Happy anniversary to Rae-J! That means it's one month and one day until ours, so I need to get cracking on greg's present. I also need to consider what I'd like, since i can't just put greg out there on his own and expect him to come up with something. that doesn't work out so well. still it sucks that i can think of so many romantic things that he could put together or make on his own, but once i tell him what to do, they're not romantic anymore. then it's just pointless. and i could tell him some material object that would please me, but what i'll still really want is something that he just thought of on his own, like "wow, wouldn't michelle love it if i did this?". is that strange, that i could tell someone what i want in terms of a gift-gift, but still expect that they will divine that the material thing is not what i'm really after and act accordingly? there's women for you. greg told me that his mom just hands his dad a list of things that she wants. my mom always did that too, and my dad would buy her whatever perfume or something else she wanted, but he always made things, i don't know, special. his cards to her were always really sweet, and he'd draw pictures for her, and call her his kitten, and the perfume itself never seemed as thoughtful to me as everything that surrounded it. So it happens that i can think of a million romantic things i'd love for him to do, but nothing stands out in my mind for him to buy...

A long talk in HILL about the war today. Probably one of the better class days, in my opinion; there weren't that many of us there, and there were no ad hominem arguments from certain highly conservative parties against more liberal parties.

Once again, the news seems to be so very far away, happening thousands of miles apart from our little school. Walking down the hallway this morning there was no indication in the laughing countenances of those who passed that they were conscious of the implications of this morning. The war has begun, not in the brilliant blaze of munitions that our administration promised, but with a smaller yet still decisive salvo against the Iraqis. No doubt the conflict will be brief, and hopefully bloody, but I hardly forsee an easy road ahead.

The fact that Saddam Hussein would rather martyr his entire country than lose power and lose face is an indication not only of this man's resolve, but also his utter lack of regard for human life. Beyond the fact that he unleashed chemical and biological weapons on the Iranian people, or that he used them on the Kurds in his own country, or that he's murdered thousands of Iraqi dissidents including his own daughters' husbands, how can anyone stand a man who would choose the path of defiance and death rather than humbling himself to save his people, not to mention his own life? He must either truly believe he can win this war, which, judging from the massive force arrayed against him is unlikely, or he truly doesn't care about anyone at all, and wants to go out in a blaze of gunfire. He would rather see his nation drowned in blood and unleash a jihad than surrender his sacred person.
PS. Saddam Hussein's idol is Joseph Stalin, the man who murdered about 8 million of his own citizens, the majority for no reason at all. Anyone who is unconvinced by history books that Stalin was a more ruthless and evil man than Hitler should read The Gulag Archipelago, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The brutality, the oppression, the utterly random cruelty of this man's reign is abominable, and yet largely unrecorded in textbooks. So much of what he did was not perpetrated in any war, nor did he focus on specific ethnic groups. He was an equal-opportunity killer.

A long talk in HILL about the war today. Probably one of the better class days, in my opinion; there weren't that many of us there, and there were no ad hominem arguments from certain highly conservative parties against more liberal parties.

Once again, the news seems to be so very far away, happening thousands of miles apart from our little school. Walking down the hallway this morning there was no indication in the laughing countenances of those who passed that they were conscious of the implications of this morning. The war has begun, not in the brilliant blaze of munitions that our administration promised, but with a smaller yet still decisive salvo against the Iraqis. No doubt the conflict will be brief, and hopefully bloody, but I hardly forsee an easy road ahead.

The fact that Saddam Hussein would rather martyr his entire country than lose power and lose face is an indication not only of this man's resolve, but also his utter lack of regard for human life. Beyond the fact that he unleashed chemical and biological weapons on the Iranian people, or that he used them on the Kurds in his own country, or that he's murdered thousands of Iraqi dissidents including his own daughters' husbands, how can anyone stand a man who would choose the path of defiance and death rather than humbling himself to save his people, not to mention his own life? He must either truly believe he can win this war, which, judging from the massive force arrayed against him is unlikely, or he truly doesn't care about anyone at all, and wants to go out in a blaze of gunfire. He would rather see his nation drowned in blood and unleash a jihad than surrender his sacred person.
PS. Saddam Hussein's idol is Joseph Stalin, the man who murdered about 8 million of his own citizens, the majority for no reason at all. Anyone who is unconvinced by history books that Stalin was a more ruthless and evil man than Hitler should read The Gulag Archipelago, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The brutality, the oppression, the utterly random cruelty of this man's reign is abominable, and yet largely unrecorded in textbooks. So much of what he did was not perpetrated in any war, nor did he focus on specific ethnic groups. He was an equal-opportunity killer.

Lordy. I got stuck tutoring another freshman again. In grammar, again. The guidance counselors assume that because I write well and because I'm called an editor for Voices that I actually know and can pass along the incredibly complex and annoying rules of grammar. I can't! St.Gabe's taught me almost nothing about grammar; my freshman teacher, Mrs. Hennessey, God rest her soul because she looked old enough to be dead even if she wasn't, taught us nothing but how to diagram sentences, endlessly. That helps you not at all in life. Who can remember what part of speech gets the arrow or the spaceship or the table? Who cares? I learned grammar the hands-on way, so to speak. I read, and I read, and I read, and the proper way to write just sort of sank in until I could easily tell what was correct and incorrect. That doesn't mean I remember any of the rules, or the tenses, or the different kinds of clauses, etc. So what am I supposed to tell this freshman girl, who was very frightened looking and said barely a word? The last girl they tried to have me tutor, this annoying girl named Tijuana, actively hated the fact that she was being forced into tutoring. We were both annoyed at giving up our frees, and she blatantly didn't care what exercise i was trying to have her do, so we eventually stopped. Oh and there was heather gostyla, whom i was supposed to tutor in geometry. I'm a senior--that was freshman year! She knew half the theorems and corollaries better than I did. It was pointless.

Senior day yesterday wasn't so bad. We built doghouses, did some yoga, and finished the day with a very interesting Mass with father Moran. It wasn't a big mass, there were only about twenty of us who stopped our activities and went, and instead of a homily, we sat in the chapel discussing what we regretted about high school, what we'd learned, and how we were going to apply those things to our future lives. Very interesting. Even though I don't find the whole truth--the Truth--in religious ceremonies, Mass can be comforting if you're in the presence of someone who believes so very fervently, and is so very affecting in his speech as Father Moran. There is no formalism, that detested shortcoming of priests, in his celebration. To listen to him, and to really think about some of those Biblical passages, can lead you to appreciate the good ideas that people have had and shared over the course of two thousand years. Do I agree completely? No, even less with the Church today than with the Bible itself. Yet it all has some grain of truth, some basic precept of existence as good human beings which we need to dig around and find underneath all the blather. Truth is hard to find, but it's worth looking for.

My friend Meghan Bonney showed me an interesting quote from an Ani DiFranco song: "On cold toast, butter melts out of habit." I don't know why it struck me....but I thought it was clever.

Well, an interesting thing happened in school today. While Sara and I were meandering down the hallway, Fitz stopped us as usual and began cacklnig with laughter over some new juicy gossip that he'd gained about yours truly. This happened yesterday afternoon too, so I figured it was the same tired game, but this time it was something altogether different. Apparently he'd recieved secondhand information from a girl in his AP Gov class that Meghan and I were seen making out in a mall. With each other, should anyone need such a clarification. Obviously, anyone who knows us would realize instantly that that's so not true, because cmon, she's my best friend, that's just nasty. So while I was annoyed that suddenly people had decided to start spreading rumors about me, I took it as more of a joke. Meghan was extremely upset by it, though, which made me upset. I mean, my friendship with jackie sophomore year earned me the rumor title of "lesbian". I'm not bothered by it anymore, and even though someone said that's just because im going out with greg, it's not true. Having a boyfriend doesn't suddenly magically protect you from insults; I simply choose to not care, and to see the funny side of it. How crazy is that, anyway? Meghan doesn't understand why anyone would make up somethign like that about us, which is rather mean, and then tell someone like Fitz who cant keep his mouth shut to save his life. Of course there is the possibility that seeing me and meghan make out is actually some guy's wet dream, so he made up a story to make it sound more plausible. fitz actually suggested that i tell my "piece" (which now means boyfriend instead of gun, apparently) about it, since he'd probably be ecstatic. I never thought i would have to hear the word "three-way" coming out of Fitz' mouth, especially not in relation to moi. Ewwww. He also thought this "piece"'s name was Chris, for some reason. Anyway, people are stupid, and meghan and i so aren't lesbians. I guess the saying is "We're straight but not narrow."

Tonight it's like eight girls and a hotel suite! Sweet! (hahaha yay for homophones!) And a basketball game before that, so we get to ogle some hot guys (unfortunately, our guys aren't playing farmington, so no jason abromidas or whatever his name was mrow) and then....some even more interesting entertainment.

Things I Hate About High School


People telling me what time of day I’m allowed to eat.
Hall passes
Eight continuous periods of class a day.
Learning things I don’t care about.
CSAs
Math class.
Going up to the board in math class
Not knowing the answers in math class
Anything related to math class.
People trying to convince me that math class is beneficial.
Uniforms.
Mr. Callahan.
Detentions (or the threat of detentions)
The disgusting lack of hygiene on the part of fellow students.
Bathrooms (see above)
The cafeteria
The cafeteria workers and their crazy rules
Traffic jams in the parking lot
Traffic jams in the hallway
Groups of shrieky youngsters.
Being shushed in the library.
The administration.
Morning prayer.
Morning announcements.
The Pledge of Allegiance.
Assemblies.
The PA system and that godforsaken clicking it makes when it’s off.
Crushing amounts of homework on a nightly basis.
Fire drills.
Gym class.
Standardized tests
Guidance counselors
People discussing their sexual behaviors in raised voices in the hallway.
The sexual behaviors of teenagers
People constantly bragging about illegal activities.
Seeing people sneaking cigarettes.
Having classes with morons.
Seeing the same building, without end, for four years.
The word “leadership”.
Everything that anyone has ever claimed will “prepare us for college”.
Doing everything in hopes of getting into a nice college.
Worrying about getting into colleges.
Not getting into colleges.
Having to commute between home and school
Rampant PDA
Observing young love
Having less time to spend with individual people because you see all of them, every day
The shocking lack of tampons in the bathrooms
Short vacations
....And everything else that I've possibly forgotten, but I still detest.

Would you believe this started out in spanish class as a list of everything I'll miss about high school? Yeah. I only wrote down like three things. Then I realized that I pretty much hated everything else. I want out! Three months could be a lifetime.

Jen's back. It's like the Amityville Horror. The house is possessed by a malovolent, destructive spirit, and I'm trapped.