Breakfast: one nectarine, tea. Brief period of healthy eating destroyed by chocolate given me by buddy. Am wearing new pants, jeans, three holes. Finally have two pairs of jeans! Mom has Soviet outlook on buying clothes, psht. Judged kids’ science projects for a few hours today, and then was bought sushi. Eel is actually pretty good. Miayah is a wasabi warrior — she eats it plain in large globs. Am amazed.

Saw Million Dollar Baby and can recommend it. It’s a movie you should steel yourself for, although it’s mostly happy-making. I think the actress who plays Maggie, Hilary Swank, deserves many, many Oscars or cookies or something.

Second semester of my senior year was supposed to be considerably easier than it is, in fact, turning out to be. I underestimated the iniquity of the IB program. It is pure evil.

A good day, despite failure of Bio test and abrupt falling-through of Michigan plans. I have found faith in the universe to right itself. I finished Life of Pi by Yann Martel, and I think now it’s one of my top five favorite books, along with Catch-22 and East of Eden. It’s simply a beautiful book, brim-ful with truth and character. Also it is the best sell of religion I have ever read or heard. I’m so glad I read it.

My Economics teacher Mr. Blaine and I discussed comparative GDP today. Apparently the United States outstrips the Eurozone (countries that have adopted the euro), but Europe in its entirety beats out the US, 12.4 to 10.9 trillion, respectively. Wikipedia is good for things such as this. I hope for the rest of my life to find solace in idle intellectualism.

God, someone say something, I’m so lonely.

Did you know that January 24 is the most miserable day of the year? Howbout that. My day was okay, but it will get progressively more miserable as I study for the five-chapter Biology test I have tomorrow.

I feel much better now about that sycophantic Time Magazine cover now that I know that Time featured Mussolini on their cover no less than seven times. Woo! Best magazine ever.

Geez, there’s way too much stuff to do for a second-semester senior in IB. I am panicking about many, many seperate things, such as debate and IB CAS hours and this idiot PE by correspondence thing I’m doing. Somehow I am happy. I conclude that happiness has nothing whatsoever to do with what is going on at the time but rather the people you talk to.

Today was a day of science! The Group 4 project for IB was today, which means my group and I got to spend all day designing and implementing an experiment. Ours involved wavelengths, aquarium algae, and photosynthesis, and the accidental frying of cellophane. I like science again! It is fun when they just set you loose with all the equipment. Then I came home and wrote some science fiction, because my writing group is meeting tomorrow and I am a deadbeat only selectively.

Doing World Area Studies homework last night, I discovered Socialist Realism. I especially like Roses for Stalin by Boris Vladimirski. Look at what a nice guy Stalin is! He loves all them Slavic little children! Awww.

Tournament day before yesterday was not fantastic. I broke to finals in Foreign Extemp(oraneous Speaking), but then placed badly (7th). This is ok for a second tournament but still of the suck. I’m going to have to work hard to qualify for TFA State next tournament, at this rate. No one thinks my Winston Churchill grammar joke is funny. Sigh. (”A sentence ending with a preposition is something up with which I will not put!”)

Also trying to do my PE by correspondence stuff today. It’s pretty useless. I have learned nothing except that lordosis is also known as swayback, and the difference between tendons and ligaments. Does that count as real education? The only thing I get excited about nowadays is Economics.

This girl’s photos cheer me up.

I got new hair. It’s scruffy; I like it. I come bearing photos this time: 1, 2, 3. They’re kind of sad because I suck at photographing myself.

It always kind of freaks me out when an eyelash gets in my eye, and then I can’t get it out, and it just disappears into the depths of my eye from which it can never be extricated. I mean, you’d think that the body would have some way of dealing with that. Maybe the rogue eyelashes are being digested and made into desmosomes or something, I don’t know. Nonetheless I fear the eyelashes migrating into my brain.

Not a productive week! I fear LBJ tournament this weekend.

On a whim, read some Ann Coulter today. Why did I do that? Now feel like “amoral sexual degenerate.” I think my favorite thing about Ann Coulter is that she refers to the electric chair as “Old Sparky” without irony.