2:16 p.m. - 2002-05-03
I caught up to the present! Jessica vs. Food and her Body... and Jessica loses, always!
I can DO it before my birthday! I can, I can, I can!
Eh, we'll see. Let's try to catch up last week.
4/22: French test (92), handed in French translation of a passage from Rhinoceros (100), handed in journalism profile on Maggie. Ms. M announced that we have to each write an article for the upcoming issue of the paper, so I decided to do one on the National Day of Silence. David and Cassandra left while I was at school; I hadn't seen them since Friday! I know on Sunday they went to the Met in the city and saw some thing with Dave Chappelle, and I was out all day Saturday, don't know what they were doing, so oh well. I actually talked to him on the phone yesterday briefly. He DOES have the CD he burned me. Damnit. He said he'll burn me another copy and make a rock mix or a rap mix. I doubt it'll happen, but it's nice to think about, right?
Back to Monday. Classes with Maggie, showed her my profile. I went to chem extra help. Happy Earth Day. :)
4/23: Mr. C gave us three equations for the chem quiz, and I screwed up the last one royally, which he fortunately didn't count, so I got 19/20, wohoo. I sent emails out about the National Day of Silence and scanned in a background of hobbitholes so I could move Frodo to it for my stamp project. Carley assigned us just to write a creative story, so since Kelsey and Alexa begged me to, I wrote a fanfic. A pretty stupid one, too. Anyway, she told us about a friend of hers, actually a friend of her sister Edie's, but she knows him too. He had been acting in "Into the Woods," and he just got the part of Max Bialystock's understudy in "The Producers"! Isn't that exciting? And you know what else? One of the people Carley works with is Mel Brooks' niece. HOW AWESOME WOULD THAT BE???? I want to meet him so badly -- he's not young! -- but I want to see every single one of his movies first. Unfortunately, when we go to the video store in Nantucket and try to rent some of his more obscure films, I get voted down.
Alexa: "No, what if they weren't funny? Let's rent something we've seen. What about Ace Ventura?"
Kelsey: "Let's rent Monty Python and the Holy Grail!"
Lauren: "No, that's stupid."
Okay...
4/24: I stayed sixth period at school to work on my digital media project. At 3:00 we had a quadruple doctor's appointment. All of the women had had some sort of huge argument with the place where we all used to go, and they left. We really like Dr. A, so Mom called Dr. W, who works at the old place and is an old friend, to ask for Dr. A's contact address, but Dr. W said he couldn't give it to her. But then Mom was in a pharmacy and she heard someone mention Dr. A's name, so she went and asked about it, and it turns out she's working just down the street from the old place. YES! We really didn't want to go to a guy. So we all went and had our checkups. Wohoo. And I did my week's worth of global reading, which made me happy.
I HATE peeing into a cup. Isn't that a lot easier for guys anatomically? :)
We all had to have the Hepatits A shot, the second or something. It was tough because Dr. A wasn't allowed to have any of our old records, so we all had to try to remember from last year. I'm 5'6", yay! Kelsey's 5'7" and a half (and 12 1/2 years old!), Alexa's 5'5", and Lauren's nearly 5'4", but not growing. Kelsey weighs 145 pounds, Lauren gained 3 (oooh, big deal!), Alexa lost 5 (so she says), and I gained 8. But you know what? I don't really give a shit.
See, here's the thing. Weight is just a number. Weight won't tell you what your body composition, like how much weight or muscle you have. It doesn't tell you if you're strong, if you're well-built, just plain big, anorexic, or naturally petite. It means nothing to me. Last year, when I went from 112 to 129, Mom flipped out. (I remember we went to Starbucks afterwards, and she made a big deal of not letting me have whipped cream on my frappucino, because "I saw that chart." What the FUCK? So did I! And Kelsey weighed more than me, and I don't think she was taller at that point anyway!) But I didn't CARE. Or actually, I wouldn't have cared if she hadn't made me feel so insecure about it.
I've always had serious, serious food issues. I was an incredibly picky eater. I wouldn't eat any kinds of food mixed -- I still hate it when my foods touch, and I can't stand fruit salad. I wouldn't eat fish, still don't. I ate unbelievably slowly, and used to finish hours after everyone else. (In our old house, I would get "banished" to the "dungeon," which was the utility room.) Lauren used to eat very slowly, but she grew out of it. I didn't until I was ten-ish. Certain combinations sickened me, like scrambled eggs and cheese, which David loved, or ham and cheese.
Then there was a period of a few months where I threw up after every meal. Not bulimia -- just absolutely everything I ate repulsed me. I remember most one vacation in Utah, running from the lunch table to the bathroom to throw up. Mom and Dad got so mad at me because they thought I was making myself do it. I was pretty young. I maintain I was physically sick; Mom maintains I was mentally sick. What I don't see is why would I have made myself throw up? I HATE throwing up. The most recent time I did, which was a while ago, besides the obvious uncomfortableness and smell, I just was thrown straight back to that one time in Utah.
As a result of my eating habits, I was always an incredibly skinny kid. I was tall, but always skinny. (Actually, I got pissed when David and Lauren taunted me "skinny! skinny!". I wanted them to call me "slim" and slender" like in L.M. Montgomery's books. Heh heh.) At twelve, before going to summer camp, I was a little over a hundred pounds. And that was good for me. I was so proud of myself for gaining eight pounds that year.
I don't have any eating disorders, I want to clarify that. I guess just strange obsessions and compulsions about food which are better now but still not completely solved.
When I was twelve I started being really insecure about my body. It started with my ears. I didn't like the way that they were bigger than Kelsey's, Mom's, Lauren's, and David's (Alexa's and Dad's are also big), and that they stuck out a little.
Next was my thighs. I thought they were too big. I decided to stop wearing shorts, and in fact, I still don't. Maybe it's for the same reason, but I'm just a lot more comfortable in jeans, even if it's because I'm hot.
I've always had issues with my hair. First I couldn't wash it properly, then I couldn't do it at all. I couldn't really do it, period, until a year after I started growing out my bangs. August 2000. I still hate my hair, it's still never gorgeous, I still hate ponytails and I hate that my ears stick out when I wear them. I like my hair just down and clean with nothing in it, but Mom hates it.
I now have serious problems with every part of my body that you can imagine, I don't need to go into detail, but the worst is my stomach. I obsess over my stomach, and it's entirely Mom's fault. Last year, I had eaten a lot of crap at CTY, and then at school, I totally went crazy. I had one or two of those huge things of Reese's Pieces, the ones with four in each. I had a bag of chips and a package of three cookies. Why? Because it was THERE. Then I'd get something else to eat in the afternoon. I didn't notice any change in my body, because at that point I was just insecure about thighs, ears and hair.
Mom started making really mean remarks about my body. "Oh, that shirt's too tight, you have a 'roll' on your stomach like I do." "You really eat too many desserts. You can tell." In front of company, too. Our relationship was so strained and awful that year. It could have been a pretty damn good year -- I was just coming off the steam of CTY 2000 -- but no, that ruined it. Then this year, when I stopped eating crap at school, stopped eating crap at musical theater, stopped eating between meals, and started working out, she keeps telling me I look so much better, "not as awful as you did last year." But I was never fat, or overweight, I was always in the perfect percentile for my height/weight!!!!!!!
And you know what? I DON'T SEE A DIFFERENCE. I see no fucking difference whatsoever, and now I obsess over it. It's discouraging, it pisses me off, and I'm tempted to give up. Now pretty much my *goal in life* is a flat stomach like Alexa's, which is practically an ironing board, and I don't want it to be. That's so fucked up. I was never like that.
The only thing that made me feel good was that Alexa was trying on some of my old jeans, Slims from the Limited Too, and they were too tight on her. HA. I was a pretty skinny kid.
4/25: I had Hebrew classes with Joanne, and classes with Carley. We had to write speeches or letters in the style/mentioning details about someone, and then read them aloud and we had to guess who they were from. Of course, everyone's were LOTR-related.
Mom and Dad went to a Bonnie Raitt concert (!), which was pretty cool since they NEVER do stuff like that. Carley stayed for dinner, and we all watched the new Friends, which was fun.
4/26: In chemistry we made silver bottles. Yay! Dad found me some sort of glass bottle, maybe from vinegar, and we did chemical reactions to coat them with pure elemental silver. It was very cool. I stayed sixth period for digital media again. I worked in the office for an hour and made $5. Had a 3:00 appointment with Marsha, and she reassured me that this summer will be fine, but... well... I just hope it is... because if it's not...
Yael, Yanki, Eti, David, and Daria came for dinner. Yael and Yanki are from Israel, they're a lot of fun, and Eti is their son, a junior. Their other son's a junior at Brown. I mentioned them in this entry. David and Mom were friends in college, he actually designed our house, and Daria's his wife. Anyway dinner was ok, I didn't like the food (well, I liked the hors d'oeuvres however you spell it and dessert, which was apple pie with grand marnier whipped cream, mmmmm). It was kind of awkward with Eti. And there was ton of clean-up which K&A totally got out of and they left too late. But anyway...
4/27: Happy birthday to Sarah!!! I've mentioned her a zillion times, don't feel like linking them, she's the one whose grandmother died recently and we went to the ... ok, fine ... memorial service. She's sixteen now.
Dad left for Turkey in the afternoon, so I went down in the morning and worked in the office for another hour. I write checks, mostly. He gives me the envelopes with the bills and I write the checks, organize it in the checkbook, all that stuff. Sometimes I file, sometimes I photocopy. This particular time I also typed some stuff for Kelsey's Bat Mitzvah service.
I also made a fanfiction account. Dr. Joan brought some so-so Chinese food over for dinner and a huge long thing for me to work on typing. It's 40+ pages, and I need to go through, fix some formatting, make text boxes, check the spelling, check the grammar... it's insane, I'm only on page 10 or so! I'm going to finish it by Sunday, I think. I've already worked an hour, on the ten pages, so we'll figure four hours total, which is $24, not bad. She had paid me an advance so I only get $12 of that but still. That's good because I need money for this summer and for birthday presents!
4/28: I taped the 60 minutes for Mom about the skating controversy, I was very proud of myself. I was informed that day that we were all going out for dinner for Aunt Dale's fiftieth birthday. Fuckit, Mom always says she tells me stuff and she doesn't. What a coincidence that Lauren didn't know either!! She says I don't listen, but I DO. She just always tells them everything when I'm at school!!! Grrrrrr. So yeah, anyway, we went to a good Asian restaurant. Gramie and Grumps, Aunt Dale, Uncle Jon, Allison, and Scott. I didn't talk to Allison much, because she was on the other side of the table, but Lauren said she made an effort, so that's good. I was sitting next to Scott so we did talk some. He's so much easier to get along with than he was when he was younger. Dinner was good and Gramie made a cake for dessert, which was good but not Mom's Calibre. Mom makes the BEST cakes.
While I'm at it, I may as well catch up to now, right?
4/29: Mrs. H wasn't in French, and I'd already read the second act of Rhinoceros, which had been the assignment, so I went to digital media. I also stayed after school for twenty minutes to work on it. I had classes with Maggie. In volunteer service, Mrs. B wasn't there, so I started doing a complete edit of the F-H News. I can't do formatting, since I don't have everything, so I checked spelling, grammar, and consistency (for example, the way you do hyphens and whether you say that something is By or by someone, has to be consistent throughout the whole thing).
4/30: This was Aunt Dale's actual fiftieth birthday, and it was also Maya's 17th birthday, which I didn't know until I got to school. I felt bad, I would have gotten her a card or something. Oh well, next year!
I had a French test (99), and stayed sixth and seventh periods for digital media. I pretty much finished the project, which was a big relief. In volunteer service I copied over my chem notes for Missy and Antoniette. I finished editing the F-H News and I typed up the revisions. With Carley she gave us a big assignment, which I need to start on. We need to make up a country and describe everything about it: economy, currency, location, climate, religion, culture, ideas, customs, dress, education, entertainment, arts, writing, government system, laws, leaders, people, expectations, quests, races, myths/legends... We can do it either like a textbook or like a story. At first I was going to do it on Tolkien's Elves, but now I'm not sure.
5/1: Emailed all my stuff about the F-H News to Judy. Emailed out invitations for my birthday dinner. I decided that inviting friends from school is more complicated than it's worth. Let me explain...
7th grade, I invited Brehan and Liza, the only two people I knew.
8th, I invited Katie, Zoe, and Liza. Liza didn't really know Katie & Zoe, which I didn't realize until afterward, and I felt bad about it. I went to Zoe's party.
9th, I invited Katie, Zoe, Jackie, NaLee, and Missy, but Missy couldn't come. I went to Jackie's, Zoe's, and Lauren's birthday parties.
So what do I do this year? Zoe moved, and I'm not as close to Jackie, but I've spent more time with Shriya this year, and I went to Pilar's so I would probably invite her, and I don't want to invite Frances but what if she found out? Some people don't get along as well as they did last year. I just decided it was too much of a pain. Plus there's the whole Lauren problem...
She's having a big Sweet Sixteen party on June 21st. She invited almost all of our group, but not all, which is really screwed up. Pilar did such a good job of inviting EVERYONE, even people who she didn't like, such as Frances. But Lauren didn't invite Jackie or Missy and obviously they're going to find out. People talk, people assume everyone's invited. "So what are you wearing to Lauren's party?" "Uhh... I wasn't invited." So that's kinda screwy, and if I had a party I would probably HAVE to invite her, since I've gone to hers two years in a row, and since we were at CTY together last summer, but I don't really want to.. eugh.
So, yeah, I decided just to do family. Gramie and Grumps and Zipare coming, and Aunt Dale, Uncle Jon, Allison, and Scott, and Alexis of course. Plus Dr. Joan, Carley, and I invited Maggie and Ken but they'll be in California for Maria's college graduation (!). Mom and I went to Strauss Paper to pick out supplies after school. They're pretty, blue patterns, and she also got some stuff for the family brunch the day after Kelsey's Bat Mitzvah. We had a quick lunch at the local Japanese restaurant, and I FINALLY met that famous hockey guy, he's Russian, he was in the Olympics, and I'm blanking out on his name. Oh well. Mom and Dad have met him a bunch, but I never had. :( After lunch Mom and I dashed to the Gap, I really really really needed light blue jeans, but of course they didn't have them. Instead I got two pairs of khakis, one pair of black jeans, and one pair of dark blue, but I still need light blue, damnit. At least I have my two pairs of green pants, one light, one dark, but they don't MATCH as much!!! Grrrr. I also got Na Lee a blue tank top for her birthday. We didn't get home until 3, which was way late, so I decided it was pointless to go to REEF for fifteen minutes.
Dad came home from Turkey, yay! I tried really hard to write that article on the National Day of Silence for journalism, but I couldn't. I had four pages of notes but not enough quotes. Jackie wrote right back, and I can use some of hers; Katie wrote back, but she barely said anything; I made Kris answer them over IM, and his are an example of someone who didn't participate at all; and Antoniette answered them. Missy also answered them over the phone last night. I'm going to write it this weekend and hand it in on Monday. She ended up extending the deadline anyway.
Oh yeah, and I worked out and watched half an hour of "The Mists of Avalon," which I had taped. It SUCKS! Don't EVER watch it. I don't even know if I'll continue, except I'm curious... Igraine's crimped hair and flowy dress look just like Galadriel. I hate the woman who plays Vivaine, she's not at all how I imagined her, and I thought Uther was semi-attractive! Like a puppy dog, CUTE! It was just pathetic. Don't watch. An amazing book, a horrible adaptation.
5/2: I finished my digital media stamps! YES! All I really had to do was put the writing on them, "USA" and "34." To make them unified, I put the text in the same place on each, but they're different colors and have different effects. Hebrew class with Joanne, but Carley couldn't come. Mom told us that we could run out to Border's, because I wanted to get some review books, but we ended up first going to a flower nursery and getting a whole bunch of flowers, which was a pain in the ass. I was holding a tray of them and I saw a spider on it and flipped out... I'm so terrified of spiders... I WILL write about it sometime, because it's pretty strange... but this issue's Strange Topic was food, so it shall get its own entry. :) Anyway, we got some ice cream at Ben & Jerry's, and then went to Border's. They didn't have the chem SAT II book with five tests, damnit. The review in that book SUCKS -- I got it last year for biology -- but the more tests you take, the better. We're all getting different review books and then we can hopefully share tests. They didn't have the book I really wanted, damnit! It has stories by Gregory Maguire and Tamora Pierce, how much better can you GET? Grrr. I was happy because I got a great book for AP French, of course I'm not taking the exam this year, but it has listening tapes, which I need the practice, and good review and stuff. Barron's, I think. Two practice tests. I just won't write in it, and I can use it next year!
Didn't do much workwise. An hour of the typing for Joan. I worked out and watched the new Friends. I need to make some phone calls for my youth group today, there's a Mitzvah Day on Sunday, they're going into the city for an Israel rally. I'm not going obviously, and I have no reason. Damn.
And now... a drumroll please... TODAY... that is so AMAZING!
Happy 16th birthday to Ece, from Pathways 1999. Haven't talked to her in ages, but she was pretty cool. She lives in Istanbul.
I printed out my digital media stamps and cut them down to size. For my next project, we have to design a book cover or CD cover. I think I'll do a book cover for "Wicked." I spent about an hour looking for really great images of the Wicked Witch, but unfortunately, the best are these, and it won't let me copy them. Grrrr. I sent the owner an email, but I doubt he/she will get back to me in time, so I'll have to use less-good images. :( In other subjects... I'm starting to copy over my chem notes... I have about half of them done already from various times, some for the midterm, some before the test on that particular subject, but there are a lot left to do, and I totally don't understand electrochemistry, so I need to learn it this weekend. We're starting organic chemistry on Monday, and we have a test on electrochem on Thursday, which we can choose whether or not we want to count. And as for why the test is delayed...
On Tuesday, 4/23, power went out at school, and they asked the buses to come, and when the power did go back on, the buses were already there so they let everyone go. Of course, I was already home. :(
It turned out that twentyish kids went over to a party at this family's house where one kid goes to our school and the other goes to a nearby private school (the one where Alexis is principal). The parents weren't there, so there was drinking, and rumors of drugs but no one knows if that's true. One guy, Pat, was there whose dad is in jail for murder six years ago. Apparently, Rob said something about Pat's dad (they were both drunk) and Pat slugged him. Rob fell and hit his head. He's a big guy, a football player. He had a seizure, was foaming at the mouth, and no one did anything for twenty minutes. They panicked. They didn't call 911, ended up taking him to the hospital in someone's car, some people say that they actually dropped him (he IS a big heavy guy).
Pat was put in jail with no bail, and Pat was in a coma. Six kids were charged with obstruction of justice. There was some sort of massive cover-up; they tried to dump the beer bottles somewhere and a whole bunch of other stuff that no one really knows yet.
The media has been trying and trying to get into the school, but it's illegal, so they perch outside and try to get people to talk to them. It's pretty obnoxious.
I didn't know Rob. Lauren met him once. Back in the fall, for Senior Teacher Day, she was Mr. T., a math teacher, and she talked with him briefly in one of the classes. She said he was a nice kid, well-liked. A lot of people knew him from sports. Rob was a junior, Pat was a senior.
Rob died on Tuesday (4/30). They took him off life support, and he died five hours later. Now, it's up to the DA whether the charges are upgraded.
God, it's so awful. I feel so bad for Rob and his family and friends, and Pat was just so incredibly unlucky. Unlucky to have a dad in jail, because the media has been totally playing it up. Unlucky because in so many fights, no one is critically injured.
School's a mess. The halls were so quiet, it was scary, especially walking out of the assembly Wednesday morning where Dr. M. announced that he had passed away, made a pitiful speech, and read a poem. So many kids aren't there. So much has been postponed -- sports, the Honors Society induction, tests. Over the past week and a half, a lot of classes haven't been doing anything, but the AP classes can't do that. AP's are in a week. What are they going to do, postpone the AP's?
-Jessica
