I have midterms this week. I’m not too worried about it aside from ELA and science.  During 4th period my ELA teacher gave us a mock test and about three questions in I thought This is dumb because the questions seemed too open ended. There’s this story about a fish that was probably written by a toddler and there’s a part where it says that the humans started to grow thick and dense like seaweed or something like that, I don’t really remember. And the question asked what they meant by that. It seemed pretty open and closed but the two answers I had narrowed it down to were “A: The human population was increasing” and “D: The humans started building more buildings.” And I thought it was dumb because these pretty much meant the same thing if you think about it. I mean building more buildings implies an increasing population and vice versa. A lot of the questions were like this and I started thinking that it’s not fair to ask what the author intended if they’re not going to clearly spell it out. And some people might interpret things in different ways. That doesn’t make them wrong.

In science class I’m also pretty annoyed because the teacher doesn’t actually teach. She just shows us a powerpoint and reads off of it. And the thing about biology is that you have to learn about cells which is dumb. I’m fine with ecology and stuff because I can actually see those things but learning about cells is like learning about something that doesn’t exist. So I have to rely on these drawings of cells that artists provide but everyone draws them differently. And if you want to search up what something is they won’t ever give you a straight answer, they’ll just say that so and so is made up of pneumiocynclitis or whatever. And so you have to search up what that is (even though it never came up in class) and then the process is repeated. Real stupid.

I have to go to this snowboarding boot camp. It’s real depressing. I was feeling alright yesterday but now I feel dreadful. My dad is vastly overestimating my abilities and he probably thinks I go around grinding on rails or something. I’m not that good. Actually, I’m below average but because everyone else in the family isn’t too great he’ll keep doing dumb stuff like this. All I do is go down the hill and turn sometimes and apparently that’s enough to warrant sending me to a camp I don’t want to do. It’s a boot camp for doing tricks, if you can believe that. The last and only time I tried a trick I ended up spraining my wrist and I had to borrow Vinh’s wrist bracer. And now I have to hang out with these insufferable bums and try to do a flip with them. It really pisses me off that I keep having to do these things. Just when I think things are going fine. I had four days off of school next week and my mom’s Christmas present which still hasn’t arrived yet should be coming soon. I couldn’t really think of anything that was bothering me so I was pretty content. But then someone, anyone, just has to come along and screw everything up. I find it very stressful. This happens a lot and I started thinking that the way to avoid stress is just to stop caring. But it’s hard to just snap your fingers and make yourself completely empty. I wish I could, but unfortunately I can’t.

It sort of reminds me of band camp. I hate band camp. I’m not going to explain why because I don’t want to think about it, you wouldn’t really get it, and I know you don’t actually care. Just know that it was really awful. I wanted to kill myself and I wanted to run away or something because I didn’t want to go at all. And I thought about this for a while but I decided even if I brought my own money I’d run out eventually. There was also the issue of where I’d stay. I figured I might head into the direction of the woods but sleeping with a bunch of bugs crawling around didn’t seem very appealing and I’m pretty sure you have to be at least16 to get a hotel room. I don’t look that old, and I don’t think hotels accept cash anyway. Anyway. There’s this song they played during attendance at band camp. It’s by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. And now whenever I hear that song I get this really sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and all these terrible memories start filling my mind. It’s like when I lived in Florida and school made me depressed. I would have done anything to stay home. And on the way to school my grandpa would turn on the radio and these crappy pop songs would play. It was always the same songs and now in my mind they’re associated with Florida and school and I hate hearing them. If you want to know the two songs that kept playing on the radio that really make me sick are that Sunflower song that was in the Spiderman movie and Lucid Dreams. All I can think of when I hear them is something depressing. Nothing in particular, really. Just a depressing mood starts filling me. It what I imagine PTSD would be like. I’m sure you don’t actually understand the feeling I’m describing or you probably think I’m just being dramatic.

I don’t like people. I don’t like talking to them either, to be honest. Sometimes they’ll say something like “The food today was pretty good.” And they’ll look at me like they want me to say something. I’m at the point now where I realize not talking or just nodding makes people think you’re an antisocial arsehole, which even though I am, it’s the impression you want people to have of you when say, you’re picking partners for a project and nobody wants to talk to you. So of course if I don’t want to be shunned from society I have to respond. But with what? It’s a real stupid comment to make and all I can really think of to say is, “Yeah, the food was pretty good.” But that sounds really lame and it makes you seem awkward because the conversation just ends right there unless the person you’re talking with actually has a good sense of conversation flow and know how to keep it going. Most people don’t. I think my conversation skills are alright. This might seem to contradict this entire paragraph, but it’s true. It’s just that I don’t want to use them. I know I’m supposed to agree/disagree with the person talking about food and segue that into a larger conversation by discussing something related to the topic. But why? I already said I don’t like talking to people and why would I want to have a long conversation with someone I’m not even close to? I don’t want to discuss my favorite foods and restaurants with some person, but to continue my facade, I’ll have to pretend that I do. And that’s the main reason I don’t like talking to people: I have to pretend. It’s very mentally draining and I’m not a very good actor anyway. But if I want to fit in with all the rest of these phonies I have to be one too. And it’s even worse when it feels like I’m the only one trying and the other person just keeps saying dumb stuff because they’re even more socially inept than I am. Why do I have to pretend to smile just so I give a good impression to someone I don’t care about at all? Just so I can fit in? It’s real depressing.

The prime example of this is in ELA class. We were reading To Kill a Mockingbird (my teacher said we have to underline book titles) and at the end of each week we’d discuss it with our group. Now, I’m under the belief that you can usually tell what kind of person someone is just by looking at them and their body language. And just by a glance I could tell all my group members were socially awkward around strangers. None of us knew each other. There was about ten seconds of silence and everyone was looking around awkwardly waiting for someone to say something first. After observing the situation I concluded that this was just going to continue on unless someone did something, so I said “So, who wants to go first?” with this fake as hell smile on my face. My plan was to, if they were still too shy to speak up, volunteer to go first and discuss my thoughts. Then if that still didn’t encourage them, I’d egg them on with some banter. Luckily I didn’t have to do anything like that because someone volunteered. It annoyed me that I even had to do anything like that in the first place.

Anyway. I’m just complaining to myself right now. It’s real depressing.