2001-05-04 - 8:57 p.m. - introduction1

I don't think anyone will be reading this, but just to get it out will perhaps satisfy some of those exhibitionist urges I've been getting lately. It's been overall a pretty lousy week; I have a piano competition coming up on Monday, I gave a presentation in science class on echinoderms today, and I also have two papers due the next week. In addition, my dreams have been getting steadily worse. I think sometimes that my subconscious wants desperately to be completely autonomous, having a body of its own, and that's the root of the animus it bears me. Otherwise, I'm just a screwed-up little kid, which is completely true, I just want there to be some other reason my dreams are as terrifying as they are. The naked-in-front-of-everybody dreams would almost come as a consolation; what my subconscious does as I sleep is come up with a myriad of interesting ways to kill me off. It makes remembering my dreams a cinch. They had been getting better recently, with centaurs and winged men in the place of executioners, but I've had a few disturbing ones recently and I'm afraid the good spell isn't going to last.

I really should be getting on with my work, but this is much more interesting - after all, I'm egocentric enough to wish others to read boring stuff about me and just realistic enough to realize that it's quite boring. Life in general has been interesting lately. I came out (of the closet) to, in succession, the guy I had a crush on from sixth to eighth grade, most of my former eighth grade class (thank you, Lady Rumor), my new friends, my new class (I don't think this is what people had in mind when they said that my adjustment to high school was going to be hard), and the grand banana, my parents. The thrills! The chills! The disapproval! I was actually expecting much worse than actually came. As it turned out, they laughed in my face, didn't believe me, and said I'd outgrow it. Worse things have happened. To me that's ancient history, though, it happened way back in September. The only reason it's really important is that it seemed to hasten the deterioration of my relationship with my parents. My mother will still ask me incredulously, "You mean you like BOYS!?" It's all I can do not to burst out into laughter - or tears. I need to remind myself to give them time and to be more patient with them - they come from the old country, after all. In our case, the old country is Taiwan ROC.

Speaking of the old country, my mother and father and I all got into a big argument over the use of what my mother and I consider a racially derogatory term, but which my father thinks is completely all right. It doesn't translate all that well from Mandarin Chinese, but the way I understand it, the way my father refers to Indians (as in Jaipur, Goa, Diu India) means roughly "thirdclassmen," or menial laborers. It's sort of like calling all Chinese people coolies, I guess. We stormed off in our separate directions. I really wish I had more patience to deal with my parents, but I'm human, and I keep forgetting that they weren't educated in English as I was, and that's why I'm often unintelligible to them. *sigh*

As usual, I seem to be getting a crush on somebody who's inaccesible by virtue of category (in terms of beauty, waaay out of my league - at least in my opinion), age (just a bit older) and sexual orientation (oops, he's straight. never mind that - damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead! I love how my mind works.)

But all of this isn't the only reason my week's been sorta shitty. My cello teacher gave me a bit of a lecture - not that he meant to send me on an all-expenses-paid guilt trip or anything, but he just didn't feel that I was working as hard as I could and that I didn't realize that I was disappointing him. Then he compared me to my older sister (I have three, but only one of them is a cellist). Grr. The thing is, most of what he's saying is justified, it just smarts a lot and when it smarts I'm more inclined not to do what he wants. The sad thing is that I realize that were I to do what he wanted, we'd both be much happier...

Anyway, I ought to go write my essays now. If you've gotten this far, congratulations. More about maybe my friends and school and music and stuff next time. Or maybe even my dreams. Although some of those dreams aren't suitable for young children for one reason or another. Have a nice weekend.

Cheers.