Oh I haven't journaled like this in forever... and it's any wonder! I have never had much of an affinity for the keyboard as a means of writing out my thoughts. This is probably why I am so bad at papers.. no I am bad at papers because I have somehow gotten it into my head that whenever a professor assigns me a paper to write, that he is expecting nobel prize winning material or something close to it. Papers for me are like the Olympics for Kwan. They psych me out. In all truth I love writing.... slowly, or thoughtfully perhaps. I like to write about what I want to write about and if I know that any stuffy professor is going to read my thoughts I get indignant and rebellious. My stick-it-to-the-man comes right out to fight, and skrew-myself-over wins every time. WHY!? Why can't skrew-myself-over take what's coming to her just once? Honestly though do I ever really think that pouting and apathetic protest is ever going to get me anywhere with concern to my papers? My rational, overachieving, straight A student, better version of myself that cloisters inside my lazy encrusted shell understands that this is folly. Unfortunately my prickish insides have no social skills and are continuously being disrespected and bullied by my powerful, socially stimulated, "free spirited" (or lazy) exterior. Forget "OVERachiever," sometimes I'd just settle for "achiever" to pop its head up sometimes.

     So why can't I work like others can work? Poor work ethic? I'd be inclined to say yes, but I know better. This is not the case at all. Give me a task and the knowledge that you expect great things from me, and I will stun you with the extent to which I will go for you. I think the key is the level of expectation. I used to think that high expectations were suffocating to me where in reality the area of my life that the expectations were aimed at made the essential difference. For instance, if you expect a high standard of work quality (paper, painting, project, etc), but you send out an aura (yes I can tell) that says "most of you will probably fail anyways..." Then I'm a gonner! I fade away into a spinning pit much like Alice's rabbit hole that eats me alive with self doubt and indigence. I am hurt by your unbridled disdain for a good 85% of your students. Knowing that my worth in your eyes is merely being weighed on my against-all-odds-performance in your eyes, I do not rise to the challenge but merely revel at how small a person you are and how much I don't want to be a part of whatever you are doing. Then I fail. Sometimes with a very tangible F and sometimes with just the queazy feeling inside of me and the shame that lets me know I have flubbed. I have also come to realize that my Wonder Woman like work ethic comes from a positive experience with a personal expectation. If someone either non-verbally or verbally lets me on to the fact that they like me and have a fairly good confidence that I will do well (or at least have potential), there is no end to my devotion to their cause. I guess its because I feel loved in some way. Put simply: Will work for love.

     On that note, why is love so hard to come by in life? You know the life that people talk about coming at you fast? That life. Why is it so blasted hard to find some love there? Is it so hard to show some care? I know I love people. I'll admit I don't love everyone the way that I, or anyone for that matter, should but at least I'm in frequent self-examination of the way I love or don't love others. I strive to be better. I pray for God to help me love people the way He does. Why does life and its inhabitants not do this? Part of this is to blamed on what is socially acceptable. It is lame to care too much for people, while it is considered tough, professional, or cool to not give a crap and to be "in control." Apparently the "in control" person is the one who cares most about themselves. I'm really sick of this world because of that. This is where my "free spirit" comes in. This is where I want to check out of reality.

     All I ever want to do in life is to look at pretty things and be pretty and to love and be loved. Hm.... so... a princess? Okay, so what? So I honest to goodness want to be a princess. Is there something necessarily wrong with that? You get to have influence over the quality of people's lives, you get to marry someone charming, and you get to wear amazing clothes. Nothing here sounds wrong. Life unfortunately does not give its consent to such a dream. Even if I were to become an actual princess my life would be nothing like what I just described (except perhaps the clothes part). Life was managed to ruin this too.

     I have often given serious thought to the prospect of becoming a princess without the title. You know, the actions without the acclaim. I could deal with that. I've already married someone charming (I don't have huge standards on the definition of charming), and amazing clothes can come with thrifty shopping and a decent job once school has stopped sucking up my time. All that would be left would be the position to truly effect the quality of people's lives. I have come to realize that every endeavor has either (or both) the goal to gain awesome skills or to significantly help people. My personal and unspoken motto to myself has been; if I can do it, why wouldn't I? I don't always have the mindset to follow this but it is, at the least, at the core of who I am. My problem comes when, steeped and overflowing from the pores with such love for humanity from God, Life steps in deeming me uncool and not in control. BAM! Life comes at me fast. Why you gotta be hatin' fool!? I'z just tryin' to be out fo ma peeps!!!

     Life apparently doesn't care all that much. At least not the life that I'm talking about; the evil Life. Why can't I just enjoy things? Why do I have to be effected so darn easily by what someone thinks of me? I have agonized about this before and have made headway, but the issue always crops up again. For this paper I am writing for instance; It isn't that I am incapable of writing it. Far from it! It isn't that I have writer's block, no, I know exactly what should be addressed. it's that I hate casting my pearls before swine just like the Bible tells us not to do. I was taught as a kid (many times, as I needed to be continuously reminded of the principle) that you don't just spill out your heart to anyone. My problem is that I don't have any compartments inside of me, so whoever talks to me gets a part of my heart to some degree. I have artfully learned to flavor or control the portion of what people get, but these alterations are slight. So when writing a paper, the person I am writing it for ends up getting alot of my efforts and by association my heart when they get my paper. For this reason I hate writing for people who from the outset don't expect much of me personally (or because of the mere fact that I am a lowly student). It doesn't matter what I write, their opinion will still be the same of me. Even if they give me an A, their cynical outlook on my kind (or me personally) won't be altered, but merely chocked up to an exception. For this reason they have no right to look up my skirt, to peer into the recesses of my mind, or to observe the inner workings of my soul. A paper on the Economic Condition of China is hardly a gateway to my soul, it's true, but writing is. I have come to realize that by its very nature, writing draws from the very depths of my person and works at trying to produce and jewel for its reader. In that way, a paper is a very personal thing for me. Getting bad grades on papers, while unpleasant, still don't effect me the same way a professors attitude does. A grade is constructive criticism meant to make me better, an attitude of indifference or low expectations tells me that my whole writing endeavor might as well be a wash. No room for improvement. Just a "your paper will probably stink" outlook from the get go. It depresses the crap out of me.  

     I want so badly to move past my observations of my professors and lie to myself. It would be easy to just pretend that they care then snap back to reality once my paper is complete! Voila! I've cheated the system! But no, I am too in-tune with my tricks. It's just the same as the trick of pretending the deadline is sooner than it is so that I will get done early. It never works. I know that I'm lying. My problem is how personally invested I am in my own life. If I could only be like those other people... my classmates... my frenemies (enemies that don't deserve your official wrath and warrant "friendship" out of your desperation for people to talk to or for sociopolitical reasons). If I could only turn off long distance vision for a while and put on some trendy blinders. You know, pretend I'm someone I'm not for a while... just to get through. To put my head down and forget about myself for a while... to eat my soylent green. Why is no one attuned to some of the major problems that traditional education has going for it? Do any of the professors realize how much their students consciously dumb themselves down to get better grades? I've talked with people about this and there's kind of a general consensus that its easier to get better grades in classes if you leave a good chunk of your brain cells at the door. Professors like Prof Carl and Prof Cory are on to this phenomenon and get many groans of dissatisfaction when they make everybody go back outside and retrieve their abandoned brain power. I like them for this. It evens the playing ground for me, because I (like an idiot apparently) like to bring my full brain. So when they make everybody work with their full brain, mine is exercised. Yay me. These are my little triumphs and happy days. Unfortunately, not everyone is a Professor Carl or a Professor Cory. In these other people's classes I am a fumbling slacker. I don't know how to change their opinions of me, I think it's actually impossible. As I mentioned before, I could get A's on stuff I hand in and they still think I have evil ulterior motives or something. The problem with bringing your whole brain to class is that professors get rattled. They get insecure about the fact that they might not have had any part in why your smart. This sends their entire low-paid existence into a tailspin, and they decide to treat you with mean skepticism. They deny you of nice looks, praise when saying something intelligent in class, and give you an overall disgruntled attitude when you do something great. For people like me this is devastating. Unarmed with knowing the true motives of their snotty attitudes I genuinely think that I've done something wrong, or maybe it's that I really am so inferior that disappoints them. It's usually after several bouts with depression stemming from that class that I look around me at who's getting their approval. The half-efforted delinquents?!?! What the crap is going on here!? I mean seriously! Seriously! It's then that I realize that I have insulted said professor's existence by having thoughts they only deem me worthy of having at the end of taking their class. They latch on to these idiots because they feel they have a greater chance of helping them. Oh good ol' you... look at how much you helped that misguided post-teen who should have never left high school. Makes me sick. Am I not paying good money too!? I am not the sharpest tool in the shed but I deserve not to be punished for what I do have right?

     I could cry.

Mostly because at this point, there is little to nothing I can do to about my plight. On the upside, talking about all of this and getting in out in clear sentences (please don't look back at this point and make sure all my sentences are indeed, clear) has helped me not feel so powerless. On the downside, I can't turn this in as my five page paper instead of the one they want. On the downside, my paper still awaits me. But I do feel less depressed that before and less depressed means better paper writing skills. I any case, I must be going.

 Okay, so I haven't posted on Xanga in a million plus years... but Xanga is MAKING me post something on here or they are getting rid of my username. Here's the interesting thing though, their little reason for telling me this was that there were people supposedly asking for this username and Xanga wanted me to stand up and protect it or get out of it forever. First of all.... RUDE. You don't just say that to someone no matter how long they've completely ignored you. Second of all NO ONE has ever thought to have this username. Mwahaha I even take pride in that fact. Never have I been denied this username because someone else has already thought of it, so I think that xanga is lying.

To be honest, I kind of miss Xanga.... but I haven't felt the push to do anything about it until now. It's been kind of like one of those friendships that goes awkwardly silent and you don't really know what to do about it. Should you stay silent? Should you make that weird attempt to rekindle things? Anyway... I'm back on Xanga.