Goddamn it, everything feels useless at 5:58 p.m. when the sun is setting and I still have homework.

Just got an email from the lady who's been helping me with my college essay. Guess what? This draft is no good either. She thinks I hate her. I don't hate her; I'm just goddamn frustrated. When Mom suggested I do the Holocaust thing, I didn't think it would make a good essay, but after she and Nate looked over it and helped me out with it and I played it out to be this great big pivotal experience in my life, I thought it was pretty darn good. But no. She just shot it right down. "Scrap it completely." Or maybe it was "Set it aside entirely" or something better than "scrap it completely," but "scrap it completely" is what it darn well felt like.

Now don't get me too wrong here: I'd MUCH rather have HER tell me that my essay is a piece that nobody will remember than find out when nobody accepts me because they don't remember who I am.

But still, it's like, all the vibes I'm getting are for goddamn serious essays and I write a friggin serious essay and what do I get? "Set it aside entirely." I mean it just makes me upset.

Then she tells me I should pick some absurd moment in class or something that changed the way I think. "Don't be afraid to be funny." Don't be afraid to be funny? Goddamn it, I LOVE being funny! I thought college essays had to be serious! Besides which, what kind of a *&#$&% funny experience in the classroom has changed my freaking life? I'm not an epiphany kind of person! I've had like seven epiphanies and what happens? Either they reinforce stuff I'm already doing or I don't put them into practice! The fly-swatting "epiphany"? Reinforced! The shoe "epiphany"? Reinforced. The take-your-time-and-don't-overwhelm-yourself "epiphany"? Realized, thank you, can't function that way, ignored.

Hot damn.

And now a funny experience that changed my freaking life! What is that? N. suggested finding a penny. I can't really think of a time I found a penny and it changed my life. Closest I've come to something within her apparent parameters is the fact that I used to buy tons of stickers and never use them or let other people use them, and now I look at a sticker sheet and I think which ones I'd give to which friends.

ALL LITTLE KIDS DO STUFF LIKE THAT.

So, what? What? Mom: how about a book that changed the way I look at things? I read fantasy and historical fiction and books about the Titanic and biology. That is what I read. Has any of that changed the way I think? The only thing my reading has changed in the last two years is what I want to do with my life. Changed it from total clarity and clear sailing to I don't know what the hot-damn I want to do with my life.

And now this freaking extended essay draft is due tomorrow and I sure as hellfire don't want to rewrite it NOW, I'd much rather have a deadline in mid-October, and how much is it going to change, really? All I need to do is freaking sit down, fix some parenthetical notation, add a few quotes and literary features, and WHAM, second draft. What am I doing instead? Freaking out about a college essay draft that didn't work and NOT doing anything that's due tomorrow.

Or soon.

I'm not working on my EE, not reading for psych or preparing for my IA, not doing my Theatre concept or studying for my Maths non-calculator test tomorrow, I can't find my English notebook, even though book notes are due on Monday, which is bad, bad, bad, haven't read the next chapter for bio or looked over my experiments so I can discuss them with Mr Stickrath tomorrow morning and sort it out, haven't rewritten said experiments so that they follow the goddamn IB qualifiers...!

Oh man, is that it? Woah, clear sailing for this kid! Oh, wait! I forgot that I also need to do reading and research for my Biology G4 project, find a group for my TOK IA, finish my other four college application supplements, figure out what the hell requirements I have for NHS and SHS, try to figure out if I'm actually committed to doing a skit tomorrow night (which I want to, mind you, because I like drama and my friends, as a matter of fact), cut two interp pieces and work on differentiating my Southern accents...

...There. I think I've got it all down.

On top of it all, I wish I could do more stuff with drama this semester, and I have barely any time to see N, and I have been tired recently and everyone keeps trying to convince me to join clubs!

I probably have absolutely no right to complain, because how big are all of these stupid problems, anyway? But it's frustrating and it's stressful anyway.

And because I haven't blogged in so long, it sounds like nothing cool and happy is going on right now, which is a lie, because it totally is. And now I don't have time to write all the cool and happy because I've spent so much time angsting about schoolwork...

...Did I mention that I essentially broke up with my dad yesterday? As in the boyfriend-girlfriend kind of breakup. I asked him for all my clothes and books that are up at the house that I never visit. I think I feel farther away from him than ever, and then we sit down to dinner and it's all okay, but he and I are so disconnected and it's really weird, and that is the only time all week that we talk, but when the hell else am I going to talk to my own dad when I am so swamped with all this goddamned essay writing?

Sorry for all the cursing. Hope I didn't take up too much of your time.

Goddamn it.

'Night.

I am reading a book that is not for school while halfheartedly circling my TOK assignment. I am gazing out the window and pondering the fly that has been in my room all day, climbing on my screen. I am listening to the original score of Star Wars ep. IV.

I ought to be doing my biology reading guide, finishing my TOK assignment, writing college and CAS essays and my EE, researching for my theatre and psychology projects, assembling materials for my biology IA, finishing my math assignment, preparing for the SAT...

But instead I am reading a book and looking out the window.

I am torn. I can't decide whether this is a step in the right or in the wrong direction.

...I overscheduled myself again. Senior year is killing me slowly. There are SO MANY assessments! Theatre projects, Psychology experiments, Bio experiments and research projects... English essay rewrites and in-class commentaries and so much reading, plus everything else I want to do... and everything else that I maybe don't want to do but am already committed to.

I don't know what I'd be doing if my dear N.L.N. hadn't talked me into backing out of the Habitiat Build I was signed up for tomorrow. I did literally start crying when I took myself off the list - I've always always wanted to help Habitat For Humanity. And this is a green project all around, which combines my interest and service and what have you. But it runs from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and if I was so tired yesterday that I couldn't even drive home - which I was - there is no way I'd have the energy for a build plus homework plus Film Board (also happening this weekend), which means I would not have energy to see N. And if that did not happen, I would probably curl up in the fetal position and be useless for a week.

Heck, I'm already doing that. :P

Anyway, I've decided not to do the fall play, either - not to be involved in Drama basically at all until my college stuff is finished and I've retaken the SATs. I'll want to be in the musical, you can be sure - I'll also have two free periods next semester. WOOO. And I am NOT filling them in with classes, no sir. I am NOT doing that to myself again.

And now I need to work on theatre. But those are the brief updates.

PS - happy new year, world!

I'm a Senior this year. I'm supposed to be the role model, showing everyone in their Freshman year that it is possible to survive through high school, even through IB. I am a living example of the success of backwards living.

Giving Sophomores tips for living through a year in Dr. M's Chemistry class, teaching Juniors how to battle through Mr. B's English class and come out on top with a B.

National Honors Society, which I joined for college and for a cord at graduation, wants me to tutor all grade levels in Spanish, too. I'll be the guiding Senior helping Freshmen and Sophomores and Juniors learn Spanish, teaching them the songs and the rhymes and the tips that got me through Sra. S's and Srita. R's and Sr. C's classes, and pass the IB Spanish Exam with a 6 out of 7.

The IB test was preceeded by Sr. C's class, preceeded by Srita R's, preceeded by Sra. S's, preceeded by my eighth and seventh grade Spanish teachers, preceeded by middle school and elementary school Spanish and finally by my Kindergarten classroom, which had the colors labeled in Spanish in friendly letters on the wall.

A prime example of the success of living backwards.

And I still have all my goals for good grades in my final year of high school, graduating with an IB diploma, and getting into a sweet undergrad college or university...

But people ask me if there is a real point in going to a super-solid undergrad school: Everybody says that graduate is all that matters. But here is where I am incapable of living backwards: lately I have no idea what I want to finally study, or even what I want to finally do.

What the heck am I going to do with myself - when I'm in the "real world?" I hate that phrase - the "real world."

When I was in middle school I thought the idea utterly ridiculous, as though I were living in some parallel universe and I didn't have problems to solve or work to do, as though everything else in the world were not my problem somehow. So whatever hurricanes were destroying homes in New Orleans, whatever wars were being fought, I didn't have to care. I thought, How the hell is that fair? How is that right? It's my world too! Everyone is ruining it! How is this not my problem? I live in the "real world!"

Now, however, I understand it more. I have learned that life in the "real world" means, to a certain extent, a life lived backwards.

I'm going to have to live someplace and get to other places. Which means I'll need a) a place to live and b) a car or something. To get those, I'll need a job, which requires skills, which require training, and all that revolves around getting hired in the first place. Getting hired in the first place takes getting hired previously, which requires getting a degree, which requires going to grad school. That can't happen until I go undergrad someplace, which can't happen until I apply, which can't happen until I turn my life into a series of numbers and short sentences that can be quickly analyzed and tossed onto one pile or the other.

I feel that, at some point, we members of the "real world" all start living life backwards.

Think of when you used to live life forwards.

In elementary and middle school, you were going to be a fireman or a veterinarian or a fairy princess. And that was that. You learned multiplication and division and cursive because the nice tall lady in the pretty blouse told you to, and you played kickball and four-square and hopscotch and Groundies, and some day you were going to be a fireman. And that, easily enough, was that.

But then your teachers began living the year backwards: preparing you for the CSAPs or preparing you for middle school, and then you started being told why you should get good marks then and there: it would benefit you down the road: in the "real world." So you knew you should go to college after high school after middle school after fifth grade after fourth after third after summer break. But someday, you would be a fireman. Maybe not a fairy princess. But a fireman.

Even as you lived life with the progression of time the way we experience it - forward - you always had your eyes set on the distant future, and so essentially you were living life backwards. Anytime you decided to stop studying for an algebra test to play outside, you lived forwards; every time you failed the test and were berated by your parents, you learned to live backwards again.

Eventually, maybe Freshman or Sophomore year in high school, you learned how to live neither completely backwards nor completely forwards, or to live, as it were, backwards and forwards at once. You put off studying for your algebra test to play football outside, according to a schedule allowing you three hours a day, three days a week, of football. Living somewhat forwards. But if you did well enough, you could get C.A.S. hours towards your IB diploma, or trophies, or your picture in the paper, or a girlfriend, or something to put on your college resume. Living backwards.

And eventually, you got to where I am right now: Senior year. You've made it this far, this was always a hurdle you knew you'd have to leap over; now you are the shining example of how successful living backwards can make someone.

So here I am. I am neither a fairy princess nor a fireman, even though I learned cursive, even though I have surpassed the earthly bounds of multiplication and am moving on to calculus. But here is the problem with achieving the goal for which you've been living backwards all this time: I don't know where to go now.

My equivalent of the fairy princess seems just as far away and dreamily unobtainable: a schoolteacher? And what grade? And what level? And what classes? And where? And: children of your own? How many? Who will their father be? Where will you live?

Too many questions! Can't I live forwards? Can't I take my time?

I overschedule myself a lot. My forwards is so full most of the time that the only way I can make it through the week is by looking ahead to the weekend. To get to Saturday I have to get to Friday, which means surviving Thursday, Wednesday, Tuesday, and Monday.

I want to wrap this up with a brilliant idea of how we should all live life forwards, but I would be a hypocrite to do so. I like overscheduling myself until I cry. It's almost another hobby at this point. So this rant is as much a lecture to myself as to anybody else.

I know a few people who are very very good at living forwards. I often wish I could be more like them - they are very relaxed people with a lot of free time to sit. The little time I spend sitting down I fill with knitting, drawing, writing, reading, felting, painting... blogging. I suppose I try to be everywhere and everything at once, because I feel that life is so short that I'll never be able to do all I want to do - living backwards from my very death.

I need to breathe. I need to learn from others how to mete out my time so I don't exhaust myself, because if I live a long, stressed out life, who wins? I'm only human, after all, and humans, while stuck in the stream of time, have the ability to reflect and look ahead - and I think that to a certain degree, living backwards and forwards at once can be sitting still and taking in a beautiful fall afternoon.

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