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