Well, if I don't tell about my first week back tonight, I'll never get the chance. Cause new stuff will happen and it'll be all gone.

Not that any of it is particular to the day... it's mostly just a rundown of the things I took note of about my classes, that will no doubt be the same next week and the week after that.

See how I ramble? This is why I sometimes avoid opening up the door. I remind myself of Monica, from Friends. Actually, I feel like all of them. I guess I always take on some of their mannerisms and expressions after I get done watching a season. But it's interesting this time since I really didn't enjoy this season. It was the 7th. I've never seen it before. It was pretty boring. I hope the 8th is better. I think I've seen a few episodes from that season on TV.

So my Forensic Science teacher is a cop. He's been one for 27 years. He's been on SWAT and been a diver for bodies and stuff and had a bunch of other positions around the area. He's not really a forensic scientist but he's worked a lot of homicide cases. He tells us about them. Some of them are pretty gruesome. You know how I said CSI was twisted and I should stop watching them? I realize now that as twisted as they are, they're pretty accurate. Which is sad, but makes me forgive the writers of the show a little bit.

I mean, I've already seen a few photographs of some real dead bodies, my first, and second and third, and fourth. There was that fat drug dealer with the pajama pants. And a couple "bad guys" that the police shot, the drug dealer was one of them. And an old couple. The woman had maggots in her mouth. But we didn't see a photograph of up close. Although, I can picture it, thanks to a couple CSI episodes. Actually, I can picture a lot of the stuff. I read my text book and even though the show isn't completely accurate, I have a visual of a lot of the things that the text talks about. Mostly the things to do at the crime scene, and the crime scenes.

When I first got in my class I was so excited. I got that feeling that I get when my "feelings" tell me that I really wanna have a career in this area. I get it all the time about Law. And one time about Investigative Reporting. And sometimes about Psychology. And I actually was going to go into Criminal Justice in Votec. I was gonna do it but I wanted to take Honors English that year and it didn't fit in with my votec schedule and for some reason my councilor didn't seem too enthusiastic about the idea. So I didn't end up doing it. It looked pretty cool though.

So I got that "I want to do this" feeling... but it went away. We watched a video on the FBI crime lab and it looked really boring. Cause all the rooms are really plain and they just have machines in them to do all the forensic processing.. and CSI people don't even do the investigations, they just run the tests. In the show, the CSIs go out and question people and run the investigation but that's not really how it's done. Sometimes they have people from CSI who process the crime scene and collect evidence for the lab but sometimes they don't even have that and the police men who go there bring back the evidence...

So even though it's fun, I kind of got the feeling that the TV show had glamorized it and in real life, it probably wouldn't be my thing. Plus, I don't know how I missed it, hellooo, it's gruesome. It's not pretty, if I was to process the scenes or visit the dead bodies in the ME's place. I always look really closely at the pictures my teacher shows me. Cause I've seen tons and tons and tons and tons of "dead bodies" and "gruesome scenes" but they've all been fake. And even if they look accurate... red dye and blood are totally different things to the mind. I still think the scenes are gross, especially the autopsies... but they're not real and I want to see if the real scenes look different.

So I'm always looking as if I'm expecting to be surprised. I was with the drug dealer... he had a huge hole in his head, from a gun, obviously. And I'm used to seeing the brain on the TV shows and I looked expecting to see some brain matter. But I think it was too butchered so it didn't even look very gruesome. It was just a big red hole, I couldn't see anything disgusting. But he had some other bullet wounds all over his body and I did get a tiny bit squeamish. But I think I've desensitized myself a bit, almost back to how I am with the TV show. It's gross, but it never makes my stomach toss. Although I'm sure it would be a different matter if it was in real life. But I guess the pictures are just pictures.

I also heard the audio of the drug dealer getting killed. It was a drug bust but he shot at the cops so they shot at him back and one of the police had a recorder thing around his neck, for some random reason... so we got to hear the audio, although it was kind of difficult to hear. The cops are kind of mean. They're like GET ON THE FUCKING GROUND! and stuff. I was surprised. Just another thing that they do on TV that I thought they might not do in real life. but if you wanna be a tough guy.. fine.

It was kind of interesting, there was a picture of someone squeezing the drug dealer's head back together. It almost looked like it had been sliced open so when he squeezed it back together it nearly looked normal. Like he closed the wound. Although, I believe, there was still a hole from the bullet... that was the point of the picture, apparently.

Anyway, it's an interesting class. I'm kind of upset and kind of glad that my teacher is a cop instead of a scientist. Because I like hearing about the cases and the other teacher on campus doesn't have that kind of real life experience. However, I'm kind of interested to know all the forensic deduction behind the police experience. And he doesn't know it deeply enough to explain it to us. I don't know that Sue Powell would either. But apparently she's the scientist so she might at least be able to answer some of our questions better.

So that was last Tuesday. It's a night class and, as much as I love driving alone, it's also kind of boring. I LOVE driving to school in the sunny afternoons. But I hate driving home alone. And my radio doesn't pick up any good stations. I don't understand why.

I keep making stupid mistakes. I hate it, but you live, you learn. So I might as well learn. Once you make the big mistakes, you tend to be so embarrassed that you put it on your check list before you leave the car or before you start driving. Like, I left my lights on for three hours in the parking lot. Because I drove on the bridge and they're doing road work so it's dark and some people had their lights on, probably the automatic lights but whatever, I hadn't ever turned on my lights before so I was interested at the prospect. But then once I left the bridge it was light out so I forgot I had my lights on and I left them on. For some reason, by God's grace, my battery didn't die. That's fantastic because I'm not ready to deal with a dead battery in a parking lot at 9PM. And I didn't have a cell phone with me. But don't worry, I won't make that mistake again either.

Then last Thursday I left my gatorade on top of the car. But not while I was driving, just when I went into class. Silly me. I know people do that all the time. One time my mom left the house phone on top of her car and when she began driving it fell off and broke. The things she does!

And the other day when my dad and I went to the mall to buy my computer and some new shoes, I ran over the curb. It was my dad's car and he was just giving me such huge bullshit. Granted, I did try to shift gears without putting my foot on the clutch. Cause we had just gotten off the thruway and you forget that clutch exists when you don't change gears for a half an hour.... So anyway he was giving me tons of shit, I think it was cause he saw an accident, a semi that went around the turn too fast and tipped over. And after that he was acting like I was a completely psychotic driver.

I'm not joking... I was going in the parking lot at like five miles an hour and he was talking about how I was... how did he put it.. something to the equivalent of barreling into the area. Like I was going horribly fast and that's why I couldn't find a parking spot or some such thing. And when I get hounded and critisized, it doesn't make me a better driver. Not to say that it made me a worse driver, but once you're a sucky driver, you've got nothing to lose, really. So I get even more sloppy. So when I stopped at a stop sign, I turned it really tightly and I saw it but I didn't care so when I started I ran right over the curb. Ha, that gave him something to be actually mad about.

After I got my computer I finally surrendered the driver's seat. He acted surprised when I gave it up, Don't you wanna drive? Puh. He told me that he should drive like five times. I just wanted to relax and think about dating John. That was the day he was supposed to break up with his girlfriend. Actually the third day. He kept putting it off to have sleepovers with her... I dunno. That's not the point.

So I went out on a limb with my new shoes. I hate shoe shopping. I think they're girls shoes. Hard to say. Zumiez doesn't really have things all set up. They basically just have a huge pile of shoes boxes, very disorganized. And I found some Vans that were a bit risky for my tastes but I took the risk and now I quite like them. Although I have to wear socks that go past my ankles because otherwise my socks slide down and my heels rub against the back and owe!! I like wearing ankle socks. :( but now I can't.

So let's see, I have a Sociology class on Mondays and Weds. Brittney is in there. :( It sucks because even though there are tons of other classes that have discussions about the topics, Sociology happens to be one of them and Brittney happens to be the kind of person who loves giving her long, detailed opinions on debates and discussions. To be fair, you could say she's a bit like me. And maybe that's why I dislike her. I like to be the only one who can pipe up and have a smashing and fresh response to the topic. But also, she's a little cliche-ly keen. And that bothers me because she doesn't even deserve to be seen as exactly how I see her. If you get my drift.

Cause my fresh opinions in debate are what I'm proud of. And she's kind of like me, only a bit cliche, so I don't really want her to have the good debater status. She was in my English and my U.S. History in high school. Not really very many debates but she talked when she could anyway. One time she told my English class that she had myspace like way before it was popular. And she put it in her topic to sound casual, but she was obviously proud of it. You know why that pisses me off? YEAH! Cause I was also one of those people who had a myspace before it was popular! And I like to put it in casual conversation so that people know I'm not just some dumb follower of a trend!

But let's not get into that. Having myspace before it got popular is not the most brilliant thing to brag about. It's something that would still make me feel good about myself, I'm sorry to say. But seeing how pathetic it is displayed on someone else both makes me jealous that they're using my line and ashamed that I have the same desperate line.

So that's why she bothers me. She also used to give me shit, I think?? I know that Andy, one of the many, used to always say dumb things to me. And she would always laugh and stuff. I hate it when smart asses give me shit and they always have some girl who really doesn't like me to sit by and... yeah.

So anyway, after I dropped out, she sent me a message on myspace apologizing for "giving me shit" I don't quite remember any of the mean things she would have said in high school. She got mad at me one time for not letting her sit in my assigned seat. Her assigned seat was right behind me so I don't know what the big deal was.

She also told me that my myspace pictures were pretty. She didn't add me but she was being nice. It kind of made me feel like she felt sorry for me for dropping out or something. I'm not sure what it was. I wish they all knew I had dropped out to go to college but you can't trust the right people to open their mouthes so everybody probably thought I was a total loser. Although now all the people in my graduating class are coming to my college! I hate it. I was cool because I was there earlier than them all. Now I'm hardly a year ahead of them (essentially only one semester) and I know it's sad that I hang on to these types of things to make me feel cool but that's just how sad I am.

So I'm surprised, my psychology teacher last year said that he also taught sociology and he hated his class. He always said how boring it was. It kind of reminded me of Statistics. Like when I think of that class and Sociology, they remind me of the same kind of dull status. But Sociology is Social Psychology, is it not? And that's my favorite topic in my General Psychology text book from last semester! So I think it might be pretty fun. I didn't anticipate that.

15 minutes later, which is awesome that I don't have a lot of time to wait in between the classes, I have Western Civilizations. Most of the classes are in small classrooms that remind me of high school and I hate it. We have like four lecture halls and I can't figure out which classes get to go in there but that, of course, makes me feel like real college so I've always wanted to be in there. But there's a new building with a really nice classroom and a lecture hall. It's not as big as the three in the main building, I think. But it's still really nice. There are comfy swively chairs and outlets for laptops and it's just an amazing atmosphere... that's where I have my Western Civilizations class. I don't care how boring that class turns out to be, I'm going to enjoy each and every class. The room is so nice to be in.

I didn't really realize it until now but there's basically only one hall for classes and three small buildings. Not really very many choices so it makes sense that I have combinations of the same classrooms. I guess I sort of did in high school as well. My English class is in the same room as my English class was last year. And my Sociology class is in the same room as my French class later that day. And my Forensic Science lecture is in my old Philosophy room. Which is cool cause they have nice tables, instead of dinky little high school desks that make me sad. My Forensic Science Lab is in a Lab classroom so it's kind of cool.

But back to my Western Civilization class.. I was fortunate enough to have a couple more nemeses(if that's what you want to call them) join me. Shannon is in my class. I would put the convo of me telling James about it in here but it seems to have disappeared. Fucking lousy trillian didn't save it. Moo. It would have saved me time.

Basically what I told him was that we first had a love/hate relationship and that kind of instilled an obsession for her inside me because the hate drove me to prove to her things that I was feeling vulnerable about because of the love. I mean, when you feel warmly about someone and you enjoy being around them, it's almost like they're as easy as a breeze. But it wasn't like that with Shannon and I. There were too many conflicts and so little communication that I always had to deal with "us" inside my head, without her. And the hate drove me to be angry and spiteful because I was feeling vulnerable about the love... so the topics in my head were often angry and spiteful. And every good feeling I had for her had to be negated with bad feelings because I didn't feel like she deserved or respected my love. And she didn't.

Oddly enough, I think Stogner always did the very same thing to her. I dislike being like him, but for the sake of my blame, we'll say that it's proof that Shannon provokes the same reaction in her lovers.

So then we stopped being friends and it became a total obsession. Obviously without any relief because we never talked. I always talked to other people about her behind her back and it was a big deal with our friends because they were caught between us. And I always asked for their livejournal passwords to read her livejournal.

It's like, you know when something good happens to you and you have one person in mind to share it with? I have that intensely. Cause I'm a writer, I like to share my thoughts with people. That's one of the reasons I love to write in blogs in such a detailed manner. Well, livejournal was always directed at her and it was my way of expressing things to her that I couldn't say to her. Usually spiteful things, because I was trying to provoke her or manipulate her. And I was also a little bit fake in that I was always skewing my entries to prove things to her. Prove that I was better than her or something of the sort.

So what I'm trying to say is that she was the person that I said everything to but that I never trusted. I always wanted to trust her but I couldn't. So I always had to equalize my vulnerability with spite and anger. As I've already said. So it's like, she was the silent audience in my head. I could be with Mike shopping and I'd think of her. Because when I thought of sharing my stuff with my livejournal, I'd think of her. Even when she wasn't on my livejournal for a long time, I still wrote to her. And when I wore something to school and I would look in the mirror before I went, sort of wondering how people would take it, I thought of her. Like if I looked good, it would proving something to her.

She wasn't the only one but she's been the only constant one since tenth grade. The others were always guys and I let them all go within time.

She had this way of not talking to me during school. We'd be nearly lovers online and then we'd be sitting next to each other in class and she wouldn't look at me or talk to me. And it hurt me so I did it back. So we had the worst friendship at school. but this is what I badly explained further up... when you have a friend who you purely enjoy, you experience them like a breeze, light and easy. With her it was obsessive and intense. We wouldn't talk, so I was always aware of her presence and yet I couldn't relieve it. I couldn't just turn and say something to her. I had to just think about her. And be angry at her ignoring me and prove to her by flirting with someone in front of her or making jokes that I didn't mind that she ignored me or that I was happy or whatever.

The weird thing is, all the obsessive, angry behavior that fueled me when we were enemies, actually started when we were lovers. I just got used to not looking at her or saying anything to her but having her as my audience. Cause that's how it was when we were friends. I couldn't really talk to her so I had to say things to someone else as if I was saying them to her. Things I wanted her to know, I told other people in front of her. And I would show off and try to prove that I was funny or cool or loved or happy and especially that I was casual and that I didn't care about her, because I was vulnerable about loving her.

So like the first day of school I was dating Dan and Shannon and I had had romance going on but I was mad at her for ignoring me and not giving me attention so I told Meagan about Dan in front of Shannon, who didn't know about him yet, or something. Cause that was like saying to her, what's going on between us isn't important to me cause I have boys on my mind. And it was all spite because I felt like our romance wasn't important to her. And she's an enigma so who knows if it ever was. And she's the one who got me into livejournal so my livejournal experience was based or originated on her as my audience.

And things like myspace and pictures of me and such, were always set up with her eyes in mind. Like if I looked really hot or my myspace was really cool, I knew I was proving that to her. If I had an awesome experience, if I almost had sex in a graveyard, I knew I was proving that to her. And that went on obsessively until I decided that I couldn't take it anymore and I had to be "friends" with her again.

So I mended things. I said that it was ridiculous for us to avoid eye contact, not like we ever didn't avoid eye contact while we were friends. It was psychotic. But I told her that we sat next to each other in English and that we had lunch together and while I can glance freely at any other random person in school, it's silly for me to avoid glancing at her. I wanted things to be nonchalant between us so that it wasn't so obvious that we had a bad history. And so it was.

Problem is, then I added her back to my livejournal for the first time in like eight or nine months. And then she was back on my myspace. And it was the same thing again. Every time I'd post a bulletin, I'd think of her eyes reading it, or more like her mind processing it. And if I'd say something cool, I'd still get that feeling that I was proving something to her.

Alas, I also had Nicole and Mareena to do the same thing with. Myspace blessed me with that opportunity. So over time it's kind of toned down.

And yet, I finally decided one day that I no longer wanted Shannon to be my audience. In fact, when I began college last semester. I didn't want all my words to be skewed because of her. But then I didn't really have much of an audience so I basically stopped writing until the summer when I added Dan to my new livejournal. And I much prefer him as my silent audience. Less obsession, less anger and spite, zero anger and spite, in fact.

I find that I can be much more unbiased and mature with Dan as my audience. Because being friends with Shannon brought out the worst of my qualities and even though many of them are just a secret now, less active and obnoxious, so easier to deny... most of them are not in play with Dan. At least not at this point although sometimes when we split up I'd do some of that, see I'm happy without you stuff. But these days when I write about how happy James makes me I don't do it to prove anything to Dan. I write it because it's the truth. If I'm thinking something mean about Dan, I write it because it's the truth. Equally, if I'm thinking something nice about Dan, I write it because it's the truth. I was so biased with Shannon. Never saying the good things because I couldn't bear to give her the satisfaction of my love and always saying the bad things to punish her for not loving me enough or whatever.

It wasn't quite like that with John as my audience either. Maybe a tiny bit. But not as obsessive. I would have said how James slept over and I dreamt about kissing him regardless of John reading it. It made me feel happier spending time with James, to take my mind off of John, than to spend time with James and rub it in John's face...

But I'm way off topic now. If I had put down that damn 30 second conversation with James about the situation I wouldn't be sitting here write now..... I knew I wouldn't be so brief if I got the chance to really analyze it. The point is, now that she's in my class, my mind is automatically brought back to her. Even in high school when she wasn't in my class but she was somewhere else in the school, I was so aware of it. Always aware of her presence near or far. I can ignore it a lot outside of school but sometimes I'm still reminded of her and what I'm doing will suddenly be showcased to her in my mind.

It sucks. As I told James, I don't have any particular feeling for her anymore. I don't hate her or like her. I don't enjoy her or find her unenjoyable. However, I still get a little envious when I hear things about her. Because I still have that habit ingrained in my head, that competitive habit because I had so much to prove to her. And I'm also bothered about hearing about her boyfriends because I was always her lover while she was dating Jon and it hurt to hear about him so I get this funky envious feeling like I need to refute it or destroy all its meaning and significance as soon as I hear something good about her. I just dislike when she's happy.

And I hate all her phony off-the-beaten path phases. Like her Buddhist phase and her vegan phase. Cause I like being the off-the-beaten path person. It's the same thing with Brittney. It's just one of the things that I'm proud of and not only do I want to be the only one but I can't even respect her for doing it because she's a fake and I get angry at the idea of her getting the reputation of what I want to be the only one of, when she doesn't even deserve it cause she's a total liar...

So anyway, I'm sitting in my other classes and I'm wondering if she's left the school already or if she'll walk by and see how cool I am. lol. And when I think of what I'll wear for the next class, I would otherwise just imagine an audience with no identity, the other students, seeing my outfit. But now I have an identity and an old habit of proving things to her, like that I'm way more beautiful and classy than she is. Which I don't think really needs to be proven very much. :o

Not to be snide.

Anyway, I don't want to do it. But like I told James, it is simply an old habit. Maybe saying all this stuff will help me get over it. Cause I always had too much pride to admit the depths of my obsession with her. But I think I'm cool with it being exposed.

I like exposing myself. I have nothing to lose. Cause humanity fascinates me and every time I confess something I realize how human I am. So what a good, intriguing example of humanity I am.

So I haven't even had a chance to say the other enemy I've got. Little miss Hathaway. She's like Kristen's best friend and she lives right across the street from me. And she's a little bitch. She is really little. Like five feet. And she would say rude, snobbish things to me or about me while in high school. She definitely dislikes me but she doesn't have any reason to. :) So I know it's because she's envious of something in my personality. Even though that always seems to be my explanation and I've recently learned that it's not always the case.

But you know when you see a pretty girl and you bitch about the stupidest things to make them seem like a horrible person because you tear them down because you're envious of them or their position. That's the impression I get from her. So it keeps me from caring very much about her. I ignore her and I don't have anything to prove. She was staring at me in class, I think, I couldn't be sure cause I wasn't staring at her... I know that she's aware of my presence, probably the way I'm aware of Shannon's presence.

It's sad but, Shannon always I want to say intimidated but when I was young and insecure I gave her my trust and she pulled that silence thing on me, I won't get into it now... the point is, I felt like I had exposed myself and thus, proved that I was, I dunno, "lower" than her. And her silence was her safety. She was feeling all the things I was feeling from good to bad, but she didn't tell me. And it's pretty much what I said about after Mike and I broke up, how I kept talking about him and exposing how bothered I was with him when I should have just ignored it and denied it and then I could have kept my decency and pride....

It's like, her silence was like saying that she didn't care and my lack of silence and my compulsion to confess was proving that I did care. It made me feel needy and I was needy for attention. And she was always composed and silent. It always made me want to get a reaction out of her and etc.

My point is, that happened as soon as I got back from the month I spent in Utah. And even though we were friends, even lovers for like the next seven months... ever since I got back, I had to prove to her that I wasn't "lower" than she was. It's hard to put the scale of status into words because it's pretty much about pride, I guess. And I guess it was, again, like the thing with Mike. I lost some of my pride and I spent months trying to get it back, trying to prove to him that I wasn't what my pride was afraid I exposed myself as, needy and clingy and in love with him when he wasn't in love with me.

She's always silent though. And thus, she always wins. Even if she's having the same thoughts or feelings or obsessions... all I can hear is my own thoughts, feelings and obsessions. And I can't force or manipulate her into putting herself lower on the scale than me. I tried so often. I said so many bad things about her to so many people. I said that I hated her or never loved her or whatever, so many times. And nothing ever worked. I could never fully equalize the pride situation.

I find the great lengths my pride goes to satisfy itself insane. And fascinating... because it's such an integral part of humanity. Can you imagine how much it must have drove Hitler? I always use him as an example cause he's like the most notorious person ever.

So I can deal with Ashley. It's a pretty big class anyway. There are a lot of foreign people with difficult last names. And this girl who talks a lot. Usually people are shy in a big classroom. For me, it's like, when the teacher speaks out loud to a class, I'm sheepish about the idea that I should respond out loud, as if I'm unsure that he wants my response, since he's technically talking to the whole class. But she's really bold, she speaks right up. And when he went through the attendance, she asked a couple people around her about their last names, so the whole class could hear. But she seems nice. Usually people like that irritate me. Probably cause they remind me of myself. That's usually how it goes. I just love people who don't remind me of myself. :) They're so relaxing to recognize. It's so difficult and destructive to see myself in others.

Sometimes. Sometimes it actually makes me really happy. I'm always subconsciously looking for myself in guys around me who I almost think I want to turn out to be my soul mate or something. Like if I find myself in them maybe it means we come from the same whole or something. Cause I get all mushy and romantic when I find a guy with similar traits. I dunno. Small thought that I won't get into cause I've been writing for so long and I'm sleepy.

And I'm not done.

My teacher is weird but interesting. He has an interesting perspective. He talked for the whole class and not about history cause he was just explaining things. I respect his way of seeing things and explaining things. He might be gay. But I say gay because he's one of those guys that isn't very masculine. Masculinity is that tough guise. lol. There's no better way to put it. Sometimes you get those open guys who aren't feminine but lack that tough, dominating facade. Kyle is like that and that's why everybody thinks he's gay. But he's been insisting that he's not for years so maybe there are guys out there who have a way of being, normal.

It's weird. I just can't find an alternative way to explain it. Nothing to compare it to. No metaphors. It's just lacking something masculine but not flaunting anything feminine except maybe some type of openness that men aren't prone to, except when they're halfwoman. I can't even put it into words.

So I'm not going to keep trying... he's pretty cool except, I swear, I'm not lying, he said that our entire grade was based on two exams. One exam being 200pts and the other being 200pts. Making 400pts, our entire grade. I'm not kidding. No homework. No assignments or reports. No grades affected by attendance. Just two chances to come to school, take a test and make a grade. And he has absolutely, positevly, no make up exams.

I've never been bad with tests so I'm not worried and yet I feel like it's such an absurd way of grading that I can feel the fear of all the people who just can't succeed under those circumstances. I'm thinking, what if they have surgery or they're throwing up over and over again and they can't come and they miss one exam and then have a failing grade cause even 200pts from the second exam doesn't give you a passing grade... It's just so wrong. But when he was explaining it, I kind of liked it. He had this way of expressing that we're adults and he's not going to play those little games of attendance and homework with us: we had to decide, as adults, that we were either going to make the grade or we were not going to make the grade.

I've never in my life had a teacher who expressed it that way. They all had to babysit us into making our grades. So I kind of respect his original way of handling us. I just hope that the people who deserve the grade won't lose their chance because of ridiculous circumstances with those damn exams...

Funny thing, I had four classes last semester and three of them had a research paper required. I have five classes now and I haven't heard it from any of them. They've all gone over their syllabus and it probably should have been mentioned in there, if it's required at all. But it hasn't been mentioned. Do I really have none? I'm not sure I mind. I like writing papers but I don't like the pressure. Although I'm really satisfied with the last three papers I wrote. I like what comes out when I apply myself. Which I hate doing. I hate applying myself...

So my English teacher was out all week. We had two different substitutes. The second was like the Dean or something? She sucked, so badly. We had to read this story for homework and then we went in to discuss it with her during class. She was lost. She'd read the story but she did not know how to analyze it in the least bit. She was like prompting us to analyze it but she didn't know what we were supposed to be looking for so she was asking horrible questions that led to nothing. With the help of some of the classmates and a couple of her lame questions I finally got the gist of my own interpretation of the story. I didn't get it at all in the beginning.

It was an interesting short story by the author of The Scarlet Letter. Which I never read cause Honors English 11th grade reads other stuff. But anyway... it was kind of baffling at first. I can't wait to have the real English teacher to help us understand the stories next time. I really don't like that other lady. She is a poor excuse for an English teacher and I think she said that she was an English teacher. I can't believe that she's so terrible. Like she kept trying techniques but giving up half way through cause they sucked.

And she would ask questions and get on stupid topics like the author says that Goodman Brown was dreaming like four times and she kept asking, but what if it's not a dream, what if he's just leading us on? But she wasn't saying it in a serious way. She was saying it like she had nothing else to go on but she had to fill the spaces with some kind of pondering question and this was the best she could come up with.

And tried to have us make a list of the symbols in the story. So we labeled like the pink ribbon and this and that but after we were done with the list we moved on. We didn't identify anything that the items symbolized. What's the point of knowing that somethings a symbol but not knowing what it's a symbol of? And then she asked if we thought the author did it on purpose. Like, wrote the story with the intention of something or other. And it was dumb. Like she was asking if he just wrote the story and it turned out that way or if he did it with the specific intent of getting the point across that we were lamely trying to define.

It was an awful class...

On Thursdays Amelia and I have the same schedule. Same English class and different lectures at 6PM. So we drive together. And when you get an Italian BMT at Subway, you get free drinks and chips, on Thursdays I think he said the special was for. So since we have like three hours gap between classes and a night class where we'd probably need dinner before, we figured we'd make Subway a habit. I could also go on Tuesdays but her 6PM class turns into a 9AM class. So I'm on my own on Tuesdays. I think I should come home and visit with Isis but I'll see what I'm in the mood for.

I started reading Pride & Prejudice when I was waiting for one of my classes. It's a good book. I'm not very far but I like the author's style of writing and sense of humor. And I like her topic. I've seen the movie and wanted to read the book since I was like ten, but I never got around to the book and the movie seemed different. Of course it was different. I just seemed to concentrate more about the love story aspect when I watched the movie. Like I don't remember any of the dialogue, the way I read it in the book, although I'm sure they stupidly tried to put some of her wit into the movie... I don't know.

I was just pulling one of those girly, "I can't wait for them to get together and have a happy ending" things. And I think that that's exactly Jane Austen's mocking subject is. I don't quite remember why it's a classic. But I think it's about the idea that a woman's fulfillment is in getting married and that's all there is to her life. Or rather, a satirical perspective on that notion. So it's kind of ironic that I was so concentrated and eager for exactly that.

But it's kind of difficult to understand her way of writing. It's nice but it's almost like she puts the sentence parts in a different order than usual. I can't really explain it but it reminds me of a more subtle, "Strong your mind is, young Jedi" Instead of "Your mind is strong".... Know what I'm saying? I don't even know what the sentence parts are called but they're in a different order. So it sometimes confuses me and if people are passing by I look up and lose my concentration and have to read the paragraph over again. So I'm reading it slowly, I read each paragraph about five times before I can move on.

But I like it anyway.

Ahah! I have one more class to chat about. lol. French. My teacher is old and she reminds me of my high school French teacher. She said Bonjour to all the students and I said hi back, I was the only one. It's just that, you have to loosen your tongue to get the French language flowing smoothly. Otherwise you sound really restricted and now French at all. And since I hadn't loosened my tongue I didn't feel like saying even a simple bonjour madame. But she made me say it anyway. So I did.

She has us say things aloud a lot. And most people butcher even the simple words. I butchered a simple word too. It's by far the most motivating tool for me to learn the language, because I want to be prepared to know it so that I don't sound like an idiot when she makes me say it all aloud in class.

But I'm not too terrible. It's not a phonetic language and I love it for that reason. I love how graceful all the vowels are. I love the way they often don't finish the word. The end just kind of fades off. The art is within the pronunciations. I hate writing it but I love reading it aloud. It's beautiful. Most of the class were saying Monsieur like Mon-sewer. Have they not watched, like Beauty and the Beast? It's Muh-syuh. It's pretty basic stuff but they try to say it phonetically. So at least I'm not one of them. :)

There's this one girl who's like my mom. My mom doesn't have control over her tongue. So you can try to have her sound out a foreign word over and over and over again, simple stuff, but it's like their brain keeps telling them what they expect it to be. Like the word Lemonade in French is pronounced Lee - mo - nod. But their brains keep telling their mouthes to pronounce it the way lemon ade and you can say it slow and broken up, over and over again and they just can't seem to get it. I'm glad I'm not one of those people.

I love speaking French. I'm too shy to do it in front of people though cause I have that weird thing I won't get in to tonight about acting or being fake. And I'm like faking a French accent. So I feel dumb. Even if I'm doing it well. It's like I'm afraid that I'll get caught faking it because I'm not doing it right so I'd much rather not try to do it at all. But then I sound dumb trying to say French words in an American way. Like saying Buffet, Buh-fett.. instead of Boo-fay. Another one of those words where the ending consonants just slip away. It's so classy. :)

But I have to get over not being able to say it in front of people cause our teacher is surely going to make us do it. She already made us do it tons. Picking out random people in class. I dread it. But since it's inevitable, I'd much rather prepare for it as much as I can. Weird how saving myself from embarrassment is going to be my strongest motivational tool. But I want to learn the language anyway, that's why I'm taking the class.

It's definitely going to be the hardest class I have to take. So much memorizing. And the homework is just like in high school. The thing with a language, unlike most other courses, maybe not math though, most of it isn't ummm ah fuck I forget the word. One of my high school teachers used to use it all the time. Most of the course topics don't build off of one another. You learn it, you memorize it, you get tested, and then you throw it out because you don't have to know it to learn the next section or whatever. They don't build off of one another. But in math, they do. Which is one of the reasons I did so badly in math cause it wasn't hard it just took memorizing and I hated that. I hate memorizing things.

I took French for two years but truth be told, I know very little because I only memorized it for the time being. I didn't allow it to sink in but stay refreshed. And I'm talking about while I was in the middle of the school year, not about the time since then. Although it hasn't helped. So that's what I find the hardest. I mean, I did well on all my psychology tests. Learned all the terms and stuff like that. But fuck if I can remember any of it now. That's just the way American high school students get used to learning. They stuff themselves with information to satisfy society and throw it out as soon as they can.

Hopefully I'll be able to retain the information in a special spot in my brain that can be accessed whenever I want so that I can actually use the French that I learn.

Anyway I'm tired. I've been writing for like three hours. ugh. I knew it... and Isis will be here in the morning. Yay. :)