If I Needed Someone

Okay, so we all know it's been far too long since I last posted. My mom's been limiting my time online (she claims it interferes with my schoolwork; last year I was restricted from AIM for half of second semester because of my calc grade), and I haven't even been on much to check my e-mail or read random Xangas lately. It's been busy.

Senior year hasn't been going as well as I'd hoped. Junior year was supposed to be the hard one, remember? We were supposed to pull all-nighters on the word paper and stuff like that. I think people had it wrong, though; Mrs. Longhenry doesn't really hit you until senior year. English is killing all of us, and there's daily Stats homework to complicate things. Besides the regular workload there have been other complications: my wallet got stolen from my backpack when I forgot to zip it to walk between the commons and the tech wing after lunch; I forgot to wear my ID one day, so I had to get a temporary one and deal with the hall aides again; quiz bowl started, and I can already tell that I don't care if this is our year to win State, as practices are the most mind-numbing moments of my life (besides Spanish last year. Notice a trend here?).

As I predicted earlier, I live for fourth hour, my TA period. The freshmen are nice and funny and cute. Annoying at times, yes, but mostly entertaining. And there's no work involved, not only outside class but also in it. I mainly just sit there and listen to lectures, which does get boring after a while, but there's lots of discussion and funny comments and so on. My other favorite class is psychology. I'm so glad I got to have Mr. McCoy; I took econ at Rock Valley, so I missed out on that experience, but psych seems more fun as well as easier. He's always going off on funny rants; the latest was about the futility of IDs as protection against school shootings. If someone's going to bring a gun to school, they probably attend Auburn and have an ID, so they can waltz past the hall aides with no trouble. McCoy pantomimed using the little rectangle of plastic to deflect bullets, which everyone laughed at. The sad thing is that an Auburn student really did bring a gun to school last year and showed it to several people; no one reported him until after school that day. He was wearing his ID.

Last night I went to Ellen's for her birthday party. She turned eighteen a couple of weeks ago, so there have been many jokes about buying cigarettes and porn. It was a little awkward with all the Guilford girls there; I've known all of them since freshman year and I like them all, so it shouldn't be bad, but somehow I've never been able to get to know them the way Sonya has. I had fun hanging out with Sonya, April, and Laura at the park, reminiscing about elementary school. We all feel guilty about teasing Derek Owens and Dylan Rambow, and carry a residual hatred for the people that teased us, like Ryan Nowicki. I have random, vivid memories of elementary school, like Mrs. Ginestra yelling at me for snickering when Little House on the Prairie referred to the "butt" of a gun, or Chris Vanmanivong drawing Star Wars characters all over my notebook in fifth grade, or me getting mad at Valerie Horneij when she had a lunchtime birthday party, complete with cake, for her stuffed moose, and only the cool kids were invited (needless to say, I wasn't one of them).

This week is Homecoming, which should be fun since we're now seniors. I'm actually going to the dance this year; I got my dress at Bergner's yesterday (note to self: avoid shopping with my family at all costs in the future). I really like it; it's mint green with black ribbon and a poofy skirt, so I don't mind so much that I'm going with my friends instead of a boy. I just hope I get a "real" date for prom. If all else fails, I'll ask one of my freshmen.