I've been trying to avoid selling all of my soul to ESP, because, really, I would like to have some of it left, and I'd really like to have at least a little bit of free time in my life. Especially given that I'm supposed to be playing for a musical the weekend of Splash.

And yet, I let Olive talk me into co-directing morning registration with her. Why am I insane? The world may never know.

In other news, I've got a god-awful cold, and Jason has the same godawful cold, and it is generally rather unfortunate. I also finally caved and bought myself ice cream (bring on the weight gain), but I'm claiming that's just because I have a sore throat and it makes me feel better (actually, it was more a matter of "my computer fucking died again, and my boyfriend has too much homework to distract me. Ice cream!"). I've still been considerably healthier than I was during RSI, though, so I suppose that's something.

My physics class did an extremely awesome demo on conductivity yesterday. I seriously don't understand how the physics demos are so much more impressive than the chemistry ones (I mean, what chemistry ones?) when both classes are (at the moment, anyways) covering the same material from slightly different angles. Wire not conducting enough? Cool it down with liquid nitrogen (LN2 is always applicable). Glass not conducting electricity? Melt it with a blowtorch.

James's joke about this was "How many physicists does it take to light a lightbulb?" "One, but he needs a blowtorch to do it."

All of the awesome is mine.

Further questions include whether I'm capable of singing well enough to go to a capella tonight, which remains to be seen.

Sheer Idiocy

Crazy people are crazy. I really wish I remembered what the one in the bathroom was going on about. She walked in, smiled at me, and then started going on about how desperately she'd needed to wash her hands. I ignored her and went into a stall. While I was there, another woman walked in, and Crazy started babbling on about how she was the devotee of some book. This book had taught her to go outside her body, and she'd been all over the universe, to the stars. It was awesome, and she just wanted to tell us about it. I can't remember the name of the author or the book, now, but Crazy kept repeating it.

It was utterly bizarre--at least it seemed that way to me, but I'm not accustomed to crazy people. My general idea of a crazy person is any Republican presidential candidate.

I'm flying away from Hawaii tomorrow. Getting home Monday evening. I really wish we'd just gone for the two marathon flights--I want to be done.

Nyan nyan nyan

Right before I woke up this morning, I dreamt that I was leaving for college. But, for some reason, the place I was leaving looked exactly like MIT (minus the fact that the dorm was more 'generic dorm' than 'Simmons hall'). I was looking for Cammie and Kathrya and Nyx to say goodbye to them, and Dad was waiting for me. I'd already said goodbye to Julie, as well as some random small child who was somehow someone else I was going to miss. Jared, for whatever reason, was walking with me the entire time, and I knew I wasn't going to actually say goodbye to him until Dad and I pulled away in the car.

Then I woke up. Other than the obvious--i.e. I'm going to be leaving behind my own childhood--I'm not sure there's anything deeply symbolic, but I did remember the damn thing.

In other news, I can list off the top of my head everything I've eaten since waking. I'm not sure whether that worries me, but I'm fairly certain that it should. I swam in the waves, today; they're a lot bigger than the ones at home. I had some fun attempts at body surfing and a generally good time. I also finished Lord of Chaos, which means that I'll probably be starting in on book seven tonight. Isam would be proud.

Three Cheers for Overanalysis!

I have no idea how to lose weight. I'm pretty good at gaining it (oreos. Lots of oreos. Also, chocolate and ice cream). I know how to keep it steady (live at home and give no thought to what I'm eating. Avoid spending too much time in Cammie's kitchen). But losing it? I have a general idea of where to begin--consume less total calories while burning more of them--but little idea of how to actually manage it.

Currently, I'm working off of "three meals a day, all snacks are fruit." Before, it was no snacks, but I decided that was a terrible idea. Also, I've already bent the snack rule to have some snap pea crisps and pistachios, which were yummy. Plus, the snap peas were green and therefore healthy (I know I'm deluding myself. Please don't ruin it for me). I also spent half an hour swimming laps, and I intend to repeat that. The issue is that I don't know how much balances out how much. Like, am I actually eating less? Or am I just eating healthier? Does it matter? Will excercise alone be enough if it does? Also, how long is this going to take? Am I going to manage to eat in a remotely healthy fashion when I get to school, because I really don't want to turn into more of a lard-ass than I already am.

The biggest issue, I think, is going to be in the Fall. Also, developing enough self-control, and figuring out how best to manipulate myself to achieve these ends. I'm not sure that "be healthy!" is sufficient (i.e. it's not sufficient, not at all). I'm wary of making it into an issue of self-control, though I suspect that's going to be what finally works. Right now, I feel relatively in control of the direction my life has taken; I made my own decision about where I'd be come September, and I'm comfortable with that decision and don't feel an excessive need to micromanage my life. The weight gain thing feels like an issue of self-control, which worries me. At the same time, when I get to college, I'm going to be introducing a lot of new stressors into my life. I'm worried that if the academics get tough, or if the social scene is confusing, I'm going to start feeling out of control in more ways---and that if I think of dieting/exercise a means of adding control into my life, I'm going to end up going overboard. I think, if I'm careful, it shouldn't be a problem (also, I am a loooong way from being anywhere near worrying), but I'm still paranoid.

Vacation, Take One

Hawaii as a state seems lovely. The geography rather absurd--many changes over very small distances--but pretty darn cool. I need to figure out if the RSI 2010 Rickoid whose nickname I forget (I don't dare attempt to open googledocs and access my spreadsheet on the tenuous thread that is my current internet connection). I miss my Ricklings, though. I'm a bit surprised at the volume of my post-RSI depression---for some reason I'd thought it wouldn't be as bad this year. I'd talked with Jared about it, and we'd both agreed that this year we weren't as emotionally involved and would hardly be upset at all.

The amount of crying I did the last day definitely belied that statement, as did the fact that I was too depressed to sleep the following night (so many empty rooms...).

My internet connection is shit. This is incredibly frustrating. I always forget how dependent I am on high-speed wifi until I no longer have it.

That said, my new macbook pro is phenomenally shiny, as I demonstrated for everyone in a recent bedcheck by holding it and its built-in webcam up to a mirror. So much shiny. Lots and lots of shiny. I really need to get it a hard shell to protect it from scratches. And maybe a plastic sheet for the screen, and definitely a keyboard cover. If this baby is going to get me through the next four years, I need to be nice to it from day one.

In other news, I'm too lazy to unpack and my clothing is accumulating. Snorkeling was fun and I saw a shark. I continue to believe that snorkeling should be spelled snorkling. I'm really hungry (this whole 'dieting' thing doesn't agree with me, but I'm pretty sure that just plain 'eating healthy' is not going to make me drop the 10 lbs I picked up, and I really don't want to continue to have the weird gut I currently have going). The Wheel of Time is awesome. Hawaii is pretty. I want dinner. Life is good.

Cooking for America Night

I talked about International Night briefly, way back here. Now, we've moved on to something bigger, and better, and probably mostly just fatter and less diverse, but we'll ignore that statement.

For America Night, we divided into regions. I was, of course, with the Northeast, and my group included myself, Chao, Gopika, James and Patrick (male, IMO (as in math, not as in the chat abbreviation), OMG (as in the chat abbreviation), among others.

Chao decided we were making Indian pudding. Frank and I decided that we didn't know what that was, and therefore it would be gross, and James told us that Chao was at least putting in an effort, so we shouldn't complain, and we should instead start showing up for meetings.

I, naturally, got caught up in something that I'm sure was very important at the time (probably showering) and showed up rather late in the cooking process. Chao and Gopika were running around somewhat purposefully but with much haste.

The southerners had stolen our kitchen. Ash had, as ever, taken charge, and he decreed that their group was making roadkill burgers. Thus, the southerners co-opted all of the pots and pans and spent four hours of the afternoon broiling meat that, even when done, still looked plenty pink. They stuck it in bread with some condiments and called it a day, and then we Norther Easterneres, and Mid-Westerners, and the Out Westerners finally got a look at the kitchen.

I, of course, missed all this, and arrived when the east and the west were battling it out for stove space, with the east primarily winning, as even though Jared tries to be and occasionally manages to be intimidating, Chao, when she puts her game face on, can take on even him. Anyways, Chao and Gopika ordered me around, and I frantically tried to find things. Jared, a member of the midwestern crew, 'cooked corn.'

By that, I mean that he put water in a pan, stared at it for thirty seconds, said "okay, looks hot enough," ignored Chao and I disagreeing, and dumped about half the corn, since it didn't all fit, into the pot.

He left it in for approximately two minutes, then reached over Chao, who was stirring the chocolate for the Boston Cream Pie she'd finally decided on, grabbed some tongs, and pulled it out.

We objected that it wasn't cooked. Ravi (male) came over, looked at the plate of corn, and said "that is some raw ass-corn," as we'd all gotten into the habit of making the hyphen swap.

Jared said "it's FINE. Okay?" in his standard, overly punctuated speaking pattern.

We were going to object further, but then we noticed the hotdogs that a few other midwesterners (Luke and possibly Carlisle (though of Carlisle wasn't actually there, he will accuse me of discriminating for his asian-ness, like he did every time anyone caught him sleeping in lecture ("I have asian eyes it's not my fault")).

The hotdogs were virtually raw, and they declared them done.

Please don't blame me for not eating them.

It really is remarkable

Just how much work work manages to be. I remember next to nothing from these days, just a cloud of sleeping off sickness, infecting others (Dawson, I'm sorry), and reading paper after paper after endless paper.

Oh, and writing. That second milestone was a fair bit of work, I suppose, although I think a better chunk of the 13th was spent pretending to read S. Mckee's thesis on nuclear energy, which I never did get all the way through (although I did manage to forget to cite her half-life data. Whoops).

I'm going to say that this was the day that I walked to dinner with Jared and Bashir, because it will make for a more interesting post.

Bashir is the crazy Lebanese guy who works in my lab. He is, as I've said, crazy, but you will probably get more on that later.

Jared is Bashir's roommate. Jared is a big Asian guy from a big city (and I say big in a relatively loose sense of the word, because, while tall and muscle-y, he is still extremely skinny) who wears baggy t-shirts and long shorts and waves his arms and gesticulates in a manner suggesting a comfortable existence in a ghetto.

On this particular day, I walked out of the dorm with the pair of them.

"Why," asked Bashir, "are there no black people in RSI?"

Jared and I looked at him.

"There are not! I look, and I see black people, and they are all MITES. There are none here. Why are there no black people."

Jared looked pained.

"Why!" demanded Bashir.

"Well, there was supposed to be one, but his visa fell though, and he was, like, actually from Africa," I said.

"No, look, see," said Jared. "You can't just ask this shit."

"I just did. You say I cannot ask this, but then look! I do!"

"I think what Jared means is that it's not the sort of thing that one generally talks about. It's a sensitive subject."

"Yes! That's it. We don't talk about it. You just pretend that it doesn't exist."

"Why would I pretend that it doesn't exist when it so clearly does?"

"Because that's what you do," responded Jared. "You pretend, and then it just, I dunno, goes away."

"I'm not exactly certain that it--" I started.

"It will not go away. Look at your movies."

"What?" said both Jared and I.

"All the black people in the movies--they are stupid. Stupid. So stupid. They cannot talk, they cannot live, they cannot make money. They are poor and stupid. What am I supposed to think about black people here when all I see is 'blacks are dumb'?"

"SHUT UP! Bashir, don't let anybody hear you!" Jared looked worried.

"Well, what do black people do?" asked Bashir.

"I dunno, they play basketball," said Jared.

"I'm not sure that's the sort of thing you would think that you should be saying," I said.

"Shut up."

"Jared, I thought that you played basketball."

"I used to."

"Why'd you stop?" I asked.

"Were the black people better than you? Did they make your asian-boy look stupid?" asked Bashir, before beginning to laugh.

"Bashir, someone is going to hear you, and they are going to beat you up."

"No, they will not. The only one who will beat me up is you, and you won't, because you love me."

"I do not love you."

"You are my roommate. Of course you love me."

"You are so fucking crazy."

Bashir just laughed.

RSI is continuing (unsurprising, that)

I just spent a considerable quantity of time in my room, talking to Sadie. We discussed such fascinating topics as nail polish, college, and how the hell guys manage to go bike riding without damaging their junk. In short, highly academic topics that I would never have been able to discuss elsewhere.

I just had to leave to find Ululani or Kareem, as they are my next door neighbors and their alarm was going off and it was highly annoying. I can still half hear it, which is extremely unfortunate.

I should be writing more. I should be writing about walking with Miles to his lab this morning, and eating nothing in a whole day but a donut, coffee, and chocolate-covered pretzels. I should write about spending the entire afternoon lounging in the student center with Dawson, talking about the fact that we're having difficulty with our mentors and suffering from extreme lack of focus. I should write about the fact that my lanyard broke, so I'm stuck outside of the building, so when I went outside to play frisbee and Rube called, I had to talk to him while lying on the turf, and then whenever I rolled over everything started to spin.

I could talk about the severe dizziness I experienced yesterday, when I tried to climb off of the spare bunk bed during bedcheck, and everything started spinning, and I ended up leaning on Dawson and Miles as if I was drunk, and now I've got enough inexplicable bruises on my body that it looks like my abusive boyfriend was grabbing my thighs and forearms, and I'm still not sure what happened.

I could talk about going out to dinner with 41 other people last night, and getting counted every four seconds, and finally getting to talk a little bit with Anders (and I would mention that there was a good bit of talk at Girl's Night about his general attractiveness, but I know he was reading this a while back and I don't know if he still will. Oh, whoops, I mentioned it anyways. Gosh darn it), who had been very interesting to 'speak' with prior to arrival. I could talk about a lot of things, but I need to shower, and I have gotten very little work done because I have been doing much socializing in place of much working, and now I am writing, and it is quite not-good.

So I will work. Farewell for now.

Tea Learns All About Health

Also known as it is late and I don't feel like writing a real post so you're getting more schoolwork.

Obese children are at risk of heart disease because they have old-person arteries. However, parents pretend it's baby-fat and elect not to put their children on diets and destroy the self esteem of a miniature person. Also, this is boring and fat related and blech, so not happening.

So, moving along to the second health article. This one is about a new virus in South Africa. It causes flu-like symptoms but is followed by death from respiratory and circulatory collapse, which basically sucks. There were four deaths and one recovery and nothing else. Phew.

Viruses are scary. They are also invisible. Like Harry Potter while wearing his invisibility cloak, but evil. Well, not evil. Self-serving, I suppose. Ebola is also scary. It's intangible, too, which is a big word, which I am adding here to make myself sound more intelligent.

Also, best description of viruses ever "semi-alive bundles of nucleic acids." I'm not certain it's strictly scientifically accurate, but we can pretend.

Why My Problems Are Puny

Well, I haven't got very many of them, for one thing. Just the typical constantly careening self-esteem of a teenager, lack of any sort of romantic anything ever, a relatively minor health issue, on and off anxiety, fairly frequent social paranoia, clumsiness and a severe case of the geeks. Well, that last one isn't so much a problem as a solution. And, all in all, none of those are particularly bad.

A lot of teenagers have horrible self-images, so the fact that mine sometimes is good is definitely a good thing. Lack of romantic anything ever is hardly unusual for a sixteen year old nerd. Thyroid problems are easily medicated. The anxiety I deal with. The social paranoia is vastly improved upon by large numbers of awesome friends. The clumsiness is cute. I mean, I'm 5'9", so I could probably do some serious damage and I probably look ridiculous, but I'm saying it's cute because it makes me feel better.

And geek is fun. As is nerd. And I'm probably more nerd than geek, anyways.

There is also the oft-recommended there-are-children-starving-in-Africa method. This is basically reminding yourself that somebody else has it worse. Watching The Kiterunner, for example, will do that to a girl. Because, seriously, at least I wasn't hunted down and killed or raped. Visiting the hospital also helps. I went to see Avon today. I drove on the highway, by myself I might add, and then crawled from the exit to the parking garage, trying desperately not to get hopelessly lost (I know the hospital is very visible, but roads are confusing!).

I finally got there. The people in the hospital are so nice, Avon included, but the whole experience is still somewhat terrifying. I mean, hospitals don't bother me- I'm very comfortable with hanging bags of blood and IV lines and people in scrubs. It's just I hate the idea of being so sick that one has to go to the hospital. Illness is so utterly random. I know that it's not, really, that it's the product of genes and of environment, that there are any number of things I could be doing to keep myself healthy, but there are still the totally confusing syndromes like ITP. Idiomatic Thrombocytosis Purpleosis, as I told Avon I call it. It's scary, the way people can be here one day and gone the next. I don't like to think about it too often. It's the lack of control that bothers me. I'd like to be able to say, unequivocally, that I'm going to live for 78.6 years, have 2.5 kids and 1.3 husbands, but I can't, and, sometimes, that terrifying thought seems like more of a problem than the whole list of the ones above.

The Breakfast Club

Today in health, Ms. Martie unsuccessfully attempted to get the class to do yoga. She ended up getting so fed up that she had as do coloring book pages of mandalas. It was surprisingly fun, but all of the quiet and time to think made Kathrya really grumpy, to the point where she actually snapped at Nia.

Last year in health, we watched The Breakfast Club. Here are some highlights from my write-up about it.

• Andrew got detention because he attacked another boy and taped his butt together.
• Socially, I am a follower. When I’m with a group of friends, I rarely come up with ideas of what we should do. I’ll trail along after people rather than forging my own path. Also, even when I do want to try something on my own, I feel that need to bring a friend along with me, so that I don’t feel like I am exposing myself in any way.
• I think that although you could never find exact replicas of the students, I could definitely find basic outlines. I know plenty of brains, myself included. I know a kid who devotes hours of time to playing football despite the fact that he says he doesn’t even know why. I know a girl, slightly messed up, like Allison, who hates her parents. I’ve heard about a boy whose parents are awful and who has been smoking pot since sixth grade, and in a town with this much money, princesses are not difficult to locate. However, all of these students have their own depths and thoughts, as well as their own personal reasons for being the way they are. Also, there are plenty of students at Paperclip who, while fitting archetypes, would not click directly into those of the movie.

In other news, Harry has reached an acceptable level of conversation. He seems to have become acclimated to my general awkwardness, extreme paranoia, and tendency to fall over. We even managed to bond over out inability to remember the names of freshmen. However, Harry will probably continue to avoid all eye contact in the hallway. Weird dude, I guess.

Overheard

Today, during extended Health, I slipped out of class to go use the bathroom. There were two girls, probably sophomores, standing in front of the sinks and talking. There was a short, talkative one, and a larger, heavier one. I'll call them L and B, respectively.

L: Nice iphone.

B: Thanks.

L: My parents are getting me an itouch for my birthday.

B: Cool.

L: Know what's great about itouches?

B: No.

L:You can use the internet on them.

B: Yeah.

L: Emily has an itouch. She uses the internet on it.

B: Huh.

L: She looks at porn on it.

B: Wow.

L: Sometimes, I look at porn on it with her.

B: Oh.

L: It's kind of weird.

B: Yeah.

L: Don't tell anyone I said that.

B: That it's weird?

L: No, that I look at porn.

B: Sure.

L, speaking to me as I dried my hands: That includes you.

Tea: I don't know you anyways. Even if I told someone, they wouldn't know what I was talking about.

L: Good.

I, of course, promptly told both Red and Kathrya the entire story after I got back to health class. Kathrya and I agreed that even though we don't watch porn ourselves, it really doesn't seem like the sort of thing you want to do with a friend. I mean, seriously, that just seems like a recipe for either severe awkwardness or clandestine lesbian hookups.

On a completely unrelated note, we're writing essays on gender in English. Here are the theses of my group:

Margot: Girls wear clothes that are really uncomfortable.

Carter: Being a guy sucks because, like, we have to fit into expectations and stuff.

Brian: I have great female role models in my family, and we've now studied this so excessively I feel that my brain my spontaneously combust. It's all just empty talk that isn't going to do anything to stop sexism; that takes actions.

Tea: Femininity is an insurmountable obstacle preventing me from controlling my own life.

Rob: What Brian said.

Renna: Being a woman means not knowing what you actually want. Also, is it a problem if I write a synthesis essay using only personal anecdotes?

Suffering

I am currently suffering from extensive eye make-up damage from being all dolled up as an emo for our health PSA. Nia may be really good with make-up, but I still consider it majorly unfun. Maybe I'm just oversensitive.

Of course, being oversensitive would make me emo by nature, no?

Nerds Don't Get Any

This is, as we're all aware, a sad but true fact. And it only makes things worse to hear about all of the people who we considered totally beneath us in middle school, back before we moved to the higher level classes where one could, potentially, find a room in which the only person who's had sex is the teacher, are out there hooking up and doing god knows what else. (Forgive me the run-on sentence. Incomprehensibility seems to be my buzzword for the week). For instance, take Grant, who apparently hooked up with a girl and then called her "Isabel" by accident. I personally don't know anyone named Isabel, so who knows what he was thinking, but regardless, I think I'm going to break into another round of pouting along the theme of what-do-they-have-that-I-don't.

This should make for a highly enjoyable evening.

The whole bit about nerds not getting any is a stereotype. It's a true stereotype as far as e the nerds I know go, but it is a stereotype. This week in Health, Kathrya, Nia and I are making a public service announcement about stereotypes in which we film a representation of a stereotype, then demonstrate how this person subverts it. For nerd, Kathrya got all dolled up in high-waisted cords with a TI-85 in the pocket, a tucked in, baggy white tee, and overlarge glasses. We were debating what subversion to use while Nia got the camera working. My vote was for an STD. Kathrya, however, didn't respond favorably to my pleas to tell the health class that she has gonorrhea.

A few minutes later, Mr. Booth walked by, and Kathrya and I both waved and said hi. He walked over to us.

Mr. Booth: So what are you doing?

Tea: We're making a public service announcement for health.

Kathrya: I'm dressed as a nerd. I don't normally look like this, I promise!

Mr. Booth laughs before saying: Nice calculator.

Kathrya: Haha, thanks.

Mr. Booth: So what is this about?

Tea: Stereotypes.

Kathrya: We're dressing up as them and then subverting them.

Mr. Booth: So how are you subverting nerd?

Kathrya: We're not sure yet. Tea wants to say I have STDs, but-

At that, Mr. Booth's entire head, including the top of it, turned red, and he covered up the his face.

Tea: Honestly, it's health class, I don't see what's wrong with it!

Mr. Booth: It really doesn't seem like the best idea.

Nia: Maybe you party a lot or something?

Mr. Booth: Or she could play sports. You still have the whole jock divide, right?

Tea, musing: What sport, though?

Mr. Booth: How about chess club. Would that work?

Tea, puzzled: No.

Kathrya: Probably not.

Tea blinked a few times, confused.

At that point, Tawny emerged from the bathroom in hippy regalia, and we had to end the conversation to go film her.

A Day in Discussions

with Lysander:

Lysander: What are you eating?

Tea: Bear claw.

Lysander: What?

Tea: It's a-

Lysander: I know.

Tea: It's good.

Lysander: okay.

Between Mario and the health class:

Mario: I just said the 1st one was the bad stage, the second was really bad, and the third was even worse

(regarding the stages of syphilis)

Between Ms. Seltzia and a boy in my sister's class:

Boy: I went with my cat when it got put down.

Ms. S: Did it make you sad to watch it slump lifelessly to the ground?

Boy: Yes.

Cooliality

According to Ali, I am less cool than Tybalt. I am deeply, grievously wounded. Actually, I'm not really that wounded, I just enjoy being overly dramatic about it. Plus, everyone gets mad at Ali at some point, or she gets mad at them, so I consider it something of a right of passage. A right of passage into what, I'm not quite certain.

On a completely unrelated note, here are a few of my fears: public speaking, embarrassing myself while speaking in public, trichomoniasis, those freaky old guys they catch on To Catch A Predator, the creepy news reporter on To Catch A Predator, date rape, and crappy law enforcement policies at universities. Thank you, Health class, for improving my optimistic perspective on life.

Speaking of Health class, you know you have great friends when you can have an hour long conversation about circumcision without anything becoming awkward. I did this on gchat with Nyx last night. The highlight of the conversation is as follows:

N: but how did your parents come to be invited to his circumcision?

T: they're apparently friends with his parents, but they can't be that close considering I never even met him, I don't think, and OMG THERE ARE PICTURES OF DICKS ON THE WIKIPEDIA PAGE!

*dramatic pause that actually builds drama, unlike those stupid fake ones Dino enjoys randomly adding into conversations*

T: that was traumatic

N: AH SO THERE ARE. I'm reading it too. yikes.

T: I totally didn't see it coming and it freaked me out

N: jeez wiki

T: they oughta have a warning or something.

Things Nyx and I learned from our wikipedia adventure: be wary of photos of private parts showing up on wikipedia pages related to said parts, and check skin-care products to make sure that they don't contain foreskin, because it says on wikipedia that it's in some of them, which is really, like, gross.

Sex-Ed in the 70s

For my health class, we had to ask our parents about what sex-ed was like for them. I went to interview my mother, and her response was that there wasn't any. However, I had to get a full 3/4s of a double spaced page, so I dragged it out a lot and talked to my father as well, producing the following literary gem:

My mother had no sex-ed in high school. The only thing she remembers is that in fifth grade, they separated the boys and the girls into two different classrooms and watched a movie about puberty and development and getting your period and stuff like that. It was probably the same animated movie that we watched in fifth grade. She doesn’t recall having any classes in high school about health, sex, sexually transmitted diseases, alcoholism or drug abuse. There was nothing. They basically had to learn everything on their own. They didn’t even the many resources available on the internet today. They had to rely on what their friends told them and what they read in magazines. “We were clueless,” Mom says. She also didn’t learn anything at all from her parents.

My Dad also didn’t have sex-ed in high school. If he did have it, he has completely forgotten about it because it was so ineffectual. He does remember that they had something in sixth grade. They called it some sort of health class, and it definitely wasn’t sex-ed. They pretty much had a couple of classes with a guy teacher while the students were segregated into two classes. The guys got to watch movies. He thinks that he watched Reefer Madness, which was about the dangers of marijuana as a gateway drug. He also watched one movie about STDs. He’s fairly certain that while the boys were watching the movies, the girls were learning about menstrual cycles and stuff like that.

Diaries

I just spent about forty minutes reading these. Highly enjoyable.

Today in ASR, I was sitting at my table with my assigned biweekly seating group. I sit across from Elle, who friended everyone in the grade on facebook before starting ninth grade. Next to me is Angela, one of only two sophomores in the class, who always seems to have the lost wide-eyed expression that makes me want to help her. Across from her is Lumiere (I can have a weird nickname every now and then if I want to), who says that he's already gotten into a college that sounds suspiciously like Stanford, probably on an athletic thing, because how else could anyone know where they're going already (*cough* stupid fucking jocks *cough cough*).

Anyways, Dr. Verona was talking and talking about something that was fairly interesting, but not quite interesting to devote my full attention to. I believe it had something to do with the wonders of using Google Docs for creating scientific diagrams, which he claims is extremely easy, but I actually find it rather difficult. Due to boredom and general confusion, I pulled out my handy-dandy sharpie and my assignment planner and began doodling on the back. As I completed my first very pretty spiral, my pinky smudged it, so there was a little gray sticky-outie bit. I paused and began to glare at it, extremely upset. Lumiere and Elle started cracking up. "That's just awful!" said Elle, continuing to laugh. I giggled a bit, but I didn't really think it was that funny. Angela looked lost and confused, per usual. I corrected my doodle by doing a cool little wave pattern thing, and when I finish the back (assuming I don't smudge it again) it should turn out alright.

Later on, in that same class, we were working on the computers, so I decided to check my email. I had one from Vicky that was about a certain someone who she is really not supposed to be writing to me about. However, I read the whole thing, then abruptly realized that that same someone was sitting all of three feet away from me, and immediately clicked away, hoping that no one had been reading over my shoulder.

Also awkward: I now know precisely what underwear my math teacher, Mrs. James, wears. (Green with pink polka-dots panties thinner than mine but wider than a thong, for anyone who cares). Beautiful as the green skirt she wore today is, she really ought to be more careful. Aside from the underwear, though, do you think I could just steal her clothes? Because I really do like a lot of them. This is as opposed to Ms. Martie, my health teacher, who owns one pair of pants in two different colors, from what I can tell. According to Kathrya, however, most of the guys in our grade would like to get into said pairs of pants.

Ew.

Biographical Poem

We had to write these for health class. Our teacher, Ms. Martie, is a recent college graduate and she's trying to use 'fun' curriculum. However, I'm pretty sure the curriculum was designed for elementary school students. Not that I'm complaining- last class, all we did was draw giant flowers that had our similarities in the middle and our differences on the petals. I was labeled "Math geek," since other people in the group had my standard plays piano, plays guitar, likes art, loves science, hates sports, and rarely watches TV.

Tea, Tea is her name

Tall, unique, yet entirely the same,

Loves her sisters, Genie and Shelby,

Feels emotions, sad and happy,

Needs her food and gives birthday presents,

Shares the planet with foxes and pheasants,

Fears the bloodsucking violent mosquitoes,

Likes to see movies and concerts and shows...

The last two lines are about my town and last name, but I figured that I ought to take them out. I'm so fabulously creative, no?

Also, speaking of our town, as you may or may not know, we have our own magazine. Well, I can't find the article online, but Dino is on the cover (along with 9 other students, including his older brother). I may have to bring it in and show it around a bit. Were you aware that he's a rising star of Paperclip High School? And his academic record is such that we should already know of him?

Whoever was researching clearly didn't realize the sheer number of students at PHS with academic records just as good as Dino's.

Tampons

Awkward conversation with my 12 year old sister, Shelby. Be prepared for graphic discussion of female anatomy.

S:Tea?

T:Yes?

S: I'm trying to use a tampon

T: okay...

S: I'm having trouble.

T: You just take the tampon and stick it up there. It's not that hard.

S: Yes it is! I can't find the up there!

T: What?

S: I can't find the hole!

T: Urgh. I was trying to read Questionable Content.

S: Sorry.

T: No, it's fine. I'll draw you a picture.

*tea grabs paper and pen*

T: You know where your vagina is, right.

S: Uhhh.....down there?

T: *sigh* Where does the blood come out?

S: In between the foldy things?

T: Gaaaahhh.

*draws picture of two squiggly things with some holes in between them*

T: Okay. Those are the labia.

S: They look like snakes.

T: Psh. Okay, that's the clit.

S: Ummm.

T: You don't know what that is. I suppose you'll learn eventually.

S: Okay.....

T: look, that ones where the pee comes out. That's the vagina.

S: Wait- the pee doesn't come out on the bottom?

T: No, it does not.

S: Really? Cause I always thought that-

T: No, it doesn't.

S: I still don't understand how I'm supposed to fit a tampon up there.

T: It fits, alright?

S: But it's so small.

T: When you have a baby, it reaches 10 centimeters.

S: what?

T: this big.

S: EEEEWWWWWW

T: How else are you supposed to get a baby out? Honestly.

S: What about penises. How do people have sex?

T: (thinks: why am I the one teaching my little sister about sex. Shouldn't my mother be doing this? or her health teacher? or the internet, even, just something other than me?) says: When you're going to have sex, you make lubricant.

S: What's lubricant?

T: Slimy stuff.

S: Oh. How does that help?

T: I don't know, it just does. Do you think you can find your vagina on your own now?

S: Probably?

T: Good.

10 minutes later...

T: Shelby, you alright?

S: Yeah. It feels funny.

T: But you found it?

S: Yeah. It still feels weird though.

T: You'll get used to it.

*end conversation*

Well, at least I probably will not have to do that again until I have my own children.

Thank god.