True Charactering

They say that you can only judge the true character of a man by seeing how he acts when no one is looking. Well that is just pure ridiculousness because by telling me that I have trained myself to always act like someone is watching. That is, unless, the family is gone and the blinds are drawn. Then I am free to shed my pants and roam the halls in my underwear, sipping ginger ale from my goblet while listeneing to the soothing voice of Dennis Bartell introduce my favorite symphonies on classical KUSC. Oh the simple pleasures of life, often reduced to instances few and far between. The cause of such a lack of peaceful and glorious moments is vanity itself. We are told that we must always be on our toes, worrying what might be percieved by others as unacceptable. Alas, it is the fate of the human heart to be forever wrapped up in a tangle of judgement and servitude. Even the self endowed "individualists", with their crazy fashion trends, wacky hair styles, and "I don't care what people think of me because I'm quirky and weird and I march to the beat of a different drum" attitudes are prisoners of the vain wories we all face.

But what is the cure? How do we overcome this insane self bondage?

I don't know.

But Miriam Condor, author of "How to Stop Stress and make a Fantastic First Impression" does.
The book's entire message is that the best way to do it is to stop worrying so much about what people think about you, to just be yourself.

I basically wasted $18.99 on a book that taught me a lesson I could have learned by watching any american sitcom produced after 1980. The moral of this post is to not buy self help books. because then you're not helping yourelf, the book is helping you. Only you can help yourself, and prevent forest fires, which is a terrible ad-campaign by the way, because I'm pretty sure most of us don't spend our time in the woods looking for ways to not burn the forest down. The ones who do start the fires are too sick in the head to heed the advice of a talking bear anyway. But maybe that's part of the true character thing, which makes me a great person, because I don't start forest fires, even when no one is looking.

FIN

Naptastic!

My napping habits have gotten to the point where my mom doesn't let me go into my room after school because she know if I do that I will just fall asleep. There are few things I enjoy more than taking naps in the middle of the day. One time I walked into my room and there was a suit bag on the floor,(the kind of bag you hang your suits up in to keep them fresh) and I was curious to see if I could fit myself inside and zip it up. After struggling for about five minutes I grew sleepy and fell asleep in the attempt. It was one of the best naps I have taken, which is saying something, cause I've taken a lot of naps. I think they're good luck as well. I met one of my best friends immedietly after waking up from an afternoon nap, I also found a dollar that very same day.
My naps also account for why, if you notice, most of my blog posts are posted in the middle of the night. My irregular sleeping schedule certainly makes things a little weird for me, come one in the morning. I have a host of characters inside my head that manifest themselves while I'm up late at night, and I've notived that the longer I go without sleeping the more real those characters become. (things have gotten awkward with them recently though, ever since that unintentional spooning session with Arrogant Dan...I think Grumpy Kyle got jealous).

Naps also decrease decision making skills. Like my recent decision to tell you about my head characters. I'm probably gonna end up in a psychiatrist's office if my family reads this, but that's ok, because at least it means that somebody is reading my blog besides my mind friends.
I'm gonna go get some sleep now. I know I need it because these youtube videos are getting funnier and funnier as the sleepless minutes tick by and I know that if I watch them again tomorrow, they won't be funny at all.

p.s. I hate people with weird nostrils.

You say tomato, I say shut up.

Everybody has somebody that they want to punch in the face. For me, it used to be the majority of people that I met. I would skirt the hallway sides with silent malice for my peers quietly seething through my body. "I hate that kid" was a common utterance on my part, even for people that I had no reason to hate. I could hate somebody for anything.

When that one asian kid would run to the cafeteria to be first in line: "I hate that kid"
When that one guy tried to be funny in History: "I hate that kid"
When that one guy read books 24/7, I'm not even kidding, he was constantly reading, I never ever saw him not reading a book: "I hate that kid"
When that one relly nice girl said hi to me: "I hate that kid"

I was a bucket full of hate drawn from the well of misery and spite.

Then one day I realized that I had very few friends.

I said to myself: "Self, what's the point?"

I was letting the smallest of things bother me and as a result I was creating my own, unneccessary, misery. I couldn't expect to keep friends and continue being extremely bitter. It is a formula that doesn't work. So that is why I decided to change my ways. People who in the past I would have hated, I know have indifference for. So what if people want to talk really loud in an enclosed space? And who cares that certain people make you want to kill yourself? It's better for everyone to just ignore them. Cause you never know whose gonna have a metaphorical* gun to your head later in life, and it's always helpful to be on the weilder's good side. Unless of course they have wronged you in unforgivable ways.**


*9mm
**Eddy Curtis, 3rd grade. I will never forget.

ACT'ing Lessons

I will be waking up in a little less than 6 hours in order to take the ACT and thereby seal the fate of my future in higher education. Well sort of, cause technically I can take the test a second time or a third or fourth, but I've come to realize that in order to succeed at something you have to go into it thinking that you only get one shot. So far I'm doing a terrible job because I'm not getting a good nights sleep, I wouldn't bet on a balanced breakfast, and I definitely haven't prepared for the test itself at all. Actually I take that one back, because at this very moment I have another tab open to the ACT website and I'm looking at sample questions. It's sort of last minute but I felt it would be a good idea to at least know what I was going to fail before I had to fail it for real. The thing I'm worried about most actually is finding parking at the community college where I'm taking the test, cause last time I was there it took me forever to park. The fact that I'm taking it at a community college could be some very ironic foreshadowing.

When the school college counselor raised her eyebrows after I told I hadn't taken any ACT Prep classes it seemed a little ominous, which I don't understand. I see all these kids taking these test prep classes, but it doesn't make any sense. You either know the stuff they're asking you or you don't. They publish these thousand page books on "SAT and ACT prep!" but there's a limit to how much you actually know how to do. It makes it seem like I'm doing something wrong but I actually feel pretty confident going into tomorrow. Sort of.

Maybe if I wish at the stars hard enough I'll wake up as a Pickachu and won't have to take the test. Or maybe if I drop enough acid it'll yield the same result.

Just kidding kids. Drugs aren't funny: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LLxAAxwPdg