Secret Sin

Well, I'm back from my hiatus! It's been a nerve-wracking few months, but it's over now! Now, all there is to do is wait.
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It's a new year again, and I'll be making some resolutions of my own this year, as I'm sure you all will be doing. Or you might not be bothering with that. I don't think I ever wrote a list of resolutions and seriously committed to them, so I'm going to change that this year. I hope. (And yes, updating this blog at least once per month is on my list!)
There's one item on that forming list that I'm going to take the most seriously, and it has to do with my secret sin.
We've all got a secret sin. Some people's secret sins are worse than others, and other people's secret sins aren't all that secret. Secret sins don't have to be secret, after all.

(Irises in eyes? HOLY CRAP HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE)

"SECRET SIN" JUST SOUNDS COOL, OKAY.
In any case, my secret sin is lying. Lying is a bad secret sin to have since it is THE gateway drug to other sins, and I've noticed that my lying problem has gotten much worse. It's gotten so bad that I find myself lying for no reason at all!

This is scary! So I resolve to never tell a lie again, even if I feel like I need to. Somehow, I will prevail!
When did this habit of lying start anyway? I've read that you start lying when you're a baby, but I can't remember that far back, so I can't write about that! The first lie I remember telling was in second grade...

*flashback mode*

I sat in my seat and shuffled uncomfortably. I stared at the worksheet on my desk. Suddenly, I had the distinct urge to pee.
What were we supposed to do again? I hadn't been paying attention to Mr. Norman when he told us the instructions. It wasn't my fault! Okay, maybe it was...I had been daydreaming again of turning into a hummingbird after sliding down a slide and watching all of my friends turn into animals, too. But what could I do now? I glanced nervously at Paul's desk, which was to my right. He was doing all the problems on the worksheet. I followed suit, and did a few problems. But I soon turned my gaze toward the ceiling and lost myself in the wonders of my imagination.

[The fantasy sequence is drawn in a crude(r) way (than usual) because it is supposed to represent my second grade imagination through second-grade level drawing.]

I was soon startled out of my reverie when Mr. Norman said, "Time to turn in your worksheets!" He went around to collect it. Noticing that my worksheet was unfinished, he said gruffly, "Put that in your 'Overdues' folder. Looks like you have another overdue assignment to complete during lunch." I sighed and put my paper into my folder in my desk. I was careful not to mess up my desk this time, since I knew Mr. Norman would dump out all of its contents onto the ground and instruct me to clean up the mess and reorganize the mess if the desk was messy. I learned this the hard way.

(No, my second grade teacher did not look like a bearded Teddy Roosevelt. I have no idea why I drew him like that. Eh.)

The urge to pee was stronger when Mr. Norman dismissed us. I walked to the front of the school onto the sidewalk and waited next to the crosswalk, legs crossed to stop my bladder from exploding. I waited for the crossing guard who was also my second grade teacher to reach the sidewalk I was standing on. Just five minutes and I'll be home, I thought. My house was, after all, on the same street,  just on the other side and to the right of my school. I just had to walk along that sidewalk on the other side of the street to get to my house, rolling backpack dragging behind me, like I always did.

Mr. Norman finally reached the sidewalk. He then held up his STOP sign and walked onto the crosswalk, signalling for us to walk across. I walked across when I suddenly felt a wetness between my legs and a release of pressure in my bladder.

I had just peed in my pants.

I pretended nothing was wrong and continued walking home, contemplating what to do about the situation I now found myself in. My mother would kill me! I was too old to pee in my pants!
Suddenly, I had a brilliant idea. I would just cover up the pee stain, and maybe my mom wouldn't notice.
I rang the doorbell, pretending nothing was wrong. My mother answered it and let me in. Turning my back to my mother, I climbed the stairs to my bedroom. Then, suddenly, my mother asked, "Why are your pants wet?"
Crap.

I wasn't a very good liar at the time (I hadn't had practice), but somehow, my mother believed me. "Oh, no, that's awful! When did this happen?"
"Um, at...lunch," I stammered, not expecting her to ask for so much detail.
"How could the teachers let that happen?" asked my mom, mostly to herself. I continued going upstairs, thinking that the whole situation with the wet pants was over.
It wasn't.
The next day, my mom called Childhood Friend's (also known as Otherclassmate) mother, telling her about the situation with the wet pants. CF's mother was angered by this apparent lack of supervision by the teachers. She called Mrs. A, my former first grade teacher who now taught sixth grade, who told her that it couldn't have been a sixth grader who sprayed me with the hose since sixth graders (and all the other upper graders) got out for recess after our recess was over. She supposed it must have been a third grader. My mom told me about this, and I agreed with Mrs. A, hoping that would be the last I heard of the matter. I didn't get my wish.
CF's mom and my mom contacted the third grade teachers, telling them about this horrifying incident with the hose and asking them to do something about this. The teachers asked their students to identify the culprit. No one came clean, obviously, which flustered my mom and CF's mom even more. I was flustered, too, but for different reasons.
Later that week, the teachers hosted an assembly on bullying, and one of the examples they gave was my "incident" with the hose. They left out all names, of course, but I knew they were talking about me, and that made me nervous. What if a mean third grader found out I was the one who tattled about something that didn't even happen?

Nothing of that nature happened (I know, anti-climactic, isn't it?), and soon, everyone forgot about it. Everyone except me and my family. In fifth grade, I had an essay about bullying, and my mom suggested the hose incident that "happened" back in second grade as an example that I could use. I almost told her the truth, but then decided against it.
I'm pretty sure she's forgotten it now, but if the topic arises, I'll tell the truth. After all, honesty is (usually) the best policy.

The Past and the Present

Hello, my faithful followers!
So, winter break ended a long time ago. And now, I am in the second half of my junior year. Sigh. Oh, time, how you move so quickly! After mourning winter break's quick demise and short life, I started thinking about how I felt about winter break before, back in the joyous days of elementary school. I would never willingly go back to my elementary school days, for I like my freedoms and middle/high school friends far too much, but the light workload is quite enticing.
I was a queer child in my elementary school days. I preferred to stay by myself during recess time, hated handball and other sports, and I liked school. I really did! Back in my elementary school days, I never liked winter break (unless we were going on vacations to see relatives. Then, it was okay.) and couldn't wait for it to end.
But now? Now I relish holidays. I'm always so exhausted by the time my seven- (sometimes eight-)hour day is over and usually I just can't wait until the week is over...Well, at least that used to be the case. Nowadays, I've started dreading the end of the week. I think that's because I'm subconsciously worried that there is some deadline I have to meet or some assignment that I have to do because that's been the case recently.

Internship applications are so much FUN! Not.

I also think I had a better work ethic back in elementary school, which is not good. INTERNET, I BLAME THEE.

But really, other than that, nothing much has changed...or has it?

I did start thinking about how I'd changed from elementary school after winter break and I was going to blog about it, too, but well, stuff came in the way. Such as school. School is taking over my life. No, wait--it already has taken over my life. Not that I had much of a life to speak of...

But what really got me to thinking about how I had changed since seventh grade were the student council election speeches. Many people talked about seventh grade and how we all had grown as a class and changed from the timid little scrubs we were back then. Then I started wondering, Have I really changed? Has everyone in my class really changed? Sure, there is the once-timid seventh grader who became one of the leading members of student council, and there is the once-shy girl who has turned into a social butterfly...but then there's the rest of us.

I haven't changed. At least, not very much. I came into my middle/high school a shy, awkward seventh grader, and, at the rate I'm going, I'm coming out as a still shy, still awkward graduate. And, as an added bonus, maybe I'll have even less self-confidence! As a seventh grader, I believed myself to be awesome at math. Well, I got rid of that misconception fairly quickly. 

Recently, I flipped through my fifth grade ABC, All About Me book, and looked at the U page about what made me unique. I mentioned that my favorite subjects, which I found that not many people in my school liked, made me unique. Of course I wrote about science (my love for it has not changed), but I also wrote about...*shudder* MATH.

What I find really hilarious about the whole thing is that now I go to a school where the majority of people are good (read: amazing, genius-status) at math and science...and some of them are far better than I could ever hope to be! So now I know that my love of math and science did not make me unique at all...if anything, it made me more un-unique.

I am kind of starting to like math again...but I think it's too soon to tell if I like calculus, seeing as I've only had one test on it.

I'm definitely smarter than I was in elementary school...it would be pretty depressing if I weren't! Back in elementary school, in fifth grade, we did "About Me" posters, and one of the sections on the poster was "If I could have one wish, what would it be?" Now, most fifth graders would put that game they've always wanted or other selfish desires, and the more altruistic ones wrote wishes such as "World Peace." But not I!

 IF I COULD HAVE ONE WISH, IT WOULD BE...

I wish I had some common sense. :(

An odd wish, is it not? It didn't come out of nowhere, though. I'd always heard that I didn't have any common sense, and having common sense is super important, so, the most logical thing would be to wish for common sense, right? What else was poor fifth grade me supposed to think?

But, as I glance upon my selection for my wish with a more learned eye, I know that I was quite inaccurate in my judgement of what indeed is a great wish to wish if I had just one chance to wish it. How silly of me to wish for some common sense! My mom had laughed when she saw this foolish wish on my poster during Open House night, saying that of course I had common sense! So, I definitely should not have wasted my wish on that. I now know that I should have wished for more common sense, or at least the ability to use said common sense.

Also, when I was younger, I always thought I could laugh at jokes or at people being funny, but actually being funny? No way! Not me! I actually did continue thinking that until...I guess until I started this blog! Thank to the great support of all of you, my wonderful followers, and my own evaluations of my past posts, I realized that I, indeed, could be funny (even if it was in a lame and stupid, as opposed to clever and witty, manner).

My ability to use Paint has also improved with time. But I've always loved Paint, even when I was in fourth grade. In fourth grade, for my report about my "hidden talent," I talked about how pro I was with Paint.

I guess it's okay that I haven't changed all that much. I'm still a totally awesome person with a few flaws, but hey, no one's perfect, right? And who knows what changes the next years will bring? Maybe they'll correct some of my more worrisome flaws...