Rememory

What do I have that is worth re-remembering, worth breaking apart into a thousand tiny fragments of perspective, of me and mine and ours and more, until the story itself becomes almost entirely kind of partway obscured by the words, and most certainly blocked out by strength of feeling.

It's a big assignment, to write something emotional, something enjoyable. Weirdly, I want to do the depression again, to pick it apart from my own view as well as Nyx's and Gretchen's and Amy's. It's just, last time I wrote about it, I became a complete bitch in the process. And, last time I wrote it, it turned me into a crying, angry bitch who screamed at her mother for offenses committed long ago. To top it off, it was for the same teacher I have now, but with two years less of maturity and knowledge and words behind me. Gray is still it, to me, though. That's how it was before, colorless, and I don't know how to write it with color. It's gray, my memory of sadness.

And yet, what is my memory of happiness. I look back for a happy moment, look back for something, and I know their was contentment, know there was joy and excitement and happy and love and hope, but what stands out, what can be reconsidered and rewritten and torn apart and pieced back together and made into a creation that is no longer purely the memory but is more?

Nyx just said "getting ridiculous test scores." Could I do a rememory of the SAT, of the scores, of the pain and the pressure finally exploding like a bottle of champagne into pure joy? But, even that isn't all happy. It's happiness tinged, tilted by effort, a mistrust of tests, a feeling that even though the numbers say I'm better than just about everyone else, I'm not better, or I am, but not enough, or not in the right ways, or something, because always, always always always there is this pressure, this urge to do better.

Even the happy has been destroyed by the pressure.

Is this what it is, to be an overachiever? Is that what I am now, no more semi about it? Have I outgrown the title that began this? I can't have. After all, I still sleep eight hours a night. I still stress over little tiny details like essays.

And yet, why isn't there anything happy. Why can't I find happy? It's as if everything I have right now is colored, hopefully just by my headache. Maybe when I try again, in the morning, I'll have a memory worth remembering.

This is the problem, I think, by choosing to avoid depression by constantly looking to the future. The present can be difficult to stomach. The past can be impossible to confront.

I promise to be less emo tomorrow.

Great Homework Accomplishments

Among the Overachievers of my hometown, Sunday is Homework Day. Friday and Saturday are the brief blissful moments of freedom before the torrent of work. Last night, however, I had three friends sleep over, and we were up until one, and I then spent about six hours tossing and turning. This led to me feeling very tired today. On the upside, exhaustion tends to interfere with my memory. Although I did homework for about three hours this afternoon, I am so tired that I am incapable of remembering the wasted time. All I can remember is watching X-men this evening, which was extremely enjoyable.

In other news, I cut my finger on a bread knife, so am currently incapable of playing the guitar at all, and also can't practice any of my piano songs without modifying the fingerings to be able to play better, which destroys the whole building-muscle-memory purpose of practicing, so I spent a little bit of time composing and used the hours I would have spent at the piano to catch up on America's Next Top Model. My pick for the Next Top Model is Teyona. I loved her hope/change picture from this week.

Speaking of hope and change, Maureen Dowd's column in the Week in Review today was ridiculous. I realize that she loves Obama, but he isn't a superhuman shrink/president/unnaturally perceptive man. He's a human being, and he won't be able to magically see through every layer of European policy. He's the best we've got, but he isn't perfect, and I feel like she just doesn't see that. Unless the column was irony that I'm to tired to understand, which is distinctly possible.

Speaking of tire . . . goodnight!

My Laziness

Well, would you look at that. I haven't written in a very, very long time. I've been too busy reading. And writing papers. Although I did get in a little bit of work on writing for me during the holiday break. It's funny how whenever I get busy, writing is the first thing I stop doing, even though its one of my favorite activities. It's masochistic in the same way that I refuse to play piano until I finish my homework.

In other news, I officially love Justine Chen Headley. I just read and thoroughly enjoyed Girl Overboard, which was fun to read and left me with a feeling of girl power for a few days after I finish it. Even if it's the character who's awesome and not me, it's still enjoyable. And it's nice to read about someone who has plenty of money and isn't a total snob like the girls in A-list and Gossip Girl.

But for now- back to midterms!

Homework

I swear to god, all this work is eating me up. I'm on my sophomore year- it shouldn't be this bad! It's ridiculous that to find classes that are challenging enough for me mentally, I'm basically forced to give up my emotional well being in favor of the endless stream of homework assignments. Yes, I could, theoretically, take easier classes, but I've done it before, and it generally leaves me both bored and ostracized. I made it through middle school- I do not want to experience anything remotely like that again.

In marginally better news, one week and two days until the first day of the Science Honors Program, and I am so excited. Yes, the fact that I am psyched to ride on a train into new york and learn science is incredibly nerdy, but according to Newsweek, the girl nerd is 'hot', so me and my 5'9" of gangly limbs are ready to prove them right, I suppose. If I could just figure out how to put on eyeliner...

Doing School

Gah! reading Doing School (by Denise Clark Pope) for US History and its got me really stressed out. Basically, the author follows around these kids with high gpas at Faircrest high, which is an insanely overachieving school. Basically, they spend a ton of time doing homework and extracurriculars and have no lives.

The problem with it is that it is wayyy to similar to my life. My school sounds a lot like Faircrest, and I'm too much like the kids in it. I don't mean to be- it's just the way I am.

I was born with the ability to read quickly, test well, and remember easily. I'm not sure how much help it'll be in the real world, but its a blessing in high school.

I didn't originally set out to get good grades, but just by doing my homework and some minimal studying, I do. And unfortunately, I love to learn and can't stand a boring class, so I'm taking four honors courses and one that's kind of an independent study, plus art, music theory, and gym. I love my classes when I'm in them; I just hate the homework.

The culture in all the tough courses is so inhibitive. A lot of kids are constantly stressing over grades and college and whatnot, and most of my friends think that a good school is necessary for a good life. I know that its not, and I know I want to be independent and happy, but I don't know how to pull myself away. Everything will just keep chugging along until I'm sitting at a lab bench all day and going home to an empty, too small apartment. It's terrifying. I'd love to be in that lab someday, but I'm young; I need happiness, passions, love, friends.

Maybe I'll take a gap year and pull myself away from it all; I could do some volunteer work, play piano, paint, learn some grammatical links other than semicolons.

It'll be good.

I'll work on that. I'll keep at it through high school, but remember that there's more long-term value in the world outside the classroom.

I refuse to be sucked in.