this is me not studying chme like I should. Whoo.

This is Frances being really stupid and playing stupid computer games and surfing the net and updating instead of doing my studying for that chem test Thursday that I'd really, really like to get an A on. Which will not happen unless I study.

Grrrr... I wish this was over. I wish I could just leave school; I don't know what I'd do, exactly, but just getting out of Redondo sounds like paradise right now. I'll miss my friends. I'll miss the people. And it's given me four quite reasonable years, that did involve learning and support and didn't involve too many stupid lonely lunches. But I want out. It's not the concept of obligations to learn and do work. I'm quite happy when I just have chemistry. It's a subject that interests me and there isn't too much in the way of obligations to do stuff; it's your choice whether or not to pass or fail. And again, I enjoy it. RUHS, on the other hand--sometimes it's nothing but a babysitting service. When we're forced to go to rallies. When we're lectured to about the role of "symmetry" and "tradition" that are, apparently, integral parts of the fine ceremony that Redondo puts on every year. At the moment, I don't care about any of it. Not a single bit. Right now, the ceremony's relatively pointless. I know I'm graduating. I know that I'm almost (unless I'm really, really stupid) guaranteed a secure place to go next year. A place where I'll meet people I can really connect with, unless I'm horribly mistaken. A place where there are people--a fair number of them--who are weird in the same way I am. And, hopefully, a few guys who are nice and weird like me. Redondo--well, it's almost getting anticlimactic. If I had the opportunity to leave tomorrow, I'd probably say goodbye to everyone and just leave. I don't know where I'd go. I just know that it's gotten very, very tiresome. At least my teachers don't care too much. It would really suck if they did.

I suppose I'm just feeling at loose ends right now. As well as scared out of my mond about college. Maybe not scared, exactly, but anxious. Worried, not that anything awful will happen, but just that I'll be leaving. The thought of that frightens me. I want to leave high school, but the thought of going out and living on my own, away from all the guides--or many of them--that help determine my life. It's feeling like I'm floating--a "raiz en las tinieblas", or "root in the swamps", as Neruda wrote. I don't even have a present crisis, just this crazy feeling of uncertainty. I guess that's what scares me most of all. This is completely unknown. Switching schools before this was just transferring between similar, predictable institutions. This is new. This will be different from the schools that have come before it. I know it will work out, I just don't feel it right now.

And, of course, there's the aspect of leaving family and friends behind. I'm so glad I'll be close. And at a good place. I didn't want to go to UCLA. Or, really, to any other UC. Mudd will work, I think. But I'll miss everyone. Especially my friends. And my family. And my church.

And I still have that speech to write. And I don't feel like I know much of anything right now. Not where I am. Not where I'm going. And maybe, sort of, where I've been. Meh.