Flight

Finally! Friday is here. I slacked off this week—well, in nerd terms. I did just enough homework and put in just enough effort to not get into trouble. The rest of the time, I procrastinated—but with a sort of active procrastination, like reading my book club novel and editing my fan videos— as opposed to trash TV or Facebook procrastination.

The main source of this procrastination was probably the fact that my math teacher was absent. Mrs. W, as we shall call her, is pretty much the only reason I come to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She is the sweetest, smartest, and most helpful teacher I've ever had. She puts all her effort into teaching and does it well; she stays late after our tutorial periods to keep her classroom open and help us strugglers. She has these endearing little Canadian sayings (some problems are just bears to solve), and I suspect her laugh is further proof of Canada's awesomeness, because it makes everyone smile, no matter how stressed out the class is. Without Mrs. W, Calculus would be pure torture, and I definitely would have dropped out at the beginning of the year.

Anyhow, this week Mrs. W. was gone, and without the threat of a quiz hanging over me, I barely attempted my math homework, then gave feeble efforts to my other assignments. Instead, I opted to indulge in my hobby, video-making. Which I'm not even very good at.

Elise, the story about the man who realizes that experiencing struggle makes life meaningful had me regretting my lack of effort this week. Mindless fun is good in moderation, but I often use it to try to skip doing the tough bits of junior year. Sometimes I let the pursuit of escapism overtake the important things I actually need to do right now. Whenever I get very stressed out, I instinctively turn to a distracting activity so the real issues doesn't seem so important.

I guess all I can do is promise myself to cut back. I need to face the tougher parts of this year and not look for distractions... this has always been true about me and school, but what with the chaos of being a junior, the stress is the highest it's ever been, and the "flight" part of my fight-or-flight instinct yearns to kick in. I'm saying now, though, that I recognize this, and I really will try to keep focused. There are a lot of things I need to do--and do well--this year.

Alright, time for questions. I quite like these, by the way.

1. What is your favorite word?

Lackadaisical

2. What is your least favorite word?

I can't name one off the top of my head... I know there are some words that I just hate to even think about because of how they sound and look, but I try not to dwell on them. I guess any kind of word that tries to obnoxiously combine two things, like “craisin” or “ginormous”... those are pretty terrible.

3. What turns you on?

Intelligence, sarcastic humor (but not in a mean way), and geekiness.

4. What turns you off?

Arrogance. Also, people who are afraid to try new things. Even food. That bothers me.

5. What sound do you love?

Thunder. There are nice calming sounds that I love too, but thunder is just powerful. Every time I hear it, it's easy to imagine why cavemen and ancient civilizations and such believed that the gods were angry when it thundered. I guess I kind of like that feeling of primal human fear, since it's not something I get to experience very often.

6. What sound do you hate?

Tearing paper.

7. What is your favorite curse word?

I don't swear very much, but the odd “Holy sh--” when something is supremely spectacular, or a muttered “What the f- is the point of this?” (mostly in Chinese class) do nicely on occasion.

8. What profession other than yours would you like to attempt?

Small bookstore owner

9. What profession would you not like to do?

Door-to-door salesman

10. If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?

“Well, you finally made it. We weren't so sure you would, but here you are!”

Difficult to explain, but I guess I wouldn't want heaven, if there is one, to have easy admission. And when I die, I want to have faced enough challenges in my life that it was actually uncertain what was going to happen to me, and I will have made choices so that it's a bit difficult to actually weigh what was bad and what was good. I guess the bottom line is, I want a complex life.

See you next week!

Sofia