Category: Uncategorized

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.

 

Think of the hardest game genre. For some people, it’s puzzle games. Others, rhythm games. While these are all hard games no doubt and require years of dedicated practice to master, I think that fighting games are the most difficult, with not even a single other genre even coming close to the level of commitment it requires. And while there’s a multitude of reasons why this is so and I could probably write an entire essay on the topic, I want to focus on an aspect of the game that is often overlooked by newer players: mind games.

First off, let me explain what intentionality is. When most people start playing a fighting game, it comes as no surprise that they’ll start mashing every button wildly. This makes sense. They don’t know how to play, so really, slamming every button is really the only option to make sure attacks are coming out. A strategy like this might work against another new player, but obviously it’s not the most rewarding feeling to win because you pressed a bunch of buttons randomly. After all, the satisfaction of winning comes from using your own skill to beat a tough opponent. So how does one get to the point of using skill it win? It’s a long and complicated journey to become decent at a game, but the very first step is this: actually learning what the buttons do, and when to use them. Once the player has mastered this, they’ve reached the point of intentionality. This is when the player knows what action they want to perform in the fight, and will press the right button accordingly. No more randomly smacking buttons. Now, does this mean the player has become decent. That would be a hard no. Knowing what you want to do and knowing what you should actually do are very different things. For example, maybe you want to hard kick a guy in the face, but maybe the better and more correct option would be to block the kick he’s about to land on you. Figuring out the best option in fighting requires studying the basic fundamentals of the game like spacing and punishing. Again, I could write a whole other post on these other fundamentals, but the most important one in my opinion would definitely be the mind games aspect.

A part of the reasons why new players get spanked so easily is because they develop habits. It’s important to mix up your game, but for a new player, if they see a strong move they like, chances are they’ll use it again and again. When a player develops habits, it’s easy for the other player to read them. Reading the other player is essential while fighting, and is part of what makes it intense. Not only are you occupied actually whacking each other, you’re also busy trying to figure them out, and predicting what they’ll do next. Reflexes and reacting to your opponent are important, but I’d argue that prediction and being able to tell what they’ll do next is more useful. Let’s say a player likes to throw fireballs. They do it again and again in the same pattern. If their opponent is any good, they’ll be able to pick up on this and react accordingly. The next time the player throws a fireball, the other player will be able to predict it, and jump over while smacking the opponent. Of course, not every habit is so easy to figure out, but that’s the fun of it. Noticing small tells and what the opponent likes to do in certain situations is gratifying. It’s sort of like poker. The problem is that new players aren’t likely to recognize their bad habits and will keep getting punished for what they’re doing, and they won’t understand why. Reading habits and eliminating your own is part of becoming a stronger player.

Once you’ve smacked a guy around enough times for his bad habits, there’s a chance he’ll learn and try to mix it up. This is all part of conditioning. They got a negative response from an action, so he’ll stop doing that action. Bringing back the example from earlier, after the player gets punished for spamming fireballs, maybe he’ll stop using them. This isn’t a bad thing by itself, but players tend to make the mistake of never using the move again. And when you’ve scared a player into not ever using one of their moves, you’ve pretty much already won.

There’s a lot more to say on the subject but I’m sure you’re not actually interested. To get good at a fighting, you actually have to want to get good. It’s not just going to happen. Obviously I’m not saying you have to master all these fundamentals as soon as you can. Learning is a gradual process, and the most demotivating part of learning fighting games is that you have to get spanked by better players literally hundreds of times before you can get better. Nobody likes to lose, but it’s part of the process, which is a big turn off for some people. Anyhow, the best way to learn is to play and slowly learn more about the fundamentals. You don’t start learning how to walk by running. And even if you have no interest in fighting games, you can still apply these fundamentals to other games. In chess, you want to figure out your opponent’s plan, in baseball, you want to figure out the next pitch, and in soccer, you want to predict where the ball will be kicked into the net.

I had to go to Arizona this Thanksgiving and I had to miss a day of school for it. That’s pretty annoying because then I’ll have to do make up work on lessons I didn’t attend. I’m sure my dad is trying to set some sort of record because he keeps doing this for no apparent reason other than to ruin my attendance and besmirch my record with an unexcused absence. Once Christmas comes round he’ll probably makes me miss a week of school so I can miss my midterms and then make them up later, which gives me make up work on the classes I missed while I was taking the midterms.

Anyway I had to go with grandma who kept pestering me dumb questions like which way to get through “skeerity,” as she calls it. She’s flown a multitude of times by herself before so I’m not sure why she keeps asking. We went through skeerity and then sat on our bums for a while. There was a detour flight to Chicago, which was very irritating, because I hate Chicago. After grandma used the restroom we got on the plane and did nothing for an hour. Chicago was very crowded and as I had expected everyone was very rude. This one bum even walked right into me and just kept walking. He didn’t even glance at me. And the thing is, he could have just walked around me because where we were it wasn’t crowded at all. Once we got to the gate I had to stand for about an hour or so since all the seats were taken. The flight was very long and boring and I wanted to shoot myself. I couldn’t sleep because the seats were uncomfortable and my neck hurt.

In Arizona we had to stand around for a bit. I figured Khoi’s dad was picking us up but they weren’t because they were getting on a flight. Turns out this other person was picking us up. Why they didn’t just come together, I don’t know, but after Khoi’s gang arrived we had to wait about ten minutes for the other person to arrive. Then I watched them eat tacos or something and then I sat in a stranger’s car for an hour. I was listening to my playlist which is very excellent by the way. I listen to some pretty bopping songs like Plastic Love and Cherries Jubiles. Japanese City Pop is objectively the best genre of music and if you disagree you are wrong. American music is awful, and the few good songs you get bored of after a while. I suppose eventually I’ll get bored of city pop and then move on to bossa nova or something. Then the cycle continues. That’s how my playlist evolves.

Anyhow. At the stranger’s house there were some other kids and they made me go to a tea place for whatever reason and then I had to sign up for a secret santa thing which is something you’d expect some ten year olds to come up with, not fully grown adults. And I’m pretty sure the way secret santa works doesn’t involve making a wish list. You’re supposed to guess who your secret santa is based on the gift they give you. But if you come up with a wishlist and they give you the thing you asked for, it really could be anyone and you have no real way of guessing anything. On a sidenote I had to make an email account for the thing to work. It turns out I’m the only person in existence who doesn’t have an email. I figured only adults with jobs had emails mainly for work, but apparently these nine year olds have one too for whatever reason. I’m not exactly sure who’s emailing a nine year old, aside from kiddy diddlers. So far I haven’t gotten much use out of my email, other than finally verifying my Roblock email after eight years and making a Runescape account.

The next day we probably did something but I don’t really remember. I think we played four square and badminton except everyone was bad.  There was also this one show, Love is War, that we watched. It’s about a depressed man who tries to escape a psychopathic murderer. I also met tq’s “friends,” but to me it seemed more like she was the annoying little kid of the group. There was also this hotpot place. I had sushi there. This bum Angel picked off all the fish though and put it in a grotesque pile. And some moron decided it was a good idea to put wasabi on everything. Who the hell even likes wasabi, it tastes awful. We also went to this place and walked around for an hour for no apparent reason. On the last day I bummed around and then played badminton with the neighborhood kids who were all very bad at badminton.

So that’s pretty much it. I could have went into more detail but I don’t feel like it.

Avatar is the worst movie I’ve never seen. The movie was directed by James Burger, who is a convicted felon and was also the director of box-office flop, The Titanic, which to this very day is still scathed for being an inaccurate portrayal of how big the ship was. One of the weakest aspects is how the alien creatures are presented. They shamelessly painted the actors blue. This is extremely offensive to the indigenous people of Avatar. Also, the blue aliens are ugly. I do not want to see these ugly creatures singing and dancing on the screen for three hours. Yes, that’s right, three hours. This egregious atrocity demands three whole hours of my time. I cannot believe some braindead morons really paid money to see this film. They should be paying me to watch it. This movie has gone down in history as the biggest box office failure of all time, grossing a measly $2.58 worldwide. Despite these low gains, the film still gained a profit, as the budget consisted of only four cents and a McDonalds coupon. So all in all Avatar was a great movie, I loved it, my great grandmother loved it, and its a good kids movie. 10/10

I was going to write about that dystopian novel 1984, since I had just read it, but to be honest I didn’t find it overly interesting so instead I’ll discuss The Catcher in the Rye, which I found more enjoyable. It’s about a depressed guy stumbling around New York drunk, sneaking into bars and being robbed by prostitutes. That’s pretty much what happens. There’s not much plot, nor is there really much character development save for the end. Really there’s no recurring characters except for the main character’s family. Everybody else are just people the protagonist meets along the way. They never show up again, which is a shame, because some of them are pretty entertaining.

The novel centers around Holden Caulfield after getting expelled from his boarding school. While he’s waiting for Wednesday to be sent home he gets in a fight with his roommate and then runs away. The rest of the book is spent, as I’ve already stated, sneaking into bars, getting robbed by prostitutes—things like that. Anything else I say will only sound like a minor detail, but that’s because the entire book is made up off minor details. It feels more real that way. The book is written in the way you’d expect an edgy sixteen year old to write it, with no long and eloquent prose, just entire pages dedicated to slandering people. I thought it was pretty funny. My favorite joke is probably too obscene for my younger fan base. My second favorite joke is near the beginning. Holden is asking his classmate Ackley if he wants to go see the movies with a friend and Ackley asks who’s going. And then in his head Holden says that Ackley is always asking who’s going. If Ackley were stranded on an island and a boat was coming to rescue him he’d ask who was rowing before he got on. I realize it’s probably not that funny to you. You’d have to read the book to find it funny. Anyway there’s not much else to say since the plot is pretty barebones. The voice of the book is nice. Like a real person’s. Usually the narrator is talking like Shakespeare even though they’re supposed to be a pretty stupid character. Holden says at the beginning his vocabulary is awful and it shows in the writing, repeated words and phrases everywhere. This book was written and takes place in the sixties so I was pretty surprised how relevant Holden’s thoughts were. He calls everyone phonies because they’re all fake as hell and aren’t genuine at all. I didn’t know people were getting upset with the fakeness of the world in the sixties. I thought they were dying in the war. The Catcher in the Rye is supposed to be a relatable book for teenagers. I didn’t find it very relatable. But I found a lot of the points agreeable, mainly on the part about fakers and phonies. All in all, pretty cool book.

We’ve been going through our volleyball unit which is the only time of the year that the girls aren’t whining and refusing to play. One time I took a volleyball to practice serving with my classmate and within a minute all the girls had swarmed us like a pack of piranhas demanding I hand it over. Most of my volleyball knowledge comes from that one show that I haven’t watched, so I don’t know all the volleyball positions like liberal and republican. Not that it mattered where I was playing because my teammates were a bunch of buffoons anyway. I don’t know anything about volleyball and even I can tell that their form is god awful. They all keep setting with one hand and this bum even smacked the ball into my face while trying to hit it over the net. The other team was just as uncivilized and nobody kept the score; the match eventually devolved into the guys seeing how far they could smack the ball past the net. Typically there’d be a least a single girl on the team barking orders and being really finicky about us being in the right positions and rotating correctly. I thought it was annoying then but now I do miss it. All of the girls quarantined themselves to the other half of the gym where they held a professional game. I don’t blame them. I’m not sure if I lost or won the first game because it was total anarchy but I’m fairly certain I won the second game. I didn’t do much. This same guy kept serving for our team with a fifty percent success rate. Then again, the other team was trash as well.

In business foundations my teacher really hates Mark Zuckerberg. He has what he calls the Zuck Tracker and each week he watches the Zuck’s net worth fall. Our class is more like a current events class because rarely do we ever learn from the book (he says it’s outdated in today’s technological age). Most of the time our teacher just shows us whatever is happening currently. For whatever reason he really likes AI and claims it will be the way of the future. When the Zuck dropped a trailer for his latest illegitimate child, Meta, which I suppose is some sort of successor to Facebook, my teacher wanted us to analyze it and how it could impact the business landscape. People say that Mark Zuckerberg is secretly a robot or a lizard. It’s a joke I never really understood until watching the Meta trailer. The Zuck seems more like a reanimated corpse than anything, and I think it would be wise to keep the Zuck far away from any promotional material from here on out. Anyway, I thought Meta was a neat idea, though it doesn’t seem consumer ready at all. When my teacher asked for opinions on Meta, instead of giving insight on Meta itself, everyone just went off on how much they hate Mark Zuckerberg, a sentiment I didn’t realize so many people had. They say he’s super creepy, and I do admit he looks and acts like the kind of guy to try to suck on your toes when you’re not looking.

On an unrelated note Roblock is giving out free burritos

Though it’s grown more mainstream over the years, video games still have a bad reputation, mostly among boomers, as a children’s toy with little more to it than senseless violence. Overall it seems like most people seem to think that video games are just a waste of time. I’m not going to argue that video games are good for hand-eye coordination or something like that because that would be stupid. But I am going to state why I believe video games should be viewed on the same level as a book or a movie.

If this were a pretentious video essay on youtube I’d probably start off with a black title screen that says Chapter 1: What is Art? I’m not going to waste any time trying to define art because art is an abstract noun and trying to put it in words would be like trying to define love or adventure or luck. Instead I’ll just list a few things that are considered art to most people: paintings, movies, books, dances, architecture, plays, and music. While all of these things can be found in video games, I think video games are most similar to movies and books. Most video games have an accompanying soundtrack—songs that are custom made to fit the nature of the game. Movies exist to tell a story, and almost all video games do just that.

Some people try to label video games as shooting people in the head over and over, that it’s silly and mindless. While there are games that are precisely that, the majority of them are not, and if the people saying this actually bothered to play video games, they would know this. Besides, that would be similar to saying that all movies are mindless because of the cheesy action flicks out there, or that all books are stupid because of erotic young adult novels written by fourteen year old girls. Another dumb thing people say is that video games cause violence, which is just silly and was probably conjured up by some guys trying to unravel government conspiracies while wearing tinfoil hats. There hasn’t been any scientific data to back this claim up and again, I don’t understand why movies or books get accused of being a bad influence when there are a lot of violent ones out there.

As a medium, I do think that video games can exceed both books and movies, and this is largely due to the fact that it’s an experience. You are going through a story. You’re not just watching. You’re participating. In a horror movie it’s pretty scary watching someone trip ten times while running away from Chuck E Cheese. But imagine if you were running away from Chuck E Cheese. Think of a fantasy novel like The Hobbit and how wondrous the world is as you’re filled with little pieces of lore as Bilbo’s adventure goes on. Now imagine if you could explore a fantasy world and piece together clues about the world’s history.

There is more to say but I think I’ll leave it at this for now.

Salut. Je m’appelle Nam. J’ai quatorze ans. J’habite dans la maison avec mon pere et ma grandmere. J’ai deux freres. Mon petit frere est stupide et mon grand frere est stupide. Je ne suis pas stupide. J’aime regarder un film et faire du velo avec mon l’oncle. Nous achetons la glace au DQ. En hiver je vais faire du snowboard avec ma famille. Au revoir.

The Catcher in the Rye is a book about a 17 year old edgelord from what I’ve heard and I’m interested in reading it but some bum at the library won’t return it so I have to wait a month until he finally does. In the meantime I have to read To Kill A Mockingbird which I’m sure everybody has to read in high school. From what I’ve read so far, it’s alright, though I’m not sure why it needs to be in every ninth grade ELA room across the nation. I also have to read The Glass Menagerie which is a play and I hate reading plays because it’s all dialogue with no detail. Also the first the thing my ELA teacher did when we entered on the first day of school was present us a slideshow of all the old and obscure 1930s books and songs he likes. I think he wanted us to be impressed but he has a poster of the Joker in the back of the class so he gains no respect from me. My business foundations teacher is starting to crack down on phones in class now since the principal is getting mad about it. Usually he just doesn’t even care since the class is just filled with seniors who already have the credits to graduate and are just passing time. Now he’s taking away phones and there’s a guy who sits next to me who always wears jeans and he was super depressed without his phone. I thought he died. In business foundations all we did was watch episodes of Shark Tank. My business foundations teacher is pretty weird. He’s always talking about his girlfriend like he wants to flex on us that he has one and he talks about all this different businesses he’s been a part of. I’m not sure if he’s lying or not.

I was playing Roblock and I saw that my cousins had these cringe weeb names and I figured that was just a product of being a loser and that they were the only ones doing that. Then I was playing Squid Game Roblocks and this weeb was speaking in japanese probably using google translate or something. And everytime I go on the front page of Roblocks there are a bunch of dumb anime games with cursed images of Roblocks Naruto. This could just be a Roblock thing but anime and anything to do with Japan has started cropping up everywhere. There was once a time where you were bullied for being a weeb (and rightfully so). Now everybody is watching anime and talking about their favorite episode of their favorite anime, One Piece, and I see a bunch of people wearing anime merch of like Naruto or that one funny green guy from Dragon Ball.

I feel like everybody’s only impression of Japan comes from anime and five youtube videos about the country, and all of a sudden it’s the greatest place of all time. It’s like how watching high school movies as a child gives you a warped perception of what it’s going to be like. Japan is a pretty cool place. However, Roblocks usernames are sacred and should not be taken lightly (you have to pay so much robuck to change it), and so naming your Roblock avatar rin is just not okay. So let me explain why you should not worship Japan.

1. It makes you a loser.

that’s about it, and really that’s all the reason you need.

Also, I’ve already beaten this dead horse hard enough, but I have to say one thing: anime is so bad it’s so trash how can people watch anime and think that yeah I like this I’ll tell everyone else about it .

Sometimes I see people online going like “This show has truly changed my life. I was just a depressed kid in middle school when I first watched, but now my whole viewpoint on life is changed. The deep and philosophical questions proposed by this show are ahead of its time and I think not enough people appreciate this. The cinematography and lighting are akin to a Kubrick or Scorsese film. Sound design, character design, and character development are all on point, and I truly think that it is not only one of the best animes of all time, but one of the best pieces of media, ever.”

 

And then the show they’re talking about it is Rent-A-Girlfriend.

I’m not going to finish this blog because my main idea got muddled after I started complaining about anime and I’m trying to schedule my free time so I have enough time to write my book. So I’m stopping.

While I was in Florida I briefly talked to Alex at the beach and he asked me if I was going to be a freshmen starting this year. I told him that I was. Then he started going on a whole lecture about how I should enjoy high school while it lasts and how he wishes he could go back. He talked like he was thirty years old or something but he was basically just starting his college experience. Even so, I thought about this for a while as I sat in the water and let the ocean waves roll past.

All my teachers at the beginning of the year went on about opportunities and not letting our high school years go to waste, that the four years go by fast. Then they showed us all the things we could join. I didn’t find interest in any of them.

Each morning on the announcements they bring a senior on to talk and as if they were reading from a script–they most certainly were–they all discussed how we should do as much as we could while we were here.

Whenever I ask the seniors after they graduate about their regrets, they always say they wish they could have done more. That’s why you shouldn’t let these years go by without doing anything.

I’m in ninth grade now so that makes me a high schooler. I was already attending a high school last year but I suppose that doesn’t count since some people just want to be picky. Nothing much has changed from middle school. It’s a lot more lonely though. The school was smaller in middle school so there was a better feeling of interconnectedness. My high school has around 1200 kids (I think) and I only know a small handful of them.

I don’t really watch any high school movies, probably because I’m not a seven year old girl who thinks high school consists of cliques and spoiled rich girls and bully jocks and nerdy losers and that high school life revolves around prom and constant drama. Actually, I don’t think I’ve watched any high school movie. But everyone knows how they typically go. I became intrigued with the idea of living the ideal, rose-colored high school life. Maybe I’d hang out with friends after school and maybe there’d be some drama and maybe I’d attend the football game where we defeat our dreaded rivals and then I’d go to prom with my date, except none of that will ever happen. I don’t have any real friends and the few people I sort of talk to probably wouldn’t want to hang out with me, or anyone for that matter. There’s nowhere to hang out too. In the movies the main cast of characters have this secret base or a designated hangout spot like a particular cafe or store that they like, but in the town I live in I can’t think of any place like that, unless your favorite cafe is Starbucks. I don’t like football and I don’t care about football and I don’t see myself ever bothering to get myself a ticket, unless one day somebody asks me to go see the game with them, which as I’ve already stated, won’t ever happen. And I’m never getting a date because I don’t like anyone since all the girls at school unfortunately have the dreadful personality of a high school girl, and if I had to spend any time with one alone then I think I’d reach down their throats and rip out their vocal chords, and then dump their bodies into the nearby river. And it’s not as if anyone would want to go to prom with me, nor do I want to go to prom.

Anyway, I thought it wouldn’t matter if none of the high school movie stuff ever happened since it’s just Hollywood and it doesn’t happen in real life. But then I occasionally hear the people walking past me talk about their experiences and drama, and I’d hear about how the kids hang out after school and do some wild stuff, stuff that I wasn’t even aware of because of course nobody invited me, and how everyone seems to be friends with each other on social media, or how everyone is in group chat with one another, or how seniors just walk in during class and my other classmates seem to know them and they start laughing together, and so it makes me wonder if I should be included in these conversations as well. And then the remarks about wasting your high school experience comes to mind and I get a little more concerned.

I knew about homecoming for a while but didn’t pay it much mind because I thought it was going to be like those middle school dances that nobody went to save for a few losers. Then I heard some people talking about going to prom and I started wondering if I should be going too. And the thought about not wasting high school flashes into my mind. I didn’t want to go to homecoming. I knew I wouldn’t have fun at homecoming. I can’t dance and I prefer listening to music alone, or if I have to, with someone who can appreciate music. I didn’t have a date. I wasn’t even sure if you were supposed to have a date for homecoming. At the very least, I didn’t have any friends to go with. Going to an event without a date is fine. Going completely by yourself is pathetic. I had no interest at all in homecoming. But it was the fear of missing out, of wasting my high school years, of being ostracized from my peers, that’s what had me worried.

I ended up not going.

August 27th:

Each morning I go into the gymnasium where I sit with all the other freshmen. I don’t have anybody to talk to. On my right sits the group of rowdy teenage boys. On my left sits a bunch of weeaboo losers that give me second hand embarrassment. Even if they are losers I’m envious of their friend group.

First period, I have math. I don’t talk to anyone since it’s a generally quiet class as the teacher isn’t the type to joke around with the students. It’s pretty boring and I just find myself constantly checking the time until I leave.

Second period is business foundations. When I first entered the class I thought I had walked into some sort of prison room because it all just a bunch of old dudes. There were about three other freshmen but I didn’t notice them until about my second week of class. The teacher is the football coach and a few football players are in the class so they’re always talking about football. We get sidetracked pretty easily, which I don’t mind, since business isn’t exactly thrilling material. There’s textbooks but we don’t use them since the teacher says they’re outdated and the business landscape has changed considerably, mainly due to advances in technology. The teacher, for whatever reason, is really into tech and AI, so we had to do a whole essay on AI and the advancement of technology, as well as their effects on the business landscape. Then we had to do a whole debate which I didn’t participate in because like I said, business isn’t exactly thrilling material. It’s a pretty laid back class though with not too much work so I’m fine with it.

Third period is history. History makes me want to kill myself. History is boring as hell.

Fourth period is English. I hate English. I have to read passages nobody cares about and write about their meaning and the author’s intent. The writing portion is fun, at least when it was a personal narrative essay. The majority of the time I have to write about something I don’t care about like what lead a character to do something in a story, and if I don’t care the writing is super boring and it makes me want to shoot myself.

Fifth period is team sports. I shouldn’t have joined team sports. I should have joined PE survey. That’s the class I need to pass high school and that’s the class all the freshmen are in now and so when I take PE survey next year I’ll be with a bunch of snot nosed freshmen. Although there is this one gut I’ve seen in PE survey that looks like a grown man. I genuinely don’t know if he’s a college aged dude or just a really old looking senior. He has a full beard and everything. For a while I thought his face looked familiar and that’s when I realized he looked exactly (and I do mean exactly) like a young Lebron James, except with a yellow afro. And he absolutely murders in kickball, to the point where I think it should be considered cheating. He kicked it harder than the teacher. Anyway, PE survey shares the gym with team sports, which is filled with seniors and juniors and sophomore. There are only five other freshmen, and I don’t talk to them. We have to do stuff like football and ultimate frisbee and dogeball and a little basketball, none of which I’m that good at, but it’s worse when I’m competing against guys who are ten feet taller than me. I’d like to say though, today the gym teacher was super mad. We have two football players in our class and he was just going off on them, screaming “55 to 6? 55 to 6?” Over and over and over again and the football player would be making excuses like “We had three sophomores on the line!” And they’d bicker back and forth constantly like parrots. Apparently the varsity team got clapped really bad at the homecoming game which I didn’t attend and the gym teacher had been fuming over it all weekend. The teacher just kept going at it saying that everybody in the stands could have suited up and even they wouldn’t have lost 55 to 6. Coincidentally, we were in the middle of the football unit. I’ve never played football so I was no good at it.

Sixth period is lunch. I sit with two other guys and we either play video games or play chess, depending on the day. There’s not too much to say about that.

Seventh period is French. I don’t mind the class, even if I am awful at French. (I hate French.) But my classmates are so annoying. They just go on and on making unfunny jokes. There’s a guy who sits next to me who is not very funny, which isn’t really that bad, but he acts just like I did in fifth grade so I can tell exactly what his thought process is when he makes these unfunny jokes and it just gives me second hand embarrassment. Then there’s this girl in the back who will not ever shut the hell up and quite frankly I want to leap out of my seat and shout that I’ve had enough but I know if I do that people will start avoiding me and my already low social standing will become decimated and I’ll be labeled as an unstable jerk, which I am not. Actually, she acts a lot like TL, uncannily so, as if they were clones. But tl is my cousin and I’ve known her for a long time. This girl just makes me want to get a fork and poke her eyeballs out. I guess that’s a little mean though, since I know she just wants to make people laugh and be lighthearted. But I don’t find her funny. The days where she was absent were pure bliss. The guy who sat next to me wasn’t all that bad. The occasional remark by one of the students wasn’t very funny but wasn’t too loud or constant or obnoxious. Then she returned and I went back to viciously scratching myself to take my mind off things. Although it’s not as if I hate any of my French classmates. I just find them a little bothersome.

Eight period is my most boring class. I’ve always hated science and thought it was super tedious; this year is no different. Science has the opposite problem of French. Everybody is an introvert. There’s only about four other guys in my class and they’re all kind of beta unlike yours truly, the sigma male. I guess that’s just the kind of crowd that honors biology attracts. The boring material combined with the complete silence for fifty minutes makes me want to leap out the window.