Reacting

So since I am obsessed with my girlfriend, naturally I would talk about her a lot. Since she goes to a different school, nobody knows her - that is, nobody who didn't go to middle school with us.

Yesterday she came to school with me because she could, and the reactions were quite amusing.

Physics class

Person: Betty?
My girlfriend: Yup!
(he looks extremely confused)
Him: But...don't you go to, like...BU or something?
My girlfriend: Yup!
(his expression grows more confused)

French

Me: Hey everyone, this is Betty, she's visiting -
Another person: BETTY! HEEEEY!

On the Way to Advisory

Betty: Hey, Jeff!
Jeff: Hey, Betty - wait, what are you doing here?

On the Way Out of Advisory

Betty (to someone from middle school): Hey!
Him: Hey - oh, Jesus Christ.

On the Way to Lunch

Me: Hey, Kate, this is Betty!
Kate: Wait - you're Betty? You're real? She's real! Oh my god! She's real! She's pretty! Oh my god! I ship it! I ship it!
(She tackle-hugs Betty)

Generic Reaction Which Wasn't Really Amusing, Just Expected

Someone: Betty! Hi! We missed you!

Chorus

Super-Chill Girl from Frosh play: Is that her?
Me: Yep.
Her: Cool. That's nice.

Math

Mathy person: Hey, you're in this class?
Betty: I don't even go here! I haven't been here all year!

School: the Upside

I know John Green talked about this in one Vlogbrothers video but here I go at saying it again.

School. A lot of kids hate it.

First, let's define school. School is a (currently mandatory) institution or program of several years in which people (most often children) are taught things that the world has deemed integral, and sometimes more.

That sounds wonderful to me. Why do people dislike it?

Seriously, I mean, apart from the work, school is awesome. History and science and math and languages and writing and art and music - aren't those things amazing? We have the privilege of being able to find out about the work of almost all of human history, all that we ever strived to figure out and put together - we get to take all that in and process it and think. And we don't have to pay for it.

Some people look at school as a preparation for life. But what about now, about all the things you know and understand and think about? What about all the wonderful things you write and read and find out? We get to spend most of our days discovering new things. Why do we so despise the idea?

The best part is that loving learning and finding out new things makes it easier. It's always easier to do things that you love or at least don't hate. I find that appreciating the things that people teach me makes them much more meaningful. And the whole point of school is to teach us the things that mean something.

I like school, if you hadn't noticed. I like knowing things and understanding how the world works. That's what school is all about.

Ugh

It has not been a good few days.

Or it has.

But I'm just not feeling good. I'm not sick or anything. I just feel blechy.

I feel like I annoy people when I message them. Also Halloween is this week and NaNoWriMo is starting and term is ending soon and I've got projects due and our freshman play is showing mid-November and I need to work on my speech for speech team.

Also I've been thinking about my girlfriend's school a lot. They have an open house today. I think I would like going there. But I think I don't want to transfer for another person. And I do like my school, I really do. I just don't know. And I don't want to leave my friends. But I would love going there. But I don't want to. I want to love where I am and let it stay that way.

I'm worried I'm getting bad again.

Friday

I haven't updated in a while...hmm...

Friday was One School One Book. Guess what it was, and what made my summer infinitely more awesome?

The Fault in Our Stars. Which I finished in January. And loved.

So I got to talk about it the whole morning. And then I got to go to a panel called "Humor and Irony: Can Irony Save Us?" which I enjoyed quite a lot even though some were disappointed. There were two professors on comedy and one stand-up comedian on the panel. They talked about the ways irony can help us, but they also talked about how it sometimes hides us and hides our opinions, which can be dangerous.

Then there was a wrap-up video, which included part of this Vlogbrothers video. I was so, so excited after that. People were looking at me funny. Did I care? Not at all.

Then of course there was math and wellness, which felt rather boring after the morning, but you know, what can you do.

Then there was play practice. My practice was from 4:15-5:15, so I had two hours to sit around in the hallway. In the first hour, a pretty-much-friend of mine and I lay on the floor and looked at the ceiling and discussed random stuff while the rest of the group talked about weight and body image. She was picking at the linoleum tiling when -

Her: Oh, I picked up the floor.
Me: What? You mean it feels like you picked up the floor?
Her: Look. (She held up a green linoleum tile)
Me: Oh. Well then.

She was going to put it back when I stopped her, tore a piece of paper out of my notebook, and got out a pen. My side of the paper said something like

DFTBA!

Shira Abramovich, Class of 2016
September 21, 2012

And her side said

Hi!
F*ck

I don't remember what else she wrote, but in her words, "I enjoy writing curse words on random stuff." Then we stuck the paper in and squished the linoleum back into place.

So that's that. I went to my friend's house for dinner later and borrowed two books from her dad's enormous comic book collection.

And it was a lovely Friday.

Nostalgia and some realizations

I'm in one of those moods when you really want to cry but you can't so you can't get it out and you're stuck in this sort of pool of sadness, some of it pointless. Often it's nostalgia. It is now.

See, today I thought about Israel. I miss it a lot. Sometimes it just doesn't feel like that was life at all, just a story that I can tell, one that most people are really interested in.

I miss it, I miss my family, I miss my friends, I miss our tiny apartment and my strip of blue wall and the  public transportation and school. Six months can be so long but so short.

And my girlfriend is at another school now and suddenly I can see how it might have been for my friends back here. Oh, it must have been hard. I miss her so much at school and every so often she'll come up in conversation and we'll ask why she isn't here, and we'll remember that she went to a different high school and none of us can really talk to her because she's so busy.

I just hope that we won't stop at least attempting to see each other. I want to have fun at school and I want her to have fun at her school but I wish we could talk.

I wish a lot of things.

Homework

Me: I don't want to do it.

Me: You have to.

Me: Ugh.

Me: Get off your blog.

Me: I don't want to.

Me: English homework. History homework. Math. Do it.

Me: But I don't want to be dissecting a book I read for pleasure at 7:30 in the evening! I want to properly read at my own leisure and be able to get to bed at a decent time!

Me: So start your work.

Me: Aghhhh.

Me: Shut up. Now.

The Personal Essay

I slept over at my friend's house two nights ago. My girlfriend, who goes to another school, was there too and she said that her assignment for the weekend was to write a personal essay.

"That sounds fun!" I said. "I want to write a personal essay!"

Basically, she wants me to transfer to her school. Her main argument is that there may be a lot of work, but it will be work I'll want to do. So far (as much as I hate to say it) her argument does have some substance.

Well, anyway. It took me three hours (factoring in the large amount of A Very Potter Musical that I was watching while doing the work) to do a short paragraph for my history class, and it took me fifteen minutes to write the personal essay. (Ouch, right?) Anyway, here it is. (I do realize that this is short too.)

---

I must have been six, and it had snowed.

“It’s a snow day,” Aba said, “and the driveway needs shoveling.” We didn’t even have our snow blower or our digital camera yet – it was that long ago. So I, along with then three-year-old Itai, was recruited to help clear the driveway. Or perhaps we volunteered. We were young enough that we liked doing chores.

We bundled up in all our gear in the order that kindergarten teachers always say you should – snow pants, boots, coat, hat, gloves. Itai and I each got a small shovel and set out to help our parents. It’s possible that we were really being a nuisance rather than helping, but it was probably better than leaving us inside to our own devices.

It took a long time – of course it did, otherwise they wouldn’t have called a snow day. It was eerily silent, the kind of silence that you only have when it snows. The endless whiteness swallows up the sound.

I was shoveling by the big living room window when I stopped and looked around. My nose was cold and red and hurting a little and everyone was working around me.

“Am I doing well?” Itai asked in his high-pitched voice.

“You’re doing perfectly,” Mama said.

For a minute I almost felt like I wasn’t there, like I was looking through my eyes from somewhere far away. It was like this bundle of questions suddenly was delivered to my mind. Why are we here? How are we here?

It’s the first time I actually remember the questions. How did it happen? How did I come to be right here, right now? How am I alive?

After maybe a minute it occurred to me that I should probably keep on shoveling. I pushed the questions aside, stuck the shovel in the snow, and threw it to the side.

So far, it’s been eight years since then. I haven’t stopped asking.

Beginnings

So high school started this week.

Or, should I say -

OH MY GOD, HIGH SCHOOL STARTED THIS WEEK.

Well, aside from its inevitable enormity and whatever, it looks like it will be pretty good, actually.

Crazy? Almost definitely. Fun? Looks like it. Adventure? Hopefully.

September?!

How?

The Hogwarts Express chugged along to Hogwarts at 11 am today and now Asylum of the Daleks is airing and high school is starting in three days.

Huh?

Ice Cream Whatagain

Well.

Yesterday I went to something at the high school I'll be at starting Tuesday. They called it an ice cream social.

Just ponder that for a minute. What?

STOP TACKING FANCY NAMES ONTO THINGS.

Okay, sorry. I'll continue now.

The only reason I went was that we were getting our schedules.

So.

I went to the "student center" (aka cafeteria for normal folk like you and me) and stood in line for like ten minutes to get the schedule. I got it, and it looked like this:

A block: Directed Study
B block: Directed Study
C block: Directed Study
ETC.

I looked at it for about a minute and finally thought, "That can't be right..."

And then I had to go to the office and get it sorted out and I missed the looking around the school and getting a tour and whatever. Take a moment to pity me.

...

Thank you.

So after that I went back to the cafeteria for a Schedule Comparison Fest and various processed sweet frozen stuff. Processed sweet frozen stuff happens to be delicious, which made it a little less irritating that almost none of my friends are in my classes.

After looking at my schedule just now I've decided that the schedule times make absolutely no sense. I may be vastly confused for the first month or so, hmm...

High School

Me: * mentions high school *

Mom: Hi, school, how are you?

Me: ...