One and One is Two

Another milestone has passed: the Senior Survey. It consists of voting for people to fit categories like Most Involved, Most Athletic, Best Car, etc. Its effect is usually to reinforce the popularity and power of certain individuals. (Last year Ellie Kiefer, who was very popular and influential, won for several categories.) We had those every year of middle school, although those also included things like Favorite Movie and Favorite Song (I remember when "It Wasn't Me" won in seventh grade. I remember commiserating with my friends that it was really bad but secretly liking it). Filling the survey out was actually fun, and some of my votes went through. Joe Szeluga got Meanest. I voted for him. Since Ross' parties last summer, I've been talking to Joe more, but I still agree that he is quite mean. And everyone, even his friends, seems to have at least some hatred for him. He acted like he was really happy, but I wonder if he feels bad about it. "Meanest" is a pretty mean category itself. Ellen got Best Car, which she campaigned for. Her blue-green Volvo, with the bumper sticker of Bush that says, "The Emperor Has No Brains," is pretty sweet. Hey, and I can say that I've ridden in it myself.

I'm very oriented aroud anticipation; I'm always looking forward to some goal. When I don't have an immediate one, I feel weird, lost. Like if I don't have something after school I'm looking forward to, or if I wake up and it's not a day on which there's something good in the newspaper (my mornings are organized around Wednesday's Molly Ivins column, Thursday's Weekly section, Friday's Go section, Saturday's USA Weekend, and Sunday's Will Pfeiffer column). And I kind of feel like that right now: lost, unfocused. The first two quiz bowl tournaments of the season are out of the way, so now I'm not eagerly looking forward to it anymore. Even the fact that Will's coming to see us at Northwestern on Saturday doesn't really make me any more excited about getting up at 5:30 and sitting in a van with Ms. Greene, Tyler, Ryan, Siva, and Michael Jiang for a total of three hours. Actually, that was a remarkably short time to burn out. January and February are going to be pretty long.

I just feel like a lot of the things that used to tie me down are cutting loose. Maybe that's a sign that I'm ready to go, to leave Auburn and Rockford and my family and go out on my own. I don't feel like I fit in at church...I never really did, but there was a time when I had a lot of fun at youth group, could talk to people, and so on. Now it just annoys me. (The sentence in my head was "it annoys the hell out of me," but that just seems odd, given the context.) The people are superficial, cliquey, and dumb. And the actual program is pretty shallow. I mean, it was nice freshman and sophomore year, but not to sound self-righteous or anything, I think I can go deeper. I want to study the Bible, study the history of the Church, theology, etc. And youth group just hits the surface. Which is fine for some people, but I've moved on. After reading Demian and Siddhartha, I'm deciding more and more that I need to make my own decisions about my morality, not just parrot what the Church tells me. That's stage four, in terms of Kohlberg.

And my friends are great, as always, but do you ever feel like everything meaningful has been said? Or can't really be said? Every day is just a repeat of the one before. I thought I was making new friends this year, but my freshmen also feel bland lately. I do talk to Christian Zarnke...but, all kidding aside (Sonya calls me a pedophile because of my semi-flirtatious friendships with underclassmen), he's very immature. Obsessed with violent video games, giggling when someone talks about midgets...I know that's how freshmen (and some juniors and seniors) are, that he'll outgrow it (and he will; he's a smart, good kid), but I can't talk to him. Or anyone, really. There's only so much you can say over Skippy Bars and Diet Coke.