Thoughts for the day

Every time I turn on the news in the common room or pick up a newspaper, there's always a story about sexual abuse in churches. The people at school haven't noticed how tightly I clench my fists yet. I'm hoping they won't.

Kallie is the coolest person I've ever met. She never invalidates me or makes me feel bad. She's always absolutely amazing to me. I've never once felt as bad around her as I used to when I was bickering with Jack and Beth. They found it fun, but I hated it.

I don't think I'm in love with Jack anymore, but I can't pluck up the courage to tell him. I know that he's going to be mad.

I had my first kiss with a girl yesterday. I was really careful not to squash her tummy. It was wonderful. It was everything I imagined a real kiss was going to be and more - which neither my first kiss nor my first kiss with Jack was.

And I found out that the girl who I kissed loves me too.

Emmy

I think I'm in love with Emmy.

There. I said it. And at the same time, I can't believe it. How can I, I who thought I loved a tall, strong Christian boy from Colorado, have seen so much in and fallen so hard for a petite pregnant Wiccan girl from rural Georgia? And how can it have happened so fast? I thought if I were to fall in love with anyone this year, it would be a boy from our brother school, but I doubted even that. I certainly didn't think I was going to fall for a girl. I mean, until I went to the school in England, I believed that being gay was a sin. And what the hell are my parents going to think? And what will Jack and Beth say? All of them still believe that being gay is a sin, and by their definition, I'm now a sinner. And what about everyone else? I mean, Emmy's pregnant! How do I hide this from her?

I am glad, though, that I'm not alone. I talked to Kallie about it yesterday, and she told me that she's gay, which was very cool for me to know. And I guess it makes me respect her all the more, because now I know how she feels.

I hate that life isn't simple. If life was simple, I wouldn't have fallen for Emmy, and she wouldn't be pregnant. My parents wouldn't be such idiots, and they'd spend more time with me. I wouldn't have inherited my father's genetic disposition to divination, and I wouldn't have even gone into that church for the first time. It isn't going to be, but I so wish it was easy.

Further Adventures

I met the girls in town again yesterday. We were planning to go last week, but Kallie got sick. Emmy's dad has been on at her again, saying stuff about how she was just like her mom for getting pregnant so young. No wonder she moved out - it's apparently not a rare occurence. Go, Emmy. And hooray for public holidays meaning that Anna and her girls have an extra day off to complete their assignments!

Anyway, we met for a drink at a chocolate cafe. Yummy! Every single foodstuff there had some sort of chocolate in it. I had a hot chocolate (which was very large and very rich), and so did Kallie. Jade had truffles and chocolate chip chai, and Emmy had chocolate hearts. Jade's assessment is coming up, so she's kinda stressed with all the work that she has to do. Emmy doesn't seem to have much going on, but then again, I'm thinking that's how Emmy works. She doesn't get stressed or nervous or angry or anything, but she's not a perpetual bouncy optimist either. She's straight down the middle. Kallie doesn't have any school work, but her parents are giving her grief about everything, which is apparently their style.

The thing is, they all make me feel so normal. Kallie is cool about everything, really, and she's into the same music that I am. I've never met anyone else who listens to both Novalia and Sirenia (definitely my favorite bands from either side of the fence). She's promised that when I go to her house, she's going to introduce me to Octavia Sperati, who are one of her favorite bands. I'm resisting the urge to look up their music, but they sound really awesome.
Emmy, on the other hand, likes the Dresden Dolls and Emilie Autumn. Sacrilege! She likes everything on the other side of Faith and the Muse, and our music tastes cross there (unfortunately that includes Joanna Newsom, and I can't STAND her). She also thinks that this Octavia Sperati bunch are great, which, according to Kallie, is a redeeming feature of her musical tastes. She's not as bad as Jade, though. Jade actually LISTENS to Ke$ha and Lady Gaga! Bleaurgh. Mind you, she's turning out to be a pretty sweet person. She's decided that I need a new wardrobe, so she's taking me out shopping next weekend. I don't think this is going to be the sort of wardrobe that my housemaster would approve of, but so what! I can't wait. :D

Sugar Girls

The school that I go to is the only boarding school where I live, as far as I know. But there's an Anglican school up north a bit which has a very bad reputation (bad boys who've been expelled, alcohol and drugs - it's coed, some of the girls have allegedly been sexually assaulted and stuff). There's also a public school that's got a gifted program and is really well-known in that area. The only other school around the north is a college which the public school feeds into. Anyway, I was out before curfew in the center of town yesterday, and there were three girls walking around as aimlessly as I was, chatting to each other really casually. They sat down, and I sat close to them, listening to what they were saying and looking them over. The one who caught my eye first was wearing a uniform top from the public school with a white layering top beneath. She was pretty - and I mean really pretty. Beautiful, even. She had wild brown hair which was kept off her face by an Alice band, and a long blue pleated skirt which was quite becoming to her figure. Her eyes were sea-blue, and her face was round and pudgy. She wasn't tall, but she was slim and very nicely proportioned, though you couldn't tell it because she was wearing baggy clothes. She had a British accent, but it sounded like academic English to me. She definitely wasn't Australian by birth. I could see when she smiled that she had italic second incisors and dimples(!), and she was wearing champagne-colored lip gloss, which looked surprisingly good on her. The girl sitting on her left-hand side was really tall, and her hair was done in Princess Leia style, but the ends poked out in springy curls. It was almost chocolate-brown. Her face was a little thinner than her friend's, and she had thin lips. Her nose was well-defined. She wasn't uniformed. She had on a tight blue top which revealed a small amount of her chest to be as pale as her face. It had little pleats on the sleeves. She also had on a pair of purple jeans, which were a lot tighter than her friend's. I guessed that she probably wasn't very self-conscious. Her arms and fingers were long, and she was also very slim. When she turned towards me, I saw that she had eyes that were almost the same color as her hair. They were very small and elegant. The other girl with them was wearing the uniform of the Anglican school. She had long blonde hair tied loosely into two plaits, one on each side of her head. Her face was heart-shaped and she had a cleft chin. Her nose was tiny and very cute, and her eys were deep green. The thing that interested me the most about her was all of the jewellery that she wore. She wore about 10 necklaces, all of different length and weight. Her ears were pierced three times each, and she had gold studs in all of the holes except for the top ones, which were adorned with tiny Wiccan stars. She had a bunch of pins on her lapel, most of which were from American tourist destinations. Sure enough, when she opened her mouth and began to speak, I detected an American accent with a slight Southern drawl. Then, the eyes of the public school girl turned to me. She looked me over, and then stood up. 'Hey, you're all alone!' she said. 'Want to come and join us?'

I did as she suggested, and sat down opposite them on another seat. The public school girl introduced herself as Kallie, a year 10 from the gifted program at her public school. The tall girl was called Jade, and went to the college across the road from the public school. She'd been at the public school the year before and was now in year 11. The blonde girl went by the name of Emmy, in year 9 at the Anglican school. She told me that she was born and bred in Albany on a plantation. Well, that explained the Southernspeak. Emmy and I talked for a while about America, and Kallie and Jade talked about teachers and ex-teachers at the public school. Then I asked about Kallie's accent, and she told me that her father was a Brit. We talked for a while about Brits and the Midlands while Jade and Emmy talked about their siblings. Jade had a sister, a stepbrother and a stepsister, and Emmy had an older half-brother and a younger half-brother. Then we all talked about high school and college and teenage stuff. Then Jade started to talk about 'Emmy's baby'. Turns out that Emmy is no longer living at home and is pregnant. Her parents pay the school fees but they don't see her any more. She's only just found out that she's pregnant, and suddenly everyone's against her for it.

I left feeling kinda sad for Emmy, but I'm really pleased that I've made my first three real friends in Australia. All of them are awesome - Kallie with her quick wit and wordy ways, Jade with her endless supply of jokes and her ability to pull a laugh out of anything, and Emmy with her serious demeanor and her contagious laugh. Now all that I have to do is talk to my housemaster and arrange to see them regularly, and I'll be a happy Anna.

Love

Love is a Denver sunset that passed me by
Love is a cloud that plays within the sky
Love is a drop of sweet, gold honey
Love is a laugh that feels so funny

And yet
true love consumes you all
Did you know
I was once in love with a picture on a wall?

I wanted to have what it contained
The perfect family
free of constraints.
Loving parents,
glorious friends,
and everything in between.

Money makes you miserable, they say.
I know it is true.
But love makes you happy,
and oh! how I love you.

Jack sent me an email today. He and Beth are back at school already. He told me he wants me to stay safe and not do anything silly. I love him so so much.

My wish for this year is that somehow, our relationship works out. I hope Beth can somehow be okay. I hope Cari and I can see each other sometime this year, and I really hope that things get better at school. And I hope that after this year, I don't have to see my family anymore. I hate them with a passion.

Ebla

I sing this song for hours and hours. I love it so much, I have to admit. My mother covers her ears and asks me to be quiet. Apparently my voice is that bad. But I love it - and I listen to this song and think of Jack and Beth. It's our favorite song. I remember Jack and I kissing - the moment is so vivid. It took away every worry, every care. We were together, and the electricity was amazing. And I remember cooking with them both when we were little. Beth once broke an egg in my hair by accident. I wonder a lot if they're okay - if they're going to be. I hope we can be together again soon. I don't miss Colorado, but I sure as goodness miss them.

I also miss Cari so much. She's my Midlands girl. She has amazing deep red hair (it comes of being a Scot, Cari, and don't you know it!) She's just so amazing. Above she's really bubbly and kinda crazy, but below she's really sweet and supportive. She helped me a lot when things started to go wrong. And she has the most adorable little sister who could always cheer me up. I haven't seen her in almost a year. We talk almost every day, but it's not the same. She and I always used to brush each other's hair when we were feeling down. She loves my hair because it's so silky and so dark. I love hers because it's insanely wild. And the teachers would laugh so delightfully when they saw us together. We were practically inseparable.



Jack, Beth, Cari - I miss you all more than words can ever convey. I wish I could be back with you.

P. S. School starts in a couple of days. :/ Wish me luck!

Emotions

You know, sometimes things happen in the strangest ways. My father and I don't talk much. I think part of the reason we don't is that I don't much like men (more about that later). But yesterday, he and I were sitting together for the first time in a long time, and there was a program about musical interpretation on the television. I started to think about this album which I bought a couple of weeks ago (At Sixes and Sevens by Sirenia). It's a juxtaposition of growling vocals and a female soprano. I said to him that it wasn't so much the notes that I valued in a piece of music, but the quality of the sound. By 'quality', I mean what most people would call the timbre of voices and instruments. I said that I really loved the juxtaposition between crystal and tree bark in the album. He squinted sideways at me and went 'did you just say crystal and tree bark?' I was pretty stunned, so I just nodded.

I can't rationalize things the way most people can. I feel emotion in senses the same way some people feel in colours. I don't feel happy or unhappy. I feel the waves, I feel stone, I feel crystal, I feel humid air, I feel the smell of rainforests, I feel fire, I feel heat. Usually when it comes to having to describe things I just shut up, because it makes me sound like an idiot to most people. But after I nodded, my father looked me in the eye and said 'do you know, Anna, I feel in colours?' I took a moment to recover, and then I said 'this feels to me like a cool breeze on my face.' He nodded. 'To me, it feels blue. Blue is when things start to make sense. Blue is when I'm relaxed and I feel content with things. I've been alive a lot longer than you have, and eventually, you'll be able to match up the feeling with the word for the emotion. It took me a long time.' I nodded. 'I think the Midlands was so good for me because I was finally able to really feel so many emotions. I wasn't scared of what people would think.' He smiled. 'Yellow is scared. Yellow is when I don't know what to do.' I almost laughed. The conversation was getting crazy, and I'd never expected to be talking about this with my father. 'For me, scared is a reflection in water. Scared is when things ripple. There are some that I don't have the words for yet, like humid air and running barefoot along sand. But I guess I'll work it out eventually.' He stood up and brushed my forehead. 'You will, Anna-mou. I have faith in you. And I should be getting to bed. I have to get out at 5 am tomorrow.'

I never knew that my father felt in colours. I wonder if it's genetic? Some of the other things we share are. But more about that later. I need to get to bed. Good night, blog world!