I Miss My Routine!

So today was the first day back to school - it was miserable. I could swear that I didn't sleep a wink last night and nothing exciting happened the whole day so it was not at all easy to stay awake. First block was Law and that was alright - I thought I was one of the only seniors in the class because everyone looked so small but it turned out that at least half were seniors. The course sounds fun because its all about debating what's fair and what not but at the same time I do not excel at graded discussion which turned out to be the whole of the class.

For second block I had AP English and it was, to say the least, overwhelming. They distributed "Crime and Punishment" today and we have to read the first past by Sept. 7 with a 1-2 page analysis on each chapter! On top of that we have to prepare for our (3) summer reading essays/tests! AND we have to read this article about essay writing and then anylize it. AND it doesnt end there - every week we have to read a current event article and write an anylsis on it all the while we have vocab words to define. I think that's enough said for AP english...

So after that I had Astronomy. That's a class I can get behind. I didn't know that for every star there are planets orbiting them... like we orbit the sun. That's crazy! For homework we mostly have to look at stars; which I think is funny because I cant imagine it ever getting clear enough to really see stars in the sky so I guess that means no Astronomy homework?! And after all that I had lunch and seminar which were probably the worst parts of the day. I hate being in school when I have no class to be in - especially when I'm exhausted. And not only that but there isnt anyone in my seminar to talk to.

It doesn't even feel like senior year - I keep referring to last years seniors as seniors, even though my class has taken their place. It's just weird. So that was my day - miserable. And almost worst of all - I cant journal numerous times a day and I cant drink my many cups of coffee!

Old Friends and New Ideas
I finally hung out with Chrissie and Kami on Thursday - it was pretty fun. We got all retro and played truth or dare. I must say, the connotations with that game have never been too wholesome but it's an easy way to ask the people around you the questions that are burdening your mind but that don’t quite fit into casual conversations. And my old friend Juana offered to drive me to school this year - I think it sounds fun but I haven't hung out with her since 7th grade so it has serious awkward potential for the first few days. Though when we went to see Shannon, who we were friend with from childhood but hadn't seen in a long time, it wasn't real awkward. It was weird, no doubt about that, but it was fun. I imagine that is similar to what a high school reunion would be like: seeing people that you once knew so well - inside and out - and then you meet up with them and they look just different enough for you to have to take a second look and their mannerisms are the same but the content of the conversation has changed. It's bizarre. And along this pattern of old friends making an appearance in my life, Emanuel has. I think I mentioned in a previous post that I saw him at the mall a week ago but the most recent news on him is that he got a job working at XXI; which most know is also where my sister works. -_- Go figure.

Anyway, all I have been up to lately is watching Dawson’s Creek. Laugh if you will but I find it to be sufficiently entertaining for hours upon hours. But do not be mistaken, I get my intellectual stimulation from the books. It is true, that is, the rumors and gossip chains that have spread of my taking up reading again. I finished "Pride and Prejudice" and I have to agree with Cathleen [Kelly] on this one; the language [words like felicity] are at the very least captivating and as I read it I couldn't help but wonder yet again if she would end up with Mr. Darcy. "Confession. I have read Pride & Prejudice about 200 times. I get lost in the language. Words like "thither", "mischance", "felicity." I'm always in agony over whether Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy are really going to get together. Read it. I know you'll love it." I also finished "The Picture of Dorian Gray" which I found to be incredibly fulfilling. It was a dark romantic satire written by a homosexual in the years when homosexuality was a practically a direct sentence of death. They actually used the novel against him [Oscar Wilde] in trials for allegedly having affairs with young boys (a.k.a. rent boys).

I also read “Said the Shotgun to the Head” which was by Saul Williams and it’s one long poem about love and religion and war and all that good stuff. Uhm, I enjoyed it. It is spoken-word poetry which is new to me (mostly because we are only taught to read poems by Emerson and Keats and Shakespeare and Dickenson and Whitman and other poets that stick to such molds) but it is my hope to expand my horizons. He is a poet, preacher, actor, rapper, singer, and musician. He played in ‘K-Pax’ and ‘Slam.’ I think he’s one of those poets that people are either going to love or hate – I don't see much of a middle ground. I also think people would have to be relatively open minded to enjoy his work but I do and I’m rather looking forward to listening to some of his music. I also bought a book by Voltaire called “Candide” and a book by Billy Corgan called “Blinking with Fists.” I haven’t read either of those yet obviously because I got them today and I’m still trying to finish the summer reading books but I’m excited to delve into them.

On another note, my current favorite song is “The Ballad of Henry Darger” by Natalie Merchant. It’s interesting that I found the song because I am fascinated by Darger. I saw a movie on him called “In the Realms of the Unreal” and it’s mind boggling. [by the way, I wish I could think of another way to say ‘mind boggling’] I don’t even know where to begin in talking about his life and I’m by no means an expert so I’d just suggest that anyone reading this go look him up on wikipedia.com. All I will say is that he was a reculsive writer/artist from Chicagoland. I’m also interested in getting some “Mewithoutyou” CD’s but I cant seem to find them anywhere so if anyone knows where I can find them, let me know! And seeing as that it’s about 4:00 AM and I might go to church today I am going to head off but we are by no means done with this conversation! G’night love.

My Official Schedule

Term One
1A Law & The Individual
1B Law & The Individual
2A AP Lit & Comp
2B Trig-Prod Stat
3A Astronomy
3B Astronomy
4A Seminar
4B Fitness/Wt Trn

Term Two
1A Dramatics
1B Dramatics
2A AP Lit & Comp
2B Trig-Prod Stat
3A Rhet of Cinema
3B Rhet of Cinema
4A Seminar
4B Fitness/ Wt Trn

Term Three
1A Partners PE
1B Seminar
2A AP Lit & Comp
2B Trig-Prod Stat
3A Chemistry
3B Chemistry
4A Soc Sci Survey
4B Soc Sci Survey

Term Four
1A Partners
1B Seminar
2A AP Lit & Comp
2B Trig-Prob Stat
3A Chemistry
3B Chemistry
4A Soc Sci Survey
4B Soc Sci Survey

So yeah, I start a week from today.-_- I'm not too much excited anymore, I'm rather enjoying my lack of activity these days. I mean, when else can I go two weeks without talking to pretty much anyone and without leaving the house?!NEVER. For sure. I can definitely say that this summer my anti social attitude reached a new height. Haha. I am looking forward to being productive though and have some things to distract my mind from the things I've found myself consumed with thinking about. Still, adjusting to another sleeping pattern will prove to be quite the struggle. I go to sleep at 5:00 (I managed to pull back from 9:30 AM to 5:00 AM but I still have about 8 hours to pull back.) Yikes. Well, tonight I am supposed to go out with Kami and Chrissie but they havent called yet; I'm just waiting for the phone to ring... Bored bored bored. Welp, until next time.

Cant Sleep Again

Its 2:45 AM! I cant sleep - I have to get up for church in just over 5 hours! Gr arg. So Yesterday (actually Friday) we hung out with Dan and Erik. Uhm, it was fun. It was weird to go outside/be in public because I really havent left the house in 2 weeks! >_> Like, I left a few times but not for long. CRAZY! It was weird. Felt awkward. Uhmmm. I got an IPOD. I dont know if I mentioned that yet but it is true, I did. I only have about 1200 songs on it but whateva. I'll crank up the tunes soon. Hmm. I saw Eman at the mall! Yeah, it was bizarre. I didnt say hi of course. I hate seeing people around. Like, I'd much rather chat with someone online than talk on the phone with them or in person. But the phone is the worst. I HATE CALLING PEOPLE! GRRR! So yeah. That's my story. OOH! I learned something new. The word quixotic. It has to do with that book Don Quixote. Umm, yeah, it means ideal and inpractical because the main character of the book one day decided he wanted to be a knight and that endeavor is ideal yet quite inpractical. Yup. I guess it's a big deal to not have known about this book. The elders made quite a deal of my having not heard. Okay, so I'm gonna try to go back to bed but the chances of falling asleep are almost as low as the ceasefire is of lasting between lebanon and israel. G'NIGHT!

My Thoughts on Stuff

I think light gray is the new dark gray (and by that I mean gray is the new black).

I think 'cool' is the 'cool' (being in how it is used).

I think the revolving door is incredible: its noiseless, theres no chance of collision, it cant be blown open, wind and snow and dust cant blow in...

I think the word 'Understand' is very annoying because it really makes no sense in the english language.

Not An Entirely Coherent Post

Well, we just watched “What the bleep do we know?!” It was a film about science and spirituality and the mind and self consciousness. At one point a man was talking about consciousness and he said that, to put it simply, consciousness is awareness of self, for an example he talked about how when a person looks in the mirror he knows that they are looking at themselves but that made me think of a child who first looks in a mirror. The child has to make various movements in testing the mirror, trying to figure out what it is they are looking at. They don't know that they’re looking at themselves. Does that mean that consciousness isn’t a physical acknowledgement or awareness of a sort, but simply a mental state of knowing?

It also talked about how we perceive things. I forget how they put it but it was like we see things how we choose to. The main character saw herself as fat and she hated churches and men and marriage because of the unfortunate events that happened in her life concerning those issues. Throughout the movie a quote kept creeping up in her mind, “If thought can change water imagine how thought can change us.” By the end of the film she realized that her thoughts were making her see herself as fat and she was allowing herself to be angry all the time. She was able to come to love herself. It was beautiful. It was just really interesting because it goes back to my ideas that we can basically brainwash ourselves. I once trained myself into believing that orange juice woke me up in the morning – as caffeine would. It also goes along with my ideas on romanticizing things. I am a major supporter or romanticizing things and that’s partially because I think in doing that we can make ourselves happy. I had this idea of taking things that annoy us and somehow altering them in our minds to being something that we love. Like, when people do stupid things on the road they anger us to no visible end; if we could somehow alter the situation into something that didn’t make us so mad then we could be content with what had happened. So I came up with this thing: when someone does something stupid on the road I would give them a reason for it – he’s speeding because his wife is having a baby or they’re not driving well because there’s a family emergency that they have to get to.

The movie also talked about new things: like new dimensions. The guy said something like how you can’t learn of new things if you don't embrace these new things as a possibility. It reminded me of God because the 3D character saw the 2D world in full but the 2D characters were flat (they only saw things on the surface). So like, why do we presume to know anything? God, I believe, is multidimensional and the film gave me the imagery to understand more fully the thing that people always say: that God can see the full picture and we cant. I know that as I write this I’m not making full thoughts and I hope that when I read this in a few weeks I will understand the potential of these thoughts.

Having just watched “Good Will Hunting” and “Finding Forrester” which are about unexpected geniuses and then watching this… It’s just like... THOUGHT. As time progresses so does the thoughts of humanity. Someone I know once said that we all go through the same patterns of thought at the same times because somehow society goes throughout things together. That has to be true to some degree because why else would new fashions appeal to people on such a wide scale at all times? And why does society go through phases of what names are popular for that decade? In the 20’s names like Gertrude were popular but now those feel like “old lady names” and I’m sure that fifty years from now names like Emily will feel like “old lady names.” I think that one day, when we reach a point of too much knowledge – the point where we can’t function because you know too much and you don't know what truth is. You don’t know reality anymore – you are so out of touch with what you once knew as truth that you can trust anything. You cant trust that when you get out of bed there will be a floor to step on. Anyway, I just think that when we reach that point of knowledge and when we learn how to access more of our brain, that’s when God will come back.

Too much NOISE

I havent really slept all week and this afternoon I was so tired that I actually could have slept. I was out for about an hour and then the people who live below us had their music going so loud that it woke me up. Thankfully Crystal went down and asked them to turn it down. I slept for four more hours (THANK GOD!) When I got up I had coffee and was chilling for a bit before I put the movie on ( I rented "What the bleep: Down the rabbit hole") So I sat down to watch it and I could hear the phone ringing in the apartment next door, my mom's clock ticking, the coffee brewing, crystal typing, and some noise outside. Now Crystal is on her cell phone, a plane is outside making noise, I have music playing, I'm typing, the coffee's brewing and my head is pounding. ::GOING MAD:: So yeah, that's that.

This morning I watched Dawson's Creek. I still love that show and I'm not ashamed to admit it; the same way I'll gladly admit that I'm a Hilary Duff fan. Every morning this week I try to watch Dawson’s Creek but it's on at 8:00 am. Because I can't go to sleep early enough to be able to wake up on time I don't go to sleep until after the show. This much implies that I go to sleep at 9:00 a.m. Besides that, I haven’t really been up to anything. I get real bored often and because I'm so bored I can't bring myself to enjoy doing anything. Inconveniently that means I still have a lot to read before school starts. To my misfortune, school starts on the 23rd this year - though every other year it started the 28th. -_- This change is most unwelcome but alas, there is nothing that can be done. I am halfway through 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' which I really enjoy reading. It's very cynical and almost dark. I just recently started 'Pride and Prejudice' and I'm still halfway through "Cat's Cradle" which I've found to become rather boring. I still have to read 'Merchant of Venice' and 'Fahrenheit 451' on top of finishing a poetry book by John Donne. That being said, I have much more to do before the summers end. Anyway, that is what I have been up to. On Saturday I might go out to the store and pick up some things (an IPod, V for Vendetta, a Pods coffeemaker, Titanic Special Edition DVD, and maybe some shoes). On Sunday Crystal and I are going to hang out with our old friend, Shannon, whom we haven’t talked to in a real long time but recently came back into contact. Yesterday I was looking up different colleges that I may want to attend; I think I have my sights set too high. I chose these so far: Illinois Wesleyan, Roosevelt College, Weaton, Barnard, Columbia, Elmhurst, Emerson, Reed, North Central, and Monmouth. Otherwise there is nothing else to report on.

First Semester
1A Law & The Individual
1B Law & The Individual
2A AP Lit & Comp
2B Trig
3A Astronomy
3B PE 3 & 4
4A Seminar
4B Seminar

Second Semester
1A Dramatics [I MIGHT DROP THIS CLASS]
1B Dramatics
2A AP Lit & Comp
2B Trig
3A Rhet of Cinema
3B Rhet of Cinema
4A PE 3 & 4
4B Seminar

Third Semester
1A Chemistry
1B Chemistry
2A AP Lit & Comp
2B Trig
3A Partners PE
3B Seminar
4A Soc Sci Survey
4B Soc Sci Survey

Fourth Semester
Same as third