5/31/00-i'm convinced that the american dream is to work at mcdonalds. i'm sitting here now eating my lunch (and writing like i'm doing an expose) but thinking about what it is to work at mcdonalds. the sign inside here talks about teens working here and seniors working here, and people reentering the work force working here...i'm not quite sure of the appeal of working here, but obviously they need the help. the point of fast food is to speed up our lives and lord knows we americans are always making our lives as fast as possible. so when people are on the go and you cant deliver, they get all irate...i got the first half of my lunch fine, but when they were supposed to get me another big mac, i ended up waiting like 10 minutes more. for some people who are pressed for time for work, it presents a problem in shortening the lunch break and i could see people getting poed at the people here. personally, i'd hate having to deal with that...

its wednesday, the last regular wednesday of the year and the last wednesday that we'll ever have 4th and 7th period lockout. i'm writing this at 1224pm, knowing this is probably one of the last times i'll be doing that as a public school student. and yet for 3 periods, the day always seems too long. in french, i sat around and half worked on some french stuff and found out that our originally scheduled essay, basically isnt due til the end of the exam period. so that alleviates a major major hassle off my head for this weekend. in theater, we did crap for vocal pops and i napped on the floor of the gallery. somehow i have this feeling that if i get the car that i'll be at this show, helping to work on it, even though i have physics packet and thesis work i could be doing. i have no life. in calc, we watched most of the movie, stand and deliver, a historical fictional account of the now-wellknown CA math teacher, jaime escalante. its a pretty decent movie that has less to do with math than cloutman may or may not think. but its good to do something other than work.

and so....that brings me to looking for a summer job which is now the goal for the rest of the afternoon while i have the car. tennis anyone?

(later)-lets see...i went to 12 places looking for jobs at the industrial park and basically got nothing today. (american graphics printing, design professionals, electro-metals inc, millenium computing inc, spacefitters, barco, advanced display company, standard printing, webster bank, and first federal savings)...got a few apps to fill out and call back a few places but i don't know that any of those companies are going to be so quick to hire anyone, particularly straight out of high school...hell, i dont even know what most of those places do. but because i still got nothing, my parents are still on my back...or atleast my mom moreso than my dad. this is so damn annoying. my life has gotten annoying again. i cant wait til i go, i can have my parents and everybody else off my back about everything. arent excessive periods of frustration and stress bad for your health?

82 days til 18, 89 days til mcgill...i should just put up a countdown clock here...

5/30/00-its kinda hard to do updates on this laptop with the current setup because i have to wait til no ones around to plug this thing in the modem and upload, since i have some files saved on the regular comp and some saved on this one. its a bit of a pain in the ass sometimes...1 more day till the end of the month. my thesis presentation is a week from today and i'm on pg 20 (double spaced) and i still have a lot to go but i wont get done all that i want to do with it in a week. i'm liable to say that i'd like to eventually finish this thesis in a definitive version, but i dont think that'll ever be...maybe i'll keep working on it throughout my life and by the time i'm dead, i'll have found all the answers to life's mysteries and i'll have a posthumous work by the great author of one thesis, Spencer Ross. who knows? nahh. what seemed like a great idea in the beginning of the year just turned into laziness at the end of the year with senior slack. if we had to do a thesis as juniors instead, it probably would have turned out better than what it's going to be this year based on the effort i feel like putting into it. i seriously never thought i'd experience senioritis this bad but damn, i don't wanna do a damn thing anymore. work? yeah, i got a lot of work to get done between now and next tuesday, but if it's anything like today, not much is getting done...

sunday afternoon we ended up sleeping sorta late, but got some yardwork done or something like that. i forget exactly what we did but around 2ish we started getting ready, doing all our bathroom stuff, for my dads cousins wedding. i think we're like second cousins once removed or something like that. i forget what the exact genealogy makes us...anyways, we left around 4 for a 630 wedding in lexington, ma. (or was it bedford? yeah, thats where the hotel was) i basically knew not a soul except my genius cousins (who are too old for us really anyways) and the cousin who was a brother of the bride who was my age but didnt really talk to me. he was at elises bat mitzvah but he talked to his two other cousins sitting next to him. there werent really any kids at all, so i ended up having to talk to my sister most of the night and didn't dance all night cause there wasnt anyone...then i started to think about my own wedding. seems like a "feminine" thing to do, but it made me wonder whats out there for me. what my wedding is going to be like, what kind of girl i'll actually end up marrying. i was listening to the groom speak (he's not the one i'm related to), and what he had to say about the bride and them meeting and everything and it made me wonder what its gonna be like when i get there.

interestingly in english today, amy gave her thesis presentation on fairy tales and i brought up the idea of the fairy tale appeal more towards women vs. men. basically cause i guess i wasnt someone who had disney replaced with g.i. joe. i was the boy who dreamed of being the prince getting the princess. ok, maybe i didnt dream about it literally, but thats always how i imagined myself to be...so the groom was talking about how they met and she kicked him out cause he didn't want a girlfriend, but he came back. then she kicked him out cause he didnt want a serious girlfriend, but he came back...you get the picture. so i was reminded of that chinese proverb that says something about sending something away and if it comes back, you know it's yours. i dunno, but it seemed to fit the mood...like fairy tales do mean something, but only if it's coming on the other end also...i guess if you try to be prince charming, it only works if the other person is waiting for their prince charming...*shrug*

it was a nice wedding (and gave me inspiration for my thesis metaphor), but it was rather boring since i only had my sis to talk to...but the male singer in the band that played...i swore he looked like james brown...he even sang james brown's "sex machine" the resemblance was truly uncanny. so around midnight it was over and my dad drove home and we got in around 2am and crashed...

next day we got up really late but i spent about 11-4 working on powerpoint on our physics presentation which is now done in full. and i begrudginly got the laptop to take to school...my responsibility if it gets stolen, yada, yada, yada...then i did a couple of other yard things including staining the retaining wall, staining some of the porch, etc...spent most of the rest of the day on the computer cause, you know, i'm now addicted to it...its great being able to type this update on my bed :) (although for petessake, i need some more mp3s, i got 150 but they're completely boring now). ranes website has 2 samples from the new album so i got them and they're really good, but only 1 min each. my dad then tells me hes unhappy with my job search and that he's gonna cancel my reservation to go to vegas. now i'm confused cause i wasnt planning on going...now i'm indifferent cause i wont even be 18 when we go so i couldnt gamble and i'd only get to the star trek experience. and a weekend to myself would be chouette, but i dunno whats doing now...but i do know i gotta get a job regardless...ideas, anyone?

today was another asinine day (i love that word) went to french and i did completely nothing but worked a little on some physics. activity was mr. chernik rambling for about 15 min straight. then was amys thesis presentation and then angela and emily presented in physics on color reflection and refraction but their demo blew up. then thanh followed with this completely weirded out presentation on aerogel, which is used for computer chips, but is still in testing stage...but nothings topping the powerpoint presentation, oh yeah....:) came home w/andrew and kept getting signed off the damn aol, but we were both online in the same room which was funky and the cable modem is half working...then worked on our physics presentation and got that all done and then i hung around a while and margaret and i went out and played tennis for about an hour and 1/2. it was cool cause i needed to get out and actually do something. dropped her off and home and cruised the mall area looking for good places to work...i'd rather not do retail but i figured id pick up some apps to please my parents...worse comes to worse, ill have to do it. although lifeguarding would be great if i could find a course that starts before sw's june 26. i'm certified in community water safety, which is about a junior lifeguard, but that basically amounts to jacksquat, since they want full lifeguard status if you're gonna officially work anywhere. my mother heard sw swim club is in desparate need of lifeguards so if i had certification, id definitely do that. but i picked up apps for compusa and borders so we'll see what happens (but i've never had to do anything w/working papers, so i dont know what the deal is with that...the library didnt need them and neither did roboenterprises...*shrug*). oh yeah, and i got this cool supplement on the best of the net with my copy of this weeks le monde, so its kinda cool...good stuff. speaking of french, i should get workin on some of that...

2 months, 22 days til 18, 2 months, 29 days til mcgill...

5/27/00-didnt get to throw yesterdays update up til now...i'm not supposed to be using the regular phone for the laptop because i'm supposed to use the normal computer with the cable :P but i'll use the cable when i get my network card so i can just shoot the files onto my laptop instead of the other computer...isn't that what my dad would want? for now, i don't care if my dad doesn't like it...i'm using my setup...running the modem into the other line in my sis's room

today i got up around 8 and literally, zoomed over the river to the funeral for the concatelli's grandfather. it was the second funeral i've ever been to and the first one that wasnt jewish. (the other one being when my great grandmother died a week after my bar mitzvah). i've been to church a couple of times but this was my second time in a catholic church, so it was interesting to listen to the pastor give his speech and i sat there when everyone else was kneeling in prayer and taking communion...but it was interesting because it was kind of long. i was surprised that it wasn't as personal, but i guess that's what the wake is for. i don't really know about many christian rituals (still dont) so this was a new experience for me. after the service, we followed the funeral procession to the cemetery not too far away. it was a really nice cemetery with all these trees and a pond with ducks and nicely kept. i'm sure their grandfather will rest peacefully there. the time at the cemetery was short and the pastor said a few words and then we basically left. it was interesting because it seemed a little more complex then the funeral for my great grandmother where the casket (jewish caskets are made of wood) was lowered and then they let people fill a shovelful of dirt over the casket...it just seemed different...

after the service at the cemetery, we went over the vfw post close to the cemetery since their grandfather was a vet. it was a nice place and we ate and chilled out and their little cousin kaitlyn still kept calling me fuzzy (and so did everyone else). but she's a cute girl. guess it runs in the family...but it was good just to be there for the concatellis. after that, everyone was ogling jons pt cruiser, and we ended up going over to their grandmothers house for a short time and hanging out in the backyard before i ended up having to come home to do some touch up painting on the porch. still got some work to do, but i dunno when that's getting done right now...i had no plans today and all of a sudden, my dad wants me doing crap...i had to paint around the dog door and that brought back some sad memories (particularly with everyone's losses this year). we had josie for 12 years and the one day i remember was the day we had to put her to sleep...

we saw the coolest thing in the backyard though. my dad saw these pine needles and lint sometime so he moved it, but we realized later that it was a marker for a rabbit nest. for weeks, there's been a rabbit thats been running around the backyard and we took some pictures. so today it was squatting over this section of the ground and i thought it was having babies cause i saw something moving underneath it...so it went away a little and we saw 4 mini rabbits in a small hole in the ground. and the eyes were open, so they werent newborn, but they were the cutest things you've ever seen. so i took some pics of them (and now i can get my outing pics developed :))

this page is getting too long...luckily there's only 4 more days left in the month before i start fresh...the end of the year should be interesting as far as updates go...we got about 3 weeks left before graduation...the end of the year will sure be a telltale of the future...already has...

i'm sorry, but over and over in my head, this same song keeps playing and everytime, i cant get the lyrics of it out of my head...

"It makes me ill, to see you give, love and attention at his will
and you can't imagine how it makes me feel, to see you with him..."
"It Makes Me Ill," No Strings Attached, *NSYNC

5/27/00(2am)-wow. wow. wow. this is so freakin cool. i've transferred some files over and i'm working on this reflection on my new laptop. yes, it finally came and today i dumped all the mp3s and winamp and now frontpage and crystal ftp over here and the modem on this thing sucks and i cant get a constant connection, but man, this is great. i don't have to worry about what crap i'm saving to my hard drive, what the sounds are, how the cursors look, what the desktop image is...i now own my own computer. i can do whatever i want with it. i just need a network card so i can plug in the cable modem and i'll be all set because i dont like dialing up with this damn thing...aol gives a crappy connection on this. so i've gotten msoffice on this thing, so we're gonna use it to make our physics presentation, so that'll be really awesome...and now i can work on my thesis on this thing. i love it, i love it.

let's see whats been happening lately in my realm. for me, wednesday was a great day. woke up and went to school and we didn't do anything in french, as usual. then in theater, i kept looking for the keys to the filing cabinet and by the time i got back to it, the thing magically unlocked itself. so i worked on some commercials for vocal pops but i couldnt mix it right yet and then didn't get to burn it...ah well, they've sold a lot to tix, so i doubt it matters. went to calculus and he went over the homework, but it's really hard to pay attention in the class because no one wants to do calc anymore but ah well...went home with andrew and we worked on our physics presentation a little and then we left and i went home to having to get aaa to get the car jumped so i could take it to the mechanic, wait around, and get a new battery. then went over to my dads go pickup the laptop cause it was shipped to there and then went home and played on it a little, but then i got a call that andrew and sarah's grandfather had passed away after being sick for a while...so that wasn't too great, but they looked outside after the storm and there was a rainbow. G-d provides in mysterious ways...but our condolences go out to their family and we went to the wake tonight and the funeral tomorrow morning. and jon, scott, and i got them some flowers and a card and stopped over last night to give it to them.

around 950 on wed, chris and i went to see mission impossible 2 and got home at around 1220. movie was good but almost a james bond knock off. i'm gonna review when i get time, but id give it 3/5 stars right now. and chris is lending me the matrix dvd so that's cool.

got up the next day and made it into school with chris after 4 1/2 hrs of sleep. went to holiday hill in cheshire for the day for senior outing. good day...we swam, played on this air filled obstacle course, canoed, played mini golf, ate a ton of cotton candy, and did a lot of hanging out. pretty fun though. and we kept running into marcie from new london usy (you know the one i thought i liked until she ended up blowing me off at encampment...?) so now everyone knows shes real and not some girl i made up in random pictures...of course i freaked when i talked to her, but it was cool seeing her cause i wont see her at final event nor semiformal dance...basically, the day was too long and by about 3ish, we didn't even know what to do with ourselves, but hang and talk. so i talked to julian a bit, and surpisingly, emily...which is cool because in the past couple of weeks, she's stopped insulting me and actually talks to me like a real person...so ive found that she too is in a similar situation with me on this end of the year stuff and whats been going on...like i said, there's a mentality. you soon find where the connection is...got home and putzed around on this laptop until jon and scott and i got the concatellis flowers and headed over...

today was senior skip day and fortunately and unfortunately, all of us seniors were gone for the day, so mine let me actually keep sleeping...i slept til about 1010 when jon called me the second time. so they went to six flags, i worked on transferring comp files and my thesis and when my dad came home around 4, i mowed the lawn and we basically opened up the pool. then went to the wake and all the concatellis were glad that we came and andrew introduced me to the family he knew. then pete surprised them and came, so that was nice. andrew and sarah's 5 year old cousin started beating me up and then called me fuzzy so now everyones calling me that...ah well...13 years and a 5 year old finally nicknames me...so much for smitch i guess...

then came home and my mom and sis had left for the orthodontists (and ate at the rainforest cafe) and so my dad and i went out to unos and talked about beating dead horses and stumping each other with final jeopardy questions...fun is, eh? ah well, it's 216 am now and i'm back up in my room and i should stop now because i have to get up tomorrow. angry salad and rane are now playing 104fest so this show's gonna kick major major ass...

3 months, 1 day til its moving day...its still best to avoid the problems...put something between me and the problem...now someone, later 350 mi...a temporary fix, and thats what it is....

what a bunch of hooey...

5/23/00(part 2)-well, i officially don't even know who would be able to come to a graduation party of mine...perhaps my aunt and uncle and cousins, but that'd be about it...it's kinda sad. so i dunno...maybe we'll just have them come down and have my friends over sometime during the week. and even that...

tonight is lag b'omer....it's the 33rd day between passover and shavuot and its basically to remember the day when several talmudic students of some rabbi of old times (i forgot his name) got better from some plague that spread among them. some years later, it was also the same day as the death of rabbi simeon ben yochai, the writer of the Zohar- the official Kabbalah canon. it's a sad day, but it's supposed to be celebrated happily because of the good that had come from its history...

speaking of israel-they've been forced, essentially, to give back parts of southern lebanon to the hezebollah who basically came in with renegade force. so israel had to prematurely give up the land they were working to peacefully give up. and of course, it comes at a cost. many shells, deaths, ruins...the israelis have to bomb the equipment they had to leave behind so the hezebollah wouldn't get it. it's the start of something more, in my eyes. they push back the line, we fight back. and we keep fighting back. despite the loss, israeli defenses are no dummies...i have faith they know what they're doing. yeah, it's everyone's land but so long as humans have power, someone has to own it. not justifiable, but if it means we have to defend a land that we can call home, i'm for it. the golan heights (featured in this months national geographic). there's nothing religiously great about it, however if we didn't have it, we'd set ourselves up for more attacks...it never ends...

5/23/00-i finished an entry for 5/22 that i started yesterday...today was nothing. went to theater and spent til 820 figuring out that the pci card was set for the adat instead of internal. so then i had to record the tracks and had a hard time manipulating the splices...in calc today, we did 3 problems, talked and fell asleep. no tutoring cause she doesn't care anymore and has about 8 classes of french ever, and then in physics, the test wasn't as bad as i thought. it really wasn't and i think i did rather well. in english, ryan gave his thesis presentation on control. it was kinda boring and i dunno if it was the topic or what, but he just talked about different things that control us. that was about it. then we had 1/2 hr to do nothing, so the day ended and julian didn't feed the fish again :P. came home started this, and been talking online since...still don't know what mp3s to download. i got a certified mail big envelope, but i haven't gotten to pick it up at the PO so maybe when my mom gets home... it's prolly my canadian visa, so that's really cool cause that means i'm done with the whole entire process. now i just gotta pick my courses, but that's not til august 1st. hopefully tomorrow i get my laptop, but we'll see what happens with that. i got a confirmation saying that it was in memphis around 2am, so i dunno if it comes 2 days after the 23rd or the 22nd. which would mean either tomorrow or thursday. i'm severely hoping for tomorrow. it's a weird day tomorrow cause i have 3 classes and then i'm out but i have to be back at 130 for them to powerwash the house. i dunno what i'll do, but hopefully i'll get my laptop in no time and then work w/andrew on powerpoint on our physics presentation and then i got to work some on my thesis sometime :P

5/22/00-its interesting...i haven't done much, i don't have much to do, but i have a lot to do...who knew? got up a bit later this am, went to the honors bkfast w/my mom, got my certificate, shook dr. joe's hand and sal's hand and then after the juniors, my mother and i took off. so i went to theater and did crap and we didn't do the advertisements and i didn't get to dump the winter concert cds because rinaldi has them :P so then was calc and cloutman confused the crap outa us again (but luckily a 1/3 of the final exam is watching a video of this math teacher from CA, joe escobar. i've heard and seen a few things about him, and he's got an interesting laid back style of teaching. so it should be a good break from regular class and actually math relevant.) nothing to do in study but we did crap in physics and i studied a good hr for the test tomorrow. and i found that i "scared the jesus" out of nikhil with this site. LOL! so speaking of jesus, angela gave her thesis presentation today on hope and faith. it was kinda interesting and she had the pressure of being first, but i guess it made it not that bad. 2 more days til my laptop and hopefully, julian'll lend me his matrix dvd so i can use it for clips for my presentation. then came home and did nothing until i studied.

had an interesting convo w/carrie. first we talked about my failed idea of having a bigass bbq on the same day as a bigass grad party for everyone and their friends and their families to be together at one place at one time celebrating the same thing. but that failed. it's interesting because what we came up with is that people rationalize or deny or sugarcoat the fact that we won't be here together next year. or in 3 mos. but i've been hit all year with that reality. and it puts you in a different mentality. there's a uconn/ct mentality that everyone thinks all their problems, all their joys...will be solved for next year and life moves on. that they can still connect mentally, if not just physically. a lot of this year has been living with the mentality that it's not like that next year. i've had to face reality-a reality i did choose-that things will change this year. but people tend to deny that because they're under a mentality that they'll still be close enough to home that it won't matter. next year essentially becomes an extension of this year for them. but because i don't share that frame of mind, my appreciation of the year is different. my appreciation of what or who friends are is different because, like in the dream, this year is the end of the world that i know. and everything's gotta be done before the world ends. a lot of this year has been feeling like i've been physically connected to people-i do things, i try to go over to people's houses when they have people, etc...but mentally, the communication that i used to have isn't the same. once a while back, i talked here about feeling a natural barrier that's been projected and as i've been facing mcgill, i've been facing the barrier of uconn/ct. what keeps everyone happy and secure feeling is the same thing that's keeping everyone else feeling the same way in that same frame of mind...it covers up everything else...and when i've expose what its covering up, everyone gets pissed off. you try and shake things up and no one wants to hear it. you try to clear the monotony and no one wants to hear it. whatever. i'm sure people won't like this, but...oh well...(scared yet nikhil?)

5/21/00-last night after snl was today was talking to margaret about stuff and i think she knows how i feel about not getting to do stuff with everyone all the time...maybe im mistaken...but i'm now empathetic to her. then talked to brandee a while and that was cool cause we have our on and off periods of talking where we don't see each other online for a while and then we do...she sent me about 15 pics of her and her prom, etc...so that's cool except i feel bad that i don't have any recent ones of me to send her. i'll have to take some at outing and send them to her... a rather boring day, i played on the guitar a bit, i shuttled my sis around, and we had our usy event which was 5 8th graders, me, and our advisor watching robin hood:men in tights. not a bad movie, kinda funny. typical mel brooks with different kinds of references...i just ordered my laptop, having to spend about $200 than i thought because no one sells the model i want online anymore except directly from the hp website....so it prolly ships 2 days tomorrow and hopefully i'll have it wednesday. yes!!!! this is awesome...and it's got a dvd player on it :) oh yeah, and for some reason, i've been getting nauseous after exercising...i cant figure it out but it's only been happening recently, so i dunno what's going on. anywho...my parents might be spending a weekend in vegas july 16-18 i think...they're in talking phase....PARTY!!!!!! not much more to say....3 months til my 18th and 3 months, 1 week til mcgill....fun is, eh?

5/20/00-wow, there's some really good stuff on the kabbalah.com web site that i might use as secondary sources for my thesis. today's job at the ct ballet wasn't bad, they had some hot women and we got paid for a whole day and ate and had a rehearsal and 2 shows. ballet's not bad. they are extremely graceful, even the two guys who were in it...and you're always around women ;) but it was a pretty good day and a little stress relieving. i was in gallery and in the rehearsal i fell asleep to wake up to "SPENCER!!!! CURTAIN UP!!!!!!" :) kinda funny, so i made sure i didn't try to get a nap in the rest of the day. and chris and jeremy (who's head swelled up like a pinata after) and the stage manager we're talking about chris' thesis, the relationship between man and G-d. basically it got me out of having to read the rest of the packet and responding...but there were some good ideas tossed around and why we believe in what we do, etc...then jeremy and i were arguing in the gallery about acceptance and he started saying how we didn't need to remember or forget the holocaust but take what's bad and good and work from that and leave the past behind...which kinda boggled my mind a bit...that's what we try and do atleast one day in the year, if not every day. anyways, that was a 13 1/2 hr day which means that i had not much outside exposure...chris, jeremy, and julian showed up today and the stage manager told us that anyone else that showed up wasn't working if they couldnt be there last night and at 830 this morning...so we turned away rajiv (who completely reeked of pot) around 4ish and sage around 6ish. coulda used more, but thats the way it was...anyways...not much else, i'm too distracted with snl and whatnot. awesome phat news-----we got 104fest tix thanks to jon's dad's credit card and the internet...now its jon, margaret, erin, sarah d, christine, nikhil, me, and scott...awesome...creed takes stage at 930pm. and i'm getting some mp3s of the other small bands....and tomorrow is a prolly gonna be failed usy final event w/5 people, but the rabbi'll be able to see what's gone on w/the chapter all year...

5/19/00(part 2)-most people thought i my dreams were crazy...my parents thought i'm sick (what can i say, the subconscious works in odd ways. after all, i had a dream less than a month ago that i was inside the branch davidian compound in waco, texas the day the FBI and ATF smashed the place in. that was a weird dream because i felt like a member of the cult and everything and sucked into wanting to talk to david koresh.) i dont know why my dreams are this way. it's interesting because my life is so fucked up in consciousness that it continues that way when i'm asleep. so while most people think i'm crazy, margaret actually tried to interpret my dreams and interestingly enough, may have hit the nail on the head on a lot of the symbolism...although i had a different interpretation of the cup...

"at first, i thought it was kinda funny, cos chris was sitting in your living room and both of you were in this "i got dumped by carrie" club, and then andrew comes and joins the club too. it seemed like a random dream, since some of my dreams follow no sort of logic. but with yours, it was particularly eerie because it followed the same theme -- the end of the world. first the librarian comments on an imminent thunder storm, then you actually are at the ends of the earth at the end of your dream. now, you know i'm not a particularly religiously inclined person, but the whole description of the end was scary and realistic. now comes the part where i sorta read into your dream. well, i don't know about the borrowing the book part, but the general theme of your dream (the end of the world) seems to mirror your feelings towards the world/your situation with friends right now. you repeatedly comment on the amount of time left before graduation, or before you go up to mcgill. you see it as the end. and i guess your actions in the dream are parallel to your actions in real life: as the world ends, you don't attempt to do anything to save it. the shopping thing (where you're buying unknown objects) i think may be you buying graduation gifts for our friends, however, you have no feeling behind buying these things, as if you didn't care about them. which may be reality as well. you buy a cup to protect yourself from the reactions of others to the things you say and a muzzle to stop yourself from saying things to mess up the world again. really, perhaps this next month er so will end poorly because in your subconscious, you don't want to do anything to change it. maybe you'll just allow the sucky year to end in a sucky way, as you have already seen it in your dream. or maybe this is somesort of preempt thing, a warning of sorts to say you gotta do something. i dunno. although i talked to you today, i don't really know how sucky things are for you, or how much you're trying to get things together. now the second dream. kinda funny cos you flip the bird. sarah d blames you for the fish's deathes and everyone's poed at you. in reality, do you feel that people have something against you right now? perhaps you see their poopy attitude towards you as a result of something somewhat trivial occurring, and you see them as overreacting. so then you just kinda absorb their anger and keep going. the whole thing with mike coming back and wanting to technologize everything i think symoblizes change going on around you in two ways. one, the people you know are rearranging themselves. two, things are more fast paced, you're moving on to college where things will be more high tech than in sw. you meet new peeps (freshies) but still, you kinda do the same things you've always done, move sets, prep the theater, etc. you finally seem to allow yourself to release your poedness by flicking carrie and andrew off. but you don't care if you hurt them because they hurt you. eye for an eye. see, you'll probably absorb yourself in the new, fast-paced life and forget about the old life and just end things nice and clean by hurting people. i dunno if this means that that's how you want it to end, or if that's what you're supposed to try to avoid."

it's freaky because my subconscious might be trying to tell me stuff...

tonight was the theater, i signed up from 6-8 and ended up workin til 11 instead. and tomorrow is all day. jeremy was there til 8 and went to see gladiator and chris actually showed up at 930 to help because we had no one show up. graner's gonna hear how undermanned we are on this one. tix for 104fest might be sold out by sunday. i was listening to the radio at 6 (2 hrs after tix sales started) apparently creed is playing a full, 2 hr set, the pavillion was close to sold out, lines and online sales were 2 hr waits and they predict sellout by sunday...i predict by tomorrow...we better get our damn tickets...

5/19/00-hallelujah! my dad finally gave the mouse back sometime between last night and when i got home today. and i changed the background color of the page to be black so atleast if this happens again, i can see what i'm typing. there's 4 updates from the past 5 days. i've been working on them everyday and not gone back to change stuff (after all this is still a running journal, running being the keyword meaning it doesn't stop and go back and edit what's happened). and if you still hit up the mainpage before coming here, you'll hear i changed the midi to something a little more over played than jamiroquai. also downloaded a new track from the rane cd off their site....it's gonna kick major ass. 10:24 the song is...

last nights concert kicked major ass. it was wagbooty (the new word). (*side note* you know, typing yellow on black isn't bad...perhaps there'll be a new background pic over the next week that'll look good enough to put on here and not conflict with the text color...) so the concert was good, sarah kicked ass and everything, there were some tech screw ups but whatever at this point. if people don't want to get their heads in it...i talked rinaldi and graner into letting me do the final mix down of this years winter concert as my final project for first class sound since it was sarah's first solo in the concert and she kicked ass then too. i only hope to finish it though... after the concert, i came home, watched the last 20 min of er. not bad. then it was 11pm and i ended up arguing with my dad til 130am. about the laptop, my goals and time management... see i never have much to do after school anymore, so i'm online a lot, particularly w/the cable modem...but it sucks cause i get yelled at for it. and as far as the laptop go, who knows when now. i was telling him how i have no real goals in life. i go to school i do what i have to do, the end. i never had academic goals, i didn't have a goal to get to mcgill, it happened. i haven't had goals in music...i play and whatever i get out of it happens...no goals. so i finally had a goal to raise enough money to get a laptop and now i cant see the results of my achievement because it would start making me mismanage my time again. it sucks big time.

overnight i had another dream. it's bizarre because my dreams are real except i'm not awake. i feel emotions, i feel physical sensations, i have concept of time, i talk...it truly is like another world that i appear in for 6 hours a night. so when i have dreams it's often bizarre when i feel like i've lived that other life...(btw, my other dream is up on the literary page. it makes a good story and rather symbolic of a lot of things)...i've been having a rather common theme in the past coupla dreams i've had. if you read what happens in the 5/16 dream and then this, you might get some symbolism running throught the dreams...last night's dream, i got to school and calculus class and sarah d told me that the fish had died and that it was all my fault, so everyone in the class had a big problem with it. somehow, i made it to the end of the day, but i was really bitter...the end of the day came and it was time for tech crew. we were already trying to get tech crew started for next year, so there were some new freshmen there and we were there to help out. mike tostarelli was there and he was going to head up tech for the year. cloutman would help him from time to time. mike wanted to make tech crew more up to date and have a web site and get all high tech, etc...so there was a big tyedye banner saying "drama club" and we wanted to use it to make it into a winamp skin....so we were doing some work and i had seen andrew and carrie holding hands all day and i got sick of it and ran up to their faces and flicked them both off, laughing like a crazyman, and then carrie went running off crying and i dunno where andrew went but then i started to feel bad but i couldn't talk to carrie and we had to take some sets outside to work on. so by that point i didn't care about it anymore. and that was about when i woke up...

woke up an hour late at 7am. it takes 1/2 hour to get ready. and even though they heard the alarm and i never heard it and got up, no one bothered to wake me til 7. so 10 min later, i was off to school with my dad. in french, we watched more of that hilarious movie, les visiteurs. then in theater, we regelled the entire catwalk and then some of bank 3. tonight the ct ballet is coming to start setup for their show tomorrow (i'm working 13 1/2 hours on that tomorrow :P) then was calc and i kept falling asleep (same as in physics), and then in study i worked some on the xword, but crapped out. so i started reading some from my kabbalah book. it's good stuff, but it's sometimes too idealistic because it doesn't take into account the internal power of internal emotion...a passage:

"G-d does not behave as a human being normally behaves. If one person angers another, even after they are reconciled the latter cannot bring himself to love the one who offended him as he loved him before. Yet if you sin and then return to G-d, your status is higher. As the saying goes, "Those who return to G-d occupy a place where even the completely righteous cannot stand." So when you return to G-d, and G-d restores the divine presence to you, his love for you is not the same as before but all the greater. This is the meaning of: "You will again have compassion upon us." G-d will increase his compassion, mending us, bringing us closer.
This is how you should behave toward your fellow human being. Do not bear a grudge from the anger you felt. When you see that he wants to make up, be much more compassionate and loving than before. Say to yourself: "He is like one of those who return to G-d, unrivaled by even the completely righteous." Cultivate a more intimate relationship with him than with those who have been completely righteous with you, who have never offended you."

that all sounds nice and good, but it's also a lot easier to say then to do. english was spent doing discussion of fisher king and that was boring, but ok i guess... did nothing in study hall, but that's nothing new...no one chose to bring in 104fest money and as i'm writing here, tix have gone on sale 10 min ago...i sincerely hope it doesn't sell out this weekend or i'll be severely disappointed. we've been asking for a week and no one wanted to give money for us to get the tix today after school. it's sad...

tonight is setup for the ctballet and a full day in the theater tomorrow. in case anyone wants to stop in for a bit, i'll be there all alone :P seriously, i think we're understaffed also, which makes it more of a pain in the ass :P but that's about it for now...25 days til graduation, what a great feeling these past 2 months...3 months, 9 days til moving day...just killing time til i leave...it's a sad outlook on what should otherwise be a happy time...

5/18/00-this is the third update in 4 days without a mouse. but i'm gonna try and post today, if not through crystal ftp (which i usually use), then from aol....:P

rationalize- (psychology), to devise superficially rational, or plausible, explanations or excuses for (one's acts, beliefs, desires, etc.),usually without being aware that these are not the real motives. rationalism- the principle or practice of accepting reason as the only authority in determining one's opinions or course of action use- implies the putting of a thing (or, usually in an opprobrious sense, a person regarded as a passive thing) to a given purpose so as to accomplish an end (to use a pencil, a suggestion, etc., he used his brother to advance himself).

last night i ended up with nothing to do after my 5.5 mile bikeride and 1/2 hour of situps (boy, i felt it today after coming off a week cold...) so i ended up having to take elise to joann fabrics so she could get some sewing supplies for class and i got some supplies for myself and after that, ended up tropping her off home and helping out (sorta) at the concert rehearsal. i have a feeling it'll go great and everyone will do an exccllent job playing what they have to. came home, talked a bit about the laptop with my dad (maybe this weekend). then i started on a project and finished it before i went to bed and so it came out cool.

got up today to doing nothing in theater while they had the honors breakfast. we ended up tying a tarp over the crap we took out of the trailer from the theater. then we went to graner's room to play the drums and the piano while he worked. in cloutman's class, we got confused more, and sarah mo insulted my mom and me. :P so i then went to study hall where i didn't tutor cause amanda was working with graner on stuff for the music six flags trip tomorrow and so i did physics instead. went to physics and got completely bored but we worked on the big packet he gave us on monday for june. then finished the end of fisher king in english. that was about my day. tomorrow is waiting for 104fest tix :) :) tis' gonna be awesome that concert. they sold out last year. tonight is the big instrumental concert and sarah's got a solo, but i'm sure she'll do excellent cause she underestimates her ability sometimes. everyone else should play well except for if the bar comes down on sarah mo's head for ranking on me and my mother j/k :) that about it for now...

my list of top 9 movies (it'd be 10 but i lost the original list and this one only has nine). in order of greatness 1. Fight Club 2. Gladiator 3. Matrix 4. Sixth Sense 5. Ponette 6. A Clockwork Orange 7. Pi 8. Wallace and Gromit's The Wrong Trousers 9. Black Sheep

my dream should be coming up shortly...

5/17/00-fuck. fuck. fuck. this is day 3 without a mouse and again, i have this reflection all ready to post but i can't because my dad still thinks its funny that he's gonna try and get me to be more responsible for my duties here in the house. i still can't see what the hell i'm typing on this page and i'm only hoping that it makes some sense when i can see it against the normal background. it's been a boring 2 days, but the concert rehearsal tonight and tomorrow should be cool. i didn't sign up to work them cause julian told me to take it off since i've worked just about every other show and got one this weekend, but i don't feel like doing much else so i might show up for some anyways...

yesterday, i got to school and then went right into my inclass writing for french that i had to make up from the day that i took the ap french test. 2 french essays in 1 week :P but it didn't go too bad, i tried to pad it with quotes and generalizations. so long as the syntax is alright, it should be ok. the characters were rather shallow in the play so there wasn't much to write aboot. then went to activity period to copy my paper over so mrs mckenna could actually read it :P and we got graduation invitations but we haven't decided who's coming and who's not yet....i dunno what's gonna happen with graduation parties. the cool thing is jon and i are asking sarah and erin and i asked margaret and nkhil already to go to 104fest on june 24. it should kick ass with creed headlining and my first concert since 3eb in 98 (unless you count modern rock the earth day where i showed up late to the shortened show...) but it's gonna kick ass and jon and scott and i are gonna wait for tix on friday when they go on sale at 4 cause the radio's sounding like it's gonna be a seller...with creed headlining, it might be... so after the in class writing, i started drafting a first nerson narrative of the dream i had that night/morning. it was the most bizarre and most symbolic dream i've ever had. freud would have truly loved dissecting what went on. i'm putting up my narrative story of it on my literature site. it makes a good story, even if it's just a dream, and the symbolism of dreams is something i'm remembering to add to my thesis. after activity was english where we watched more of fisher king. that movie is great, there's a complex story and a lot of humor to it. i'd easily say its a great movie. if i ever find my top 10, i know i'm missing 1 slot and i'd put it near the lattar half of the list., maybe 8 or so. "are you kidding? i got a hard on the size of florida" :) then we sat around the library before coming home, practicing the piano, napping for a half hour and having the last formal piano lesson of my life after 8 years of it(well that's as far as i know. maybe in college if i don't get guitar lessons...) i'm not doing the recital this year which is saturday...and i'm workin anyways... then i left for the PV concert which is prolly the last time i'll ever run across mr. hansen or any of the other PV teachers...that's where it all started for me. and skip was there and doing his thing and it was our last show with skip and everyone kept bumbling around and i half took charge and then skup's writing G-d with an arrow on a piece of paper and giving it to me :) it was kinda funny...then i should have gone to bed at 11 but instead, i stayed up to watch the discovery channel which did something on the concorde...it was interesting but i shoulda gone to bed.

today i woke up and went outside the same time as always and the bus must have been about 5 min early. so i was waiting around and mrs. cancel told me the bus came and offered me a ride w/isabel, so i came in with her, (*side note* i'm watching the video for korns make me bad, and it's the remix version...i hate those kinds of rock remixes because it totally eliminates the best part of the song-the drum track :P) so i got into school and we watched this video in french, "les visiteurs" (which came out in 1992 and actually has a sequel that came out in 1998). it's a hilarious comedy much in the style of monty python...it's about 2 men who go back in time to stop an arrow, but the wizard forgets something and they travel to 1992. it's total comedy...."holy scrotums! that castle is swelling like a dick...what the shit? fuck-brain!" its hilarious. after that was theater where i sat on the board and did nothing. calculus, cloutman confused the crap out of us and gave us 3 problems. and i'm convinced there's almost nothing that the guy won't repeat if you say. yikies(he said it), holy moly (he said it), holy scrotums (now that's where he kinda was wondering what was going on...:)) then anfrew took me home and i spent the next 50 minutes running to the bank to cash/deposit a check ($26 left to the laptop) and then to blimpies...it was about a 5.5 mile bikeride around town and i got some exercise also. so i've done nothing for now and prolly am still not supposed to be on here but i wanted to get caught up...dunno what's going on tomorrow or tonight but hey, its wednesday and 18 more days of school. you know what that means? sooner til summer. hopefully my dream will be up here when i get the mouse....leaving you with a quote from maximus from gladiator- "what we do in life echoes in eternity..."

5/15/00-aw man, my dad thought it would be funny to take away the mouse (perhaps trying to cut down on my online usage but not really working), so i gotta do all this by keyboard. believe you me, its a pain in the ass. today started off the week again where i needed to make more fishwater and cloutman was cracking jokes. oh yeah, and i did end up having to mow the lawn and fertilize, etc...then my dad and i rode our bikes to the new synagogue site to see what was doing w/construction and guess where different rooms would be...

then was today....nothing in french except this weird video we're gonna be making and kyle and i are the talk show hosts :{ then in theater, we putzed around for a while and took down the silver curtain and i made an ass of myself in front of orchestra, but that's always fun. in calc, i practically fell asleep til demko wanted to know what we were gonna do w/nuala over the summer. then in study,, amanda had no work (what else is new?) so we caught up on the past 2 weeks since i haven't seen her in so long. then in physics, mcandrew rambled about the physics work we have to do and stuff on sound intensity. and he was mentioned in todays paper in the physics day article. in english, we started watching fisher king (which i think is a decent movie). went to study-started the xword, read mr. foley's poetry book, looked up some basic stuff on wormholes and came hom to get the mail where i got a $135 tax rebate (can you say laptop?) you know, it's hard to work on this page on FPExpress when the bg is white and the text is light yellow. i don't even know if what i'm typing is right. i could be typing a manuscript here and i dont even know it...ooh, tonight is an all new everybody loves raymond. if you haven't seen that show, you gotta. it really is a funny show and perhaps one of the best sitcoms currently on television. you know, i think last week was a good week now that i thought about it. things i've consciously realized this past weekend- when trying to solve something, it's a lot easier to either put up a front; or avoid things. i think last week was so good because i did both and i didn't have to worry about anything. other than 12 hours of testing, the week was great because i solved my problems. of course thats only a temporary fix, but sometimes the temporary fix is the only way you can keep semblence in your life...

some good angry salad quotes:

"And I hoped I'd see her and then/When I didn't I was crushed...And it seems so hard for me to do/To be myself when I'm with you"- The Milkshake Song

"My mind, it's coming back to me from my dreams/Only knows that bad news never sleeps"- Rico

"If you could have seen me, a third rate Houdini/Escaping with lines like The problem was me...Freedom's just another word for watching TV"- Stretch Armstrong

"The songs they play and the songs I hear/Do they ring true in my ears? You can't pull this wool any tighter over our ears...Who's got the answers 'cause I've got some questions"- Empty Radio

"It seems I've been running out/I've been running from what I might become/I lost the promise there, come on back to me now"- Scared of Highways

"The book of love/You never wwrote a chapter about this/Now maybe there were pages I missed(I'm not that brignt)"- Coming to Grips

5/14/00-happy mother's day. yesterday happened to be part 1 of part 1 :) here's 2 comics that i think are funny. This one is descriptive of the group and seems to fit with graduation coming up. This next one is the hilarious anti-Who Wants to Be a Millionaire comic

so jon and scott finally made it at 1230am. long story why they were late: scott was sleeping when jon picked him up and so he was all disoriented and sick. so they pulled over on ellington road for scott to puke and then scott went back to the car and then ran back to puke again. a cop was prolly at the fire station across the street (where they usually have a radar stop, but at 1230am?) so he flashed his lights and took their licenses and asked all these questions about if they were drunk, and flashed his lights in the back seat to look for booze :) but think about it...2 17 year olds, sportscar, one runs out to puke twice, 1230am...could be suspicious. so i guess jon was giggling like an idiot when the cop went back to his car and then they came over here.

i think we're getting too old and wimpy cause we used to be able to watch all the farley movies and go to bed at 7 and wake up at 10, but instead, we only made it through black sheep and then watched a bunch of tv, shot pool, talked a lot, went online, etc...fell asleep around 5 and slept till noon. we're weak. i guess we're planning for the 24 hour farleyfest over the summer. so they left around 3, i was supposed to mow the lawn (and i'm supposed to today also), but the ground's too wet. plus it was thundering and lightening later... so then i putzed around the house for a while, shot pool myself, learned how to play creed's "say i."

the concatellis were having people over to watch american beauty. (i think that makes 11 times for andrew :)) not a bad movie, but not my favorite movie. (i wish i could find my top 10 list of movies that i wrote out. i'd post it here) so i was indifferent to going, but jon got his new car, a chrysler pt cruiser. so he and julia picked me up round 815 and we went to the concatellis for a bit during the movie and jon was all antsy to drive the car. it's truly a car you wanna be seen in. but no one was interested in going out to see it, somehow everyone was fixated on the movie.

so we left to drop off julia and pick up scott and see a movie. the timing was horrible and there was no movie to see between 10 and 12 and i didn't wanna get outa the movie at 2am. gladiator was at 1030 and i woulda seen it again, but it woulda been out at 1 so. we thought about frequency but there wasn't a good time on that. u571 was the other movie we wanted to see but again, bad times...we then were gonna see battlefield earth and miss the previews, but we were in line and there was this couple and they were getting their money back. they told us not even to bother because most of the theater left after the first 1/2 hour to get their money back. i heard mainly negative reviews on it, but the only reason i was otherwise interested in it was because it was based on an l. ron hubbard book. no matter, we decided not to see it and it was still thundering and all that crap...

now we didn't know what to do, so we went to borders for 1/2 hr til closing time. i ended up buying the angry salad cd and as soon as i'm done with this update, i'm working on my review of it, which is now on the reviews page. after that it was 11, so we went to dennys and scott picked these nasty "hot" buffalo chicken strips to get, but the sauce or whatever was drenching them and was nasty tasting...so we starting playing with our food...only thing was, we ate it...we put maple syrup on, salt, pepper, sugar, strawberry syrup, bbq sauce...and ate it...anyway you tasted it, the nasty sauce had a way too overriding flavor. last time we let scott pick. and there were a bunch of people there from sw...christine keogh was there...she's still funny.

today i got up, took my sister to hebrew school and here i am. i'm tutoring in another 2 hours and then i cant mow the lawn because it's too wet on the ground :P then is some calc hw that i have to get caught up on. radio104 has announced the 104fest lineup and it looks pretty good. now do i see that or chili peppers? the announced lineup so far is: CREED, SEVENDUST -- 3 DOORS DOWN, EVE 6 -- KOTTONMOUTH KINGS, AMAZING CROWNS -- SHADES APART, DEATHRAY -- ELWOOD, BOWLING FOR SOUP -- MILE, MIKE ERRICO -- PAT MCGEE so i dunno. input?? anywho. the official count now is 3 months, 1 week til my 18th and 3 months 2 weeks til moving day at mcgill. wow, that's not much time...

5/13/00(part 1)-you want to hear 3 idiots laughing like a bunch of baboons? download this

5/12/00-wow. today was a very interesting day at six flags new england (aka riverside). slept somewhat later, watched tv while i ate (who knew saved by the bell the college years was on 730am on tbs?), got to school just in time to hand in my blackwater essay and get on the bus. went to the park. no kidding-it really was "six flags physics day." well now, the park opened and we got in and then everyone wanted to do "scream" which was like the old hellavator only there was 3 of them and it jerked you up and then dropped you down. no kiddin, i didn't go on it. so instead, i went on my swings :) but there were students w/protractors having to take the angle of the swings. i felt bad about that. when scream was done, andrew and scott went to the cyclone where there were apparently no lines and they got the first seat on all 3 rollercoasters they went on. i just went on the mind scrambler both times they were on the cyclone. oh yeah and the big attraction, the superman ride, was closed due to a needed part in maryland. i wouldn't have done it today anyways. so after that, we went on the poison ivy roller coaster, which was just my start off speed cause it was really scaled down. then we all went on thunderbolt and i was sitting myself and the seatbelt was too big for one. so the train kept lurching off the track, lifting me up. then andrew and scott were on the cyclone and me on the mind scrambler. after that was lunch. when lunch was over, we went on the blizzard river, which was this circular raft for 8 people that went down and around this water course that was bumpy and scott got a little bit wetter than the rest of us. following that was my best ride of the day. all day, i said i wanted to do nightwing because it looked like the swings only a little different. but i saw it from afar so i didn't know what it really was. so we got there and andrew actually chickened out on this one, which surprised me cause i'm not a rides person and he is. but somehow i ended up waiting in line for it and then there was no return. if you don't plan on going to the park, the ride looks like a comic book themed version of this one here. my nose was runny and it started to make me cry, but i couldn't believe i survived it. the ride was phenomenal and i could say that that was the ride that i needed to warm me up to do other rollercoasters. after going round and round on my stomach at that speed, i started thinking that the mind eraser probably wasn't that bad. but it was too late for that and scott went to get some fried dough while andrew and i waited for our last ride back on the blizzard falls. this time, there was a longer wait, but the ride totally changed. all the waterfalls were working and it was also misting. the mist helped add to the effect of the ride. so it was better the second time around and we both came home completely drenched and cold. so it was a productive day for me today. i don't particularly like rollercoasters. it's nothing i can't physically handle but waiting in lines and being on the coasters give me anxiety attacks. knowing i'm strapping myself in to drop myself like that makes me uneasy. but i did well by going back on thunderbolt (i don't care if scott thinks its wimpy), and nightwing. next time, i might do nightwing to warm myself up and then the mind eraser. who knows? maybe one day, the superman ride...

tonight's plans changed 50 billion times and we'll see if jon and scott actually show for the farleyfest. if they do it should be fun cause we haven't had one since last summer, if they don't, it's a wasted friday night...i played my 3 raw songs for my parents-they still hate the singing and say it makes the song boring and then nothing really much else happened...richard simmons is on dave letterman tonight...hasnt been on since 2 years ago. that was a funny episode, i remember it cause dave always harasses richard and richard just kinda left. you couldn't tell how much of a joke it was, but like they keep advertising, "daddy's greased up and coming home may 12"...as you can see, i'm stretching for more to write about but i dunno what...maybe i'll play along w/my blink cd for a while...happy shabbos...

5/11/00-for the 3rd time today...my review for the bosstone's cd, pay attention is now up. its been a bit but its there, unfortunately, i didn't/don't have the official lyrics so that put me at disadvantage...

5/11/00(and later update)-i didn't get the opportunity to get online much last night between my schedule and tutoring and the concert...i shouldn't put on music when i'm doing this cause muzik maks me doo lazee thengs. mi brane iz frid aftir tha ap test. to ap tests az a mater uv fakt. im guna kep riting lik this cuz its fun. :)

holy shit it's been a shithole 2 days. got up yesterday and sped my sister to school and then got myself over to st margaret mary's church for the english ap exam. first hour-reading some passages and answering multiple choice. some of the passages werent bad-better than the practice ones foley gave us. but the questions were still tricky. then it was 2 hours writing 3 essays. essay 1 had a passage from homer's oddessy and a poem by margaret atwater about the Sirens (mythological woman headed birds). we had to write about how the sirens were portrayed. then there was an exerpt from a 1721 satire that we had to talk about, then there was a list of books and plays of "literary merit" and we had to pick one and talk about why it should be considered a mystery, etc...i talked about hamlet cause it was one of the only ones on the list that i remembered and since we had to do a court trial in class, i figured that would lend itself well to remembering what would be good for the essay. we had to write all 3 of these essays. so, 3 hrs, 45 min later, we left-brains fried. then i go pick up the new lawnmower battery and meet sarah d, and wallis and a lot of the other people who tested at boston chicken. so that was cool and sarah and i were talking for a while even though it was pouring like a mother outside.

after that, went runnin around home and got my stuff together and spent 2 hours in the booth recording...the studio update IS now on my album site (click on the album cover link in the frame below if you forgot)...came home just in time to pop online and tutor, then go to a concert at the hs. the concert was for wapping and of the elementary concerts, i think this one was the best. not only was the music better, but the kids knew how to play. then after that, dave and i were talking for about 2 hours in the booth on relationships, friendships, and the end of this year before we go off.

i think the biggest problem i have with it all is cause i feel like no one cares. people say they do cause it's comforting but i don't know. in the "group" there's only 3 of us that won't even be near the state of connecticut, which makes me wonder how much is gonna change for everyone in connecticut. that's a lot of how this year has felt for me....when i'm gone next year, how much of my presence will actually be missed? if i didn't try to make myself included this year as much as i did, would anyone have noticed...i know we'll move on next year and i will make friends in montreal but these still aren't feelings i want to be harboring the next 4 months. people and i joke about visiting me in montreal next year but i know it won't happen. so long as everyone but the 3 of us are together, no one's gonna wanna leave connecticut. but i've had a decent 2 days so far because i've tried not to face my issues so i'm gonna stop that for now...

today i unfortunately had to wake up to speed to the middle school to take my sister and then race to the high school for a 4hr, 10 min ap calculus test. THANK G-D IT WAS MY LAST TEST!!!! no more ap tests! there was 55 min section 1. no notes on any part of the test. section 1 was no calculators, 20something multiple choice. section 2 (50min) was 16 multiple choice w/calculators. then was part b section 1 (45 min)-3 free response questions w/calculators and section 2(45 min)-3 free response questions without calculators. i must say, as a person and whatnot, cloutman's the man, but as a teacher, we get away with too much, ie, using notes and everything. the questions weren't anything we couldn't handle (with notes), but it was very long and my brain's fused.

so after the test, i went to the bank, cashed a check, went to the mall to mcdonalds and performed my sociology experiment. i like watching people in malls and the old people and the young people and everything. some people are normal and some are just idiots. i watched mothers spoil their kids rotten on those kiddie rides where you put in a quarter and it goes up and down...or the mother who's cutting up her son's pizza (he must have been 5ish). or the old ladies buying a mcchicken because they think it's healthier than a big mac... i have a feeling it's an american phenomenon. we all spoil ourselves sometimes and it's good to do so, but sometimes, we're just ridiculous. i look at my mall experience as a chance to be the cynic about society that i am. then roamed around borders and saw my doctor coming out, went to cvs to get a mothers day card, went home and got my 4 week old paycheck, cashed it, and got my mom a birthday card and then came home. so in light of the fact that i've managed to not have to deal with stuff for 2 days, it's been good.

tomorrow is 6 flags field trip and after only getting to skim the article on the superman ride, i'm scared of it again...225 ft drop, 78 miles an hour, 70degree angle...5 seconds and one part is done...i dunno...mommy....but it should be a fun day, particularly after the rest of this week and last week. even if we don't have to do all the work and whatnot, it should still be good. fun's always good. then we might go see gladiator friday night again and then jon and scott and i might have a farleyfest which we haven't had since almost last summer...alot's happened since...so it should be cool. i now have to pick up my sister from school but i have something i want to talk about when i get back. it's a more serious topic...anti-semitism and how it happens even in small town south windsor. you never think people could be ignorant but they are...

(*later*) here's how anti-semitism hits small town south windsor. the new synagogue is being built around the corner from us in the neighborhood over. they've gone through shit and back with their neighbors. the synagogue owned the land they're building on before the neighborhood was built, the neighbors should have known that. so they've already begun construction and whatnot so the project's underway and i think they're hoping to open at high holidays this year. but we'll see. unfortunately i won't be here. i'm not affiliated with that congregation (even if it's close to the house), but i'll still lend my support.

so in the past couple of months, when my sister's bus passes the construction, kids on the bus go off on the "jew church" and whatnot, and my sister, being the only jewish girl on the bus, feels uncomfortable about it. and the bus driver says nothing. so my sister comes home yesterday saying that they were putting in sewer pipes so road was cut open and the bus was waiting for 20 min before it could go and the kids were all getting mad and saying things like "don't touch it, it's for the jews. don't drive over it. it's the jew church." and things of that nature. now remind me, why we live in this country where we're free of being religiously hassled? so my sister is bothered but is afraid to say something because she doesn't want the kids knowing she said something and picking on her because she is the only jewish girl. what do you do? what the fuck do you do when people are ignorant? i wouldn't be surprised if there's some vandalism on the synagogue when it actually starts getting up (right now they have the foundation and steel support beams). i wouldn't be surprised and with the desecration of 66 tombstones in a jewish cemetery in hartford last week, what the fuck is wrong with the world? violence doesnt solve anything (though i suppose it feels good) but this type of shit is what pisses me off. because we can't be stomped on. it always happens and we always fight back...we're fighters and don't think that people can make these ignorant comments without a fight...so i'm trying to persuade my sister to tell the principal and see what happens...there'll prolly be more on this issue...

5/9/00(again)-i neglected to mention two things that i now remembered i wanted to say here...1.)for anyone that didn't know and was interested, i shaved the goatee last thursday. and now i'm growing fullbeard despite my moms literal yelling. that's old news but i dunno. i got to thinking about it and after having it for 8 months, i'd never thought about taking it off, but with all things happening in my life, i just wanted to change it. and since i never thought about it, i knew something was wrong with me so i just had to do it, but hopefully, even if it's not full beard, i'll atleast bring back the goatee for graduation :) secondly, i'd like to say happy 17th birthday to nicole. i never got the opportunity to wish it in school so i figure this and the e-card had to be the next best thing :P time to freshen up the math hw for tomorrow :) and still no bosstones review...maybe this weekend when i have time to be lazy for real...

5/9/00-i've gotten some mp3s from south windsor's other house band and major label artists, angry salad. they're really really good. not the same as rane, but they're like the mainstream alternative i like. when their new, major label album (angry salad on atlantic records) comes out the 25th, i may just have to get it. alex grossi, the lead guitar used to go to swhs and he's a virtuoso, so ive heard. if you want comparison, it's a little like that 9 days group but not really. their first single, the milkshake song is pretty good (despite the cheesy song name).

its getting a little better now because in every conversation i have with people, i realize more about myself and why i'm looking for the things i'm looking for. it's a little comforting, although not helping myself but atleast i can offer myself some explanation of who i am. yesterday was the french ap exam. 3 hrs, 45 min long and then i still had to go to physics and english and then nihkil came over to shoot pool. i swear the french fused my brain- listening, reading, writing (including an essay on fashion dictating our lives), and speaking (answering questions into a tape). today was an extremely boring french class, then activity period getting answers to the calc test between me, cloutman, and carl- english class was a complete waste and duclos knew it too. and then physics, boring. i dunno-six flags should be interesting on friday :) then i went to carls house and we worked on the calc test 2 hours getting all but 2 problems. he's going over to jess ragosta's house so he said he'd call if he hears anything else...

today is yom hazikaron-israeli remembrance day. like our memorial day. since 1967, there have only been 19,109 deaths defending israel. there's air raid sirens at 11am that go off signaling a moment of silence, then the prime minister and president speak and ceremonies at the tombs of the great (which is a military cemetary) and everything tonight. rememberance day always preceeds yom ha'atzmaut-israeli independence day. the state of israel and the israeli defence forces celebrate their 52nd anniversary tomorrow with a new population count of 6.3 million-1.1 arabs. the celebrations for that tomorrow should be really great and even if i don't live there, i can't help but feel israeli nationalism- (lest you forget, i was there and i know how i felt about the country while i was there). every jew feels some patriotism towards israel and the struggles that the jewish people have gone through to be able to freely practice their religion in a place they call their homeland. it may be insignificant to the rest of "america" but i think it's a bigger deal now that ive been there than i ever thought before.

not much is doing tonight other than fixing up and handing in all of the assignments for chapter 6 for tomorrow. that's the only thing right now thats costing my grade. but when i hand em in, cloutman'll just give them squiggle/squiggle so i'll be all set. then i might look over some stuff for the ap english test i'm taking tomorrow (:P) so it's a 4 hour test tomorrow and then possibly some recording with julian afterschool and then a concert and some ap calc review :P anyways...that's about it for now, i'm feeling increasingly lazier and lazier to write now and possibly i'll just work on my review of the bosstones album....anywhoo.....

5/7/00- some star trek quotes too start off the day with on different situations (from Quotable Star Trek. don't be surprised if they get put on the star trek quotes page at a later time)....

"You can't be open to love if you don't risk pain."-Troi to Beverly, TNG,The Host.
"Data, when you get involved with another person, there're always risks. Of disappointment. Of getting hurt...Data, when it really works between two people, it's not like anything you've ever experienced- the rewards are far greater than simple friendship."-Riker to Data, TNG, In Theory.
"And it's been my observation that you humanoids have a hard time giving up the things you love...no matter how much they might hurt you."-Odo to Kira, DS9, Heart of Stone.
"If I were in your position...I'd probably be just as ready to throw away everything for the person I love. But I would also want to make sure that I was ready to pay the price."-Sisko to Dax, DS9, Rejoined.
"Everyone is trying to...look out for us. Protect us from ourselves. But in the end, all that matters is how we feel...and what we do about it. Because either way, we're the ones who have to live with the consequences."-Dax to Dr. Lenara Kahn, DS9, Rejoined.
"But if you can't go through life trying to avoid getting a broken heart. If you do, it'll break from loneliness, anyway. So you might as well take a chance. If you don't, she'll move on, and you'll never know what you might have had. And living with that is worse than having a broken heart, believe me."-Bashir to Odo, DS9, A Simple Investigation.
"Jealousy is about the fear of losing someone we love. There's no pain greater than that....Nothing makes us more vulnerable than when we love someone. We can be hurt very easily. But I've always believed that what you get when you love someone...is greater than what you risk."-Chakotay to Neelix, VOY, Twisted.
"Our loyalty is demonstrated by our actions, not our words."-Kudak'Etan to Lamat'Ukan, DS9, One Little Ship.
"I'm going to take care of you. I don't forget my friends. 'Cause friends-they're like family-nothing's more important."-Liam Bilby to O'Brien, DS9, Honor Among Thieves.
"In all trust there is the possiblilty of betrayal...Without trust, there's no friendship, no closeness. None of the emotional bonds that make us who we are."-Riker to Data, TNG, Legacy.
"Trust is earned, not given away."-Worf to Troi, TNG, The Wounded.
"I didn't tell the truth. I made a mistake- which happens to a lot of people- but if I'd admitted that mistake it would have been a lot better. But I lied about it. And it nearly ruined my life."-Paris to Neelix, VOY, Fair Trade.

*sigh* i'm a little less upset today, i don't know why, last night was increasingly stressing...i've been thinking all day-about what's making me feel alone...it's not everyone being against me, and i'm talking about life in general right now. it's that everyone's not for me. it's like i'm just there for everyone. and of some people, that gives me an increasing sense of loneliness that i'm seeming to have to live with until i leave. because there are no options that will please anybody that would change the way i'm feeling. i guess for the rest of the year now, i just have to live with the fact that all i am is there. i wish i knew how to relax. i wish i knew how to meditate or do something to get rid in my mind of all the things that upset me. i wish i had a punching bag, or a drum set to let out aggression. this is not a pleasant feeling but all i can do is laugh and cry on the outside and roll with it...

today we went to see gladiator. excellent movie and my review will be up in minutes. then i'm gonna review the mighty mighty bosstones album prolly tomorrow. tomorrow is the first of the ap tests-french. 4 hrs. i'm taking it myself, so i dunno what it's all about. then is physics :P and english. and that's about it. maybe the test won't be so bad...i just wish that coming home tomorrow would actually be good. i don't know where i want to be anymore. coming home-there's nothing. going to school-there's nothing. everything feels gone right now...

5/6/00- first, i'd like you to read these lyrics before proceeding...

Let me rant and let me ramble you're lookin at a lunatic in shambles I've got real issues I must wrestle I'm unfit to stear the vessel Somebody please take the wheel I can't calm down now I can't deal do so agree to greater gamble let me rant and let me ramble Let Me Be! Woah... Let me ramble, let me rant I've got shit to get to but I can't Get to shit in this condition It'll pass soon I keep wishin I keep wishin I keep waitin This couldn't be more irritating but now I feel like an ant Let me ramble, Let Me Rant! Let Me Be! Woah... Let me rant and let me ramble Let me try and get a handle on what's knocked me for a loop Time to let the troops regroup regroup, relax, collect my thoughts retrace, retract, connect the dots we'll take a while to unscramble Let me rant and let me ramble Let Me Be! Woah... Let me rant and let me ramble you're lookin at a lunatic in shambles i've got real issues i must wrestle I'm unfit to stear the vessel Somebody please take the wheel Can't calm down can't even deal do so agree to greater gambles let me rant and let me ramble ramble
"Let Me Be," Pay Attention, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, 2000.

this song is so much what i am feeling now. recent news has my pot stewing again but that's later...

in response to my website: a few people seemed to be angry with what i had to say in my last reflection. i'm sorry you feel that way but i maintain my prior beliefs that this website is a journal of myself and my feelings....who and what i am. at the time i wrote the entry, i was pretty damn pissed about what's been going on in my life. you know, i still am...i've realized that i am a very emotionally driven person, perhaps making a lot of my actions illogical. i never had the capacity to be that angry, but i also don't have the capacity to stay that angry...am i still angry and hold resentment? yes, but it's not as expressive outwardly. i don't want to lose friends. you know, i spent 14 hours in the theater, about 7 of those hours purely by myself, and i realized that i cannot be alone. i cannot stand to be alone, which is why i do as many things as i can with my friends. so for me to continually outwardly be holding grudges is impossible because doing so would not allow me to be with people and puts me at a feeling of loneliness. that's the worst thing about this was fact that i was feeling alone again...i felt left behind by 2 people who mattered and all those qualities in the former entry that were lost-i felt like it created more of a feeling of loneliness. a month and a half before graduation-graduation where i'm going 350 miles away in less than 4 months, i did not want to be feeling this way. i wanted things to be better-to not feel like i'm leaving swhs under ambivalent terms. i've always hoped to have an impact on people and in the past 4 years, i'm hoping that whatever my presence in south windsor offered would have me leaving on a high note, not a middle or low note. right now i'm not sure where i feel i'm leaving and i guess the next month and a half will decide how secure i am in leaving this town. 4 months, that's it. and then, who knows when i'll be back to this place. in 3 months of college, a lot can change and i don't know where that would lead me on my next break back to sw. it could be christmas break or not til feb break. so for that matter, coming back to south windsor won't be the same, everyone and everything i knew will change. i can't speak for every one, but i can only offer my own thoughts about next year, many of which you've heard. i extremely fear next year because of the close physical proximity of so many of my friends. for them to be at uconn makes it the much easier for the friendships to thrive. alot easier. my own interpretation (you don't like it? it's my interpretation) of the situation is that while graduation is a moving on point, it's a lot more of a moving on point when you're farther away. all the issues now that are bad or good are more solvable when you can commute home in 30 minutes or when you're across campus. i guess that's why this end of the year, i'm getting so much out-because next year i dont know if or when i'll get the opportunity.

today was my 14 hour day in theater- $150. good money, boring job. very boring sound all day. then a shooting star on the way home left me with a pessimistic wish that i doubt will come true.

but with recent news while i'm finishing this update, i guess you can go back to being angry and those relationships that i questioned before....about clearing it up before college...theres things i need to express to some people and there's things people have expressed to me that leave me back in disbelief. about an hour ago, i would have ended the update saying the year might be ending on a middle note, but i'm not sure again...i know where it started and it angers me and upsets me and makes me go back...an hour later, i'm feeling this low note coming. everyone else seems to be taking this next month and a half as a closer point and joyous and what not...me? everytime it gets good it goes bad..."one step forward, two steps back" as nikhil says. that seems to be the way it is with a lot of my relationships this last month and a half...

you know the closing line here? well snl tonight has turned rather bitter, so i don't really feel like using it...

5/3/00-i call this reflection "fuck it all"

well, it's ended and i never thought i could be as angry at anybody as i am now. this year has been the real time where i've found where and who my friends are-who i trust, who trusts me, who sides against me...i say fuck it all. as they said in fightclub, "hitting bottom is not a weekend retreat" it most certainly isn't. it's taken me a year to get to this point. you know, i remember at the memorial service, pastor bergman talking about "reaping what you sow, reaping in like kind" etc...you know, this is when i blow up and i don't give a fuck anymore. honor and honesty, key to a friendship-blown. betrayal and deceit-that's how my life's been all year. i don't know what sowed wrong, i honestly don't. i don't know where anything went wrong with me, but i'm finding that i'm not reaping in like kind. i'm not reaping what i'm sowing. i'm reaping the bad crap and i can't stand it anymore. i've been told all year about friends wanting to keep in contact next year, they don't even keep in contact now. i put forth the effort, i make the plea over and over again and yet i reap jackshit back.

i've learned this year who i trust, who's honest, who's honorable, who's willing to follow through as a "friend," who's willing to include me without spite, who sticks up for you when the chips are down. i've never been this angry towards anyone and i never knew i had this capacity to feel this shitty, but you know, i've been finding out people have the capacity to do a lot of things...and you know, you live with the consequences of these things. as i keep thinking, i keep getting angrier about all things hid from me over 3 weeks for my "protection" i keep getting angrier about all the times i've been the last to know because people don't wanna tell me. 22 pages i wrote...it got better, now it's spiralled down. my last year, my last 1 1/2 months, and the end result is having been virtually screwed over by all my friends except for maybe as many as i can count on one hand...how is the world not against me when i feel like i've been put through a trial of friendships this entire year, no, it's all bullshit. fuck it all.

all i did in school today was make a list of the equipment for the philly trip in theater, 2 english classes, one for ap prep and my regular one. i was invited to the park, i said i needed a ride to it, no one followed through. so what else have i done today? jackshit because i couldn't keep my mind off my life so all i did was keep thinking about it and keep getting angrier. i didn't know i could be this mad but i view honor and honesty as two extremely important qualities and this whole year has not been showing me any of it. tonight is a concert at te. should be fun...right.

that's my story and i'm fuckin sticking to it cause right now, i feel like fuck it all....

5/2/00- (started this reflection early morning...) you know, maybe i should be superstitious...i find that everytime i don't shave, i have the worst days of my life. something happens to a loved one...i fight with my friends...somedays i don't know what to do with myself. this week has turned into one of the worst weeks i've had since about march.

friday night was the jaycees magic show, which was great cause i get $30 to bring lights up and down. then julian and i went to see rane at the equator, which is always fun because they're one of my favorite bands musically and lyrically. and its not just because they were swhs grads, but because their sound is different from most bands out there. i didn't know what it was before, but julian figured it out for me...they have a percussive section that most bands don't have. travis is on the drum set, but kurt plays all these other percussive instruments like djembes, marimbas, xylophones, congos, chimes, and some other stuff i don't know...but it all adds to a sound that cannot truly be defined as any genre of music-best i can call it is percussive trip new age rock...so the concert was fun and the band was on the news. then we left at 830 the next morning for my cousins bar mitzvah and stay overnight in framingham. the service was ok and then we left for the sheraton in newton for a mcgill open house which was 30min of speakers and 1 1/2 hours of stupid questions like, how come canada doesnt have thanksgiving? we then went back to the hotel, sat around, slept til 730, went downstairs to the reception which was at the hotel. and then everyone was congratulating me for getting into mcgill and i kinda didn't really know what to do cause i wasn't happy all weekend. the reception was nice-can't say i had the most fun cause it's hard when there's really no one there you know. so i talked to my cousins' cousin for most of the night-she's a junior- because we had passover at my cousins' last year and i had seen her on one or two occasions before. but that was about it. the next day we went to my cousins' house for brunch and again, i didn't know who to talk to and i still wasn't really happy. then left for canton, ma where we were gonna see my dad's cousins who move a lot. he's vp of a pharmaceutical company and 2 of their 3 sons went to yale and 2 are doctors and the youngest is on a 6 year phd program instead of 8 years. first though we stopped in natick, where i lived the first 6 mos. of my life-i was actually born in boston at brigham women's hospital, so...but they showed me the condo complex we lived in... my cousin's house was huge. so we stayed there a while and had drinks and brownies, etc. then left, came home and had some pizza and that was my weekend.

basically though, i wasn't happy all weekend. this weekend was prom weekend and from the very beginning, i wasn't expecting to get invited. granted, i had to go to the bar mitzvah, that was unavoidable, but i didn't on prom night so i would have atleast gone to the prom, if not the afterprom festivities. i wrote this 22 page journal about 2 months ago about how my social life sucks. one of the things i wrote about was the prom and how i realized that all the seniors were going except for a few people whom i basically never talk to. and so i started to feel worse. then i started going out with carrie, which was one of the best things that happened to my life in general this entire year (with the exception of my admittance to mcgill).

(continued after 2 hrs of class and a pool game with nikhil-i lost by 1) well now, i'm watching bet and some guy's going around a college campus saying what's bougie. and he just keeps saying bougie like it's the only word in his vocab. maybe it is...anyways....

as i was saying...this year has pretty much completely sucked. i haven't been happy, and to top it off, a month and a half before graduation, i dunno who my friends are and who i can trust. it's the scariest feeling in my life. i don't know who to believe anymore and i wrap myself in this shroud i call mcgill because nothing else seems to be going right anymore. the past 7 weeks have been great but i've been seeing and learning stuff that's bringing it all back into a downward spiral and i just dont know what to do anymore. i'm angry, i'm upset, i'm in disbelief and i don't know what to do anymore. i have this surgence of feelings that runs through my mind and as this year is coming to a close, this devolution with the people whom i've called friends for so long, seems to increase. i don't know what to say anymore. i'd like to fix it all. i'm up for forgiving, but i'm not sure how i can forget stuff that's happened and if life moves forward, it will definitely do so with scars. that whole 22 page journal that changed for the best 7 weeks ago only seems to be heading deeper down then it started out with it...i just don't know what to do. i don't know anything but how to be played as a pawn in the game of life. the world's gotta be against me this year...

Past reflections: