Essay No. 2 - November 17th

The girl to my right represents everything about North Jersey that I hate. She thinks that she's so much more sophisticated, more beautiful and more important that she actually is. In reality, she's not all that pretty, she has no class nor the importance that she believes that she possesses. But, those that live here in Greenwood are trained to see her as the perfect girl. She's almost like the "ideal Greenwood girl". She wears cute, fashionable clothes, like Citizen of Humanity jeans [I actually think that Citizens are great jeans], cute sweaters. She's not very smart, nor is she stupid. Just average. She likes to gossip, and thinks that she's the center of the world. Once, our teacher asked us "What are you going to do when you have a boss that you don't get along with?" In her "I'm a princess" mentality, muttered to her friends "Quit". This kind of mentality is destroying our society.

I talked to my mom this morning about the magnitude of my feelings, but only because she as talking about how much she disliked Greenwood first. I told her that the night before I had perversely considered hurting myself, and that I had actually punched the wall in my shower in an attempt to distract myself with physical pain. She told my dad, who called me during my free period at school. He basically told me to take one day at a time and "soldier on", and I don't know if I can.

Essay No. 1 - November 16th

At this moment, right now, I hate my life. This sentiment started while I was driving to my Spanish class, listening to a song called... well I don't know. The song before that reminded me of a song from my time in Spain.

This feeling of depresion came over me slowly, and took over. Now I can feel it in every part of my body, and especially in my throat, and it's trying to make me cry.

I don't know what is behind all of this, but I think that it is my hate for Greenwood* and for New Jersey as a whole. I think that it's just a bad, bad place to raise kids because the state attracts people with too much money who don't know what to do with it. When I think of Greenwood, I think of the DiNordo* family, the family that raised a bully and ecourages and ordinary girl to think of herself as a princess whose nose should be perminantly stuck in the air. The values of the community as a whole of North Jersey are not realistic. The general belief is that money can solve any bad situation. Greenwood values the girls who are popular, and with "cookie-cutter" beauty. The girls who do not fall into this catagory are seen as strange, different even. The belief is that girls don't need to be smart, that's an added bonus. Instead, they are expected to be pretty and complacent. The boys here always pursue sports. They don't want to experiment with other things.

I have to think that North Jersey is not the norm. I have to believe that Boston, my home city, is different because right now that city is my dream. This dream of my future there is the only thing that's protecting me against outright depression. I know that places like Maine are different and I love it there with all of my heart, but I don't think that I could work there. I hope to someday be a prosecutor of heinous crimes in Boston. I want to free the city of monsters. I want to send my kids to private school, so that they may recieve all of the benefits of a private school education, which I believe to be better.

In May, [my friend] Jenn* was going through some serious emotional turmoil, and said that cutting herself relieved some of that internal stress, and now I'm thinking about some of the benefits. I don't think that I'd be able to do that, due to the social aspect. I don't want to be pathetic, but I don't want to feel like this. I want to relieve something.

Something's gotta give. I can't live like this for much longer. Today's date is the 16th of November, I have to go to Greenwood High School until the 23rd of June. I don't know how I'm going to survive this school year.

*Names of people and the town that I live in have been changed

Now It's Legitimate

This project started on a Monday. I was driving to my Spanish class at the local community college (a supplement to my high school curriculum) when a song came on the radio. I don't remember the song, and it held no real importance in my life, but after a few bars, I was overcome with this awful feeling. It dawned on my that I was very unhappy with my life. During my class, this feeling kept washing over me. I decided that the only way that I was going to be a ble to keep my sanity in that class was to write what I was feeling. I've always been able to articulate my feelings in a more productive way through written word. I of course wrote this essay in Spanish, for what would my teacher think if she saw that I was writing in English during her class? She also knows that I'm perfectly capable of doing so, as I am fluent in Spanish.

Many might wonder why I harbor such feelings. I live in an affluent suburb of New York City. I have an excelent family life, and I'm a good student. It would seem that I live a charmed life. However, this is far from the truth.

This became a ritual for me, and I started doing it during my high school classes as well. I collected these hand written essays in the back of my planner, where they started to take up space. I felt that writing them out here (translated, of course) might add some legitimacy to my feelings. These are my essays.