WARNING: This post is excessively Indian

So...I was on TV guys. Exciting, right? (Please tell me somebody is reading this)

Should you want to watch 30--or 27, to be exact--minutes of me singing, a link to the video is posted below. Before you watch it, though, there are some things about the style of music that you should know.

1) This style of music is called Hindustani, and is originally from the northern regions of India, although pretty much everyone sings it now. Original South Indian music is called Carnatic.

2) Almost everything in the video you are about to see is improvisational. That is correct, other than the words, I am making everything up on the spot. Of course, there are guidelines for what you can make up, and these guidelines for what notes you can use and when you can use them are called "Ragas". Think of it like the Indian classical version of jazz. Additionally, everything has to be in the correct cycle of beats, provided by the instrument that the boy in the video is playing, called a tabla.

3) The first part of the video is called an Alaap. This is essentially the vocal warmup where I show the audience what Raag I am singing by just basically experimenting with the notes a bit. The next section is a "Bhada Khayal", which is a very slow piece. These are more difficult, because you have much more space to fill with your improvisations, but it is also harder to understand if you do not know anything about Indian music. It will basically be like, why is she singing so slowly? The third part is a "Chota Khayal", which is a shorter, much faster piece in which I do some shorter improvisations. This will be probably be much more impressive to the viewer because it will sound fast and you will be like, wow, did she just make that up? The answer is yes, yes I did. The last piece is a "Bhajan", which is just a short devotional song that is entirely not improvised, and is in a different Raga than the rest of the performance.

4) If you do not want to watch 30 minutes of me singing, but still want to be a good friend to me, I recommend skipping towards the end, when I do the faster, more impressive improvisational stuff called "Taans", and also a Bhajan that is pretty. If you, for some reason, want to know even more about Indian music, talk to me at another time.

5) If you are wondering why I did not tell anyone/force anyone to set their TiVos for when I was going to be on TV, it is because this only aired in Northern California, so I am not a TV star or anything.

Without further ado, here you go:
http://www.swaralahari.org/site/playvideo.php?concertid=150

For a time breakdown of what I do in this video so you can watch selected parts of it:
Bhada Khayal is till about 17 minutes in.
Chota Khayal is till about 24 minutes in.
Bhajan (PRETTY SONG THAT YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO) starts at about 24:30, and goes till the end.

Hope you enjoy it...

Allegory

Some days are meant to be sat down and spoken to like children
In the dark, I will pretend that this day is one of those

Clear the fiction and fact and fiction from every hotel room
That was ever privy to any secrets that hotel rooms maintain

Be alive until the day of your death and on that day you will be
Deadly in your rotting heart and alive in your growing nails

Cry only when you have been given explicit permission
To allow the display of your excess emotion

Take a picture of every creation that you meet in your life
Except for those that you yourself have created

And then you can ask yourself
Is that how you speak to children?

Adventures in Pretentious Behaviour

Recently I have been having some adventures in pretentiousness, and they are somewhat amusing as well as quite disgusting. I think the pretension level of the general population has risen in the past few years, probably because people found out that if nobody could understand what they were saying, they would be forced to think it was awesome in order to blend in. This has resulted in an explosion of the incorrect usage of words--on a sidenote, which is more pretentious, to use a sophisticated word, or to correct someone on the misuse of a sophisticated word?

Now being in college, I see more and more pretension in the forms of philosophy majors, non-philosophy majors who are taking one philosophy class, people desperate to find friends and think that being smart is a good way to go about that, etc. Note that in the title of this post I spelled behavior in the British way. This was on purpose, to prove some point that I have yet to think of.

Let me give you a glimpse into a recent day I had that will make you throw up in your mouth a little bit.

I am in the cafeteria, and I have just picked up my food. Nobody knows anyone yet, and I need somewhere to sit. Seeing somebody wearing an Arcade Fire shirt, I think "Well, at least there's a built-in topic of conversation", and I sit down next to said person and the group of people he was with. Ridiculousness follows:

ME: Hi, can I sit here?
BOY IN SHIRT: Sure, I guess.
ME: (silence as I listen to the conversation at the table)
BOY IN SHIRT: So, what about (insert old school video game here)? That was a great game...
GIRL WITH BLUE HAIR: Yeah, but (insert other video game) was so much better. Racing games don't get much better than that.
BOY IN SHIRT: Okay, so what if there was a racing game in which you were the steering wheel instead of the person behind it? And like, the controls just randomly changed?
BOY WITH GLASSES: Yeah, except you were in a dark box and you couldn't see anything and you couldn't get out...
ME: (thinking) What??
BOY IN SHIRT: It would be like, a metaphor for life...
ME: (very quietly) I think I just threw up in my mouth.

This conversation continues for some time in this manner. I am becoming desperate to change the subject or leave. In what was a huge mistake and something I hate myself for, I turned to music

ME: (turning to boy in shirt) So...did you know Arcade Fire is coming across the street from here next month?
BOY IN SHIRT: Yeah, I like Arcade Fire, but not as much as some other bands...I mean, they've totally sold out now.
ME: Um...okay. (wishing I had never brought up the subject)
BOY IN SHIRT: So what kind of music do you like?
ME: Um...I don't really know what it's called.
BOY IN SHIRT: What's your favorite band?
ME: Have you heard of Wolf Parade?
BOY IN SHIRT: Yeah, of course...(condescendingly) that's your favorite?
ME: No, actually there's this other band called Sunset Rubdown that's like...
BOY IN SHIRT: I haven't heard of that band.
ME: Okay...well...
BOY IN SHIRT: I guess I'd say the type of music you like is neo-psychedelic art rock...

At this point, I nodded, pretended to be done with my food, and left.

END SCENE


And here ends the story of how I re-learned two lessons that I had already known:
1) Never talk about music with people, especially if you don't know them.
2) Never, EVER say that you like neo-psychedelic art rock.

New Things

Shall I give myself a fake name? Anyone who is anyone seems to have a fake name (this is a lie). While I'm feeling all philosophical and shit, I thought I'd post, and as soon as I had that thought, the philosophical shit feeling went away.

I'm moved into college, ready to start in on four years of torturous fun that is named "school" but everyone knows that's code for "parties". Did you know I hate exclamation points? Probably, since every time I write something like "Fun!" it comes out like "Fun."

Which is not really fun. And makes me sound sarcastic, even when I'm not being sarcastic. Despite this fact, I do sometimes get excited about things, and when I am excited (such as this moment when I am suddenly under the reign of no person other than myself and probably everyone who has any expectations of me whooops) I am very bad at showing my excitement. What usually happens is I don't do anything at all, or I fall down because I tripped on my foot and am acting really awkward. As you can see, I am well on my way to becoming socially aware and adept at making friends. Ha.

In other news, now that I am in college, I am free to begin my seductions of multiple men that are bound to fail because I have no skill in seduction, but the point is that I can at least try!

I pretty much felt obligated to write this post because this marks a very important change in my life that I have yet to feel any particular way about.

Additionally: Since I am desperate for comments, anyone who was on the mailing list before is still on the mailing list at their other email addresses. You couldn't escape that easily...

Writing? What's that? SORRY.

Even though it's been like, two months or more since I wrote this, here is the second story I wrote in fiction writing.

A Change of Dress

Although she had never seen the ocean, Emily knew that it would be violent and beautiful and very possibly the most awe-inspiring thing she had ever seen. If she was honest with herself, she hadn’t really seen much of anything—the mountains, the countryside, or any true city—only the small town she had grown up in and what lay on the skirts of that town, but she had never slipped off the dress entirely.
When her mother had suggested that they drive to the ocean, Emily had felt an irresistible tug towards the unknown, and she had run upstairs to pack her bags with a swimsuit and—what else? She didn’t know anything about the ocean or the beach, she didn’t know what she would need there. She glanced around her room, but there was nothing that particularly called out to her as belonging on the beach or to the water. She realized that she did not have any idea where the ocean even was in relation to her town—how far they were, how long it might take to get there, whether or not she should bring a book for the car ride.
Deciding to take only a notebook and a pencil, as well as her swimsuit and a towel, Emily raced back down the stairs.

“Emily, dear, are you ready? How do you feel?” Her mother was still standing at the kitchen counter, slowly dicing vegetables, and Emily had a sudden wish for her to be like the professional chefs on the Food Network, if only so that she could dice through the vegetables with lightning speed and get into the car.

“Yeah, so are we going?” Emily noted that her voice sounded like the impatient whine of a much younger person, and so she counted to nine, her favorite number, and took three deep breaths, three being the square root of nine. After all, square roots were so rare, and Emily took every opportunity to use them as they should be used and appreciated by all people.
“I thought we could leave after lunch.”
“I thought we could leave now.”
“Emily, patience. We’ll only get hungry half way through.” Her mother was reasonable, and Emily was passionate. She could feel the claustrophobia of sixteen years in the same place building up from her stomach into the spot in her chest that was just below her throat and made her want to gag. She was surprised at herself for having such a violent reaction. It wasn’t as if she had never been for a drive before, but this idea of seeing the ocean had taken hold of her, and she was determined to go today, or to go never.
The phone rang. Emily’s mother spoke to somebody in rushed tones, and then hung up almost immediately.
“Emily, the doct—the man from the beach just called. They’re ready for you now.”
After eating lunch—her mother had made stew, and every spoon felt difficult to swallow, the bowl never-ending—Emily and her mother finally got into the car.
* * *
When Emily reached the beach, it was the peak of the afternoon, when the day had reached its hottest and the sun had begun to retract the intensity of its rays. There was a general mass of people spread out evenly over the sand. Emily found it disturbing that no individual face registered to her, there was only a low murmur of sound that settled over the entire beach, and the streaks of beach balls that caught her eye like shooting stars, in perfect little circles with areas of pi-r-squared that completed a pretty picture.
There were many fish encased in water, and she could almost reach out and touch them but for some kind of barrier. Her mother sat down in a chair, and began to read a magazine. Emily stared at the seashells arranged decoratively on the blue walls, and thought to herself that she had never seen anything but clouds in the sky before. The beach was an entirely different world, the alien feeling of the carpet under her feet when she pulled off her shoes. Was this what sand felt like?
“Emily, dear, please put your shoes back on. This isn’t our house anymore.” Emily wanted to cry; she liked wiggling her toes around the plush of the sand, but she pulled the sandals back around her feet and sat down on the floor. She looked back up at the fish, and began tapping on the barrier between her and the fish. A man emerged from what seemed to be the depths of—the ocean? Probably. He called out her name, and she stood up suddenly, giving her a dizzy feeling, as if she had been hit by a wave.
Emily braced herself and looked back at her mother, who stood up and held her hand, guiding her towards the dark doorway. They walked into the ocean together, like Emily had not thought possible. In another room, she was still somehow breathing, sitting in a chair across from this man. He gazed at her and she wondered if he was a mermaid, but his legs seemed firmly attached to his body. She moved her arms experimentally, attempting to swim, but the man gently took her hands and lowered them.
“Emily, how are you feeling today?” She wondered why everyone kept asking her that.
“Good.”
“Do you know where you are right now?”
“The beach.” He looked at her sympathetically, but said nothing. Then he began to speak in low murmurs to her mother. She could not distinguish what was being said. She looked around the walls, which were painted blue. She suddenly felt overwhelmed; the ground beneath her feet pulled away from her, and she slipped into the water, choking and grasping at the carpet that slid between her fingers.
Moments later she found herself back on the chair, her mother’s hand back in hers. She was coughing and gasping and she didn’t feel anything anymore, as if she were truly in the water, but she felt another rush, this time of understanding. She was not at the beach, she was only in yet another office of yet another doctor who would talk to her as if she was an infant. She wanted to scream that there was nothing wrong with her, but her mother’s face looked disappointed and Emily bit her tongue and her hopes along with it, and let go of the string attaching her to the beach.

Fiction Writing #1

Here is the first story that we wrote in fiction writing. I am under the impression that it came out a lot better than our teacher seemed to think it came out, so please tell me your (possibly honest) opinion.

Distance

When Christine showed up at the door, the first things she noticed were the azaleas on the doorstep in desperate need of watering. It hadn’t rained in a few months, so perhaps it was excusable, but Christine knocked on the door slowly, with a growing annoyance at having to be here on a Friday night, mixing with her irritation at uncared for plants. Although she had nowhere else to be tonight, other than her studio apartment with its sloppily painted walls and a quickly deteriorating sofa bed, these jobs always made her feel more than inadequate. The door opened with the same reluctance Christine felt, but the parents thrust their baby into her hands with excessive enthusiasm. Just for this she hated them a little, but she knew that her kind were hard to find—an adult, not a teenager, who had a college education and suggested in advertisements that she planned to become a teacher, even if that was not the whole truth.

“Our phone numbers are next to the fridge, and so is the doctor’s number, and he’s already eaten but if he gets hungry there are some jars in the cupboard next to the microwave and thank you so much for doing this. Good night!” Parents often spoke in run-on sentences that drifted in and out of Christine’s ears; in their desperation to leave the house, which mingled with worry about the wellbeing of their child, speaking was never at the top of the priority list. She nodded in what she hoped was a polite, not surly, manner, and looked for the first time at the baby whose pudgy limbs were entangled in her arms.

He was looking up at her with wide eyes, and his expression was impossible to read. He could have been about to cry or scream, and if she didn’t feel him breathing in her arms he could have been dead. They stayed that way for a few moments, looking at one another, blank, irritable, mirror-images, and then he kicked out with one chubby leg, breaking the moment. Christine carried him over towards the sofa, and placed him on his back. He began making gurgling sounds in the back of his throat. She turned away, suddenly nauseous.

It was the little things that made her angry—the inability to walk without stumbling, the drool that dripped incessantly onto the clothes of the carrier, the constant incomprehension of instructions. Then there were the aspects of babyhood that disgusted her, made her want to drop the child she was carrying and leave—the throwing up on shoulders, the perpetually sticky face and hands, the crying that seemed to be on call for every baby she had ever cared for. They tired her, all children did, and she would never be a teacher in an elementary school, or find a job in child care, when anybody who spent over an hour with her realized that her disgust for babies was ever-present and threatening.

Christine walked to the sink, where dirty dishes were piled in precarious towers. She wondered if she was expected to wash them, and suddenly felt so exhausted that she sat down on the floor of the kitchen. She stared at the magnets on the fridge, wishing that they spelled out a sign, but the letters were only arranged in random orders—FCRBOHJGW—and she closed her eyes, memorizing the room. When she opened her eyes the room, only two seconds later, looked different than she remembered it—the light was too bright, the lines too sharp.

Disoriented, she heard the hiccupping coughs of the baby, signifying that he was about to begin crying. She got to her feet, rubbing the small of her back, and made her way over to the baby. She got there before he started crying completely, and he immediately stopped his short, breathless tears, and gazed up at her, searching her face for signs of comfort. Finding none, he immediately started wailing. She bobbed him up and down in her arms, looking around the room for any props that would quiet him. Seeing a pile of plastic toy dinosaurs in the corner of the room, she carried him over to them. She picked one up and waved it in front of his face. The dinosaur felt waxy in her hands, and the surprising smoothness of it made her feel the strange urge to sink her teeth into its rounded, ridged body.

Instead, she handed it to the baby, who proceeded to gum the head of the dinosaur. She looked at the clock, and back at him, his saliva dripping into the body of the green dinosaur. It was a diplodocus, her least favorite type of dinosaur. She got up to check if there was any milk in the refrigerator, feeling useless, needing something to do with her hands. This baby was surprisingly agreeable, and she felt her worthlessness in every moment he did not need a caretaker. Christine thought of her mother, feeding her, rocking her, changing her diapers, and most tiring of all, unconditionally loving her.

She retrieved a bottle from the fridge, and handed it to the baby, who eagerly drank from the bottle. Christine’s voice felt like she had never used it, when in fact it had just been a few hours of silence. She needed to clear her throat. She rocked the baby back and forth, the bottle in his mouth. His eyelids fluttered, then began to blink shut, the bottle falling as if in slow motion out of his hand, her eyes not seeing it falling until it was on the ground. She felt a wave of nausea come over her, and suddenly she had to get out of this house. She looked at her watch. The baby’s parents would return in only ten minutes, and his eyes were shut, his chest moving rhythmically up and down. Her mother’s voice echoed in her ear: “You’re not like me, Christine. You won’t have any children.” Her desire to prove her mother wrong in every way flared up inside her, but died down just as quickly, the fight emptying out of her through her tired fingertips. She wanted to scream.

When the baby’s parents returned home at 10:00, he would be in his crib, sleeping softly, fingers curled around a green plastic diplodocus, a note next to him.
I’m sorry for leaving, there was an emergency. I left at 9:50. You don’t have to pay me.
- Christine

Christine lay on her fold out couch, staring up at the ceiling, trying to summon up the tiredness that had overcome her earlier into a sleep, but her legs were itching to run.

News (finally!)

Hey guys. So something has finally happened in my life. Remember the story I wrote a little while ago? The title was "Pennies"? It mimicked James Joyce? It was posted in three parts? Anyways, I had submitted that story, along with my play, to the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards (www.artandwriting.org) a few months ago.

Basically, to summarize, my story has been recognized for the Gold Key award. Some statistics: about 165,000 people applied this year, and about 1,000 received the Gold Key award. Some other famous people who have received the Gold Key award in the past are Sylvia Plath (!!!), Joyce Carol Oates, Truman Capote, etc. From here, the story will be reviewed by various publishers/famous authors, and so on, and they will judge it to see if it qualifies for the final scholarship award.

ANYWAYS. I'm really excited. Okay, done bragging now. In other news, soon I will probably post my latest short story that I wrote in fiction writing, maybe. Farewell for now.

Dream Post #3: Hindu Mythology, Swimming, and Ian McKellen

This dream involves some mythology that you may not be familiar with, which is necessary to understand the dream. Therefore, first I will give you a brief overview of the story in question:

In the Mahabharat, the Hindu epic (win), before the war or anybody involved in it, there existed a king named Shantanu. Once, Shantanu went hunting, and he stopped by the river Ganges (known in India as the river Ganga, after the goddess who inhabits it). Suddenly, a woman dressed in white emerged from the river (the goddess...duh). Shantanu immediately fell in love with her. She agreed to marry him and go back to his kingdom under the condition that he would never question anything that she did. Shantanu agreed happily. Shantanu and Ganga had many children. Every time one was born, Ganga would take the child to the river and drown it. Shantanu was horrified at her actions, but could not question them. Finally, when she was about to drown the eighth child, he couldn't take it anymore and asked her why she was drowning the children. Ganga said that it was to protect them from a cursed life on earth, and now they could be happy in heaven, but since he had questioned her, she had to leave, and she could not drown the eighth child. He would have to live on earth. Ganga left. The child grew up to become an influential force on the kingdom. He was named Bhishma, and he played a large role in the war that took place later.


NOW, ONWARDS.

In my dream last night, it began with an aerial view of Shantanu's castle. It is a Gondor-like, typical castle, and there is a flag flying at the top of a walkway thing, similar to what Denethor jumped off of. As it zooms in, it becomes clear that on the flag are the incredible golden arches of McDonald's. Shantanu, every morning, comes out to raise the flag, and shouts "MAC-DONAAALDS!" in an intense Indian accent, if you can imagine. Then, he is informed by an attendant that he has a new child. He is excited. Then, he realizes that the child has been hung (this may sound horrible and nightmare-ish, but for some reason it was a bit comical in the dream).

This happened multiple days in a row, until finally Shantanu couldn't take it anymore, and so he asked Ganga what she was doing. She immediately jumped into a river and began to swim away, so he started to swim after her, attempting to keep up. Finally, they reached a secluded forest area. At this point, both emerged from the water, both dripping wet, of course, and broke out into a Bollywood style song and dance sequence that I wish I could remember. It was as if I was watching a movie, because there were various different views from different "cameras" that I could see at once.

Finally, they stopped singing and dancing. At this point, Shantanu suddenly morphed into Bhishma, without any kind of obvious morphing taking place. Bhishma was (of course) played by Ian McKellen. Suddenly, people all around were dropping dead, and it was revealed that there was a villain with ten heads that was killing them. Bhishma killed the villain. He began to look around, and suddenly he saw his head on everyone's body. EVERYONE WAS IAN MCKELLEN. WHAT A GOOD LIFE.

What to do?

The feeling of Senior Spring that was wonderful lasted about 10 minutes. Then I was bored.

It feels like that's how my life constantly is now. It fluctuates between being ridiculous and painful to entirely boring. Is this what we call a "sad truth"? Or is it just "the truth"?

The lyrics to a song that is not finished. I'm not sure where it is going, but I know that I kind of like the first line, therefore it has to go somewhere...Also, I have been informed by various people that this song sounds like it is referring to crystal meth, which I realize now is glaringly obvious, but I assure you, initially unintentional. I may change the name "Crystal" to make it not sound like that, but I kind of almost like the reference...

I’m riding the wave of the power lines
You’re walking beneath me, slow as time
Colorless, pale, absolute
There can be no reason, no reason at all
There can be no reason, no reason to fall

Beaks of birds move far too fast
Comprehension never lasts
Cleared away the thoughts of rest
Backing into the workday, the endless crest
Endless high
Endless high

Crystal I seek you, I seek you out
In the corner, breaking out
Gallant men, they said they were
Fools with crossbows, dead and hurt

Beaks of birds move far too fast
Comprehension never lasts
Cleared away the thoughts of rest
Backing into the workday, the endless crest
Endless high
Endless high

Dream Post #2: Animals, Boy Bands, and Labyrinths

I'm not sure exactly where this dream began. I think it was when my family and I were sitting in the backyard. Suddenly, there was a deer standing in front of us. We were kind of baffled as to how the deer got into the backyard, since the fences were still up, when the deer was followed by another non-dangerous animal. I don't really remember what this animal was, only that it posed no immediate threat. We came to the conclusion that soon there would be dangerous animals in the backyard, so we all went inside and locked the door.

After locking the door, we realized that there was still a plate of food outside, which we had to recover if we didn't want more animals in the yard. I snuck (why does spellcheck tell me that snuck is not a word?) outside, and grabbed the plate of food. By the time I got back inside, there were so many animals outside that I could barely close the door without letting any of them inside.

A few minutes later, I looked back out the window, and all the animals were gone. Instead, there was a group of about five guys in blue suits walking towards us in slow motion--Backstreet Boys style. Only two of them were even remotely attractive. They continued to walk towards us in slow motion. At this point the sequence of events became a little unclear.

I think that somehow there was now a party happening in our backyard. My parents were still inside, but I was in the backyard with another friend of mine who looked like a mix between an Indian and an Asian person, except only one or the other. In other words, she was sometimes Indian looking, and sometimes Asian looking, but never both. She approached one of the attractive guys (the more attractive one), and started dancing with him. It wasn't any kind of dancing I've ever seen--it was like slow dancing, except grinding at the same time. What? Anyways, in this dream I was a lot more attractive than I am in real life. The other attractive guy approached me and told me I was very attractive (good God, I'm insecure even in my dreams), and started dancing with me in the same strange manner.

We had been dancing for some time when we came over next to my friend and Attractive Guy #1 (AG1), and suddenly AG1 stopped dancing with my friend and grabbed me away from AG2. AG1 kind of looked like Bradley James, and I remember thinking that I should tell 'Do about dancing with someone who looked like Bradley James. AG1 and I danced for a while, and then the music stopped playing. During the course of dancing, I remember wondering whether my parents were finding it weird or inappropriate that I was dancing in a strange, almost-grinding way. They apparently didn't, and promptly disappeared for the rest of the dream.

It began to get dark, and we all sat in a circle on the lawn and started playing a game that we once played in Drama class in which you have to go around the circle tapping your hand once except your hands are linked with other peoples' hands. It's confusing. Anyways, we played this for a while. I was sitting next to AG1, and after a while he started kissing me (are you seeing a pattern in my dreams? Good job, you now know how desperate I am). Then I said I had to go, and they told me they were having another party later on.

I went into my house, which now resembled an office building. The walls were all white, and all the hallways looked the same. It was kind of like being in a maze, except I didn't ever feel panicked. All I remember is thinking that I had to find my way to the party that was happening later on, and asking random people in cubicles that I saw along the way where the party was. I wandered around for a while, and then fell asleep in one of the corridors. The moment when I fell asleep in the dream was the moment when I woke up in the real world.

The Way I Am

You all know me far better than I'd like to admit, and it's no secret that I'm not a very secretive person about my life. Okay, maybe it was, but it isn't any more. See?

However, I have changed quite a bit recently. It's pretty incredible the way stress affects people. I've already posted on the different ways I hate people, so I won't do that again. I thought about posting all the ways that people annoy me, but I realized that would end up being offensive and hurtful, and generally lose me a lot of friends. So instead, you get a collection of words that detail the ways in which I'm a bit obnoxious.

I'm really ready for college. I mean, sure, I'll miss my friends, and don't get me wrong, you guys are great in many different ways. I'll leave out the part where some of you are not so great in many different ways, because I'm attempting to be sentimental right now. But really, I'm ready for new friends. I'm ready for a new start. This isn't going to be as difficult for me as I thought it would. There are a few (two or three, at the most) people whom I will pine for every day of my existence, but I can deal with it. As much as I hate to admit it, I'm not really going to miss a whole lot about high school at all. Well, no, actually it isn't that hard for me to admit at all. It's just the truth.

I get attached to people really easily. Not just people, I get attached to almost anything really easily. But I also don't find it very difficult to break off connections. I'm going to warn everyone about this right now, so that you aren't offended later, but I'm absolutely crap at staying in touch. I'm not going to write you letters, I probably will only Facebook chat you very occasionally--and other than the people who I am extremely close to and have known for a long time, I probably will lose touch altogether. This is just a personality trait. Don't take it too personally. I'll probably cry at graduation. I'll probably be incredibly excited and happy the very next day.

I don't know exactly what the purpose of this post was, other than just to give you all a heads-up about a side of me you might not have seen coming (or maybe you have, in which case, kudos). Maybe I'm extremely selfish, as someone in my English class suggested, but really, I don't have that much of a problem with that. I'm okay with myself, finally, after all this time. I may not be confident about myself, but I've reached a point where my personality is something I can deal with, at the very least. Maybe that's awful--maybe you think I'm not really living. Well, truth is, I'm not really living. For a while now, and probably in the future, I'm just going to have to be content with getting by.