Hey welcome to my world of being alone on a Friday night while everyone else is out. I'm tired of reciting advice from talk shows and self-help books when they are all full of crap. The truth is, life sucks. If it doesn't today, it will tomorrow. We are all stupid and evil, and there's really no hope for any of us. I need to get a life because this one is awful. My senses are dulled from living in a virtual world where things are pre-created. This is a mockery of a life. I have nothing to say to the world I am just belly-achin'. I wish I had some interesting tidbit to tell. How about a story about a sushi-on-a-boat bar? My uncle and aunt and cousins came in, what a coincidence. It was packed, but it usually is not like that. It took us about an hour to get served. I know my dad hates sushi but I don't care. It was there around New Year's that I told my dad that I returned the entire aquarium set he bought me. I was kind of tentative about buying it, but it was like once I started buying it how could I put the brakes on it? So there it sat for awhile in my apartment. When I returned it I pocketed $120. I used it for expenses, like the clothes I bought for Christmas. What a lousy thing to do.

Today was pretty bizarre. I said I would meet this girl I'm working with on a school project at 1:00 at Barnes and Noble and she shows up like 45 minutes late. I was pretty peeved at that point. Then she changes the whole project around, and I'm like "what?". I figured she didn't care much about it, showing up late and not returning my e-mails and all. We talked about it for a while, though, and I guess she's still in.
I'm going to Las Vegas tomorrow. Can't you sense my excitement? ;-) I've been to Vegas about a dozen times in my life. It's a fun place. The posh casinos, the lights, the huge buffets, the clink-clink-clink of the slot machines. Now I'm finally able to gamble. I think gambling is stupid.

Newspaper meeting today, got a new story, that frightens me but I am doing it anyway. When I got to the parking lot my car made this funny noise when I tried to start it. It took me a few tries before the engine finally turned over....that is not a good sign. I hate when anything happens to my car. I don't even want to touch anything on my car for fear that the whole thing will fall apart. OK, it's not really that bad, I don't often get stranded, just regular old creaks and pops and a broken radio.
I tried to talk to a couple of people at the meeting. Overall I felt kind of weird, like what do I say to these people? That is what I always think, though. I guess I am afraid of saying something stupid.
Mom is annoying me today. She gets so excited about basketball games, and I don't know why. She doesn't watch basketball the whole season, then kind of tags along at the end and pretends to be the biggest Spurs fan in the world. She jumps up and down and makes really high-pitched shrieks, and I'm like, it's just a game.
Can you tell I'm frustrated with my life? Well, I am. I used to want to be different, now I desperately want to be the same. I want to look and act like everyone else. I'm tired of being the brave individual. I want to be the faceless, mindless member of the crowd. I don't want to change, I want to stay the same. I have a dream of being able to sleep 24 hours a day. Otherwise known as death. ha ha ha.
I wish I could just hook up with some guy and be obsessed with him. I wish I could be intoxicated with love. At least I would have something else to think about, and not have to always be alone. Those are terrible reasons for wanting to be with someone, but still, a part of me wants that, maybe 10 percent of me wants that, then the other 90 percent reminds me how lame all members of the male sex are. Yeah, that's harsh, but that's how I feel right now.

I went back to my old high school today. It's weird how I don't know any of the kids who go to school there now, yet they are so much like the kids I went to school with. The places are oh-so-familiar, the cafeteria, the too-narrow hallways, the courtyard I spent hours sitting in, the classrooms. I even saw two of my old teachers. The only thing different was the Coke machines! lol, Not that I'm getting nostalgic for those times, far from it. I wish there was some other option than to sit through endless school for all of your teenage years.
I am rambling because I am bored. I am so obsessed with boys lately, like really obsessed. I saw this guy from my creative writing class at the newspaper office, and now I can't get him out of my mind. He wrote a really nice short story for the class, and he seems intelligent. I wish I could talk to him, but......no.

B-day presents received so far:
2 tickets to Matchbox 20 concert (floor seats!) from Mom
$100, flowers, and plastic ball and bat from Dad
$25 gift certificate to B&N and cool bookmark pens from Nancy
2 birthday dinners
Weekend trip to Las Vegas from Mom and Aunt Josie

So I was born today, 21 years ago, and I finally have all the rights and privileges of adulthood. Funny how I spent the day renewing a book about salt at the university library and going out to eat at Chili's, probably the most faux cool restaurant in El Paso. I don't have much to say these days. I spent about two hours listening to my mom and sisters argue about road trips and church weddings. I ordered the Molten Chocolate Cake, the most delicious desert on the planet, with four spoons so we all could share. My life seems to have slowed to a snail's pace- I take a nap every afternoon, whether I want to or not, it is an involuntary reaction to the heat and the boredom.
While I was driving to the library I imagined myself crashing into another car and dying. The newspaper article would focus on the tragic irony of me being on the cusp of adulthood and dying before my time. Fortunately that did not happen.

Today is my birthday. I am 21.

I feel like being verbose, words spilling everywhere like water from a pitcher. Can I be a serious writer as opposed to a novice blogger?

I just came back from seeing "The Matrix Reloaded". I am such a girl sometimes- I try to be open-minded about action movies, but it is rare when I really enjoy watching one. The action gets to be kind of mind-numbing, and I don't see the point of creating a whole new mythology based on a movie.

I had a long chat with Mom yesterday. I told her about how I feel so blah, not just lately, but since I was born. All she had to say was that I should take antidepressants, but I brushed that off like I always do. Antidepressants have only been around since 1988 (well, at least that was when Prozac was introduced), and supposedly they are a miracle of modern medicine, different from tranquilizers and other drugs from the past, but I think if Mom and I had had this conversation before the birth of Prozac she would be telling me to take a Valium.
I don't think my problem can be "fixed" with a pill. I can't totally change my personality. I am an anxious person, I admit it. I overthink everything in my life, to the nth degree. She just cannot understand that because she is not like that. Same thing with the shrink I went to earlier this year. It takes one to know one. My dad probably understands it better, but I don't feel like talking to him since I told him that he couldn't fix my car.
I hate to feel like a crybaby, a martyr, a psychological mess. I feel like my parents are trying to help me because they think I need to be babied and told that this isn't my fault, when maybe it is. I wish they would say to me, "Snap the hell out of it," but that will never happen.
I hate to give in to this. I hate to say to my mom that I feel horrible. I wish I could lock myself up in my room and read self-help books until I felt better about myself. Right now I keep my feelings bottled up until I am ready to explode and/or sob my eyes out in front of my computer. Before that I would eat until I could forget to think about it. Did you know that rats will eat Crisco right from the can, and that a sheep will literally eat itself to death if you let it? I like to think I'm more refined than a sheep but in actuality no, when you look at all the stupid things I've done, I turn out to be the fattest, stupidest sheep of all.
I think the term "depressed" for me is different than it is for everybody else. This is my natural state, like the way some people are born with a naturally higher body temperature, 99.0 F instead 98.6 F. And right now I'm depressed in the usual way, the way I have been since I can remember. It seems I have been in a state of crisis since I was 9 years old! I would cry to my parents every night when I started middle school. I finally stopped crying about it, but ever since depression has kind of been this low hum in my life, varying in intensity, all through high school, all through college, up to where I am right now. Every once in a while, someone I know will tell me that I look sad or ask me why I'm so quiet. Do I really look that way to the world? I still feel depressed, but I try to be dead to it rather than indulge it.

I feel somewhat less depressed today. I went out and did another interview today and it went OK, not great. I am still too shy!

I watched American Idol last night. Yeah, Ruben won. I wanted him to win, but I thought that Clay would actually win. Then I would rant about the injustice of it all. It is pretty weird how America is divided into two. In the 2000 presidential election, it was nearly a 50-50 split, almost like there are two Americas out there, one on the right and one on the left.

Mundane life. I went to the grocery store today. Apparently only retired people go to Albertson's during the day. I bought fruits and vegetables because my mom doesn't. I don't know why I feel so depressed. I guess I don't feel useful. The things I do don't seem to matter. I try something, then I feel like I did it all wrong. I feel like people see me as some moron, some nerd who doesn't deserve the time of day. And it's like this will never end. I can't escape this feeling that I'm dealing with this all alone and no one really cares. I'm happier when I'm busier, and now I don't know what to do. I'm sad when I don't get what I want, and I'm sad when I do. I wish I could just be happy no matter what. I know the only way to be truly happy is to look to God because everything else fades away. I don't feel I've reached that point in my spiritual life yet. I'll feel OK for awhile, then I'll just go back to doing stupid things. I'll go again with the food, again with the crying, again with the watching TV instead of reading my Bible.

So my first day at the newspaper. It seemed pretty cool. I have a hard time handling group situations, though. Like I had the perfect opportunity to get a really good story but I didn't speak up in time and so another girl got it. At the end of the meeting I wandered around like a lost puppy. That whole "lost puppy" thing doesn't make the best impression on your bosses. But it was cool because I felt like I actually wanted to be there, that I "fit in", well, as much as I'll ever fit into a group. I thought, this would be a cool job, if I could get it and make a living at it.

Welcome back to my twisted world. I think I have become an Internet junkie. I am so obsessed with this person's website. I have spent the past year checking her site daily or near daily, and I would practically monitor her site 24 hours a day when I was lonely and lived in my little bedroom at my apartment. I am tentatively going to meet her in person, and that scares me to death. She is like the cool person I have always wished I could be, but instead I am like that geek who tries to hang out with the "cool crowd" but is never truly accepted by them. I enjoy and relate to a lot of what she writes, but sometimes she strikes me as a real snob, or even kind of artificial, writing about some kind of privileged, romanticized life that doesn't really exist. In truth, I think she is just like a lot of the preps I knew in school. They weren't bad people, I just wasn't one of them. I'm not saying that is a good or bad thing, it is just a fact. Whatever, so she's not a perfect person and maybe we wouldn't be friends irl, it takes guts to put yourself out there like that. She seems like a really classy girl. There is obviously something about her blog that sets it apart from the blogging masses.

Warning: Major Angst Ahead. I am unemployed and living at home. It's somewhat excusable since I am still in school, but I still feel like a combo between a bum and a bored housewife. I hate being home during the day. I feel so unproductive spending the entire day watching TV, doing household chores, and playing solitaire on the computer. My family gets home from whatever they're doing and I want to rid myself of my frustrations, I want to go out and do something, and they are tired and busy. I charged almost a thousand dollars on my credit card this month. Geez, that hurts to pay especially since I have no money coming in. In three weeks I'll probably start looking for a real job so I can start putting something away for after I graduate. I don't know what to do with myself. I could be doing something better and different. Instead I watch Dr. Phil and live vicariously through other people.
I feel really disgusted with myself and I wish I didn't. I wish I had some kind of confidence. But no. Sometimes I feel like I exist to serve and accomodate others. Some days I wish I had my own family, like a husband and kids to take care of, so I would have something to do at all times. That lasts about two seconds, actually, then I think about the reality of that. I'm almost 21, but I still feel like a teenager.
In a way I do not want to get a job. I don't want to be torn down and evaluated, I don't want to deal with co-workers, I don't want to spend hours a day doing something I don't care about. Despite what I said above, I don't have a desperate need for the money, I don't have eight kids and a mortgage payment, I don't even have student loans. But I feel like it is something I should do instead being idle 24 hours a day, shamelessly living off my parents. I have small expenses that add up over time to nearly $200 a month. My car is breaking down. I want to be able to go to the movies and out to eat once in a while, too. And textbooks are damn expensive. I am going to graduate and I am so eager to get out there in the world, doing something important, working in a real office for real money. Some day I will read this and laugh at how young and stupid I was. Stupid, you got to work to live. Did you forget about that? And you didn't do anything in college to prepare you, zooming through in 3 and one half years without a thought to what you would do after you got that damn piece of paper. You get to the job and realize you don't know anything. Or you take a year to get a job, and send out 200 resumes and don't get a single callback.

Update- I got my grades yesterday. I got three A's, including one in Software Engineering :), and three B's. I managed to get a B in Architecture even though I think I deserved a C. The prof probably curved the grades. My GPA stayed exactly the same, which is a relief. I showed my mom because I want her to be proud of me, lol.
Tomorrow begins stint number two on my college newspaper. I hope it will be fun and I won't make a complete idiot out of myself.

I have spent all day checking to see if my grades have been e-mailed to me. Not yet, but definitely by tomorrow. Why am I so nervous? I started checking at 4:30 AM if you believe that. I have been sleeping too much lately and it messes up my sleeping pattern. Also I have been eating a lot of junk like pizza, soda, and cookies. After three sodas in six hours, I can feel my heart pounding during the night. I have to get healthy, sooner or later, it might as well be sooner. I feel like crap. I don't want to get old and decrepit any earlier than I have to. Diabetes runs in the family. Also alcoholism, obesity, stomach problems, women's problems, etc. I have a lot to look forward to.
This morning Mom said that she has 20 quality years left. Apparently she has been thinking about this a lot. Maybe that is why she is on a spending spree lately. I kind of see her point. Honestly, Mom looks great. I think she looks better now than she did ten years ago! She has a nice home, she got out of a bad marriage, and she's nearly ready to retire. She's dating again, and I can see her getting remarried some day. That's my mom for you. She really is a charming woman. Unfortunately, that charm has not been passed down to me.

It's Saturday night and I have nothing better to do than write something to my blog. Mom is test-driving a red Mitsubishi Eclipse. She has driven it all over town. I thought only men had mid-life crises :-).
It is really hot today and the air conditioner isn't working. I miss my apartment with its refrigerated air. Sigh.

It's 10:02 PM and I am alone in the house. Mom and I rented The Hot Chick, which was not as funny as I expected it to be. She made it seem like it was hilarious, but it was kind of stereotypical and I think it had the potential to be a lot funnier.
I write when I am sad and alone, when I should write when I am happy and at my best. I looked back at my journal from last year and it was actually pretty well-written, well, according to my personal standards. Not publishable, but it summed up my feelings at the time. Maybe it's because I "cleaned up" a lot of the stuff I wrote. I took out my long rants about oh, I am so fat, I am so depressed, I hate my life. I eliminated a lot of repetitive entries.
My journal entries now run over the same old ground and lack the honesty of the old ones. I have less going on in my life now, I guess, or I have things more figured out. I feel like I have some kind of plan that I didn't have before. At the end of this year I will escape from the confines of school. Or enter new ones, depending how you look at it.
I signed up for the college newspaper and I am having mixed feelings about it now. I have always loved news and writing, probably since I was about 9 years old. My only problem is with being pushy about getting interviews. That is a big problem. When I was in high school, I copied quotes from an El Paso Times article into one of my own stories. I wasn't trying to cheat, I actually thought that it was OK! I am kind of stupid sometimes. It was just a bad time to be on the newspaper. The other students were nice enough, but they were cliquish and spent a lot of time bad-mouthing each other. The advisor was horrible. She was barely out of college and she really made me feel bad about myself. I struggled to get interviews with people, and she let me have it for that. She marched me into this teacher's classroom and made me ask her for an interview while she was teaching class, and a bunch of people I knew were in that class. And then she gave me this lecture about journalistic integrity when I turned in that stupid article with a bunch of copied quotes. I went to the bathroom and started crying. Like really crying. I wanted to be good at this SO BAD, but it wasn't happening for me.
I quit my first "real" job when I declined to take newspaper the next year. The experience really pushed me to the limits. It forced me to open up my mouth and speak, which was a very painful thing for me. As a really, really shy person I had spent my entire life avoiding possibly embarrassing situations. I had a "boss", and a really bad one at that. I had lazy, bickering co-workers, and some of them were real jerks. But I survived, and I suppose it did make me more assertive. I was able to do a decent job of getting quotes for stories by the end of the year. People are surprisingly open to talking to newspapers. Why? I don't know.
I still love writing. If I were to pick an occupation for myself for the rest of my life, that would be it. The thing is, I don't know if God made me to be a journalist. I love to put ideas down on paper and string together a really polished phrase. Does that necessarily make me a good fit as a reporter? I guess I will never know unless I try, so that is what I am doing. And I do mean giving it a real try, not a wimpy try where I am afraid to look like a dork, or one where I do whatever other people say and give up when I don't fit in.

Another really long and lazy day. I keep waking up at 10 AM, and I don't even stay up that late. I think my body is making up for all the nights I forced myself to stay up late studying and watching music videos. I don't know if I will do anything today. Maybe clean my room some more or go shopping for a bed frame. I am a bona fide slacker.

Mid-afternoon and I am listening to music and surfing the web and otherwise being lazy. My room is a giant mess, but I don't really care. I want to get a new bed frame and a new lamp and a bookshelf. I don't know how I got so much stuff. I feel bad about throwing out stuff, especially things that people have given me as gifts, even if I don't use them. Little porcelain jewelry boxes, heart-shaped velvet chocolate boxes, cards from years past. Toys, games, books, etc., etc., etc. I managed to get by with so little in my apartment, and now it seems like an overabundance of things that are beautiful but not functional that I have to store somehow. I feel weighted down by these things, like I *have* to keep them. I know that this is actually a good problem to have, not like poor kids with one pair of clothes and who can't afford shoes who have real problems.
My sister is being nice to me. We talked for a while last night and she invited me to see X-Men 2 this afternoon. Sometimes she surprises me.
I am feeling like I want to experience some kind of feeling, like the kind you get when you watch a really good drama. Love and sadness. Exhiliration. Yes.
I am torn between wanting to be a "responsible" person and wanting to spend the whole summer sleeping late and watching daytime TV. I should exercise and not eat like a pig and not fill my head with garbage. I should earn some money and prepare for the future. I should try to meet new people. Yeah, I should, but will I?
Last summer was dedicated to decadence. I gained so much weight because all I would do was sit around the house and eat. I started the summer at a size 6. By the end of the summer I was pushing a size 14.

It is nighttime now and I am back to writing here. Last night I wrote in a paper journal. I haven't done that in a while. There are a lot of things I want to write about but it is hard for me to put them into focus.
Sometimes I feel like studying CS has turned me into a robotic work machine. You work with numbers and/or machines all day. It requires a lot of concentration, it is a very narrow way of looking at the world. It's like you're in this little cubicle and the outside world is totally irrelevant to anything that you are doing. No one outside that world understands anything you are doing. I try to explain to my dad what exactly computer architecture is, and he still doesn't understand after I've told him a million times, and the thing is, he really doesn't want to know. I know a tiny thimbleful of water from the ocean of computer architecture knowledge and I still know a million times more than my dad does.
On the other hand, it seems like I lack any real emotional depth or any way of sorting out my emotions. I have made it to where I deal with the same people day in, day out, and any deviation from that sends me into a tailspin.

I am back home again. All my stuff is in a big pile in my room, but I am kind of tired and I don't feel like sorting through it. I feel like I am taking a giant step back in terms of independence. I am living here for economic rather than personal reasons, but I must admit that I enjoy being taken care of.

This may be the last time I ever post from my apartment. Sigh. I signed up to leave a week early basically because my roommate is starting to get on my nerves. She is a partyer, and I definitely am not. I know that someone has been smoking in here lately, and that really doesn't sit well with me. Plus she drinks sometimes, which is her right since she is 21, but still makes me uncomfortable, especially when it is with her friends. Also, her boyfriend practically lives here and that gets on my nerves. I don't feel comfortable walking around here in my pajamas, don't feel comfortable period. So I am leaving early because I have to leave anyway.

What's up, everyone? I am so crazy today. I was really sad and anxious yesterday. I didn't want to stay at my apartment alone, so I stayed with my dad awhile. Then I ended up being alone anyway. Normally, this is not a big deal for me, but I was feeling kind of weird being there holed up in my room while my roommate had her friends over. I didn't cry much. I prayed a lot, listened to some music, read a book. I slept on the floor with the window open and the radio on.
This morning I got my hair styled. I have never done this before, and it is only because my mom paid for me. The hairstylist actually had to wash my hair because it was so dirty! I was a little embarrassed. I try to wash my hair with very little shampoo and conditioner. I think this actually makes my hair more manageable, if grungy. Before, I always had this buildup in my hair, and now it is gone. So anyway, I don't know if this haircut will make me look better or feel better about myself. It is an experiment.

I don't know why I am so angry. Is it wrong to be angry at your parents? Especially for no good reason, or no immediately apparent reason. I feel like I'm being one of those fussy spoiled brat kids. I just don't feel like seeing my dad because I am just kind of peeved at him. I don't want to face him alone and feel psychoanalyzed by him. He has given me a lot, and that's exactly the problem. Sometimes I am just so angry at him- he says he feels wronged by us, but I can't help feeling that no matter how much we have wronged him, how could it ever compare to how he wronged us? It's like he has no right to complain about anything we ever do. We are owed this, at least. I know this is not a Christian attitude to have. It is based on anger and emotions. God forgives us, and we should forgive others. Honor your mother and father. But I feel like I have nothing to say to him any more. He blames us for not inviting him to things, which is not even a valid claim, but even if it was, it wouldn't be totally our fault. Dad deliberately stays out of our stuff, he doesn't include us much in his life, he doesn't go to church, we don't live with him, so what gives here? He feels punished by his own daughters who are not out to harm him.

I just came from my software engineering final. I don't know what kind of grade I will get on it. It was a lot of definitions despite what the prof said, plus a lot of diagrams. My diagrams started to look like a big pile of spaghetti after a while. I can never get diagrams to turn out neatly. I also neglected to read "The Mythical Man-Month", and two questions came from that article. Darn. I think my grade for the course will be a B or a C. I'm leaning toward a B, but it depends on the group grade, too, not just the tests. I have only one guaranteed A this semester, in database management- everything else is a toss-up. I have not put in the effort in some of my classes, and finals are just so darn hard to get myself motivated for. My GPA is creeping down ever so slowly. It's still like a 3.5 or something, but with a couple of Cs added in there that will change. Why do I obsess about my grades so much? If I was really so worried about grades, wouldn't I be studying right now instead of blogging?

I love Dr. Pepper. I just bought one from the soda machine and oh how great it is. I finished my arch. assignment, finally. The bad news is I have two finals tomorrow: software engineering and physics. I have been both nervous and lazy today. It is strange- I got up before 6, did half an hour of calisthenics, and polished up my resume. At 9:30 I fell asleep again until about 11. I turned in my resume and paid my tuition bill, then I settled down to finish my work. However, I was also half-watching VH1 One-Hit Wonders, not a great thing to do when trying to concentrate on computer performance issues. I also read part of this novel called Blue Shoe by Anne Lamott. She is a really good writer- I was surprised to be so caught up in the book. I haven't had much time or inclination for literature lately. It really depends on my mood. Most of the time I'll choose to read a newspaper or magazine rather than a book. To be totally honest, I don't really "get" fiction a lot of the time. I often don't see the metaphors or symbolism in literature unless I am really looking for them. Difficult-to-read prose also stops me from getting through a book, a la Faulkner. Plus, no offense to people who like these genres, I have a hard time reading things that are pure fantasy, especially sci-fi, medieval, or romance novels. I've picked up but never finished The Hobbit, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and James and the Giant Peach, among others. Does that make me an unimaginative person? Probably. I guess that I use literature to deal with personal issues, and I want to be able to relate to that book or story. A strange setting or an author's strange writing style seem to distract me more than anything else.

Hey everyone. I am back. I checked the schedule- no finals today. Awesome. Been pondering things, like should I get a job, what do I want to do when I graduate, why do I write here so much, why do I watch so much TV and read weblogs? The answers: Yes, I don't know, because it helps, because watching TV is fun and I am lonely.
I put in my application to work at the school newspaper this summer. That should be fun- my only worry is that I will end up being really busy. I really should get another job, though. Like one that actually pays something.

YEah, today was the end of architecture class! The test was pretty hard, and my speech sucked, but as long as I pass the class I will be happy. The speeches seemed to go on FOREVER. And they were repeats of what the other group had done, to boot. Finally, another professor kicked us out of that classroom because of another exam. It was just a bit much for one sitting- a one-hour exam and 2 hours of speeches.
Oh if only I could kick back now....I will be so happy on Friday.

Ha ha, it's 11:41 and here I am still staring at my computer. What did I do before the Internet?
My room still smells like burnt popcorn. Gross.
The database test wasn't too hard, thank God. I just realized I haven't studied for architecture in weeks. Can I learn everything in one night and give a great speech tomorrow? I always end up running out of things to say. I think I am getting tired and I have to get up early tomorrow to do my slides. Sigh. Last semester I had two finals. This semester I have five. What happened?
I blew it on my resolution to eat healthy. Four bottles of soda, McDonald's for dinner, burnt popcorn for lunch. Very nutritious. And I didn't exercise. Oh well, I will worry about it after the test tomorrow. Time for some serious studying.

It is the first day of finals and I have totally undersestimated the amount of work I have to do. I have to give this 7-minute speech tomorrow on High-Performance Computing. I started on it today. I have to give yet another speech on Friday. I am starting to hate speeches.
I burnt the popcorn I made for lunch :-(. I am so absent-minded.
It is good to talk about your problems sometimes, but it has also made me very depressed today. I thought about staying in bed all day. Mostly I am just anxious and I still feel like crying a little bit. But no, I will restrain myself. I don't know why it always makes me depressed to talk about things. I am usually OK when I either ignore my feelings or write about but don't talk about them. Maybe it's because things still feel unresolved. I don't feel like I can completely trust the advice I have been given, namely to take some antidepressants. I am very much against taking those things, and I think I have been fairly successful at finding some kind of happiness without them. I think they are OK if you are really clinically depressed, but I don't feel like I'm at that point. Also, I don't really think it is an answer to say that just improving your appearance will make you happier. I have thought that before but it is just not true. It's more like, I want to be at peace with God. I want to live a better life. I don't want to wallow in self-pity. Doing this, I can be happy in any circumstances.

It's Saturday morning and I'm doing the usual- watching the VH1 Top 20 countdown and Reality Wrap-Up. Last night I watched the Most Talented Kid in America, and that was a pretty weird show. There is something very strange about kids acting so grown-up for their age. This girl who was like an 11-year-old version of Avril Lavigne won. My personal favorite was Li'l C, a pint-sized MC Hammer. I only watch the best in TV, you see.

I had a heart-to-heart chat with my mom today during which I bawled my eyes out. It does bother me to feel ugly and not liked. I was actually kind of surprised at what my mom said. She said that she takes half a pill of Paxil every day. She also said that she was going to take me to get my hair cut and that I should wear makeup. She said that she doesn't really like painting her nails but "it gets her called back" by those guys from the dating service. I don't know if I wanted to know all that about my mom! But maybe she has a point. I hate, hate, hate doing that stuff. I don't own a blow-dryer, don't have any cosmetics, I wear really plain clothes and have really plain hair. I've never had a date, I'm 45 pounds overweight and reclusively shy. Maybe she's right.

I am sad and tired and I can't think of anything that will help except writing it down. There's this guy at school and I think he is really cute and nice and stuff....but the thing is, we are friends, and I just can't handle that. For one, I do think he is attractive- he is so tall, and his hands are just so perfect, and he is just so nice and easygoing I can't believe it. I guess I am not used to being treated so kindly. I always assume that all people, especially males, are jerks, and then there's this guy who helps me out on my stupid lab for database class and asks me about school stuff and asks me what I think. We've had real conversations, some that have lasted more than 30 seconds. And all this when I know I can be really moody and standoffish, to the point of rudeness. I have a hard time even saying hi to someone when I see them. So why this?
The point is, there is no possibility of romantic attachment with this person. For one, he is not interested in me in that way. He may even have a gf- I've never asked, nor do I want to. We have really different interests, and he is kind of dull when it comes to school stuff. He's your typical guy, I guess you could say, always being a goof.
Yet there is something of a friendship between us that cannot be denied, and I am not used to that at all.

It feels like this is it. The presentation is tomorrow and it is all can think about. I spent all afternoon at the mall looking for a nice top to go with my black skirt. I ended up going to Ross and buying this brown cardigan. How's that for plain? I don't really know what to wear- a business suit? A dress? Something a little more casual? Well, whatever, it looks like I don't have a choice any more because those are literally the only dressy things I own. I am sure they are fine. It probably matters very little as long as I don't wear my usual uniform of jeans, a T-shirt, and dirty sneakers.
I am nervous, excited, and hyper. I have been going almost all day. It is always frustrating for me to try on clothes- nothing fits exactly right. I am usually too short and now I'm pudgy, too, which doesn't help. I spent hours today trying on stuff but nothing really fit right. I also hate spending money. One of my greatest fears is to become a shopaholic.