Its almost 11 and i have three finals tomorrow that i'm not looking forward to. I'm scared about school and about not getting into a good college and about letting my parents, and myself down. I've been analyzing myself lately, inbetween the fights with psychology notes and the unending hyperbolas and functions and ive started to notice change. change in myself, change in the way i feel, change in my outlook on life.

going into freshman year i was bleeding insecurities and trying to bandage them with green day patches. it failed miserably because even if my peers couldn't see through my careless front, i could, and it bothered me. Freshman year was hard for a lot of reasons, most of them not academic at all. It was the first year that i realized i couldnt manipulate the system anymore. teachers wouldn't bend the rules and i couldn't have the separate grading scale that i always had. There was more structure and less discussion. More reviewing and less learning. It was as though in the few months between 8th grade and 9th a new idea of appropriate behavior had developed in everyone but me, and my free-spirited attitude towards school needed to be broken. I was lagging behind socially because of intentionally blown first impressions and it seemed like it couldn't really get much worse until i was dropped from english. Average english taught me a lot of things including the fact that i, despite my unending list of insecurities and social inadequicies, am vain. It doesnt really matter now because im back in 308 but my superiority complex that had developed during first semester of freshman year had its downsides in 102 english. i got reprimanded for everything and was constantly fighting with all my teachers. High school just didnt seem to be looking up. i hadn't really met anyone new and i felt sort of stuck. After a big failing relationship, i realized what a psycho i was. i suppose i still am but i might just hide it better. i build walls now. a defense mechanism that is probably just as harmful as consistent paranoia and distrust. freshman year ended on a rather low note and nothing was really coming together the way i imagined it to

sophomore year wasn't much different. Gifted helped me to come into my own along with the winter play. i had found my niche, or so i thought. i have questioned it many times since then but that winter there was nothing that could have been more pleasing. sophomore year led to one much more sucessful relationship and more learning about me, which i wouldn't trade for anything.... well, almost anything. The trials and tribulations were in no way few and far between despite the more optimistic attitude i claimed to possess. Classes were boring and some were hard. or maybe i just didn't pay enough attention. whatever the reason may have been, school wasn't on my side, and still isnt. I was starting to realize that i wasn't as alone as i had once thought and that even though i had a bout with bad luck my first year, the teachers were starting to understand me. and even, dare i say, like me? whatever the case may be, i started to get along with most of my teachers, which was strange but also quite relieving. I was done trying to be a rebel and i focused primarily on figuring out how to get happy. this task was much more daunting and time consuming than i had originally anticipated, but i sought after the "answers" none-the-less. I didn't find them. but i did find out that I'm not good at geometry or chemistry, but getting an A paper back from Ms. Witham made me feel like i had actually done something worthwhile. My gifted project was similar. Even though the "point" of the project was complete bullshit that i had made up, the fact that i created what i did was just really cooll because i had never done it. The year ended on a mediocre note and while other people were deciding their future careers, i was still trying to figure out the "answers" to my complex questions that ultimately, had no answer. Happiness.

Junior year has been stressful to say the least. Sciences aren't for me and i wish i didn't have to take them. College, i'm realizing slowly, is actually a reality and not just some fictional resolution like at the end of a rainbow. Not that i would go so far as to compare high school to a rainbow because in the opinion of this author, the institution couldn't hold a candle to a rainbow or any form of natural beauty. Through this search for "the" right college, i managed to dig up another question from the past, and it was "should i have gone to wayland?" Wayland Academy, for those of you who don't know is a private boarding school in wisconsin that i was seriously considering transfering to after my tumultuous freshman year. My dad had been pushing it but i decided against it because of what other reason than, yes, "friends." I think the college decision would be much easier to make if i were at a boarding school, but the people i've met in the last few years have changed my life and i wouldnt trade that. But would i have met the same types of people at wayland who would have impacted me in the same or similar ways? i guess we will never know. College stresses me out along with my grades and the finals i have to take tomorrow because i'm unsure of myself and more unsure of my intelligence and things like finals are what i base everything off of. Its wrong i know, but its hard to change. My parents have been focused on one thing in my life regarding school "tests, tests, tests." Hence the overjoyed excitement when i, their precious daughter, pride and joy, had gotten into gifted. i guess it sort of boosted their morale and they thought that even if i was a little mentally unhinged, at least they could show of my intellect. boo to them for this because it only made things harder for me. B's were no longer acceptable for them or me. Nothing was ever good enough and my perfectionist attitude thrived on their brief moments of happiness. Am i a perfectionist now? i don't have the answer because i know i do procrastinate don't get me wrong, but i guess i do need to everything well. its not as bad as it was. or maybe it never was bad. i couldnt really say because there hasn't been enough time for me to actually reflect on that aspect of my life. I can, however, comment on the happiness question that ive tried so hard to answer. the only answer i've had and probably will have for quite a long time is no i'm not happy. i don't know how to change it and i don't know what else there is to say but my contact fell out so thjis is it.