Clubs I've Joined Since I Got to College

College Mentors for Kids
--technically i havent joined this yet, but i have applied. my interview is tomorrow and i hope i get it. if i do, ill spend monday afternoons hanging out with elementary kids from the charter school in town and teaching them that they can overcome adversity and go to college and all that. and probably how to make ice cream with nitroglycerin or something. awesome.

Colleges Against Cancer
--this one pretty much explains itself. its a big club with hardly any boys and we signed a contract that we'll pay ten dollars and come to meetings and work on awareness projects etc etc. they meet every other tuesday at nine. i dont like cancer so i joined.

Evansville Review
--evansvilles annual collection of all the good writing they can get their hands on from all over. im an assistant editor. most of my work is this semester when ill read poems upon poems upon short stories upon creative works of nonfiction and rate them all for overall quality and basically help decide what gets in out of about 2000 submissions.

German Club
--havent actually been to this one yet. the first meeting was last night but i had to read about trade in 1500. its mondays at eight and yesterday they went around campus chalking german phrases all over the ground.

Quidditch Club
--this is mondays at 1015pm and last night we had the sorting. im not gonna lie, it was pretty cool and very well done. the hat had a song and everything and it was all very cool. i got ravenclaw, which is good, cause if i didnt i would have probably quit the club. next week is trivia and the girl who notoriously knows everything about harry potter is in ravenclaw too. we are going to own. i mean, someone asked her what color was hermiones nightgown in sorcerers stone, and she knew.

Student Christian Fellowship
--scf meets every friday at 630 for FOCUS, which is capitalized even though it doesnt stand for anything. its basically the closest thing to lakeshore that isnt lakeshore. its not incredibly close but its good. we sing and listen and pray and sing and sing. theres a lot of singing. tuesday nights at 9 we have small group study on the book of james, which i go to. both of the leaders are wonderful. one is the first person i met when i got here and the other talks like allyson zimmerman.

Writers in the Schools
--i probably wont get to do this till next semester but you and a partner go off campus to an elementary school (or sometimes middle) and take over a class and teach the nine year olds to love poetry. i am pretty much psyched about it.

seven clubs is enough, right? i think so. honors tea is tuesdays at 4 and church is sundays at 1030 and theres yoga mondays and wednesdays at 530 and oh dear, so much to do. college, college, college! its delightful.

Books I've Read Since I Got to College

(Including scholastically and... pleasurably?)

Completed--

• The Epic of Gilgamesh
• The Book of James
• Einstein's Dreams
• Brokeback Mountain (a short story, I know)
• Artemis Fowl Two
• Without You

Begun--

• Worlds Together, Worlds Apart (my history textbook)
• Wicked
• The Lovely Bones

To Be Read This Semester, for School--

• The Book of Genesis
• The Koran (selections)
• The Dialogues of Plato
• The Inferno
• Tao Te Ching
• The Prince
• The Norton Anthology (extensive selections)
• The Scarlet Letter
• Wieland

To Be Read This Semester, for Myself--

• [All those begun]
• Flowers for Algernon
• Brave New World
• Voyage of the Turtle
• Stardust
• Memoirs of a Geisha
• Alpha and Omega
• Peter Pan
• The Children of Hurin
• Unfinished Tales (if I can get to it)

Can it be done? Only time will tell. Come back next week for further developments.

From "Messages to Kristen Howell"

7 september 2007

i have the bbyd cast picture on my desk so i can look at you while im typing. is that weird? i dont know. but you know i secretly loved that show, so much. anyway as long as you dont turn into a psycho bitch or get distant ill be okay. dont be a stranger is what im saying. i miss you. you sound tired. you will be finished soon and have some good friends.

dorm-away-college is really wonderful. somehow i am surprised to find it has met all my expectations. you of course know how terrified i was in the days before i left, but the awkwardness, though still obviously present, is beginning to lose the fight. i am so happy here. and i read things like marthas livejournal and how shes so sad at college and i dont know how i got so lucky. most of my friends took their best choice of five or seven or ten schools and still they are not all happy? i applied to memphis and here and took evansville because they promised me money, not because i had thoroughly researched it. and yet here i am and it is so wonderful. i have said wonderful already but its true.

i have gotten pretty well involved with the student christian fellowship. they are nice. they sing. they smile and everyone is always cheerful and glad to see you. so i have gone to church both sundays, and i go to a thing called focus on fridays which is like singing and a lesson and some praying and more singing, and i really like it. and i joined a small group studying the book of james. i picked that one because the two leaders appeal to me. one is a girl named jennifer, who is the first person i met when i came here. she is a sophomore and i think we are friends. we laugh and theres not a lot of awkward pauses. the other is a girl named shelley from kentucky. shes little and has blonde curls and she talks like allyson zimmerman, who i know at lakeshore and who is also from kentucky.

i went to the first quidditch club meeting and i liked it but not as much as id hoped. they are just not classy about how they love harry potter. they love it because they love to wear silky robes and shout spells at each other and pretend to be wizards. i love to do those things too (except the silky robes because theyre unrealistic) but i also love to know the characters and soak up the story and learn from the themes. i love that any shortcomings are overcome by a wealth of wonder and that everything fits together. i know this sounds a little elitist but they just do not love harry potter as classily as i do. but ill give it a try.

in my classes almost everything is picturesque. in american lit, my teacher has this fluid voice like she has lived all of this literature, and she appreciates everything. the class puts our desks in a circle and a lot of people talk. in german, frau pleasant is young and wears green rectangle glasses and almost always hiking boots and a skirt or dress. today she had a blue dress with a blue jacket and chalk stains all over her. she seems the type to lose a pen in her hair, if you understand that characterization. she is so energetic and loves german and laughs and gestures hugely. world cultures is my least favorite class but i still like it. my professor refers to himself in the third person a lot and his quizzes are hard, but the material is still somewhat interesting. we're moving now from gilgamesh into genesis. my world history professor is scottish and has only been in america eight years. last class he gave us this extremely eloquently constructed explanation of the butterfly effect, showing the existence of israel to be a direct result of francis ferdinands driver turning left instead of right. i just eat that class up. copyediting is pretty much grammar for the first half so you know i am in my element. dr bone gives fantastic sentences as examples. there were several problems with the presidents speech. the sheepish dominatrix ruined my party.

that is most of my time spent active. i go and do something at least almost all days, but i have gotten some reading done and a lot of tetris. yesterday i read the book of james, brokeback mountain, and einsteins dreams, which i think is a pretty funny combination. today i read artemis fowl two because ive had it for like four years and thought i should get around to it sometime. i sleep enough. i eat in the dining hall about once a day.

tomorrow shannon and i are going to the gas station across the street which is closer than the grocery store to buy milk and rent driving lessons. we get along pretty well even though she snores and that makes me a little irritable at night. but she doesnt know, shes asleep.

tonight i talked to annebel on the phone for an incredible two hours and thirty-three minutes. that might be the longest telephone conversation ive ever had. we are going to read wicked together so we feel like we are not so separated. this weekend we will read 63 pages. on sunday night we'll talk about it and decide how much to read next week.

next weekend i am going on the fall getaway with scf, which is a whole day and night and the next morning on kentucky lake just doing fun things. swimming, tubing, sitting around, frisbee, cards, whatever. its only fifteen dollars, im sort of excited.

i think i have two friends. one is jennifer about whom i told you. she is so nice. everyone here is nice. today she had a bow in her ponytail at focus. she gave me a ride to minigolf last weekend and she was genuinely excited when i told her i had read the book of james. the other is kaitlin who is in my world cultures and copyediting classes. i think she likes grammar almost as much as i do. we laugh. i laugh a lot here. i realize this message is probably longer than you bargained for but i want to give you a good picture of how i am. and i am well. i am happy in class. i am happy to go to class. i have time to get my homework finished and still do things. theres free stuff to be had all the time, usually food.

i love you. call me sometime when you can and tell me everything. love, love, love. i miss you too.

sara.

If you love me (and I know you do)

i have all this exciting new contact information. very fun. for example, if you want to email me, you can still use my old email address, but ill also respond at ss412@evansville.edu. and once i figure out how to open my mailbox, you can send me both letters and packages at 501 s. weinbach ave., rm109, evansville, in 47714. finally, although i will eventually call you back if you call my cell, its reception on campus is horrendous and in my room nonexistent, so you should try out my dorm phone at (812)488-5201. if i dont answer, leave a message, because i dont know how to check the missed calls. if after that you cant get ahold of me, well then i probably hate you.

college is fantastic. it is about to storm.

Holy Smokes

my schedule is a work of art.

MWF
10-1050: Lit 241, Major American Writers I
11-1150: German 111, Elementary German
12-1250: World Cultures 110H, Ancient World Reform Honors

TTh
8-915: History 112, World History Since 1500
115-230: Writing 204, Copy Editing

so basically i get to sleep till 930 MWF and im through before one. TTh i have to get up early but its for history with macleod, the greatest professor in the department. plus hes scottish. writing 204 wont be much fun but itll be easy and 205 was full so ill take it next semester. and look at that huge break between history and writing. this was pretty much my ideal schedule, i didnt have to change anything. basically, i am very pleased. so, so pleased.

my dorm is fantastic. spacious. goooood. things are going well.

college

technically due to the hour i leave for college tomorrow. well guess what, i am afraid. so, so afraid, and i dont have the things i need to get over the fear. i dont have enough time to pack gradually or say goodbye gently, all my actions are vicious and quick like the summer was. i told annebel at its beginning that this was the growing up summer and it was. i spent so little time at home and i needed that separation to teach me that i could do it. more than school is keeping me from morgan and i am making desperate attempts to cling to the rest of my friends but they are dust in my hands and spreading out in the hot memphis wind all off to wherever it is they go. wherever it is i go. i am trying to pack but i cant take memphis with me and in the past days i have been more unstable than usual. i settled into the pretty rhythm of leaving and coming home over the summer but this is the big one and im off time again and my clapping cant find the beat. i want to touch everyone i know another time before i leave. i missed saying goodbye to martha and oh i regret it. how can i do all the things that must be done in so little time? i need human contact more often than usual, something to plant me into my roots and some way to bring the skin of home away with me. this whole damn thing would be highlighted in red if i were in ms douglas' class, and off to the side id scribble fig lang. so what? that woman wont be messing with my life anymore. now i am jolting my own. i had a little panic attack a day or two ago and i hoped i had gotten it out of my system but im still fidgety, teary, quick tempered, and desperate to hold. any things, jake, people, myself, pillows, books, my breath, still. i crave affection. god, please, someone be near me. stay close to me.

nights like these

i feel like giving up

nights like these

i dont seem to count for much

beer tastes like blood

my mouth is numb

i cant make the words i need to say

It is done.

Assignment Book

whats finished is highlighted.

as of wednesday night/thursday morning:























as of monday night:























as of saturday night:

a few things, since its been a while

--i spent five weeks at governors school and it was so good. i cant even tell you. i have new friends, mary alice, elizabeth, rachael, meredith, ann tyler, sarah beth, alex, heidi, jordan, everyone. my religious studies teacher is out of his mind. i got As. i played kind of a lot of tetris. i love everyone.

--i went with kristen to see nathans band play at the new daisy. they were really good. tommy scudders band played too and their violinist blows my mind.

--i slammed my finger in hatties car door last night going to midnight harry potter. it throbbed like hell and it still hurts. but harry potter was amazing. i mean seriously. i thought the fourth was good but this was a miracle. luna and bellatrix were perfect. i want neville to kill her.

--my english 1010 online has four weeks to go. its coming along with really no problem. the mcs policy, however, has decided i need 1010 and 1020 to make up for senior english, so yesterday i started 1020. it is a real live class 530-730 MTWR. it is boring and i will not like it, but it is only a month long. i have to keep saying, next summer ill be free, next summer ill be free.

--i have given up several things for the month of july, or more accurately july7-august7. i am sort of tired of feeling gross all the time.

--today i went to the dentist and for the first time they mentioned the tooth thats been wrong since i can remember, and if we can afford it we will get it fixed. i know its an aesthetic issue but it has bothered me forever and i want my teeth right.

--i have until next friday to reread the fifth and sixth books. i was thinking of trying to do them all but with two classes theres just not time if i want to see anyone between now and then.

--everyone please come home soon. too many are out of town.

i am home. i am tired. i have been awake since approximately eight o clock yesterday morning. i have six hours of college credit and about eight or nine new friends.

write please

Sara Stephens
Governor's School for the Humanities
G218R Browning Hall
The University of Tennessee at Martin
Martin, TN 38238

(this is really the right address now. it was wrong before but not anymore.)

hows it going? hows it gonna go?

[the following is a jumble.]

im really glad this isnt spring break because i would feel jipped. this week has jetblasted on by. i dont even know what all ive done. i just got back from about 25 hours at lauren huddlestons house. we watched at least six movies i think. im listening to a lot of damien rice and modest mouse, an unlikely combination but that is how my summer is going, hot and fast and sweet and electified! i bought a dress and i need to cash my government money so i can get more more more before sunday. so little time! yesterday i got a voicemail from troy asking me to counsel at the shore next week. today i have to call and tell him i cant because i have to go to governors school. i know i will love it there but im afraid i will miss out on counseling because of it. there are still three more chances but what if thats not enough? who knows. morgan left and we have six and a half weeks apart, our longest separation since we were reunited in sixth grade.

the summer will be exactly what it needs to be. everything everywhere all the time all at once, and thats what i want. im not worrying, just thinking. planning, looking forward, looking up and around. i need to start packing, its a long trip.

I NEVER HAVE TO GO BACK TO HIGH SCHOOL EVER AGAIN. NOT EVER.

for posterity

saturday was prom. no one really knew exactly what we were doing all afternoon until morgan made some executive decisions and everything worked out. at five-ish andy and annebel and cameron came over for look-pretty-for-mommy pictures, then we went and picked up michael and then morgan, whose dress was a huge puffy white wedding dress that was amazing. we all met eileen and will, martha and ryan, and bekka and newman at pete n sams in a party of 12 and ate and then everyone but eileen and will got to prom earlier than we should have probably, at about 840 and it started at 8. annebel looked so beautiful. prom was as great as i hoped even though there was no punch. we had a booty circle and danced on the chairs and stayed mainly on the edges of the too-small dance floor. other than my party i saw mainly kristen, hattie and preston, nathan and jesse, and eric some. the highlight, however, came only shortly before the end of prom, when i danced with chi zhang to knuck if you buck. oh what a time! we were the last people to leave and the lady cleaning up said "come on, partys over."

we again didnt know what we were going to do but we decided to go to ryans dads in harbor town. i took annebel and cameron home and met the rest at marthas and off we went over the high bridge and around the corner. we stayed up late and ryan made eggs and we all mostly fell asleep during the life aquatic, about 330.

at 8 ryan was up already because i guess he hates us all, and we got up except for bekka and took a morning walk most of the way to the other end of harbor town and back and i didnt wear shoes. when we got back we went by the pool and stuck our feet in. ryan and martha and michael swam for real but it was too cold for me. bekka joined us and newman left and we went to the arcade for breakfast/lunch. eileen and will joined us. after eating we crossed the street and tried on silly things at american apparel. then we dispersed, and that was prom.

"i regret to announce, this is the end."

today was the last day for the seniors who dont have to take exams. so i wonder who did i see today i will never see again? is this ridiculous? or who will i see at prom and then never again? who will i see next friday and then never again? there are 2400 people at my school and four or five hundred of them are running off to disappear just like me. who will be forgotten in a year or ten? who will forget me?

i want my friends to remember me but im afraid they wont. no matter how close i am to them now will i look behind me and see we were friends for only a year? will they? of the seven of us, five have been friends since middle school, and two we just recently picked up but i love them. i dont want to be a footnote in marthas and ryans memories in a decade. the former i knew only in passing before this year, the latter spoke to me only once before this year, but we have spent the whole year in plays together. both of them i know every day.

will we keep in touch, is it true? will you all be my friends from high school i see sometimes at holidays? will i send you cards at christmas or will we be together? the concept of college is beautiful and necessary but once jonathan larson said, "what binds a fabric together, when the raging shifting winds of change keep ripping away?" and there you have it. right now we are all in love with each other or at least i am in love with all of you. i am in love with at least the six rest of you and at least four or five more and when we go away where will we go? how many of us will settle in little memphis and how many need to get out and stay out? i dont want to recognize the possibility that we will not all always be exactly like we are, but we wont be.

please, my friends, my darlings, keep loving me when i am gone. please if you love me now let there be a little place for me always. i cannot breathe without you and i need to know you remember me. i know that the greatest impact i will make on my high school will be leaving it. but what impact have i made on my friends? will i be mentioned by name in your memoirs? will you be in mine? when josh sigler is graduating, when he is writing his high school days at the end of them, will i be in the letter? i dont know.

i want to make a list: remember this from high school. i want to make a list but i dont want to have to make a list. i just want to remember. but i am so afraid i wont, so here is the list.

remember this from high school:

my friends, my very best friends, the ones i will always love, i am in love with them all and they are not in order: morgan, eileen, bekka, ryan, newman, martha, hattie, kristen, mercer, annebel. my friends, the ones who got me by: lilla, josh, chris, lena, sean, lane, huddleston. the friends i did not have: amelia and mouse, who left me too early and against their will. how i spent my time: novus, the ergolytes, moved, trezevant manor my first job, kelly green, bang bang youre dead. the teachers i loved: ms kitts, mr munter, ms lafon, herr sturgis, mr cartwright, mr stephenson. the teachers i hated: mr smith, ms douglas, ms haughton, mr whitehead, ms sugarmon. the places i went: lakeshore, florida, the rope swing, the river, mpc, harbor town, otherlands. the horrible things: exams, dialectical journals, julius caesar, eileens 16th birthday party, losing at state, losing amelia. everything else. dance parties, wrestling, the summer of amelia, choir, michael ingersoll, the camry, the volvo, sadness mixes, ROME and ROAM, early mornings, birthdays, the warm air and the grass, matt birdsong, the spaniards, late nights. watching americas next top model or having pillow fights at bbyd rehearsal instead of rehearsing. learning math from ryan before kelly green rehearsal. everything about who is kelly green. sunburn, latin convention, thespian conference, the ani difranco concert. prom. popcorn and ovaltine. everyone i know.

this is it. the end. the finish. the destination. the next step toward independence, the next step toward being alone. my friends, please, if you love me now, remember me later. please, please, please remember me.

"unprecedented president"

is what i named my teddy roosevelt essay on the APUS exam, which was about 30% information and 70% "TR IS SO GREAT" because come on, he so is.

on friday i took the biggest test ever and when it was over whizzed on out of that building like a cat on ice, whatever that means. i took morgan and we whizzed on home for what else but popcorn and lost. i took her home to get a haircut but wouldnt you know it picked her up again that night and we went with brett to cks. i had a waffle i probably didnt need but man it was good. mfox and suzi were there and when we left we had to stop by my house to get an insurance card but ended up staying and watching harry potter and blood drips on newsies square. i took brett home and morgan and i went to sleep in my room.

she woke up before me but i got up too and we watched more lost and i took her home and took a walk and had annebel over for probably the second-to-last precal attack ever. we got very very frustrated and no one was in the house and annebel said "we have to get out of here" so we got in the car and drove and drove. we went to the rhodes part of midtown and drove past some friends houses. ryan was on his porch and i waved. we went to harbor town which is over a steep bridge and i never even knew it was there. there is a park by the river but hardly anyone was there, and all the houses are big and bright and lovely. we found a frisbee but we have no skill with it. when we left we had to skip otherlands to get home for dinner and more math. i guess we got some done. i took her home at ten and went to sleep early because i was tired.

this morning i woke up at eight hurting all over and went into the bathroom and stayed there. then i had breakfast and was still hurting all over so i took some pills and went to get gas and mail some letters and get my mother presents. i got her the golden compass and a rufus wainwright cd and drew got her chocolate and coffee. after lunch mom and i went prom dress shopping. we went to oak court and searched dillards, macys, charlotte russe, banana republic, and a store i dont know, and we found nothing, so we went to flashback, garbos (which was closed), and the place that used to be moondance, and found nothing, so we went out to wolfchase and went to its macys and dillards and found nothing, and went to jc penneys and found a lot. so i got a dress, and i like it, but it needs to be hemmed.

now i am home and i had a lot of cereal and i yelled at annebel on the phone because i guess now that calculus is my only source of stress it sort of explodes when i get into it.

ten days left ever.

buble

Dragonfly out in the sun, you know what I mean
Butterflies all having fun, you know what I mean
Sleep in peace when the day is done
And this old world is a new world
And a bold world, for me

Stars when you shine, you know how I feel
Scent of the pine, you know how I feel
Yeah freedom is mine, and I know how I feel
It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life
For me

And I'm feeling--
good!

influential person essay, for ms wexler

As humans we are sometimes told that we are products of our surroundings, infinitely influenced by the environments in which we go about our little lives. Well, my surroundings are and have always been Morgan, so it must be that I am a product of her. When we met we were two years old, and when we part we will be two hundred. Living always within the reach of her sweet arm, I have no choice—and want nothing more—than to be shaped by her presence.

I take pride in, and admit shamelessly, my decidedly upstanding morals. Whatever they tell their parents or imply to their teachers, I know without doubt that most high school students at all levels are involved in drugs or alcohol or both; I am not one of them. I have grown up watching Morgan, who knows exactly the difference between having a glass of wine at dinner and not remembering what you did last weekend, and I have followed her. In the first four months of her life, before I was born, she must have learned all the wisdom on the earth and grown in mental leaps that take others decades to navigate. She and I don’t need any chemicals in us to have a good time; we have each other and plenty of hours of anything at all.

Because Morgan will hold my hands, I have survived high school. In the roughest weeks of teeth grinding and dark circles, she is awake too, and in the shadows of early morning, every step she can still take, I can still take. Every hour she can muddle through, I can muddle through. We are so bound that no boy scout could unlock our knots, just as no chiseled diamond could chip us away. We are earth and water. If she dies, I die.

Morgan exceeds me in all things except my love for her. I feel like a poet except when I read her perfect prose. I feel like an actor except when I watch her against the black background of a stage. She has led me into both of these passions, and in both she has risen above, but still I hang on; she will not let me fall, I am small but not left behind, I am complete and only myself or any self at all in the grasp of her tiny hand.

in 87 hours i will be taking the apus history exam. in 90 hours it will be over.

this week is so so so so so so so so bad. i know it. next week though. oh man. awesome.

may day

this is a list of foods that taste good but make me feel horrible after i eat them. i will not be eating them in the month of may. this is a commitment i dont know if i can keep. but i want to feel better.

bagels
ice cream
chips
muffins
pasta
fried foods of all kinds
rice

"bang bang i wish you were all dead"

is probably what the judges put on our comment sheets at state. we got fifth place. out of five. lauren said "we're not here to win, we're here to do a good job." but since we got last i guess we didnt do that either.

but its done.
over.
forever.

and i am not relieved.

dance party was last night which was nice for mollifying the melancholy. we boogied pretty hard and had a little fight and in the morning lounged on blankets in the yard and fought with sticks and rolled around on scooters and skateboards.

i was so tired of bbyd but now its over i really dont know what to do with myself. i mean, its been five months. i mean, i am really, really sad.

wish i had a boy to kiss me better and wrap me all up in limbs. wanna hold my breath in his neck and close my eyes and fall down and feel safe.

personal statement one, for ms wexler

When I am tired and busy for weeks and weeks I dream over and over about my teeth falling out. The internet says that that indicates a sense of powerlessness, but I know it indicates a certain type of fear, the creeping kind that always gets at me when there are not enough hours in the day and I feel like I’m not getting anything accomplished. I always wake up shaking with my hands clawing at my mouth.

I hate when I try to say something beautiful and it just comes out as facts. I wish everything I said fell out like water on rocks and was beautiful but usually it isn’t.

After grad school I want to build wells in Africa for a year, then spend some time teaching kids in Namibia, then marry a man like Anatole and move back to America to teach college in Arizona or New Mexico until I’m old and deaf. If I’m successful, my campaigns for saving Africans and promoting proper grammar will outlive me.

In the summer of 2005, I got up at six in the morning to protest “Love in Action”—a program that tries to convert (mostly unwilling) gay teenagers to heterosexuality—because I know that God loves everyone.

My middle school principal said no when I tried to skip the eighth grade, but now that I am skipping the twelfth grade he is saying yes. If he had said no again I would have done it anyway because I hate high school and I don’t need it anymore. College is what I need now and I know that beyond any doubt. My friends pout and ask me why I’m leaving them, and I say, “because I have to.”

When I get letters from universities telling me about how exciting it must be for me to be beginning to think about college, I laugh. I have been thinking about college since the fourth grade and actively searching since seventh.

No one will ever love me because I have a huge head. That’s probably not true.

I can’t strike a match.

My fingernails are soft. I know the sign language for “secretary.” I taught myself how to make an omelette. Before I die, I want to play Little Red Riding Hood in Into the Woods. I can’t dance but I do anyway. I love yellow roses.

I’m trying to define myself for you, College, because I want you to know what I’m here for. I’m here to study creative writing because the only thing that I know I will always love is words. I’m here to study history so I don’t repeat the mistakes of my ancestors. I’m here to learn every language I can because the only way I can be happy is if I go everywhere.

I am here because every time a teacher tells me I’m being prepared for the real world, I know that either I’m already prepared, or I’m already there.

gifts

in no particular order...

college gave me 2 more k.
mr brown gave me his approval.
eileens mom gave me a pretty stellar recommendation.
amelia gave me hope for humanity (ie, to see her this summer)
ms wexler gave me a useless project.
my mom gave me a hint that could mean she is buying me a car.

letters

-i sent beth ryan an email letter asking her to write me a recommendation to counsel.
-i sent eileens mom an email letter telling her all the great things about myself so she'll write me a good recommendation to counsel.
-i got a big hefty letter from UE asking me to sign up for a meal plan and a dorm and summer orientation and to get a physical.
-i sealed the letter to UE with my housing application and meal plan form in it and will mail it tomorrow.
-i sealed the letter to UE with my summer orientation registration in it and will mail it tomorrow.
-i found the letter i tried to send lakeshore with my counselor application in it muddy on the ground in my yard because the storm knocked it off the mailbox before the postman came.
-i completed the counselor application letter again and glued in my pastors muddy signature with an explanation and took it to the post office today.

on a different note, i need to call danielle, lora jean gowan, steve may, and ray chandler, and convince them that i am morally sound and well-rounded and responsible enough to counsel their camps. i also need to do three precal homeworks and correct my test, tell mr stephe whether truman was a war criminal, and take a shower.

six more weeks and then some responsibilities ill enjoy.
ideal summer schedule (* = confirmed):
may27-june2: counsel treehouse 1
june3-july6: governors school*
july8-july14: counsel jr high 2
july15-july21: counsel jr high music/drama
july22-july28: sr high treehouse*
july29-august4: counsel elementary 4
august15-august21: florida*
august23: COLLEGE*

i just got sent the letter i wrote myself at lakeshore last summer. it couldnt have come at a better time.

feet

today i got an envelope from evansville. is was very big. inside was a purple folder. inside that were several letters and documents, the first of which started with "congratulations!" and the second of which also started with "congratulations" but then went on to eventually say "academic scholarship worth $12,000.00 per year."

i have submitted my nonrefundable admission deposit, securing my place in the university of evansville freshman class.

this is for real.
this is confirmed.
this is big.

inches

evansville has received my application.

one tiny step closer.
every inch counts.

district/birthday/etc

speedweekend because i need to sleep

friday:
bbyd went to district
cast minus nathan and jenee plus annebel went to mpc
then the rope swing in the dark
then the spanish party
kristen and annebel came over to watch diego movies
sleep.

saturday:
they woke me up too early
they left
i cleaned my room
we won district
im in the top ten actors at district and so is most of the cast
ryan is number one (surprise)
i cleaned my room more
party city closes at 6 on saturdays
had my party and it was great
hattie martha newman and ryan stayed till two
morgan bekka and kristy spent the night
went to sleep.

sunday:
they woke me up too early
kristy and bekka left
morgan and i watched lost
she left
i tried to do my dbq (failed)
went to 300 with hattie
tried to do my dbq (failed)
went to the last ROME party
tried to do my dbq (failed)

going to bed now ill do it in the morning.

"Everything's Going So Well!"

today my mother had a meeting scheduled with mr brown, but no one told him about it, so when she got there he was gone. so instead, ms sowell came and took my mom to the 11th grade office and she met with sowell and ms kirkwood. now ms kirkwood i think is a pretty friendly lady. at any rate she is fond of me and hugged me when i got my psat score. not only that, but she hugged my mother at the end of their meeting and from that you can see where this is going.

my mother talked to them about what i am going to do and guess who graduated when she was sixteen? thats right, ms kirkwood. she said "when i was in school this wasnt an issue at all! i dont know why anyone as gifted as her would want to spend another year in high school." she gave my mother the number of the woman at the board to determine if my gov school english would be able to count, but ms kirkwood said probably that wouldnt be a problem.

it is fairly likely that ms sowell will be able to sign off all this stuff for me and that we wont have to talk to mr brown at all, thank god.

it is fairly likely that the application to the university of evansville which i will give to ms kirkwood tomorrow for completion will end up in the hands of the dean of admissions who will proceed to admit me there for the 2007-2008 school year and by the 2008-2009 school year at the latest offer me full tuition for national merit. thank you. thank you.

thank you. thank you, thank you thankyouthankyou.

finally everything is coming together. i have my ducks in a row. o please, please let this happen.

spring break 07

no one probably cares what i did over spring break but i am going to tell you anyway and if you choose to read it then good for you.

on friday i went to lunch with bekka, newman, morgan, and neimeyer. it was a little bit of a mess but eventually we all got to los compadres and had a good time. i had to go because i was unexpectedly going out of town.

friday afternoon i left with lauren reed and ms nancy for pangburn, arkansas, population 654, to relax for a few days. we played scrabble and spades and team scrabble and uno and ate ice cream and went fishing and sat in the sun. the fishing was terrifying; i always thought lauren was torturing the fish because she wouldnt hurry enough getting the hooks out of their mouths. if i had to fish for survival i dont know if i could do it. but in general it was nice and very refreshing to not have anything i really had to do for a few days. i came home on monday.

on tuesday, i think, i drove around a lot with kristen and annebel and then they came home with me and eventually lauren huddleston came over and i made omelettes (because that morning i asked morgan what was in an omelette and she said "milk, i think" and so i just figured it out.) we sort of made crafts and talked about the potluck the next day and were silly and good. at some point they went home.

wednesday was my birthday. i woke up and went to morgans and she gave me smore pies and then went to the scribbler meeting. i snuck into her house for a nap and when she got back we went to mpc and then charlotte russe and then back to her house where we watched part of the two towers and made two types of chicken for the primavera potluck and headed to the neimeyer house. i got a journal from eileen and flowers from martha and ryan and a lot of warm faces and good food. we all decided to be models and took lots and lots of pictures. when it was over morgan spent the night.

in the morning we watched lost and i took her home. when my mother got off work she took me out for presents: troy, the prestige, another dress, green converses with starry starry laces.

friday i got up and packed and my mother took me and annebel to evansville indiana and the university of evansville. i cannot say how good it was. i went back on bread and chocolate for 24 hours because i am allowed to do that three times during lent. the drive was complicated but not too long (five hours) and when we got there we snuck around for a while on campus without announcing ourselves. we got in through the back of the theatre and were on the stage when the stage manager came in and did not ask us to leave. instead she invited us to come watch rehearsal for the comedy of errors, so we went to eat and then came back for shakespeare. they were really, really good. molly holmes, assistant stage manager, introduced herself to us and talked to us about the school and harlaxton and the theatre and everything for a good while and gave me her email address for questions, and another girl gave us chocolate altoids. when we left we went and watched 300 on the imax and then came back to the hotel to sleep.

the next morning was the open house, which we expected to be very contrived and not very real but it was only a little contrived. we met the german professor, the chair of the english dept, the chair of the history dept, the theatre teacher, the dean of admissions, and everyone was just nice. the campus is reasonably small but not tiny and the city is like a smaller, cleaner, more german memphis, even with a river on the west end.

my mother had a meeting with admissions people and they said they are much more generous with scholarships for freshman than transfer students.
the dean of admissions said i should not have a problem getting in for 2007.
the scholarship booklet said national merit finalists get full tuition and semifinalists get 75% tuition.

i started my application on the drive home.

mr brown you will not stop me from getting out of white station and you will not stop me from getting my national merit. that is the key.

kristen and i are going to thirty-five states and no one else can come. sorry.

10,225 miles.
166.1 hours of driving.

(there are 168 hours in a week.)

important things that need to happen

[X] get accepted to the u of m evansville
[X] send the u of m evansville my stuff
[X] get money from the u of m evansville ($12k!)
[X] send gov school my stuff
[X] have a meeting with mr brown
[X] find out what i have to do this summer
[X] get recommendations to counsel
[X] not eat bread or chocolate (complete! success!)
[X] sign up for senior high wilderness
[X] sign up for writers retreat

ROAM Party

on friday it was eileens birthday. at 215 school ended and the ROAM party technically began. there was supposed to be no driving at all. that didnt happen. but there was a long period of not driving.

eileen, morgan, ryan, martha, newman, bekka, will gratz, wills roommate jordan, and i stood outside school for a while sort of trying to plan but came up with nothing. so eileen and will and jordan started walking down poplar, newman went to fullfill some obligation, martha and ryan dispersed, and bekka and morgan and i went to my house. i got some clothes and better walking shoes on and switched to a purse with a shoulder strap. then we went to morgans and she got ready, then to bekkas and she got ready. we called eileen who then informed us that, no, she was not going to come to the scribbler coffee house, but she and her entourage would meet us there when it was over. we thought about taking my car home and walking to school from there, but there wasnt quite enough time.

we headed toward school and when we were passing the black gate we decided to get some backyard burger, even though we werent exactly sure where it was. we found it though, and then went to school for scribbler. when i got up to the corner theatre i remembered i was supposed to give annebel a ride (i am so sorry annebel) so i rushed out and got her and came back. plenty of people were there, which was good. eileen and company did show up but spent the whole time in the art room. when it was over i saw annebel off and morgan, ryan, martha, and i hid our heads in our coats and did nothing at all in the east parking lot. nope, nothing at all. nothing.

i took morgan and ryan took martha to leave our cars at eudora where eileen, will, jordan, and bekka were, and we abandoned wheeled forms of transportation for a while. we set out at about 8 or 830 down poplar. we went to high point coffee and ryan was inside and bekka was outside and they had a battle through their reflections. then we walked to the oak court but on the way stopped at some particularly firm bushes. at oak court newman met us and everyone fought with these big plastic yellow covers they put over the concrete poles that show you where the driveways are. we tried to do some of the workshop exercises from good time speech but it didnt work out so well. from the mall we crossed to the botanic gardens and wandered around in a field for a while and made a few puns and started walking down southern, then in a ditch at overton(?) park, then down into that neighborhood by there toward andy harpers house. on the way we encountered a funny bridge in the making or the breaking, and we went into elokins house for a little while talking very quietly because there was a sleeping baby. harper lives about five houses down from there and we met him at his porch and asked if he could come with us but he couldnt, which was expected. we all left him and his friend and i think decided to take the bus back to morgans. we stopped at a mcdonalds for a while whereupon we decided it was really not that far to perkins, and therefore we should go. so we walked and walked up highland to perkins, but bekka and newman kept going and went all the way back to eudora to get his car. when they came back he drove me, ryan, eileen, and will to eudora to get our cars and then we all drove back to perkins to pick up the rest of everybody. eileen and company went together but the rest of us shook it up. martha came with me, bekka with ryan, morgan with newman, and we all went to morgans house at about 130 in the morning.

after a little while there, eileen and company went to sleep, and the rest of us "made skin so normal" and very slowly got very tired, conked out on the floor at about 530 or 6AM even though there were plenty of beds, which we moved into after a little while. we all got up at maybe 10, and martha devised a very complex plan to not go to the scribbler meeting, so she and ryan went to leave a key out for daniel williford and then met me, morgan, bekka, and newman at gibsons. (eileen, will, and jordan went to buns on the run.) i couldnt have any donuts because donuts are bread, so we drove all to marthas house and ryan made lots of eggs. we watched this very absurd documentary about a man who taught shakespeare to fifth grade mostly-asians, and im pretty sure he was the devil himself. "does anyone in your family have a problem with alcohol? what about a drug problem? okay, thats okay, its okay to have problems, we all have problems, i have problems. SOLVE THEM."

martha (and ryan too?) had to do english so after we played with her dogs we left back to morgans. newman had to go fullfill an obligation but bekka and morgan and i lounged around and ate popcorn and pecans and various things, and then we watched once more with feeling, and then the beginning of the last unicorn. mercer called and reminded me of the english project id been putting off all weekend and we decided we could get started without tabatha.

at about 630 i took bekka home who was feeling a little sick, and i went to mercers. we got started on english and ate moroccan chicken, which was pretty delicious, did a little more english and i got a little hysterical with the lack of sleep. we ate ice cream and did a little more english and went to bed far later than i preferred.

too early in the morning we had eggs and ice cream for breakfast, watched the beginning of the producers, and worked pretty steadily on english for a few hours. we basically finished other than typing it up. we did the whole thing without tabatha and i dont think anyone has a problem with that. i came home at maybe 2oclock and watched some of air force one with my brother and then retired to my chambers and here i am. i hope maybe i can hit up youth group tonight. we'll see.

The One-Act That Wouldn't Die

ladies and gentlemen,

bang bang youre dead is going to district in three weeks. thats right! its not over.

big and little

-my mother has a new big money job
-bang bang youre dead went so well (and might go to district? what?)
-i got a 31 on my ACT
-the u of m and the state of tennessee now have no choice but to give me all kinds of money
-its pushing nearer and nearer to my birthday
-its pushing nearer and nearer to writers retreat

the big things in my life are going so well. and some little things too, like discovering charlotte russe dresses for less than my life savings, and having herr strugis say i was a trooper. some of the little things are not so good, like my history test and my english project.

i wish i would get my acceptance from the u of m so i could be sure. im also kind of looking forward to the "heres 7500 dollars" letter. now i can finally get a meeting with herr brune to make him sign a form that says i can go to college. you are not stopping me this time mr brown.

need to study whyyyyyy?

weathers warming up
less than a month till spring

helpless doorknobs

was really great. mighty good show, all. really. and the night of improv contained various priceless moments as well, eg, "coach morgan no!" i took a few pictures and kind of a lot of video on annebels camera so hopefully i can get some access to those soon.

YOU GUYS
I DONT THINK YOU UNDERSTAND
BANG BANG YOURE DEAD
IS TOMORROW
WE WILL BE PERFORMING IT
IN TWENTY ONE HOURS
AND THAT IS NOT A LONG TIME

okay. freakout over.
kind of.

affirmation

• my friends are growing up.
• it is okay that my friends are growing up.
• i am growing up.
• it is okay that i am growing up.
• school is hard.
• but it will end soon.
• its all nice on ice all right.

(in other news, i have not heard from governors school since they sent me my acceptance. when should they be mailing me about anything?)

[EDIT wednesday morning: i got a big letter from them yesterday with class preference etc etc. good good.]

looking up

valentines day is dumb.

but my english project is done and i get to go have chocolate with annebel tonight. i switched to the new blogger and now i have a picture of the most beautiful oh oh oh.

my mother just got a new job

that-will-pay-probably-about-$13k-more-a-year-than-she-gets-now.

jaqueline was being such a big girl with her cup of tea looking out of the window

today was bad, o so bad. i woke up tireder (?) than usual and did my best to stay home but my mother said i had been out late the night before so i had no reason to stay home, which was true. the precal test was a disaster. the whole class cheated off each other but no one knew how to do it so it didnt help. in english we worked on writing our own APMC questions, which consisted mostly of amanda hamilton and i pulling out our hair and making frustrated noises. in latin i came the closest i have yet come to falling asleep in class. in APUS we had a pop-DBQ. jesus, i thought pop-essays were bad but this was a mess. economics was the most boring its been yet. i came home and sat at the television till five thirty and soon i have to do all those things i have to do.

but still, the weekend was good. i got up early saturday and took the ACT and had lunch with spencer, then for a while sat around, but i talked to bekka and we decided to rent angels in america. we have been trying to watch it for weeks. i told her we should drop by lenas party for a little bit and we did, but it was more fun than i expected. eileen newman martha and ryan were there and also eric and we ended up staying till about quarter to midnight, so we couldnt go to black lodge. thwarted again!

bekka spent the night (with no complaint from her parents!) and in the morning we had breakfast and she left and annebel came to use my computer. i found all my saddest clothes and took the dirt from my yard and put it all over me and darkened my eyes and wrapped my poorest looking baby doll up in a pillowcase and when annebel left i went to ryans house for the rome party with no shoes on. guest list: martha ryan newman bekka l-hudd k-ho hairston and michael. hobbit hobbit. hairston was rich and kristen was her slave. bekka and newman were whores. ryan was an animal tamer. i was poor and dirty. we watched two episodes of rome and kristen hairston and lauren left pretty soon. there was a lot of very good food. michael went home. martha gave us valentines candy (thank you). we went upstairs to the second living room and watched the man kill the gladiators and watched the senate kill caesar and watched the woman kill herself. martha went home and newman bekka and i kept saying we should leave and get out of the masson familys hair but we stayed until maybe 1030. i got home fully ready to be up into the wee hours doing homework but i just didnt. i was supposed to read kite runner and do two history homeworks and three precal homeworks but i didnt do any of those things. i went to sleep in a heap but it was a very good day.

proof that im a copy cat

eileen "missed" class on monday because of history.
i "missed" class on tuesday because of history.

eileen got a macbook.
i am getting a macbook.

eileen made a tent.
i made a tent.

sorry buddy. ill try to develop some original thought : )

(that smiley seems really out of place, but im gonna leave it. )

someone pull a miracle on me please

i just want to have some feeling that there is something waiting for me, you know?

WHAT BINDS A FABRIC TOGETHER WHEN THE RAGING SHIFTING WINDS OF CHANGE KEEP RIPPING AWAY?

my fingernails are as dirty as my hair and id love to go take a shower but i would feel guilty for putting off my work any longer, so naturally i put off my work by wasting away on this machine. i have this economics project. i have this history test. im supposed to read the bible or something for english. i dont know what my latin homework is and i dont intend to find out because either way i wont do it because why bother when i have a 101 average? what really matters is studying history and finishing econ, but really those things dont matter at all. theres really nothing to say that i havent said before other than why the hell dont i skip school? because i never have, thats the answer, and its a bad answer. what are the repercussions? nothing in german, very little in precal, ms wexler will love me a little less because every time you are absent she loves you a little less, nothing in latin, ill make up the history test, but in econ the project must be in or i get a zero. i mean, i could drop it off. where do you go when you skip school? the zoo is free tomorrow. hah! its too cold. im too chicken.

night time

i had a horrible dream, the night before last.

i dreamed i left town in an old van with three boys for a two week road trip, and i didnt tell my mother. i called her when we were already gone and left a message on her cell phone, "mom ill be home in two weeks," and that was all. on the road the three boys and i stopped at a hundred gas stations and never got anywhere, but we spent all our money buying useless things out of the little gas station stores. but the trip didnt take two weeks. it took five months, and when we were coming back finally it was just me and i was in my car. on the way home i stopped at a stop sign and saw my mother pass me in her car. i knew it was my mother but it was really hattie. she looked at me so scared and astonished. i realized suddenly she thought i was dead. she looked at me like i was a ghost, and i just kept driving.

it was so, so bad.

Final Decision:

YES.

I'm doing it.

hey, college. surprise.

okay, so. i really really like william and mary. like, a lot. alumni? thomas jefferson and jon stewart. and st johns is... not so much. it just doesnt have what i need. so, slightly adjusted top seven, alphabetically:

columbia college chicago (chicago IL)
university of evansville (evansville IN)
evergreen state college (olympia WA)
kenyon college (gambier OH)
macalester college (st paul MN)
reed college (portland OR)
college of william and mary (williamsburg VA)

g-willllllllllllll

zxdctfvygbuhnijm,rbmoytgibkrcfyhgvyutfvhbnjwrqtuhuoinfy i just asked george williford to prom. in front of hattie kristen kristy chris jesse andy michael.

me: dont you need a jacket or something? its january.
him: not really, i--
me: willyougotopromwithme?
him: --what? when even is prom?
me: i have no idea.
him: well okay. why not.

lifelifelifelifelifelife

basically i havent been home.

on the third at 4 i went to dreamgirls with annebel. it was so good. then i went straight to mercers late new years party by way of ikes for sparkling cider. we played charades and both teams put derek as a category. ridiculous. i spent the night up till 630 talking to lilla and got up at 10 on the fourth to rub my eyes and drink orange juice before bbyd rehearsal at eleven. it ended at "five," which means it ended at like two and we watched americas next top model for a while and then i took kristen home and had my first experience with hydroplaning [badbadbad]. i was home for about an hour when eileen called and said lets do something, so i picked her up and we went to otherlands. the french soda, o so good. everyone there always thinks it has perrier in it but it doesnt. then we got in the car and dorve around for a while, stopping at the idlewild playground and black lodge and ending up at morgans. brett was there and morgan and i in my car followed brett and eileen in his car to this place in south memphis to watch trains, but they didnt come. i didnt know where i was and it was discomforting so morgan and i left to go find our way back to her house. we got lost and spent ten minutes driving on lamar, but when we saw an inn and an exit we turned around and a car honked at me. we followed "brooks museum -->" signs to end up at liberty land and get back on union and went to morgans. i had a ridiculous salt craving and we talked about white station and watched roswell and passed out around 330. eileen and i (and everyone i guess) got up at ten again on the fifth [today], i took her home to do something and went home for nine minutes to stick my head under the shower and brush my teeth and all that, then went to bbyd rehearsal again, from which i just got home. now its now and im home but at about sixish im meeting the phive-n-phriends at the paradiso to probably go to dinner because larn is in town.

most of my exploits this week have been short of what youd call adventure, but they were all exciting and worth the time. everything i do should be worth the time. i am feelin good.

new years eve

had a party. it was gooooood.

hark! how the bells

today christmas was very good. no surprises. i asked for a digital camera, the second season of lost, something that would play my ipod in the car, and a ymca membership, and i got a digital camera, the second season of lost, something that will play my ipod in the car, a ymca membership, and a comforter to go in my duvet cover, plus candy. also, drew gave me harold and kumar and my grandmother came over for christmas for the first time in a lot of years that she has felt well enough to come. she gave me sixty dollars, which means that i can go to the bluff city ball on new years eve if anyone wants to go? i probably wont, but its nice to dream.

i like christmas a bunch.

is anyone having a new years eve party i can go to, or should i just plan one myself?

and im free! like the wind! like im gonna live forever!

yesterday was the last day of school. yesterday was the last day of school! yesterday morning i made Ultimate Sadness because i wanted to listen to hallelujah during exams, and i did. ms wexler never even suspected. on the way to class at 7.29 i saw everyone i know almost late too. i found out that my first love, chesley, goes to white station. he had a rat tail in kindergarten and he liked morgan and i was so jealous! he doesnt look the same. in government i took the exam very fast to get that shit over with, then i read harry potter five, the best one, for a while, then the class watched hercules, then the bell rang and it was over. in the parking lot michael neimeyer and i traded one earphone with each other and listened to huun-huur-tu and eye of the tiger at the same time. it was perfect.

bekka came home with me and we decided to bring back the meat pies for the holiday party, so we spent hours with loud music and frantic baking and piled the pies and some muffins and some gingerbread-man-shaped muffins into a big basket. i stuck my head under the shower and curled my hair and it was brilliant! and we headed off.

the neimeyer house is huge, first off, and i drove the whole way with my skirt caught in the car door. i got narnia chapstick in the white elephant swap, and soon the party moved to the upstairs of the neimeyer garage. everyone was everywhere! and we turned off the lights and everyone was somewhere else. there was breakdancing but no music.

too soon it was eleven and i drove bekka to my house where she was retrieved by her parents. in the car it was raining hard and it was dark and foggy in the windows and on poplar i was afraid. but we made it!

last night i dreamed i was trying to brush my teeth while driving, and i dreamed i was dancing in a line with lena and someone else and i was watching us in the reflection in a window, and i dreamed i was at camp and someone convinced me to climb a mountain. today i woke up to my dad hammering on my window-- he is putting up the christmas lights, which he didnt do last year. today we are going to decorate the tree. we put a blinky-nose rudolph on top every year, instead of a star. we call him rudy.





today i am supposed to maybe see eragon with annebel; we'll see how that goes. tomorrow is festivus. im very excited. christmas is very very close and i havent gotten morgan or eileen or my dad anything yet, but i will.

here is my to-do list for the break:
-get presents for morgan, eileen, dad
-learn my lines
-read wicked
-get the poisonwood bible
-clean my room
-have a lot of fun
-watch the lord of the rings extended versions
-finish artemis fowl two and read the third one
-read ten little indians or something else from my very full books-i-havent-read-yet shelf
-thats it.

you guys!

what if people had HANDS for EYES?

My history exam is over.

my semester average, based on actual mathematics:
[(93 + 95 + 91) * 2 + 86] / 7 = 92

my semester average, based on mr stephensons mathematics:
[(93 + 95 + 91) * 2 + 86] / 7 = 93

what a nice man.


aaron burr could be alan rickmans great great grandrelative.

I've seen your flag on the marble arch

I just downloaded three different versions of Hallelujah and none of them is anywhere near Jeff Buckley's.

when my brother was a toddler he had little red suspenders.

last weekend i found the cedar chest full of my childhood. my green dress that i will give to my first daughter, the shirt from my first play, little hats and socks. this week was so bad, and so so long, everything that happened was bad, except rehearsal for bang bang youre dead. when i got in i was excited but i was expecting to be a little reluctant to get up and go rehearse, but everything is so good. when i think about the show i get the feeling behind my lungs like used to come when i read stories about myself. i look forward to getting up and going to rehearsal tomorrow and im sad we dont have another one after that till january 4th. today on the way home it was me ryan lauren josh and kristen all in laurens tiny car again, and i let ryan find out my secret through inductive reasoning, and he laughed hard, but i told him not to tell. we blocked the first 15 pages today and honestly i am thrilled about getting to use my talent for falling down dead convincingly that i havent been able to use since i was in the pit and the pendulum sometime in the 20th century. nathan ramia is 9th in his class and he is not stuck up. three life points for nathan. lauren fed us cheese and chocolate and diet coke. my favorite flower is a yellow rose because it is yellow and a rose. the window man at high point coffee has a birthmark under his right eye and he is charismatic. today we and hattie discussed how a nickel and a penny is the same as six pennies. hattie and i believe charisma is a very important attribute. last night i did precalculus for eight hours and slept for two hours.

tonight was the first rehearsal

for bang bang youre dead.

uhm. im pretty excited. about the show. and my role. and the cast. and everything. im emily, ryan is josh, hattie is jessie, jenee is katie, josh sigler is matt, nathan ramia is michael.

ALL
Hold the anchovies!

no but really. this is a serious show.

EMILY
Hope I didn't disappoint you in the cafeteria this morning. Hope I died just right for you, Josh.
JOSH
You didn't have to fall on me and get me all bloody.
EMILY
Want to see it again? --Go on. Shoot me again.

i dreamed a dream in time gone byyyyy...

when hope was high and life worrrth livinnnnng.
i dreamed that love would never diiiiiiiie
i dreamed that god would be forrrgivinnnnng.

no really.

last night i dreamed my house was set up like it was when i was five before we had a computer, and i got engaged to spencer on a whim, and i didnt really want to marry him, but i didnt say anything because i was excited about the prospect of engagement, and because it was several years till the wedding and i was hoping he would break it off sometime in the interval. one night i came home and my dad yelled at spencer because i didnt have my jacket on.

and i was playing rizzos understudy in grease at the time and i was terrified because it was understudy night and i didnt know the lines in sandra d and everyone just kept talking to me about the engagement and the stage was a combination of the white station stage and the overton stage and i went to sit behind the curtain to wait for my scene, and there was TONS of talking backstage so lilla (apparently to quell the noise) kept pulling the curtain open and i was so furious with her because she was ruining the show, and she said it was a totally respectable way to make people stop talking backstage, but everytime she did it there were fewer and fewer people in the audience until everyone and all the actors and everyone had left except me, lilla, ms regan, ryan, and newman.

so i freaked out and sat on the steps and i asked ryan if there was some bizarre theatre etiquette that would let lilla do that, and he said no way, but that ms regan was going to let ryan put the show on the next week at the pond at the middle school which was really grahamwood, it was just understood that it was the middle school, even though the pond was frozen and looked like a beach. he said that i could play rizzo because the girl who had the part didnt want to do the show anymore (it wasnt amanda tittle) because of what lilla did, and ryan was going to get brad jackson to play eugene.

i went outside the auditorium and it was this little old western town like in clint eastwood movies but a little less dusty and i was going to buy stationery for the wedding invitations and inside the store was a bunch of potato sacks and a ladder up to the loft, so i climbed up the ladder in this old timey gingham dress and then i woke up.

Ladies and gentlemen,

it is seventeen degrees outside.

The Last Unicorn

When the last eagle flies, over the last crumbling mountain
And the last lion roars, at the last dusty fountain
In the shadow of the forest, though she may be old and worn
They will stare--unbelieving--at the last unicorn

When the first breath of winter, through the flowers is icing
And you look to the north, and a pale moon is rising
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
In the distance hear the laughter, of the last unicorn

Im alive
Im alive

When the last moon is cast, over the last star of morning
And the future has passed, without even a last desperate warning
Then look into the sky, where through the clouds a path is torn
Look and see her, how she sparkles, its the last unicorn

Im alive
Im alive

that good weekend feeling goes away so fast

my homework for the week so far.

APUS test tomorrow, government test tomorrow
german project due wednesday
government project due thursday, latin test thursday
latin project due friday, government article due friday
ten chapters of as i lay dying every night
APUS homework, every night, until i die.

i have never wanted a snow day more in my whole life than i want one right now, and it is going to be mostly sunny for the next week and a half at least. cold, and sunny.

everybody knows

IT SUCKS TO GROW UP

and everybody does

friday - sunday

on friday annebel came home with me and we took a nap because gilmore girls didnt come on. thats about all we did. nothing with friends is very nice after a long week. we had pizza for dinner at like 845.

last night was my daddys sixtieth birthday party. there was a man there who looked just like max medina but older. he could have been maxs much older brother or just barely his dad. it was okay but everyone there was forty years older than me at least, so i invited hattie over. o, it was so nice. whatever has changed in hattie is so good. we spent hours and hours in my room sitting and talking about middle school and cracking up. we looked at every picture on my computer. we watched blood drips on newsies square. we read old fanfictions. i forgot that the party was going on right outside, and she stayed until 1 in the morning. i have missed her even though i see her every day in fifth and sixth. four hours of socialization without any distractions. we did not talk about homework or history or anything about school except how silly our teachers are.

today was/is spencers birthday. i went to bookstar to get as i lay dying, but they didnt have it so i got a new journal and a hot chocolate. then to davis kidd where they had several copies, and i also got 12 songs for spencer. that is one of the best albums i own. among my favorites of all time. i hope you enjoy it spencer. cory branan is my hero. then we went to see happy feet (again for me) and it was so cold even just on the walk from the car to the theatre, but the movie was good. we went to dinner at amerigo and it was pretty good. im very full.

thank god for this weekend. im going to do a little precal (maybe) and read something for latin and thats it. i dont have to write an essay. do you hear me?

i dont have to write an essay.

This almost says what I want it to, but not quite.

Letters About Literature.


Natalie Babbitt:

When I was ten years old, all I did was leave the fourth grade and come into the fifth grade. It’s not a very pivotal change, fourth to fifth grade. In fact, I think it is decidedly less important than most others. Coming into first grade is a huge step, as are starting fourth, sixth, and seventh. In eighth grade you are the oldest kids at the school, and you don’t get that again for a while. As I have learned so far, in high school every year is critical. The change into grades named with words instead of numbers; the change out of being a freshman; the move into the upper classes; and finally, seniority.

Among all the transitions in youth, fourth to fifth grade means next to nothing. Ten years old means next to nothing in the year 2000. Ten years old for me in 2000 is so unimportant, so nonessential, so lifeless, compared to ten years old in 1880. When I was ten years old I was fuming about wearing a uniform to school the next year.

When Winnie Foster was ten years old, she was making the decision between mortality and infinity. She was ten years old and falling in love with a beautiful boy who was ninety-four years her senior. How could Winnie have grasped the concept of so many years? Ninety-four years is probably longer than you or I will live, though we all want to be a hundred. I try to imagine how Winnie feels when she pours the bottle out on the toad, or how the fibers and ligaments in Jesse’s arms and hands strain when he hugs her during the storm, and I know that nothing I have ever felt can give me the experience to empathize with their pain and strength, but I can hear Jesse’s soft voice in Winnie’s ear, and I can feel the slant in the rain and the electricity in the air around them.

I have read about Jesse Tuck and Winnie Foster three times, and I have built my ideas of time and sacrifice on their experiences. I am very young as humans go, and I hope I live to be a hundred, but I know I won’t. I will maybe make eighty and that’s the end. Sixty-four years left.

But I have built my life out of stones, and some of them are huge, some don’t fit, and some are perfect. I have built my life out of rocks, and a few of them are the Tucks. I know they’ll never go because they’re stuck. The Tuck rocks are not just to fill in the spaces between boulders; they are foundations of walls. They are necessary to hold the rest of it up. They are my Atlas, holding up the fragile earth.

Recent studies have theorized that an asteroid that has been hanging around our solar system for a while could hit earth in about thirty-five years. If this huge rock hits our little planet, it could kill everyone, they say. But it couldn’t kill the Tucks. Nothing can. When the world ends, Natalie, when earth breaks apart and the atmosphere dissolves, what will become of Jesse? What will become of Miles, of Tuck and Mae? When the world cracks and fire rains down from the clouds and all the humans die, where will the Tucks be? I see them thrust out into space on an ocean evaporating behind their heels, torn apart like the continents below them, to live forever choking and freezing alone in the vast night, praying for some greater power to take mercy on them and let them die.

In the endless frozen darkness, how do the Tucks go on? Do they spend their days scratching at their icy limbs, tearing at their own eyes and necks in futile attempts at suicide? Or do they swim about in the thick nothingness, searching for each other, hopeful though there is no hope? In a thousand years Mae will force her eyes open and see Miles close enough to touch. In a thousand more years Jesse and Angus will see human-shaped shadows and become frantic and meet each other. When the last thousand has passed, they will be together again. The unbeatable Tucks will have all gone insane millennia ago, but their joy will defrost the tips of their fingers, and so they will brush against each other for months until their knuckles interlock and freeze. The chain of Tucks will wander the universe, minds long gone, for the rest of time. They are rocks. They cannot be broken.

Angus Tuck says you can’t have living without dying.

Whether it can be called living or not, I hope to exist like the Tucks. Hopeful though there is no hope.

Sara Stephens