whatever.

whatever. by DinosaurMuffin on Polyvore.com

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To me, ugly wasn’t just my weight, it was just how my weight was distributed. It was my eyebrows being to thick. It was my face having too many zits. My neck too fat, my palms too sweaty. It was my lack of height and my lack of being blonde and my being the only one not in a black dress to my sixth grade graduation. (I wore a blue dress.) My lack of friends, my lack of status and my lack of swearing.
These days it’s my grades being less than perfect and my lack of social life beyond my small circle of friends. It’s my lack of people remembering who I am and my lack of talent, especially in math. It’s all the extra curriculars I’m participating in and lack of money and free time. It’s university. It’s high school. It’s now. It’s trying to keep up with the world. It’s politics. It’s breaking stereotype. It’s what everyone thinks about me and what everyone doesn’t.

But you know what? F it all. “If I want to fly, I’ll find a way to fly. You do what you love, and f the rest.”

You can’t be everyone’s perfect image.

Alex Violet

I KNOW IT’S MIDNIGHT. BUT I GOT MY REPORT CARD TODAY.

Subject – My Mark – Class Average

English – 75% – 65%
Drama – 77% – 68%
Visual Arts – 83% – 75%
Canadian History – 79% – 72%

Not as far above class average as I thought but whatever. I got a test back from history yesterday and I got 84%. That’s got to bring my mark up to at least an 80%, right? I get an 80% = I get exempt from the exam = I win. At life.

My overall average is 78.5% which is a wonderful improvement. Last semester my overall final average was something like 68%. But I blame mathematics.

Alex Violet

They pray at the city council meetings in my city.

You know how I’m the secretary for the Youth Advisory Council for my city? You know how that means I’ve got to type up “minutes” and e-mail them to the head dude in time for the next meeting?

Well, I don’t remember if I blogged about it (I probably didn’t) but the authorities on the YAC had made me two templates for writing minutes before they were satisfied with my work.

I have a meeting tomorrow right after school (not even kidding- school ends at 2:30 and I have to get home, grab my YAC binder + writing utensil and head to the city hall for 3:30) and as usual it’s 10:23 PM the night before and when I’m supposed to be finishing up minutes, I’m blogging.

What really happened was I’d begun minutes and decided to finally get around to Googling what real “minutes” are supposed to look like and found my city’s minutes. I scroll down a bit and the format is obviously different but not by much. (IRRELEVANT.)

Anyway, I come accross a heading that says “opening.” It’s got the expected stuff- O’ Canada, etc. And then all of a sudden it says something “prayer.”

I don’t know what to think of this.

I personally don’t object to it; we pray during ‘opening’ at pathfinder meetings, too. But before we begin that tradition each year, everyone is asked if they’re okay with that, or if they have any religious objections or whatever. So far no one’s objected to going along with the prayer, even though I know one of them doesn’t believe in God.

But I’m not sure your religion should affect your politics so much as to pray for each meeting. I mean, Canada is a place that is absolutely rich with various cultures and religion. (Maybe not SPECIFICALLY my town, but I still think it’s reasonably diverse.)

If your government can only represent those that have someone to pray to, then really, are they representing Canada, or are they representing their religion?

And not to mention what it looks like. Oh, yeah, “Our city’s terrible- even the polititians are praying we’ll get out of this mess.” or, “Our polititians are sinners, begging for forgiveness!” “This person thinks (s)he’ll look important if they ‘find God’.”

On the other hand again, don’t you have every right to pray before one of these meetings if you want to? (“I don’t have to agree with you, I just have to respect you.”) Maybe they give you the option to sit out. I don’t know; I’ve never been to one of these meetings.

I don’t attend church (or other place of worship) on a regular basis and I suppose I’m not really affiliated with any organized religion. I just think a lot and decide what I think I believe or what I think is probable. (I only do this because I wonder about things.)

But I still haven’t figured out how I completely feel about this whole praying-at-city-hall-meetings thing yet.

Or maybe this is one of those things I’ll never be able to figure out how I feel about it. I’m so used to being the type to have strong, definite opinions about something, and then this comes along…

ON A DIFFERENT NOTE: I sort of crashed our family computer so my mom and brother hooked the internet up to my laptop. And mid-terms are coming out soon and this is what I know I’ve got:

Academic English: 75% (Nearly 20% above class average)

Drama: 74% (12% above class average)

Art: 84% (2nd highest mark in the class- the only one higher is 88% by a girl who’s taken gr. 11 art last year and took gr. 10 art this year because it was the only class that wasn’t full)

History: 79% (Also significantly above class average, I’m pretty sure at least 10%. 1% above my best friend in this class who always brags about knowing so much about WWI because she’s “military family”. Also, I need 80% to be exempt from the exam and I have a test tomorrow.)

Alex Violet

Nostalgic Rainy Days

Today is a nostalgic rainy day.

I went to the mall briefly with my family. Got three books.

1. The Explosionist by Jenny Davidson
2. Sparrow Delaney by Suzanne Harper
3. The Gypsy Crown by Kate Forsyth

They were all on sale. Plus, there was a book signing. I saw one person get a book signed. There wasn’t exactly a lineup or anything. I don’t remember the name of the author or the book.

I hope that someday very soon when I get to sit there and sign books for people, there’ll be a lineup for me. A huge lineup. And I want the two seconds in which I make eye contact with anyone there to change their lives forever. Maybe it’s a stretch, but I don’t care.

The rain was humbling today. The paralympic winter games started an hour or two ago. I watched that little montage of Terry Fox and when this fifteen year old came onscreen to light the cauldron or whatever, it took a blow to my happiness.

Every single time I see someone close to my age that have done great things, or are out doing great things, I think to myself, Why isn’t that me?

I’ve probably gone over this before several times, but watching people skate on TV makes me nostalgic. If I never quit figure skating in sixth grade, that really could have been me.

It’s a bitter feeling but the kind that gives you goosebumps at the same time. I hate regret. I try as hard as I can to live without it but it’s so difficult to know sometimes what you will regret and what you won’t.

I have a strong sense (mostly with my mind) that I’m going to regret not signing up for drama class in grade 11.

Speaking of classes, I did promise I’d tell you what I was taking later, and I guess now is later.

– English 3U
– Math 3U
– Anthropology/Phsycology/Sociology 3M
– Media Studies 3M
– Student Council Leadership 3M
– Art 3M
– Physics 3U
– Physical Geography 3U

The 3 indicates that it is my third year of high school (grade 11) and the U indicates that I’m aiming for university. M means either university or college. I’m guessing which ones are which.

Originally I had thought that the Student Council Leadership course was something you earned on the side; that it didn’t actually take up a period in the day. I was going to take drama instead.

Do you want a run-down of what each subject is about and why I took it?

Too bad. I’m going to tell you anyway.

English 3U
English rocks. ‘Nuff said.

Math 3U
Math sucks. I got a 52% the last time around. I was completely torn on whether or not I could handle the U-level math for next year. Several universities want you to have 4U math in order to be even considered. No matter what you plan on studying once you get there. In order for you to have 4U math, you need to have 3U math. My grade 10 math teacher suggested thinking about why I didn’t do so well. If it was just because I slacked off and truly think I could have tried harder, then 3U would be fine, as long as I tried harder. If I really did try hard and truly think that no matter how hard I tried I would not be able to grasp the content, then I should think about switching down. My mother suggested I stick with U-level. So I decided to take the optimist-approach. But I really hope I can handle it.

Anthropology/Phsycology/Sociology 3M
I don’t actually know if it’s M-level. This course is about learning the way people work. That’s what they told me. I have a feeling I’m born for this because let’s just say I’ve been in pretty tough phsycological situations in my life and I made it a life goal a long time ago to do my best to make other people in those same situations feel better. Plus, it’s something that’d come in handy for several of my possible career choices. (Author, polititian, teacher, entrepreneur, etc.) I know it’s going to be something I’m good at too, since my mom and my grandmother were really good at this sort of thing and I’m usually good at things Gramma is good at.

Media Studies 3M
It’s about ‘changing the media’, supposedly. One of the assignments I’ve heard of is to write an angry letter to a company because their advertisements are offensive and/or degrading. Which seems like my kind of thing. Plus Mother really persued this type of thing with her life. She used to have a really major title at Wal*Mart before “Your dad made me quit.” Sometimes life feels like it changes with the big mistakes and little victories.

Student Council Leadership 3M
I already explained this one. It’s pretty much doing whatever the students’ council does.

Art 3M
I would be stupid if I didn’t take this course. I’ve been incredible at art since, like, birth. I know it sounds like bragging, but it’s flippin’ true. I didn’t take ceramics (even though my friends are taking it) because it’s not something I’m quite as good at. Plus I have some fears…

Physics 3U
It was either physics, chemistry, or biology. Biology is a lot of memorization and cell structure and stuff (although I am very interested in the idea of cloning); chemistry is setting stuff on fire and mixing chemicals and exploding stuff (although I have a little trouble with balancing chemical formulas); and physics is force. Like gravity and the speed of light and stuff. Granted, there is math involved, but I’m thinking if the science teacher explains it to us too, then it might actually help me out a little in math 3U. What actually won me over with this, though, is that on the second day of school in grade 10, we had a really fascinating discussion on time travel and Einstein’s theory of relativity. And last year in science, I forgot about the physics/electricity test the day before and improvised/used common sense on the test and pulled of a freaking 87%. It made my life. And the teacher who teaches it is really cool too. I had him last semester and we spent several classes watching MythBusters. And another time we talked about Swine Flu for the whole class and he didn’t care. “As long as you’re learning something…”

Physical Geography 3U
Closest to astronomy I can really take. It’s about the Earth as a planet and volcanoes and stuff. Where it fits into the universe. I’ve always been interested in astronomy. I sort of secretly (well not secretly anymore) want to be an astronaut. The first Canadian and the first woman to actually set foot on the moon. (Yeah, Canadians and women have been in space before, but only 12 people have actually walked on the moon and all of them are American men.)

Yeah, that’s it. There are so many more courses I want to take, but this is alright for the time being, I guess. It’s too late to change my mind anyway. Unless I wanted to do something in summer school. Or I’d switch at the beggining of the grade 11 school year.

Thought of the day: Looking back to when I was seven years old, did I envision that this is where I’d be today?
Maybe not. Maybe so. When I was seven was about the time Avril Lavigne started to come onto the scene- when she was fifteen, just like I am now. Maybe I thought I’d be like her.
But here I am, still in high school, still writing my novel(s). I’m not the most popular kid in school, but I guess I have a bit of a quiet-smart-wierd-student-leader reputation. I really want the weird to replace the quiet though. Or maybe fit in memorable somewhere. I want to change peoples’ lives for the better.

Alex Violet