Mock trial competition this Saturday, and I’m terrified and so excited. I really feel like this will be my year.

I feel that because my brother does not understand American society, he may experience a lot of trouble. He’s made friends and stuff, but when he’s attempted to participate in sports, it hasn’t worked out well. He doesn’t understand the stigma of violence. I don’t know if I’m saying that correctly, but he doesn’t understand that supporting violent behavior is bad. I understand this to an extent from an experience I had in India. My sister and her husband have a 2-3 year old boy. While we were traveling around India, they bought him a toy gun which I thought was really inappropriate. I, of course, did not say anything, but they way they played with him and gun told me, violence was not that big of a deal to them. They did not really care they were simulating death to this child. I don’t know. Stuff like that really bothers me.

My college decision making process has become more difficult. I don’t know what I want to do. Oglethorpe’s accreditation is iffy now. I don’t want to do what my parents want. I want to do what I want. I’m not totally sure what I want anymore though.

For AP Lit/Comp we had to read Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. I don’t really like the book all that much right now because our teacher gave us 25-30 wksts to do about the book. One the first questions is Why do you think Ellison left of the article an or the from the title. Most of the questions are ones you must bs your way through. It is marring my enjoyment of the book. I’m frustrated with that.

I have to memorize 2 Shakespearean monologues for tomorrow when I shall be critiqued by 2 drama coaches. I’m auditioning for a scholarship Fri. Jan 25th. I have to have an essay written by Monday about a service project which has affected my life.

I have AP World History homework but I have no idea what it is because I lost the calender my teacher gave us.

I met with my dad’s accountant about FAFSA and basically since she is so close to my dad, she is making decisions about what college I should go to. My family and their friends have taken it upon themselves to keep in GA, keep me close to my family. If it is financially feasible, I want to go out of state. I need to get away from all I know and immerse myself into the unfamiliar and new. I need to make my life my own, and I don’t think they’ll let me.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

It’s snowing!!!! It’s snowing!!!! It’s snowing!!!! It’s snowing!!!! It’s snowing!!!! It’s snowing!!!! It’s snowing!!!! It’s snowing!!!! It’s snowing!!!! It’s snowing!!!! It’s snowing!!!! It’s snowing!!!! It’s snowing!!!! It’s snowing!!!! It’s snowing!!!! It’s snowing!!!! It’s snowing!!!! It’s snowing!!!! It’s snowing!!!! It’s snowing!!!! It’s snowing!!!! It’s snowing!!!! It’s snowing!!!! It’s snowing!!!!

It’s snowing and I’m incredibly happy because of it. It’s beautiful, but it’s melting as soon as it touches the ground. That makes me sad. I hope it sticks!

I’m leaving for India on the 16th. I’ll be back on January 8th. I’m super excited. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.
The following account is just my biased view of what happened last week in Comp. Rel.

Last week, in my comparative religions class, we had an Anglican preacher(pastor, minister, or whatever they are called) come speak to our class. We had just started Christianity the a couple of weeks ago, and we are reading Mere Christianity. I am not a Christian. I would say I practice many of the traditions of Hinduism, but I was raised a Hindu. I’m a pluralist more than anything. My comp rel. teacher has me and another student escort him to her classroom, and we talked. I really liked him, because he seemed like a really intelligent person. For his lecture, he’s doing great, talking about his background, his church, and all of that stuff. Then, the question and answer part of class. I ask him a question about Mere Christianity. CS Lewis says something like he believes there is some truth in all religions. I asked the pastor what he thought of that. He says something along the lines of “there may be some truth in all religions, but the Truth(big T) is in Christianity.” I’m okay with what he says. It’s what he believes, and I did ask him. Then he goes on to say that “there are some pretty moral people who will go to Hell because they have not accepted Christ into their hearts.” This bothered me. He was looking straight at me when he said that, and I was hurt. I tried to let it go, but I needed to express how I felt about it.

A couple of days later, we start off talking about Mere Christianity, then we get off on a tangent about separation of church and state. Let me give you some background, so will understand all that happens next. I live in the middle of nowhere, GA. 90% of the school is white and conservative. I’m part of the 10% that is a minority. I’m also an outspoken liberal. Many of my friends are extremely conservative and religious. In my comparative religions class, we are about oh so close to having an actual fight. There are only about 10 people talking, but 3 of us are outspoken liberals, and the rest are extremely conservative. So close to a fight, and many times the conservatives would not let us get a complete thought out before jumping down our throats to say what they want to say. My teacher stopped us before we actually got physical, and we all calmed down. We were all friends again and everything forgotten. I really care a great deal about my conservative friends; we have a lot in common except for our political views. It bothers me though that whenever their is a debate, they don’t let us “the liberals” express our views. This is largely because we are the minority.

Earlier today, I was talking to my friends, conservative and liberal in the halls. I said “I do not believe in Jesus.” Those are just my beliefs. Than one of my friends says “Be careful what you say in these halls. You might get beat up.” This from one of my most conservative friends.

I hate that so many people in my school are closed-minded. My conservative friends, they may disagree with me, but they’re open and accepting of my beliefs. They don’t try to change me or convert me or anything like that. They accept me. Right after we had that heated debate, everything went back to normal. We might have been a bit pissed off, but we were cool with each other.

I got 4 shots Sat. My aunt is a doctor, and my mother took advantage of this fact while I spent my Thanksgiving break with her. I still feel a lot of pain in both of my arms. I feel a little sick right now. I’m doing my AP English work right now, 16 note cards done, 9 more to go. I’m not well, and I’m having issues getting comfortable enough to take a little cat nap before I finish my note cards. I can’t lay on my sides because my arms are so sore right now. Please feel sympathy for me and make me feel better right now! (joking)

Other than that, I had a great time in Nashville. We went shopping, got my nails done, ate out, and did all sorts of stuff I do not normally get to do. My nails look cute now. My finger nails are pink. My toenails are dark red and they have little flowers on them. My aunt did that for me because she felt bad about me getting 4 shots. Have a great day everybody!!!

My dad will not let me finish my application to George Washington University. I finished one part, and to finish the rest, I have to pay the application fee.  My dad won’t let me. He doesn’t want me to apply out of state. He wants to be able to see me at least 2 times a month while I’m at college. I asked and he outright said “NO.” No reasoning with him.

I want to get away. I need to get away. My parents are smothering me, and I sometimes hate them. I sometimes feel like if I got in a college out of state, I can ignore them for the rest of my life. Never associate myself with them again. I can’t stand how they are, and I can’t be near it any longer. I want to be disowned by them. More like, I want to be disowned by my father. I get along pretty well with my mom, but I’ve never gotten close with her. I try to spend more time with her, but we are so different.

I’m pretty close to crying. George Washington University is my dream school. If there were no obstacles ahead of me, I would go there. I want to chance to go to GWU, and my dad won’t give it to me. I really hate him right now. I thought if I could get a lot of scholarships and financial aid, my dad wouldn’t care. I thought Mom would be the one who would want me close.  They are holding me back, and I hate them for it.

Okay, if you go check out www.FreeRice.com, you can get impoverished people around the world rice. All you have to do is answer vocab questions. It automatically adjusts to your level after a few questions. 10 grains for 1 word. That may not sound like a lot now, but in like 5-10 minutes, I got like a 1500 grains for the poor and hungry around the world. Seriously, GO CHECK IT OUT!! It’s really easy and if you do this for like 10 minutes a day, you could feed a ton of people. GO DO IT!!! The people who do this make no money. None!! So it’s a great organization.

List of other sites you should check out:

one.org - One Campaign

poverty.com - Hunger and World Poverty

wpf.org/english - United Nations World Food Program

endpoverty2015.org - The UN estimates that the world needs about $195 billion to end world poverty. 22 countries have signed on to donate 0.7% of their national income to reach this goal. 6 countries have already accomplished this. All but 6 others have set a deadline for when they will reach their goal.

AIDs.org - Educating and Ending AIDs

All of these websites deal with ending poverty, AIDs, diseases, hunger, and many important issues.

No, they are not links. I have not figured that out yet. On the friends/other links, there are links to my 2 favorite.

I got accepted to Mercer. I’m really excited. Happy Bhumika right now!

So last Thursday(I think), I had a really bad headache. I touched the back of my head and felt a flat spot. It was late at night and my brain was just not working. I freaked out because I thought I had injured myself somehow. I thought maybe I had amnesia or something. I was panicking a little(is that how you spell panicking?).

The next day at some, Aba tells me it was probably where my parents had laid me down as a baby. I felt stupid.

I just thought of that because I have a headache. That night was the 1st time I had a headache in a long time. I don’t like headaches and I don’t like taking pills. I want to sleep but I can’t.

So for Thanksgiving I want to visit my cousins in Nashville. I love them and they love me. Mainly, I want to get away from my parents for a while. I feels like they are smothering me. Whenever I bring up the subject, they make up these stupid fake lame-ass excuses. Whenever my cousins visit, my parents say they are a good influence me. They just won’t let me visit them.

I sometimes think my parents don’t want me to have a life. I don’t. They always say no when I want to hang out with my friends. Some of my friends have told me of occasions when they call like a dozen times, and my parents just don’t tell me. It happens with all of my friends. They don’t know them, so they make up theses lame-ass excuses for me not to hang out with them. They thing is they don’t want to make an effort to get to know them.

The best way for my friends to communicate with me is through the internet. If you attempt to call me, it’s a long shot that I might actually get the call.

My parents want me to hang out with the Indian girls I know, except what they don’t know is that those are the girls with boyfriends behind their parents backs. It was one of those Indian girls who tried to get me to do marijuana with her. My parents make these stupid unfounded assumptions about people. I hate it.

My parents think my friends are all skanky hoes because of what they see. They own a motel, and what they see at the motel is all they see. The people are the motel are crazy!!! I’m kind of afraid of them.

My parents do not want to let me do anything fun. As a child, I never went to the movies, or the park or the beach. The first time I had ever been to the movies was when I was in the 4th grade for a school field trip. My parents rarely if ever played with me. I understand a lot of that has to do with the fact that when I was a child, we were still trying to survive. But then, they complain that I’m too American. Well, that’s what happens when your Indian parents leave you alone at home to watch TV for the better part of your childhood because you only had 2 dolls you hated because they looked kind of scary(this was during the 1st year we were in America, I was 4).

When we moved to GA, it was the same. They left me to watch TV. I had some imaginary friends and a few better toys. Around the 4th grade, I discovered books. Books for the longest time were everything to me. I still don’t think my life would be complete without books.

Around the 6th grade, my parents left for India for about 2-3 months for my older sister’s wedding. They left me with an aunt and uncle I knew but not that well. I’m a very introverted private person. I don’t enjoy telling people what is going on in my life. The entire time my parents were gone, when I was not at school, I stayed alone in my room. I’d be reading or watching TV. Music started becoming important to me. I wouldn’t really talk with my aunt or uncle because I didn’t really know them. When I get to know someone, it has to be on my terms. I don’t like to be forced into situations. I was forced into that.

Then, in the 9th grade, my dad was gone for about 6 weeks at the end of the year, and my mom at the beginning of the year. There was this 2 week period when they were both gone. They again left me with people I did not really know well. I really just withdrew into myself for most of that time. I was really actually a wreck. I was threw up several times, and I had a fever half the time I think. I was physically sick most of the time and the people supposed to watching me didn’t know because I stayed to myself most of the time. It was really just very bad. It was a lot harder for me this time than in the 6th grade. Perhaps I just don’t remember it that well.

Then just this past year, my dad left in October. He was just supposed to be gone for about a month. He promised me only a month. The weeks before he left, I was soo mad. I stopped speaking with my mom. I didn’t say a word to her for about a week, I was that upset. I don’t know why I stopped talking with her though and not my dad. I remember coming to school crying once. He was gone till January. He stayed with us in January for about a month. He went back in Feb for another month, came back for good in March.

My cousins went to India in Dec and got to see him. They came back with a bunch of stuff Dad had gotten in India. They stayed with us for a while when they came back, and for most of the time, I cried. The night they unpacked all the stuff he had gotten for us, I just started crying. I cried all that night, and part of the next day.

I have a hard time dealing with my emotions. I keep them to myself for the most part so when something really affecting happens, it all comes out at once. I cry a lot. I’ll literally cry for hours. This sounds so emo. I’m not emo. I don’t cut myself or any emo stereotypes

I like being alone. I don’t like to be forced into situations. I don’t really cope well with drastic sudden changes.

I really just felt like I needed to share all of this. I’m not emo!!! I promise!!! I just started this off with my wish to go to my cousins’ for Thanksgiving and I just ended up talking about my entire life. So deal with it!