Just your Friday evening existential crisis.

Today was weird.

It was like I should have had fun, seeing people I haven't seen for while, but hanging out with a group of people I haven't been around in several months that I used to be really tight with just gave me this moment where I stared at the bonfire and had a near existential crisis.

I mean, I love everybody I was with, it's just that something about our friendship has changed since we hung out last time: we've moved on to other close friends, other places, other things and the foundation of our friendship seems a little weird, if not shaky. We used to be kind of 'cliquey' I guess, but our entire dynamic has changed because we haven't kept up with each other.

Maybe we're trying to hold on to something that we don't possess anymore. Our hearts just weren't in it like they used to be. We were all kind of distant and distracted. Or at least that's how I felt. A lot of us don't even have that much in common anymore. I don't know how to describe it other than weird, even a little uncomfortable sometimes.

I think this bothers me the most because I'll probably have a lot of moments like this in the years to come in relation to friends and things. There will come a time just get over things and to move on. Change is a terrible thing to try to come to terms with while staring into a bonfire. I just feel sad and slightly jarred.

Now I'm trying to deal with the tail end of this existential crisis by drinking peppermint tea and listening to Sufjan Stevens. An existential crisis is a bad way to spend a Friday night.
Love,
-J-

BEDA 31: Obligatory summer reflection post.

Thinking back on this summer (there's still six days left), I notice that I didn't do that much or accomplish many things.

I mean, I didn't have a job, I went on vacation and only ended up soaking in boredom and had long periods where my friends were away so I resorted to marathoning Gilmore Girls and 30 Rock.

However, I also volunteered for an eventful week of choir camp and at a kids' theater company through a few acquaintances, had a wonderful time and made some friends out of people who were before only acquaintances. I took a ton of pictures on that vacation and a lot of them turned out really good. I read a lot for the first time in years. I went through a short period of abnormally fantastic luck. I volunteered at the library for an hour a week, learned my alphabet especially well and enjoyed mildly harassing the egotistical summer student. I found a mismatched group of friends that I feel really comfortable around. I started eating healthier in general, well, minus my pizza problem. I'm legally allowed to drive several thousand pounds of metal to get me from one destination to another and I've braved this city in it during construction season, not a task for the fainthearted. I went to my first grad year events. I laid in parks for long periods of time. I survived BEDA and liked it. I ate pizza on someone's floor at 2am. I saw my grandparents celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. I made a sand sculpture walrus named Wallace. That, my friends, has got to be some sort of accomplishment.

If anything, I've learned to roll with whatever life hands you and try to have a good time. Because I've had a pretty damn good summer, considering.

Now I have my final year of high school coming up; a year during which I have to make some big decisions but also a year during which I'll have a lot of fun. Bring it on.

In six days, that is.

And BEDA, I may or may not miss you. For the next week or so, I'll probably keep feeling like I'm forgetting something in my day. It's been good but it's time to end. I'm quite glad I did BEDA.
Love,
-J-

BEDA 30: Pink streaks and pizza.

I got around to doing my pink streaks and I quite enjoy them. This is kind of a weird picture but it's 11pm and it's difficult to take a picture of the back of one's own head. Who knew.

Today held nothing particularly eventful, except I began assembling a group of people with the sole goal of someday inconspicuously sneaking a whole pizza into a movie theater. Everyday is an adventure in my shoes. But really, imagine if we actually snuck an entire pizza into a movie theater. I would feel such a sense of accomplishment, possibly my brightest moment. I might even start a movement of people sneaking whole pizzas into movie theaters.

I'll just go to bed now.
Love,
-J-

BEDA 29: Beach day with Wallace the walrus.

Today was Grad class beach day, our first grad event. When I arrived, it suddenly hit me that there are more than two hundred people in my grad class, and I don't know/like/can relate to/have ever seen a good portion of the people who showed up. It was basically athletic kids, a small group of music kids and a few outcasts here and there.

I still had a reasonable time and especial appreciation for the "Grad class 2013 Group Swim" when Ben, the grad class VP, yelled for us to assemble and run into the water. People took off their sweaters (because it was cold for a beach day) and at the count of three, around forty of us ran into the water to our waists, realized we had a hypothermia wish and turned and ran back out. Afterwards I overheard Ben saying that he never thought that would work. As a class, I guess we're just especially good at rolling with the punches.

The sand sculpture competition was also a pretty good time. The three teams that bothered to stop playing sports long enough to built a sand sculpture brought out their A game, with shovels, rakes and other implements essential to extreme sand sculpting. My team made a walrus named Wallace as the team beside us worked on a Sharktopus. David (the slightly awkward student council president who spends a large portion of his time endorsing the Liberal Party of Canada) had his team working on a witch between two slices of bread (a sand sandwiched witch) and added the final touch of stabbing a broom in the middle like a toothpick. The judges decided on a three way tie to avoid mutiny at the first grad class event. Good choice on their part.

I now have a small strip of sunburn under both my eyes because I halfheartedly applied sunscreen because it was sweater weather on that beach. 

Grad class events will be more fun when more people I know decide to go, as opposed to masses of jocks with who I have almost nothing in common with. At least I will always take comfort that my grad class will never be as bad as last year's, as that class was wholly apathetic unless it came to partying and everybody knew it. 
Love,
-J-