3:37 p.m. - 2002-03-13
"I'm so happy, so fucking happy now" --American HiFi
ALL OLD ENTRIES AT http://jessica5787.diaryland.com
"So... you're happy?"
"Yes, I'm very happy," I told her.
I'm such a hypocrite.
Maybe in a perfect world I would be happy. Maybe in a perfect world I would be able to be grateful for the many things that I SHOULD be grateful for. What a confusing sentence, but it's true. Take a look at my house, my whole fucking lifestyle. We were such privileged kids. A beach house in Nantucket every August, skiing in the top resorts at least twice a year, Mexico in December. So, sure, we couldn't have everything we wanted; Mom and Dad made a point to teach us that we couldn't ever have everything we wanted, and they would only pay for good books, so if we wanted so-called "trashy" books, or toys, we had to pay for them ourselves... Still, we were pretty damn lucky kids. My parents aren't divorced, I'm "gifted," I get along all right with my siblings most of the time, I have friends, I should be happy, but I'm not. But what did she want to hear, anyway?
Back up a few years. Age... nine or ten, maybe. I was still taking dance classes at Alvin Ailey, in New York City. (I took this class called Saturday Sampler; we had one hour of ballet, plus one hour of another type of dance which alternated every six weeks. So I learned the basics of tap, modern, Dunham, West African, and flamenco. Of course, I've forgotten everything, but anyway.) They put up a notice askng for articulate kids who had a story to tell about racial hate or prejudice, and asked that you submit an essay about this prejudice. I wrote about Alexis, of course. He's my black brother. He feels like a brother to us, but he's not really. I mean, he has parents of his own (divorced), and a brother of his own. My parents met him in Africa, when he was six. Mom used to babysit for him and his younger brother, Bruce. When they moved back to the States (his mom was in the Peace Corps), they stayed in touch. Alexis now lives closer to us than to Alyce, who lives in D.C., and we probably spend more time with him (or we did, before his girlfriend). He comes on all of our vacations when he has the same break. He's just kind of grown up with us, always been our big brother. He feels like a brother.
So I wrote about him for an essay, and they chose some of the essays they liked and then interviewed those people. Mine was one of the essays they liked. So they came in and interviewed me at Ailey. I talked about a lot of things: Anne Frank, who I had just recently done a report on, homeschooling, and some others, but they chose to focus on Alexis.
I got a call-back and we were told we needed to come back in August. We were in Nantucket at the time, but we made the plans work. They wanted to interview Alexis too. They gave me a backpack full of creative stuff, like pom-poms, glitter, and markers, plus a disposable camera, and asked me to take pictures of whatever I felt like and give them copies. So I did. None of that wound up in the film, of course. I don't remember what they had wanted it for.
Then at the beginning of the school year, they came to film at our house. Maggie was there, so it kind of interrupted classes, and Mom thought it was a pain in the ass because they're very protective of our privacy, but they didn't have much of a choice. They were really nice. Tina and Jane and the whole film crew. They filmed us on the swings together, sitting together, interacting together, and a bunch of me reading.
Later that year, we had to go to this big studio in the city to... jump. It was a super-long wait; Dad and I sat together and he read poems to me. Then we got make-up put on, since we were being filmed, and went and jumped on trampolines. Something else that didn't wind up in the film. They said they want to use it for a future film instead.
Then February, 1998, the show aired on USA Network. It was called "Walk This Way," and it was a documentary on racial hate and prejudice. I was one of nine kids. We all had different stories. One girl saw KKK graffiti spray-painted on the house of her neighbors. One guy had attention deficit disorder, another persun had a twin brother with cerebral palsy. One guy was biracial, another girl talked about discrimination against women in China. One was poor, one was the daughter of migrant farm workers and barely spoke English, one persun was deaf. We all had different stories. Somehow they wove them together, and the whole thing was narrated by Susan Sarandon. (I had no idea who she was then.) Apparently, it won a bunch of awards: 1998 First Place Winner Chicago International Children's Film Festival; 1998 First Place Winner Reel to Real, Moving Images for Youth. The directors had also won awards for other things, an Emmy for another project they did.
We were in Sun Valley when it aired. They sent us a tape, of course. I remember that trip well because it was the Nagano Olympics.
When I got home, they sent me a stuffed animal bear, with different-colored arms, legs, and body, to represent different races. I named it Jennifer Golda; Jennifer, for my former LA teacher, and Golda, for Golda Meir. I stayed in touch with them for a while, but I hadn't talked to them recently.
You may notice I'm not giving their names, but hey, I'm paranoid and I don't want them to find my diary. Plus, I found that you can download the sounds of our interviews, though not see it, and I sound SO bad. They told me to enunciate, and I just sound prissy and stuck-up, which is what I was, but that's not the point. :) So I don't want anyone to go find that! Nyeh!
Then on Thursday, February 28th, I got home from school and Mom said that Jane had called. She said that they had had a "nice chat" and that I was supposed to call her back.
I was a bit surprised.
Jane was really easy to talk to, though. For one thing, she has a great British accent. :) She asked me about school, and I talked about the combination of public school and homeschool. She asked me if I was still dancing, and I said I wasn't, I had stopped dancing so I could take musical theater. She asked me about Alexis, and I said he was doing well, he was now the principal of the middle school. She asked me about the Olympics, about my sisters, about my favorite subjects, what I'd like to do, and if I had a boyfriend. Of course, I said no. I hate it when people ask awkward questions. Like when Morris asked my SAT scores (see previous entry). Ugh.
The thing was, I didn't know what she wanted. I didn't know what I was supposed to say. Was I interesting? What was she looking for?
She said she would email me. I gave her one of my hotmail accounts, which I'm not likely to delete. I checked it every day since then, and nothing was there. I concluded that I simply was no longer interesting. Why did she call?
Last night, I got an email from her.
She had a simple reason for calling. She got an email from some film festival in Toronto, who was looking for current information about the children in Walk This Way. Jane sent the woman a summary of information on what we were doing, and said we can contact her directly if we want. So I probably will send her an email, but I need to do that soon.
There are too many things which I need to do that aren't school-related. That thing that the coordinator of the writing tutorials sent me, from a woman who's writing a book on online learning, if I'm interested in contributing something for it. He sent me something else, a mentorship opportunity for next year with a published author. Mom wants me to write a Letter to the Editor of the Brown Alumni magazine about their article on homeschooling. I'd like to write a letter to the local public school about the ridiculousness of their annual Parent-Child breakfasts. Get this.
The annual Mother-Daughter breakfast, an invitation sent to you on oh-so-lovely flowered pink paper, is a fashion show.
The annual Father-Son breakfast is sports activities. It's probably sent on blue paper.
WHAT THE FUCK? Am I the only one who sees how incredibly stupid and SEXIST that is? (No, I'm not. The rest of my family does. Mom complained to them back when they invited us. But does anyone else?) What kind of a message is that? Plus, the blue and pink just plain pisses me off. Lauren wrote an essay on it back when we were working with Jen, and it has interested me ever since. So many people tend to associate pink with girls and blue with boys. I don't; I hate pink and love blue. But I mean, most baby clothes stores will have those two colors, and for the two sexes. It just pisses me off.
So yeah, I'd like to write them a letter.
Plus revising some of my stories and possibly submitting them to Cicada, which is a literary magazine. Plus a thank-you note to Mari for the handmade box (I wrote to Gramie and Grumps last night for the diamond necklace). And that's just non-school-related. School-related, right now, I have global homework, math homework, chemistry homework, Spanish homework, French homework, and Hebrew homework. Plus Language Arts.
Ah yes. I made a decision today. Based on a mailing at temple last night, and from my volunteering in the counseling office this year, I have decided that secretarial work is NOT for me. It's so pointless. The photocopying and bringing things to people and filing. Sure, I like feeling useful, but only up to a certain point!
The mailing. I made a deal with Mom where she would wait in the car and read something and I wouldn't stay longer than a half-hour, which made me perfectly happy. Unfortunately, it was the biggest mailing of the year: seven sheets per envelope. VERY unfortunately, this dumb 9th grade girl broke the folding machine. So we had to fold them by hand.
When I left, they were only about halfway done with folding. Plus, 200 copies still had to be made, and the envelopes hadn't been stuffed. At least the envelopes are all labeled, which I did.
They were probably there until midnight.
Oh well. I'm really not happy with my youth group. I had a long discussion with Rabbi P on the phone (he told me to call him), actually it was the same day that I talked to Jane. My excuse was that I was just really busy, that we didn't live really nearby and I hadn't realized it was such a huge commitment. Mom thinks I should go in and talk to him and just explain that I really don't feel comfortable with the kids, that I appreciate his efforts to make me fit in but I'm not part of their social group and I'm just very uncomfortable there. Which is all true, but I can't picture myself telling him that, so I guess I'm back to avoiding him for the rest of the year. It's already March, right? Elections are in the end of May, and then I can hand my position (Membership Vice President) over to someone else!!! I guess the next thing I need to do is my application for conclave. We're hosting it, so it's a really big deal. It is, however, $95, which I am not happy about. Oh well, then we can say that the dress I didn't get (see last entry) went to the fee for conclave? Eh.
Today, in journalism, we watched a video that some kids in our school had made, a reaction to September 11th. They showed Lauren's mural, which was pretty cool, since I hadn't even SEEN it. It's going to be put up in the Municipal Building or something. She made a mural of the Twin Towers out of newspaper headings. Now, she's working on self-portraits. They're a lot better than my stick figures. And speaking of art, my digital media project really sucks. It doesn't meet the requirements, it still looks cut-and-pasted, and I can't think of any way to make it better without starting all over, not to mention that I don't even have any ideas for starting all over. Ugh. Me not happy.
I am happy, however, that I got a 96 on my chemistry test on kinetics. I really needed a good grade to boost my confidence. Class today was extremely interesting. We've been studying equilibrium, and Le Chatelier's principle, and he spent the entire period talking about the Haber process. In World War I, the Germans started running out of ammunition. You need a nitrogen compound for ammunition. They had been importing it from South America, where they have lots of potassium nitrate in the ground. Then the Allies blockaded the ships and the Germans couldn't get the nitrogen compounds. They were getting desperate. Then this guy, Haber, figured out a way to get ammonia, another nitrogen compound. See, when you react hydrogen and nitrogen, you get ammonia and heat. This equation works the other way, too; ammonia plus heat decompose to make hydrogen and nitrogen. So this was a problem; the ammonia was made, but then it decomposed. Haber figured out a bunch of ways to make the ammonia stay. He increased the pressure tremendously; we live in a pressure of 1 atmosphere, he increased it to about 800 atmospheres. This meant that the ammonia was produced faster. He decreased the temperature (but not so low that the reaction would be slowed down), because then there wasn't as much heat for the ammonia to react with and decompose. He increased the amounts of hydrogen and nitrogen, but decreased the amount of ammonia. He added a catalyst to speed up the reaction. He was a brilliant guy. I mean, all the countries use the Haber process now to make ammonia. Ethiopia uses it because ammonia is found in fertilizer for their crops. So it was a great idea. The problem is, that if Germany hadn't had this ammonia, they wouldn't have had ammunition, or bombs, and the war would have ended two years earlier.
World War I would have ended TWO FUCKING YEARS EARLIER.
And this girl in my class, Hillary, who's Jewish, by the way, asked why that would have made a difference.
I hate stupid people.
On to a topic that doesn't piss me off as much.
It was raining today, so Mom picked me up from school, and I have to work out tonight. Happily, our amazon.com package came, so maybe I'll watch some of "A Knight's Tale." I'll probably just watch "Friends," though.
We had classes with Judy. She really annoys me. Everything about her. Anyway, we worked out a schedule for assignments until our next class on April 10th. For Friday March 22nd, I need to write an editorial on why "Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter" shouldn't be compared. I leave the next day, and I'm not doing anything over vacation, but on April 1st I need to start editing my article on the Olympics, and have a draft to her before she comes the next week. Then, we'll start editing her interview. I actually gave it to her a year ago, but she lost it, and then never got around to it. It's a pretty interesting interview, but it's too long, so we need to cut some stuff. Then I need to get Alexis to write his music reviews, see if Mom will agree to write her Letter from the Director (Director of homeschool; she was very vehement that she wouldn't, because we bugged her to do it on time last year and then the paper didn't come out for months), fill in all the other categories, and make sure it all looks pretty, then I can send it out. I really want it out before June. Speaking of newsletters, it's been two weeks since we had the February/March issue ready at school, and Mr. B still hasn't had time to print it. Plus we have another issue ready which Ms. M wanted distributed on April 1st, and she doesn't know when that will get printed. (It's the last two weeks of yearbook now, so Mr. B is really busy.) In short, we don't need to start worrying about the issue after that, so that's nice, because I get tired of arguing with her about why my articles shouldn't go in!!!
Ah yes. After Judy. Mom dropped Kelsey and Alexa off at peer tutoring and me off at high school, and I was inducted into French Honors Society. Yay! :) It was really weird. She lit candles and played the National French anthem and stuff. Very strange. I got a medal, though, which makes me happy, and a certificate, which WOULD have made me happy if she hadn't mispelled my last name! People, it's NOT THAT DIFFICULT!!!
What else did I remind myself to write about in this entry? Music. Ah, yes. I had really gotten sick of all my old music. First, in Utah, I got into this whole musical phase, as in Broadway. "Tommy," "Showboat," "Jesus Christ Superstar," "Aida," "Ragtime," "Jekyll & Hyde," "The Producers," "Hair," "Footloose," "The Sound of Music," etc. Then I got sick of all of them, so I went in search of something newer. I tried to find some of the more obscure Beatles anthologies lying around the house, but of course, as always, *I* have the covers and someone *else* stole the CDs! Grrr. So I've been listening to Lauren's Green Day International Superhits CD, which is very good, and Carley burned me the U2 "All That You Can't Leave Behind" cd, and she's also going to burn me the Sum 41 cd. I really want to get some of the AFI cds, but I don't have any money. Especially since DVDs are so damn expensive. At least I think Alexa will really like them ("Save the Last Dance" and "Can't Hardly Wait").
I learned how to make hyperlinks, thanks to Katy ! We'll see if that works. I think it's fitting that she gets linked first. Now, I'll have to go back and put links on all my other entries. Wheee!
I'm a little freaked out right now, because Jessica (a different Jessica, obviously, not me) linked this persun Caroline as one of her favorites, and I was really bored the other day so I looked at her profile, and ... wow... she mentioned CTY, the camp where I've gone for the past two summers and where I'm returning this summer. She linked a bunch of CTY sites, which I went and looked at too, and... she was at CTY with me last summer. Same place, same session. What kind of a coincidence is that? I didn't KNOW her, but I knew who she WAS. (I didn't really know ANYONE last summer, because I was totally depressed and stayed in my whole room the whole time. But I do NOT want to get into a whole big thing about CTY right now.) Anyway, she linked her livejournal, which listed as friends MORE people that I knew from CTY... argh. Scary. Caroline and Jessica live in the same TOWN, which is, incidentally, very near where I went to CTY my first summer. They both have good diaries -- I've been reading Jess's for months -- but, well, it's just too strange!
We've started trying to plan out logistics for this summer. I'm going to CTY (I should hear back from them sometime this month). Kelsey is going to horse camp in Canada. Alexa is going to dance camp and Lauren will be a counselor there. David's probably interning at the same company where he worked last year. So Mom started thinking of the kind of things we need to buy for this summer, and she had an excellent idea, which was to get disposable contacts just for the summer. Even though they're more expensive, it's a lot less cleaning, less time, and then you don't have to worry about losing them or wearing them swimming or something. We have a quadruple eye appointment next month. Strangely, I'm the only one who has a checkup. We can see how much more my eyes have deteriorated :) The other thing Mom thought of was getting me some sweatpants, since I don't have any short-sleeved pajamas, and I can just wear them and a tee-shirt at camp. She got me two pairs, but neither one fit. :( She also got me a tank top, which fit, but I knew it was too tight for me to be comfortable in. :( Still, it looked good, so I was happy. She's going to try to get a larger size.
Isn't Missy coming home today? Welcome home, if you are! :)
I'm going to go. Please, sign my guestbook or leave me a note! It makes me so happy! :)
Love, Jessica
