I think I’ll sit in a new spot in health everyday. As long as I don’t take anyone’s “spot,” it won’t matter. There’s no one in this class who I really know. I mean, there are people in this class whose names I know, and I know about them. I just am not really friends with any of them. Such is the tightly defined world of a teen.

Health, in and of itself, is pretty pathetic. I mean, I guess I know why this class exists. But you know what? A class where the textbook is defining things like “good character,” because people need to learn what “good character” is, makes me sick.

Steps to Be Self-Confident and Assertive

Step 1. Always use the six questions in The Responsible Decision-Making Model to evaluate the possible consequences of your decisions.

Will this decision result in actions that promote health?

Will this decision result in actions that protect safety?

Will this decision result in actions that follow laws?

Will this decision result in actions that show respect for myself and others?

Will this decision result in actions that follow the guidelines of my parents and of other responsible adults?

Will this decision result in actions that demonstrate good character?

A positive response to each of the six questions helps guarantee that a decision is responsible. The more often you make responsible decisions, the more self-confidence you gain. You become more assertive and more confident when expressing yourself.

Step 2. Imagine a shield of protection in front of you when peers pressure you to make wrong decisions. If peers make negative statements, imagine the statements bouncing off your shield. The statements don’t through to you.

Step 3. When you doubt yourself, talk with a parent, guardian, or other responsible adult. Your parents or guardian can give you a moral boost and help you resist negative peer pressure. Teens who are self-confident and assertive appreciate and rely on their parents or guardians who support and encourage them.

See step 3? I think it’s because parents and guardians don’t/can’t give the kids, who rely on them, a moral boost that textbooks like this are needed. As I was reminded again this morning, the American education system really, really sucks. The Brittish system swallows. (Okay, bad joke.)

In other news, the nurse is coming to this class to do some stuff on stress. But we already did this in Math!

The guy behind me has yogurt in a tube, like an elongated ketchup packet. The latest technology advance. It’s called ‘Go-gurt.’

I think I’ll move to Britain.

This is getting to be a regular thing, writing a jot right before I go to bed, Not a bad thing, it’s a good thing. I’ve heard writing a journal before going to sleep is a good way to end the day and set your thoughts in order, which then helps you go to sleep. I’m not sure where I heard that, I think it was at the Amazon City Cafe. Cool place, cool people, you can learn a lot of cool things. It’s even run by a cool woman, by the name of Stephanie Brail. Guys are welcome there, as well as women. (I’m trying not to be discriminatory to anyone, here)

My sister’s cat, just so you know, has an obsession with furniture. Drawers especially. Leave one open and he’s got to go up there and root around in it. Get’s cat hair on everything! He gets in the trash too, when there are chicken bones. He’s a real stinker sometimes. But, he’s the friendliest of our cats too. I like my kitty best, of course.

I should end this, since I got home late, by my standards anyway, and it’s now 9:16 by my clock, which is fast so I get up earlier that I tell myself I do. How’s that for confusing?

I got home late because I’m taking two classes at the local college, U.S. History I and Introduction to Anthropological Linguistics, which is turning out to be as complicated as the name of the course. I went to History today and we watched a movie on moundbuilders. Around the time of Christ and then again about a thousand years later there were these Native Americans who built mounds. Hence the name ‘moundbuilders.’ The first ones who built mounds are called the Hopewells by the archaeologists, and they built smaller mounts, and long thing ones, which they buried (dead) people in. The second group of moundbuilders were the Mississippians and the built really huge mounds and the important people in their tribe lived on top, and they didn’t do burials in the mounds.

Then, when the Europeans came, which was sometime after the Mississippian culture had dispersed, they found these mounds. Being curious by nature, the Europeans, after going through not a few with their plows, began to wonder who had built them. Of course, being really biased, they could not and would not believe that ancestors of the current Natives had built them, so they came up with all sorts of odd ideas. (Hey, 17th century, what did they know?) They thought the Vikings built them, they thought the Lost Tribes of Israel built the mounds, they thought a whole lot of crazy things. Mainly they didn’t want to admit that the Natives had built them, because then they would have to admit that the Native were civilized, and that they shouldn’t have taken their land so rudely.

They decided, for a while, that the moundbuilders and the Natives were the same race but of two different tribes and that the Natives (being so warlike) had wiped out the moundbuilders. I guess they just liked the idea of a lost, master race. Silly Europeans. Anytime someone gets a ‘master race’ idea, there’s a whole lot of trouble.

Now it’s 9:35 my time, and I’d like to keep going, because I really like the way my handwriting is, but I get up at 5.

So, I’m supposed to be moving this coming weekend, because these people are supposed to finish making the necessary repairs on the house, so my parents will close on the house on Saturday. Hehe, that’s a good one.

Let me describe this house, the one my parents are buying. When we went over there with the realtor at the beginning of the summer, we came up the road, past this little pond, then there’s this Big, blue house, with a fenced in lawn in the front. You can see that there’s a sunroom or the like on the south side, huge windows. There’s a little sheltie in the front, barking its head off. Outside looks good, except I’m not so fond of fences.

We go up the driveway. The other side of the house has a small deck, flower buckets, another small lawn and a flower bed in the middle. Drops off in the back, small trail downhill through a small marshy spot to a large lake, with white sand and, reportedly, fish. Driveway’s gravel, if you care.

Over all house plan is rectangular. Two floors, bottom one sunken, so I guess it’s really a basement, but it’s finished. You come on, there’s a big rectangular living room on the north, long half of the house. South half is half kitchen, half large store room. My mom’s always wanted a pantry. The kitchen has a bar thing instead of a wall to separate it from the living room.

At the east end of the kitchen and living room there are two staircases, one up to three bedrooms and the upstairs bathroom. The other stairs go down to another room place, from which you can go north into the master bedroom or west, into a large carpeted room, a sort of sub-living room. Overall, quite a nice, roomy house.

The current owners, though, find some new way to piss off my dad every day. Today the glass people they hired fixed the wrong windows, though it’s unclear whose fault, exactly, that was. So my parents won’t close this weekend.

And I already packed all my books!

“What do you mean we have to graph it?” Shelly asks. “You mean, like, on a graph?” The class giggles a bit. Mrs. Holmes doesn’t answer, continuing, instead, to explain the math problem. Algebra 2, aka Advanced Algebra. What joy. So far the only thing we’ve done that wasn’t covered last year in Geometry (Although it’s not like anyone paid attention last year or will this year.) is functions. At least that’s all I can think of. Having taken the first half of this class over the summer, it’s all muddled together and I can take time to write during this class.

There’s a guy up there doing a problem. He’s a freshmen. I’m not sure why he’s in Algebra 2; I think I remember hearing he skipped Geometry, or tested out of it, or something. He’s really clean looking. No acne, no beard trying to get a foothold on his chin, unlike a lot of guys in my grade. He goes back to his seat. I think he’s wearing a cross. Wait, no, it’s an ankh. Or is it? It’s more like a T with a little ring on the top for the chain. It it’s s’posed to be an ankh it’s a screwy one. Funny that I’m noticing ankh’s now. It’s all Rose’s fault.

I hope we don’t get homework. I’ve only got one class left after this one, and I haven’t gotten any yet. If I don’t get any homework, I can go home and do my chores. (No, I’m not really looking forward to it, I’m looking forward to the positive consequences. Me well-trained teen.) Then I can pack some more stuff in my room (moving this weekend!) and then my parents will consider me a wonderful child and I’ll get to use the computer. Using the computer, of course, is the whole goal of my small and pathetic life.

“Find the relationship,” the teacher is explaining, means that the book (which she refers to as ‘they’) wants the equation of the line, in y=mx+b form for now. Hey, 13 minutes, there won’t be homework because we were supposed to have a quiz today. This makes me ridiculously happy.

I have so many things going on. I get to call Rotary International this afternoon, if they don’t call me by 4:30. Moving, school (such a lot of work) college classes (need to do that reading) and I’m starting to look at colleges. This week’s favorite college: Haverford. Favorite potential major: Education of the Gifted/Talented. Favorite Country for Rotary exchange: Germany.

Yesterday in math the nurse came in and talked about stress and stress management. I don’t why she didn’t go into the health classes. It was pretty boring to me, because I don’t feel that I have a problem with stress. At least, when I do it’s usually in science, and it’s toward the middle or end of the fourth (and last) quarter of the school year. That’s the time when my grades are sliding because school’s been going forever, and my parents expect a 4.0 and they’re not always nice about it, so that is a stressful time of year for me. I have yet to be under heavy stress during math. There’s always a first time, but I felt quite silly to be filling out a contract with myself (on pink paper!) about what stress reducing techniquies I would be practicing, and how often. The ways and way in which my dignity is helped by going to high school!

I’m taking two classes at the local branch of the State University, US History (which is a required course for high school graduation) and dah-nananah! Introduction Anthropological Linguistics which is really cool and fun except the other people in the class (6, plus intructor makes 7) probably think I’m a total wacko. I had a lot of sugar today, you see. We were talking about how language changes your perceptions and I said, “Yeah, like if you’re describing someone and you say ‘He is mean and ugly'” then I happened to look up at the teacher, who happens to be male, and started cracking up. Then I was going to say “as opposed to ‘he is nice and happy'” but I said “or if you say ‘he is green and bubbly'” and I totally cracked up. Then, there was a wrapper on my desk, from a candy bar which I had been eating earlier so the teacher picks it up and says ‘did you eat all of this?’ and I said ‘yeah’ and went into even more hysterical giggles. The teacher seemed to have a sense of humor, as did the other people in the class, so it should be an interesting class, especially when we all get to know each other more. People who know each other can get very silly. And I mean very silly.