and Brittany were amazing.
That first night at the debate tournament we were in the coolest hotel (it had the pool in this indoor atrium in the middle of it with all of these tropical trees) but I spent every hour all night in the bathroom kneeling to the most prominent god my last few years of life. It was terrible. It was the most sick I've been since last year at orchestra festival. I might have been even sicker this weekend, actually.
We weren't really sure what was wrong with me. We thought it was the flu, but I was really sick, and I didn't have a fever, so my dad said it was probably food poisoning, but we don't really know for sure. It was one of the two.
When I woke up Saturday morning I was so sick that I couldn't really walk. I'm not exaggerating. I was walking to the bus and Jill and Brittany just told me to stay where I was and they'd have the bus come get me. I felt really cold and panicky and alone as I was waiting for the bus next to the hotel. I didn't think I could make it through the day, and I thought I would probably have to drop out of the tournament.
I asked the front desk of the hotel for some plastic bags to throw up in on the way to the high school, but I didn't use them. I decided to take things one round at a time. I didn't want to drop out, and while I was debating I felt less focused on how sick I was.
I ended up going 4-1 and breaking. I lost quarter finals to silly Hannah Paine on a 2-1 decision. Brittany, Jill, and Greg all admitted though that I was definitely not debating up to my usual standard. That is probably because I was thinking the whole time of how if I threw up in the middle of the debate Hannah would be confirmed in her suspicions that I was a subhuman creature and all of her subsequent condescending looks would be justifed.
The ironic thing was that she shook my hand for the first time after the round, after "having a cold" for two years. I was kind of happy, because it's the first time I've been sick, and I didn't bother telling her I had the flu or food poisoning or whatever. I figured she could just get sick for all of those times she's been mean to me.
I got seventh place. I was sad about that, and it was weird because the person that got sixth had a lower record than me (he had a 3-2 preliminary record), so I think they messed up the placing, but I'm not going to contest it and start a major movement so I can get sixth place instead of seventh. But Amanda F. won the tournament, which made up for everything.

I was so sick when I got home that I really want my parents to just take care of me. At first my mom of course thought I was faking it and being a hypochondriac, which is what she always thinks when I'm sick. I guess I should have left it at that, but I really needed them to take care of me. This is my last year at home, and since seventh grade every time I get sick my mom just says I'm being a hypochondriac and nobody really helps me emotionally. I really wanted her to care.
When I got on the scales and showed her I'd lost six pounds in one day, however, she and my father told me they believed I was being bulimic again. It all seemed so unfair; I was on the verge of throwing up again, I felt like the living dead, my stomach was twisting and turning and my intestines were sending sharp pains throughout my abdoman so I could barely think, and they were telling me they thought it was my fault, they thought I'd just taken laxatives or OD'd on lithium.
It made me very mad. I just went to my room and cried. It was 10:30 p.m., and it had been such an exhausting weekend. I really just needed them to take care of me. That's all I want from them. I just want my mom to be there for me the way that I need her to. I need her to support me, not telling me I'm making up everything I feel.
One of the major reasons I started self-injuring in eigth grade was that nobody could tell me that pain wasn't real. Nobody could say I was a hypochondriac, and it was all in my head. Nobody could deny me that. And the reason I needed a pain that no one could deny was partially that I felt like my mom denied everything I felt. I felt like everytime I felt sick she said I was faking it, every time I tried to tell her I wasn't okay she thought it was in my head, and every time I tried to tell her I was sad or upset about something she just turned it and made it about her.
I realized Saturday night that I still feel like she does that, and I still feel like I'm the one taking care of her, although it's better than it was, and I still need so badly for someone to take care of me.
I called Amanda and she told me something important. She said my friends were taking care of me. And that's so true. She and Brittany and Jill and Kristin and Alexis and even Shea, who wasn't there, took care of me this weekend. They were my parents.
And Amanda called me "honey," which Ariel does sometimes. I really like it when people call me honey because it feels like they're taking care of me for once, instead of me taking care of the world. All of these years with my belief that I carried the fate of my family on my shoulders, my belief that I had all of the responsibility in the world, have left me with such a hunger for someone to take care of me. I need it. I need it so badly.
Amanda called my parents Sunday as I slept all day and told them I was really sick, and they believed her, and my mom was a lot nicer after that. But it didn't erase the hurt and anger I felt Saturday night.

So... please take care of me sometimes, when I'm sick... you do, I know you do, but I need it. I need you to say, "Shh, honey, everything is going to be okay." I need to feel like I'm not in charge. I need to feel like someone will take control for me. I need to feel like someone is holding me so I can cry.

Caltech

After two days of biting my nails, waiting for the mail the letter from Caltech finally came. The first thing I saw when I opened the mailbox was the big packet. I figured the fact that it was a packet and not a slim letter was probably a good thing, as they don't send people they reject packets, as far as I knew.
I ripped it open as I was standing there in the snow in front of my mailbox. I couldn't wait any longer. Inside was a folder that said "Welcome to Caltech" on the front. I figured this was probably another good sign, as they wouldn't be welcoming me if they were rejecting me, but I still knew I could be deferred so I kept my hopes in check.
However, when I read the first line I allowed a bit of happiness to seep in:
"Dear Lindsay,
It is an honor to inform you of the Admission Committee's decision to offer you a place in the California Institute of Technology's Class of 2011."

I didn't bother reading the rest; I promptly did a celebratory snow dance in front of the mailbox, not caring who was wathcing me jump up and down in circles.

OHH... choices. Now I have big choices. I am 99.9% sure I will get into University of Chicago. So my top three choices are right there: Caltech, MIT, or UC. I hopefully will be able to visit all of them. I'll have to think about it a lot. I'll have to see how the financial aid goes as well, which apparently Caltech will tell me in January according to the CSS and I don't have to fill out the FAFSA, but I need to look into that to make sure that is right.

I think there are some things I can begin to think about now, although I have until May to decide. First off, MIT has way more opportunities, and I think I'll like Boston more than I like Pasadena. Second, Caltech is smaller, and I think that I will like smaller better. Third, Caltech has a way better astrophysics program, but at this point I think that that would be better for grad school- I really want to go to grad school at Caltech, which maybe means I shouldn't go there for undergrad? Finally, MIT sent me a nerdy poster and Caltech didn't.

I don't know. It's kind of balanced in my mind at the moment. Caltech might be slightly better academically, but MIT is better socially. I'll have to see how it all sifts out.

Yay, I love choices. I love the feeling of opening the letter and seeing it say I got in. It makes me realize that the MIT letter probably wasn't a mistake, because it's highly improbable that both MIT and Caltech would mess up the admission letters.

*SNOW DANCE* [inside]

confetti!

MIT sent me a tube full of confetti, the admissions letter, and a nifty MIT poster. I think I'll put my nerdy MIT poster under my nerdy galaxy poster on the east wall of my bedroom. It'll fit right in.

The admissions letter had a short handwritten thing on it as well that said, "Lindsay, your talent at both writing and science is impressive." I think that means that being a good writer actually helped me get into MIT. Woohoo!

School was good today, except it was painfully apparent that my grades are slipping into the kingdom of B's. I negotiated my physics grade back up by arguing two quiz questions on centripetal force, and I think my English grade will be okay, but I worry about government.

Also, I'm supposed to be studying for math right now, as my semester test is tomorrow.

I think if I start staying awake in AP government I'll be more successful. How I will manage that, however, I am not sure.

Today was most definitely the best day of my life so far, between getting into MIT and seeing Josh and being with friends and just so many amazing things...
It was so hard to press that okay button to see my MIT decision, but let me tell you, Josh and I were a little loud for library etiquette.
Today, though, I was more happy about seeing Josh than I was about MIT.

So many good things in one day.

The Princeton Review's annual survey of college students found these schools to be the hardest to get into:

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Caltech came in at #6.

For one moment of one day, I'm going to allow myself to be proud and happy. Last week I did so well at the debate tournament, and this week Josh and MIT...

freaking out

"We are pleased to announce that we're still on schedule to release MIT admissions decisions online at 12:00PM EST on Saturday, December 9."

That's 2:00 PM, I think.
Tomorrow AFTERNOON!!!!!

I'm having a heart attack.

I'm not sure whether I should look tomorrow or not.

But can I resist the temptation or the torment?

I don't know. If I don't get in, I don't want to ruin my weekend with Josh with sad feelings. But I don't know if I can handle the anticipation while knowing that the answer to my future is waiting online.

I'm kind of wishing at the moment that everyone didn't know I'm applying to MIT, because now if I don't get in, I'm obliged to tell a lot of people.

If I didn't get in... they've already made the decision. It's didn't, not don't.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Josh in 6.5 hours...

This is the email I got

Dear Lindsay,

Thank you for all the time and effort you have put into your application.  I
want to let you know Early Action decision letters will be mailed on Monday,
December 11.

Offers of admission to students whose mailing address is outside the United
States will be sent via FedEx.  Other decisions to mailing addresses outside
the United States will be sent via Air Mail.  A copy of the letter sent to
mailing addresses outside the United States will be emailed to the email
address provided on the application on Friday, December 15.

If you have not received a decision from Caltech by December 18, you should
contact our office at 626.395.6341 and we will have another decision mailed to
you.  Please visit our website at http://admissions.caltech.edu/ for more
information.  We are sorry, but we do not give admissions decisions over the
phone nor do we routinely email decisions to students with US mailing
addresses.

I wasn't worried before, but I am now. I'm beginning to feel nervous.

I see Josh tomorrow!!!!

I hope that I never again feel the way I feel tonight.
:-(
:-(
:-(
:-(

Happy moments

This was a weekend of mostly happy moments with a few said moments interspersed.

Happy moment number one: I got to see Jen, who I've been talking to for months online. It was so exciting to finally meet her. She's a fantastic girl, online and in person. My team really liked her as well. I don't know how anyone could not like her though.

Happy moment number two: Seing my name on the postings for octafinals. I was so nervous that I made myself sick. It happens at every tournament; my anxiety affects my body so that I'm constantly ready to sprint to the bathroom.

Happy moment number three: Going into my octafinals round and feeling confident. This is very unusual for me. I was so incredibly confident for the entire tournament, whereas I'm usually incredibly self-critical. I think it really helped me to do better.

Happy moment number four: Hearing them disclose octafinals in my favor. The girl I debated was really sweet and from Idaho, where they are apparently much nicer, but it was still nice to finally win an octafinal round.

Happy moment number five: Debating quarters in front of Amanda with that same confidence that I had for the entire tournament. I'm like a new person when I debate because I view it as a game and I want to have fun. I'm not as serious, not as anxious, not as depressed, and I'm more sure of my capability. It was awesome to debate that way in front of everyone in that room. It was awesome to hear them disclose again in my favor.

Happy moment number (interspersed): Winning the first two coin tosses so I could be aff, which I am most definitely better at.

Happy moment number six: Debating sems in that same manner with that same confidence, weighing out impacts, etc. Losing the coin toss was bad luck, and having to debate neg with a panel I could have easily won on if I was aff was unfortunate. But it was such a nice feeling to not hate myself for that split decision not in my favor; it was nice to still be proud. I skulked for a while, but let me tell you: I am proud of the consistency I had at this tournament.

Happy moment number seven (HAPPIEST OF ALL!!!!!!!!!): Sitting there when they were announcing speaker awards. They announced a lot of good people for the first nine awards. In fact, all of the good people I could think of. Brittany said to me, "That means you're the first!" and she was kidding, and I said, "Yeah right," and I was thinking, it's probably someone from Idaho, or someone from Montana that talks pretty but doesn't win rounds." When they announced my name, I was mostly in shock, and I was in shock as I walked up there and accepted the award, as everyone cheered, as Pat said something like "you go girl," as I sat back down, dazed but smiling. As I started thinking about what it means to be the first speaker out of forty Montana and Idaho debaters, I began to feel a little less skulky about losing that semi-final round.

Happy moment number eight: Seeing the ballots, and seeing that I went 4-1 again, and that I was undefeated (3-0) when I went home last night lamenting to Amanda about how I was probably 0-3.

Happy moment number nine: Seeing that I beat Hannah Payne, who truly is a pain. Also, seeing the comment to her on the ballot, "you were way too aggressive," and knowing that she was actually, for her, not being very aggressive in that round.

Happy moment number ten: Having policy kids from our team, who always ignore me, congratulate me, and having Mr. Pogreba congratulate me.

Happy moment number eleven: Having our school win second place in sweepstakes and knowing I was a part of that.

Happy moment number twelve: Hearing Amanda from Billings shout to me as she left that I was the one that made the tournament worth while, and that I rocked her world.

Happy moment number thirteen: Hugging Jen good bye and hearing from her that she had come to this tournament for me and I had made it worth while.

Happy moment number fourteen: Telling Amanda all of this.

Happy moment number fifteen: Going out to celebrate with Brittany, and both us being so tired that we kind of slurped italian sodas in silence before we both agreed we were exhausted and needed to go to bed.

Happiest realization of all: I am capable of believing in myself.

It was a pretty cool tournament.

life beyond homework

My parents told my grandparents that I don't have any life beyond homework.
That makes me so angry!!! I do too!!! I do things with friends every weekend I'm not at debate; I go to parties; I go out to lunch with people; I IM people; I go to movies; I go to football games etc. etc.
I DO TO HAVE A LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's like my parents saw that I already have no hope of my grandparents ever loving me because I don't care about money at all, and that's what they love about people- money-, and they made it worse by saying I don't have a life outside of homework, which they also disapprove of.

It may sound stupid but it makes me very, very, very, very, very angry at my parents.

Florida

If my frail memories of AP US history allow me to recall anything, it is that Georgia was once a penal colony, and that once Florida was taken from Spain it was sort of an extension of the penal colony.
That may not be true. But it's an interesting thought.

Today we went to this African safari thing. I saw lots of elephants and Rhinos (which were literally right outside the car), lions etc., and I got to feed a giraffe. Every time the giraffe went to eat the food, it would encase my hand with its freakishly long blue tongue. It felt like a human tongue. It was weird, and very slobbery.

I have, true to form, not been truly vacationing, as I have homework, and I am reading Descartes. I really think that of all of the philosophers, Descartes was my soul brother. I read this in Discourse on Method and the Meditations and it rang really close to home:

That is why I shal take great care not to accept into my belief anything false.... But this undertaking is arduous, and a certian indolence leads me back imperceptibly into the ordinary course of life. And just as a slave who was enjoying in his sleep an imaginary freedom, fears to be awakened when he begins to suspect that his liberty is only a dream, and conspires with those pleasent illusions to be deceived by them longer, so I fall back of my own accord into my former opinions, and fear to awake from this slumber lest the laborious wakeful hours which would follow tihs peaceful rest, instead of bringing me any light of day into the knowledge of truth, would not be sufficient to disperse the shadows caused by the difficulties which have just been raised.

As modest as Descartes tried to be, he would probably not accept easily that a 17-year-old girl 360-something years later really understood how he felt when he wrote that. But I do. I've faced the abyss that philosophy creates; I faced the posibility of a life of enlightenment being way worse than the life of ignorance.
Shea told me, though, that once you start peeling away at assumption, you can never go back. And she was right. And the life I have found- partially of enlightenment, partially of comfortable old, even if false, assumptions- is manageable. It's lovable. It's surely worth living.

But all of my panic this summer is enclosed in the quote... I stood on the cliff of everything I knew, and I prepared to jump to something I believed more authentic, but I really didn't know if it was there.

There is one aspect I don't agree with Descartes on however. He believes that existence and enlightenment are only guarenteed when one is ratinalizing and thinking. I believe the only times I was truly alive this past summer were the times I stopped thinking, if only for an instant, and lived in the moment.

Science olympiad: I didn't place in the events I worked the hardest on, although I think I was in the top seven out of about 30 on both. I did, however, get 2nd out of 40ish on the genetics test, which I didn't study for at all.
Irony.

Erin slept over last night and we watched V for Vendetta and John Tucker Must Die (insert underlining). They were very different movies. V for Vendetta is still absolutely amazing (domino scene=best scene of any movie I've ever seen). John Tucker Must Die was very entertaining, and not as sleezy as I was expecting.

Erin has helped me to learn the difference between normal touch and sexual touch, and has helped me become more comfortable with normal things like hugs.

Tonight I watched Rent and I sobbed through the entire second half because I missed Josh so much. I called him eventually and cried to him about how I need to see him, and he said he's coming on the eigth. He promised. I really, really hope it happens. I need to see him so badly.

I told my parents and we had a minor altercation, but it ended alright with me acknowledging that I share their concerns and them acknowledging that I'm old enough to make my own decisions and mistakes.

Something rather bad happened tonight, but I don't feel like admitting to it so I won't.

I'm going to go to Florida tomorrow for needed vacation.

I love you all. I love all of you that know me and that are my true friends and that give me real hugs, not the fake A-frame ones, or that would if you ever saw me.

vote aff

Dale Carnegie once said, "People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing." It is because I agree with Dale Carnegie that I can only affirm the resolution: I should stop debating the way I am debating.
Definitions from Lindsay's brain, 2006:
"The way I am debating": Focusing on winning, caring about the results of the round, expecting myself to do well, treating it as a measurement of self-worth.
Observation 1: Value and criterion
The value that must upheld in today's blog entry is my emotional well-being. Without my emotional well-being I am left as a hollow shell of a human being. The criterion that will weigh my emotional well-being is fun. Fun is defined by Lindsay's brain in 2006 as verbally: enjoying something no matter the results; or nounally: a sense of satisfaction derived from an action. Fun can weigh my emotional well-being in a debate round because if I do not have fun, then no matter the outcome the debate was not worthwhile and my emotional well-being is stripped away.
Contention one: The way I am currently debating is emotionally detrimental.
a. I hate myself when I lose
Currently, when I found out I have lost a round, I procede to hate myself and get angry at myself. I feel as if my self worth as a human being has lowered. This is not valuing my emotional wellbeing at all, and I am having no fun.
b. I leave debate tournaments feeling completely emotionall drained.
Everytime I am done with a tournament, whether I have done well or not, I feel as if I have been through an intensely emotionally trying experience. It frays my emotions and it leaves me vulnerable and especially anxious. This is not upholding my emotional wellbeing and my criterion of fun would never uphold such a seriously detrimental effect.
Contention two: If I changed the way I debated, it would be emotionally beneficial.
a. Not caring as much about winning would make the rounds more fun
If I wasn't so focused on winning I could be more focused on passionate and running odd crap that nobody will expect, or weird positions like flex negs, critical affs, and straight refutation. I wouldn't have to worry about winning or losing the round, because rounds wouldn't reflect my skills when I am debating at my best, but rather my skills at debating interesting positions. In this way my criterion of fun upholds my emotional wellbeing if I change the way I debate.
b. Believing in what I was doing would make rounds more fun
If I stopped running normal positions and ran what I really believe in, no matter what it took to manipulate it, I wouldn't sound bored or distanced in rounds; I would sound passionate and involved. I would be enjoying arguing something I truly believe in. In this manner my criterion of fun would uphold my value of emotional wellbeing.
In conclusion, the resolution must be affirmed or I will emotionally implode and spend the rest of my life in a mental hospital. I have reached a threshold and I cannot continue doing things the way that I am doing them.
Vote aff.

life

Crazy.
My parents go to Utah for a few days, and what happens to me? Do I throw some wild party with lots of alchol, rent a bunch of R rated movies? No (I've lost my driver's license anyway). I go to school, do homework, same as always. And then I get home after a really long day, and I have to go to a Key Club activity, and my key breaks in the ignition. So now I have no car, no parents.

Today I begged rides off of people all day, and missed a National Honors Society (stupidest club in the universe) meeting because I was at some lunch for commended students. If I miss one more I get kicked out. Having pondered this, it doesn't seem like the most horrible thing in the world.

I found out that I have to miss a concert in orchestra, so she told me I have to write a six page paper on a composer with in text citations and everything. I was so stressed at this point that I literally started crying. I tried really hard to make it so nobody saw. I felt so miserable. I had to walk to my cello lesson with Erin's cello, which doesn't have wheels or straps so my arms got really tired.

I finally got home after everything at about 9:30. I have a tournament tomorrow in Billings. I'm not prepared. My cases aren't edited. I have no briefs. My suit is still in the suitcase from the last tournament, which means I'm going to probably have to take my skirt or something. I feel really sick.

I found out I forgot to send my SAT II scores to MIT and Caltech somehow, and that I forgot to send my college transcript to MIT, Caltech, and UC. I felt pretty miserable when I found that out. I sent off the SAT scores tonight. I know Caltech will still take them; I hope that MIT will. I'll send off my transcript on Monday, which I also hope they'll still accept.

Man. This college stuff. It makes me feel like living forever in a cave some days.

And I have to miss four days of school; one for science olympiad, three because I'll be in Florida. I'll be in Florida doing the masses of homework I'll need to do to keep up.

*sigh*

I need a hug.

grounded

I am grounded for asserting my independence again. It really is my fault. I keep forgetting I'm not eighteen yet. It feels like I should be in charge of my life now, not in eight months on my birthday.

After hours and hours of educated guessing and checking, I have come up with a three-dimensional function that can describe for a robot what color to put where to paint a mural. Fear my multi-variable modelling powers!

Who in the world has a robot paint a mural anyway? You don't need a two-variable equation to paint a mural; you just need some creativity.

Everything has been going up and down like crazy lately. I worry about people a lot. I don't know what to do for most of my friends. Sometimes I'm so depressed I just want to cut my wrist again, be that close to death or die. Sometimes I feel so in control of everything, so excited for my life.

I have been thinking about my beliefs:
I believe everyone is capable of change, but that people need help to exercise that capability.
I believe that everyone, with the proper help, can change their lives; everyone from heroin addicts to work-aholics.
I believe that fear is what prevents people from changing their lives, fear and unawareness of their internal motives and fears.
I believe that admitting you're wrong is very liberating, far more liberating than years of a false conviction that you are always right, or a shame in admitting you have made a mistake.
I believe we should love everyone.
I believe we should forgive those that we love an infinite number of times.
I believe that anger is ultimately unproductive, and that love is the purest motivator.
I believe that we don't have to buy in to American culture and live for tomorrow.
I believe that RIGHT NOW is enough to sustain me.
I believe that living RIGHT NOW is where peace is born.
I believe in the Buddhist concepts of meditation and truth.
I believe we don't have to be the victims of our circumstances.
I believe we are not condemned to repeat our previous mistakes.
I believe every moment is independent in and of itself.
I believe that everyone has good qualities.
I believe that sometimes the people we view as immoral are really just the products of an alien moral code.
I believe people are essentially good.
I believe the world is essentially hopeful.
I believe I am in control of myself all of the time. Maybe even when I'm dissociating and unconscious.
I believe you are innocent no matter how much you are hurt, and you only become guilty when you hurt yourself or someone else.
I believe in actions, not words. You should stop complaining and do something about it.
I believe cynicism is counter-productive.
I believe there's way too much emphasis on weight in our country, and that clothes sizes are getting smaller and smaller.
I believe education is an end in and of itself.
I believe everyone should be an end, never a means.
I believe truth comes from within and morality is innate, instilled by some higher truth.
I believe that even if love is blind, it is only blind to things we should pay as much attention to as we do anyway.
I believe that moral actions should be done out of love, not out of obligation or some other ulterior motive.
I believe I am the master of multivariable calculus modelling projects.
I believe everyone has a piece of the divine within themselves.
I believe that even if governments are corrupt, the people that run them aren't always.
I believe in being optimistic.
I believe in overcoming mental illness.
I believe in learning how to love ugliness as well as beauty.
I believe everyone is beautiful.
I believe I can change the world somehow.

I AM NOT AN IDEALIST.
I believe that too.

everything is illuminated et all

Yesterday, after a productive morning and afternoon of healthy procrastination (which I'm also engaging in now) Erin and I went shopping and then watched movies and slept over at my house. Shopping was fun except that I have gained four or five pounds so I think my pant size has gone up. That's really depressing. And it's really depressing how they have all those mirrors in there, so you have to see yourself from every terrible angle. Erin and I decided to start helping each other exercise ten minutes a day and follow the weight watchers point system. I know I'll feel better if I get myself back in control.

The movies we saw were Corpse Bride, Everything is Illuminated, and Under the Tuscan Sun. I really liked all of them. Corpse Bride was really funny. I heard a lot of people say they didn't like it, but it's the best kids movie I've seen since Finding Nemo. I really liked the characterization of the parents of Victor and Victoria. It was just really good.

Under the Tuscan Sun was funny as well, and good, except I get really angry when people in movies sleep with each other the day they meet. It's so wrong, so tacky and degrading. It's so worth waiting, at least until you know someone's favorite color and annoying quirks. Also, the movie would have been much better if she didn't meet some guy in the end. It like negated the whole point of the movie in my opinion. She suddenly realized she had a family and friends and she didn't need a man, and that she would be okay without one, and suddenly 'poof,' prince charming. I guess it sort of went along with the theme a little bit, but I think it was better without her meeting him.

Everything is Illuminated was my favorite of the night. It was such a good movie. I thought it was going to be funny because the beginning was funny, but it ended up really sad and serious. It was a good change though, not jerky and confusing the way sudden mood changes can get. Erin was drooling over Elijah Wood the whole time. He's a rocking actor, but his looks are so overrated. Sure, he has pretty eyes, but he's not that hot. There are much cuter movie stars I think. Like the guy in The Devil Wears Prada. Of course they don't hold a candle to Josh. :-) But the movie made me think a lot. What would I do if someone held a gun to Josh's head and told me I had to deny God or they'd kill him? It would be such a terrible, terrible situation... But I would recommend the movie, anyway. It was awesome.

We finally got to bed in our way comfortable guest room bed at about 3 a.m. and we talked for a little bit, mostly about our most embarrassing memories. Truly embarrassing memories aren't funny at all; they're just really painful. You lock them up inside of you and pray they'll go away because they make you so ashamed that you don't think you can ever tell anyone you plan on looking in the face again... at least that's what they're like for me. Erin didn't seem quite as traumatized by hers. But I told her something that happened a year and half ago that I thought I could never tell anyone. I didn't really plan on telling her, it was just dark and quiet and calm, and it's been scraping at my insides for a year and half. It felt okay to tell her, which says something, because I think I'd rather die than tell anyone else, even people I feel like I can say everything else to. So I feel a lot better today. I didn't know it was weighing me down that much, but I feel a billiong pound lighter (I wish I actually was a billion pounds lighter).

So moral of the story: watch Everything is Illuminated and Corpse Bride. Under the Tuscan Sun was pretty funny, but nothing amazing.

Chomsky

We talked about Chomsky tonight in AP language. It was really interesting, because before I've only had limited knowledge of him (not that my knowledge is that much more extensive after a two-hour talk).
I think maybe I agree with his critique of media in democracy. We also talked in class about how the US is becoming steadily more conservative and that only republicans and democrats are really in the political focus at the moment when there are in actuality so many more political parties. That drives me crazy; how in the world can everyone fit into two catagories?!
We decided that because the US is becoming more conservative, the only end in sight is when it becomes a totalitarian regime, like fascist or something, and it's obvious that the media is simply false propaganda, and there is a revolution to put us back to a more balanced state.

I guess I agreed with all of that, except you couldn't really call me entirely liberal. My economic ideals are extremely liberal. I believe in socialism. I think we should share everything; there shouldn't be private property, and all the products of everyone's work should be distributed amongst everyone. Yes, even those that don't work as hard. I believe everyone, even illegal immigrants, should get healthcare, education, and other human rights on the UNDHR. Socialism and universal rights would eliminate a lot of unfair stratification, in my opinion. We should share. :-) So I guess you could say I'm way left economically.

However, I am the opposite of a libertarian; I am way liberal economically, mostly conservative socially. I believe gay people should get all of the political financial benefits of a married couple, but that the institution of marriage needs to remain a man and woman thing. I don't believe in abortion. I'm religious, so I think morals should take a huge place in political decisions. Killing someone is never okay. Personal responsibility is important.

I thought it was a very interesting discussion though. I think I'm going to look more into this Chomsky fellow.

[sidenote- today I got my third flat tire in three weeks. I had to walk to math class. I was twenty minutes late. Then I had to walk back to school. It's not that far, probably 1-2 miles round-trip, but it was weird walking about during the middle of the day.]

now

I don't know what to think.
What to feel.
What to say.
What to do.
Who to be.
How to help you, or anyone.
I don't know why I do the things I do, what part of me reacts to the things that hurt it.
What if the future hangs on a thread so invisible that we ignored it, but one breath of too-fast air will tear it apart?

I did terribly on a math test today. The highest I could have gotten is a low B. After getting 100% on the first two.

I walked out of seminary today praying, "God, please, I can't make my own decisions anymore, just tell me what to do."

geekiest valentine ever

♥ is a function of xx and xy. xx and xy are in units of ♥, so ♥ (xx,xy) is in units of ♥.

∫[-∞,∞]∫[-∞,∞]♥dxxdxy

So Josh and I enjoy being ourselves and romantic at the same time, which usually results in cheesy chemistry/biology/math/philosophy pick-up lines and other sayings (i.e. I love you more than systems love reaching eqilibrium).

I think I win the geeky contest with this one.

[Explanation: This is the integral of love first with respect to xx, or the female chromosomes, then with respect to xy, or the male chromosomes. It's all in units of love. Assuming love is a unit, this integral would give me the volume of love in units of love^3. Because the limits are negative to positive infinity on both integrals, the answer is infinite.]

I thought of this in math class. It was more entertaining than paying attention.

EXHAUSTED

I know that I said I was physically exhausted, and that's still true, I haven't really slept in a long time, but now I'm also complete emotionally and mentally drained.

I just don't feel well right now. It's a sort of moral nausea. I just want to throw up the world so I feel better.

Debate tournaments are incredibly taxing. This one went alright. Nothing good has ever really happened to me in Bozeman high school. We got second there at DI when I was in sixth grade when we were hoping for first. I've lost tennis matches there and soccer games. I've fumbled solos for solo festival. I went 0-2 at NFL's my sophomore year and was on the verge of destruction. I had to drag my bass around at all-state last year when I was so incredibly, miserably sick. The school has a dogma around it for me, and it permeates me with a feeling of defeat every time I step through the door.

I felt better this week about debating. I really wanted to win for my first two rounds. I deflated slightly after that, but I really gave it my all. And I guess it showed up. My preliminary record was 4-1, which I'm pretty happy with. But they broke to octafinals, and so I hit Jessica Oort. If they broke to quarter finals I still would have broken and I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have, but alas it was not meant to be.

I tried really hard in that round. I won one ballot out of three. The reason I lost the other two was that my criterion, Spiral Dynamics, is really too complicated to adequately explain in a debate. I tried though.

It makes me so frustrated, this pattern I set. I always focus on breaking, and when I break I kind of lose my focus. I have accomplished my goal, so I kind of lose the desire to win. I really need to work on outrounds. I need to work on caring enough about winning. Caring, yes, caring... so dangerous, so essential.

As to emotional exhaustion, there's just a lot of stuff going on right now and I don't know how to deal with some of it, and I feel inadequate and displaced and lost and angry for no reason.

Yuck.

4-1, though. I focus on that. Kudos to me for 4-1.

I am SO profoundly exhausted. I can't stay awake anymore to do homework. I fall asleep with my head on Resurrection. I fall asleep with the lamp on. It takes me a long time to wake up in the morning. I don't take my morning meds anymore because they make me sleep through seminary. I feel like I'm sleeping through everything when I should be awake. But I'm so, so tired...

Maybe it's a paradox that my two favorite holidays are Halloween and Christmas, but they've both become secularized, thankfully for Halloween, not thankfully, in my opinion, for Christmas.

Anyway, this is the first year in a long time that I'm not going trick-or-treating. It's very cold, and I have so much homework. Apparently our teachers decided we are too old for trick-or-treating, because they sure didn't give us a break.

I still love Halloween though. I love the kids in costumes, I love the pumpkin carving (although I didn't do that this year either), I love... the feeling.

Happy Halloween.

life yesterday and today

Yesterday during lunch after Jill got her Mountain Dew fix we stumbled into the science olympiad meeting at the last minute. I had to sign up for time slots for the three events I'm doing (genetics, forensics, and this music thing), and once I was all signed up it added up to five hours a week or something. So then I sort of started freaking out, because I don't know how I have time to add five more hours a week to my schedule when I don't even have time to practice violin, cello, and piano. I felt really stressed and really terrible. Not like debating at all.
I guess I just didn't feel ready to debate this weekend. I didn't have enough stamina to care about winning. Caring is a dangerous thing in debate. It can burn you so easily.
So I'm off to a bit of a rocky start in debate. Last night went pretty well, I was 2-1 when I came home. Then I was trying to do my math homework on the computer and my mom said, "Don't you ever get off the computer?" but in this really bad tone of voice, and then I started making a lot of mistakes very against what I said in my last post. I replied, "Well, don't you ever stop watching TV? It's the same thing!" Which is true, because all my mom ever does at night is watch TV, and she won't talk to me unless it's during a commercial (this was a commercial). Then she got all upset and said I don't appreciate her etc., and I said I do appreciate her, she's the one that thinks I don't and nothing I say can change that. Then she said, "Am I not supportive of you?" and I made my biggest mistake of all: I said, "You are financially." Which is very mean and hurtful and unfair of me to say, because although my mother really isn't emotionally supportive of me, she really tries to be, and I need to acknowledge that. I know she loves me and cares about my emotional well-being.
Anyway, she responded with, "Well up yours!" and nothing got better after that.
Thank gosh my dad is back today. Left too long together, my mom and I might kill each other.

So I started debating this morning with not the most enthusiastic of spirits. My speaker points are always very high (last week I was first speaker for a long while) and there were an odd number of people in the 2-1 bracket so I got pulled up because of my high speaker points and had to debate someone that was 3-0: red-haired girl. I've got to hand it to her, she is legitimately good. It was a really good debate. There was a lot of clash, and the clarity was there. I think I did pretty well. But anyway, I lost, and red-haired girl went on to break 5-0 and win the tournament. (Two years ago at my home-town tournament she knocked me out in semifinals. Oh, the injustice.)
Then, my final round I was a bit upset from my fourth round and I hit the girl I hit two weeks ago in Great Falls, and it was the most muddled round you can imagine. There was no clarity of issues at all, we were off topic (we argued about whether water is free for way too much of the debate). I have a problem with muddled opponants: I buy into it. I get even more confused than they are, and I almost always lose. Apparently we sufficiently confused the judge, though, because Amanda said he changed the winner on the ballot- first he had me as winning, then he switched it around.
It's really too bad I lost that round because if I had won I would have definitely broken because my speaker points were so high. The girl that beat me didn't break, I don't think.

I was feeling a bit depressed at going 2-3, but I knew I couldn't have expected a lot because I just really didn't feel like debating this weekend. I get so frustrated with debate and caring... when you care and you do badly it just makes you want to quit. I was also reading Tolstoy's Resurrection which is this amazing book, but I find the cynicism in it very Randian and depressing. Everything is becoming so complicated.
To solve that problem, Jill and I found the rolling platforms for the policy tubs and started pushing each other down the hall as fast as we could and letting go and trying not to crash into lockers as we rolled along. First I ran Jill about into red-haired girl (whose name is Hannah, by the way), and she just sort of stared at us and asked what we were doing. There was a long, awkward pause during which I tried to think of how to respond before I finally said, "rolling?" Red-haired girl sort of stared at us. "Oh," she said, "Well, it looks like... fun..." Jill then took the opportunity to ameleorate the situation by saying, "Yeah, it's Lindsay's turn now!" at which the pause lengthened uncomfortably until red-haired girl emitted a forced laugh and walked away with her minions. (She really is nice outside of rounds though. I think Jill and I just may be too weird for her.)
I didn't let that stop me though. I got on that scooter thing and Jill pushed me as hard as she could for the entire length of the hall. I went flying down the ramp and the end of a hall and crashed into a heater, falling off the scooter, and looking up to see Mr. Pogreba and some other coach talking a few feet away. Basically, Mr. Po was having a nice little private conversation when out of nowhere I came flying by on a policy tub scooter and crashed right into the conversation. Mr. Po said, "What the h**l?" and for a moment I was rather nervous that he would be angry, but I was laughing too hard to respond. Jill took another opportunity to ameleorate the situation here by running after me and shouting something like, "Oh man, you cra..." and trailing off as she rounded the corner, nearly smashing into Pogreba.
It's a good thing Tiaphany and Sean were winning, because Mr. Pogreba might have crucified us if he wasn't in a good mood.
It was very fun though, very youth-affirming. I don't really care what people think about me. I'll go flying down the hallways on scooters whilst wearing a suit if I want to.
I guess, though, that we were really loud and policy rounds going on in nearby rooms could hear us. Or at least according to Tiaphany, who also asked us later what the h**l Jill and I were doing that was making so much noise.

Feeling better, but still daunted by masses of homework I couldn't do during the tournament due to the ample distractions of teenage boys hurling footballs and kickballs in Mr. Po's room, I went to the quarter-final LD round. It was Kristin versus red-haired girl, and it was a really good round. I thought it was worthwhile, much more worthwhile than the final round two weeks ago.
Brittany, Jill, Greg and I skipped sems for a necessary Starbucks run, during which I watched Greg kill Jill at chess even though she wouldn't let him have a queen to try to make the match more fair.

I dragged Brittany to policy finals (I really, really like policy- it reminds me of chess) and during the round I felt my debating spirit rekindle in me for the first time this year. When Sean ended the debate with his lovely Wendy's analogy (the 2AR began with, "In the 1980's there was a Wendy's commercial of a woman opening a McDonald's hamburger and shouting 'where's the meat?' This is exactly what I feel like shouting at the negative team) I realized I was ready to win, I was ready to try. I feel like I have it in me to win if I just apply myself. I need a spirit. This weekend I just didn't have it, or two weeks ago. But it's in me. At the end of last year I was breaking at every tournament with 4-0, 3-1, 4-1 etc. I know I have that in me. Sometimes it's just so dangerous to care...

But you have to care about things, don't you? I'm so tempted to just switch to original oratory or something because then my failure can be excused by my newness. I have no excuses in LD. It's so dangerous that I actually sabatoge myself. What happened this tournament was I didn't try my best so I would actually have an excuse if I didn't do well. I feel, though, that this philosophy isn't right. I am ready to try next weekend. I need to change my cases, but I'm ready to give it my all. Sometimes life takes risks. I can't be so afraid of failing that I don't even try.

I feel like I keep complaining about the same things over and over. But they don't go away. I think that's probably my fault. I think I should fix them. I think I should be accountable.

My mom and I do not get along. At all. I don't know whose fault it is. I would love to blame her for all of my anger and stress, because I'm usually doing pretty well when I come home from school but after I'm with her a while I get very angry and anxious. And I argue, I guess. I know it's partially my fault. I talk back. I don't let her walk all over me. I fight.

When I was about nine I figured out that if when she was yelling at me and such I remained calm then she would probably get even more angry than if I argued, but she wouldn't be able to justify screaming or hitting me as easily. So I started telling myself "stiff as a board" every time I felt myself starting to get angry. I would stand there and stay calm with rage boiling like lava inside of me, so I felt like all of my insides were bubbling against my skin, expanding to the point of explosion... but I got pretty good at it. I swallowed the anger like bad medicine; I kept it all inside.

I'm not as good at that as I used to be, and I need to start doing it again. I get so angry. I'm not an angry person, I'm really not. But I get SO incredibly angry at my mom. I feel like hurting something. I never really feel like hurting her, just myself, or I feel like taking everything breakable in the house and throwing it as hard as I can against the ground. It's so satisfying to see things shatter, to know you caused it. I don't know how to deal with the anger I have towards my mom. I need to start trying the stiff as a board thing again. I need to stop fighting. I need to swallow all of that rage (swallow all your bitter pills, that's what makes you beautiful...).

It makes me so angry, though. When I was young, I watched my brother and my mom rage, worse fights than my mom and I have ever been in. He screamed at her every day. He told her he hated her. I watched it all turn to self-pity in her. I watched her cry, victimize herself. I told myself I would never do to her what my brother did. I promised myself I would be a better child. I would never make her stay up all night aching with worry. I would never, ever tell her I hated her. I would never do anything as bad as Craig did.

And that was my life... that was my goal in life. I wanted to make her happy. I wanted to be the opposite of Craig. I wanted to be good enough for her. I wanted to be the child that didn't cause her trouble. But through everything she always said to me, "You're acting just like Craig!"

I don't think any other five words could sting a heart as badly as those words stung mine. It was like she was saying, "I know everything that you want to be in life; I know all of your secrets, your dreams, your aspirations. I know that, and I know how to hurt you the most: you'll never accomplish them. You'll fail at them all."

All I ever wanted was to be good enough, and every day she told me I was failing.

Let me tell you how unfair it is... my mom and my brother get along perfectly right now. They have for years. No more fights. My mom accepts my brother for who he is. My brother completely supports my mom, or at least it seems like it. He and I don't really talk anymore about anything other than money and jobs.

He's the one that fought with her! He's the one that did all of those horrible things to her! He's the one that told her he hated her for weeks on end, that ran away, that stole her car, that broke her heart!

But his relationship with her is better than mine with her will ever be. There are no secret animosities in that relationship. There is no buried rage, because my brother never buried it; he always bore it in his screaming and his anger. I swallow, swallow, swallow all those pills. Why? Because I want to be the good child! I want to be the one she loves!

It's so unfair! All he ever did was hurt her, and she forgave him for every bit of it. He never tried to honor her; he never tried to follow her wishes; he never respected her. My whole life I have struggled to do all of those things. But I told someone something. I made her a villain. I drove a wedge between us.

And now he's on her side, and every night my mom and I argue.

I'M THE ONE THAT CARED!!! I'M THE ONE THAT TRIED!!! I'M THE ONE THAT WATCHES YOU CRY, AND HATES MYSELF FOR EVERY TEAR!! I'M THE ONE THAT DID EVERYTHING SO YOU WOULD BE PROUD OF ME! I'M THE ONE THAT WANTED YOUR APPROVAL, THAT NEVER REBELLED!!

why can't you love me like you love him?
why wasn't it ever enough?
how can I be enough for you?

I'm the one now that's fighting to maintain a relationship with you, fighting to be forgiven, but it's him you talk to without anger. It's him you're really proud of.

I'm so bitter. So angry, so resentful. And I hate those feelings. I hate them so much. And I know I'm allowing them to coalesce within me, and it makes me hate myself for not stopping it, because I know I must have the power to stop it within me somewhere.

i want to be good enough for you, because that is what my life has been about, and if you tell me i have failed at that...
then what am i?

I guess what Frankl meant was that if you are the eye of the storm, you can take peace with you into every hurricane.

Today I was rather depressed for a while, but then I had another moment of realization or something, and everything was suddenly just so beautiful I couldn't handle it.

I can live with it. I can live with bipolar. I can be peace.

epiphany

I went to all-state this week. There are a lot of details I could elaborate on that don't matter. I chose to take a drug to get through the auditions. I got seventh chair out of fifteen, about what I wanted. The concert went well except I played through a rest and got an unintentional solo. I got to see Brad, my friend from Billings. I ate a lot the first day and not as much the second day. I felt like an emotional spiral, churning through space. Erin spent the whole time flirting with Carson, and that was really cute. Shauna decided to act out something with her boyfriend and sort of mindlessly grabbed my crotch, and that wasn't as cute but I still love Shauna. Siobhan said something really nice to me. I rode the bus home last night and slept until 1:30 p.m. today, and although that was xanax induced it's the most I've slept in years. I missed math thursday and friday and now I'm confused.
On and on with details.

They don't matter. What matters is this: Erin was in a hugging mood. Shauna's always been the only one that's touched me. For years before, no one did because I'm extremely unresponsive to touch for obvious reasons. On the way back from Missoula after we dropped Carson off so it was just Erin and I, I sat with her in the seat. It was 1:20 a.m. The stars were very hard and bright. I was so tired, so emotionally exhausted, and my touch barrior had been barraged with hugs from my best friends (Erin, Shauna, Jill, Siobhan, Brad, etc) so I laid my head on Erin's shoulder.

Let me explain myself. There is always a tension in me when it comes to touch. It is a tight, hard feeling in the deep parts of my chest. It went away once last May when I fell into Josh on the couch the night before prom, and it has gone away in some of my most despairing hours when I have sobbed in my mother's lap (also last May, after Josh OD'd). But nearly always, nealry all the time, it is there, impeding my breathing, impeding my life. It makes me stand stiffly when people hug me. It makes me confused about someone grabbing my hand. It makes me detatched when I am kissed. However, when it leaves me for an instant it is a fantastic whoosing, and all of the tension inside of me is gone and I suddenly realize what it could be like, how wonderful it could be like, to live without it.

It is only with poeple I trust absolutely when it comes to touch.

Last night I was tired enough, worn down enough, confused enough that for a few minutes I was tense as my head lay on Erin's shoulder, but then in a very perceptible moment all of the fear, all of the tension, all of the mistrust dissolved. All of the heaviness inside of me was replaced with a light feeling. It is the most amazing feeling in the world. More amazing than any sexual feeling, more amazing than lime popsicles, more amazing than watching Finding Nemo and sobbing.

Today I read the end of Siddhartha and in a hugely epiphanic moment the loose ends all came together. I don't even know how to explain it. The book said, "perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find." When I read that I suddenly understood. I have been searching for truth, tirelessly, inexorably plowing linearly through philosophy and religion and everything. But the truth is me. The truth is the world. It's not about tomorrow, or yesterday. Those don't exist. It's about today.
People view time as contour lines, but that's wrong. Time is the three-dimensional integration of contour lines. Life is everything; life is yesterday, life is today, life is tomorrow. Truth is pain and joy. Truth isn't something you find, it's something you are. You breathe truth. You live it. You find it in love, you find it in hate, you find it in fear, you find it in that moment when all of the tension melts away.

I understand.

FORGIVE

FORGIVE. LOVE.
LEARN TO FORGIVE.
LEARN TO FORGIVE ME.
LEARN TO FORGIVE HIM.
The world doesn't turn because of revenge. It isn't beautiful because of spite. It's beautiful because of love. It's beautiful because people change. It's beautiful because people don't have to be the same person every day that they've always been.
I FORGAVE YOU.
Just learn to forgive.

Debate tournament

I had fun today.

My mom is very mad at me because I wouldn't tell her my record, but we have argued in the past and she tends to be very critical, so I thought I'd just tell her that I had fun and I learned a lot and I know what I need to do for the next tournament. She wasn't happy with that, but too bad. The tournament today doesn't have to be about my record if I don't let it be. It was fun. That's what matters most of all.

Things sort of fell apart, but I tried to minimize the damage.
On Tuesday I stayed up nearly all night doing college applications. I realized that it would help if I just got them over with so I would stop obsessing over them. I was really tired Saturday, but semi-okay.
I don't need to remind anyone that relations between my mother and I are currently not exactly optimal.
Wednesday I sort of fell apart. I cut my arm. I took a Xanax wednesday night and Thursday morning. I slept through breakfast. I fell asleep when I was driving the car to seminary and I hit a mailbox. I heard the huge thump, but characteristic to lovely xanax apathy I didn't care. At church I noticed disinterestedly that I had ripped my right mirror entirely off. I slept through seminary. I slept (literally slept- as in the yearbook pictures got taken and nobody woke me up so I'm not in them) through the first four periods. I don't remember anything.
I fell apart seventh period with Erin. We talked about how we have no control. I told her about how I'd run into the mailbox. She'd noticed I slept through everything (so did my teachers. They were all really worried.) I blew off my violin lesson. I blew off my cello lesson. We went to Wheat Montana and talked for hours about how to fix things. We went through all of our problems and solutions to those problems. I felt a lot better. I ate an entire cinnamon role.

This morning I got up to go to seminary but didn't end up going. I went to Safeway instead to buy laxatives. Erin and I talked to our counselor about switching out of AP government, but our schedules can't accomodate it so we talked to Mrs. Lynd about how to survive. I feel a lot better about it now.

I took the pills during creative writing, fourth period. I wasn't as tired today, because I didn't take any medications this morning. After school Jill, Erin, and I went to Starbucks and talked for three hours. The laxatives worked.

I feel better. The cutting/laxatives were a temporary solution, but amidst them I worked on permanent ones with Jill and Erin. I feel better. Things will be okay.

I'm worried about debate tomorrow. And all-state next week.

Mom's yelling.

T.S. Eliot

Hollow men...

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper

Stop yelling at me
Stop telling me I'm just like Craig
Stop calling me rude or nasty or other words
Stop telling me I don't care about you
Stop telling me I don't appreciate you
Stop telling me that I don't understand how stressed you are
Stop getting mad at me when I binge or purge
Stop getting mad at me for telling Terry things I don't tell you
Stop being mad at me for telling Terry you hit me
Stop telling Craig and your friends everything about me
Stop being angry with me for not being healthy

It doesn't help me
It doesn't make me less stressed
It just makes me miserable.

I'm sorry I'm not good enough.

I hate forums that have karma. I especially hate that my AP English forum has karma, because those members know me as a real person. I hate the karma because I care about it so much. Way more than I should. To the point where I feel totally miserable with every point taken away. Maybe I'll just quit posting.
That's a stupid reason to quit posting, just because I don't want proof that some people don't like me or what I say. I shouldn't care. I'm so stupid to care.

Some days I feel like my life is hopeless, because I can never make a difference.

(I don't know the author or the exact text)
There was a man walking along a beach where hundreds or thousands of starfish had been flung by the surf up onto the sand. The little creatures were drying out, and if they dried out all the way they would die. The man was tossing every starfish he came upon back into the ocean, making slow progress. Anothing man walked up and asked, "Why are you even bothering? There's thousands of them! You can't possibly make a difference!" The man picked up another starfish and threw it.
"Made a difference to that one," he said.

I'm so glad I'm an optimist. I'm not sure where I'd be if I wasn't. Probably in Dante's forest of trees having the bark peeled off of me forever and ever, unable to escape. It would be a fitting hell because in life I would have committed suicide to escape the pain, and in death I would have to endure the pain immobilly forever and ever with no hope of escape.

just me being emo...

I'm not suicidal, just fantasizing. I don't think I'm cut out for life. I don't think I have what it takes to survive. I'm lacking something necessary. I can't handle the pressure of breathing, much less everything else I have to do.

I'm so ashamed of all of me.

My mom hates me... it's my fault, I think. I'm being a brat. But I can't take this right now. I can't take this anymore.

I don't want to be me. I DON'T WANT TO BE BIPOLAR!! It is always one step forward, two steps back. I think I'm progressing just because I'm hypomanic. Then I don't take my meds for a day and I remember. There's never any progress for me.

I want to find the zipper on everything that's me and unzip it and take it off. I'm not sure what I'd be then, but it'd have to be better than this flawed trash I am now.

I have an A- in English on my progress report. I've never had an A- before. I know that's a little thing, a stupid thing. But it feels like the hugest failure in the world.

Lots of interesting things have been happening, some of which I will deliberately never post about. But anyway, I went to the cross-town game Friday night. It was fun. Emma, Siobhan, Erin, Jo Anna, and I made shirts that said something like "Bengal: natural predator of the Bruins; winner of crosstown football" on the front and "Bruin: see Bengal meat" on the back. I painted a white pawprint on one cheek and "HHS" on the other. I had to do the HHS twice because the first time I was looking in the mirror and it ended up backwards, which made everyone laugh at me and me laugh at myself.
I was at first really depressed at the game and I was getting squashed between these obnoxious junior girls and my friends and everything seemed really loud and close and far away. The hatred for Capital was palapable and horrible; it reminded me of racism or expanded patriotism. A fear of anything or anyone different. Then Josh called though, and I became much happier. I couldn't really hear him with all the shouting, but suddenly my mood bounced instantly to hyper and happy. I started cheering really loudly with everyone else; I payed attention to the football game (which I understand now); I didn't mind getting squashed. In fact, when the junior girls next to me told my friends and I to get our freshman a**es to the back of the bleachers I really enjoyed their faces when Jo Anna told them we were seniors and shoved one of them off of the bench.
The game was very exciting; it went into an extended overtime. We don't win cross-town very often (I think Friday was the second win in eighteen years or so) so everyone was pretty keyed up.
At one point someone poured beer on my hair so I smelled like a brewery; then a Capital girl came and sprayed Mountain Dew all over the HHS student section and the obnoxious junior girls next to me rallied a crowd to go beat her up. I hope she's alright.
When we won everyone went pouring onto the field, even Erin and I (we'd lost Siobhan, Emma, and Jo Anna at that point), although with not quite as much vigor as everyone else. All in all, I really had a fun time after Josh called and my mood changed. It makes me realize I would enjoy life a lot better if I could just keep my mood up.

Yesterday I had my MIT interview. It didn't go very well. He didn't really ask me questions or look at my portfolio; he just told me about MIT, which wasn't helpful since that's why I drove to Salt Lake on Tuesday and he didn't tell me anything new.

I'm not going to go into this now or ever, but I found out I am decidedly not asexual, which makes me happy. That doesn't mean, however, that I will ever feel anything when with guys. I guess I'll just stop worrying and wait several years and then find out.

I decided that guilt is something that you feel because of some sense of external obligation; you feel like your actions were wrong, and the reason they were wrong is that they didn't conform with what society expects of you and what you believe you should expect of yourself. Shame, however, isn't the feeling that your actions are wrong, but rather that you are fundamentally wrong, that you are at the core somehow centrally inadequate, and not just because society says so, but becuase you know so with a very deep conviction. Somehow you are flawed; your nature is wrong. I think that's how I feel. I feel shame.

I know all these people love me, but it feels like I'm deceiving them becuase the don't understand that at my very center there is something very wrong. I want them to understand that so they'll hate me like they should, but I also need their love. It gets very mixed up.