Dear Sister: You Are The Light Of My Life, So Shine

Another year, another anniversary of the day the annoying littler version of me I know as Rebecca came into the world. Another day, another period in Robotics where I write instead of working. Thank god for subs.

My mom gave me a birthday card to write in for my sister's birthday dinner tonight, and due to the fact that she gave it to me yesterday (or possibly Sunday evening) I felt too lazy to fill it out. Finally when she reminded me last night to fill out the card, I told her I'd fill it out at school and then stuffed the card into my binder (carefully). Sometimes brushing off something for a later time, a time when you're more prepared and admittedly more procrastinatory on your AVP assignment, can allow it to be better than if you forced yourself to write it immediately. There are times when the more work you put into something, the lesser quality it comes out to be.

Now, due to the risk of my sister seeing this post before I give her the card tonight, I won't be posting this until afterwards, or at least right before we leave. She'll come back from her birthday dinner, read it in her room, then run out and hug me. She loves me, and I love her, and no matter how many times we ramp up the snarky comments we shoot between each other to our mother's dismay and then end the night in mutual hatred, that will always be the case.

In my card for her, I wrote about how proud of her I was. I won't give the exact dialogue as to what the card said, since that'll be exclusively hers. This is merely a follow-up, since I ran out of room on the card. To summarize, I told her how happy I was for her, that she's 12 now, and that even though middle school sucks (ah, totalitarianism), and that that part of her life would be over before she knew it. The bad parts of her life would only be temporary, and eventually the storm would end, unless of course she lives on Kamino, in which case it will never end.

Does the rain ever end on Kamino? Good thing we don't live there

I actually wanted to write so much more, and I wrote her a P.S. about a possible better way to live, but even then I barely had room, so I'll write to her exactly how I feel on this very blog post. It's not going to be shared with everyone, and the only one to be notified about it will be her. If you want to read it, fine, but this is personal, the kind of post where I don't tell anyone about it and let the people who really care read it for themselves. I know a significant few will see it and read it and they'll think it's a sweet thing for a brother to do, but I don't care about their appraisal of me. This post isn't about me, it's about my sister, but not without some epic music that compliments her.

Now, where was I? Oh yes, writing to my dear sister what I couldn't on the card, so here we go.


Rebecca, you honestly render me speechless sometimes, leading me to practice the dungeon master art of bullshitting your way through an encounter. When it comes to how you describe your problems in school and problems in life, you're talking to someone who knows what you're going through, and I can tell you that this is not going to be the high point in your life. Life is going to have it's ups and downs, and you're gonna be thrown all around by the giant waves that plague us all. Sometimes the advice of your family helps, sometimes it doesn't, but the point is you gotta take a risk and take said advice to heart. It may work for us and not for you, but only you can figure that out. Also, you don't know this for obvious reasons, but my advice especially comes in handy when it comes to TV shows you should watch. There's meaning and pain and happiness and love and art and death and things you may very well enjoy. The whole purpose of the TV shows I try to pass onto you are because of the meaning behind them, the meaning that other shows (*cough cough* disney) typically lack.

These shows are the four I highly suggest you watch, and you need to do more than just watch them. You have to imagine yourself as certain characters, imagine yourself in certain situations within the show. Normal people just watch TV shows for the sake of watching them, and don't take them in and absorb them and truly love them for the message they try to put across. Buffy TVS is meant to convey the message of growing up, and that's one of these that I really really think you should watch, since you're growing up as well. The normal people ignore the real messages behind shows, as I said, and only watch them for the sake of watching. Don't be normal, Rebecca, and don't watch them because I obligate you to. When I showed you Agents Of SHIELD, I implored you to watch the first 10 minutes, and the moment the 10 minutes were up, you went right back to your laptop. Actually watch them, watch the first season of all of them (especially Firefly) and really watch them and become one with them. That is how a TV show is meant to be consumed. Even if these aren't the shows you watch, make sure the shows you do watch are taken in like that.

TV shows aside, you still are amazing. The fact that you can suffer through sixth grade (my internal monologue has once again shifted to a Tim Minchin voice) and gain more friends in half a year than I did in two is a painful reminder of the knowledge that you're growing up. I know the pain of the divorce has aged us all emotionally, but the knowledge of you going to middle school only solidifies it: you're no longer the adorable child I knew as my little (size-wise) sister. You're far from being an adult, good on you, but that won't always be the case. Eventually you're going to wake up and it's your first day of high school, and then you're going to wake up once more and it'll be college, and then again and you'll be a grown woman, no longer the child I once had as my loved little (again, size-wise) sister. That's only the case for a short while longer, and you'll end up hating it as much as I will. Growing up is a horrible thing, Rebecca, absolutely horrible, because once you make your choice to grow up, emotionally and mentally, it's gone, all that innocence you once had, all the happy childhood that's now pointless.

You haven't read The Outsiders yet. As I recall, that's a 7th grade thing. It talks a lot about innocence and staying gold and all that, I recommend you read that over the summer, if I can have mom get it for your birthday. Apart from TV, works of literature like The Stranger, Catcher In The Rye, you should read them too. If you're going to grow up, Rebecca, I want you to grow up in a display of elegance. I want you to blossom like the flower you're going to be into a magnificent display of wonder. I've become something amazing with the stripping-away of my innocence, my growing up, so I want you to do something for me, something to grow up as slow as possible: be where you are, right now.

The slowest way to live, the easiest way to ignore your dread of the past or your anxieties of the future is to be here now. Concentrate on where you are, when you are. Concentrate on the coolness of the air, the brightness of the light, the feeling of your clothes against your skin. Live each moment, Rebecca, feeling everything there is to feel. The pain you're inevitably going to feel is going to be beautiful, and you're going to want to get in and feel it. Pain is beautiful, it's romantic, you're lucky to be alive, you're lucky to feel that pain. The pain and the anxiety makes you feel so so bad but you can't let that pain convince you to stop feeling every moment. There's the painful moments, and then there's the happy moments, the happy moments without pain, and those happy moments are why we live, the happy moments that are only made better by the presence of pain at other times. Even our current situation, no matter how painful, makes it so much better every other weekend when it's not present. The pain that seems to be rampant is only a temporary thing, no matter how much it seems permanent.

There's so much I want to say, Rebecca, so much I want to tell you, so much in life I want to prepare you for, that I can't just tell you in an insanely long blog post. Unfortunately, I lack the space and we both lack the time, as if I were to tell you everything you needed to really become an amazing adult, you'd already be one. I have faith, however, that my help will only be needed to a minor degree, that you have it all in hand. That's not always the case, I think you do need a nudge in the right direction occasionally, as do we all. Sometimes you can't just handle it yourself at all, sometimes you need help through and through, but sometimes you just need a push, sometimes you need that nudge in the right direction . I think once you let someone grab you by the shoulders and turn you the right way, you can make your way from there.

Be special, Rebecca, be fantastic, be you, despite what box others may try and fit you in. You're the best sister ever, and I love you to the ends of the earth. It doesn't matter how our current situation might be, you have me, and I have you, and that'll always be the case.

Happy birthday, Rebecca, and if you learn nothing else from this post, be here now, and be you now.

I Love Myself A Teenage Romance Novel That Isn't Shit

Finally, time. Time to compose a masterpiece about my emotions, time to release stress, time to cry over TFIOS, which was just painful to read at the end. The pain lives on, and so must we live.

Recently I've been alright. I haven't really given any information, even in my last blog post, about my current state of affairs. My dad has been quiet as of late, in regard to his ripples, all that really happened on his front was his exposure of me to the pleasurable company of my aunt and her husband at Cheddars. Through all the conversation on their front, I got the impression that military college was apparently a good idea.  Of course, that's not to say that helped me overcome my being completely burnt out from school. It didn't. Here I am, not alone in my english classroom when it comes to desiring to do absolutely nothing. We'd rather just watch X-men, and I hate it because it's distracting me from the emotion within me. Gee, politics in this universe is almost too realistic, thus I digress (but seriously, how is this woman not thinking of comparing this asshole senator to Hitler and winning the debate due to holocaust guilt?)

I'm burned out, and I'm doing absolutely nothing, not in physics, not in latin, not in APUSH. I absolutely hate this distraction, and so I'll force myself to tune out X-men for an hour so I can focus on this. It's hard to keep focused sometimes when it comes to one's emotions, sometimes everyday life catches us in the current and we lose sight of the river at hand. Sometimes we're too busy swimming to survive we forget to swim for the hell of it.

Today I finished the book we all know as The Fault In Our Stars, and I loved it. John Green's expression of the pain of dying from cancer is so exquisite, such the writing I wish to one day create on my own. Fortunately for Mr. Green, he'll probably keep hold on his bragging rights of having the greatest romance novel ever for many years to come, if not many years longer than my own pitiful life.

Okay, I've mainly inserted this so that this blog post will have a good thumbnail. It's only partially relevant

As I read the euphony of words that comprised TFIOS, I couldn't help but imagine what my life would be like were I currently dying (fuck this movie). John Green perfectly presents the perspectives of a cancer-stricken person, between the hopeless dreary personality of Hazel and the sacrificial life-loving nature of Augustus Waters. He proved to be my favorite character, the kind of guy I'd enjoy having as a best friend, the kind of guy I'd enjoy being. I'm practically an Augustus Waters, aside from my lack of social skills and my stunning charisma. It's more the way I regard the world, and not how I make the world regard me. We share the same character flaw of dying for something, the same Hoban Washburne-esque way of joking in the face of all sorts of sad moments. I'm more of a cross between Augustus and Hazel, but then again, so would we all be, in several small ways, just like everyone being a cross between Sherlock and Watson to varying degrees.

Such pain John Green presents to us all, in the form of one of the greatest books I've ever read, and such majesty within said pain. I've always tried my hardest to envision the pleasure within pain, as well as the memory pleasure can bring to us when it's long gone. Pain's what makes the pleasure stronger. Live a life in hell and the very concept of this crappy earth we live in would seem like heaven. A lot of people live in a life where they do simply swim to survive, not finding the ability to swim for any other reason. A lot of people live lives where they've never been able to swim for any other reason than to survive. It's not their fault, it's never their fault, and they tend to blame themselves because the current's always been that way. What other explanation could there be?

I can relate to their feeling of powerlessness, unable to make any headway against this current that's trying to drown them. It's what causes me to fantasize about having powers like in the fantasy genre, superhero movies, etc. It's why a person like me enjoys roleplaying, as I can exchange my world for one where I can stand on equal footing with those who oppress me in everyday life. A time jump here, a ball of fire there, anything that pushes me out from the underdog position and allows me to fight on equal ground. It's what we all desire, and sometimes a book about cancer might very well be enough to give one the courage to make it that way themselves, but sometimes they can't. Sometimes you're brutally kept down against all hope, and there's no book about cancer-stricken teens that can help you. Sometimes it's a result of deeds, not words, that help you overcome those things that hold you down.

(As I switch classes, I'll try to swing this post in a more positive direction when I resume it during lunch. At least then I won't be distracted by the goddamn movie currently playing.)

So where was I? Oh yes. The pain in the latter half of TFIOS was chilling to me, and I didn't care that my English teacher told us some stuff about tomorrow's AP exam during the first five minutes of class, I already knew it and I had a story to finish. That pain in that book killed me to the point where I just had to write about it. At first I thought, "eh, I'll write something after school", but that quickly changed. I could not wait to get my feelings out, to write how John Green's masterpiece had made me feel.

In the end, Hazel has to live, regardless of her condition, regardless of all the people she's lost (I'm trying to not explicitly spoil the book, but you could probably figure it out if you really aren't ever going to read it). The same is true for anyone else, actually, with our own deaths right around the corner for all we know. We could die at any moment, which is why we can't waste our lives just surviving, as Hazel's parents seem to do. So many people simply trudge through life without any thought of where they are, concentrating too much on where they're going or where they've been. People at my high school seem to concentrate so much on whichever college they might be going to...and that's just the freshmen. There are others, very good actors, as they're never noticed, others who concentrate too much on their pasts, on mistakes they made a decade prior. That's anxiety for you, and it's not easily controlled as I can certainly attest.

...Dear god they all just came to mind when I wrote that

So what is there to do? Experience your life, admire your surroundings, find yourself and become yourself. The amount of possible places your life could go is infinite. There are so many places you could go, so many things you could do, so why waste it? (I'll point out, for the sake of my home life, that binge-watching a TV show or playing a video game aren't necessarily wasteful, so long as one watches a TV show actively and intelligently and so long as that game is something like Minecraft). I still have things I need to do, which is why I will never kill myself, despite how often I might feel the urge to do so. I can't kill myself, I still need to choreograph and film a lightsaber duel with Jennifer Lawrence! (It's important to note that after I've done this, I can't kill myself! I'm the guy who choreographed and filmed a lightsaber duel with Jennifer Lawrence!)

That's all for today, my followers (nobody actually follows my blog. Weird). Live on, and live now.

Another Blog Post Explaining The Philosophy Behind Suicide! Yaaaaay!

So I've received some word from my extended family members that they're worried about me, mainly because they found my blog, read the most recent post, and assume I'm depressed and/or suicidal. So, naturally, I got the idea that I should write another happier blog post to cancel out the somewhat dreary ones I've been writing.

So yesterday was great. My AP exam (US history) went well. My APUSH teacher had told us, "you're smarter than 99% of the people taking this test, so don't freak out about it!" and I didn't. One of the essay prompts was even a topic that I made an effort to review two days before on the grounds that it had blurred together in class and I needed to break it up a bit (Don't freak out, Collegeboard, I'm not saying anything specific about what the question was). I wasn't overwhelmed mentally. Physically, on the other hand....

Yes, on the other hand. Pun intended. Ah, long essays...

Back to business, I once again find the dilemma of people thinking I'm suicidal upon me as my extended family checks out my blog. I've actually brought this point up in the past because of the insane amount of sympathy I get for it. I get people are worried, and I appreciate that people care about me, but sometimes it's a bit too much. You know the feeling when you get too much attention, it's distracting, it's time consuming, and when you have a lengthy story to tell, it's cumbersome to have to type it up multiple times for multiple people to hear the same reactions over and over. It's why I enjoy having a blog, why I enjoy writing just one story for everyone to read. I can get sympathy from everyone in one place, and the replies aren't uniform. When two people don't know about their replies, they might say the same thing, but if they hear the other say exactly what they were going to say, they're less apt to copy the said reply.

Yes, I enjoy having my blog because I can vent my emotions in the form of rational reflection. If I say I felt suicidal yesterday, I'm no longer suicidal by now. If I'm writing about the fact I was suicidal, there's a key word in there: was. If I'm writing about depression and suicide, I've had time to reflect upon it. I write these blog posts by experiencing intense bursts of emotion and taking time to rationalize them, then I write it. The blog post I wrote about my dad was shocking for the many people in my life that read it because of who I am: I'm a teenager. Imagine your normal teenager, imagine them getting pissed at their dad and snapping and writing a blog post. It'd be laced with insults, accusations, it'd be pure emotion lashed out at a specific target. Now remember that blog post I wrote? My dad accused it of being an emotional outburst, when in reality the fact that it isn't is what makes it so intense. I was completely rational when I wrote that blog post, letting go of weeks upon weeks of stress. The emotion had already been rationalized, all I had to do was write it.

As for suicide, who can blame me? I live in a very stressful environment, what with my parental situation that happens every other weekend, my school, and of course the simple fact of being a teenager. Being a teenager, I get a lot of pressure, whether it's college or driving or even the idea of who I am. There are so many people who, despite being wealthy and successful, have no idea who they are, and that's something money can't buy them.

To tell the truth, I'm more than just a teenager. I'm a thinker, I'm a visionary, I'm someone who wonders why cereal bags aren't resealable. I'm someone who believes in a universe that's nearly infinite, has no plan for me, has no plan for anyone, and my life will be utterly meaningless in the long run. All things considered, it's no surprise a person like me is suicidal at times. The stress of my life and the stress of existence never fail to make a person depressed. I don't even have control over my train of thought most of the time, how can one keep the suicidal thoughts at bay? Even if you're having the time of your life at Disneyworld with all your friends and there are no lines for any of the rides, there's always that nagging voice that says, "bro, it'd be a lot better if you were dead"

...And now I realize, in an effort to make things less depressing on my blog, I've just written something really depressing. What a confidence booster.

Fact is, life is better than that. When a person's depressed for a very very long time, they desire an escape, any escape, so much that they don't realize that the act of drawing a blade across your wrists doesn't magically teleport you to an all-expenses paid trip to a resort in Jamaica. You don't magically fix everything by killing yourself, you're dead. That's it. Dead.

That's the knowledge, in my opinion, that keeps me from killing myself most of the time, the knowledge that suicide doesn't make everything better, it makes you too dead to feel the pain. The people that commit suicide need something, or someone, rather, to help them see that the act of killing themselves will not make it better. The only thing that will make your life better, if your life hasn't automatically gotten better in the past several weeks, is you. Honestly, if a parent helps their kid with every little thing, that kid is gonna have to fend for himself later on, and he's gonna fail horribly. The same thing, for the religious out there, is true with god. God wouldn't just exist to help you with your science fair projects or your touchdowns. God, in my view, is a parent, having to step back and let us fail so that we can learn and grow.

"Bender, being god isn't easy. If you do too much, people get dependent on you, and if you do nothing, they lose hope. You have to use a light touch, like a safecracker or a pickpocket"
"or a guy who burns down a bar for insurance money"
"yes, if you make it look like an electrical thing"

Those who feel constant depression believe suicide to be their saving grace, they've been stuck in this rut that pushes them into an endless cycle, and they most of the time can't get out by themselves, so here I am. I've made these kinds of posts before, but we tend to forget about the fabulous amounts of encouragement we get every day in favor of that one snarky remark from the asshole in your life who drags you down further every time. In the case of some people, it's multiple assholes, even a whole school full of them, but the fact about today's suicidal people is that we're lazy. We don't want to change our lives, we're stuck in the endless cycle, whether it's work or school, and that monotony can drive one into the arms of depression. We need to know that we have the power in our lives, we are the ones that need to change our surroundings,

You still got a chance, don't give up just yet. If you have a 10% chance of winning the lottery in the next ten years (god forbid), you still have a chance, however improbable it is to win. Might as well keep in the game if there's still a chance of emerging victorious

Now, let's not become our demons, shall we?

Confessions Of A Student Who Can No Longer Give A Shit

The downside of your Robotics teacher being gone three class periods in a row is you can't get back the rough sketch you turned in, thus you can't actually proceed further on the project you're already behind on. My counselor is also supposed to call me out this period, but if history's shown me anything, I'm gonna actually be given time to finish this blog post (Now that I think about it, I was too lazy to email her and I merely filled out a slip at the office. I'll tell her at lunch, then, should I see her). Now, music, anyone?

So, my issues as of late? My grades are dying due to my lack of motivation to do any work whatsoever, due in turn by an emotional breakdown I had Thursday of last week. The breakdown didn't have anything to do with my dad. I merely visualized all the homework I had to do (and that's the stuff I'm not behind on) after vowing to finish it all, then broke down and tried not to cry, instead seeking distraction from my pain due to electronic devices. I've brought up that Louis C.K. video in the past, where he talks about how kids can't cope with the pain of everyday life, and so have to go on a texting spree where they might end up killing people due to them currently driving.

Anyways, I tried to blog about said breakdown last week and failed horribly, because I couldn't rationalize it. Sometimes when I write, I need to wait, I need to face my pain and understand it before I can write about it. What I did on that draft post was mere venting to relieve the stress I was facing. The music in my ears pulling me away from the post instead of dragging me further in as usual. I was still within the midst of a sea of pain, and I had to swim to shore before I wondered why the hell my ship sank. (hint, I'm going to need a bigger boat)

In the background, you can see my grades, about to devour me and drag me down into the depths of McCallum.

Mainly it was due to physics. The intense workload, with the take home tests our teacher qualifies as homework for some reason, drove me further from my initial enthusiasm for physics and the AP exam than video games and TV shows ever could. The public school system tends to behave like a vampire, draining the students' enthusiasm for it's own nourishment. In the end, the kids are stressed out, lost, and don't know anything about themselves. How are they supposed to know the real world if they don't know who they are? I know so much about myself, and looking back I can't see how I would ever know these things were I one of those kids who works on homework 24/7. You can be incredibly nearsighted, seeing only those things right in front of you, but you can also be insanely farsighted, seeing only that which lies far off in the distance. All these other kids at my school are worried about college, and here I am worrying about getting over my anxiety, pushing myself out there as a writer, and even finding out what or who I want to be. I end up knowing more about the kids stressed out every moment of every day for colleges and SATs than they do themselves.

I say physics is my main problem, and it is, for the short term. Physics was the last straw that broke my back, whacking a rock already shattered from the stress of the previous school year. However, the effect of physics (i.e., my lack of enthusiasm for anything), is only augmented by the killer amounts of homework the other classes give. Individually, the homework loads make sense, and I understand why the teachers would do that, but put together, such a massive amount of homework only makes sense in an actual college, where one actually can take as many classes a day as they want, not a college-prep school, where one has a very strict requirement of 8 classes total. I'm only one kid, but they judge me as though I'm already sure of myself, as though I already have my life together, as if I have all the time I need to complete the homework. I do, but only at the sacrifice of my personal time, my time to eat, sleep, shower, relax. I need that time, as much as the teachers do. The teachers are expected to teach and give as much homework as they like, but if they actually had to do that homework, along with the homework for all the other classes, with only a certain amount of time to do said homework, I think they'd agree with me.

In my entire life, I've never been stressed out to death by romance or drama or anything like that. Even bullies I've faced, unafraid, with no remorse as I summoned the school counselors to beat them away. It's always been my schoolwork, and it's stressed me out because it consumes me, drawing from my essence of humanity that I'm expected to possess, yet never given time to develop. The teachers say they want us to become human beings, and yet the stress drives us to become zombies. The zombie apocalypse has been strong at LASA, good thing there's a club dedicated to surviving it.

The only thing I disagree with about this pic is that even when they're on their phones, they have emotion, are generally sure of themselves, and care enough about their images to shower and dress well. 

I've done so much learning over the last semester, and yet my grades are terrible. I've learned how to cope with certain types of stress, such as that of my parents' divorce, I've learned how to write and characterize elements in an established storylines (still working on non-established storylines), I've learned how to survive a breakdown brought on by emotional turmoil and desperation. Am I being graded on that? No, even though I'm one of the most rational and philosophical teenagers ever met according to some, I'm not being graded on my ability to find myself.

I ought to be, though, because just by asking myself the questions of who I want to be and who I am and where I want to be, I've already made a decent grade. As for making a perfect 100, however, who ever gets that grade for this subject?

Sometimes I Hate The Fact I Swore Never To Kill Myself, But Life Goes On....

Alright, I really did promise I wasn't going to write in robotics. However, since there's no teacher to turn in my paper assignment to or get back my design after being graded, I don't think the sub's gonna mind. At least I'm not in an entirely empty room.

Finally, the new grading period has taken hold, and finally I'm not gonna be burdened by all the massive amounts of homework I'm behind on from last six weeks. That last grading period was hell, and I'm glad for the refresher.

Even so, I've felt something I can't exactly place. My mom's been busier with stress lately, and although I've portrayed her as less capable in some of my previous blog posts, she's actually pretty strong and kicking. My previous description of her was, so I believe, the result of my mom exposing the broken side of her to me that needed to be fixed at the time, and that weakness she needed me to heal with my comfort tarnished my view of her as the shield-maiden of Rohan in RotK to that of her in TTT. My sister, if she ever reads this, is not gonna know what the hell I'm talking about. Serves her right for not liking Lord Of The Rings.

"No living man am I! You look upon a woman! Éowyn I am, Éomund’s daughter. Begone if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him!"See, I have no idea why my sister wouldn't enjoy this kind of shit.

My weekend with my dad was alright, and even though it wasn't hell, I might be mistaken. I had been banned from the Wifi, banned from the TV, and of course not even provided with a charger for my Chromebook, so I couldn't even work on the internet homework I had. Needless to say, I still wasn't able to concentrate on the normal homework, with my room lacking something of a desk in it's 30+ square feet of empty space (sure, my dad and his girlfriend were in the middle of moving, but my sister got her TV set up in her own room!). My dad told me why I couldn't have such luxuries, as I've steadfastly refused to take down that blog post I wrote about him, and his response is to just punish me forever, since I technically have chosen to be punished. I understood what he was talking about, and I had the foresight and value for my health to not disagree, but I still couldn't help but feel his approach to getting me to take down the post was a bit religious, if anyone gets my meaning.

maybe "predictable" is a better word than "predetermined"

Yes, I promised myself, and possibly my mother, not to talk about my dad in my blog posts due to the repercussions, but honestly, I had gone to my dad's hoping for a confrontation, hoping to give him a piece of my mind, but instead my words stuck in my throat, too afraid of his anger/Jehovah-ness to even offer a comeback. The best one can do with one who uses punishment to instill his word across the land is simply not believe in him and not pay him any mind, but as for my dad, I stopped believing in him a long time ago.

Fast forward to 4.5 hours later, I feel pissed, but not about my dad. My bus, for the entirety of the whole year, has stopped right in front of my house to drop me off. I asked the bus driver to do this since he drives right past my house to get to the next stop and he might as well just slow down so I can hop off (metaphorically speaking). For the past two weeks, my normal bus driver is nowhere to be found, therefore I have to guide the substitutes into not taking the long way around so they can drop me off. The problem is, there have been two subs, and both of them sticklers. It's only natural, considering how they're subs and they don't exactly wanna be rule-breakers from the beginning or some other bullshit reason like that. No matter what the reason, I haven't exactly been able to get dropped off at my stop easily, if at all. The first sub, thank god, was just a little reluctant and dropped me off in front of my house anyway, but this latest sub? Yesterday she didn't even go near my street, and made it clear she was legally obligated to stop only at the places on the sheet of paper.

Today, I decided to be dropped off at the stop closest to my house, which isn't that much better. I've apparently been expected to be dropped off there for the whole year. If that's the case, like it was today, I don't believe AISD has the right to demand a P.E. credit from me, if you get what I'm saying. I'd negotiated with some maternal aid (okay...it was my mom, mostly) with a woman high up in the ranks who could help me get a stop closer to my house. She did, and I didn't think much of it during lunch. However, my substitute wasn't able to drop me off there, and told me such changes took 3 to 4 days to take effect.

Given I've talked nothing about anything philosophical so far, you can guess this is the most pissed off I've been in a long while. I've encountered some anger with my dad, but this isn't the same. The anger I had on the long (and hot) walk home today was the kind of anger I got because I felt severely undervalued by my district. AISD values all their students, right? Apparently not, since they tell us all "make sure to get plenty of sleep" in order to prevent ourselves from getting sick, then putting us on buses in the middle of Texas that have absolutely no air conditioning. I've been severely tempted to let myself die of heat stroke on one of those mobile greenhouses, just so AISD might do something about it (they probably won't).

Ah yes, so I've got my anger out about the 'transportation' at AISD's fingertips, so how to end on a profound note....? I really do try not to make just a whole page of emotional angst and instead include something philosophical you can read from and learn from, and I haven't done much of it this time. In truth, philosophy is like how love is like a fart. If you have to force it, it's probably shit. Profound thinking like the kind I put forth for others to take in is the kind of thinking that I am passionate about. Passion is what really drives us all, passion for our future, passion for others, passion for who we are. Without passion, we are truly dead. This statement has nothing to do with passion, but I've started reading this in Tim Minchin's voice, so there.

My passion for philosophy allows me to find the profound in the most ordinary emotions, because where else can we find philosophy but our own psyche? My anger gives me inside information about who I am, my passions, my depressions. I've felt extraordinarily depressed the past day or so due to my English teacher's summary of "Catcher In The Rye", which I still need to actually read for the essay on Thursday. I've had to face what makes me depressed, I've had to delve into that dark pit that threatens to devour me so I can see what's in there. In order to be strong, one must know their weaknesses.

And that's all I got for today. I hope you find some profoundness in the former half of this, because with my exhausted body and tired mind which I'm somehow going to do homework with, I couldn't.

Stress Can Get To You, And Sometimes It's Too Much

Well, here I am again in Robotics, writing away my stress. It's the only class I ever really have time to blog, now that we're actually doing stuff in Theatre (not serious stuff, but pressing enough stuff that there's no time to blog) and also since we're doing work on our project, and you all know how much I love to work on projects. Enjoy the music, because I feel this describes how I am emotionally right now.

As I've let on before, I've completely lost interest in physics, and due to my disinterest, I'm currently failing that class as well as English. English is mainly a result of laziness on one major grade, but Physics is nothing but AP prep. We're required to come in either during lunch or after school to work on the practice AP, and for those who aren't taking the AP, their final exam grade will be their grade on the AP. Naturally, I regard this as bullshit, and laugh at the people who say they're several homeworks behind in physics, since I'm not even close to being as ahead as they are. I love the teacher, and I think he's a swell guy, but he gives us tons of homework in the form of test/review packets, at the same time saying that he's gonna ease up on the normal homework for the time being. English is mainly just because I've neglected to read the books, being busy with other homework, and thus I fail the essays and quizzes then try to convince myself I don't care.

Anyways, yesterday my mom and I were talking at the table when the subject got around to this, and she attempted to push me into getting my work done, and I pushed back, telling her that it was insufferable in that class, and I had none of the basic enthusiasm I'd normally have for such a class. It escalated, with both of us pushing harder until I, frustrated, immediately retreated to my room, despite being in the middle of an episode of Buffy on my closed laptop in the living room. Despite my phone being easy access and in no danger of being taken away by a pissed-off parent, all I could do was lie face-down on my bed, pushing the pillow over my ears as I could easily overhear my sister rushing to my defense back at the table. Even when we've been to the point where we've hated each other's very existence, my sister and I have always had this unspoken mutual agreement, this contract between us where if one of us is attacked, the other one forgoes their hatred of the attacked one in order to defend them, and hits back if possible. My sister defended me, and I struggled to control my breathing as I tried to muffle the sound of it, my headphones also still remaining in the living room with my laptop.

It wasn't until my mom came in to apologize and put her arms around me that I cried for the first time in over two years. It's true, I haven't cried in a long time. Partially because I have a condition with my eyes, partially because nothing has ever been strong enough to affect me to the point where my eye condition's prevention of my released sorrow is negligible. I'm glad for it, I really like crying because it's just like writing, you release all the shit that's been at your heels since forever and just cry. You don't even have to acknowledge the person who's holding you in an attempt to comfort you, you just cry.

The phrase "I don't want to go..." fits later on in the blog post. Keep reading.

There's a reason why I was able to cry, and it's not because the allergies weren't that bad yesterday, but because my mother forced me to confront the reality of the situation I'm in. Physics is a mess, English I'll be able to fix next six weeks, I'm seriously behind in my Latin homework (I'm guessing my teacher knows about my situation and sympathizes, because he hasn't called on me when we go over it for the past few class periods) and Robotics I'll most likely not finish due to the inability to concentrate, due in turn to the issues with my dad. My mother grabbed me by the chin and forced me to look at the hideous thing in my life that I've been refusing to look in the direction of. Sometimes we need that, whether or not it spurs us into action, sometimes we need someone to challenge our perception of reality, because reality changes and we fail to notice. When you live your life a certain way for a while, you're barely able to notice the gradual change in your lifestyle. It's only when someone points out how it was at the beginning and how it is now that you realize that the sea level has risen several inches over the past decade, but I digress.

The tears flowed naturally, and I cried for a good long while until my mother let me go and asked if I wanted to skip for today, to which I naturally refused, since today is a B day and none of my stressful classes are today. I would've missed a daily grade in AVP, a practice AP multiple choice section in English, and apparently we're getting assigned roles in theatre today, which I've actually been looking forward to. Fact is, even if my mother had asked me if I wanted to skip tomorrow, I'd refuse. Again, I have two justifications: not only would not going to school not save me from the assigned homework that's my main problem, but I also don't necessarily wanna walk away from my problems.

I go to LASA high school (which I can never resist saying is the #8 high school in the goddamn nation), and this is a school anyone in the school district can go to, regardless of their default school. My default school, Bowie high school, is now the school I would go to if I chose not to go to LASA. LASA is a stressful school, it's meant to prepare us for college by making itself even harder than college (which has actually turned me off college for the time being). One needs to keep their grades above a certain level to stay there, hence why my mother was getting on my case about it, since my grades in physics and english aren't doing so well (it's now that I'll mention that our school district, AISD, switched from Gradespeed to a system called Teams last year, which many people complained about to no avail. Funny thing is, the place where you check your grades on Teams is blocked on the school wifi, go figure).

My mom's repeatedly said that if I find LASA too hard, she can pull me out, but I've always said no, because no matter how hard it's been, no matter how far it's driven me toward suicidal thoughts and tendencies, I love it here. LASA, naturally, is a school full of nerds, and that culture of nerds is exactly what I want to be surrounded by. The former assistant principal once told a story to us as incoming freshmen about two students in the halls arguing vehemently about the answer to a physics equation. Normal schools, it's boy/girl drama, social stress, or some other normal high school reason to get into a fight. Here? It's physics.

Alright, I'll stop with the David Tennant pictures now

LASA high school is the place any smart person would want to be, because so many other smart nerds come here, and they're free to be nerds, and I'm free to let loose with my nerdy witticisms and philosophical musings about life. In normal high schools, I would be pushed by the jocks to fit into a box, people would insult me for no reason, people would push me down because it makes them feel better. Sure, I can easily say "Fuck you" right back at them and stay fixed in my seat where I am, unable to be pushed off, but that's not the point. In a school like Bowie, I would have to be mentally ready to defend myself, constantly alert in order to keep my reputation intact. In middle school, I got right into this mindset, and I'm still forcing myself to shed it since then, having no need to care about defending myself and nothing to fight against.

This is the kind of school I go to, and I'm still fighting, not against the social pecking order, but against the vigorous curriculums and stressful teachers. It makes me sad that I'll (ideally) be going to college in less than a year and a half, because I love it here. No matter how nerdy the college is, there's still never going to be one anything like LASA. However, I wouldn't commit seppuku should I fail out, and I would, with a heavy heart, trudge to Bowie and as I mentioned before, redeem myself by taking over the drug trade there. I may dig my heels in and hold my own for as long as I can, but when I have no other alternative, I'll yield.

It doesn't matter if I do fail out of LASA, because even if I can't, I will still live the rest of my life having found myself. It doesn't matter what you lose, you still have something you've gained from it.

I Can't Actually Think Of A Random Title, Which Makes This Title Even More Random

Alright, so despite writing on my weekly progress report (in notecard form, as specified) that I was going to get on task and refrain from stress-writing in class, here I am with music to fit the occasion.

I've always been completely honest with my notecards, explaining that, yes, it's been three weeks and haven't made any progress on the project whatsoever, and even though my teacher isn't expected to care enough to actually read them, he probably does, and knows about my situation from the notecard reports. Tuesday I met with my counselor and we talked about what shit was going on in my life (you can guess what shit it was), and I'm unaware how, but our conversation somehow drifted towards me, and what I was doing in response to domestic stress. She told me that I was a great writer, and I had tons of friends, and I felt pretty proud of myself. I left her office with a little spring in my step, especially since she took a note off the "compliment board" outside her office (there are written compliments pinned to it, and the idea is you take one and give it to someone who you think needs it) and handed it to me, a note that read, "you are a force for good".

The rest of the day was spent finishing off the latest chapter of my fanfic with relish, then in theatre playing Cards Against Humanity with some dear friends. Tuesday was great, and then on Wednesday I managed to be productive in all my classes. Of course, it was made even greater by the news that my mom received a potential job opportunity by the mother of one of my friends. I have no idea if said friend told his mother about our situation, having known about it from my blog posts, but even so, thanks Hunter.

Now, can I be your third wheel for an entire summer?

Today was a late start, and the shortened period in AVP meant we didn't have time to film (either that or the lack of microphones). English we did a practice AP multiple choice, which I managed to get a good grade on, and then in Robotics I wrote a notecard and told my teacher through my writing that I've been lazy for the past six weeks, but next week I'm gonna get something done, since my experience with my parents' divorce has encountered a spotlight through the clouds. That's when it hit me: life is good.

When I bitch about the things going on in my life, naturally due to my ability to write you assume it's greater than it is, since I can make someone feel the hurt that I feel currently with my words. Then again, one's pain measures the stress of a situation, so whatever (I'm trying to be profound, don't judge). Life's been pretty tough lately, having to put my arm around my own mother at times. Not only that, but my sister and I have also grown closer as a result of these events, having to cling to each other for comfort. It's almost as if we're more of a family than we were before the divorce, even to the point where we're slowly dragging my mom's boyfriend into it with no hope of escape. Sorry, Andy.

There are times when we're so lost in the shit that oppresses us that we can't imagine not being oppressed at all. It's like stockholm syndrome, when a person takes so much shit through their life, they expect you to be mad at them for things that aren't even worth getting mad about. It's not their fault, it's just that they're dealing with people who don't really love them. Sometimes people leave us, and sometimes it hurts, but all you really need to do is learn to cope, to find some reason to justify their leaving. One of my friends constantly blames herself for everything, even for the group of 'friends' that told her to get lost. I love her so much as a friend and am always there for her, and yet she can't see that she is not the victimizer in this situation. Her so-called friends said, "hey, we don't want you around anymore" via text. The worst part is how she can't see how callous these so-called friends are. They're a bunch of bitches, and she shouldn't blame herself for not being liked. I'm well known, and I've encountered a lot of people, and it's absolutely impossible that I'll find a way to be liked and loved by everyone. The important thing is to love yourself and move on.

Aesop's Fables. Read them, people! They're better than the bible!

Life sucks at times, but it doesn't matter how much it sucks. People say, "if life is so bad, then why is it worth it?" I'll tell you why: because of the good in between. Gilbert and Sullivan, in their operetta "Patience", write in a noble who joined the military, who explains his reasoning by simplifying it down to simply Toffee. "Everyone loves Toffee, right? Now imagine, toffee for breakfast, toffee for lunch, toffee for dinner every day! Why, one would be disgusted at the very mentioning of the word toffee!" The simple lessons in Gilbert and Sullivan are what resonate culturally with me, and I think one of the most certain things I've learned from it is that if you're not a background character, your love life is either going to go very good or very bad, in which case I will quote War Games in that "the only winning move is not to play"

But still, keep an eye on the game, because it might get interesting, and it will, for you and everyone else.