snarky email followup

My mom's reply was a rant about how it still was a lot of money that they were paying, (which I did not and will never disagree with,) in addition to the oft-spouted stories of how she worked so hard through college to pay for her own tuition  of $40,000 and how she is so thrifty. $40,000??????? I asked my dad about this and he said her tuition was $11,000 and he paid for it one year.
Just a bit ago she told me that I need to learn more about "accounting things" because I just don't understand interest and something about retirement benefits and so her initial figures about tuition were correct. Maybe she is right and I have a gross misperception of the world and finances!!!! When UChicago tells me $30,000 it is all really a trick and it is actually $70,000 somehow and I am just too stupid and uneducated to understand!!!!
I don't even know why I continue trying to be sassy to her. She thinks she has proven herself to be in the right because I literally said "okay bye" and walked away from her. Every time I try to make her see the light, it only becomes more justification for her to be "disappointed" in me and think of me as a disobedient, disrespectful monster.Why am I so hung up on this? She is obviously an idiot, either that or I'm the biggest ignorant buttwipe who knows nothing about money and either way no amount of me sassing her is going to change that. Everyone who knows her can see that she's beyond hope. My sister is learning to never give any merit to what she says, and her own parents know that she's an idiot. So much of what she so sickening that it's almost comical.

At least I get to go to college though. At least I get to move out and be away from her and never speak to her again if I choose to do so. My dad, on the other hand, has to live with her presumably until one of them dies. He's given up. I told him about the incident and he told me to stop correcting her, and that when it comes to numbers, she is always wrong, and always exaggerating. He'll never be rid of her because it would hurt his pride too much to divorce her. My mom has yelled threats of divorce so many times, but she's never serious. He is such a logical person whose only sensitivities involve classical music. I don't know how he sleeps in the same bed as she does. My dad has told me that love and companionship are not real. Status and money are concrete and they are what will make a marriage last. I hope he honestly believes this, even though most people would say the exact opposite. I wonder when he started thinking this way. It's sad, but I hope it helps him cope with his life. I just wish he would stop making it apply to mine.

I think I've found good companionship and maybe even "love," whatever that is. I hope it lasts. My worst fear in the world would be to end up like my parents. Psychology says I will. I'm scared. I'm too passive to break the cycle.

What a stupid and unorganized post.

-T.

an email to mommy dearest

Hi 

I don't mind it if you are misinformed about the tuition situation, because I understand that you are blind to facts, but please stop spreading false information to others, especially very gullible people with no access to reliable information. 

For this school year, my financial aid package and national merit scholarship make my tuition, including housing, as $9,525 per quarter. This does NOT include my $3000 math scholarship that was factored into the Autumn Quarter bill.

The tuition, housing, and other official expense are, by quarter:
Autumn - $7,061
Winter - $9,575
Spring - $9,575
TOTAL: $26,211 

Please notice that this is nowhere near the $20,000+ per quarter that you have been saying, and especially not the $70,000 annual cost. In fact, your numbers are completely made up and more than double what the actual costs are. The actual tuition and fees WITHOUT any financial aid is $62,425, direct from the UChicago website. This is still well under your purported $70,000.  

Even if our financial aid quotes change for the next academic years, this does not make the facts weaker, nor does it make your fallacious arguments stronger, so please do not bring this up. 

If you are trying to make me feel guilty about my life, at least use accurate information. If you are not sure about something, do not stand so firm on it if you are challenged. These are numbers with records; there is no way that I am making this up. In any case, it is very hard to take you seriously when you insult me and belittle me using outlandish statements and falsified numbers. 

Enjoy your humble pie, even though you will barely taste it and you will certainly not digest it.

Your dearest daughter, 

T 

P.S. This message will have upset you and completely humiliated you, but it was necessary because eventually you need to be confronted with the facts rather than being treated like the three-year old you act like. I tell you all of this out of an attempt to respect you. Thank you.

It sure is a good thing she will probably have trouble understanding a lot of the subtle (or not-so-subtle) insults.  In any case, I'm gonna get it tomorrow.

funny parents

        I guess it recently occurred to my parents that I might want to have sex. I just got an extended anti-sex talk from them. It started with, "you're still a virgin, right?" and me laughing while nodding. Apart from demonizing sex, they also marginalized my relationship with LE, and assumed my rashness and immaturity. My mom made it seem like having sex with one person means you plan on basically marrying them and are going to be committed in some way to that person for life. She also assumed that I wasn't the type of girl who would just go around and have casual hookups. In all honesty, if LE weren't in the picture, I would plan on having a lot of random sex just because. He is perfect for me and I don't want sex from anyone else, and it's more convenient to just fuck him whenever I want anyway. Alas, we are young and so obviously we are not in love with each other so of course I wouldn't fuck him. So many things wrong with the previous sentence. They also think that I'd regret whatever sexual decisions I make. If I've learned anything from just residing in this body, it's that in the long run I don't regret anything I do. Of course, I am not sure how much of my views stem from resolving cognitive dissonance from doing immoral things, but nonetheless any actions I take have been thought about and are unregrettable simply by the fact of me doing them.
        Once again it is appalling and whimsical how little my parents know about me. My dad knows that LE's birthday is coming up and he is REALLY WORRIED about it and is on the verge of making my sister stay home from school that day. As if we hadn't already had sex in this house. As if they can keep me from doing whatever I want. Actually I think they know that they have little to no control over me when I am not in their direct presence. It frightens them, especially my dad, but if that's the case then wouldn't it make more sense for them to at least pretend to trust me so that I feel some moral obligations to them? That won't make sense probably, but it doesn't matter because I'm having sex whenever and however and with whomever I want. This summer is going to be awesome. They are just so unbelievably laughably ignorant of me and all that I stand for.
-T.

stake & sheak

        It's a four-day weekend and I have too much time on my hands but I like that sort of. I had a sleepover with the physics clique, and this one was strange. I talked to DC about it and she felt the same way. It's hard to describe, and I don't want to write anything here that's made up in my head lest it bring up things that don't exist. I've been feeling uncomfortable with they physics clique. Individually I like everyone just fine, but something about everyone being in the group makes me panic even more than individual friends. There are so many more possibilities for things to go wrong, so much ridiculous animosity and jealousy that can happen. I'm the most jealous of SY. She's so beautiful and gets to buy whatever she wants and has the best personality. All the boys in the world have a crush on her. She has the nicest boobs because they are the right size and not obnoxiously in your face ever. I wish I had her personality and her body and her life. And now she and RS have something that's bad but EE's right, I do kind of wish I had it too even though I know how bad it is. As a result of my jealousy I think I was mean to SY. And I hate myself for that. I did the same thing to XK last year. I'm the worst. Jealousy actually makes no sense and why would I ever feel it? Anyway, a lot of things reminded me of how much I am afraid of friends. I don't want to depend on anyone and I don't want anyone to depend on me. I am unconsciously pulling away and trying to break us up, except it's not unconscious because I know I'm doing it and that's okay with me.
        Yesterday I went to LE's house and went to dinner with him and his sister. They are the funniest bunch ever. Somehow LE is the only guy I have ever felt totally comfortable around, and I don't feel the need to hide the things I think. Actually I felt really comfortable around ZJ but oops he doesn't exist anymore so let's not think about that. LE came to my house after dinner and I even let him read my ultra-embarrassing dream journal. He noticed a tiny scar on my finger that no one's ever noticed before. Just to clear things up though, I'm not going to date him. He's too good for me. We talked about his ex-girlfriend a bit, and it was the first time he let on how deeply he was and still is affected by her. I want to make him feel better about it, but at the same time I'm glad because it's another thing to make sure I don't fall for him that way. I'm getting ahead of myself, but I think I never want to be with him just because I know I'd ruin it, just like how I ruin all my friendships. Anyway, I enjoy my relationship with him as it is now so much that I can't even see how it could be better. He's transferring to Depaul next year, so I feel the twinge of need for UChicago again. I never want to stop consistently talking to him. He makes the world feel right.
        While he was at my house, I was like, "oh you'd better leave at 10 before my parents get home." But then my mom and sister got home at 9:50 and so it was kinda awkward and my sister is always super annoying when I have people over. The first thing my mom said was, "he's taller than D," so that was super awkward and sort of funny. She offered him cheesecake and asked him a few questions but nothing too weird. She glared at me a little but then went away. I was talking to LE about how cool the math I'm learning is and how it's just like the computer coding and programming that he was talking about. I ended up teaching him basic calculus and linear algebra concepts and he just thought it was the best thing ever and can't wait to get into that. It's kind of sad that he missed out on a lot of opportunities at our school because he simply didn't care, but now he does care but at the same time he's okay with where he's at now, and that's all that matters. He ended up staying till around midnight, and we just talked the whole time. His chest hole is perfect for hugs. His very existence makes all the injustices in the world seem okay.
        After he left, my mom asked me a few questions about him and acted pretty cool about it. I was really surprised that she didn't call me a slut and whatever. Then half an hour later she came into my room to tell me that she didn't suspect that I was dating him or anything because he said he went to the local community college and I had more respect for myself than that. Wow. That was the absolute worst thing she could have said, and for once I was at a loss for words. It was worse than if she went to her default slut-shaming speech. Not only is it insulting to LE, who is actually one of the most thoughtful, intelligent, and emotionally stable people alive, but it was extremely offensive to me as well. For once it was as if she was complimenting me, but it was utterly offensive because she really believes I think that way. In retrospect, LE bent the judgments and stereotypes I had, and he really is the number one reason I believe there are a lot of "smart" people out there who never get recognized with society, and how arbitrary school and grades are. And now here is my mother, completely missing the point of everything that I pride myself in the most and simultaneously insulting possibly the only person on earth who I actually know and still respect. I don't think I can say that about anyone else. I need to get out of here and I want to live at LE's house and play with his cat and talk to his funny mom forever.

-T.

today is my mom's birthday.

        I honestly didn't remember until she came home with a few balloons from work. I was the only one who saw them so I quickly told her happy birthday before she could get mad. My dad thought it was tomorrow. Oops. We were playing around with the balloons later and then my dad accidentally popped one. My mom started complaining about what an idiot he was and how nobody bought her any presents and how she deserves to get all this money and a really expensive skin care set. This went on for about an hour, until finally I told her, "calm down, it's just a balloon..." Her response: "how would you feel if it was your balloon???" Sometimes it is really hard to suppress my laughter when she speaks. I tried to explain to her that just because she was born on a certain day doesn't mean she is entitled to all these things, and that I didn't get any presents for my birthday either and I didn't expect any either. She insisted that her birthday did in fact mean that she deserved to get whatever she wanted, and that she took me out for sushi dinner. This is true, and I thanked her for it, but also pointed out that I never once expected it, just like I didn't expect anything. Nothing quelled her fit though.
       To appease her my dad and I drove to Jewel to go buy her a cake. She told us that she didn't want any and that we were wasteful and awful, but told us what kind of cake she wanted anyway. We spent half an hour at the bakery part of Jewel debating which cake to get her and looked like crazy cake fanatics, and also got her favorite Butter Pecan ice cream. When we got home we were all like yayy happy birthday!!! She acted sour, ate a piece of cake by herself while we were still setting up the table, and then left and refused to eat the cake and ice cream with us, saying that she was full and didn't want all the sugar and coldness in the winter. Then after we were done eating she came back downstairs and ate the ice cream by herself.
        I really don't understand what goes on in her mind. She has such a sense of entitlement and is impossible to satisfy. When I was in first grade, I bought her a $5 ring for her birthday with my own money and she yelled at me for several hours for being wasteful and stupid. It must have been a very ugly ring, since she tossed it the garbage in front of me. I haven't gotten her any presents since then. I suppose I am required to buy my mother presents, but there is no winning with her anyway. If we don't meet all of her expectations, then we are terrible and inconsiderate. If we do try to do something for her, she calls us wasteful and stupid. Perhaps this is why I hate birthdays. My family is forced to pretend to like each other and sing an asinine song together and that just feels so unnatural in my house. I'm complaining too much though.Overall I had a very good day. We had math team practice and that always makes me very very happy, and at least I got to eat cake and ice cream! I'm always tired because I'm lame and need a lot of sleep, but I feel good a lot of the time.
-T.

the silent treatment.

        Last Thursday, I told my mom that she was wrong for critiquing literally every person on every little facet of their appearance. I told her that studies have shown that it makes children extremely self-conscious if you  make any comments about appearance at all and so she shouldn't be judging people so much. She got really defensive about it and said she could say anything she wants and that it doesn't hurt anyone and why did I care so much. I told her that the moment she decided to have kids she relinquished the right to say whatever the fuck she wants. Somehow she ended up, as always, threatening that I would just end up at U of I and I was stupid and nobody wanted me. She just doesn't care about anyone and doesn't get that her behaviors are poisonous, and nicely enough, they are the number one influence in her children's lives. She stopped talking to me, and only passively aggressively did things like trash my room and talk shit about me to others in front of my face.
        Yesterday she finally said that I better apologize to her or else she'd never talk to me again. My response was, "no thanks, it's been the best week of my life." She yelled at me more and then after a while went back to not talking. I took the opportunity to tell her that I think she is a horrible person and my worst fear ever would be to end up like her, and so much more. It was absolutely awful, but it felt awesome and she couldn't even say anything back because she was too busy with her silent treatment. I find it kind of hilarious that she thinks it's a punishment for me. I haven't given anyone the silent treatment since fifth grade... why is my mother so mature??
         Except I'm not much more mature either. I was peeling beans today and my dad hated that I was sitting down and doing it. I was so lazy, why couldn't I just stand up and peel them? I refused because I think it's ridiculous and doesn't alter the functionality of the beans at all, and so he smacked me across the head. I hit him back for the first time ever, and he hit me again. I was like LOL HIT ME MORE I LOVE THE PAIN and he just yelled at me and wouldn't hit me again. I'm not afraid of the pain of being hit, but it just infuriates me because it makes me feel like a worthless animal. I went up to my room and cried for a really long time and I cut myself so deep and so much. I've never cut myself so much at once and I haven't cried like that since middle school. I had pretty much stopped cutting myself last year. I was in such a rage. My mom walked in on me cutting and she knew what was happening but she just yelled at me more. There was blood running down my arms and on  my clothes and nobody cared. She would not stop talking at me even though my iPod was on full blast and I was just sobbing and not listening. My dad came in and yelled at me more too, that I was so immature, and all I wanted was to be left alone. I started screaming at the top of my lungs like I never have before just so that they would go away and after a while it worked. My mom called me a crazy person and said that I belong in a mental hospital (with good reason.)
        She came in a few minutes later and after half an hour of her yelling at me again about how that she was the only one patient enough with me to talk to me and that once I got into the real world everyone would hate me, I went insane again. I threw my Calc book at her because I just wanted her to leave. She laughed and took it and beat me over the head with it a few times before leaving. I didn't stop crying for about four hours and eventually I fell asleep. I locked all my doors and my dad yelled at me to open them or else. I replied, "or else what? You'll hit me again? You'll block the internet? All the usual scare tactics!" He got pissed I guess and walked away and now I finally woke up. Lo and behold tumblr, facebook, and neopets are all blocked (yes I resorted to neopets to help in procrastination) and I haven't eaten and my eyes are grossly puffy and I just feel awful and sick. Finals span the next few days so I suppose I should study for those. I don't have any distracting websites to look at anyway.

This has post regarding my mental breakdown has been the worst post in a while in terms of both content and writing style and I hope everyone enjoyed it.

-T, the immature maniac.

The Death of Ivan Ilych

        We are reading this book in English class, and it is just awesome. It brings raises the question of what I would do in the face of death, either of myself or of those around me, and it comes at a coincidental time. A few days ago my dad received a phone call from his brother in China, saying that my grandfather wasn't doing so well. As a result, my dad is going to frantically fly to China in a week. After sobbing to BD on the phone, he suggested that I go with. I gave it a lot of thought. I'd have to miss about two weeks of school, and that would leave me with a lot of work to make up in several difficult classes. Eventually I decided that BD was right. Two weeks of school and plane ticket money should not be more important than being able to see my grandfather for the last time. After all, most of my teachers seem pretty accommodating. I am sure that I could get lengthy extensions and I could have them email me pretty often with notes and such. Most of school is a waste of time anyway. I wake up obscenely early so that I don't get enough sleep and so that it is counterproductive. Some classes of my classes, such as AP Economics, Physical Education, and AP English, are altogether useless, boring, and/or redundant. The only classes that I really feel I need to be there for are AP Physics C, the math class I assistant teach for, and perhaps Advanced Math Topics.
        I brought it up to my dad, and he is open to me going but also suggests against it. Then my mom got wind of it, and, as I knew she would, instantly started attacking me. She said that I had already just seen him over the summer, and I was going to fail out of all my classes, and that I am only thinking of myself and not of all the extra money they would spend. She also said that I am a huge burden, and if I went then I deserve to pay for my own college tuition. Of course, she topped it off with, "but you have to make your own decisions, I'm not going to say anything." I honestly didn't know what to say to her. This is the same woman who blatantly told my sister that her grandpa is going to die soon. I don't understand how a human being could be so cold-hearted, and I am utterly ashamed to be her offspring. The rare times when people don't actually give a fuck about human compassion, they at least attempt to disguise it. I know it would cost about an extra $1000, but I wish she would at least give it some consideration. I wonder if she really believes that I am being incredibly selfish and didn't think about it at all, and am going to make a vacation out of hanging out with my grandfather day in and day out at the hospital while he has ten different tubes coming out of him attaching him to beeping machines. My mom doesn't make any sense whatsoever. This is fucking life and death we are talking about. I don't know what to do or say anymore.
-T.

what is the point of threats

Maybe I would have done what you told me to anyway, but then you had to go and threaten me and insult me. Apparently you expect me to be really happy to do your bidding after you just made me feel like absolute shit. Then you yell at me for having a bad attitude. I try to tell you to not threaten me and please not treat me like I killed someone the other day, but you keep telling me to shut up when I try to speak because you don't want to hear it. I can't tell you what I feel, and even if I could it wouldn't matter. You don't care what I feel.

When I do do your bidding because I have no other options, you clearly enjoy your power rush. Still though, you are upset because I don't seem to be a happy little sheep when I do it. Nonetheless, I do it, and you are relieved. You will use this as an example in the future of how I need to be threatened in order to get anything done. I can't refute lest you become upset with me again, and you have that set idea in your mind anyway. I am reinforcing your behavior because I have no choice, and I indeed become the docile, obedient robot you always wanted me to be.

It's as if you have to exert power over me or else I will lose respect for you. If by respect you mean fear, then you are correct. However I have some news for you. I have already lost all respect for you and that's likely not going to change. Respect is difficult to earn back. I know that only horrible kids don't respect their parents, but I'm okay with being one of those if it means being honest. Yes, I do agree that you are entitled to some degree of respect because you had sex and birthed me and gave me food and shelter. However much respect that got you though, has been negated tenfold. Perhaps I have lost your respect too, but that's okay because it's for things like trying to nap after school. I do it maybe once a week, and then I get a rant about a vicious cycle that will ruin my circadian rhythm except you don't use the term circadian rhythm because you know nothing about psychology, nor do you care about the state of my mental health.

I probably can't blame you. Your parents were most likely just like this too. At one point you were young and wanted to be great parents and were excited to start a family, but over time you forgot all the parenting books you read. You forgot that I have a mind of my own too, and you certainly don't want to be reminded of it. Every day you find some way to make me want to cut myself. It takes all of my willpower to not do that because I am not supposed to be doing that anymore.
-T.

my grandma's here

        My grandma flew in from Seattle last week and she's going to stay with us for about another month. She's pretty much awesome, she cooks the best food and she is really sane which is odd considering she is my mom's mom. In fact, the most amazing thing happened the other day: she yelled at my mom for basically being an insolent, immature, selfish child. My mother is seriously the hypocrite of the century. She was trying to get my grandma to shut up with stupid sarcasm and saying "I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY" over and over while my grandma was talking. Yet, she scorns me when I am sarcastic. I have literally no respect for her, the only thing that keeps me from bitching her out most of the time is because I know it will just make her even more annoying. My mom doesn't take criticism from anyone, and I doubt she really took it to heart even though it was her mom, but she shut up for once. Of course, then afterwords she was driving me and it was really scary because she has the worst road rage and I was in fear for my life. Still, it was so incredibly worth it. My grandma also told her that my sister and I would end up having that horrible attitude rub off on us, and my mom shouldn't blame us if we act a certain way. This was my most righteous moment because I have been telling my mom this for years, which of course always backfires. I tell her that I get my bad attitude from her, and she says that it's my fault, that I should know to only learn the good things from her. This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard, because that's like saying from birth I should have been able to differentiate good qualities from bad and only selectively emulate them. Of course, she has no logic so when I try to explain things to her, she pulls the, "I went to college, you didn't, I am so much more experienced than you are." If I'm so stupid then why does she waste her breath on me? I just wish she could see things from any point of view other than her own, because absolutely everyone knows that she is insane. She is such a negative person that I am so not surprised that I have had so much emotional trouble with myself.
        On weekends like today, she wakes me up by telling me I am a lazy fat ass and slams my door. She screams at me that it's 11 o'clock and I am so selfish by sleeping. I wake up and look at the clock and it's 10:15. It's like everything she tries to get me to do, she does it by attempting to guilt me into doing it. I do not want to wake up when the first sign of day is my bat shit crazy mother. Furthermore, I am not a lazy fat ass because I normally get around five hours of sleep during weekdays, resulting in an accumulation of about 18 hours of sleep. I am sorry if I want to sleep in during weekends. I am sorry that my brain needs rest and you can't understand that. I try to stop rewarding her asinine behavior by not listening to her when she is acting like that, but of course then she threatens me by saying she won't drive me to here or there or take me to the doctor so I can't win. I can't wait to move out.
-T.

Mommy Issues.

         My mother really drives me up a wall. Is it any wonder that I am this screwed up? While I was growing up, I never thought anything of it really. That's not strange because when you're a kid your parents are your world pretty much. I didn't have my own mind, and I didn't know that a mother could be any other way. Even now I find myself questioning my own sanity. Could I really be the product of such a CRAZY PERSON? She is the epitome of the sucker of snake oils, the availability heuristic, and confirmation bias. I don't even feel that giving examples would justify her illogicality because they have been my whole life. How can I have stood for this after I developed my own mind since I was like what, twelve years old?
        The fact that I have dealt with this so long coupled with the fact that I am going to move out in a year makes everything so much more irritating. It's all I can do to keep from talking back and trying to correct her. I know she won't change, but it's simply not in my nature to ever give up on people. One word of retaliation from me will conjure up an extra two hours of bitching from her. I know this, and yet I still can't stop. It's hard to conceive that a person so irrational exists. 
         How could I be a product of such insanity? I would never blame my dad for cheating on her, I feel so bad for her. When my sister and I eventually move out, he still has to spend the rest of his life with her. I'm not sure why he married her. I really can't see any reason other than that she used to be sort of good looking. Well actually there is one reason maybe. She wouldn't put out unless they got married so maybe that's why. 
Sorry this has been a terrible and disorganized post but I am just so frustrated with having to live with her. 
-T.

sickie.

        Hey sorry I haven't been posting at all recently, though I'm not sure that anyone really cares. I've had a plethora of activities, namely choir concerts, prom, and then deathly illness. I'll come back to prom later, I haven't quite sorted out my feelings on it yet.
        Anyway, I woke up around noon Sunday feeling a bit queasy. My mom yelled at me telling me I needed to leave for Chinese school in half an hour. I begrudgingly began to get ready. Whilst doing so, I ended up throwing up for 5 minutes straight. My mom still made me go though. I got there and just sat in the cafeteria delirious and not doing anything for two hours. I called my mom to tell her to come pick me up because I was feeling pretty bad. She yells at me on the phone for a few more minutes. All these kids around me yelling and annoying Asians chatting all swirling around my head. An hour later and my mom has just left the house. I get up and make my way to the bathroom. Too late I guess, because a few seconds later I retch all over the cafeteria. I retch and retch and retch. Asian ladies around me tweaking out, and little kids screaming and yelling. It was quite a spectacle.
        My mom came for me eventually. I mentioned to her that she was a bit late, seeing as I had already thrown up everywhere. She yelled at me a lot then, saying that I was so selfish for expecting her to come pick me up right away, and then if she had picked me up earlier I would have just thrown up in her car anyway, gosh not the car. I spent the rest of the day simultaneously starving, trying to eat, feeling nauseous, then throwing up. I sweated my sheets through and through and just rolled around in my bed moaning. My parents thought for a while that I was hungover or something, since it was the day after prom. They are going to find some way to penalize me for this, like probably not let me go to prom next year.
        Yes, they will definitely never get off my ass about this, especially since I stayed home from school today. I figured I wouldn't miss anything, since it's Senior Ditch Day and half of the junior class is gone on a field trip anyway. My mom took this opportunity to lecture me about how I'm going to kill my grades by missing school all the time and I must have done this on purpose and planned to miss school and I'm going to start ditching school all the time. Seriously mom STOP. I have not missed a single day of school since seventh fucking grade. I have never even skipped choir class, and that's something that I think very few others in the class can say. I wonder if she will ever realize that I can handle myself, and that I have everything under control. I have never failed myself before, and she just needs to shut up because she stresses me out and kills my self-esteem. Even while I was writhing on my bed and lethargic and throwing up she never said a single caring word. Maybe she does care, but she sure as hell doesn't even try to show it.
-T.

motivations

We are all motivated by different underlying factors. Some of them are so strong that they define much of our personalities and actions.
Here's what I have off the top of my head.

• my father - pride
• my mother - appearing sane and popular
• my sister - feeling grown up
• JD - perfection
• XK - feeling smart and sensitive
• D - shielding himself from emotional pain, sex
• EG - being faylor swift
• NS - protecting everybody
• SC - beauty in every sense of the word. her sense, at least.

The rest I haven't quite figured out yet, including myself.
-T.

P.S. I'm not trying to simplify people! I could never capture a person in a few words, or a novel, or even a library.  Everyone is so complex and wonderful seriously I love it.

improvement.

        I realized that I spent almost a whole day not thinking about D. Seriously it's hard to imagine that I could have done that. March 22 is approaching, and I never thought that I would really be able to meet that goal. Now I guess I really can. I'm not pushing it back, as I thought that I might have.

        I have a date with a super mega hottie, PK, on the 22nd. Tuesday. I wonder what it will be like. Honestly he's not much of a conversationalist, but I bet he sucks good face. He has a complete player reputation, but at this point I don't know if I care. I'll just see how it goes and try not to get too involved. He would make a hot bofo though :P hahaha jk not yet.

        My mom called me a slut today. She says that she thinks I must have "needs" far more than other girls my age. Why else would I always be in such a hurry to find boys??? Wait. Hello? Does she think I go looking for these boys? Anyway, if a cute boy with nothing wrong with him asks me to hang out, what am I supposed to say, no, because I don't have needs? or some shit?? Wait WHAT. Then she cites all of my past boyfriends as proof that I just go around with anyone who comes my way. This is confirmation bias at its finest. Obviously I don't tell her about the boys who I reject, so she only ever hears about the ones who ask me and I don't reject. So ultimately she assumes that all she knows is all that is, and that I never reject anyone. Okay. When I try to object, and tell her that she is really being quite offensive, she pulls more "evidence" from out of her butt to try and prove to me how big of a slut I am. This evidence consists of "remember that one lame boyfriend? and this one guy who kept calling you but you never yelled at him to stop? and when you wanted a cell phone obviously so that you could talk to boys all day and night?" She really cannot understand how hurtful and arbitrary she is. If only she knew the whole truth, of how far I went with D, what would she think of me? Really I don't even know why I try with her anymore, because I'm going to be out of there soon anyway, and I know that she is a complete lost cause. If I try to take issue with her, she pushes it even further. Why is it that my own mother is one of the only people who doesn't know the truth, yet she can't even accept the stupid facade I make for her?

She knows nothing and yet despises everything.

-T.

thnx mom.

        Last night my mom walked in on me sobbing in the dark around 1:00 AM. She was concerned. I couldn't tell her what was going on with me. She kept asking and asking and eventually gave up. Today she brought it up again, and she yelled at me because I wouldn't tell her. She threatened me, saying she wouldn't help me with this or that if I didn't tell her. Why does everybody think that if they torture me, they will get what they want? Is this the way the world works, and I just am too dumb to follow?

        D makes me sick. He had a crush on XK, a good friend of mine, right before we broke up. She's fucking nerdy and dorky and even more of a school freak than I am. I don't understand. What does that say about me? What does she have that I don't? Wait I guess she's fucking happy. Why is it that the only thing I'm missing is the one everyone really wants from me? I'm so exhausted and I don't want to care anymore. I just want to dissipate into a million pieces and never be seen again. He's never going to want to be my friend even, and I don't blame him. What's wrong with me? Why can't I just stop? I'm seriously so dumb. I hate myself for caring.

        Right now I want to castrate D himself. I will do it slowly with child-proof scissors. He'll be tied down naked and humiliated, with painful clamps on his flabby nipples, his ladle tits turning more purple by the minute. I'll make him watch. I'll go at it for a while, then stop for random intervals of time. Then start again. Classic Chinese water torture method. Then I'll freeze his good-for-nothing dick. After he's fully recovered, I'll feed his wimpy taste buds a smoothie of it doused in tobasco sauce. Maybe then he will know half of the pain I hold.

-T.

More Tiger Mother Controversy

        I'm sure most of you have at least heard about the new book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" by Yale professor Amy Chua. Especially with the excerpt released in The Wall Street Journal, it's been the subject of endless controversy, with some parents crying child abuse and others giving it praise at uncovering the secret to the rampant success of Chinese children. 

        At first glance, I thought I was one of the products of such tiger parents. My parents were never so completely strict, but close enough. I was always pushed to my limits, and then when I reached them they were pushed further. However, her kids had something that I did not.  When her exemplary daughters did become successful, they received "plenty of ego-inflating parental praise lavished in the privacy of the home." This was part of the tiger mother deal I don't believe I ever got. Chua remarks that growing up she was called "garbage," and it somehow made her feel the esteem she got from her parents, despite the fact that she had disappointed them. Chua knew that her parents loved her, even when they were strict. 

        I suppose my parents do love me, and they always have. What immoral parents do not love their children? Why elsewould they worry so much about my grades and such? That's something I had to bring myself to assume consciously. Growing up, I never once had a moment of "wow, my parents love me so much, and I love them too!!" It was always strained, with my mother especially, as she would relentlessly scrutinize my every action, tone of voice, and facial twitch. I never heard the words "I love you" from my parents until my later teenage years, when I guess they learned parents were supposed to say that kind of thing. I listened to other kids at my school talk about the loving relationships they had with their parents, even kids who had similarly strict parents, and I just couldn't understand.
        What has helped me understand this the best I think was high school psychology class. "Authoritative" parenting styles, which were strict but responsive to children, yield self-proficient, balanced kids. "Authoritarian" parenting styles are strict but not very responsive, and they yield depressed kids without self-worth. It helps to explain the way I am quite precisely.
        What Amy Chua was getting at is that Chinese kids are successful because they know they have the full backing of their parents, with confidence, love, and harsh discipline. Essentially, I'm proud of my accomplishments, and I appreciate all that my parents have given me. However, there is still a funny twinge inside that tells me I'm missing something.
        I have never believed in uncondtional love, but maybe it's one of those things that can only exist for you after you've known it. Actually, not so long ago I thought I had it. But it turned out to be a flight of teenage fancy. It's something I want to experience fully before I die. I feel like unconditional love is a sort of bucket list item that most people take for granted.
-T.