aamcnamara

Today is a Good Day. I started exploring the Mandelbrot set for math class: so. cool; our physics demonstration accidentally started to combust during lecture; I finished reading Privilege, Power, and Difference (a book recommended by someone, forget who, on the comments in one of jimhines's posts); started my Classics reading for tomorrow; and this afternoon I get a friend-prospie to show around campus and introduce to people.

I am also practicing boundary-setting, since I shaved my head again recently and people like to pet me when it's this short. I am not, on the whole, against being petted. It feels nice, and physical contact is sometimes quite reassuring. On the other hand, sometimes I don't want to be touched, and I'd really rather that people asked first--even nonverbally--whatever mood I'm in. (Some people have an Understanding with me wherein they can pet my head at any time, but they know who they are.)

Which, I mean, okay, having to set boundaries is kind of a not so great thing, but I am in a very cheerful mood today and actually setting boundaries instead of just subsiding and allowing it to continue = plus.

I saw two bunnies this morning, one of whom kept trying to sidle up innocuously to the other one, who turned (making the sidler leap away as if in slow motion) and glared--it was sort of adorable, but of course in the boundary-setting mode I look at that in a slightly different light. ... Still cute, though. Um.

On the Writer's Block thingy of childhood fears: I was afraid of school buses as a child. Still am under some circumstances. See, I was homeschooled, and school buses (so my thinking ran) try to snatch you and take you away to some terrible place with people who aren't interested in fascinating geeky things, where you just have to do pointless worksheets all day.

I am pretty sure this is a valid fear. School buses are scary.

In the grand tradition of New Years and birthdays, I will wake up tomorrow and feel exactly the same. Then, about three months from now, I will look at myself in a mirror, or just sit like I am here in front of the computer, and I will not be able to imagine myself back in 2008.

Funny old world, innit.

Things that happened to me this year:
- I decided to apply to summer writing workshops for 2008.
- I taught myself (well, with help) how to rewrite stories.
- Odyssey.
- Went to Wiscon and Readercon, both for the first time.
- Helped edit an issue of a webzine. (Hi, Sherwood.)
- Eight short story submissions. Out of eight for, well, all my life until this point.
- Completed a semester of online health class in two weeks.
- Survived my junior year of high school--and got good scores on my AP and IB tests.
- Survived (so far) my senior year of high school.
- Tried, and failed, NaNoWriMo. But I tried, which is the important thing.
- Made new friends (hi, everyone--and everyone who isn't reading this, that goes for you, too).
- Applied to college.
- ... well, this is an achievement, of a sort: watched several seasons of Buffy and almost all of the new Doctor Who.

Goals for 2009:
... you know, if you had asked me on New Year's Eve last year, "Alena, what do you want to do this year?", I would have said, "Oh--get good scores on my IB tests, stuff like that. Apply to college." I could not have predicted any of the things that stand out now in my mind about the year.

So I don't think I'll make resolutions, or goals, or anything like that.

I like a good surprise.