Elon Musk Can Have My Signature, But I Think He'd Rather Take My Soul. He'll Be Disappointed.

Have you ever felt like there's nothing to do, that everything there usually is to do you either can't do or you don't want to do, but you still wanna do something?

That's pretty much how I feel right now.

I'd say the hardest part about this blog post is deciding on a song to listen to repeatedly while writing it. Depending on the song I choose, this blog post can be different, impossibly different, so different it'd seem like a completely different writer. If I listen to Starset's "Dark On Me", it'll be a sad and pessimistic one, while Shinedown's "Cut The Cord" will create an air of rebelliousness/defiance. Thing is, I'm not sure what song to listen to, what to determine the mood of this post as. Maybe, for once, there shouldn't be any. Maybe I should just write. After all, how many people actually listened to it anyways?

I've got so much to say, and when I try to say all of it, I end up failing and forgetting about it. Even though I have an entire class period of creative writing this year, I still never have written a blog post in there. My primary focus has been my Person Of Interest/Agents Of Shield crossover, which takes up most of my free time, except the time I don't want to write. In the time I don't write, I walk around, listen to music, organize my thoughts, but I don't do anything. I want to write all these thoughts down, and I do my best with these blog posts, but sometimes all the words don't come out.

People say all the time, "oh, that thing about people going to Mars and never coming back is so controversial!" and here I am, off to the side, nervously looking around as I fake a nod. Confession time: I want to go to Mars. My family saw the Martian this past weekend, and it was amazing. Matt Damon's performance as astronaut Mark Watney, trapped on Mars with next to no hope of getting back to Earth, was a masterpiece through and through. Everyone enjoyed the movie for multiple reasons, but I took an interesting aspect of it away from the experience. Mars, the new frontier of human development. No matter if Mark Watney lived or died, no matter if the crew failed to rescue him and died in the process, they would've gone down in history. Even though I've accepted that I'm probably never going to be world famous for my maple syrup company or my (future) lightsaber duel with Jennifer Lawrence, the idea that going to Mars would make me world famous kinda stuck in my mind, I'll admit.

I started to wonder if Elon Musk had indeed funded the Martian's production to serve as a sort of ad for his idea of going to Mars. Either way, I was kinda convinced, especially after I had AP government the day after and our teacher told us how fucked up the world is going to be when we're finally in power. There's a heartless lack of responsibility in leaving everything behind, but I don't think it would be an unpopular suggestion to leave all the politicians who fucked everything up back on Earth. Everyone else can move, if the politicians wanna own the world, they can do just that.

Well at least there's some opportunity on Mars.

Another aspect of the movie that appealed to me was, quite honestly, the peacefulness of Mars and the life Mark Watney must've lived. Had he not been alone, it wouldn't be as horrible in terms of going insane (although he doesn't actually go insane), but even so, he got stuff done, as I believe I would were I in the same situation (and also if I were a botanist). When something isn't key to our immediate survival (*cough cough* college), we don't feel a need to do it. The only reason I did the college essay assignment this morning was to get my english grade up from a 43. I know my English teacher probably won't see this, but in my defense, I was so Donne with Hamlet.

The fact is, one of the things that's most stressful about life on Earth is the bureaucracy, the paperwork, the capitalism, the large-scale stuff that comes from a nation of 380 million. The thing about Mars is the relative peace. Living to survive? There is no paperwork. There's just work, there's just the stuff you need to do that's required for you to survive. There's no polluted atmosphere, plenty of scenery, and a silence that would make a man think. More importantly, there's a silence that would make a man write. I want to write, I want to not have a life of meaningless bureaucratic distraction. College, job opportunities, large-scale politics and economy, it all just takes away from how beautiful life can be, because it can be beautiful, if I had the chance to look and see it. Sadly no, as college comes first.

My valedictorian speech will start off with "I am pretty much the greatest college grad on this planet"

I want to go away, I want to be the first, I want to find my own enlightenment in the wonder of another world. Other people are gonna tear holes in my idea, particularly my mother, who's going to laugh at it, but so what if I want a change in scenery? So what if I want to boldly go? At least I'll be alive, both now and forever with the human race's memory.

I'm Rick Riordan's Competition for Coming Up With Weird Titles

So I haven't done one of these in a while, which should be a good thing, as I'm not so emotionally deprived as to write one of these out of pain, but not this time. Not this time.

As I said, it's been a while since I've done one of these. Senior year's been busy, though not as stressful. Every night I get a certain amount of sleep, and if anyone doesn't already know, I'm actually in a play this year, acting as Theseus in a Midsummer Night's Dream. I was told it wasn't a big part, but when I saw the script and how many lines he had, I was thoroughly convinced my theatre teacher had lied to me. Hippollyta isn't a big part, you know why? She barely says shit. Thankfully I've forced myself into getting off-book a week late, so I'm good, for the moment.

My anxiety? Gone. I'm more socially active than any other time in my high school life. Best I can figure is that in the wake of my dear friend's suicide (I did write a shadow-post about it a week or two ago), I'm more eager to self-harm, but instead of desiring physical harm, I seek out the pain of anxiety. In doing so, I've unwittingly forced myself out of it. I still need some work, but I feel better than ever. I can talk to people, smile in the halls, and I feel like I'm myself for once. I only considered myself as actually being a character in my personality during sophomore year, where I undertook the rite of Mal-sharan, allowing myself to fall to the edge of death in order to find myself. It wasn't a willing journey, but I undertook it nonetheless, succeeding where so many others fail day after day.

I'm writing so much more, if not for my blog. Senior year I decided to replace Latin with creative writing, deciding to take a year for myself rather than the pride of being awesome in Latin. It feels good to be awesome in Latin, you feel like you're smarter than everyone else who's taking a language. They chose the wrong language, now we can finally get a conscripted army together and enslave the other language clubs. Guess they should've learned their history.

Next, we're gonna add a hot tub to the roof of the Latin portable and get Teo a decent meterstick

Anyways, I've been insanely writing like a maniac these past few days, working on a single Person Of Interest/Agents Of Shield crossover. If you're about to wonder whether or not this is any normal fanfiction, I've nearly filled up an entire composition notebook. It's driven me to my wit's end as I've found a plot that fits perfectly together and is awesome overall. I'm wondering if I can turn it in as a final project for the class.

SPOILERS: these two become a thing :)

There were times in my life I felt absolutely shit, like I was the bottom of the barrel, that I had no friends, and there are still times I feel like that. Every time the teacher says "find a partner", I glance around to my friends and find they've all partnered up with each other (with the exception of this awesome girl who asked me if I wanted to work with her on our latest english project. That was a lift to my self-esteem). It's times like that when I realize I don't have any best friends. Everyone notices me when I'm there, but I do wonder if they notice me when I'm gone. As a defiant, rebellious teenager, my simple solution is to prove that I don't need friends, do something to make them notice I'm gone, and the way to do that is to forget my need for a friend in particular.

Friends are important, nobody can deny, but so many people focus on becoming good enough for their friends that they completely forget about becoming good enough for themselves, going to insane lengths to fit in. I learned a long time ago that I never wanted to just fit in, I wanted to be myself.

Now, for the first time in my life, I feel like myself, and I feel alive.

This morning, I heard that a friend of mine from the internet had killed herself, and I couldn't do a damn thing.

The title is self-explanatory. I spent nearly the entirety of dance thinking of how I would word this post. This grief for someone I knew but didn't know, to society's standards, still gnaws at my stomach. Unlike all my other blog posts, I won't be sharing this with everyone by notification. If you're reading this, you've seen it on my feed or were browsing my blog one day and came across this blog post you never knew existed. Right now I have something from AP government to work on that might very well take all my time in the first place, but I don't care (I had already asked for an extension and was declined, and having 'forgotten' to mention this event as my excuse, mentioning it afterwards would just seem desperate). For the first time this year, I'll get a bad grade on an assignment, and I won't care. The memory of a self-silenced person is worth more than the judicial branch any day.

Her name was Emilia, and all I can say is that she was my friend.

Her best friend Noah contacted me this morning from her phone, and the words that killed me the most were "she finally did it. She's dead", especially when put into context. At first, jokingly, I thought she had killed her bitch mother, but my dark mirth turned quickly to melancholy as someone other than Emilia answered the chat. Something one can always assume of a teenager is their possessiveness over their phone.

After a brief talk with Noah, the most prominent emotion I felt was survivor's guilt. Crafting a convincing argument for someone to forego the idea of killing themselves for a night is something I can do. The problem is that people don't want a convincing argument, someone who's overcome with emotion doesn't want reason. A person who's leaning closer to the razor blade or bottle of bleach on the counter doesn't want to hear the words, "oh it'll be alright", "you'll be fine", or anything along those lines, because according to them, none of that is true. A suicidal person will more often than not always see the negative, and will always feel alone. You can't just tell someone that their life will improve, because if it was that fucking easy, they wouldn't be depressed.

The problem with consoling a suicidal person on the internet is that in the end, you'll be words on a screen. You can put meaning behind those words, and most of the time, that meaning will be understood on the other side, but for someone who is at that point where they're ready to go, you can't be there for them. You're forced to watch as they do it and yours words fall on deaf ears, but at the very least you're doing something. When you find out it's been done without your knowledge, no chance to save your friend.

The worst part is how lonely she must've felt. As someone who goes to a high school full of enlightened, decent people, I have no shortage of friends. Everyone is friendly, unlike when one goes to a normal high school, a distinct apathy hovering over the heads of all those normal students. Not everyone is friendly to everyone. There one must truly find out who are real friends.

All I can say is, I found one in her.

Rob McKenna is Love. Rob McKenna is Life.

I've had a great week, but only so far.

For those of you who've read my blog for a long while, there is an entity that exists that I dub the Rain god. His true name could be Rob McKenna, but I'll never know. What's important is that he's important, however much we hate him. Everyone hates the rain. It's natural, almost instinctive, but it's necessary.

That being said, I had a great week, up until today. Wednesday I had a small epiphany about how awesome I was, and thus began to live with increased confidence. Thursday I had an awesome day in regards to Wednesday's events, and on top of that, my theatre teacher simply gave me a role in the upcoming Midsummers play as Theseus. I found it extremely strange that Shakespeare would manipulate Greek mythology to the point where Hipollyta, the supposed bride of Heracles, ended up with Theseus after somehow coming back to life from when Hera caused her death. The internet says the two were cousins, but I still can't see this shit happening, could you? The first rehearsal is supposed to be after school today, but alas, Rob wants to capitalize on this.

See, it took two periods to realize I felt well and truly sick. When it comes to illness, I'm known in my family as never being one to feign it. I could have my hand chopped off and I'd still go to school, but only if it was my left hand. To hell with this, I'm still going to school!

My sister gets sick fairly easily, I've found. However, whenever my mom hears me say that I feel sick, it's normally because I've felt sick for a while and I'm only now admitting it. In a way, I'm really stubborn. I'll keep going, with my soul shattered, on my force of will alone. Now, unfortunately, it's my body that feels weak and feverish. It's gotten to the point where if I even mildly feel like I'm sick, I know I am. I'm not sick often, but when I am, you can bet your ass I'm sick. t's surprising, considering I hardly ever am, but that lends wonders to believabilily. I'm not lying about it, mind you, but if that boy hardly ever cries wolf, you can assume that there's a wolf nearby when he does.

Without my sickness, the day was fairly depressing regardless. My off period I couldn't bring myself to do anything short of calculus homework, in Dance we did some shitty bookwork (which is kinda like asking an engineer to write about his feelings) which I didn't bother to finish once I had done the minimum requirement. Finally, we read W;t in English (pretend the semicolon is an "i" and you've got it down. In writing this, I've also inadvertently realized the meaning of the title), which is about a woman with stage 4 ovarian cancer who toootaly doesn't die at all. In a way, kinda cuts close to home with a sick person who's sometimes a hypochondriac when it comes to the Death Triangle of the Face.


In hindsight, I wasn't sick. I wrote this Friday of last week, now I'm writing this today. In my defense, the symptoms really did make me think I was sick. My sinuses got fucked up to hell, I kinda skimped on breakfast, and I apparently got less sleep the night before. As a result, I got a pretty convincing sell. I'm never sick, so when I feel like it, I usually assume the possibility that I'm sick.

However, half a week later and I still feel perfectly able to write about the topic I envisioned on Friday. For creative writing, I have to collect inspiration for a certain topic to write about for our final grade for the six weeks. I originally was going to do my crossover fanfiction of Agents of Shield and Person Of Interest, but last minute (yesterday) I decided on something else: the rain god. My teacher told us to not draft before tomorrow, but this isn't a draft. This is my way of collecting information about my topic. I usually prefer to write fiction in my creative writing class, as my personal thoughts and emotions are reserved for here.

My week so far is pretty damn similar to last week, emotionally. All of a sudden, my life improved last week, and hasn't dropped in quality. Today, I feel as great as I did one week ago, with no particular reason. I no longer have crappy days, only crappy moments. The rain god, it seems, has shone me his favor. The rain god, for those who don't know him, is the god of really crappy things. Everyone can hate that, right? The good thing, however, is how much greater those crappy moments can make our normal moments. When everything goes horrible, if something goes neutrally, neither good nor bad, it seems like something amazing.

I can name a dozen good things that have happened. Getting a role in Midsummers, being able to write recreationally (not just for the sake of a blog post), staying on top of my homework, all of these are amazing things, but I can't attribute any of them to my newfound happiness and passion. I'm kinda suspicious of the last one, however. If it is the last one, it would explain something for the American school system.

There are some things, of course, that go somewhat less well than expected, but they don't dim the good stuff. The contrast of life allows one to easily see the good and the bad and focus on whichever matters (hopefully the good).

There are still some bad things, however, as there naturally would be. Why should I expect everything to go perfectly? My life hasn't become perfect, but it has become a lot better. My self-esteem may be up, but the bad things that keep happening remind me of what makes it do so. My social anxiety is insanely lessened, though prevalent. I feel like I am someone now, someone who has gained the right to say hello to whoever they desire, do whatever they desire without being judged openly. Among teenagers today, that 'right' is more of a privilege. My former crush still intimidates me, but I'm finding myself more apt to looking at her again, this time as a possible friend rather than potential romantic affiliation. I've still given up on the front of love for now. Maybe once I get over her, my heart will lock onto another girl and the same will commence, but maybe not. I've learned my history, it would be dire to repeat it.

As I wrap up, I notice the distinct lack of images in this post. There's one image, surely, but that's a requirement for every blog post so that when I post it, you don't see the shitty resolution of my profile picture when expanded to be huge. Fuck it, this is captivating. I may be a bit vain, and compensate in kind (positively, mind you), but even I can tell when I've written a great work. This has passion behind it, like so every other post in this blog. Every single one isn't based on rationality, but emotion. I incorporate rationality into it, but that's so I don't just give you a page or two of teenage angst and daddy issues.

And even though it may be fun to read/watch, since when is that a masterpiece?

Yes, Supernatural fandom. Shots fired. If anyone's even mildly offended, go watch Person Of Interest.

Among My Other Issue With The Series, I Also Envy Marcus's Ability To Carry Around A Sword

I remember at one point over the summer, my mother told me one of my relatives had asked her if I was still doing alright, given that I hadn't written a blog post since the end of school. Now, of course, school has long since begun, and the blog posts have once again begun with it. Hooray me for relaxing, but now real life has begun it's shit once more. I'll try and write fast as I only have a lunch period (during which I'm supposed to be writing an essay), but what are blog posts for?

Have you ever had that kind of day where absolutely nothing has gone wrong, yet you feel like something has? My Astronomy teacher referred to today as a "triple-Monday", which I fully agree with. I'm tired, exhausted, even though I was well rested on the weekend where my most pressing activity was mastering Halo 4 with my sister. I've found we can be quite the badass pair, not just in Halo, but in real life as well.

Still, today was mainly affected, I believe, by the book I'm reading. My mom's boyfriend got me into this book series as Summer began, a series about Roman legionaries who get accidentally sent to this land of magic and sorcery. Being Romans, they kick everyone's ass at general effectiveness and everything else. In the empire of Videssos, the emperor announces they will be required to leave the city for campaign in 8 days. With much grumbling from the other groups of mercenaries in service as the emperor's military, Marcus Scaurus' senior centurion, Gaius Phillipus, gives him a smug grin, "knowing they could well be prepared in half the time."

The only issue I have with the series is that Marcus doesn't slay the dragon on the front cover. Sure, it doesn't look like a dragon, but tell Harry Turtledove that.

Expecting just a story about badass Romans, I wasn't exactly going to be let down either way. What I got instead of just that was a masterpiece. Harry Turtledove's third book, The Legion Of Videssos, attempted to tear my heart out with the heroes' fall and, finding no way to do so, simply dragged me around while grasping my still beating heart. I feel like this is one of the first real books I've read in a long while. After spending my time reading Divergent, Percy Jackson, Hunger Games, and a couple other YA novels, I feel like this book series is so startlingly real. For me, at least, it's the kind of book that gives you chills when you read, that makes you sit up, stirring with excitement and desire to quote the current passage to anyone sitting near.

I realize, of course, that the Percy Jackson obviously makes some people feel that way. I simply read it to see how Riordan would construct his universe. The story was simply a bonus. I feel somewhat deafened to simpler books like YA novels meant for people my age. The only other books I felt this way with was the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy series, and through these masterpieces I realize my type of book as the type that's startlingly real. The story considers religion, bias, love, choices. It glosses over the fine details that YA novels typically characterize themselves with, instead focusing on how each event influences the bigger picture.

These kinds of novels also help me realize how real life is. In TLOV, Marcus ends up being betrayed by someone close to him, thus sending him into a depressive stage where he is alone in the Videssian court. It's something I empathize with, having your faith all in one person where it's cast away heartlessly with a simple betrayal.  The emotions in the book end up drawing attention to those within me (although my mother would argue it's because of "the stupid computer"), allowing me to truly feel human in a world where so many people fail to understand the meaning. Don't ask me to explain. It's not meant to be explained.

As for the remaining events in my life, one thing I'm certainly proud of is my ability to have gotten 4 people to check out Person Of Interest on Netflix. One of my friends (yes, Hunter) ended up getting addicted to it, which is always a good sign. When it comes to Person Of Interest, I'll simply name it as the best damn show out there. Firefly, had it continued further, would've held said title (and lost it once POI came around). Person Of Interest, I'll just say, you should watch the first few episodes and then decide whether you like it. The show needs the Netflix traffic anyways.

One last thing for today as lunch begins to wrap up is that I've noticed a funny burst of confidence today. I don't mind being me, even for a moment. My former crush I still haven't managed to look in the eye due to the increasing awkwardness that rejection entails, but I'm willing to try it. If I can get over her and stop bothering myself with my failed attempt(s) at romance, I can get ahead with myself at last.

They say romance is dead, if only it were. Maybe then we could all get ahead with ourselves before we try it with any other.

Doing Something Last Minute Deserves A Crappy Title

The hardest thing about being a writer isn't the fact that you can't write. After all, there are times where you suddenly get an idea for your story, visualizing it to the point where it's definite in your head. The hardest thing about being a writer is getting the opportunity to write. You may have a sudden burst of motivation, but unfortunately you can't just whip out your journal in the middle of calculus. I mean, you can, but people will look at you funny. Sadly, we haven't developed a device to freeze time solely for one person, to the despair of middle school boys nationwide.

The only reason why I've found the time to write now is due to a theatre assignment. Yes, I'll be presenting this in class, and by the time I read this again, will be reading this sentence aloud. If you're new to this, I break the fourth wall somewhat frequently, so get used to it. It's now, you're looking at now, sir.

"When will then be now?" "Soon!"

With the requirement of presenting this in theatre, I'm also forced to keep this under one minute, which is going to be hard, if not impossible, considering how I usually write these, so naturally I won't even bother and my teacher will cut me off halfway through a sentence. A minute is only an eternity from my perspective, and I have to keep speaking and fill every second and it will all sound like nonsense to you. I'm getting from a couple faces in the crowd that this has already happened. Remember, this isn't supposed to be long from your perspective!

Writing, as you can tell, is a passion of mine. A friend of mine once texted me to imagine what it would be like if two characters from different TV shows met, and I took the next several minutes before responding with a small story of exactly what he described. I would've gotten done sooner, but phones tend to have shitty keyboards.

It's at this point I've momentarily lost the point of what I'm writing (the pressure of writing it in the lunch before class doesn't exactly help). As per my senior year, I've been taking creative writing, and having started on an actual fanfiction over the summer, wanted to use the class to actually finish a full-blown story for once. Naturally it wouldn't be as simple as that as my teacher for that class decided to make us tell stories for the first half to get comfortable with opening up to the class. We told funny stories, ranging from weddings to drug deals to sketchy people, and in that period of time, I had an epiphany about myself in the fact that I have no stories.

Sure, I have things I've done that I can easily talk about, but the way everyone else told these stories made me realized that they were alive at those points in their lives. They were happy or sad or dying of laughter, but I realized most of my life I've never been any of these, but merely content. I can't talk about any enjoyable experiences I've had because I've never really had any. I've never been in a sketchy place, I've never walked in on a drug deal, I've never lived.

By this point my theatre teacher will have silenced me to allow time for the next person and I've probably stopped reading. If I'm still reading this out loud, I've apparently done something right. I have no idea what, but I'm sticking to that.

It occurred to me then that I need to embarrass myself, that I need to get myself out there and actually live. I realize now that people are gonna use that against me to make me do things I don't want to, but fuck it, I'm saying it, no matter how much I'm gonna regret this later, which I probably am. This idea of living my life to the fullest is probably going to kill me, but that's the idea. Life is meant to be lived, and I need to live it.

Also, if I by some miracle am allowed to read this far, it definitely won't be a secret, if it ever was one, that I didn't even begin the script assignment for this class, but what are the odds of that happening?

Well, at least I'll finally have a good story.

I had an idea for a title that mentioned all the wallets and lanyards we made, but I'm not sure how the RYLA people would react to it.

Hello, everyone! I officially returned yesterday, but exhausted from the week, neglected to write this. I've finally found the time now. Although, given I have to leave for a fourth of July party, I might very well not get around to it again. Yes, I know, even though I've returned from camp a changed man, I'm still lazy as hell.

Aaaaand here I am, having put this off for another three days, fantastic. Three days of relaxation, food, and Minecraft to put me off from writing this blog post that I wanted to write when I initially got back. Fantastic.

So I've been gone for a week, as you probably noticed, and I went to a leadership camp called RYLA. I don't remember what that stands for, but I remember what the camp stands for, if that makes any sense, which it should if you think about it. The camp was basically to teach me about leadership and it did so in the most amazing ways. The whole time we had to do teamwork exercises. We had to do fire hose jousting, Olympics, move a bowling ball with rope (not touching it with out hands), and we also had to do an egg drop challenge. As for the egg drop challenge, I explained I was in summer school physics the previous week and we had done an egg drop challenge where one of the designs had stood up to a baseball bat, of all things. They didn't listen to my advice, but I took it in stride and we failed miserably.

Of course, failure isn't necessarily bad, failure can teach you what you did wrong and what to do better next time. I won't spare us any mercy, my cabin was shit at communication for the first few days of the week. I think any of the people in my cabin would agree. It was strenuous, having to force ourselves through the events we had to do, but once we had the communication down, we were fantastic.

Speaking of forcing ourselves through events, normally some spirit of writing possesses me and makes me write so much about so little (thank you, JK Rowling), but I'm still lazy as of now. I'm kinda forcing myself to write about this considering I have tons of stuff to do about RYLA as well, (e.g., a survey and an application to be a counselor). My mind, of course, is a bit occupied with having to organize D&D later today, but here I am, still trying.

So, day #1, we went to a nearby firehouse to play games with the firemen involving fire hoses, and then that evening we listened to a speech by a guy called judge Mcdonald (his first name wasn't judge, he was an actual judge). Apparently the people at RYLA ask him to speak to their campers every year, and then after his speech one of the counselors asked, "now, do you see why we ask him to come back and speak to you guys every year?" I did, that's for sure. He talked about leadership, and what that meant. We had all sorts of definitions we shouted out, including the copout answer of "the ability to lead", which I think he rolled his eyes at, at least internally. He went into how he was the captain of some sports team (I think basketball), and they kept losing because he wasn't being a good leader, and he didn't have a good relationship with his team. His coach stressed that he needed to establish a good relationship with his team in order to work together better. He also mentioned how at college, there are always the different tables for the different groups (e.g., jocks, nerds, etc.), and he would just randomly sit down at said tables and say hi. Everyone would look at him like, "who invited this dumbass?", but he would just sit down anyway and start talking. Eventually he had built relationships with a lot of the people he sat down with, and when he ran for class president, he got it, all because of the relationships he had with people.

This was the first of many events at camp that made me challenge my anxiety, which was the main reason for my going there. I liked to help people, and I really did like being a leader, but the problem was I had this crippling social anxiety that prevented me from taking that first step. Now that I've been through RYLA, this anxiety is still there, but insanely lessened. I mainly had to stay within my cabin, but I also had things switched around, swapped into groups of people I didn't even know, where I had to force myself out there. The first thing you go through at camp is called "the welcome attack", and it's basically the campers act really insane as you drive up and attempt to make you insecure and shy in order to force you out there. I was a bit shocked the music came on, but I thought "why the fuck not?" (because I sure as hell couldn't say that), and attempted to dance to it nonetheless. That was a metaphor, before you assume I made myself dance on the first day. Hell no. It was at least Thursday (or Wednesday, I think) before that happened.

Before the Olympics, the one event where I feel my cabin really started moving and thinking together as one, the counselors found it fun to put music on during breakfast. I'm pretty sure if they knew my cabin would start an insane dance-off, they would've thought twice (or not at all). Led by my cabin, the remaining two (cabins two and four had gone river rafting) got down on the floor and jiggy with it. This also applied to me, and in case I wanted to make my sister even more certain I had been kidnapped by aliens, I can simply just dance in front of her and scare her further.

Back to the subject, I've always felt like I've been a capable leader, but I've never really felt comfortable with myself enough for me to put myself out there. When I first saw the people who would be in my cabin, I had no reason to like or dislike them, but that quickly changed when I tried to put myself out there by my most solid interest and ask who had seen Firefly. None had.

"Did he just go crazy and fall asleep?"

Despite that bad start, we got along fairly well. As the week ended, I felt my cabin had grown the closest together. My cabin was "The Rockstars" (the girls were the Divas), and initially I felt more at home with the cabin that was Star Wars themed, especially when I found out that NONE OF THEM knew what the difference between a Jedi with a blue lightsaber and a Jedi with a green lightsaber was. It was a hard life for a scifi nerd who actually knew what everyone was talking about, even if they didn't themselves. They didn't, they really didn't.

I feel like this is an accurate analogy

Nevertheless, I felt like my cabin was the closest out of all of them. We went from a ragtag bunch of people who didn't know anyone else to a close-knit family who nearly cried when we had to part at the end of the week. The one knowledge that had comforted us was the fact that we all had each other's contact info and would stay in touch after we got home.

To sum up? I am not the man I was, even though I'm still lazy, but I'm still better. I have more confidence, I can be me, I can be proud of me. All this time at RYLA has just shown me what a leader I can be. When I got there, I had decided to be known as Dirk, just Dirk, not Captain Yaple as I usually introduce myself as. I wanted to start over, I didn't wanna seem pretentious (at least, not yet), until I felt I actually knew something.

Maybe then, I'd be a little less pretentious. Maybe then, I'd be able to be me.