12.22.2011

I found this on my computer

What is Truth?
            Truth is something that can be altered by no one. I believe that telling the truth means telling all of the truth and not just a piece of it. By only telling one part all the other parts become assumed by other people and may not be true. Truth is a questionable topic as its contents are determined by how well it is suited by each individual. I think that truth is a belief.

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I wrote this when I was eight years old. I am positive this wasn't for any assignment or anything like that either.
I'm not even sure what to think. I am really weird.
-T.

swimming

cool water lapping over our bodies
your eyes poring over my body
my eyes watching your hot gaze
your big hands sneaking and pressing
my blue bathing suit enticing and yet shrouding
you inch closer to me
suddenly my legs around yours
just rotating on the outside of your heat
its pressure felt through the layers
i pull away, we swim
my arms pulling separating the water
your strong legs pushing us forward
away

12.21.2011

confidence

        It's my senior year of high school, and I have been steadily gaining confidence. I believed in myself like I never had before. I felt good about myself and I felt good about going to school. People at school liked me and with some effort I was doing great in all of my classes. I even hung out with people twice already this winter break, and it's only been half a week. I never hang out with people. Too much guilt usually, but I've talked about that before.
        All of that has been dashed in the past two days. I don't know why I am taking that admissions decision to heart so much. All the memorabilia of UChicago are ubiquitous around my house. My home page is still their website. I can't bring myself to change it. I see a picture of the campus, I see people I follow on Tumblr debating which dorm to get, I see them posting their acceptance letters, I see the people on Facebook who were accepted, and I can't stand it. They deserve it so much and I am really happy that they got in, they all worked so hard for it, but I wanted to be there too. Every time I see anything like this, which is so often, I just start bawling.
        I am feeling a pain that I haven't felt in a while. The little bit of confidence I had simply dissipated. I can't focus on my other college applications. I don't feel that I deserve to college anywhere. I want to disappear much of the time.
-T.

12.20.2011

more college things.

        My friends have been so supportive of me. I know that college admissions are not a measure of my character or worthiness, but it's hard to believe that especially when I gave everything I had to UChicago. I am so not alone in my deferral, and I'm glad that I wasn't outright rejected. I think that would have been too much to bear.
        Something I have noticed in this process is that socially, a rejection/deferral of a worthy candidate is rarely attributed to something that the candidate must have done wrong. It's assumed to be an idiotic decision or a mistake on the college's part. It's just really nice to know that people aren't going to think less of me because of what a college somewhat arbitrarily decides about me.
         I've added a college tab to this blog. I'm applying to a lot of pretentious schools, but I really like them. There were several that I was thinking of applying to but I really tried to limit myself to schools that I could actually see myself attending. The only one that I don't really want to go to is Princeton. My parents are forcing me to apply there for the financial aid. My mom for some reason is convinced that they will accept me. She is beyond ridiculous. I could never have half a shot at getting in, and I don't even particularly like the school. It's a great school, but just not for me. I can't decide if I should put up my stats there too, what do you think? I'll get judged hard, so I don't know.
         Next round of decisions comes out late March/early April. Hopefully  my self-worth won't be hurt so much again!
-T.

Deferral

         I can't believe it. Well I can, but I don't know.. it just seems so wrong. I can't picture myself anywhere else. I put forth the greatest effort into UChicago, I showed the most interest, and yet I couldn't get accepted. If this is the case, then what will happen with the schools that I am only mildly interested in, because I spent all of my college energy into the one school? How am I supposed to get into anywhere worthwhile if I can't get into the one I worked the hardest on? I poured forth my soul and heart into the extended essay, but I guess it isn't good enough.
        I'm angry. I have no right to be angry. They deferred nearly everyone from my school and accepted only a Hispanic guy and a girl who only wants to go to Cambridge and doesn't give a shit about UChicago. I honestly expected to get in, and that was silly of me. That was so silly of me. People made lists of those applying to UChicago from my school in order of most likely to get in. I was always top one or two. Since they accept 5-7 people from my school each year regardless of how many apply, I thought it would be me. I really thought it would be me. But I'm not good enough. I got so cocky. I didn't even write the optional supplement. I am so stupid. This decision has really put me in my place because I've blown myself up in my own head, just like when YA was rejected from Stanford. It was the needle to his swelled head, and this is mine.
         The University of Chicago was somewhere that my intellectuality was supposed to be appreciated. My oddities were supposed to fit. Everything wrong with me was supposed to be justified. Alas, I suppose it was just a marketing ploy. The new director of admissions sole motivation is to increase the applicant pool, so that they can have their pick of the lot while lowering the acceptance rate.
          I drowned myself in chocolate. I tore up a UChicago brochure while wetting it with my tears. I took down the poster in front of my treadmill that used to motivate me. I unfollowed all of their Twitter accounts. Through all the bitterness, I was forced to face the fact that I probably would not attend the University of My Dreams. At the same time, I can finally concentrate on my remaining applications, which are due in about ten days (OMG.) I don't have to feel like I'm cheating on UChicago (they put me on the back burner first!), and I don't have any excuse to half-ass the essays. This one school isn't so important to me anymore. A good university is a good university, and some just have more enticing advertisements. Wherever I end up, I will make good friends and be an outstanding student. Some of my peers haven't even gotten any acceptance letters at all, and I have two from great schools under my belt. UChicago may have some of the smartest students according to College Prowler, but they are also the ugliest. Why would I want to be categorized with them? If they want to stay ugly, then so be it.  I have another shot in the regular round, and we'll see how it goes. I'll end up somewhere good, and it doesn't have to be UChicago.
-T.

12.12.2011

Week of Uncertainty

        UChicago decisions come out next Monday, around "mid-afternoon." I am very frightened, but excited, because well, I honestly feel like I have a pretty good chance of getting in. This is based on my statistics, my writing ability, personality fit, and overall passion I have for the school. But this makes everything scarier. It seems that the more hope you have for something, the more frightening the possibility is of the opposite happening. I am probably being conceited, but I really just want in.
        Another thing I've noticed about my life is that if I set a goal, I always reach it. I reach it and nothing further, but essentially I get everything I want. I have gotten everything I want so far in life. I'm scared that in this college application process that I will finally have my day of failure. We'll see I guess. And if I get rejected, well then I have a few days to churn out a few more college essays/applications.
-T.

James Baldwin

"Sugar-plum, what you want to be so evil with your baby for? Don't you know you done made me go out and get drunk, and I wasn't a-fixing to do that? I wanted to take you out somewhere tonight." And, while he spoke, his hand was on her breast, and his moving lips brushed her neck. And this caused such a war in her as could scarcely be endured. She felt that everything in existence between them was part of a might plan for her humiliation. She did not want his touch, and yet she did: she burned with longing and froze with rage. And she felt that he knew this and inwardly smiled to see how easily, on his part of the battlefield, his victory could be assured. But at the same time she felt that his tenderness, his passion, and his love were real.
- Go Tell It on the Mountain (1987), James Baldwin

This is how I feel. This is why I love literature. It can take all of the perplexing and swirling emotions inside of me and suddenly it is there in front of me, in black and white. Little pieces of me are found in every book, and I leave a bit of myself there too.
Words can't say everything, but they know what you felt. 

12.11.2011

dubious.

        I am seeing more and more how incompatible D and I really are. Actually, I knew it all along, but I am being reminded of it further. My friend asked me what I thought D liked about me. All I could think of was "ass" and "vagina." I grew curious, and so I talked to D about it and we each compiled lists of what we liked about the other:


what D likes about me
  • ass
  • vagina
  • smartness - but not smart-ass-ness
  • personality (selectively)
what i like about D
  • height
  • whiteness
  • good at math/science
  • money
  • cute family
  • pretty eyes
  • funny some of the time
It looks like I was spot on with the first two, and it's kind of funny but not really. I made up the excuse that once you get to know someone really well, it's hard to quantify them in traits. I have no idea if that's true or not, and I am just making up excuses really. I wonder what our relationship is founded on, but I'm afraid to know. The traits that I like the most about myself: work ethic, empathy, love of art, critical thinking; he despises them all. I can't recall a single intelligent conversation we have had where we talk about deeper things in which he hasn't just tried to make me be quiet because he doesn't want to think about it. How can this be, when introspection and curiosity are what I live for? His arrogance, his close-mindedness, his lack of work ethic all drive me nuts. What makes it all worse is that when we have problems he refuses to talk about it and he just shuts me out. This is supposed to demonstrate his power and drive me crazy, and it does. But it doesn't help anything. It only teaches me to avoid making him mad by way of deceit and keeping things from him. When I don't agree with him, I try to not even bring it up because I know that it will make everything worse. Conflicts in relationships are supposed to help people understand each other, not always drive them apart. It's not that we have had problems very recently, but that's because I keep things from him so that we won't have problems. That's not to say that there aren't some unquantifiable things that I love about him. I do enjoy his company and he really did charm the pants right off of me. 
        I just recall the great infatuation we had for each other and it was the most thrilling few weeks of my life. Of course, it didn't last. How could it? I think I still feel a part of myself yearning for it, and holding out hope that it will come again even though I know it won't. Why are we together still? Is it merely because we are comfortable with each other, and because it is just convenient? He does get to come home from college and have someone always fuckable there waiting for him. I get the comfort of knowing that someone is obligated to be close to me. I sometimes wonder what's keeping him from just cheating on me at college. Especially next semester, when he is at U of I with his friends, there will be so much temptation. I told him that if he ever gets the urge to cheat on me to just call me up and break up with me first. I know he's not cheating on me, just because he is too prideful for it if anything. I think that I must be saving him from a plethora of STIs because he would have no sexual restraint without a girlfriend meekly waiting at home for him. Why does he even like me? I am a nice warm vagina that he can consistently rely on. Even if I'm more than that, how can I ever know? I was speaking to LE and it turns out LE is a pretty big horndog as well, and has definitely used girls for their bodies. He is more restrained, but it's so frustrating to see that men truly are all the same, even ones I look up to the most. They are so driven by sex, and I can't even keep boys from focusing on that aspect of me because I am such a slut. I just sort of let them do what the want with me. Where is that balance of having a sexually fulfilling relationship that still allows for mental connection?
       I know that I care for D more deeply than I do for any other person in this whole world. I want us to be happy, and I want us to be able to like each other for who we are, without needing to hide ourselves. I don't know if that is possible, just because we are so different. We value totally different things. I keep thinking that if I suck it up and stick it out things will change. I will find a way to fix myself, I will find a way to fix him. I'm not sure if that can happen.
This has been a nonsensical and terribly unorganized post, a reflection of my confliction. 
-T.

P.S. RIP Grandpa.