Okay. I have to accomplish the following things before Spring Break:

1)        Take bio midterm

2)     Take Korean midterm

3)      Finish project proposal for stats

4)     Do laundry

5)     Get money for trip

6)     Pack

7)      Figure out airline shit for trip

It is currently 2:41 PM on Thursday. To keep myself from having a breakdown, I am making a list of what I am going to do.

1)        Go the Campus Center and use the ATM to accomplish objective 5 on the above list.

2)     Also at the Campus Center, put money on my OneCard so I can do laundry.

3)      Start one load of laundry and study bio.

4)     At 4 PM, I will go meet my Korean tutor and speak with her in Korean for about half an hour.

5)     After meeting with my Korean tutor, I will put my laundry in the dryers. Then I will review the data I need to look at for stats and email my group members about the project proposal.

6)     At 5:30, I will eat dinner as quickly as possible. I will then continue studying bio until 6:30 PM.

7)      At 6:30 PM, I will take my laundry out of the dryers. I will not fold any of it until it’s time to pack.

8)     At 7 PM, I will depart for the science library, where I will take my bio midterm.

9)     After the bio midterm, I may or may not go to Herrell’s. But I will definitely go back to my room, take a small fanfiction break, and then finish my online stats assignment and study Korean until I get really tired and have to go to sleep. (This will probably be between 10 and 11 PM).

10)   I will not have a breakdown. I will not have a breakdown.

Breathebreathebreathe. I can do this.

1) They say I can be discerned by mere common sense,

But a microbiologist knows not what I am.

If you don’t know I interbreed, then you must be dense.

Just think! Binomial nomenclature be damned!

What am I?

2) Plants use me to great effect

But I make some organisms sterile

And once in a while I help to select

A sympatric change that is virile

What am I?

3) I’m a perfect example of intrinsic isolation

A sterile hybrid loved by cowboys everywhere

Too bad for post-zygotic genetic sequestration

It’s not that I’m too stubborn to find a pretty mare

What am I?

4) I’m a bit like Prozac in that

I don’t necessarily cause depression

But sometimes I get a bad rap

‘Cause I cause heterozygosity regression

You say incest, I say that

Without diseases, I’m not bad!

What am I?

5) How to make two and two equal four

Or when a human’s focus is poor

6) You pattern-loving humans

Have much trouble generating me

Roll dice, shuffle cards, but you men

And women cannot truly _________ be.

Fill in the blank.

7) I am flat, a schizophenic’s face

I cause change with an “a” not an “e”

A common verb vs. noun mistake

On the English section of the SAT

What am I?

8) I occur twice in a week,

Not once in a month,

And once in a year.

What am I?

9) Don’t tell me to think outside the box; I was born in one.

Give me another few lives, perhaps I’ll be born in an alley.

I was worshipped like a god in a civilization baked in sun.

My names range from Munkustrap to Thomas O’Malley.

What am I?

10) I am sexually transmitted, and always fatal.

Come call me a curse, some frolic while they’re able.

What am I?

11) I am light when I’m steady, dense while I flow.

I can destroy rock, but the progress is slow.

What am I?

12) I am the cousin of what awaits all things

The mystery that topples the mightiest being

The bringer of visions that cease with a ring

At the end of each day, to me you come fleeing.

What am I?

ANSWERS

1)     SPECIES

2)     POLYPLOIDY

3)     MULE

4)     INBREEDING

5)     ADD

6)     RANDOM

7)     AFFECT

8)     E

9)     CAT

10) LIFE

11) WATER

12) SLEEP

My good moods have been so rare lately it’s especially nice when they’re around. I think the weather is helping. I can’t particularly explain why sun, warm (compared to the 30’s we’ve been experiencing) temperatures, and singing birds make me feel so much better, but they do.

Also, I am officially back into fanfiction. Yesterday I posted the first chapter of a Sweeney Todd fic that is probably going to top 120,000 words, 100,000 minimum, and I’ve had that idea for over a year. Two of my longtime reviewers wrote particularly laudatory comments that celebrated my return to the world of fanfic. Now maybe I should join some Sweeney Todd LJ communities instead of just using the Pit of Voles.

More good stuff: I canceled TKD until after Spring Break, so I won’t need to deal with the condescending 3^rd-degree robot until I’ve had my Tae Kwon Do confidence reinstated after visiting Yong-In over break. A.C.E. is going well too. We need more people, so we’re postering, and one of our members (I seem to talk about this person a lot, so I’ll give her a code name—I think I’ll call her English Teatime) made some fantastic posters. And Emily Nagoski, Smith’s wellness education director and a generally fucking awesome individual, agreed to be A.C.E.’s faculty advisor. A.C.E. is also helping SASA (Students Against Sexual Assault) with an event called Take Back the Night, which consists of a nighttime march to prove that women are no longer afraid to be out at night. Very cool, very empowering, very Smith. I ate brunch with SASA this morning to talk a little about the event. They’re all quite nice girls.

Despite the fact that I have a considerable amount of homework this weekend, I hung out with English Teatime last night. (Before you scowl at me, I got a lot of studying for my bio midterm done yesterday, too.) We went to Herrell’s and hung out in both our rooms. She’s the one who is going through a romantic clusterfuck of her own; I mentioned her in an earlier entry. She’s the one who I claimed to be “in love with in a strange way.” The description “it’s a sort of “I feel like we’re intellectually and emotionally compatible, and I want us to be together because I could give you what you need instead of putting you through all the shit everyone else is putting you through.” Also she has some of the exact same mental/emotional issues I do. Sometimes talking to her is like looking in a mirror, or a photograph of me in high school,” is still true, but I don’t know if calling it being in love is the best description of my feelings. I just feel like I could help her feel better more effectively as a girlfriend than a friend. English Teatime is really anti-touch except in certain situations, usually that she’s in love with you, so sometimes when I’m trying to comfort her about something, I feel frustrated as hell because a hug is only going to make her feel worse, but that’s what I instinctively do to comfort people. So last night when she was on the phone with her brother to complain about how one of her good friends is acting like a douche, I went and sat next to her, hoping that having me close but not mauling her would help her feel better. I did nuzzle her shoulder in a catlike way, and she didn’t seem to mind that. And then later, when I was leaving her room, she hugged me. Does that mean she’s in love with me? Doubtful. Or But I am hoping she’s starting to like minimal comfort-affection from me, which I think is a good thing for us both, since I’ve been a pretty useless shrink for her lately.

And I had fun with a sexuality radar chart this morning. I can't figure out how the hell to get an image onto an LJ entry, so you'll all just have to look at it on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31387663&id=1146151332

Whee. Somebody on AVEN created this, so I figured I’d give it a shot. My primary romantic attraction doesn’t usually involve wanting to be in a romantic relationship—it’s more like “I value your existence more than my own, please approve of me, spend a little time with me and don’t hurt my feelings”—but I’d still call it falling in love. I actually included the purple for “other” genders almost solely because I seem to feel differently about tranny boys than I do about biomales. I have no idea why this is. But yeah…I really have very little use for men. (I need to work on that.)

Oh, and I’ll be twenty in less than two months. Twenty. That sounds so much older than nineteen!

Okay, I really should work on my statistics problem set.

I’ve figured out one way to tell when my brain is fucking with me. When I’m in a bad place emotionally, I react even more strongly than usual to little things. For instance, today I spent an hour working on a Korean worksheet with a tutor, and then when I went back to look over it later, I couldn’t find it. I started flat-out crying because I’ve already handed in two Korean assignments late (because I didn’t know about them) and I don’t want the professor to start thinking I’m a lazyass or incompetent or something. (Turns out the damn worksheet was in my folder, stuck to something else, and I had to dump out the contents to find the stupid thing.) But seriously, the littlest things have been reducing me to tears the past two days.

I want to go to Tae Kwon Do tonight, but I don’t want to lead. I need to be in a class full of black belts with Master Yu commanding us to run until our lungs give out, and that would make me feel better. Instructing all the time is hard. Sometimes I want to just be responsible for myself (this is why the third-degree black belt doesn’t want to run the club). I’m crying right now because I miss Yong-In Martial Arts so much. I wish it were still last summer and I was working in the library and Tae Kwon Do-ing my ass off. Because last summer, I was really happy. Ugh. Well, I don’t care if all my students collapse, I’m going to work myself until my brain is pickled in endorphins tonight. Tae Kwon Do solves everything.

If my pillow could speak, I have a feeling I know what it would say. First of all, it would probably angrily shout the following at me: “Stop drowning me in your salty water, you emo bitch! Or take a higher dose of valerian so you fall asleep before crying all over me and bleaching me with your acne medicine!” It would probably also snark at me for kissing it when I’m lonely. And right now, it would tell me to get out of bed already; it’s one PM and I’ve already dressed and eaten brunch.

Ugh. I was so happy last night, because I wanted this day off from class so badly. And then…well, a few things led to that change of mood. One of my very close friends (who has an LJ but will never see this) is currently abroad for the whole year. I was madly in love with her all last year and repressed it freakishly well. I’m pretty sure I still love her. She refused to give me her LJ name, claiming she only let real-life friends from her fandom friend her. I thought that made sense until I found out (i.e., she told me) she doesn’t use her LJ for fandom. So I started getting suspicious that maybe there was something on her LJ that she didn’t want me to see, probably a complaint about this stupid friend from school (i.e., me) who IM’d her every night and was being an utter pain in the ass. So, because I am a creepy stalker, I found her account. I read a couple of her journal entries and they were all about stuff she told me in our IM conversations. Then last night I saw an entry on how she went into anaphylactic shock while en route to a Mardi Gras celebration and still hadn’t figured out which of her allergies set it off and why. I was really concerned about her, so IM’d her and asked if she’d been up late celebrating Mardi Gras. She said no, and she didn’t want to talk about it, and she didn’t feel like talking at all. I REALLY wanted to say “Look, I know you had an allergic reaction, I’m just worried and want to hear it from you that you’re OK.” But I worried she’d be really upset I looked at her LJ. And I was disgusted with myself for looking at her journal, not just once, but several times. I just want to know what’s going on with her. Most of the time when I IM her she just says she doesn’t want to talk. She claims she likes to talk to me, but I worry that I’m just being a pain and she feels sorry for me. I’ve always felt like I’m not good enough for her (i.e., not good enough to be her friend, let alone anything else). I wish the HELL I could talk to her face-to-face, because whenever I ask her point-blank questions on AIM, she weasels out of them, and I’d much rather talk with her in person.

And there’s this whole fucking debacle with another friend. This friend is in the middle of the biggest romantic clusterfuck I’ve ever seen, poor thing. And I’m in love with her too, in a really strange way; it’s a sort of “I feel like we’re intellectually and emotionally compatible, and I want us to be together because I could give you what you need instead of putting you through all the shit everyone else is putting you through.” Also she has some of the exact same mental/emotional issues I do. Sometimes talking to her is like looking in a mirror, or a photograph of me in high school. But of course I will adhere to my policy of keeping my love for somebody a secret from them until the heat death of the universe. Because I have no desire to subject my friends to the annoyance of somebody who they see as firmly in the dreaded FRIEND ZONE loving them.

If my high school self could read this, she would kick my ass. She would be ashamed of what an utter sap I am. God, I miss being aromantic so much. I can tell myself all I want that I have plenty of years to find somebody who loves me, but is all the shit that will precede that worth it? No. Abso-fucking-lutely not.

I need to get out of bed.

Because I had so much fun making my “What would my name be if I were trans?” entry, I decided to make another name entry. (I love names!!!)

Nicknames I have answered to:

-Meliss (my dad is usually the one who calls me this, but others have too)

-Lissy/Lissi/Lissie (nobody could ever agree with the spelling; it was my grandma’s nickname for me, and some of my friends called me that in middle school)

-Missa (another high school nickname)

-Mel (for about one day, when a friend in my high school who had been incorporated into the “family” of high school friends as my niece and tried to call me Aunt Mel)

-M-Lissa (Kent calls me this)

-112, pronounced One-Twelve (after the scar on my knee, which some of my Science Olympiad friends measured and found to be a 112-degree angle)

-Saturn Lady/Saturn (after I, as a 3^rd-grader, helped a group of 4^th-graders with a report on Saturn because I knew a shit load about Saturn; I’d done a report on Saturn, as in 3^rd grade I did weekly reports instead of spelling)

-Antigone (yay junior year English)

Pennames I have used and/or considered:

-Libby Samson (from when I was quite little, about 11 or 12; I decided that would be my name if I ever went undercover as a spy, or the name I would tell strangers)

-Cara Maran (a penname I thought of in middle school for the purpose of using publishing first novels that might suck)

-Ravenwing (used for high school submissions to stuff that was supposed to be anonymous)

-Pobrecita (used for high school submissions to stuff that was supposed to be anonymous)

-Shedemei (my current ff.net penname, and a name I gave to an AVENite who may use some of the personal experience stories I wrote and gave her for her nonfiction novel about asexuality)

-Jagi Yap (Jagi is a South Asian name, Indian I think but I’m not sure; Yap is a Chinese surname. Jagi Yap would be a pretty reasonable name for somebody who was born in, say, Singapore. And if you pronounce it the Asian way, surname first, it sounds kind of like “yahp chagee,” the Korean word for “side-kick.”)

Screennames I have used:

-MCMWhizKid (my first AOL screenname…awww)

-TigersEye428 (most commonly used email address)

-IAmShego (my first Kim Possible forum name and my first ff.net penname…hey, I was 12!)

-Sondok (a troll-ish account I used to snark at people I hated on the Kim Possible forums)

-Tego (some Kim Possible boards)

-Gothic Tiger (my second ff.net penname)

-Sulfur (an ff.net penname I used for all the femmeslash I wrote during my KP days)

-darkmuzik (adultswim.com)

-blueribbonblackbelt (NeoPets…I think)

-Shedemei (current ff.net penname)

-biologistblackbelt (YouTube)

-you*hear*but*do*you*listen (AVEN screenname)

-sophronia_chaos (LJ screenname…duh!)

Fictional characters who I was in my head as a child/young adult:

-Moppet (I made my preschool teacher address me as Moppet)

-Kelsey the Good Hyena (I always said if she were evil, her name would be Killsey—wow I was a weird kid!)

-Megara (from Hercules)

-Galactic Commander/GC (interestingly, this one also coincided with a Cats obsession, but in my head I was still GC and my cat Machaela, who I called Kitten Cadet, was involved with the cats from Cats…I was a fucked-up kid…)

-Mira Nova (sort of; I imagined we were best friends)

-Shego (don’t judge me!)

Nicknames from AP Spanish:

-AP-olé

-Trenzas (“Braids”)

-Cinturón Negro (“Black Belt”)

-Nombre Largo (“Long Name”)

-Czech (when I wore my sweatshirt from Prague)

-Camisa Amarilla (“Yellow Shirt”—but it was light green, dammit)

Other names:

-Watch-light Sister (my official name in “Sisily,” the country my sister and I created in the backyard—we had a constitution and a national anthem)

-Tiger’s Eye (my common name in “Sisily”)

-Raushanara of the Decca (the name of my “character” when I dressed up as a gypsy one Halloween)

-Malicia (name of a self-insert character in one novel I planned in middle school)

-Melisande (name of a self-insert character in a PotO humor fic that I wrote with a friend, never finished, and never really planned to put on ff.net)

-Rosalind (DnD character name)

-Adella (DnD character name; Rosalind’s alias)

-Leoran (DnD character name; Rosalind’s birth name, which she changed after running away from home)

-Ismene (name of my next DnD character)

I LIKE NAMES FAR TOO MUCH!!! >.< It’s a wonder I don’t have identity issues…oh, wait…

I’m 100% cisgendered, so I’m not sure why I’m thinking about this. Maybe because I like names, or in case I ever write a male version of myself into a story. Because I have the mind of a scientist, I seem to be thinking of possible names in categories. (Obviously I’m only thinking of names that I like.)

Names that are similar to mine/also start with M

-Malcolm (yeah, like Mal Reynolds…but I think the name sounds distinguished)

-Melo (nickname for Guglielmo; also a family name, but the real Melo was a douchebag, so I’ll keep the name up here)

-Matthew (I know it’s common, but I like it)

-Magnus (a name used in Matilda, which was my favorite book for a while)

-Mendel (because I’m a genetics geek)

-Montgomery (because it just sounds awesome)

-Mark (because I’m somewhat of a RENThead)

-Mordecai (yay old-fashioned names)

Family names/Italian names

-Anthony/Antonio (if it weren’t taken by my little brother already!)

-Giacinto (my great-grandpa…why the hell did he change his name to Charles Lewis!?!?)

-Enzo (shortened form of “Vincenzo” and a model of Ferrari)

-Gianni (Italian version of “John” and the reason why there are Joes and Johns in my family)

-Guido (yes, from Cars, don’t judge me)

-Marco (I just like it)

Georgian and Victorian names

-Wesley

-Zachariah

-Zebulon (it’s a real freaking name, I promise, look it up)

-Levi

-Balthazar

-Asher

-Oliver

-Carlisle (say “Twilight” and I’ll slap you)

-Micah

-Alonzo (yeah, from the musical Cats)

Random names I just like

-Devin

-Axel                                                                    

-Daniel

-Benjamin (this is not because I’m a Sweeney Todd fan!)

-Erik

-Kyle

-Tyler (what if I changed my name to Tyler House? haha)

-Carmine

-Sawyer

Whoa, I put way more thought into that than I should have. *looks over list* Hm…I like having an alliterative name, and I think it’d be really cool to have a fully Italian name, so I’d probably be Marco Maranto if I were trans. And I like “Sawyer” for a middle name. Or maybe “Zebulon” just to get a reaction out of people, or “Carmine” to preserve the initials MCM. Yeah. Marco Carmine Maranto. Cool name.

1)     Homophobia. Why is it anyone’s business what consenting adults do behind closed bedroom doors? Is it because people fear what they don’t understand? Or because people think that gay marriage will open the floodgates for marriages based on pedophilia, necrophilia, or zoophilia (because children, corpses, and animals can definitely legally sign marriage certificates)? Oh no, wait, gay marriage killed the dinosaurs. Forgot about that. Oh, and this military Don’t Ask Don’t Tell bullshit. Because that’s all it is: bullshit.

2)     People who disapprove of those who give names to their inanimate possessions. My French horn is Snakey Tornado, my mouthpiece is Sylvia, my laptop is Erik, my iPod is Tarja, my iHome is Nightcrawler, and my car is Cordula. People get attached to inanimate objects, especially musical instruments. It’s just a name for a specific thing belonging to a specific person. Yeah, it’s a little weird. Get over it.

3)     Classes in which only two or three exams determine the final grade. How in the hell are three exams supposed to accurately reflect a student’s knowledge of the entire semester’s worth of material? Isn’t the point of grades to reflect the student’s knowledge?

4)     Hostess gifts. Somebody invites you over to their home to be a part of a party or other social gathering, and yes, it was nice of them, but why does one need to give the host/ess a bottle of wine or a tin of cookies instead of a verbal thank-you? You don’t have to send thank-you notes for presents if you thanked the person verbally, right? And if you bring food or wine, might that not say “Yeah, I came here, but I think your cooking/choice of beverage sucks so I brought my own?” And most of all...maybe it's nice to bring a hostess gift, but what is the big damn deal if you don't?

5)     People who de-claw their cats. It’s the physical equivalent to removing a person’s knuckles. Not just the fingernails, the knuckles. Just trim Kitty’s claws once in a while if you don’t want him or her scratching up the furniture! Or buy one of those fancy cat-scratchers that files the claws down for you! Don’t remove Kitty’s knuckles for the sake of your own laziness!

6)     People who think you can get a black belt in any martial art and then quit. That is so profoundly incongruous with the philosophy of martial arts that I don’t know where to start. The black belt opens up an entire new world of martial arts, and some studios really believe that training truly starts at black belt. Also, it’s not a sport; it’s a way of life. You don’t quit. Ever.

7)     Twihards. Edward Cullen is an emotionally abusive emo kid, Bella is a spineless wimp, Jacob is an annoying meathead, and Stephenie Meyer can’t write for shit. What is all the fuss about?

Here’s a wild

There’s a wild

And another little wild

Female wild

Flying wild

Wild wild

Type

Wild wild

FlyNap

Wild

Thorax

Leg

Antenna

Wild

Wild wild

Red-eyed

Wild

Wild wild

Type

I was once a larva

I lived in the food

Bio students tried to draw me

And they all were rude

I was only five days old

And pupariated

When I came out of my shell

The students were elated

Did you ever see a wild

Kiss a wild

On the wild

Wild’s wild

Looks like wild

Wild wild

Type

Are those wings vestigial?

Do those eyes look white?

Does it like the lemon juice?

Does it have good sight?

Now the FlyNap’s kicking in

Here comes the KimWipe

Time for me to go to sleep

For I’m the wild type

These were my New Year’s Resolutions as of January 2, 2010:

1) use meta-thought-analysis before reacting to triggers

2) update lists of triggers and coping mechanisms

3) go on at least one date with a sweet lesbian Smithie (but be honest!)

4) finish rough draft of first novel

5) stop thinking of nakedness as sexual

6) get (name) to stop being disrespectful

7) knit a hat

8) quit fanfiction

I can’t believe the plausibility of some of these has gone down the tubes so fast. Number one and number two are still plausible, as are four, five and seven. I was already on my way to number 8 on New Year’s Eve, as I’d decided to quit fanfiction in order to focus on my novel, and I had already stopped writing fanfiction. I just needed to stop reading it. However, my psychiatrist believes that fanfiction is therapeutic for me. And she’s completely right. So maybe my novel will progress a little more slowly, but fanfiction is indeed a coping mechanism. (So hey, I made some progress toward number 1 by ditching number 8). As for number 6, the name I had written there was that of the girl in my Tae Kwon Do club who I feared was planning a coup. Since she never meant to be disrespectful (and didn’t think she was acting in such a way), number 6 is now a moot point. Five I think is still plausible, but it might be something that happens over time. (I’m really uncomfortable with nakedness—other people’s as well as my own—because I see it as a sexual thing. I figure this is just a bad idea.) Number 3 has some background to it. Those of you who read my last journal entry have some idea of my romantic issues right now. The reason I decided to make number 3 a resolution is because our society considers dating a pretty crucial part of romantic relationships, and I’ve never been on a date with somebody I’ve actually wanted to be out with, so if I had to deal with the awful experience of a pity date with someone who ended up being a creeper, it’d be nice to have the experience of a date with someone I actually like. Also, I want to see how I as a weird/socially awkward homoromantic react to an actual date, or at least have empirical proof that a sexual person can agree to go out with someone who is open about her asexuality (hence the “but be honest”). I also realize that I worded the sentence badly, as anyone who agrees to go out with me (wow, does that sound utterly ridiculous) isn’t necessarily a lesbian, but bi or pan. So I should have said “gynosexual” or “gynoromantic,” which mean “sexually attracted to women” and “romantically attracted to women,” respectively. (Why doesn’t our society use words like that instead of ones that imply that gender and sexual orientation are related?)

Oh, and as for not quitting fanfiction, I wrote this during my stats class today:

“Sweeney Todd had never stepped foot in London. It was extraordinarily queer and almost disquieting to have memories of a place he had never been. For while Benjamin Barker had lived in London all his life, Sweeney Todd had spent his nascent years in Hell, a sweltering pit of scorching sun and human brutality. After the cruel brightness of Australia, the gray skies of London might have seemed kind, but to Sweeney it looked as if Benjamin’s pleasant recollection of London had been painted over with a concoction of filth and cheap whitewash.”

Those were first lines of a fic that’s going probably going to top 120,000 words and be titled “A Rose by Any Other Name” or maybe just “By Any Other Name.”

Once when I was in high school—my junior year—I told my mom I thought I had seasonal affective disorder, because I wasn’t seeing the sun much, and I was having a ton of trouble sleeping. She told me if I had SAD, I’d be depressed, and I wondered why she hadn’t noticed that I was feeling crappy enough to score a 20 on the Beck depression inventory (15 and over is severe depression). But now I’m starting to wonder if people think SAD exists because winter just sucks. Seriously, with sudden dying-away of Christmas merriment and the crappy weather, no wonder people are depressed. So I’m wondering if I’m so torn up over this Tae Kwon Do situation because winter is bringing me down.

So the girl I thought was a bitch turned out to not be a bitch, and though I had plenty of reasons to believe she was after my club, it was a giant misunderstanding on my part. Also, somehow I missed the fact that my asking the other black belts to lead lessons of their choices (giving the highest-ranked girl who I thought was after my club the most opportunity, because I thought it might placate her) wasn’t enough for the other black belts. They went behind my back to ask the 3^rd-degree (who is turning out to be really nice, oddly) if she could teach them black belt stuff. So…I feel guilty for not giving the black belts what they needed, hurt that they went behind my back, idiotic for misinterpreting the 3^rd-degree’s intentions, and like the shittiest Tae Kwon Do instructor in history, koryo to present-day, Dae Han Min Gook* to America. Maybe I’m too young or just too incompetent to run my own club. But I was really fucking trying. But what does trying matter when you fuck up this badly? I’m worried the situation is fubar. Screwing up isn’t nearly as much of a big deal if the situation is salvageable. But…on so many levels, I am worried about what’s going to happen next. Tomorrow I have a meeting scheduled with the other black belts. They will probably criticize the hell out of me until I start crying in front of them. Not looking forward to that.

Oh, and way to go, LiveJournal, deleting the entire second half of this entry! I was ranting about Valentine's Day and how Pepto-Dismal pink hearts are already cropping up everywhere and how Valentine's Day is too commercialized, doesn't celebrate any kind of love but romantic love, and has lost its original purpose. And I'm too pissed off to rewrite the entire thing, but basically I am dreading Valentine's Day this year. Because although I've recently figured out I'm homoromantic, I haven't become one of those people who feels like they have to validate themselves by being in a relationship...but Valentine's Day is still going to suck. Why? Because I am going to see all the happy couples frolicking and cavorting and, despite the fact that I have previously referred to Valentine's Day as "Commercialized Pheromone Hyperactivity Day" and "the day in February when sex is exchanged for chocolate," I'm going to feel like the universe is laughing at me, saying "Eat your heart out--this will never be you!" More like Singles Awareness Day. No, this has nothing to do with the fact that eharmony rejected me (don't ask--I only tried it for an AVEN poll); it has to do with the astronomical odds of me ever being in a functional romantic relationship. Because romantically, I seem to be a Decent Human Being Repellant. The only people who have ever been interested in me are creepers and one pedophile. So I'm a romance-repelling freak, and, oh yeah, nobody wants to go out with an asexual. But the thing that pisses me off the most is that I CARE that I'm a romance-repelling freak. It's not like I yearn for what society calls a dating relationship, with me trying to hide who I am to impress the other person and going out to fancy restaurants and groping each other in movie theaters. I have plenty of awesome friends, and I love them all, and there's no logical reason why I would want somebody to be romantically attracted to me right now. So I am really pissed off and really confused.

Enough of this. I have to go study Korean.

*South Korea

In the Face of Danger

Ambulance screams and distant gunshots might have warned anyone else that a different route should have been taken back to the dorm. But to Daron, it was merely one of the many meandering paths he could have taken from the little internet coffee shop where he spent so many Friday afternoons. The border between the city and the campus of Daron’s university could be crossed almost without warning, and many students diffused into the neon and nightlife as soon as the weekend hit. Daron was one of them, but unlike so many of his peers, he did not run with a group. His handful of friends had quickly discovered his taste for roundabout walks that often skirted or cut through the seediest neighborhoods. They felt vulnerable ambling through the worst parts of town, especially in the shady and shifting twilight; Daron always felt daring, unafraid, bad-ass.

“Damn cowards,” Daron muttered to himself, scuffing his foot against the back bumper of a tin-pot Toyota as he imagined his so-called friends gulping down beers in a dim, smoky bar. His foot made a hollow clunk against the metal; the material inside the bumper had likely been crushed in an accident, leaving the outer covering unscathed. “Maybe if they’d gone to Myer High…” A slow, crooked, mirthless smile spread over his narrow face as he shook his shaggy brown bangs away from his deep-set, pitch-dark eyes. “Yeah, if they’d gone to Myer, they wouldn’t be scared of a few dark alleys.”

The streets began to blur into reminiscence as Daron recalled countless wide eyes, endless variations of the startled sentence: “You went there for high school? Were you there during the shooting?” His smirk widened. He never tired of breezily querying, “So where’d you go to high school? I went to Myer—you know, that school in Chicago.” People rarely replied to that remark with the names of their own high schools. Rather there were pleas to hear eyewitness accounts of one of the worst high school shootings in recent history. Daron had countless versions of his story, and all of them mentioned that he had been the only student in room 30A to survive. As for the reason behind that survival…well, Daron had had to invent a few things, considering he did not know himself.

One of Daron’s earbuds (blasting Nine Inch Nails) fell out, and a deep, throaty dog’s bark jolted him from his reverie. He surveyed the scene, sliding a hand into the pocket of his faded denim jacket to switch off his iPod. He slouched in nonchalance, ignoring the nearby screech of tires and the alley’s heavy stench of decay. So what if he didn’t know where he was? No problem. He could find his way back. He swallowed hard, as if to shove a slowly rising panic back into the depths of his stomach. Turning slowly, he scanned the grimy alleys, the graffiti-covered street signs, steam hissing from the grates in the road. A soda can lay half-crumpled in a puddle. Dead-bolted doors with peeling paint stared blankly at him. Nothing was familiar. He was suddenly aware of his heartbeat, throbbing in his ears. His tongue seemed to thicken, coated with the rawness of burgeoning alarm. “Get a grip!” he growled at himself. He hadn’t felt so unsettled since…

Daron startled so violently he nearly tumbled to the concrete as a yellow-furred tomcat burst from a side street, yowling piercingly, a hulking mongrel dog on its heels. Daron’s eyes were drawn to the helpless, scrambling cat like iron filings to a magnet. He heard the cat’s claws grate on the unforgiving ground as it struggled to turn, saw the dog lurch toward its prey, and memories assaulted him in an overpowering rush. Memories of the small black hole of a gun barrel staring at him, the broken bleeding bodies of fallen classmates at his feet, that paralyzing suffocation of utter helplessness and knowing that his life was entirely in another’s hands…

The cat’s frightened wail split the air as the dog pounced, fangs bared. And before Daron even knew what he was doing, he had leapt as well, snatching up the cat, pulling it away from its attacker. Irritated, the dog barked again and again, jumping at Daron and pawing at his legs. He kicked, warding the bully away from its quarry, hollering, “Hey, asshole! Pick on someone your own size!”

Daron’s voice rose in panic-fed anger, and within a few minutes, the former aggressor retreated into one of the alleys. Daron stared after it, chest heaving. The Myer High shooter had walked away from him too, but this time he was not left wondering why his life was spared. The killer had shot everyone in room 30A before training his gun on Daron. Then, with a snicker and a knowing smile, he had turned and left one boy shaking and empty and frightened. Daron still did not know why the shooter had left him alive—as a witness? For no reason?—but this time, he was the victor.

He scratched the cat’s ears, as it was now struggling in his arms. “Hey. Hey, cat. It’s okay now.” Whiskers quivering, the cat sniffed his fingers, eventually deciding that Daron did not pose a threat and relaxing. It rubbed its head against his wrist and forearm, almost as if it knew the favor it had been done. The cat obviously felt relief, and at the sight of such a feeling of security, a stab of jealousy jabbed at Daron.

As the cat’s sandpaper tongue licked his hand, Daron could still feel his heart thudding away against his ribs. A story of this defenseless animal’s rescue would not earn any drop-jawed reactions, and there would be no friends floored by blood-dripping tales and rushing off to tell more even extrapolated versions of the story. It’s only one kitten, someone might say with a shrug. It’s just one life.

But then again, Daron’s had also been “just one life.”

He hitched up the thin, dirty animal in both arms, letting it rest its paws on his left shoulder. “Come on, cat. I think we both need to find a way home now.” He tried one street, feeling an odd rush of relief as he passed the dilapidated Toyota from earlier. The bumper still appeared undamaged, but Daron somehow knew the car had likely been a crash that had left the cushion inside broken. Broken, but appearing to be—pretending to be—in perfect condition. Daron glanced around, taking in the sights and sounds of the gritty barrio that made him feel so fearless to stroll through. Rotting boards were nailed over shattered windows of the nearest buildings, and not a single light shone from inside. A woman’s scream echoed in the thick, polluted air, followed by the low, muffled shouts of men, some frightened, some triumphant. A police siren howled as if in response. A grim, bitter realization laced with self-disgust turned down the corners of his mouth. “Jesus,” he said aloud, “I’ve been an idiot.”

Pretending to be in perfect condition. He knew what that was like.

1)       My advisor is a space cadet

I spent the last week of my winter break being tutored in Korean, working about 15 hours a day on the new language to cram an entire semester into one week, luckily aided by the incredibly friendly and helpful Massey seonsengnim, the only Korean professor at Smith. This is because my advisor neglected to mention when I signed up for Korean 111 that it’s the second half of a year-long class. Then on my first day of class (yesterday), I went to my stats class—Math 190, Into to Statistics—and found out that if you’ve had calculus, you should be taking Math 245 for stats; also, Math 245 is more highly recommended for bio majors than Math 190. Luckily I have a time conflict with Math 245 so I don’t have to deal with the hassle of changing classes, and Math 190 will still fulfill the requirement, but for crying out loud…my advisor took one look at my schedule and went “it looks good.” He missed two things, one crucial, one fortunately less crucial.

2)       Classes this year look pretty awesome

I’m taking Spanish 230, Korean 111, Math 190 and Bio 152. I have Korean right after Spanish, which might get confusing, but I’m good at languages. Despite the “this is gonna take work!!” warning the professor gave us, she was really warning us about class participation. As people who’ve been in Spanish classes with me know, I’m a borderline THATgirl in Spanish. Also I love Spanish poetry, so Spanish 230 should be fun.

Korean 111 should be fun too, as Massey seonsengnim is hilarious and a total sweetheart, and the class is pretty laid-back. I may have just learned the entire semester of 110, but everyone else is rusty, so I feel pretty confident. And I’m going to be a total nerd and say I’m really psyched to learn more about Korean culture.

Math 190 is stats, of which I was wary, but the prof is a psychology geek in disguise—that’s almost a direct quote. If he’s going to make psych applications of the statistics stuff, that should make it easier/more interesting for me.

And Bio 152 is Genetics, Genomics and Evolution; according to the Illinois Science Olympiad results in 2007, I was Illinois’s 7^th most proficient genetics geek. And Professor Katz point-blank told the class that the tests were going to have high content validity! (Not in so many words, though.) I almost fainted. Also, Noah, one of Smith’s trans students who I saw at a presentation that Transcending Gender did once, was sitting next to me. He seems damn smart, and really nice, too. Maybe I’ll talk to him about ACE/Transcending Gender networking.

3)       Orgo managed to fuck me over from afar last night

After orgo (and other factors) landed me in the psych ward last semester, I stopped thinking about orgo and all orgo-related things that could trigger me. This includes the notebook, textbook and clicker that I used for orgo. Unfortunately that means I forgot to turn in my clicker. When I went to pick up a new clicker for Bio 152, I was told that I had a $35 fine for the old clicker. I didn’t have that much on me, so I had to trek to an ATM in Northampton, and as soon as I left the Center for Media Production it started to rain. So I paid the fine, got my new clicker, and forgot to bring the damn clicker to class this morning. Eh, at least I have it now.

4)       Tae Kwon Do Woes

I’ve been thinking about an issue that will come up as soon as Tae Kwon Do starts again. There’s this 3^rd-degree black belt in my Tae Kwon Do club who is, for lack of a better word, a bitch. There are so many problems with her attitude.

A.      She likes to call me out in front of the rest of the class when I do something she doesn’t agree with. Even though I’m able to give her a rational explanation, it’s a tacet agreement between martial arts instructors that you NEVER cut down another instructor or show disagreement between instructors in front of students. 

B.       She loves to make little “WTF are you thinking you incompetent freak of nature” faces almost every time I give a command during stretches.

C.       She makes a lame little noise that sounds like “hah” instead of the eardrum-shattering, opponent-scattering fire-breathing ki-hap that both I and some of the other black belts are damn good at. Eleanor and some of the other beginners are getting good ki-haps too, but some of the shyer ones think that because this black belt doesn’t ki-hap, they don’t have to.

D.      I could go on, but I won’t.

I’ve made blanket “don’t make disrespectful faces” and “KI-HAP, DAMMIT” statements to the class, but she thinks she doesn’t have to listen to me because she’s a degree higher. Why is this girl a problem? Because she’s either got a swollen head from being a third-degree so young or she’s gotten shit during her martial arts career for being small and female, but either way, she’s not going to change her mind about thinking she’s better than me. And I can’t be president of TKD two years in a row. The club members have to elect a new president at the end of this semester, and this girl is going to run, and I’m worried she’ll win. If she becomes president, she’ll likely figure out some way to displace me as primary instructor and take over MY club. I have to figure out a way to keep her from being elected. I’m a little worried she’ll figure out what I’m doing, but then again, if she does figure it out, maybe she’ll leave; I bet she doesn’t think she’s good enough for my little club. But anyway, I suck epically at politics and being wily, and I’m not sure what the hell to do.

The other 2 stories I wanted to post.

 

This Distorted Saccharine Dream

In my junior year, I wrote a poem for honors English called “This Distorted Saccharine Dream.” I wanted to call it “This Distorted Saccharine Nightmare,” but I thought that was a bit over-the-top. The poem was about the rather surreal and completely unpleasant experience of being in a romantic relationship with someone who was interested in having sex with me.

I’ll call him Lance.

The trouble with Lance started before he even expressed interest in me. The two of us were on my school’s Science Olympiad team, in addition to a handful of my female friends. One of them—I’ll call her Hannah—would teasingly ask me, “When are you going to start dating that freshman? You know he likes you; he’s always staring at you!” I disregarded it, thinking Hannah was just trying to get me to react. Then the Science Olympiad had a meet that took place over my birthday. My friends on the team (not including Lance) threw me a party. During the celebration, Hannah crossed a line with her teasing; I don’t even remember what she said, but I remember that it was something sexual that I didn’t understand at first. I was so disgusted when I eventually comprehended the sexual nature of the comment that I flew into a rage. I wrapped my hands around her throat (but didn’t squeeze) and screamed at her to never make a comment like that again. When I saw how frightened she was, I backed off. I felt like a monster. I couldn’t believe what my repulsion had caused me to do to a friend who had just helped throw me a birthday party. I used scissors to cut slashes over my right hipbone to punish myself and showed the cuts to Hannah while I tearfully apologized later. She accepted my apology when she saw how truly sorry I was, but I have never forgiven myself.

It turns out Hannah was right about Lance wanting me. On the day of the competition (my actual birthday), while I was studying for one of my events, Lance asked to talk to me in private. We sat on a staircase away from the rest of the team and he said he loved me. In retrospect, I think he just didn’t have a better way to say he wanted to have sex with me; though we were already friends, he later showed that he had little respect for my boundaries, probably because he was convinced he could “cure” my asexuality. (Right after he confessed to me that he “loved” me, I warned him I was asexual, thinking I’d come up with that word using my knowledge of English prefixes.) I had no interest in him beyond friendship, but his mother had just died of liver cancer and I couldn’t bring myself to turn him away. So I said that, come summer, I would go out with him.

I regretted that decision almost immediately. While the Science Olympiad competition was still going on, Lance suggested we sneak off to make out even though the team was supposed to stay together. I refused. On the ride home, I sat beside him with my head on his shoulder. This gave him an erection, which horrified me; how he could he possibly be turned on by simply being next to me? After all, I was probably projecting “get away because knowing you want me makes me nervous and awkward” signals without even meaning to; I tend to do that. He kept asking if he could kiss me, so finally I let him. He tried to put his tongue in my mouth, but I thought that was incredibly disgusting, so I pulled away. He told me to open my mouth wider the next time we kissed, and I told him I didn’t want that, and I also didn’t want to kiss him again. I literally felt as if I were about to throw up after my first kiss. Ironically, my friends had given me a shirt that said “DON’T kiss me, I’m sixteen (and a black belt)” for my birthday! I remember wishing Lance had taken that seriously.

During the summer, we only went on two dates; both times we went to dinner and then walked on the beach (my hometown was on the shore of a lake). On our first date, I managed to avoid kissing him. Also, I tried to look presentable while at the same time seeming unattractive to him: I dressed very modestly since he had told me I should wear clothes that expose my body more, and I put my long hair in a bun even though he was forever asking me to wear it down. He kissed me twice on our second date; this aroused him, which only served to disgust me more than the kissing. Also, he wouldn’t listen when I told him to keep his tongue out of my mouth. But by far the thing I hated most about this relationship (besides the fact I wasn’t sexually or romantically attracted to him, of course) was that he kept asking me if I was turned on by being near him or kissing him. And he insisted that I couldn’t be asexual, since I let him cuddle with me—I informed him that I cuddled with people who weren’t attracted to me all the time, since I enjoy (chaste) physical closeness.

I broke up with him after our second date. I was so happy to be out of the relationship, I danced (without music) in the middle of my living room. I vowed never to date someone I didn’t want to date again, even if his mother had just died.

Here is the poem I wrote, about a year after that nightmarish birthday:

He offers to bear me to Happily Ever After
and I panic
seeing visions upside-down
and magic portals twisting ‘round

A scene from a saccharine fairy tale
but I’m no damsel
I fail to wear that guise
there is no love in my eyes

I’ve no desire to cause him pain
but still I wish
his words were hallucination
born of my writer’s imagination

Twelve months since the “prince” came
and I wounded him
I wish it could be undone
the sad true yarn un-spun

At least I’m now alone
no mawkish fable here
I have a horse of my own
and I can ride alone

AVEN Epiphany

                One of the time-honored traditions at my college is weekly teatime; once every week, houses have tea and snacks available so the house members can get together to drink, eat, socialize, and geek out. Often our teatimes are themed; sometimes we even get guest speakers. A few weeks into my first semester, our guest speaker was a woman who was on the student health staff. She was there to speak to us about drinking safely. Since I don’t drink, I listened passively for about an hour, and then I left to use the bathroom. I assumed that when I came back, the guest speaker would still be speaking about alcohol. However, she had told us while introducing herself that she had minored in human sexuality, and while I was in the bathroom, someone asked her a question that involved her being in the middle of describing the female orgasm in lurid detail when I came back.

I am a repulsed asexual, which means that the idea of sex disgusts me. What disgusts me most is the idea of me engaging in sexual behavior, but I also find hearing about the explicit, dirty details of sex unpleasant. Incredibly unpleasant. I felt so sickened listening to what the guest speaker was saying that I nearly vomited. I quietly dashed out of the room, wondering what in heaven’s name was wrong with me that I could be so repulsed by hearing about something that everyone else in that room found pleasant and had probably even experienced. It was the unhappiest I had felt since starting college; until then, I’d been generally happy and had felt the dark cloud of my high school depression lifting.

I left the house and walked, on the verge of tears, to my college’s Resource Center for Sexuality and Gender to see if there was any material there on why a healthy and ostensibly hormonally normal young woman would a) not feel sexual attraction and b) still be at the “eww, sex is gross” phase that most twelve-year-olds have already gotten over. The center was locked and I walked, still feeling quite dejected and worried that I was some minor form of abomination, back to my house. Later that night, I decided to look up human asexuality on the resource most available to me at the time, despite the fact that that same resource is commonly used for porn. That’s right—the Internet. I ran the word “asexuality” through Google, despite the fact it had never occurred to me before that I might not be the only person out there who doesn’t feel any sort of biological or psychological compulsion to have sex.

I found the community AVEN, the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network. I had learned during a mandatory brief seminar on sexuality during orientation that asexuality was a legitimate orientation, at least according to the women running said seminar, although they hadn’t bothered to include anything about asexuality in the literature and worksheets they gave us, so I remained unconvinced. AVEN absolved my doubts entirely; I now knew that I was not the only asexual out there. I joined the community immediately and still visit it every day.

Methinks She Doth Protest Too Much

One of the hardest things about being asexual is people not believing you are asexual. Well, at least it’s hard for me, since I am infuriated by people thinking things about me that aren’t true, especially if a) it’s something about my basic character and b) there’s no proof that they are wrong. If it’s a stranger or a casual acquaintance who doesn’t believe I’m asexual, I can deal with that. But one of my first incidences of not being believed (when it came to my asexuality) happened with my mother, and, well, it was a very, very unpleasant experience.

I remember sitting at the kitchen table talking to my mother. I was in seventh grade, or maybe sixth. We were discussing middle school romance; I believe I was complaining about how one of my friends was so boy-crazy and so easily affected by the actions and emotions of her crushes. I was probably expressing concern about doing the same thing myself once I started having crushes; I didn’t want to be swept off my feet. I liked my feet firmly on the ground. My mother was trying to a) reassure me that I’d be less emotional about my love interests when I had them and b) yes, I would have love interests, and soon. I still believed at that point that I would eventually develop a crush, but the concept of being attracted to one of the unhygienic, sex-obsessed males in my grade was utterly foreign to me. True, not all of the boys I knew were unhygienic and sex-obsessed, but I still the idea disgusting. So during the conversation with my mother, who I thought was well aware that I had no romantic interest in boys, I uttered the sentence “When I do start liking boys—shuddering eww—I hope I don’t act as crazy about them as my friend Allie.” Well, I don’t remember the second half of that statement exactly, but I remember saying “shuddering eww,” where “eww” was a sound made to express disgust. And my mother replied:

“When you say things like ‘shuddering ew,’ that makes me think that you have had a crush, and you’re trying to hide it by pretending to be grossed out.”

I was furious and disgusted—well, I was an emotional twelve-year-old. I don’t remember exactly what I said next, but it was to the effect of “that’s not true; I really am grossed out and don’t want to have crushes on boys.” I was acting melodramatic, but I was panicking at the idea that my mother didn’t believe something that I knew with such certainty.

My mother gave me a maddening, superior smile and said (this I remember exactly): “Methinks she doth protest too much.”

I didn’t say anything after that. I couldn’t think of what to say, because the only thing I wanted to do was scream with frustration. Was I overreacting? Probably, but the fact remains that I can’t stand it when people think I’m lying about my lack of sexual attraction. I’m not a liar, and it IS possible to not want sex.

Tragic!

Telling people you are asexual can actually be quite hilarious. One of my favorite asexuality-related stories involves a girl on my Frosh/Soph lacrosse team making a misguided attempt to be ingratiating at a team dinner. The conversation between us went something like this:

Her: So, who do you like?
Me: "Like"? As in, who do I have a crush on?
Her: Yeah!
Me: No one.
Her: Really? There are so many hot boys in your grade!
Me (thinking "Really? Are you sure we go to the same school?"): Well, I don't like boys yet.
Her: You don't like boys yet!? That's so sad! So much of high school is dating!
Me: (struggling not to laugh): ...I thought it was about learning and getting into college. 

            I just found the thought that it was actually tragic that I was uninterested in dating in high school incredibly amusing. Actually, I still do. So talking about asexuality--or just aspects of it, really--can be fun. I'm sure than many people will find it tragic that I don't experience sexual attraction, or that I'll miss out on all the fun of one-night stands and STDs. But the fact is, I'm a reclusive homoromantic who would rather watch grass grow than go on a date (why can't we just sit in my room and talk?) and a repulsed asexual who would rather shave her legs with a rusty cheese grater than have sex. So when people feel sorry that I won't do something they find enjoyable (i.e., make out, grope, have sex, etc.), I think of how I would hate those same things and laugh.

We are the ones nobody wants

We are the ones the demon haunts.

The demon stalks these sterilized hallways

And each of us fears he’ll kill us always.

Kill me slowly, one piece at a time

Torment my thoughts ‘til I can’t even rhyme.

(What rhymes with orange?)

(I’ve always thought “door-hinge.”)

(And nothing rhymes with these silver razorblades, either.)

I am not my demon.

I still want to drink in the sun.

I am not my stunted inspiration,

My shunted culmination,

Affronted exhortation.

Confiscation,

Condemnation,

Confrontation,

Conflagration.

These illnesses cannot be cured,

Can’t be described with just one word.

We fear the raging storm that stirs within.

Electrical wounds that damn us like sin.

Damn me quickly, my soul’s in your hands.

String me up and I might even dance.

(Dance with the devil!)

(With a noose around your neck?)

(It brings out my eyes, darling, and my tongue as well!)

I am not my illness.

I am not this chemical mess.

I am not my reason’s dissipation,

The season’s desperation,

My treason’s devastation.

Deformation,

Desiccation,

Desecration.

Detonation.

Boom boom, ain’t it great to be crazy?

Boom boom, ain’t it great to be crazy?

(overlapping)

This is the song that doesn’t end

Giddy and foolish all day through!

And it goes on and on my friend

Boom boom, ain’t it great to be crazy?

(overlapping)

Rain, rain, go away

Some people started singing it

Boom boom, ain’t it great to be crazy?

Come again another day

Not knowing what it was

Boom boom, ain’t it great to be crazy?

Little crazies want to play

And they’ll just keep singing it

Giddy and foolish all day long!

Rain, rain, go to Spain

Forever just because

Boom boom, ain’t it great to be crazy?

Never show your face again!

This is the song that doesn’t end

Boom boom, ain’t it great to be crazy?

Rain, rain, go away

Some people started singing it

Boom boom, ain’t it great to be crazy?

Come again another day

(tempos speed up until songs become jumbled and incomprehensible)

[hysterical laughter]

I am not my madness.

I am not my diagnosis.

I am not my useless exclamations,

My fruitless expectations,

My foolish escalations.

(singing becomes more raw)

Exploration,

Explanation,

Expiration,

Exhortation,

(screaming)

I am not

My

Depression.