He's a trainwreck in between my ears.

Man, what a perfect word to describe things right now: trainwreck.

Speaking of words: Word of the day.

brio \BREE-oh\, noun:
Enthusiastic vigor; vivacity; liveliness; spirit.

I don't feel like talking about stuff I've read today, but I'll do it just to keep the habit. I was on Powerline today, semi-surprisingly. Powerline is a fairly medium-conservative blog that I initially used to go to as a foil to DailyKos[Both are kinda myopic in the news coverage] back when I was trying to become a blogwhore in high school. Anyway, so I checked in, and [unsurprisingly] the author didn't have a comment about the Imus-Rutgers debacle, but he did post two comments that he felt were noteworthy. I'm doing this from memory, but I think they were to the point of the girls' team being whiners/thin-skinned, and that if they were going to cry foul every time someone broke the rules, then they're going to have a hard reckoning with the real world. I think there was also a comment about the team setting a bad example for young girls, since they were good examples of successful, strong females beforehand, and by crying and going on Oprah, they were behaving contrary to the image...or something like that. They suggested different ways to deal with Imus[I think it was tantamount to "ignore him", or show him that you're still gonna succeed despite his words].

I really don't care much about the content-- I feel as if I see the dichotomy come up to often about behavioral maxims. When something wrong is being done to you, do you A. protest it/"whine" and do whatever you can to stop it or B. deal with it/ignore it, and deprive the wrongdoer of the attention [s]he's probably looking for? It comes up all the time with racist incidents, if not all incidents of bias.

Honestly, I think it's more of a contextual thing. Sometimes protesting is useless, and sometimes ignoring stuff is really not useful at all. In this case, I'd say the protesting was useful-- Imus' sponsors got pulled, and CBS and MNBC stopped running his show. So bye, bye Imus.

I also generally find problems in 95% of the situations wherein we blame the victims, which is partially why I find problems with people getting angry at the people gloating at Al Sharpton's expense. He apparently sided with the rape victims in the Lacrosse rape trial[s?], and now that they've been cleared of the charges, I've been seeing some vitriol on some blogs about him. Honestly, at the time that he declared his support, no one really knew much of what happened anyway. I just...find it a little weird to gloat about his being wrong in this case, I guess. I wanted to make a point that we tend to re-victimize victims[even in this case, wasn't it that the girl was still raped, just not by the lacrosse team? I need to check it out again], but I forgot exactly how I wanted to make that case.

Oh, and Wolfowitz apparently gets busted for his own corruption? Weird, and kind of unexpected, I guess. I wonder if Bush released a statement.

Alright, now that I've done some news. Let's talk about me.

A few days ago I split a pole, and I think I'm paying for it, eightfold. I kid you not.

First, it turns out the Comparative Religion midterm I did got a B+, not an A like I expected. There's another Steven in my class, and apparently I got his comment sheet and he got mine. I wrote down the wrong date for my Armenian history presentation, which was apparently last Tuesday instead of next Tuesday. So, I missed my presentation. My econ T.A. lost both of my problem sets, so I apparently have to resubmit them and lose 20 points each. Also, I did fairly poorly on my exam from Tuesday, but I was not the only one. Also, my Japanese grades are kind of going...splat. Also...did I think I was just gonna magically find a job for the Summer? What the hell am I doing?

It's just like, damn. I've been thinking that I could just...coast around, doing the bare minimum, and get a bunch of As, but. I am f*cking up. Actually, I don't know what I thought, to be straight with you-- I've been reading comic books nonstop for the past few days because I think I like a boy[to be discussed] and I needed a distraction. Oh man, oh man.

I kind of had a good dosage of self-hatred[the perfect getter-upper, or at least in high school] after I talked to this chick who's apparently from near my high school. We were talking about my high school, and how I had 3 hour commutes each way. She and her friends made it seem so magical. And I guess I remember now-- falling asleep in my classes, being frustrated on the bus, coming out junior year, my envy of more or less any of the other four hundred students at school, my problems with the work, my disillusionment with education and upper middle class kids. My pride, my anger, my envy.

I don't know why I've stopped believing in myself, but I have, and I kind of forgot everything about my heroes. And it's like I'm spoiled-- I used to survive on two to three hours a day, and suddenly I'm tired on ten hours of sleep. I always have to remind myself not to get sucked into the pace at this school.

It's actually kind of gross, how I've lost almost all of my self-control. So I'm taking it back. Gotta shake it off. After practice, I may just have a work-a-thon.
Really, what this is about is my mother-- if there's anyone who's suffered more for the sake of me than me, it's her. And I may play the tortured role in my mind sometimes, and I may think that she does some silly/insensible things sometimes, but she does not deserve a son who can't even get his fucking act together.

Wow, I'm getting progressively angrier at myself. I'm such a momma's boy.

What's REALLY been driving me crazy, though, is the fact that I like Shawn and I want to date him. He might read this, and I guess my other friends do too, if they've bothered to read this far, but if I remember properly, part of this blog was supposed to be about being no holds barred.

IT HAS BEEN BOTHERING ME FOR AT LEAST A WEEK and it is frustrating as all hell. I stand by my assertions to Irene & co that emotions are easy; it's meta-emotions are hard. Do I want to like him? can I be sure that that's what I actually worth it? I feel as if the problem isn't to like him or not to.

Anyway, I could explain the many, many things I like about Shawn, talk about the fact that I really do think he has a kindness that's fairly uncommon. But I also feel as if I'm not worth it, that I'm still "in transit" in a lot of ways that would prevent me from having a meaningful relationship. There's also the fact that he graduates in...a month? I almost feel like just saying, "what's the point?"

I'm actually surprised I wrote about my Shawn-dilemma. I guess what finally settled things was the fact that in DeWick, as I was eating my Matzo and drinking my soda, I realized that he could probably hurt me if he wanted to. And I don't even know what that'd be like-- this is kind of the first kind of experience I'm having where I'm starting to like someone exclusively for their personality as opposed to sex, or being driven exclusively by what the sex will be like.[Which is why I don't like a lot of people, I guess-- few people really get me aroused to that extent] So it's just weird. I kind of wanted to hook him up with someone else, just because I think he can do better.[once I give him a haircut, anyway, =P]

But that's far too much high school dramatics. I think I'm just going to have to talk to him, ask him what his feelings are[I guess I've been working under the assumption that he does like me, so I wonder what'll happen if he doesn't], and figure out things from there.

And if we do wind up dating, I'm going to have to put it on Facebook.[Sorry, Gracie, =P]

Alright, I'm tired of talking, I'm all determined and stuff now. Plus, I've got practice in twenty minutes.

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience by which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.”

Preach, Eleanor, preach.