No, it's not a book review. It's just that I suddenly realised how much I've caused some people to learn while losing so much myself. Ha. It's like holding a double-edged knife. Well... Here is what I have:

1) I don't really care what people think anymore, except for, say... Tsuyomi, YJ, Cesario, myself and Tien. Yes, Tien. You may wonder why but, under it all, I consider her a friend. She is truly a responsible project partner and a great person to be working with. Thank you.
2) I've discovered that no matter how I hate a person, there is always something I can thank them for. So thank you, world, for helping me discard that youthful idealism which has disappointed me once too often.
3) It's probably wiser to be insensitive than sensitive because then nothing would hurt me. So yes, thank you once again, world.
4) You know how many people have seen the real me? Close to none. There's always a part of me I shut away from everyone else. I keep it away from my friends because I don't want to hurt them accidentally. One reason why I don't get angry in school: I isolate the anger and force it into the back of my mind, then I go home and vent it on the wall or something. It depends on who you are, but there's always something about me you haven't seen. Some people haven't seen the angst, some people see nothing but the angst. I think that the only things I truly know in this world are my books, and I think they are the only things which truly know me. Them and silence. So, basically, I'm not a person you can really get to know. I think I have it figured out: It hasn't been you regecting me - it's just that I've been too absorbed in reading to remember how to do much else, and now I'm afraid of facing anything else.
5) I thought YJ was crazy when she said that she didn't want to be in RGS. I don't know about you, but now I think she's right. There's no room for failure here, absolutely no room for you to experiment. So you keep working just to catch up because you don't want to be labelled a failure, and when you finally do catch up you realise that you haven't really been living your life. I hate this. It's as if all I have to live for is the next SA that's coming up. I wish I could look at everything as an adventure as some people do or, better yet, be firmly convinced that my studies always come first. But I'm not convinced at all. I've studied for six years, been at the top for six years - and now I can't stand it any more! I wish that I were in some neighbourhood school like the majority of people my age, better yet with Cesar, and that I'd never had brains enough to be pushed so far as this, pushed so high up that I'm afraid to climb up and afraid to go down. I wish nobody knew my name, that I could just dig my own grave, jump in, and be done with it, with no obligations to anyone. Yes, I'm starting to sound like the person from 'A Sense of Belonging'. It's so desperately lonely up here, you know? I have to keep working at it to maintain my position because the fall - if there is one - will be too hard for me to bear and I know it. It all comes down to a fear of failure. Okay, calm down. My blood pressure is high enough.
6) I miss my Chinese teacher. She's a lot more effective... No offense to the current one, of course. It's just that I don't understand her teaching methods. My learning relies solely on memorization, nothing else. I'm not capable of doing anything else. If you don't give me something to memorise, I'll never get anywhere. I'm completely incapable of deciding what to learn on my own. Oh, I do envy those people with tuition. They just follow the teacher and be done with it. But no, we don't have the money for tuition. I don't begrudge my parents that. It's not something I can change, so...

When it all comes down to it, I just wish that I were dead or never born. Period. Don't ask why. I think that pride and friendship is all that's keeping me going now. I don't know when I got this way. I seriously don't. I don't know why I hate the world in general. I don't know what it's done to deserve what I think about it. I don't know why I hate my parents. I have absolutely no idea why I love my friends. All I know is that I do.

I think that, for now, I'll blow out the last flame on the last candle and wander around blind for a while. I need a break from this... vision. I don't want to see what's going on. I don't want to know. I want to lock myself up in my little bubble again, watching the world go past with no concern other than the tasks I'm assigned. But I know that it's not possible, now. Life in RGS has done too little for me, yet too much. The people in RGS have given me too much, 104 in particular. I realised what it was like to care about people and be cared for, and now it's like I can't bear to give it up no matter how much pain it causes at times. Is that a shadow of what love is supposed to be like?

No, it's nobody's fault that I never cared before. I never did to begin with. I've been placing the blame on the rumour-mongers, but that incident only aggravated the condition, it didn't cause it. I realise now that I was completely apathetic to the world since Primary One when someone teased me about something and I told her that it wasn't my choice I was there; that I would much rather have been in China where I did have friends. Soon after Ethel came along and restored me for a while. But then Primary Three came and we were split up just because I had to be the best. From then on it was all downhill. Until this year. I cane to RGS hoping that my past wouldn't catch up with me, hoping that being the best would have its uses. And I think it did, because I came with an open mind simply because I was confident that I could start anew. It worked. For a while, I spoke to everyone and was as agreeable as anyone could expect me to be, then the old love for solitude set in again. I can't abandon the strongest bonds because that, too, is part of my nature - I always have had few friends but I've not abandoned them so far. I'm starting to think that I should have just shown everyone everything from the start, shown them that I was a person they had best not get to know because I didn't really want to know them, either. But at least, all this has showed me this much - I am human. I can care. It's just whether I want to - and guess what? I don't. Except in a few cases, that is. So the problem is not solved.

Never mind. It's my own problem and I'll deal with it, although I do think I need to see a specialist.

It's funny. No matter where I go, I hold in my heart the knowledge that I'm different, and perhaps that is what truly makes me different. So I'm the one causing all this? I think so too.

For now, only for now - will you forgive me if I appear a little cold? Not ice-cold, just...cold.

Aerin

It would appear that Leo is incapable of solving my riddle. In fact, he dismissed it as nonsense. The nerve of the man. It'll be a warm day in Russia when someone betrays one of my friends and doesn't get some kind of retribution. And he's committed the ultimate betrayal. Why did he think Cesar told him anything at all? The man either has no brains or not enough to know how to use them. Fine. I have no time. See you.

Aerin

I don't seem to get along very well with 'E' personality types in general... As in, they're okay, but I've never met an 'E' who could be my best friend, excepting Tsuyomi of course - and his Extroverted factor is only 1.

Today wasn't a very good day since I had headaches throughout the day until about 4 pm. Don't ask me why, 'cause I don't know. I thought it was Math or Chinese but it appears instead that I've overstressed my brain cells and they're taking revenge on me. Today Samantha told me not to sing so loudly outside of the speech room which wasn't something I took very favourably since I wasn't even at one-quarter of my full volume, and that's saying something.

I'm losing whatever patience I had with people in general. I mean, yes, if you're my friend then you obviously haven't given me a good reason to want to get you to shut up, but... Well, what's the definition of 'friend'? Sometimes I wish I could just bury myself in a silent world of books and forget about everything else. YJ said today, 'Whatever happened to TV, and anime, and....' Well, my response is that there's barely anything to watch on TV besides anime which doesn't show when I'm free and which I only watch during the holidays, I don't have an XBox or Playstation so we can't take that into consideration, etc. I don't have a very high threshold for noise. In fact, the TV is usually enough to drive me to distraction. I wind up shouting at my dad to turn the volume down or switch the accursed thing off so I can read. If there's one thing I hate, it's being disturbed when I'm reading or writing. I might forgive you for other things.

Did you hear about the experiment where volunteers were shut into a silent room for a couple of days? The scientists reported that they wound up banging on the walls before their time expired. I, however, believe that I would have enjoyed such an experience very much. I don't think spoken words are really very necessary, but you have to adopt some kind of surface conformity to survive in this society which feeds off nothing but stereotypes, have you not? Thus the fact that I actually have friends and actually talk. I was quite happy being in the library every day with no-one but Cesar to talk to in the old days, I was. Now I start missing people every five minutes.

I suppose it's true that people change - although I'm not sure whether it's for better or worse. It's no blessing and yet no curse; I simply don't know what to make of it. I wish it were possible to survive all by oneself in today's society, but no. It's not what we know anymore, it's who we know. I find that insulting and irritating at best. Many a time I was not sent for a competition I might have won just because I had offended the wrong people with my silence. I don't see what's wrong with not liking to talk - after all, empty vessels make the most noise.

I'm not insensitive just because I don't wear my heart on my sleeve. Mayhaps I'm stronger than you would think it normal to be in certain situations and that is why you call me insensitive? After all, I've failed more often than many, am in more emotional turmoil than many people I know (although I've realised that many good writers have suffered much more than I do, and since my dream is to be a good writer I've concluded that such suffering is a good thing), have more familial and financial troubles than you would think (I can't even talk to my family anymore) and yet I put on a smiling face and go about my business as per normal. You haven't seen me cry yet except for that time in drama class, have you? Is that called being insensitive? Well then, isn't calling someone insensitive just because they don't break down at an obstacle in their path a touch like hypocrisy? After all, it's proof of your own insensitivity. To those of you who think that my good friend is harsh on you, try seeing how harsh she can be on herself. You haven't said any of this to my face just yet, but I believe you did try to imply, and here is my reply: I don't care. You can think anything you like. Why should I bother explaining who I think I am? If you think that I'm an insensitive little bastard, then I'll always be that to you. Who I think I am will never affect who you think I am. The only one who can change what you think would be you, so I shan't bother trying. It's of no consequence to me anyway. So long as I hold true to myself, the rest of the world doesn't really matter. I can't change the way they think, so why worry about things I can't change? I have to thank 'Fiver' for that revelation, and Tsuyomi as well. Tsuyo planted the seed, 'Fiver' gave me the inspiration and the words with which to phrase my idea. I don't know him/her personally, but the story was great, grammatically accurate for the most part and more inspiring/heartwarming than anything I've read online in a while. I really have to thank you for giving me something decent to ponder. I was in a crisis at that time. YJ is another person to whom considerable thanks is owed. You really don't know how much you've helped.

It irks me sometimes, the way people deem whatever isn't like them as freakish, weird or just plain insensitive. Insensitive is the worst, because people who use that word don't know what sensitivity is, or they wouldn't inflict the pain of being called such a thing on any human being. I don't think anyone but Osama bin Laden really deserves that. Even then, he may merely be misguided. Someone will jump up now and tell me that he's a murderer, not misguided. Well then - any of you who have ever eaten anything are indirectly murderers. Whatever you have ever seen on your plate is a living creature that has died for your sake. Do not argue with me that you need it to live. How many of you eat only what you need to survive? Whatever organisms form the excess can be considered to have died for our own selfish desires, just like people all over the world are falling like dominoes for Osama. Humans and animals are on the same level, don't you try to deny it. When it all comes down to the bare facts, we are all merely living organisms who should be able to coexist in peace. But no, we have to fight over our own selfish desires. People say that humans are humans because of humanity - which we don't seem to have. Do you see animals taking more from the earth than they need? And whatever they take, they return in due time - unlike us. People say that money is the root of all evil. Who invented money? Us. Humans. Humanity. I think humanity is the root of all evil, because humanity equals human nature, and human nature equals greed, and selfishness, and all such things. How many of us can say that we are not selfish, can say that we are contented with all we have? If you are not, then you are greedy. To want more than you need to survive is called greed. We all have it, have we not? I've developed a theory for why wars exist: Humanity and peace can't coexist, because humanity equals greed, and with greed there will always be wars. Think about it. Many a conflict has arisen because some monarch wants more power, more land, more wealth, etc. Even more have come about because someone wanted the power of the monarchy for himself. Greed. US and Iraq? Think back on it. Any weapons found? No. So, what was the motive? Again, greed. I'm stating plain facts here, if anyone wants to sue me for it, I'll happily submit to my sentence. If the law is blind enough to persecute someone for telling the truth that nobody wants to hear, then I really have nothing to say.

That somehow turned into a thesis on humanity. I wonder why I always get like that.

Somehow, I feel that I've never been like the majority of people, am not like the majority of people, and will never be like the majority of people. It's something I'm proud of, my way of saying that, no matter what kind of pressure you put upon me to conform, I won't. My way of telling people that I do have a backbone, my way of telling them that, 'on one occassion, [they] might be consummately wrong'. There's something else I'm proud of: being able to function normally with less food, sleep and other essentials than the average person would require. True, I sleep more than, say, Tien or Tsuyomi, but insomnia really is quite a killer. I can lie down at 11 and still be awake at 3. That's how it is. I'm definitely not the worst case I've heard of, but yeah.

That's it. I'm going to stop writing before this turns into a verbal war with people who think I'm consummately wrong. People who believe that all humans are inherently good, etc. I must admit that the 'lone wolf' concept is starting to appeal more than I thought it could.

Good-day.

Aerin

These few days haven't been so good. Berserker rages seem to be getting more and more frequent, to the point where I'm considering seeing a psychiatrist just to find out if there's actually anything wrong with my sanity, or what's left of it. Hmm... School has been... Almost great. Yes, I started an anger management log. Two pages per day, which is a lot considering my relatively uneventful life, therefore updates won't be so frequent. It doesn't matter anyway, it's not like anyone is seriously keeping track of this. Mother and I have more or less given up on each other. The relative direction of things is that we're not really talking and I don't know how much longer I'll have to do piano. Now it occurs to me that, maybe, I only hated it because they wanted me to do it. I don't want to quit, not really. I guess it's a pity that I'm so close to finishing and yet I have to quite simply because I can't stand it. Never mind, I'll just delay giving the teacher notice. Be like a dragon inside, huh? Yeah, I'll have to fight this, and the rest of my life, out. I don't know... It's like I don't really know anything after all. Come to think of it, all the words we use to refer to things were invented by humans. To an alien, English probably means nothing. Or they would intepret it very differently from the way we do. So how can we be sure of what we really mean when we say something? How can we define anything? Argh, philosophy... Sorceress is rubbing off on me. Don't ask.

I've just figured that Sorceress's best trait should be versatality. Why do you think I started out with 'Mirror' for her code name? Hmm... I'd have to come up with codes for the others, though. Not a good idea. Ah well. Her history isn't exactly traumatic. And she's not exactly strong, either. It's more of a natural proficiency with some things, and not knowing the first thing about others. Thankfully she knows whatever she's ever had to. I guess you could call her a selfish person. She's had it a lot better than the others, but grown up a lot colder. Or introspective, it depends on how you look at it. Philosophy. And not caring. Her main points.

All right, I have to go for dinner. I'm already late as it is.

Aerin

Well, yesterday Aerin discovered a swimming cockroach... It was in my bathroom, so I grabbed it and threw it into the WC... And it started doing backstroke.

I've just discovered how much I actually like Beyblade. It's sad that they don't seem to sell them anymore. I wanted to get a HMS top by the end of the year, but I'm afraid that won't be possible. I have been working on testing out several new combinations, though, and I've found one that I like. I also saw this really quaint miniature bakery thing at Isetan... There are three different versions, with cake, pudding, etc.

Oh, and remember Princess Maker 4? Yeah, I played it again and discovered a couple new events, plus I finally ran into Lee. I ended up as a fortune-teller, though. Didn't have enough physical prowess or honour to make the royal magician. I did manage to graduate from dance class, though.

Hmmm.... I like Kai and Tala. Don't ask me why. Dranzer and Wolborg are pretty much more stable than Dragoon and some others, too. I guess I'm just not an 'attack' person. But then, Wolborg is an attacking blade... Oh whatever. I have ten minutes till Beyblade G Revolution.

Got to get my fruits ready for the show! It may be somewhere near the finale by now. I didn't watch for two days, so I don't know...

Okay, bye bye!

Aerin

Right, stuff I didn't say. One, I nearly said YJ's name ten times last Thursday. I think I got used to reprimanding her... Now whenever I want to scold someone, the first thing that comes out is her name. Don't ask me why.

Well, I discovered that my teachers can run really fast... Though I don't know why they're running away from me. Anyway, Cesar and I started on a new version of the previous game and this time it's got to do with finding spring. I don't know what CCHMS has done to her. Now it's almost as if I don't really know her anymore, but I'm not quite ready to give up yet. I got a set of stamps from my old school bookshop and ate some stuff that my current school cafeteria doesn't sell...

Yesterday was quite okay, even if we looked really weird carrying cardboard around. Ooh, that gave me muscle cramps. Those things are really quite heavy, y'know?

Hmm... Not much else to say, only I think my flu came back. ^_^

Mahoraba is rather amusing.

Aerin