Oct 4 - This was the second consecutive week of hell that I barely managed to trudge through. I have never in my life EVER so badly wanted the weekend to arrive, and now it's finally here. The next few weeks hopefully should be a little easier, considering that I made up most of my missing homework, quizzes, and tests, and that its a 4 day week, a 4 day weekend, and then another 4 day week. But that's for later, this weekend is pretty much what saved me from total insanity. Getting 5 hours of sleep day after day REALLY wears you down. Down to the point where really don't care about much anymore. Well, its a bad time to become apathetic, especially when my grades are still suffering from the work I've missed. Why can life suck so bad...?

1 - APUSH - Bennett - Okay, I knew it. I utterly screwed myself to hell with that last test--Mr. Bennett the old man is becoming more and more of a jackass. I won't say more... there's too much to even start. I'll just say that he insults students and their grades for his own benefit. ("Oh, I have to leave soon, so I'll give you five minutes to finish that test"). I would really like it if he would just stop his irony and maybe actually give a crap about his students.

2 - Enriched Print - Bellisario - Bellisario, though still a strong (post 60s) hippie has become a little more reasonable when it comes to quizzes. OMG, but she refuses to give me any more credit for the assignments I missed. Why can't she be like Wilverding and understand that I simply had to prioritize my classes and I had no time to spare for Print? Does she know that I'm 100 pages behind in the reading? Does she care, or does she just go "by the book"? Ah, whatever. I really need to get out of the "really really bad grade" range.

3 - E. Physics 2 - Wilverding - Wilverding, is perhaps the most reasonable teacher that I've known in NNHS. She alone (and Mr. Iverson) is going to give me full credit for all the assignments that I missed. Completely the opposite of Bennett, she supports her students at her own expense, and still seems happy to teach.

4 - Lunch - Nothing happened in lunch. Newell transferred over to our lunch (he dropped e. physics), but he hasn't started his storytelling.

5 - International Relations - Iverson - Now here's a really awesome teacher/class. We've just gotten our long-term assignments (two essays, one of which is for a contest) and he vowed to assign NO MORE WORK during the duration of the assignments. He's also the only teacher besides Wilverding that will give me full credit for the work I've missed. I've also learned that he lets his students retake anything that they received a bad grade on ("if you are willing to put effort into doing that, I will reward you"). Awesome teacher.

6 - French II - Gratz - Gratz treats us as if we're all dumbasses, and talks in such a bitchy way that it isn't possible to even remotely like her. ("Okaaaaay... class! When I'm talking, you don't talk. Do you understand? You do NOT talk when I'm talking. That is rude. When I talk, you don't talk. Do you get it?")

7 - H. Precalc w/Trig - Morse - Okay... Morse... nuff said.

8 - PE - Salter - Tennis is pretty cool. I suck badly, but that shall change with time. Today we played this stupid version of baseball with the wicker ball and a tennis racket. An utter waste of time, but still, more entertaining than most of my other classes.

Cross country simply drains everything I have left. Today's 30 minute easy distance run ripped out a dissolved my last reserves of vitality, and after running, I seriously wanted to just collapse and sleep. Ah well. After school, I dropped by at Anubhav's house. Anshul came over from U of I, and then J and C came over--then of course, some funny things happened. First of all, CH talked to VW on AIM (through my screenname), and VW refused to believe that it was CH even after revealing things that ONLY he could have known ("I don't believe you're c***** nananana booboo"). Girls... so full of suspicion and untrusting (lol). And then... XL... okay, we were bored of Anubhav's house, and wanted to go somewhere; XL's place seemed like a good idea since she lived close by, but no, she wasn't ready to meet us (because it would take an hour to prepare). It wasn't like an "event" or anything... we just wanted to drop by... as in casual. I suppose she still isn't comfortable around her new company yet.

The rest of the day that I didn't mention in this was essentially wasted. And now, I'm going to sleep. It's 1:06 AM, and I feel like absolute shableep.

Oct 9 - This week isn't as bad as last, but it certainly ain't getting any better!

1 - APUSH - Bennett - Well... in continuation of his trend, Bennett is becoming another Mr. Equi--in other words, he seemed cool at first, but then as his inner personality is revealed so is the asinine component that was hiding inside. Yesterday, he just tossed out a quiz that he had just passed out (it was of the wrong chapter) then immediately recalled the sheets--obviously the first couple people who got it took a glance at it--but that seemed to piss him off. And then he talked as if it was our fault for looking at it. What the hell...

2 - Enriched Print - Bellisario - Today was an amusing day. Because of first class, our half-class was further reduced to 8 people (the leaders had left), and completely ignoring that fact that it was a first class day, we headed on to NCTV (nothing interesting happened there). I can only wonder what the FC leaders that we had left behind were doing while we were gone. Bellisario, a new teacher, apparently has no understanding of first class. Good.

3 - E. Physics 2 - Wilverding - Physics is becoming near impossible cuz I don't get the DAMN concepts. Well, I mean, I do get the concepts, but I just still have very little understanding on how to actually apply all those formulas onto a problem. I can solve most of them intuitively, but that's really just a lot of assuming and guessing... a dangerous thing to do when involving math. Hopefully I'll have full understanding by test time.

4 - Lunch - Lunch... boring.

5 - International Relations - Iverson - Mr. Eby burst in to class today, holding up a textbook which apparently had the name of Howard Zin inscribed on it. It has been confirmed that Zin is coming to speak at our school--koolness!! For those who haven't cared enough to know, Zin is a super-liberal figure who apparently takes on a no BS view of history. He wrote the People's History of the U.S., that those in Eby's class read over the summer. Stan (the cocktail party guy) seems to have some distaste for the guy (considering that he's a extreme-conservative/ rightist/hardcore realist, its not surprising.

6 - French II - Gratz - Gratz... nuff said.

7 - H. Precalc w/Trig - Morse - Morse... nuff said.

8 - PE - Salter - We played a sadass game of Ultimate Frisbee today. Attention to the game lasted 30 seconds or so, but then, after realizing that it was no fun at all, most of us lost interest. The funny thing was how we all just crowded and moseyed towards the direction of the friz as it was tossed. It was like a huge crowd just walking carefree, back and forth as people who actually cared scored and threw it around.

Eh.. no time to write about anything else...must eat, do physics prelab, math assignments, and then, if I'm lucky--sleep.

Oct 13 - A huge cache of wonderful, wonderful homework has been uncovered... the list goes as follows.

1 - APUSH - Bennett - 1.5 hours of HW
2 - Enriched Print - Bellisario - 3 hours of reading
3 - E. Physics 2 - Wilverding - 30 mins of lab write-up, and 2 hours of studying
4 - Lunch - "0"
5 - International Relations - Iverson - "0"! (but a lot of long term projects)
6 - French II - Gratz - 30 mins
7 - H. Precalc w/Trig - Morse - 30 mins
8 - PE - Salter - "0"

Dec 03 - I wish I had to time to write out my own thoughts, but alas... apparently our school thinks that doing homework is more important than living...

The Worst Week EVER
From Start to Finish

Dec 14 - How could a single week ever have so much pain? Seriously, this whole past week was the worst ever since the final week of the semester project in Enriched Print; and at least that one ended with a bang, worthy of the effort--this one just kinda when downhill and crashed.

After getting 10 hours of sleep to make up for last week's 5-hours a day timetable, I can finally think clearly and reflect on the past week. I friggin' had SO MUCH HOMEWORK every, single, day. Worst were APUSH, e. physics and math, all queer enriched classes with hw every day. Enriched Print, we spent 3 hours making CG's for our other group, only to have them replace them and put them back to their original ugliness--we also spent close to 8 hours the whole week working on our own project.

Then there's French and Gratz, who loves to torture her students with SO MUCH hw. Thursday, I had two tests, and Friday, I had 3. So yeah, it was a horrible week for school. But of course, I'm not finished. On top of all that, Kirk and P-La are having their own problems---which just seems to be out of my control, but still make me feel troubled.

So, yesterday, I thought that I'd at least salvage what's left of the week and see the new Trek movie, Nemesis, which from the previews, looked amazing. What a disappointment. Not only does the movie suck ass (the story and plot was completely weak and meaningless), but the whole theater is filled with fanatical trekies who thought that the stupidest little things were funny (when Data starts rambling on about some statistical info, Picard says "shut up" had it not been for the audience which was whooping and hollering, it would have been at least mildly amusing--more about the movie in a review... maybe).  I'll admit, it was my first time going to a any movie filled with hard-core fans, and from the experience, I'll admit, that I'm not the kind of hard core fans that they were. The people absolutely ruined what was left of my movie experience--and the whole week.

From the looks of it, the next week doesn't look any better. And I don't think I'm being too cynical at all; just realistic. International Relations project, and the E. Print project, coupled with all the tests that are expected certainly don't make me eager to go back to school. Why does life have to be so hard?

This is a bad week for the world... someone tell me that I'm gonna survive... 

The Aftermath of Life
The light...where is the light...?

Dec 23, 11:57 PM- Yes yes yes... life can suck, but its times like these when you realize that no matter how close to good it might get, suckyness will always be there. Stickin' to me like my own frickin' shadow.

But anyway, that's beyond my point. I'm gonna write something completely personal now, and do you know why?? Because I've realized that when your web traffic drops down to about two or three visits a day, and two of them are you, it means that nobody gives a damn and I can write whatever the hell I want. God bless the other faithful visitor. You're all that's keeping me from completely raping my own site. So here goes!

You know, I have too many things to complain about. Let me make a little table of contents.

I'm amazingly happy that school's over but I know how fast this break is going to go. We're already on our third day of winter break--so far, the best thing I've done is see LOTR: TTT on Saturday. Now, my parents won't let me out of this cage of a house for the next couple days because "I'm not gonna be doing anything productive". What the hell is that... How dare they deprive me of a happy Christmas week.... they have no right at all to do that... The utter irony is that my mom is a pastor (you know, as in... church? for you religious-illiterate ppl--oh wait... now why the hell am I talking to myself). Oh whatever, back to my sulking.

Wow, the friggin' world finally makes a *good* Pocket PC that costs less than $200 retail (look up the Dell Axim X5) --I'm amazed! That ought to blow Kirk's PDA (not to mention my dad's) out of the power race. But no... another problem, parents don't think that Christmas shouldn't be about getting presents, actually its more like, presents shouldn't be what makes you happy. Well obviously if you want to give me a friggin' bookmark for Christmas (last year) I'm gonna be disappointed like no other. Is that a surprise to you?! I haven't gotten a satisfactory present in the past 5 years (the last one was an amazing Lego, which is about 12,000 miles away now--back in 7th grade). You think I'm greedy don't you? You think I'm a spoiled little fool who just can't get enough goodwill? Well you know what? I won't even argue with that... But in Christmas, I always have the expectation to be presently surprised with that childish giddiness, but of course, when your parents think that you haven't earned my share of Christmas happiness, then... well, you know what I'm talking about. I'm just saying that I'm sick of being let down and disappointed, and screwed over by parents who just don't get it. And I'm supposed to show gratitude for feeding me?! What the hell??? Well yea sure, gee mom... I am happy that you actually put the amazing amount of work and burden yourself with becoming a parent... but did you know what feeding actually comes with the job? (10 minute pause) Okay, what the hell am I saying? I'm rambling. I know I'm rambling. I think I'll just stop.

Big-ass *SIGH*... life sucks... so full of disappointments... when will they stop?! Not anytime soon I don't' think. I really don't think I can take much more of this shiz. Too hard on the spirit.

Okay, what else do I have to complain about? Maybe my New World story that I've worked on for 4 years and never got finished. I haven't given up on this story, but the lack of development for the past year is really getting me scared. How shall the story of Elijah, Elizabeth, Teralia, Kairu etc... ever be realized? Or will it be another collosal disappointment to my life destroying list? Ask me about it sometime, and just maybe, I'll tell you. I don't want my life to be destroyed before it's even started.

Why the hell am I being so cynical today...? Am I actually trying to get some sort of satisfaction from feeling bad??? Or is it something else... I don't know... all i know is that I'm beginning to really feel cynical about life... Does anything we do actually matter at all? All our lives, all our stories, they seem so insignificant... anything I do.. how does it even matter to the world...

And then there's Jarod... who dares to make me laugh in the absolute epitome of my larger-than-life miserable life... *Sigh...* So happy she can be... Ah well... maybe life isn't as bad as I can make it out to be...

That's a good thing. A very good thing.

(End of reflection Dec 24, 12:50 AM)

Life: Not as bad, but still bored.
School Day 121

Dec 26 - Well, the post Christmas boredom has finally set in (like it wasn't there before...). I'm all alone at home for the next couple days, key people are gone elsewhere, and the people around here aren't around anymore. What the hell am I supposed to do now? Things I'm considering:

Haha, I'll write in my reflections here if I do either.

Yesterday was more fun than I would have expected. As you know, I went around giving away Kris Kringle (obviously you know cuz I gave all you guys--who bother to look at this site--presents). Okay, fine, if you didn't know, I kinda felt bad that I didn't give anyone any presents, so I went on a semi-mass present giving spree. That's relative, cuz i usually only give two or three people presents. By presents I mean really *personalized* presents. I really don't think that you should give a present just for the sake of giving. If you're gonna give something, why not give something that matters? Something personalized that will (hopefully) last forever.

Okay well, anyway, I did all my gift wrapping this year, something to be proud of I must say, and still inside my car is the roll of gift wrapping paper, scotch tape, and scissors--yes I actually did do some of the wrapping in the car just before I handed the presents out. Yep. I'll just make a list of some presents I gave here for all those interested:

And some presents that I would feel appropriate to give these people (sorry i never got around to you... remind me sometime!):

Ah well... at least life isn't as bad as I made it out to be last Monday... that would be bad.

The New Year is upon us...
Whether we wish it or not

Dec 31 - It's hard to believe that another year has gone by. For me, 2002 was just about the most 'routine' year that I've ever had. Nothing really special, nothing truly memorable, no big grievances--it was just a year of extreme normality. Until now, every year of my life has had something to distinguish itself from the others... but now, the years seem to be going by faster and faster, and each is becoming less distinctive.

The product of age? Perhaps. Or maybe I'm just becoming more ignorant to the special things around me. Who knows?