I'm sick today - 2/2/2001 Being sick really sucks. Not just because my throat is sore and I can't talk but also because of what happens when I'm sick. Today I told my mother I didn't want to cash a check I got in the mail today because I was sick, and I think that was a mistake. You see, my parents thrive off of things like this. This is the perfect time, with me being weak and vulnerable, for my parents to take advantage of me. Now I know they're going to start being mad and yell at me about a great number of things because they know I can't take it when I'm sick. And I'm hardly ever sick anymore, the last time was was in September. And it was awful then because my parents would harass me about all sorts of things to the point where I decided I would go to school just to be away from them. But now I'm going to have to stand my ground and try to stay invulnerable, but it's hard. I don't know what it means to have a family anymore. I know the people who are related to me and that I live with aren't my real family. Well they are real, biologically speaking, (maybe) but a real family wouldn't wait until another family member is sick and weak to be mean to them. And I had a best friend, who I called family, but now this friend doesn't even talk to me anymore. I hope I feel better soon so I can go back to thriving off what I do best, and that is unity bearing strength. ~Pax I haven't updated in a long time - 2/21/2001 This is a milestone for me....40 entries!!! Well well well.....I haven't updated in a while so I think I will today. There isn't much to talk about, but then again, there is never really anything to talk about in my boring as dust life. I still hate school with a passion. Fortunately, the only class I'm failing is science, I'd be really happy if I got a D- so I won't have to go to summer school. The only good part about school is the chess tournament, of which I have now made it to the quarterfinals. I might have said this in a previous entry, but the highlight of my life is that right now I'm trying to learn to play guitar. I have wanted to be a rock & roll musician since I was in 3rd grade and now I'm starting to learn guitar. It's hard, I can play all the notes but I only memorized one chord so far. From what I've heard, anyone can learn to play guitar, but it takes some longer than others. I think I'm one of those people who takes longer than others. I'm taking lessons right now, hopefully that will help. My dream is to someday be in a band, but that is going to be a BIG challenge. In the meantime I'll have to make do with a online jobs, since it will be at least a few years before this whole band idea gets off the ground. ::sigh:: LO
RK
p.s.- I know this entry sucked poop, but so do all the others. Chess - 3/10/2001 The past few weeks have been interesting. I'm in the chess club at school, not just because I like chess, but also because they say you have to be in at least ONE extra-curicular activity, so I chose that. Anyhoo, for the past two weeks they have held a schoolwide chess tournament, and since I'm in the club, I felt obligated to sign up for it, so I did. I didn't think much of it, I decided it would be okay to just play and would probably lose anyway in the first or second round. And the problem was, I was kind of worried to try my best. We have a big poster in the hallway of our school showing the brackets of the tournament, and the thing I was worried was doing well. I thought to myself, "Self, if you win the tournament or get really far in it, people are going to think you are a geek". So in the first round I was just kind of having a ho hum attitude about my chess match, and I tried the 4-move checkmate and it worked. So I won. And then it hit me, that people think I am a geek anyway, so what difference does it make? Therefore, I began trying my best. I defeated my opponent in the 3rd round, and in the 4th round as well. And the best part was that this is the first time in my life where I feel respected. I made it to the semifinals, meaning that there were only 4 people left in the tournament. Which isn't too bad since the tournament began with over 60 people in it. Of course I lost in the semifinals, but I don't feel too bad about it because the best man won. And now I don't have the whole school watching me in a chess match (they said they championship match might be televised) so maybe it's best I lost. Anyway, this week I learned a valueable lesson in being a true lork. You aren't supposed to care what others think of you, no matter how much of a geek you might seem like.
LO
RK
What's next..... - 3/10/2001 I'm going through a depressed time right now. If you read my past entries, you're probably thinking "what else is new" but this isn't really a bad kind of depressed. I'm just not sure where my life is headed right now. I'm doing really badly in school so I'm upset about that. School is such a bitch. I wish it would go away forever, but that will never happen ::sigh:: I have 52 weeks left before I graduate, I know that doesn't seem like too much but it's 52 weeks more than I'd like to have. Of course, I remember four years ago thinking that this day would NEVER come, so I should be thankful I made it this far. But life sucks a whole lot. If you read an entry I did a few weeks ago, about being ugly on the inside, I'm still bothered by that. I think that's why no one wants to be my friend. I just feel like crying.......but I won't. And life is continuing to suck just as much as time goes on. I'm happy about something that happened today.....you see, my best friend and I were in a fight, and today we made up, and I was really happy but it didn't last. I feel unloved by the whole world.......possibly even hated. And there's nothing for me to look forward to, except June 2002, but that's too far away for me to be happy about. So I will conclude your misery by concluding this entry.........goodbye. *my birthday* - 3/13/2001 As most of you reading this do not know, my birthday was yesterday. It would have been my worst birthday ever except for one thing, and that is that my parents bought me an electric guitar with an ampliphier(sp?) and I thought it was awesome. I already had an accoustic guitar, but electric ones are better. Anyhoo, the rest of my birthday just flat out sucked. Something happened during the morning yesterday that made me sad, and I will not mention it here. And then what made me even more sad was this poem someone read during announcements at school......I forgot what it was about but I felt like crying. Not because of the poem but because of what happened during the rest of the day. It was kind of a typical school day, long and boring, and I felt really lonely because no one knew it was my birthday (which was ok since I didn't tell anyone). It's hard being a loner, I think I'm one of the few people who knows what it's like to be a true loner. Anyway, I told some people who I knew online about my birthday. Some people remembered, some forgot, but fortunately my family remembered, and that was the best part of the day, during the evening when I got my guitar. But what really made me upset was the fact that the person who I MOST was hoping would remember my birthday forgot it entirely. I felt really let down by this "best friend" of mine, because when I said that this person forgot, the only response I got was, "forgot what?".......that was pretty harsh. It's an awful feeling when you are let down by the thing that is most important to you. ::sigh:: but being 17 isn't all that important, 18 is the real thing..... My intersting day - 3/15/2001 Today was a rather interesting today for me. Why? Well here's how it started out. I woke up at 4:00 today and was REALLY nervous, because today I had signed up to donate blood at school. I thought I was going to puke or pass out just from being so nervous, which was not good, since that meant that I would probably feel even worse after they took my blood. But once I calmed down, I was ok, and it was pretty cool how they did it. They even had a radio with some songs playing that I liked. And it barely even hurt. I watched the blood as it flowed from my arm into the tube, it was violetlish dark red. The only part that didn't go smoothly was when they had to get a sample from my finger, and when they did that the blood wouldn't come out fast enough so the doctor had to keep squeezing my finger to make the blood come out faster. Or maybe they have to do that all the time, I wouldn't know because today was the first time I donated blood. And I feel damn proud of it. Because now my healthy blood is going to save some poor suffering person's life and it will make a small, yet positive difference in the world. =o) Hakuna Matata - 3/17/2001 What a wonderful phrase. I decided to develop a new philosophy, those of you who saw the Lion King movie know what I am talking about. Hakuna Matata means no worries, and I am going to change my life in that sense. It seems like most of the time I have been "crisis hopping", meaning that I always seem to have a problem in my life. And whenever I fix a problem I always jump to another one, and that's really bad. So I now have no worries, well maybe some but they are limited. It seems like lately, I've been so busy crisis hopping that I haven't been able to sit back and enjoy the ride that is life. So I encourage all of you to consider adopting this philosophy. You'll enjoy it and it might make your life better. Baseball - 4/9/2001 ::sigh:: Abscence sure does make the heart grow fonder. Today while I was sitting in school and thinking about other things, as I do every day, I was having a few flashbacks to my early childhood. I was thinking about the sport I played for a good portion of my life, and that sport was baseball. It all started during the summer of 1988, when I was in the car with my parents. This was a time in my life when I was forced to do a lot of things I didn't like, and this particular instance happened to be a sport. I was headed to my first ever practice to play teeball. I was both scared and reluctant, but my father assured me it would be nothing more than going to first base, second base, third base, and then home. It sounded simple enough. All I would have to do was run around the infield bases and then we could leave. But how very wrong I was. And I spent the next nine years learning exactly what the term "home" meant. To be honest, baseball for me really sucked. I would have to say that the worst part of it was the pressure. Anyone who has played probably knows what I'm talking about. And what also blew was that every year my father was the coach of my team. And he pressured me more than anyone else. We have videos of me playing teeball, and when I was up to bat you could hear him from the dugout screaming profanities at me because I wasn't hitting the ball right. Which sucked, since I never wanted to play in the first place! And then when I was 6 or 7 I started baseball, where you don't hit it off a tee. This wasn't much fun either. And this time the pressure was even worse. I hate living in a country where our national pastime is a game where there can be two outs in the last inning and your team is losing, while the batter is shitting bricks because if he doesn't get a hit, his whole team and coach are going to kill him. But to be honest, baseball wasn't all bad, especially during my final years. The last summer I played was when I was 13. These are some memories I flashed back to today. Like the time time I got a home run, and everyone congratulated me, even the umpire. And then there was this one game where I got two hits in which the ball soared over the outfielders heads. That was pretty cool in itself, but it made me feel even better when the next time I came to bat that game, the coach from the other team said to the outfielders, "back up, this kid can hit". In a way I kind of miss those times. I didn't really make any friends from playing baseball, but I did have fun with my team mates. While our team was batting, we'd always sit on the bench and tell jokes and talk about stuff. That was fun, and the best part was when our team won. It's memories like that that make me want to play baseball again, but this time I think I'd have more fun. It'd be better while playing baseball to not have to worry about my father going apeshit every time I strike out. I was thinking of playing on our school team, next year. I probably need to gain about 20 pounds before getting involved in any type of athletic competition, but I think I can do it. And also I'm kind of scared about when we play teams from other schools. What if I meet some bad people? I need to think about these things. Hopefully my parents won't come to any games if I do play next year, because then I won't have to worry if I don't do well or not. I don't really care if I'm not a 1st stringer, or if our team doesn't win. Because games are supposed to be about fun, not winning. And hopefully this time around, I will be able to keep that in mind. Love, DorkAlert Confidence vs. Arrogance - 4/18/2001 Throughout many centuries, a disputed philosophical point is the defining boundary, if there is one, between confidence and arrogance. And if there is a boundary, exactly how narrow is it? Something interesting occurred to me a few days ago. There is a simple, defining bold line between confidence and arrogance. What is it? Simply put, confidence is when you take pride in yourself, and arrogance is when you take pride in yourself with the belief that you are superior. Those who think they are better than others are arrogant, but those who believe that they are intelligent, talented, and whatnot are confident. For example, someone who says "I am really smart" is confident, but someone who says "I am smarter than everyone in this room" is arrogant. The boundaries have been drawn. Problem solved.