Performance Anxiety

Sorry, it's been awhile. I have massive performance anxiety right now. I have an audition this weekend for a music scholarship. I haven't had to perform on the violin by myself in ages. At least, the pieces are picked are good ones in my repertoire. Still, I haven't been able to eat a lot, and I even had problems going to the bathroom today. I went to the restroom during lunch at my high school, but there were other people in there as well including a girl I used to be friends with in middle school. Anyways, I ended up having to use the stall right next to her, and I wasn't able to start peeing until she had started washing her hands. God, I hate public bathrooms because everyone can hear you pee so it's so awkward for people like me. I start freaking out that people will think I'm taking a poop because it's taking me so long to start peeing or they will think I'm hiding out in the bathroom like a weirdo. This is why public bathrooms should have soundproof stalls for those of us with performance anxiety. Although, I would probably never leave the bathroom if the stalls were soundproof.

Cats are Evil

My recent assignment in my English is to write a cause and effect paper that is due tomorrow. It needs to be between 3,000 and 5,000 words so far I have 958. My topic is Toxoplasma Gondii, a parasite found in cats. Since, I am currently stuck for what else to write in my paper I will give a brief summary of exactly this parasite does. Toxoplasma is spread through cat feces, and it will take control of mammals' brains even humans. Rats are affected in a weird way. The parasite increases the dopamine levels in the reward part of the brain when a rat smells cat urine. Normally, a rat would be afraid of cat urine, but when infected the rat will be aroused at the scent of cat urine. This is because the parasite can only reproduce sexually inside the cat's stomach. The rat's arousal at cat urine makes it easier for cats to catch their prey, rats. Humans have a change in personality. Men are suspicious and jealous and gain a disregard of rules. Women become the exact opposite, they become more friendly, trusting, and increase their regard of rules. Both genders have a decrease in seeking new experiences and will stay home more often than those who are not infected. That's just a little bit about the parasite there's a much more in depth explanation here: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/03/how-your-cat-is-making-you-crazy/308873/
I found it completely fascinating how Toxoplasma is so specific in how it controls an animal's brain. I should probably get back to my essay.

Confrontations

I for some reason decided that it would be a grand idea to start taking over my life. Unfortunately, I think I tried to take on too much at once. I tried to take out two problems tonight, and so far neither one of those problems is going well. This is probably why I should sleep on things before attempting confrontation. I might actually formulate a plan before. I also did my confrontations that wussy way over texting, but there is a reason for that too. Both the people I decided to express my thoughts to
are people I can only contact through texting. One of them was my mother, she's always a tough one no matter how you try to talk to her, but I do really need the money from my bank account that is in her name too because of child-parent crap. I have a large sum of money in that account that will be extremely helpful for college which is just a huge ball of anxiety that I'm trying not to think about yet. I really need to get a grip on my social anxiety or I fear I may be alone for all eternity, but then again that might not be so bad.

New Year's Woe

I'd say I have a New Year's resolution, but it's not really. I decided I need to get in shape (such a cliche resolution anyways) before I go off to college since I have a pretty good idea of where I'm going to go. I will most likely be moving to the city for college which absolutely terrifies me. Never have I ever lived in a city. I've lived in the same county my entire life and it's population is less than a city. My county has approximately 25,000 people living in it. Where I want to go to college has about oh 652,000 people that's over 25 times as many people. I'm going to have my handy dandy pepper spray though thanks to my dad who's been obsessing over where I keep it. I have it in my room because I don't need to take it to school with me where there are only a thousand people, and none of them hate me as far as I know or have a desire to attack me. Besides the hallways are too damn crowded for that type of thing to happen. Unless, we have a school shooter in which case my pepper spray would be completely useless. My sophomore year they did find a shell for some sort of a gun I don't remember what exactly. They cancelled the assembly and the dance that week right before Christmas Break, but they didn't cancel school. My dad told me to stay home from school that day because he thought it was stupid that they weren't cancelling school and figured it wasn't really important for me to go that day anyways. I heard that hardly anyone was there. There was probably five people for each class that day. They also had policemen patrolling the school that day as well. So you see they might as well have cancelled school.
Anyways, the reason why I'm trying to get in shape is so that I have a better chance of getting out of a situation if need be. My mom once told me some really high percentage of women that get sexually assaulted by the time they're forty. I was probably 10 years old when she told me this. The likelihood of me being sexually assaulted at the age were very slim except during the summer time when I was around guys in their twenties quite a bit. My mom worked for a whitewater rafting company, and all their guides were in their twenties and were almost always hungover. All they did was drink and do drugs, but that was after work of course. My brother recently told me that some of the guides would say shit like, "Cynthia's daughter is so hot," little did they know they were talking to my brother who would get pissed off because I was waaay too young for them so it was extremely creepy that they would even think that. Now I think I know why I'm so screwed up when it comes to guys. My mom either made me paranoid that they were going to rape me or surrounded me with creeps that she thought were normal. That's some good parenting right there.

Christmas in a Nutshell

It's funny looking back on the posts that I wrote last year. In so many ways I'm much the same, but I'm different too. I've grown up a little. I have less anger about myself. I can now laugh at the experiences I've had in my life. I still feel like I have a void inside me, but I think that will always be there. Same with the darkness inside me. I'm starting to realize that there are others out there who have darkness inside them too at least the characters on TV do. I think the people in this life who aren't boring are the ones who have a darkness inside. It all stems from a dysfunctional family I think. I spent the last four days with my dysfunctional family. It wasn't too bad I've had worse Christmases, but sometimes I wish that my brothers weren't such assholes. The two of them combined have always made me feel like I don't belong. I think the only person who kind of does make me feel like I belong is my dad because we share the same interest in music. I have the ability to create music while my dad has the ability to appreciate good music.
These past few days, I understood just how ready I am to move on with my life. I already have been accepted to my top choice for college and received a scholarship from that same school. So I already have at least a quarter of my college paid for as long as I keep my grades up. I still have to audition which will hopefully get me more money plus there's more scholarships I can apply for. Hopefully, by the time I'm ready to go I'll have most of it paid for. My dad said after all my scholarships and I still have about $4,000 left, that he'd pay the rest of it. It will probably piss of my brothers but who cares. There's only one of me in college, and my dad has more money now so it will be easier. Also, I actually have an interest in going unlike my brothers. They both were put on probation in college and almost dropped out. I have worked hard to be able to go to a nice school. Ooh and my dad informed me that the new studio that they're building should be finished in January. I can't wait! I was hoping it would be finished while I was there but now it will be finished in a month. It's going to be so exciting being able to record in a brand new studio or at least learn everything about music technology in a new studio.

Snowflakes in the Hall

Yesterday, at school the staff put every student's name on a snowflake and put the snowflakes on the halls around the entire school. You would not believe how much time everyone spent looking for their names. I swear it was like watching little kids on an Easter egg hunt. One of my friends found mine. We're supposed to take our snowflake down when we find them, but I told my friends I'm going to leave mine up so it's the last one. It was rumored that we get a prize if we turn our snowflakes, but no one was certain about that.
Apparently, we get a Christmas card in the mail every year from these people we don't know. The card is intended for the people who lived here previously, but they moved out three years ago. My dad looked at the card this year and said, "Hey, that kid is new," so I guess they've had a baby since last year. He made other comments too like, "The kids look so much older than last year." This is coming from the man who couldn't figure out that I was walking with the same girl out of the school for a whole week. He has a slight condition of, "face blindness," I swear.

2048

I was playing the game 2048 over the weekend. I often play that game when I'm bored or waiting in line. My dad noticed me playing 2048 for the first time this weekend which I found odd considering I've had the game since last school year. He kept asking to play the game on my phone, but I was in the middle of a round and didn't want to hand it over until I lost. I finally let him play, and afterwards he decided to get the game on his phone. He played 2048 all yesterday. He got up around 10:00 played the game until around 5:00 taking only a half hour break. Today, he texted me saying he put the game on his iPad, so everyone would think he was doing inventory. I told him he needs to stop playing that game or else he'd have to go to the AA meetings across the street.