closing my eyes and letting out a deep breath
I feel good. I detest having so many mood swings, and I'm at the peak of my period (bleurgh), but I know how to take a good thing when it comes to me. I feel really good about myself and about my life, right now, at this moment in time, and sometimes that's enough.
I am falling in love with MUW so much more every moment. The people there are so nice it makes me want to cry. Mary N. from Admissions calls me every once in a while to see how I'm doing, and they literally return calls within five minutes every time they say they will, and any given person has the answers to absolutely any questions I can think of. And today, Mom called to ask what they do with independent scholarships that pay directly to the school, and Mary said that if I bring the check in to Financial Aid, they'll just cash it for me. Oh my God, could these people be any cooler? I am getting these thrice-accursed scholarships and I am starting a travel fund, right now. My determination is renewed. I will get to see England and New Zealand and Japan if it kills me.
I also got notice back from the other two schools I applied to -- Sewanee accepted me and gave me the Presidential merit scholarship, which is $8000 renewable annually to Sewanee alone. About the same as the MUW Centennial, but a smaller percentage of Sewanee's tuition cost than the W one, so not really a viable option -- plus I'm going to the W now, no questions asked. I mean, OMG cash. X_X. But even so, great ego boost, no?
The other notice I got back was from UNC Chapel Hill -- rejection on both fronts, application and writing scholarship, but that's actually a huge relief. I had no idea how I was going to decline acceptance to either. I mean, they're big deals and I spent a long time on them because I really did want them at the time, but I don't really any more. (I've heard since that pretty much no one who isn't related to an alumnus can get into UNC, so. If they're like that, I don't want to go there anyway.)
OMG, insanity. Go-go dancing. Doing the robot. Walking like an Egyptian. It's gone so far beyond the point of shame that you might as well give it all you've got -- you're gonna look like an idiot no matter what you do. Lots of people are quitting, which is a big confidence-booster for me... Hell, Nikki quit and she was one of the leads in last year's play. I, who have never acted or danced on stage in my life, am still sticking with it. Go me. XD
Late-night practices are kind of screwing me up psychologically, though. I'm usually not very active between 7-10 p.m. -- I'm usually netsurfing, writing, reading, drawing, doing homework, or watching TV. That's it. Going out and dancing and singing and being social that late at night messes me up. My school-day momentum has long expired and I've switched off the "casual conversation" section of my brain. *grimace* I am not a social creature. I like the mid-afternoon weekend practices much better -- they fall into my body's pre-programmed "social" hours, i.e. 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
It's truly amazing how much of a strain it has taken me to carve out my tiny niche at high school... that hard-earned group of friends and acquaintances who have finally come to understand and accept a bare few of my weirdnesses, just enough so that I can relax around them more than I can around anyone else at school. Not as much as I relax at home, but a little, at least. It's mostly the AP crowd, English and Physics and History, and the Journalism juniors. Study hall and economics/govt. are always a shock because I tense up so much so fast that I actually get a mild headache for a few minutes. It's like everything in me has to rearrange itself. And that's a large reason why late play practice screws me up -- it takes a while to relax again at home, and it's harder to sleep. I wish I was good with crowds, I wish I understood the mechanics of social interaction... but I really don't. I'm still struggling to define the difference between a friend and an acquaintance, and to understand the mob physics of teenage girls. I am one, but I've never felt like one; I don't understand how teenage girls think, I really don't.
The 5th graders (10-11 years old) from East Amory came to our English class today to give their reports on Greek gods and goddesses, since we just covered that with the Iliad. They were so nervous and I just remembered when I was one of them and it was painful and sweet. Then we ate in class and the other seniors got to talking about their shared memories of elementary school, and the old barrier, the bane of outsider, came crashing back down. It wasn't as bad as doing the Veteran's Day program at the elementary school last year, because I could hardly talk for the rest of the day then. But it's still bad, and you think you'd get used to it, but you don't. Granted, I keep my emotional scabs well-picked, so I never get used to shocks like that. I like being able to feel, which is why I don't wear gloves or lipstick and I will never do drugs, because they all dull the nerves or slow the synapses and I just can't take that. I crave intense emotion, even if it's the pain of isolation, because I'm so scared of my own mortality that I can't stand to waste a moment of what life I have. It's a desperate kind of freedom, but more often than not, it's worth it.
I miss Oxford. I miss Mary Cypress fainting at the sight of blood, I miss Bradley who bit his arm until it nearly bled to gross out the girls, I miss Tom and his then-amazing ability to eat rice with chopsticks. I miss Will stealing my blue ribbon and fighting with Tom in Tae Kwon Do class and bad science fair projects and marveling at Mary Anne's mom's van with the TV in it and Jordan's dorky glasses. I miss the treehouse and the swingset where Emily and I sang Disney songs to annoy other people until they gave us swings, and the playground where Liz wanted to be a dog and Emily wanted to be a fairy and I wanted to be Luke Skywalker. It's so hard to think of people at high school as friends because they never shared that with me, and I can never share their memories, and that's why it's so hard for me to define the difference between friend and acquaintance. It's only now that I've had four years in which to create some shared memories with the rest of the class that I feel attached to them at all. And soon I have to leave that, too, and start over for a third time. In that one way, I resent college. Otherwise I'm looking forward to it, but... I don't have the fear of the unknown that everyone else at Amory has -- I've been through that, I know how it feels, and I can do it again. It's only the unfairness of having to leave just when it was getting good that upsets me.
Anyway... rambling and gushing. Had to get that out before it really started to hurt. Done now.
I often find myself relating to fictional stories or characters. Just as often, I experience the surreal feeling that accompanies a bout of overwhelming belief in the Fast Door Theory or the Wrong Door Theory. Sometimes I will read a sentence and actually be that sentence to a truly giddy degree. I like those feelings; I read for those feelings, like drinking for the buzz.
But then there's the counterpart feeling -- like, shall I say, drinking for the taste -- of the sheer melting richness of a well-placed word. There just happen to be those story universes that fit so perfectly and flow so easily off the tongue that reading them is pure aesthetic joy. This occurred to me today as I was reading a wikipedia article about (don't ask how I got here) the Bene Gesserit. And, in reading it, I realized how much pleasure I got out of just reading the names, no more. Bene Gesserit, Leto Atreides, spice agony, the litany against fear. Everything about the Dune universe flows so beautifully to me. And this type of perception, as with all perceptions, varies wildly from person to person -- I could never finish David Eddings' Belgariad because everything about it was just that slightest bit off. I couldn't stand it; the names were awkward on the tongue, the locations did not fit together in any logical way, the segues from plot point to plot point were timed in such a way that they inevitably either dragged or jumped. But I know a lot of people love the books, so clearly the are aesthetically pleasing to someone, somewhere (my blessings to them).
I know it's random... I just felt like noting it. It's a different sort of enjoyment than the enjoyment of a story, because Lord of the Rings, while its story affects me deeply, has never stuck in my mind as being particularly aesthetic. Dune, on the other hand, I remember mainly for its concepts and cool-sounding proper names, rather than its message. Same with Garth Nix's Old Kingdom books, or Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy. I just love the texture of them -- if they were food they'd be dark chocolate; if they were fabric, they'd be silk.
And I guess that's all. I'm very mellow at the moment; had a freakout over Precal last night, but today I have no homework at all, so I'm going to relax and read something. Maybe Dune. ^_^.
-rave
I am falling in love with MUW so much more every moment. The people there are so nice it makes me want to cry. Mary N. from Admissions calls me every once in a while to see how I'm doing, and they literally return calls within five minutes every time they say they will, and any given person has the answers to absolutely any questions I can think of. And today, Mom called to ask what they do with independent scholarships that pay directly to the school, and Mary said that if I bring the check in to Financial Aid, they'll just cash it for me. Oh my God, could these people be any cooler? I am getting these thrice-accursed scholarships and I am starting a travel fund, right now. My determination is renewed. I will get to see England and New Zealand and Japan if it kills me.
I also got notice back from the other two schools I applied to -- Sewanee accepted me and gave me the Presidential merit scholarship, which is $8000 renewable annually to Sewanee alone. About the same as the MUW Centennial, but a smaller percentage of Sewanee's tuition cost than the W one, so not really a viable option -- plus I'm going to the W now, no questions asked. I mean, OMG cash. X_X. But even so, great ego boost, no?
The other notice I got back was from UNC Chapel Hill -- rejection on both fronts, application and writing scholarship, but that's actually a huge relief. I had no idea how I was going to decline acceptance to either. I mean, they're big deals and I spent a long time on them because I really did want them at the time, but I don't really any more. (I've heard since that pretty much no one who isn't related to an alumnus can get into UNC, so. If they're like that, I don't want to go there anyway.)
OMG, insanity. Go-go dancing. Doing the robot. Walking like an Egyptian. It's gone so far beyond the point of shame that you might as well give it all you've got -- you're gonna look like an idiot no matter what you do. Lots of people are quitting, which is a big confidence-booster for me... Hell, Nikki quit and she was one of the leads in last year's play. I, who have never acted or danced on stage in my life, am still sticking with it. Go me. XD
Late-night practices are kind of screwing me up psychologically, though. I'm usually not very active between 7-10 p.m. -- I'm usually netsurfing, writing, reading, drawing, doing homework, or watching TV. That's it. Going out and dancing and singing and being social that late at night messes me up. My school-day momentum has long expired and I've switched off the "casual conversation" section of my brain. *grimace* I am not a social creature. I like the mid-afternoon weekend practices much better -- they fall into my body's pre-programmed "social" hours, i.e. 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
It's truly amazing how much of a strain it has taken me to carve out my tiny niche at high school... that hard-earned group of friends and acquaintances who have finally come to understand and accept a bare few of my weirdnesses, just enough so that I can relax around them more than I can around anyone else at school. Not as much as I relax at home, but a little, at least. It's mostly the AP crowd, English and Physics and History, and the Journalism juniors. Study hall and economics/govt. are always a shock because I tense up so much so fast that I actually get a mild headache for a few minutes. It's like everything in me has to rearrange itself. And that's a large reason why late play practice screws me up -- it takes a while to relax again at home, and it's harder to sleep. I wish I was good with crowds, I wish I understood the mechanics of social interaction... but I really don't. I'm still struggling to define the difference between a friend and an acquaintance, and to understand the mob physics of teenage girls. I am one, but I've never felt like one; I don't understand how teenage girls think, I really don't.
The 5th graders (10-11 years old) from East Amory came to our English class today to give their reports on Greek gods and goddesses, since we just covered that with the Iliad. They were so nervous and I just remembered when I was one of them and it was painful and sweet. Then we ate in class and the other seniors got to talking about their shared memories of elementary school, and the old barrier, the bane of outsider, came crashing back down. It wasn't as bad as doing the Veteran's Day program at the elementary school last year, because I could hardly talk for the rest of the day then. But it's still bad, and you think you'd get used to it, but you don't. Granted, I keep my emotional scabs well-picked, so I never get used to shocks like that. I like being able to feel, which is why I don't wear gloves or lipstick and I will never do drugs, because they all dull the nerves or slow the synapses and I just can't take that. I crave intense emotion, even if it's the pain of isolation, because I'm so scared of my own mortality that I can't stand to waste a moment of what life I have. It's a desperate kind of freedom, but more often than not, it's worth it.
I miss Oxford. I miss Mary Cypress fainting at the sight of blood, I miss Bradley who bit his arm until it nearly bled to gross out the girls, I miss Tom and his then-amazing ability to eat rice with chopsticks. I miss Will stealing my blue ribbon and fighting with Tom in Tae Kwon Do class and bad science fair projects and marveling at Mary Anne's mom's van with the TV in it and Jordan's dorky glasses. I miss the treehouse and the swingset where Emily and I sang Disney songs to annoy other people until they gave us swings, and the playground where Liz wanted to be a dog and Emily wanted to be a fairy and I wanted to be Luke Skywalker. It's so hard to think of people at high school as friends because they never shared that with me, and I can never share their memories, and that's why it's so hard for me to define the difference between friend and acquaintance. It's only now that I've had four years in which to create some shared memories with the rest of the class that I feel attached to them at all. And soon I have to leave that, too, and start over for a third time. In that one way, I resent college. Otherwise I'm looking forward to it, but... I don't have the fear of the unknown that everyone else at Amory has -- I've been through that, I know how it feels, and I can do it again. It's only the unfairness of having to leave just when it was getting good that upsets me.
Anyway... rambling and gushing. Had to get that out before it really started to hurt. Done now.
I often find myself relating to fictional stories or characters. Just as often, I experience the surreal feeling that accompanies a bout of overwhelming belief in the Fast Door Theory or the Wrong Door Theory. Sometimes I will read a sentence and actually be that sentence to a truly giddy degree. I like those feelings; I read for those feelings, like drinking for the buzz.
But then there's the counterpart feeling -- like, shall I say, drinking for the taste -- of the sheer melting richness of a well-placed word. There just happen to be those story universes that fit so perfectly and flow so easily off the tongue that reading them is pure aesthetic joy. This occurred to me today as I was reading a wikipedia article about (don't ask how I got here) the Bene Gesserit. And, in reading it, I realized how much pleasure I got out of just reading the names, no more. Bene Gesserit, Leto Atreides, spice agony, the litany against fear. Everything about the Dune universe flows so beautifully to me. And this type of perception, as with all perceptions, varies wildly from person to person -- I could never finish David Eddings' Belgariad because everything about it was just that slightest bit off. I couldn't stand it; the names were awkward on the tongue, the locations did not fit together in any logical way, the segues from plot point to plot point were timed in such a way that they inevitably either dragged or jumped. But I know a lot of people love the books, so clearly the are aesthetically pleasing to someone, somewhere (my blessings to them).
I know it's random... I just felt like noting it. It's a different sort of enjoyment than the enjoyment of a story, because Lord of the Rings, while its story affects me deeply, has never stuck in my mind as being particularly aesthetic. Dune, on the other hand, I remember mainly for its concepts and cool-sounding proper names, rather than its message. Same with Garth Nix's Old Kingdom books, or Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy. I just love the texture of them -- if they were food they'd be dark chocolate; if they were fabric, they'd be silk.
And I guess that's all. I'm very mellow at the moment; had a freakout over Precal last night, but today I have no homework at all, so I'm going to relax and read something. Maybe Dune. ^_^.
-rave