Thank You, Science, For Making Me Passionate About Who I am.

Alright, normally I write blog posts because I'm stressed, because I need to write to get my frustration and sadness and pain out. It makes sense, considering the tone of all my other blog posts and how painful they are and how I turn them around to a positive side. It's not always that way. Sometimes there's a movie that gives you a startling adrenaline rush that you use to conquer your day that you just have to write about. Today, it's Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey .

I finally finished all 13 episodes today with "Unafraid Of The Dark", and even while I watched the first episode I was desperate for more. The fact of a second season possibly in the works is exhilarating, but not as exhilarating as episode #13.

The first episode of Cosmos was purely introductory. It explained the ship of the imagination, with the looking up to the future and down to the past, and the scale of the universe and the cosmic calendar. Every single episode I learned something new about someone new, someones that I never were taught about in my history or even my science class. In between the great Issac Newton and Albert Einstein, there was Micheal Faraday, who was revolutionary in that he was the one who figured out how electric motors work, even postulating the theory of magnetic lines around the earth. This guy figured out some cool shit, and was a persistent genius, so why the hell haven't we heard about him? Marie Curie? Jan Oort? That group of women that discovered the spectrum of stars? (I apologize for lack of an image I saw months ago)

The quote from the episode about the women who discovered the spectrum of stars is below, but I just needed to find a place to insert this picture.

"These are the women of science. You probably haven't heard of them. I wonder why..."

Anyways, I expected episode #13 to have something even more extraordinary than all the other episodes, as it was a season finale. The philosophical ending, however, was amazing. Cosmos had been adding in the philosophy aspect in with science after the first few episodes (which I'm not complaining about), and joining the ideas of science with philosophy even more as it went on to piss off many, many creationists. You rock, Neil.

The episode ended with Neil sharing the awe of the universe as one ever so small participant. The fact that we're so small, and there's so much to explore, is nothing but exhilarating, exhilarating to the point where you write a blog post right after watching it. The fact of us humans is beautiful and poetic. We progressed from these tiny unicellular organisms and became us today. Despite all our imperfections right now, imperfections rectified bit by bit with each idea shared between us all, with our network of worldwide communication. We possess a great web of information around our planet. One of the greatest things we have that our predecessors did not is the ability to communicate. I can send a message to instantly arrive in a person's mailbox on the other side of the world. Is that not amazing?

"These values undermine the appeals of fanaticism and ignorance, and, after all, the universe is mostly dark, dotted by islands of light. Learning the age of the earth or the distance to the stars or how life evolves, what difference does that make? Well, part of it depends on how big of a universe we're willing to live in. Some people like it small. That's fine, understandable, but I like it big. And when I take all of this into my heart and my mind, I'm uplifted by it, and when I have that feeling, I want to know that it's real, that it's not just something happening inside my own head. Because it matters what's true, and our imagination is nothing compared with nature's awesome reality."

I'd say RIP Neil Degrasse Tyson, except he's thankfully still alive and he can give us more mind-blowing shit like this.

This kind of stuff that Neil talks about it part of why I like the pain in life, and why the bad stuff is just as important as the good. I've frequently said that the pain keeps me lucid and helps me know that I'm alive. Sometimes, the pain drives me to write, but in reality, there is always a subtext of passion behind why I write. Passion is what drives us to do anything, as Joss Whedon said, "without passion, we are truly dead", and that cannot be more true. Man lives as though he's never going to die, and dies never having really lived.

When I write from pain, it's not because I'm in pain. I write from my pain is because I'm passionate about exploring my emotions and who I am. I'm passionate about philosophy, but not to the point where I'd take the class. I can learn a lot more from a year of life than someone pulling my hand in some other direction. That's not to say I desire no hand to guide, but rather I want to be guided based on my own decisions. I'm guided by the authority figures I have today, like Neil Degrasse Tyson. Neil is one of those significant few people who have truly changed my identity a substantial amount. We change on our own, sure, based on the experiences passively given from others. Neil is one of those people who is hardly passive in his influence. Neil began Cosmos not so that you might watch it, but so that you would. Neil had something to say, and so he said it, regardless of if he might be ignored.

"If you wiped out all traces of religion and science, people would rediscover science on their own. They might call it different things, but it's still the same. Oh, but I assure you, your story about a talking snake would be gone forever" -Penn Jillette

Neil Degrasse Tyson has taught me more about science that I have learned about in my science classes, even the ones at the magnet high school I go to. Cosmos was made with a sole purpose: to teach to even the most ignorant. Sure, I know how a mitochondrion works (sorta...), but it doesn't matter what I was forced to learn. If you got me really passionate about biology, I would've looked it up to learn it myself. The problem with schools is that they fail to have students retain interest in the subjects. Play Cosmos in every science classroom, and you're gonna get people interested in science, then they'll learn for themselves.

When you're a kid, it's easy to tell what you want to do. You just pick the one you like, and that's that for a couple years, at least until you redecide. When you're older, such as your teens, or even in your 50s just having to re-enter the workforce, it's harder. You have to reconsider your passion, and try to figure out where you will be happy, which can be harder than it seems.

Sometimes your passion will drive you to do something you may regret later, so what? Aren't all the smart people full of doubts while the stupid are full of confidence? Of course, there are definitely exceptions to this rule, but I digress.

I'll see you all in the Cosmos, my friends.

I Love Music, Hide My Social Anxiety, And Am Possessed By Satan. Hooray Spring Break!

Alright, so I'm stressed out (the fun part is I'm stressed out more so by absolutely nothing than by homework) and I doubt I'll make it to the end of the week without another written blog post. As it happens, our Robotics final exam is an in-class project, and our teacher is too lazy to show up on due dates (hooray for weekly progress reports), and I feel the urge to write, with a musical background, as usual. I do recommend listening to it while you read this, as it gives you a better feel for my current state.

Music is something that everyone loves, because it's so goddamn relatable. Even if you hate reality and you hate existence, you turn on sad music. It doesn't matter how you feel, your emotional state dictates what genre you're currently into. I've gotten into Shinedown for the past several weeks, and for some reason their music calms me, gives me something to feel apart from what I'm feeling. I'm lost in the stories in the songs, and have reinforced my belief that yes, I enjoy rock music. Sadly, we can't have a button that restores our hearing afterwards (or earbuds that have a higher volume limit), because I would totally buy those. I would also enjoy the idea of wireless earbuds, which I'll probably make sometime in the future. Either way, if I'm stressed and have a moment to myself, I won't be able to hear anything for about 30 seconds afterwards.

And so I come back to my usual topic: stress. The reason the music isn't anything along the lines of "I'm hurt" or "just breathe" is because of spring break, on account of which I've latched onto a song that says, "hey, you're gonna win, you can fucking do this" just to get through this week. Saturday will be a day for a rundown on the basic homework assignments for next Monday, and Sunday, of course, will be a daylong Guns Of Icarus Online regatta. The rest of the week will be me getting on top of the rest of all the bullshit I have to deal with, which I'll be motivated to accomplish by another Guns Of Icarus day or two. The more I accomplish, the more I'll be able to play.

The Galleon will demolish all of them, hands down.

This week has been stressful, of course. My monologue in theatre, for one, I've forgone for two weeks, and the resulting anticipation of it gave me a panic attack the Thursday night before last. This not only didn't help my confidence, but it also kept me up all night, which in turn made me skip school on account of zero sleep (if I was gonna passively suffer, I was gonna passively suffer at home). You can guess how much this helped. The following week UIL had occupied my teacher's time, making it even worse when I had to perform it on Tuesday. My mom says I don't have social anxiety, rather that I'm just shy. I agreed with her at the time, but in recent experience, a panic attack the night before compliments the former possibility.

My mother said I was shy because I usually sat at the front of the class, usually was participative in activities, and had plenty of friends, but that doesn't matter. Just because someone's socially outgoing (or so they seem), it doesn't mean that they're socially secure. Social anxiety doesn't have to define you to affect you (oh hey, one of those sentences I end up being really proud of). If someone's infected by the flu, they're automatically assumed to be sick, that is if there was someone with a portable medical scanner monitoring a flu virus that just entered their system. It'd be foolish to automatically erect a quarantine and deem them sick (if it was Ebola, maybe). Just because a person's infected with the flu doesn't mean that the virus has taken hold. This is a somewhat fragile and negative metaphor, but it says something. We automatically assume, because someone's not displaying symptoms of social anxiety, that they're not, and yet we're told that a virus can flourish and at the same time display no symptoms within a person.

If a person says they feel social anxiety and at the same time not display any symptoms, it only means they're good at hiding it. I can be stabbed (emotionally) in the heart, and still maintain a smile on my face. Whenever someone asks me how I'm doing, one thing I make a point to do is avoid the answer, "oh, I'm fine, how are you?". The answer of "I'm fine" is one of apathetic contentedness, and it usually means "I'm not fine but I don't want you to know" which is one notable symptom of social anxiety, now that I think about it. Whenever someone asks me how I'm doing, I always answer truthfully. I have a spectrum of replies, ranging from "great" to "good" to "kinda shitty" to "fine" to "don't talk to me", which I use to answer the question of "how are you?". If anyone ever answers "I'm fine", then I ask again and again until they answer truthfully, because annoyance begets honesty.

Back to the subject of my stress, I've gotten on track with my usual homework, but the problem isn't that. The problem is the projects, particularly research projects. My robotics project I'm merely behind on, and I'll catch up on it over spring break, so that's not as prevalent an issue (provided my mother's boyfriend comes over to help me out). Research projects, however, have always been my weak point. I got a 0 on my fall theatre final because I didn't even bother with a research project, and only passed the semester with a 75 because it's theatre, do the math (tip: there are three 6 week periods, averaged together with the final grade). The funny thing is I sometimes imagine myself as a hunter in the Supernatural universe, which involves a ton of research, which I would hate. It's like I have an invisible Lucifer for real life.

Sometimes I am Lucifer, sometimes it's other people. Lucifer is within all of us.

Ignoring the idea that we all have a devil on our shoulders, I'm still hanging in there, somewhat easier than my usually pessimistic blog posts entail. That's why I listen to Shinedown. Sometimes the music works, sometimes it doesn't, but whenever it does is worth it. I love music, and I love to lose myself in it and become someone different (they're usually somewhat similar in personality, character, and yeah, it's basically just me implanted in another universe). I love writing fanfiction somewhat more, however, because when I become someone else, I embody the voices of the protagonists, and I let go of my earthly attachment to myself. I forget that I'm sitting here. I forget my anxiety. I forget that I'm self-conscious. I'm self-conscious of myself, I'm self-conscious of my monologue, I'm self-conscious of how I come across to people, and I forget it all when I send this world elsewhere.

Of course, I don't come across as self-conscious, because I'm a good actor (my theatre teacher will be proud of that one), but I feel as if I am. The fact of my inner self-consciousness and my outer cheerful demeanor is a prime example of my ongoing conflict. Day after day, I fight myself, and combined with the stress of school and life and my parents, I really do die every day and become anew.

Class is almost over...I don't want to go

Once again, I seem suicidal and depressed, and the truth is we're always gonna be depressed. Anyone who takes an hour and thinks through everything about everything can't possibly retain a fully positive outlook, which is only possible in a hot shower. I'll never give up, I'll never kill myself, but I can't control my thoughts, or can I?

Sometimes, perhaps, if I'm listening to Shinedown.

Dear Mom, It Gets Better.

Mom, I know things are hard, and that you turn to me for advice and consolation, and I thought I should write something, since I'm not as apt in 'on the nose' conversation. My blog posts are usually quite comforting to those that read them on a regular basis, and not for the reason that they're trying to find a reason for me to not publish them under my name.

Before you begin your argument, I shall give you my counterargument...the same counterargument I always give you

I know job hunting sucks, and I know you despair, what with your apparent lack of purpose. I thought upon my purpose not long ago, and everywhere I looked I found myself feeling the same way: that I had no purpose, and that there was no place for me. This is a heartbreaking realization to make, and in all fairness, a rather pessimistic way of looking at things. I realized, after a brief period of depression, that I didn't want a purpose to be assigned to me. When you have a predetermined purpose in life, you feel constricted, you're forced to conform into this mold that's set before you. Your purpose in life, whatever it may be, shouldn't be assigned to you by anyone or any sky-zombie except yourself (not saying you're a sky-zombie, that was a shallow reference to Christianity. Something something no such thing as god). A purpose isn't meant to be something you think about in advance, but rather something you realize you've fit into without realizing it. Keep working on finding who/where you want to be, and you'll realize you've found it.

Jean Luc has been through similar endeavors, know that and you won't have as much trouble knowing that Jean Luc Picard has dealt with similar problems to yours

I know taking care of my little sister is tiring, and it pains both of us to watch her in emotional turmoil, as I believe I mentioned. The worst part of any form of suffering is having to watch powerless as someone else suffers. She'll get over it eventually and grow up the right way, someday. All that matters is how we help her deal with it, and I know we can.

Despite the fact that we're not religious, mom, we can still have faith. We can have faith that dad will burden us less, we can have faith that you'll manage to get a job, we can have faith that I'll get my driver's license, graduate from LASA, go to college.

Despite the fact that I'm not religious, mom, I can still believe. I believe in you, mom, and I believe we can get through this.

When Life Gets You Down, Hang In There...At Least For Another Week

Well. What a shitty week this has been so far. Here's some music for you guys to listen to.

Let's start with my returned hatred of Valentine's Day. So I finally confessed my love to my love interest via text (I had figured that it would be the most effective way of controlling my anxiety) and what do you think happened? I got rejected like a bitch. Not wanting to go away without something else I could reflect on, I asked why she wasn't into me. I knew it was gonna hurt, but damn. She told me she didn't really know me, and that I was too persistent in my attempts to contact her via google hangouts. Added to my uncomfortable opening in our text thread, I was apparently seen as a bit of a creep.

This went well...

I never get mad at people for any reason. I'll get frustrated, sure, and sometimes majorly frustrated, but nobody at my school has ever seen me seriously pissed off, which is why when I have to act pissed off for theatre I tend to scare people, because me acting pissed off is not even close to me being pissed off.

Long story short, don't even try to piss me off, because on the 1 in a google's chance you manage to get me pissed off, I'll actually admire you for the last 4 seconds of your existence. (Hint, if I gradually get more and more sarcastic and frustrated, and then all of a sudden become eerily calm as I politely ask you to stop, back the fuck off)

On that note, I digress from the fact that, naturally, I wasn't mad at her at all. I'm never pissed off because whenever I get frustrated, I direct all the excess anger inwards and let it calm down and sit there over time. I'm an easygoing person, which explains why I was more mad at myself than her. I see the good in other people, and the bad in myself, which I'm sure everyone can relate to. I immediately cursed my own actions, the words "you fucking idiot, why were you so stupid" swimming around my head for the rest of the day and some of the next, going into the "majorly frustrated" territory. I eventually got over it with the song I've provided for you to listen to above, and the lesson is, "just breathe"

I've talked about this more than I've liked to, and so I'll wrap up by saying even though it provided me with closure in the fact I was at least able to confess how I felt and that next time should be easier (if there is one), it fucking hurt, man.

Now, since you probably don't wanna hear about failed teenage romance, I'll rewind to that Thursday, when I was called into a conference with my counselors, my mothers, and my latin teacher, on the topic of my lack of effort on homework. I do admit I smiled and nodded a lot, while agreeing that the main problem was Minecraft distracting me, and that I should crack down on that. Another point that my Latin teacher made was that if I wasn't planning on going to college, or even making any effort of thinking about it, why was I going to an admittedly-known college prep school? The main reason I didn't go on a composed rant was half because it was in the morning, and half because my Latin teacher was there, because disappointing him is like having Fred Rogers say "I'm very disappointed in you" at a 1/16th of the power, since as anyone can imagine, 1/8th is enough to break your heart beyond repair.

Praise be unto Fred Rogers for the amazing childhood

Here's what I would've said:

1. I went to this school because I went to middle school with a bunch of idiots, and I knew enough to know that I did not want to follow them to high school. Also since I've moved, my default school has changed to the one that's apparently full of druggies. Knowing my intelligence, if I was forced to go there, I'd likely accidentally end up running the whole trade. How's that for a failed LASA student?

Confession time: I have no interest in Breaking Bad whatsoever

2. Maybe it's not that I don't see the value in doing my homework. The distractions do not prevent me from doing homework, the homework prevents me from doing homework. In that I mean homework is assigned without regard for other classes. Yes, every class has the right amount of homework, if we were only taking that class. Problem is that's exactly what every single class thinks. I remember in sophomore year our AP World History teacher asked us how we felt about homework (I can assure you, much of the class, if not many, complained), and then after everyone established that we were being assigned too much homework across English and AP World History combined, our loving teacher attempted to lull us into believing that it was our fault for not managing our time better. Ms. Pettigrew, I would like to humbly say, whether or not you're actually reading this, to go fuck yourself, and that you shouldn't claim that you went to LASA when you were in high school, because you obviously didn't.

3. Maybe, because of the homework, I don't have time to think about the college I might go to. I don't have time to think about what I wanna do in life. There was a reason I didn't do certain homeworks: because I valued my own life and sanity more than I did getting into Harvard. Sure, I do homework, but if I'm gonna do homework, I'm gonna do it already having my career in mind: that of the owner of a Maple syrup company (Yaple Maple Syrup, anyone?). Now that we've gotten that established, I might just major in economics and go to a business college. Alright, that's established, now I can worry about homework.

Following this meeting, my mother kicked me into gear, forcing me to do all my homework, and of course, my thoughts of suicide returned. Now, since my parents both read this blog, as well as a bunch of people I know IRL who are too lazy to follow my blog, I'll clarify on my perspective of suicide below, after I finish the story, or else I'll be hounded by people who think I'm gonna kill myself. I'm not gonna kill myself, but that doesn't stop me from thinking about it.

The week then descended into the usual black abyss that accompanies homework. I worked hard and broke my back getting shit done on time, and spent my time during lunch talking to my online friend, Bianca, reassuring her of how life would eventually get better and she shouldn't just end it now when she can finally escape in less than a year from that abusive hellhole she lives in, also known as Utah. Of course I did it because I cared for her, but also because I wanted some of the reassurance one usually gets as a side effect. We're real friends now, and the first thing I'm going to do when she eventually comes down to Austin is take her into my arms, force her onto the couch, and make her watch all of Firefly. If we're gonna be real friends, then you need to have seen Firefly or at the very least, Person Of Interest, no contest.

props to anyone who knows what buhn dahn means off the top of their head

Now, today was a loud nail in the coffin. My eyes burned the whole time, and I experienced tumultuous feelings of anxiety throughout the whole day. This is one of those days where I come home thinking, "dear god, this sucked". The burning eyes was due to homework I had to do, and it's the main reason I can't do as much homework as the rest of the students at my school: LASA students naturally have to stay up late to finish their homework. I should've included this up there, but as we all know, I only write rough drafts on this blog.

Finally, the profound ending, AKA what I tell the concerned people that seem to only care if I'm thinking of killing myself, but not if I suffer (I'm proud of this sentence). I think the words I'm looking for are that I don't necessarily believe in suicide. I still think we kill ourselves, though. We kill ourselves all the time, but we only do so substantially every year or two, when we change. There's a truth to life that is somewhat morbid, but it's interesting to think about:

The person you were before reading this is dead. The person you were a month ago is also dead. The same can be said for the person you were a year, and two years ago. The average person encounters so much on a daily basis, even on the walk to school in the morning. Every experience, no matter how tiny you consider it, changes you and twists you into someone different than who you were before. Your entire persona will change again just after reading this sentence, and you will have died once again.

Either consciously or unconsciously, you make the decision to emotionally kill yourself based on what you've gone through. This is an insanely pessimistic view, but I think it fits with the idea of suicide, even if the "turn it off then turn it back on again" metaphor fits a little more nicely. Why do we feel suicidal? Because we think life has become something we can no longer face, and that is wrong. When a baby is born, it screams its head off not because it's hungry or just shit itself, but because that's the worst thing it has ever gone through just then. It'll scream and cry again when it feels the doctor take its blood pressure, because that;s the worst thing it has ever gone through. How are you different?

When you trudge through life suicidal, eventually one of two things will happen: you will either keep trudging, or you will become so utterly sick of it that you shout, "fuck this!" rip your homework in half, and decide to fail that six weeks. You will have become a different person, and you have just committed emotional suicide, allowing yourself to change and become someone who can take on life and lose, still grinning and spitting in it's eye. You will never be the same person you were 20 years from now, and you're not even the same person you were before reading this (sure, you don't notice it, but it's happened), so why kill yourself?

I know what it's like to want to kill myself. Oh gods, life is tiring, and it's too much, and I can't take it. Of course you can't take it. It's the same reason why when we're sad, we pull out our phones and text people instead of letting go and crying about it. We don't want to face the pain, it's so monstrous, so how could we face it? (I actually find it physically impossible to cry, so that's why I never do.) But you know what? Fuck it! You need to face that pain, because if you but hang in there, you will either win the day, or downright own it (and by that I mean failing with a grin on your face because you no longer care)!

The key to changing in the face of suicidal thoughts is simple: self reflection, swimming deeper into the pain, realizing you don't owe anything to anyone, and also in some cases, the realization that it's not actually you, you just happen to be cursed with the random ailment of living with a bunch of assholes.

I'm finally emotionally stressed enough to write a blog post, why am I happy about that?

It's been a while since I last made a blog post, it's been a while since I was last emotionally stressed enough to even feel the need. I've been content enough not to care, content enough to survive in the face of all these stressful assignments I don't really care for. The idea of being pressured to be more than an academic automaton has only been made harder by the assigning of tons of homework; this irony is hardly lost on me. The whole concept is having our cake and eating it too, and we have too much homework to do before we can even think of eating it.

Pushing this hypocrisy aside, I've still become more resilient in the face of stress. I'm a lot more laid back in terms of homework, a lot like my sophomore year self in a way. The difference is, my sophomore year self originally became so out of defiance, while I've currently become so out of desire for peace. Seems only natural that a personality originally brought forth out of hell should have the purpose of raising it, if only the first time around.

I find myself writing this not out of homework stress, but simply the pain of existential angst. When it comes to this topic, everyone pretty much knows exactly what I mean. It's that pit of darkness in your heart, that pit that threatens to devour you every time you feel a little bit sad. It's that knowledge that your life is all for nothing and no matter what, you'll probably end up alone. Depressing, ain't it? I certainly think so. The best solution for this, as Louis C.K. says, is to cry your guts out and let yourself get over it. A painful solution for a painful problem. Then again, if you really want a good solution to pain, another good one is the sight of an adorably tiny kitten trying to eat it's own little furry tail.

I laugh in the face of people who think it's strong women who emasculate men

My pain extends to the usual college stress as well, what with my parents pressuring me about it as if my very existence depends on it. SATs and ACTs and stuff I really don't give a shit about, and what with school stress getting to me, I've been made progressively more lazy and depressed and I have even less of a will to concern myself with them. With this I'll also delve into the recurring issue of posting under my own name, which my mother seems to think is 'obscene' and will make colleges and businesses not like me. Over and over this issue comes up, and over and over I come up with the exact same counterargument every time: Can we ever have a president who grew up in the internet age? Game, set, and match....again.

"Anyone who thinks we're all going to spend the 2032 elections poring over rambling blog posts by teenagers has never tried to read a rambling blog post by a teenager"

Randall Munroe's never met me, but he sure seems to know who I am

With this I proceed to resume my life, and to wrap up the long (or rather short) rant I've been typing out for you to read and enjoy. Some of my little gags in here are subtle, some of them are not, and sometimes it's just mildly witty and not a gag at all, and just another pointless way to express myself. The fact that I can type a seemingly random combination of words and control your emotions is mind-blowing. In a way I enjoy this pain, not like a cutter, but like a romantic. I'm lucky to be alive, I'm lucky to feel this pain, I'm lucky to be human. All of this existence that we all trudge through, all of this pain we feel, it's just another way of being human.

My body aches, my eyes burn, and my nose is stuffy. Spring is in full force. Everyone assumes that winter is when there are the most suicides, but it's actually spring, which is completely understandable. In winter you don't feel a need to kill yourself because you know however much you're suffering, everyone else is suffering, too. In the spring, however, we forget that and naturally assume because it's warmer, everyone else is happier, except for us. if there's one thing about suicidal people, it's that they feel like they're alone, even if they're not. When convincing someone not to kill themselves, you need to let them know that they're not alone. They're not the only ones suffering. Everyone suffers, it's a part of being human. "Welcome to the human race" (I'll be glad if anyone gets that Person Of Interest ref, because I couldn't find the video on YouTube).

This suffering I live through I'm glad to feel, because no matter how dead I may feel, the pain of existing always lets me know that I'm alive.

Christmastime, the only time of the year you can say "Ho, Ho, Ho" to people and claim you were being festive

I doubt most of you are going to read this. Tonight you'll be in bed, avoiding the wrath of Santa Claus, and tomorrow you'll be spending time with your families, rejoicing how you didn't get coal with which you could solve the energy crisis. I always knew something was off about you people, but I never quite got it until now that you guys hated the environment.

"9 ways to serve venison" by S. C. Redjacket

It's really been a while since my last blog post, and I honestly don't know why I've held out against my urge to write something like this. The best I can come up with is that my life, through all the stress, has somehow either kept me busy enough or content enough to prevent it. I see it both as a bad thing, since I've been unable to vent about my feelings in terms of recent events, and as a good thing, given I'm somehow more capably handling the turns on the road.

I will add that despite my crash in the middle of the semester, being too primarily focused on asking out my love interest that the stress consumed my life, I somehow came to the realization that I, being busy enough as I am, can't pursue a the establishment of a romantic attachment. If she came up to me, started a conversation, and I saw a golden opportunity, I'd fare pretty well, but what I'm referring to is the pressure on me to go up to her and make a move, in which the anticipation of finally fulfilling what I've desired to do for so long, the anticipation of an event that would brighten my universe up considerably, would most likely kill me. I've said it before: I only feign confidence, and when it comes to asking out the girl of my dreams, I might as well not even bother (If Mikayla could please message me and tell me whether or not she'd be interested in dating me, that would save a shitload of time and stress on my part). Does the guy always have to make the first move?

Moving on from my romantic troubles, I managed to pull ahead of how badly I thought I would fail, and somehow came out with semester averages that rivaled the total averages of Sophomore year. I pushed the idea of asking her to the back of my mind, concentrated on what mattered most (which was surviving school), and I fucking did it. I passed with flying colors (except for theatre, which I wasn't really worried about anyways).

Anyways, I'll try not to keep you too much longer, and more importantly, I'll try not to keep myself too much longer, as noradsanta.org displays Santa drawing nearer and nearer to Austin by the minute. I'd rather not be awake when he arrives, lest my custom ordered set of D&D dice be delivered elsewhere as punishment. My friend and I actually had a funny conversation earlier regarding my friend's astonishment at the fact that I believe in more so in Santa Claus than god. I immediately brought up the counterargument that humankind has so many definitions for a deity we call "god", many differing completely, yet all across the globe, we can agree Kris Kringle is a fat guy with a white beard in a red outfit who delivers presents to children. People don't debate the nature of Santa Claus in regards to his policy of judgement of others over the internet. I mean, even if you're naughty, Santa still leaves you a lump of coal so you can stay warm. I guess Yahweh believes more firmly in the "give a man a fire, he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire..." adage.

Well, I've gone on about my troubles enough for now. I might rant a little more about it in a new year's post, along with what my new year's resolutions would be (I'd rather not spoil them for you here).

Fuck it, I guess I'm ending here, and hey, maybe then, for your Christmas wish, your love interest might try to call you, but you're too stoked about the arrival of your custom D&D dice set to answer the phone.

Merry Christmas guys, have some fun tomorrow.

When in doubt of what to do, consult an Australian comedian, if he's survived Austrailia

"And here's my idea of romance: you'll soon be dead. Life will sometimes seem long and tough and god, it's tiring, and you will sometimes be happy and sometimes sad, and then you'll be old, and then you'll be dead"

Alright, now that we've gotten Tim Minchin's philosophy out of the way, I felt like I should write this, for posterity at the very least. I haven't written one of these in a long while, so I think that I should. After all, we'll all soon be dead. I do recommend watching this video, take 10 minutes and do it, right now, and pay attention or you'll get lost.

It's hard sometimes not knowing what the fuck to write about, since after all, our pain defines us, and I have more posts about how pissed off I am (or rather, was) than how awesome my day was. Tim Minchin's graduation speech has indeed had an impact on me, as he advocates defining oneself by what they love, not what they hate. Instead of ranting about some asshole driver on the freeway that day, I should instead create a three page thesis of how deep the universe of Captain Yaple is, and how well written the whole storyline is. Keep in mind I actually plan on writing a story like this, as well as publishing it for nonprofit. However, if I do manage to acquire the copyrights to Firefly, as well as other things, I'll have them on Amazon for $7 a copy, so I advise you to set aside some cash for that fateful day.

So apart from the terrible driver behind the wheel of AISD, I feel apt to say that my life has improved somewhat. I get more sleep, drinking Earl Gray tea and settling down with The Fault In Our Stars for the last 15-30 minutes of my evening to get professional tips on romance. In my opinion, I need them.

I find it hilariously ironic that I'm using my wellness counselor's business card as a bookmark

I'm starting to catch up on my homework, and my homework habits I've begun to catch up on as well (for some reason, most likely the video, my inner monologue has an Australian accent). I've thought more of exercising, even though with the cold, I doubt going for a run on a weekend morning will suit me. I always have my usual plethora of friends, a good number of whom I've gotten closer to on all tiers of friendship. I've binged the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and apart from not being able to remember the name of the Queen Bee character at Sunnydale High, my solution being calling her random C names, I love it, especially since Xander and Wash may as well be the same character reading off different scripts; it's nothing bad, of course, and it's actually quite reminiscent of a familiar fallen hero.

Swap the two so that Nicholas Brendan plays the role of Wash, and Alan Tudyk plays the role of Xander
I dare you to find any differences.

How wonderful my life must be right now. I'd also mention the cold emptiness that all of us have that eats away at us in the moments we're alone, but that's always been there, so I doubt it matters.

Of course, this is also that obligational time where I have to mention my love interest's name to see if she's really paying attention. Of course, she isn't, otherwise she'd at least email me with the traditional yes/no/maybe checklist we passed around in elementary school detailing one of the three answers. If there's anything I know of her, Mikayla is an honest yet kind person, to the point where her being brutally honest is almost made to sound like poetry in order to soften the blow. Of course, I'd then tell her to shut the fuck up and tell me either yes or no, to which she'd happily oblige, and to whatever answer she gave, I would listen). Even so, I've decided to put aside the idea of actively seeking out her affection, as the stress of forcing myself to approach her was mainly the reason why my school success collapsed. Barely focusing on her, I find myself too keen to drop anything and nearly everything for her, and if she really does read this, I hope she takes it into account.

There was a Paul Jennings story about a boy, wanting to spend money on taking a girl on a rich and fabulous date, and then learning a lesson from a man who did too much to please everyone around him, and that no matter who he wants to please, he should focus on himself. The story ends with him politely telling the girl, money in hand, to go jump in a lake. It's not that I'll word it that way, but instead of focusing solely on my romantic life, I'll attempt to augment my own living conditions and make my own life better. In the meantime, Mikayla will have to take a number, excepting the possibility that she cuts the entire line like the badass I know her to be and politely demands my affection, which I wouldn't exactly despise (should I randomly encounter a golden opportunity, though, I probably wouldn't hesitate).

Since I'll be taking a shower immediately after the writing of this blog post, I'd like to say in advance to my dear friend Hunter to go fuck himself.

To sum up, my life is better now, at least better than it was before. I'm incredibly thankful that, as usual, the nights before B days are free of any responsibility whatsoever, with the exception of the Huckleberry Finn quiz I know is tomorrow, which I'd like to get a semi-good grade on. The last Huck Finn quiz I bombed, but I made sure to point my boosters to the sky, charge up my payload, and bomb in a ball of condescending fire that swept the classroom. It's like flying an airplane with no one onboard but yourself, realizing you're going to fall out of the sky, and so you set your navigation system to alter course to a nearby concert hall where you know justin beiber, miley cyrus, and kanye west are going to be singing whatever the three person version of a duet is. You die, killing dozens, if not hundreds, but for some reason, everyone posthumously thanks you for it.

I bet I could get a nobel peace prize for doing that

Since I'm at a high point and I don't know how to end this post, I figure I'll just end it here. I'd appreciate if all of you would follow my blog, as I've asked before, since nobody does, and a view count doesn't necessarily dictate how many people like something. Farewell, and I wish a happy day for all of you, too.