I've been testing my limits a lot lately. My physical limits. Both my physical weakness and my fear. Because I've never worked my body, really. I was active when I was like 9 not since then and I've never been very good at anything. Plus, I had a lot of fear. Like I wouldn't ever jump off of something that everybody else would jump off of. It took me a while to get enough guts to do a flip on the trampoline. I've never been able to do a cartwheel. Last summer I wouldn't do the slip and slide. I fear bodily harm a lot. I won't do something until I'm sure it's safe.

I also fear water. But I decided to get over it. I just don't like turning my back on it at this point. If I can keep my eye on it, it's okay. But if I turn my back, I have the feeling that it's morphed into a great big monster, the size of a tidal wave that will swallow me whole. I guess that speaks of the emotions and their threat. In any case, I did that thing behind the waterfall. And then, again, I climbed up to the waterfall in the Adirondacks a few weeks ago. Plus, I crossed the pond. And then after I'd climbed up to the waterfall, I crossed it. It wasn't at a particularly dangerous part but my ankles were under water and the current was pushing at them. I walked cautiously.

And then the other day I climbed a tree. And it's not like skydiving. What I mean is, it's not about the extreme. It's about being active when I'm usually not. It's about being unafraid when I usually am. It's about enjoying myself instead of sitting around being cautious. I was laying on the tramp and I looked up at the tree and it was so beautiful that I decided to climb it and meet it personally. So I grabbed a ladder to get up the first part of the trunk and I started climbing. My brother grabbed a random branch and pulled himself up and in like 30 seconds he had climbed up to the top. The damn monkey. But I took my time. We cleared away all the dead branches that were entangled in the live ones. I must have spent at least an hour up there and I only went up and down once. So I took my time. I guess I'm not afraid of heights. I never thought I was particularly. But I do get slightly queasy when I look down from a great height. This wasn't such a great height. Near four stories high. Wow, now I'm confused. Stories is the word to use there? I've never seen it spelled before and I can't think of what it refers to.

In any case, I wasn't only a bit afraid because I had climbed a bit but then I was stuck, or rather, I had to take a tiny bit of a risk to pull myself up further. And I happened to be on the wrong side of the trunk, where there were not many branches. So taking the risks kind of made me a little afraid but you get to know the branches and the strength of your arms.

I like doing things barefoot too. Because the last time I went to a waterfall I had to cross a pond first, I took my shoes and socks off. And I didn't bring them with me so I walked up to the waterfall without them and then up the regular hill and across the waterfall all without them. My feet were a bit numb because of the cold water, so the rocks and things didn't exactly bother me. But it did feel really good to put my socks back on. In any case, I climbed the tree with socks on, no shoes. Probably would have been harder with shoes.

I was really in a nature mood. I had been reading a lot of stuff about Taoism and Confusionism because I was about to take my Eastern Philosophy exam. And although it wasn't really about the direct connection to nature, that I felt. I did get a sense of harmony that I associated with nature. And I just wanted to spend time with nature, and it reminded me of the same vibe as Taoism and Confusionism. I mowed the lawn. Me and Isis. I love doing it. I love driving around my back yard, staring at grass. Driving beneath trees.

And the lawn looked so friendly afterwards. Because when it's wild, it doesn't look like it wants you to come on it but when it was cut, it looked very inviting. Amelia was giving Isis piggy back rides around the yard and I did too and I held Isis's hand and had her running about. She, until very recently, would not walk on grass. She has always thought it feels weird. But she's getting used to it so she was barefoot. Well, actually, she was pretty much naked.

We were hanging out with her until we went in the tree and she got bored and went inside to watch Winnie the Pooh.

I like being outside a lot. I used to not like it. I like going out there to read and to sunbathe. I wish I could be topless but I can't. :(

Anyway, I really wish it would warm up. It's been warm but it hasn't been hot and humid and to tell you the truth I freakin miss it. I've been suffering for months here, I don't want to be chilly anymore. It's been pretty cold too, like when it rains. And the sun doesn't come out every day. It's the middle of May!! When does summer begin!

I'm so happy the green is back. That's probably why I feel this reawakening of harmony with nature. I don't feel it during winter. I look at pictures that were taken two or three weeks ago and they're atrocious. Everything is so lovely when the grass is green.

My birthday is three days. But, remember, it's anticlimactic. Loren leaves soon, which sucks because he's the one I do things with. Like waterfalls and shopping and climbing trees. Amelia doesn't do much with me and during the week she has Isis so she does even less. During the weekends she does things with her friends or studies. She studies a lot.

I just have one more exam on Monday but I've already studied for half of it because it was originally supposed to be two weeks ago but he moved it back a couple weeks and added another chapter to it.

I'm glad to be out of school. I'm tired of my spirit being so cooped up. I want to read and write. I haven't had the time. I want the suffering heat.

My sister might move to Pennsylvania or something. Because of her fiance. But she's thinking of leaving the kids in Utah with Evan. Or maybe only taking one kid. :( I wish I didn't like my nephews and nieces so much. If only I liked them as little as I do my cousins.

Lyla took me off her myspace yesterday. I had been thinking about doing it this past week but I didn't feel that it was a good idea. It's better to not talk and pretend that you're not enemies. Cause when you openly say that you don't like each other, it begins to prohibit your actions. You know what I mean? You can't talk to your enemies, look at them, like them, compliment them. You don't want to hear about them. etc etc.

Well I saw her at the library. I was looking at some videos and I turned around to see who was talking to someone and I saw it was Lyla but I had already begun to turn my head back to the videos. I think she was too surprised to say anything.

She shouldn't hate me, as far as I'm concerned. I mean, she said she missed me. We apologized and chatted fine for a few days. Then I told her that I wanted to become friends with John again because I had to face my issues. She said no. I told her that she was being controlling again, just like she had only a day or two before apologized for doing it last summer. She didn't answer the message and we haven't said a thing since. Well, actually, I left a bulletin comment but she didn't reply.

In any case. I don't like her. It's like I wish she was who I want her to be. And then I would like her. But I don't like the reality. She has such a sweet face and this sweetness that I always liked. She talks with a really high voice and says cute things. But she also has this maniacal body of emotion. And she's now a bit crazy. I thought she was rational and smart from the message. And maybe she can be. But it's contrasted by her emotions. She's immensely bitter and resentful. She's always saying things spitefully and sarcastically. She's always crying and bitching. She swears a lot in that way, as in, your words probably wouldn't sound angry so if you put "fucking" in there, that will give it some umph. I've been there before. But swear words always seem so contrived. Like it isn't natural to be saying them, they're just used to get a desired effect. I guess because they're taboo, they're "swear words" and teenagers then use the language to test authority and whatnot. Sometimes you can make it natural. But when you use it every other sentence just to make your sentence sound really mad... it just sounds obnoxiously contrived.

I wish she wasn't spiteful and hateful and emotionally distorted. In fact, I've grown to realize that teenagers really scare me. They are not healthy. Mareena is like a freakin alcoholic. They all smoke pot, drink, smoke cigarettes. They're full of hate. They sleep around. Maybe it was that video that got me started off. But I've realized that teenagers are way out of my control. And not only that, they are not smart or healthy. So the things they do are dumb and unhealthy and there's nothing I can do about it. I've been a rational adult for too long... and I turn 18 in four days.

There is an ocean between me and teenagers. That's just not where my mindset is at. My actions, feelings, thoughts don't reflect that of a teenager. I guess I live a lot in my mind. Traveling over mountains and through valleys and across oceans, all in my mind. I don't make decisions of an adult, I haven't gotten a job yet. I'm not particularly responsible. But my thoughts have leaped over the discoveries that are supposed to be made with time. Time, I don't have much of. Just 225 months. Experience, meh, average, if not less. But wisdom I've got in abundance anyway.

Oh well. John and Lyla are both off my myspace now. Tim won't talk to me, but he's got the same exact birthday as me. Rather interesting. I want to get to know someone who has the same birthday as me.

That guy who gave me the popsicle gave me the sweetest smile the other day in class. We were sitting down for an exam and he walked in and I was the first person he saw and he smiled and then put his head down in a shy way and walked to a seat. It was adorable. I wish I could exchange phone numbers with my eyes.

Speaking of exams though... I studied like mad that entire day. It was intense. I preferred it, really. Because even when I'm not studying for an exam, I'm worrying about it. Because I'm a procrastinator, I put off everything to the last minute and I'm anxious and guilty for doing that for all the minutes before. At least, that's the pattern. In truth, every since I came to college, I realized that the most appropriate time was the last minute. In high school I would procrastinate but then get so overwhelmed that I wouldn't end up doing it and everything would pile up. But in college, I do things the last minute. I don't get all piled up because classes aren't every day one right after the other like in high school. I'm good at doing things last minute. I always get A's, I always do all my work and give more than they expected, because I can't help it.

In any case, I knew that if I had three separate tests on three separate days that I would be anxious for like a week. Thinking about it, worrying about it. It's not something I do obsessively, per se. But it's that habit from high school. I procrastinate, do other things, but I can never escape from the knowledge that I'm avoiding something. I can't ever really put it out of my mind. I periodically remind myself of what needs to be done and feel a drop of guilt that I then push it away until next time. It's just something that hangs over me until it's done. So I would prefer to get them all out of the way on the same day.

Surprisingly, my hand didn't hurt that much. I woke up at 4AM and did the learning objectives for Western Civilization. They're pretty much study guides that go along with the chapters we read. Thankfully, for the final he has less chapters. For the midterm he's got like twelve of them that he covers. But he only had five this time. So I was filling those out all morning. I also read a bit of my Eastern Philosophy book, that's my studying. I had been doing that the Tuesday before, between classes, cause there's a lot to read and I need to give myself time. Last minute won't do. I took a shower with Isis, ate breakfast, got ready, drove to school. Took my Modern Fiction exam. Which wasn't hard at all. She had already given us the questions to look over and prepare for in our minds. Did those essays, left, tried to finish reading my Philosophy Exam.

I left enough to do for the hour and a half between classes that I expected to have. But I couldn't find a place to read and concentrate, I moved like ten times. I finally found one but I still couldn't focus, I wasn't absorbing the information. It was about Buddhism. I had to read it very slowly and had to read the lines like ten times. It was very basic philosophy. What I mean is, Buddha's teachings seem very basic. I admit I haven't payed a lot of attention to his teachings. What I mean is, I talk about him and stuff, but I've never actually explored his teachings. At least not in depth. Like I know the gist of them but I've never explored them. So that was interesting. Learned some things I didn't know. Cause although it was mostly familiar, hearing implicitly what Buddha meant, from this author's words, was novel. He stressed the stuff about "self" a lot, and I hadn't heard it in that light. I realized that it was exactly what I was trying to get across in my philosophy report. Because of the way my teacher taught the idea, with his own conclusions, I had understood it in a different light, and didn't like it. But now I see more clearly what Buddha was trying to get across and I almost completely agree. I like him better than ever.

But I couldn't finish. And I suffered slightly for it. I had to go to class and I took the exam. Wasn't any worse than usual. That is, I always miss a question or two. But I guess and fill in as much as I can. If I had been able to read the chapter on Mahayana, I might have done a little better but I probably got over 90. The whole point of essays, his opinion, is that students should be able to express their ideas and perceptions of the philosophies. Because they aren't facts and they are open to interpretations. So even though we have to be talking about the same thing, our understanding of it can be different and he likes to give us the freedom to do that and get points, rather than spit out some uniform idea. So I'm hoping that I answered all the questions with what he was looking for.

It sucked though, I couldn't remember any of the things on the eightfold path. It's because when I'm put on the spot, my short term memory freezes up. It's really good for tests, as long as I'm relaxed. But I wasn't relaxed because I was anxious that there were questions I couldn't remember and that made me remember even less. It's like, when I recited The Raven last year, even though I was shaking the whole time, I didn't mess up or forget a line at all because The Raven is so ingrained in my memory that I couldn't forget it if I tried. But then I learned another poem that week, and I had only learned it in a few days so it wasn't that familiar to me. Yes, I'd memorized it, but when I got to class I was immensely nervous and I froze up and I just could not, for the life of me, access the words to the poem. They were blocked. If it had been The Raven, I would have been able to access them because they were deeper ingrained in my head. It was the same here. I had only recently reviewed Buddhism and I didn't have the eightfold path memorized so I blanked out. Whereas, I had calmly absorbed Confusionism and Taoism a couple days earlier and I could access it better.

But if you think that's a good reason to study earlier, you're wrong. I have to study last minute and last minute only. Eastern Philosophy interests me, that's why I absorbed it. But I don't like to absorb too much, I block it out of my long term memory. I hate being stuffed with facts and information. I'm like Sherlock Holmes. If I know too much, I won't be able to know anything well enough. But if I focus on what I need to focus on, I'll be able to do it ten times better than if I was overloaded with other junk. So I study last minute so that I can put all the exam information into my short term, use it, forget it and I've got an A. I wouldn't get an A if I tried to put it into my long term. If I took test over again, even the same damn test, within the week after I'd gotten an A on it. I would not remember the answers. Sometimes we review the exam and some of the questions I know, but mostly, the information is gibberish to me. It's hard for me to do that, though. I need to examine a question freshly, but if I've seen it before, my mind will be trying to figure out what I said last time and if I got it right or wrong, so I'll get confused and messed up. I have to be able to freshly examine the question and work with the first association that comes to mind. As they say, it's usually the right one. When your mind kicks in with doubt and interpretation and rationalization, you get wayward.

In any case... I kept writing my Buddhist answer, trying to wing it, but then the pathways opened up and I could remember what they were about. We only needed to discuss four anyway. I was in such a hurry though. Such a freakin scurry. Cause we don't have a lot of time. And I usually finish just barely. Cause I can ramble on and on in essay questions. So, actually, I finished five minutes before class ended. The last three times I've taken a test for Tao, I was the very last person finished. This time everyone seemed to be taking their time. We have a lot of questions for such a short period of time, he should realize that. So I left a couple blank, one that I should have been able to answer cause it was an obvious question, too obvious that I didn't think I had the right answer. But that wasn't a lot of points and I did the bonus.

Then I had to leave and scurry to finish studying for Western Civilization. I had one more chapter to do, that I'd purposely left for the hour before class. But it was boring and my mind had been so damn overwhelmed, absorbing history and working through philosophy, plus the first exam in Modern Fiction. It was like 11 hours of full studying and thinking. I sometimes don't have breakfast or lunch and I'm gone until six, but this time I'd had breakfast and lunch and I still had stomach pains. I usually only have them at like 5. But I had them early in the morning, then later in the morning, then in the afternoon and then again before my last exam. Which, to me, means that my brain was working hard and needed a lot of protein. So, 15 minutes before class I just decided to stop and take a walk and relax my brain so that I would be clearheaded and ready to take the exam. I decided that I couldn't afford to rush through the M.C. exams like I usually do because I love to be the first one done... that I would take my time and answer each question carefully.

So I walked around, no more cramming. And the test went really well. To me a test is always easy because I always go to classes, do my homework and study. Although I try not to absorb too much of the information during the semester, when it comes time for classes, I'm really good at taking it all in and I spent an appropriate amount of time studying for it. So I usually get A's and if I can't get an A, it usually means that the teacher made the test hard. Or you could look at it that all the other teachers give way too easy tests and this one teacher gives appropriate tests. I'm not sure how hard tests should be. In any case, this test was good. I had studied all morning, I knew the information, the test tested me on this information. During the midterm, a few of the questions were a little too random. I think I got eight questions wrong but the thing is, he only gave us like 40 questions. It's better to give the students more questions so that the 20 chapters they studied can be put to good use and they have a better chance of getting questions right, rather than screwing up a few and those questions being worth so much. It's just better probability with more questions.

He gave us 48 this time and the questions were spot on, I mean, they were exactly what I had been studying, no vagueness. So I did every question one by one, carefully, slowly. And I felt that rush that I get when I want to finish first. It tried to swallow me up and to carry me along, give me momentum but I pushed it away and went slowly. Ironically, though, I finished first anyway. :) I mean, I only had to hesitate on like two of them cause I knew all the rest so it obviously went fast. But I let my mind process the questions, instead of rushing myself. And I guess I was rewarded for it anyway. I got 182 out of 200. I don't know what that means. Puh. He takes like 35 questions and turns it into a score out of 200. I don't know how. I guess he x it by four... In any case, he does have a letter grade comparison, but only for the 400 grade. So there's 200 for the midterm and 200 for the final and you can't know what letter grade those are, I tried to do the math but it wasn't working, you'd think you could split it in half. Anyway, I can know the letter grade for the whole thing, it's an A- between the two. However, he promised that if we did better on the final, he would double that grade so that the midterm was replaced with the score from the final. Which will give me an A. So I'm hoping he'll make good his promise. :)

I put that I didn't want to have my philosophy report returned to me because I would have to drive to the school and pick it up next Thursday or something and last time, he asked to keep it so I just looked at the A on the paper and he said how much he liked it. I was torn between wanting to discuss it with him and just assuming I got an A. I mean, I know I got an A because I know how he grades. He's not strict about it, as long as you develop your ideas fully and they relate to philosophy. I don't even need to make sure I've done that. Of course I have. So although I'd like to hear what he thinks, and I'd like to give him the opportunity to tell me his thoughts on my paper, I said no, that I wouldn't be coming to the school to pick it up. So I'll probably never see him again. I kind of felt that way with Longley too. I'll probably never see her again. I don't know if I'll be taking my final semester at this school. I could email Longley though... or visit her if I wanted.

I also had to say goodbye to Carito. But I didn't want it to be awkward. I don't know her as well as the others but I did want to say thank you. However, I had to return a paper the next day and I had Amelia put it in her mailbox and I wrote her a note saying thanks for a great class. But these teachers who have discussed with me who I am, recognized it at least, and discussed with me my options for the future... I feel like I have a connection with them and it's rude to just disappear on them. I mean, I know that the semester is over but I feel like I should have given them a proper goodbye, but I couldn't because the rest of the class was still taking tests. So, I don't feel that I got closure.

In any case... I'm feeling kind of lonely. My social options are dwindling further down. I may meet people if I get a job, which I most likely will now that it's the summer. o.O

I'm glad I have Kristen. I kind of want to date her. I know it sounds a little weird, that I want to date her not because I romantically love her. I do care for her a lot and I love her dearly, and it's not like I have trouble being attracted to girls. Who can say what kind of love I should have for her, in order to want to date her. But I just feel like I can't be certain that she'll give me attention, and if we were dating, then I could guarantee she would give me attention. I know, it sounds a little pathetic written out like that. But I guess you could say that I want to be closer to her. It's as simple as that. And when we were dating, we had a tie that binded us, even though we weren't that serious. So although I won't ask her, I'm feeling kind of nostalgic for that tie. I want a tie to anybody, but I don't have anything.

Loren probably won't come back so I guess I'm feeling that loss. He's my brother, but this is the most time I've spent with him in my entire life. In fact, those two weeks last summer were the most I'd spent with him my entire life until now. So even brother-sister bonds don't keep me tied together with people. Friendships drift. I haven't had anything near a boyfriend for three years, except Dan. And Dan hasn't been part of my life. He's given me companionship but I don't live my life with him, he's not involved in anything but discussion. I need someone in my life. Someone who isn't so controversial. Someone who is compatible with me. Part of the problem is my estrangement from teenagers. And my mindset, I guess, my consciousness.

I don't seem to belong with anyone. The people who have relationships need them to work through their psychology. I don't, and I don't want to be with anyone who does. I don't know if relationships can be any other thing. My parents have gotten past that but they were married previously and they aren't that in love. I guess I'm torn between wanting the love that I know I don't want. My parents have a mature love, but it's not what I want, even though it's what I have for Dan. But at least my parents have a life with each other. And even though I would be a little bit more attached and fond of who I was married to, I would at least have someone. I don't now. *sigh*.