Probation

I’m Captain Probation - But I’m not a criminal.
They think that I’m not good enough to be a captain.
They think that I’m a liar.
They think that I can’t do it.

I think that I need a break.
I’m fine with admitting that.
I’m ok with keeping a log of all of the things that I say.
I’m fine with writing that.
I can attend all of your functions that you want
I can try to talk to these people who think I’m a joke.
I’ll try.

But if they think that they can break my spirit.
Then they are wrong.
They will be eating humble pie this Thanksgiving.

From my tumblr

Something major just happened in my Debate carer, but I don't want to tell anyone because I know that they don't want to hear me rant about how I feel. So I'm going to describe what happened.

I plan this event, this dodgeball event to be exact. I had to get everything set up. I had to talk to some people and just make sure that we had everything done. That is what I have to do - that is why I'm a captain. I know how to get things done. However, I had someone breathing down my neck and watching my every move. I got stressed out and then I grew increasingly worried about meeting my deadlines. But when I did, I passed them very quickly and then after this Monday "Dogeball day" everything went off without a hitch and I felt good about myself. I guess that wasn't true.

Today I was called into a meeting and was basically verbally blasted by our coach about not meeting my deadlines, and not being responsible. Basically, I can't be trusted for the time being by our coach. They wanted to claim that "I didn't have anything done on time, I didn't talk to the people that I needed to talk to and that I'm basically not at captain level processing right now." This is the second time that I've heard this speech. I also heard it last Friday when I got pulled out of class while enjoying our cookie party in newspaper. I should probably say that we are not even a month into school and that our debate season starts 2 months from now.

Of coarse there is an explanation for why things happen in life, and here is my own defense. I had a hard time meeting deadlines because I've been so sleep deprived in the past couple of weeks. It is still hard for me to wake up on time and to remember when all of my classes start. I've also have been having a difficult time in some of my classes (ie math) not because I'm stupid or because I don't know the material, but because I just don't have the adequate time to think about how I'm going to attack everything. I did talk to the people that I needed to, but our coach doesn't prefer e-mailing when we talk to other people for important things such as what I do. So when I said that I didn't talk to the person that I needed to talk to, I wasn't untruthful, but I guess when I told our coach that I "did" talk to them, they didn't believe me. And for all of these reasons, I think that they don't think that I can be a good enough captain. But I don't think that they really understand how hard it is for me to "be at captain level processing" right now.

It is hard for me right now because I'm dealing with the death of my grandfather. I couldn't stay though one of the events because I had to make sure that my mom was ok. And plus, that wasn't a good day for me anyway. I had to recover from being almost yelled at by my coach. Like most people, I don't like it when people get in my face and practically yell at me for not doing something. Of course I wouldn't show up to decorate shirts. I didn't feel like having fun with people who yell at me and just brush it off like it is nothing.

I'm currently taking 8 classes right now, all of them academic, no electives. 5 of those classes are high level classes, no fluff. I run 2 clubs full time and I'm also in 5 other clubs that need my attention. I'm holding down good grades in all of my classes or if not, I'm doing everything that I can to make sure that I can pull my grades up. I work flexible schedule when I can at the library shelving books and DVDs. I play in a band and I need to practice and write music when I can. I'm also recording an album on my own and I need the time to be creative. When I don't have time to relax, then you can say that I start to "loose it".

I've been pretty stressed out over the past couple of weeks mostly because I don't have time to be myself. Now that I've been probated I don't know if I would, should, or want to be involved with debate. It is kind of like a bad relationship. You love the person so much, but they occasionally want to be a jackass to you and they hurt you feelings a lot. When you finally start to say "Screw it, I'm done" they come back around and you start to remember the reason why you loved them all along. However, with my debate relationship, I'm just about at that "I'm so fucking sick of you and if you ever do anything to me again, then you'll never see me again" point. But since this is my last year, I'm going to work my ass off to make sure that I don't get reprimanded again.

And to make sure that I don't get probated again, my coaches made me meet 3 guidelines before Thanksgiving.
1) Come in at least 2 days a week to help other members.
2) Mentor a member to make sure that they can achieve success.
3) Come to all planned functions and if I can't go be sure to tell one of our coaches.

I don't think that this is such a bad bargain, but at the same time, I think that it isn't fair. I feel like I'm being *singled out*  by our coaches, but at the same time, I'm going to take this opportunity and use it to my advantage by doing everything that I can to be the best social events captain that I can be. I still am going to be a little bit bitter for a while (who knows, I might be a little bit bitter until I get my full captain status back). But trust me, I'm not a liar, I'm not a awful person, I'm not a stuck up brat that doesn't know anything. I'm a good person, that is caught up in a bad situation.

Numbers

 This a small slice of my homework for this week. I thought that it was a pretty good piece of writing, so I thought that I would share it with you.

Number of times I've wandered aimlessly around the school: 3. Number of times I've wandered aimlessly around my home: 20. Number of times I've wandered aimlessly around my home trying to find my wallet: 8. Number of time I've stayed up till 1:00 trying to end my writers block: 20. Number of strings on my guitar: 6. Number of times I've broke my guitar stings 8; high E strings 8. Number of times I've been cut by a broken high E string thus making my index finger bleed for 20 minutes: 1. Number of years I've spent in Speech and Debate: 4. Number of rounds I've Debated in: about 300. Number of times I've broken into finals rounds: 4. N umber of times I've placed in Finals: 4. Number of times I've ran for Captain of the Speech and Debate Team 2. Number of times I didn't get the Captain postilion: 1. Number of times I've won the Captain position: 1. Number of bands I've played in: 4. Number of bands I'm in now: 3. Number of bands that want me to play guitar for them: 3. Number of people that don't believe me when I tell them that I've played in bands: about 80. Number of bands I've seen live: 17. Number of bands that I would love to see live 30. Number of years spent collecting albums: 5. Number of albums that I currently have in my collection: 315. Number of people in this room that don't know what an album is: about 20. Number of “friends” that I have: 40. Number of real friends that I have: 15. Number of True Blue Best Friends that I have: 3. Number of True Blue Best Friends that moved away from my Neighborhood: 3. Number that I found on the Internet: 2. Number of times I've eaten lunch alone: 50. Number of times I've broken my wrist from punching a wall: 1. Number of painful weeks spent trying to function on my injured wrist: 3. Number of times that I've written on my blog: 238. Number of journals I've filled: 3. Number of books I've published: 1. Number of books I've published about an aardvark painting his house: 1. Age when I published my book: 6. Number of August 12^th birthday's I've had: 17. Number of weeks premature: 10. Number of Times I've heard “You can't do it”: 1,000. Number of times I've heard “You can't do it because you are a girl”: over 2,000. Number of Times I wanted to give up: around 600. Number of times I've actually given up: 0

A small experiment...

I decided to see how long it would take for 3 of my "friends" to text me back. Alright, I haven't talked to most of them for a while, but it doesn't hut to try talking to them right? I'll let my tweeting do the explaing for now:

4:37 PM Ok experiment time. I'm going to text 3 friends at once and I'm going to see who replies first, and how long it took them.

4:59:These people really suck. 22 minutes and no reply. Really dudes? 

7:00: 30 minutes, 0 replies. Fuck my life

 7:30: Still no reply. How long has it been?

12:50: I waited all day. No new anything from the 3 people I texted. I'm pissed off, so yes. I'll write a song about this and it will be great.

I can't stand this anymore. I hate it. I hate sitting at home all day, hoping to find something to do with one of my "friends" but everyone is doing something else with someone and it always isn't me.

When I look around at all of my "friends" I feel so far behind them. Sure, I might be smart and everything, but they have boyfriends and girlfriends, they have things to do, but I'm sitting idle, they have fun, and I don't. Sometimes when I'm sitting alone, I wish that I had those things. I wish I had something or someone to interact with.


Like I said before, It is nice to be creative and everything, but I feel like I'm always "looking at the conversation than taking part in one". I feel bad, but what can I change? I'll write more about this later when I have time.

Not again...

I'm doing something new; I decided to write during the after effects of an argument. Right now, I'm shaking and I can't really think straight, but I do have enough focus to write about the things that are making me mad.

OK, let me set the scene; I'm driving in the car with my Mom. I ask her a question on what to do at stop signs, she takes it the wrong way. We drive around for 8 more minutes and then I take out the tape recorder on my phone and record the rest of the conversation. We return home, and then after a 15 minute break I'm replaying the conversation and I'm writing down some of the key events on the tape. When I'm done, I ask my mom if she wants to talk about what happened. She said yes, and then I asked her 3 questions. She clearly wasn't understanding what I was asking so I got more frustrated than normal and I threw my hands down and hit the couch cushion (I was sitting on the couch) and then proceed to hit myself on the forehead with my palm (It didn't hurt that bad). Although I didn't want to say that “everything is always my fault” but I did because she really wasn't listening to anything else that I was saying at that point. Then I told my mom that I needed some space in my room and I slammed the door because she was trying to trying to get in. When I slammed the door for one last time, she entered and I told her to get out, and she didn't. She was yelling at me to “give her a hug” but I told her no 3 times. She clearly wasn't listening. Then I finally told her to leave, and I don't know where she is right now. That is how my day went from great to awful in about 2 hours.

This Saturday, I played in a very successful showcase in front of 700 or so people. I was happy. That whole week, I played guitar, met new people and had fun. I was happy the whole week. I was happy even though my band mate called me “a cold heartless person” and although it made me angry, I kept being happy all week. People wanted to listen to what I said. They wanted to hear my Debate stories, they wanted to hear my jokes, they wanted to hear my guitar playing. They wanted to know me better, and they did. I seen old friends that I haven’t seen in a year or so and they haven't changed. They all know about what's going on, and even if I didn't tell them, they will find out sooner or later, and I know that they wouldn't leave me in this title wave called life.

It's sad because my family isn't like this. I feel like my parents don't want to listen to what I have to say. I feel like they don't care about how hard my life is. I feel like they don't care about me. I wasn’t to talk to them, but I just don't. I haven't talked to my Dad in 3 months. I still haven't given him that letter. When I told my Mom about my intention on giving my Dad that letter, she told me “to not do it” because if I did “then you wouldn't see your friends next week” (aka that whole last paragraph). Now, I feel like that I'm never going to talk to my Mom with some sense of normalcy.

When I was in my room sitting on the floor I told myself that I could just give up now and not worry about dealing with my damn parents ever again. For a while I thought about really beating myself up because I was so angry, but again, just like the time I tried to kill myself, I stopped and the same saying popped back into my head “You can't leave now, You are doing it for them remember?” I then realized that it was a true statement.

I always make promises to people, or that what it is in a nutshell. Let me explain, Last week, my guitar instructor told me that I would be on the cover of Guitar Player magazine one day, and that I would also be the next “big” guitarist. Now what if I end up dying before I could reach any one of these goals? It isn't like I can't reach these goals, they aren't that difficult for me to do (yes, I am that good at guitar) but I just have to make it for just a couple of more days, but I feel like a week goes by so slow now. Yes, I'm afraid like heck, and I'm not quite sure if I could make it or not, but like I always say, something is keeping me here.

I calmed down now, but I'm starting to get very anxious because I don't know what I'm going to do about my family. This week isn't looking very good. Hopefully, I can find something to look forward to.

First day back at camp.

I can't really write a whole bunch like I normally do because I'm pressed for time. So I'm going to take some time out of my day to write about music camp.

I went to music camp for the first time last year and it changed my life for the better. I got to meet so many new friends and I was really happy for a week because I found the people that were like me. I loved it. I felt like I finally found one of the places that I belonged because no one was critical of me. I wasn't stressed out all week, and I felt good to connect with 5 people that I didn't know, wait a week and then become best friends. So when the application for camp came out a couple of months ago, I just knew that I had to go back to camp.

Now the time is here. I'm back at camp this year, but my good friends are gone, there are 30 more people than there were last year, and I'm still the oldest. I'm "outside" my box, but I'm starting to crawl out more but I should be fine by the end of the week, just in time for the big concert.

I'm starting to notice that I'm not as awkward when I'm around people that are like me. I'm still having a hard time making new friends, but whenever I think that I won't, I just try to remember that half of these people don't know me and that I will meet a lot of people this week and I'm sure they don't really care if I am awkward or not.

I also have to deal with the occasional "bullying" by some of the younger kids, but I guess don't really care because they are younger than me after all, and it should roll off me very quickly. It is kind of strange because I'm the oldest and I shouldn't really be putting up with that kind of stuff anyway.

On the other non related to camp side of my life, I got my test scores back, and I got a 2 on my History exam but on the bright side I got a 3 on my English. I'm kind of shocked because I was hoping for 5's on all of them, but I think that my class grade will speak louder than my test score grade in the end because I ended each class with over 100% in both classes. I'm sure that most of those people who got 4's and 5's didn't get over 100% their classes. Anyway, I don't really care about these scores, I'm more worried about the other test but that is a story for a different time.

I'll be back blogging about my day tomorrow.