la vie

i love my life. i love it love it love. every day, all day. never do i doubt it.

happiness is never stopping to think if you are. i don't stop :)

my new favorite word is "douche"

people are douches. you just want to smack them upside the head and, in the words of jen, ask 'what the hell are you doing with your life?' clearly nothing. and by the by, the girl who sits in front of me in bio suffers from severe body odor. what a douche.

i'm not one to use such a word, but lately is seems to describe everyone who pisses me off for being an idiot. you have to wonder if that's really how their parents raised them, or if it's just a genetic mix-up. i sound like a pretentious dick right now, but it's true. it's so true.

and oh my god, does this girl shower? shower in french is douche. she needs a douche.

i hate myself sometimes.

i hate this country.

i truly, really, honestly do. i need to get out. not out of state. out of country.

everything is better in a bread bowl.

today was great. did no homework, but it was great. read some more p&p (god i love that book) then drove to jen's. we went to the mall and were shopaholics for a day. i got this adorable little dress from charlotte russe (see side, haha). and jen got the same one in black. we plan to clubbing in them some day, yep. then we went to dinner at panera, and met up with andrew and matt and their friend from work jessica. it had been two months since the last time i saw andrew and matt, and it was so very good to see them. i'm so happy with them. i had a mini heart to heart with andrew in starbucks about c, and he pretty much told me what i knew all along: he's just fickle, and has phases. it felt good. and then we got married. right after, we stood in the parking lot and laughed/froze our asses off waiting for my dad to come. my head still hurts from heaving for so long. haha. in other news, the habitat guy e-mailed me back. he seemed kind peeved, like he was already sick of me. we've exchanged like two e-mails. should i tone down on the enthusiasm? gah. whatever. i'm gonna go read some austen.

OH AND BY THE WAY

this week was really good.
why you ask?
WELL

• right now it's snowing. it's thursday, and i got out of school early. snow day tomorrow for sure.
• yesterday i successfully memorized 12 lines of a victor hugo poem and recited it to the class- EN FUCKING FRANCAIS. whaddup.
• tuesday i wore a really cute outfit, and everyone complimented me on it. one girl even stopped in the hallway and said "aw juliana you look really pretty today!" and it was genuine.
• the same day i finally heard back from the H4H people. and guess what. the president is a parishoner at st. mary's and is super excited to work with mater dei. steve pulled me out of peer counseling and told me, over and over, how proud of me he is. he gave me a high five and even spoke about the work i'm doing during the F&F meeting. oh my god, it was great.
• and i've generally just have a fucking good week. :)

i so called it. *smile*

juliana is ______.

"Well I'll do the best i can answering this question. Juliana is perfect comes pretty close to a decent description but it doesn't do it justice so i'll expand on that. Juliana is as perfect as I could imagine anyone being in this world; she is smart, beautiful, funny, cute, amazing, my best friend, my girlfriend, always worried, kind and caring, the greatest person in the world, a math hater, an anglophile, a grammar slut, and someone who means the world to me.

uoy evol I
eilrahC (kcuhC)"


this is from january 16, 2008. i found it going through my old e-mail account today. i just goes to show how superficial our relationship was. it was love, but not the real, deep deep kind. in this, he just reiterates old adjectives and phrases. i'm sure i did mean the world to him, but was that enough to keep us together- in a relationship and as friends? no. because those phrases could just as easily be applied to any other girl. i knew i was all those things to some extent. what new thing did he ever show me? nothing. the only thing i gained from the 2+ years we were on and off was a new perspective on life and how i want to live mine. i suppose that is a good thing, but i didn't need him. high school did that to me, too.

it feels good to say this now, since for the longest time i hated him. when it rains it pours, right? we were never in between. it was either madly in lust or really good friends. but i couldn't be on the sidelines, ever. i remember him once saying that as one girl leaves his life, another one comes in. i know now that i was merely the girl that was always in between. a transition, if you will. and now he has someone new to please him.

he hurt me so much, in every sense of the word, but i don't hate him anymore. i know now that then i was merely caught in the moment. it would have never lasted. i'm in such a good place in my life right now. without him. without the drama associated with him. and it feels great.

state of the union- february

1. it still hurts. it hurt it hurts it hurts. it shouldn't, but it does. i keep running his words through my head- even the ones from two years ago- trying to figure out why they had to be said.
2. i wish i had known how long he was lying to me, and why he felt the need to. "I don't intend to replace you anytime soon, it's good to know someone out there cares about you." "Oh, it's not like that with her, i would never let it happen." and the biggest one of all, "I love you."
3. the other day, i had this really intense moment where i ranted at my reflection, pretending it was him. one of these days i'll get to do it for real.
4. i went to semi-formal with a group of girls. i've never done that before. they're not girls i had ever associated myself with, but they were simply amazing. lately i've gotten to know them a lot better, and quite frankly, i think they're lovely. they really are.
5. the next few weeks are going to be amazing. a schedule of events: this thursday is matt's NHS induction. then march 5 is the muse concert. march 7 i have to do this really intense reading for palm sunday mass *gulp*. march 8-11 is MONTREAL!! then march 13 is my first SAT. i'm excited :)
6. i've been thinking a lot about the fact that in a little over 3 years, i'll be 20. holy fuck.
7. i adore my short stories class at brookdale. it's fantastic. i sit next to these two characters: erric, with 2 "r"s. he smokes menthol cigarettes, wears a hat all the time, has a pair folded headphones in his pocket, is left handed, and write poetry. sometimes i look at his open notebook, and i love what i read. it's fascinating. he has lovely eyes and is soft spoken. he has nice hands. and then shannon. she lives in asbury park, and is originally from south carolina. she has a gap in her two front teeth (a sign of independence and beauty for women in medieval times), also wears a hat all the time, and is just really nice to listen to. when we discuss our short stories, she is the one that will find meaning in even the smallest details. i love to listen to the two of them talk. throughout class, they write back and forth on erric's notebook about their writing (i think they're both lib arts majors) and such. i thought at first that they were maybe being flirtatious (even though she seems older than erric, who i assume is between 18 and 20) but then she blurted proudly once that she was gay in the middle of a story. that made her even cooler, haha. i want to talk to erric more, i really do. maybe this wednesday i'll sidle up to him a bit more.
8. vancouver 2010. enough said <3

KP

there's a saying that we need to be comfortable in our own skin. yeah well, that's impossible for me, in every way. i have this skin condition, keratosis pilaris. it sounds serious, but it's pretty common and often goes unnoticed or is mistaken for eczema. it's when this structural protein, keratin, is over-produced and then builds up in skin. it causes all these little bumps to form around hair follicles. mine in particular is called keratosis pilaris rubra- it's red, it's itchy, it's gross. i mean, i don't ooze or anything. but people who brush up against me for the first time often recoil and say "Ew, what's wrong with your skin?" or they comment that i must be cold (KP looks like goose bumps). it's just something i have to deal with and people have to get used to.

today in the shower, i had to shave. for most girls, it's an annoying process, but a neccessity. for me, it fucking hurts. my legs are covered in KP bumps, and i'd rather feel like my skin is on fire than be hairy. plus, it kind of clears a few layers of dry, dead skin. but oh my god, it hurts. there will be blood droplets all over my thighs because little bumps are decapitated by the razor. not to mention the fact they my skin is just ugly feeling and looking no matter what.

i just want it to go away. but there's not cure. i mean, i moisturize like a beast, but there's only so much i can do. it just really bothers me.

in addition, my entire body is dry. my hands were destroyed by all the balloons i tied yesterday. i have cuts all over my fingers. it's just a bad season for my skin.

it's in our nature

Iain Thomas (author of pleasefindthis.blogspot.com) said in his TED Johannesburg speech that part of the reason why his blog strikes a chord with so many people is because his posts are ambiguous. they're not aimed at anyone or about anything in particular. they're just raw emotion that everyone feels, no matter what the cause. he said that sometimes, we have a hard time grasping the idea that we're not alone. that we're not unique. (i'm pretty sure he was the one who said all this. if not..oops.)

on facebook, there are groups and fanpages that you join because you read it and go "omg, i totally do that, too. i thought i was the only one." meanwhile, there are like 100,000 fans.

no one is original. no matter how much you try to pass off as someone you should "gett to knowww". we all have the same feelings, emotions, wants, needs, desires, vices. we're all humans.

and we hate it:

"Everything you like, I will find some reason to dislike and if we find we like the same thing, I will insist that you like it less than me or for the wrong reasons, like you don’t really understand the things you like. Because that makes me feel better about who I am. What I am." (pleasefindthis.blogspot.com)

just take twilight for example. before dear john, it was the biggest fad. you were the shit when you had the t-shirts, the game, the DVD, the poster, the life-sized cut out...and then the book. you had to know everything and anything about it.

another example, the jonas brothers. you thought you were just so renegade when you openly bashed them. or how about just music in general. you're at your finest when you're listening to the most obscure music, and once it goes on the radio and becomes popular, it's all "I knew it before it was popular!"

i do it, you do it, we all do it.

but really, in the end, who gives a shit? i'd rather embrace the masses then try to one-up them. i have my likes and dislikes, but really, i'm not going to parade around and state that i am original. i'm juliana, and, sometimes, people are just like me.

bitch in heat

so, polly jean the boxer wasn't spayed. so right now, she's in the middle of her doggy period. no lies, polly jean is in heat. we have to walk around behind her with a spray bottle and paper towels to wipe off droplets of ickyness on the floor. my dad went out to buy doggy diapers, but she just took them off. she's also really emotional, and whines a lot. we have a lot in common during that time of the month.

in other news...there really isn't anything going on. i mean, there was the whole "Snowmageddon" thing (i have a six day weekend because of it).

hm, what else. bleh, i'm a bore.

i did have a weird dream last night. i was at st. benedict's, and i was trying to make plans with matt on the phone, and then i came across him while walking in the hallway. and then i woke up. i am seeing him tomorrow, possibly.

not even my dreams are interesting, haha.

i found my skirt.

the rad janitor at md found it and added it to the pile of lost and found in that creepy storage room next to ethel's. i felt weird going in there to fetch it alone. BUT STILL. reunited, and it feels so good...


little things.

state of the union- january

• is it possible to feel your heart break? you definitely can. physical pain. this isn't romantic heart breaking. this is "YOU TOTALLY UPGRADED and now i feel worthless" heartbreak. damnit.
• i have a crush on a teacher. well, it's not lustful. but i was in his car, and it smelled so good and comforting. i love when a guy smells good. and his general personality is just lovely. had i been a student at md when he was, or vice versa, i'd most likely pursue him..hah. i'm awful. but he's such a great person, and i love being in his classes and clubs. he calls me j.
• habitat for humanity. i'll get to it. eventually.
• i want a boy. now. i don't care if he enjoys kissing me or simply spending time with me. either/or. i want a boy.
• i don't *need* a boy.
• i'm nervous that i lack personality. being at all of the mock trial competitions, i watch these girls parade around the courtroom with confidence. there's just something about them. like, i can't describe it. i'll call them dynamic girls. you know who they are when you see them. they have dynamic outfits, dynamic conversation, and just a general persona that you can't compete with. they're artsy and intelligent and well spoken...i'm not...i desire to be that girl, but it's just not who i am. i'm quiet. observant. i'm not quick-witted, nor do i have a circle of friends that could stretch around the earth. i desire to be different than i am, but in doing so i am wishing to be the same as everyone else. perhaps i will meet someone that can show me if i have something, if anything at all, to offer the world.
• everyone likes my hair. legitimately. i did it to say "fuck you" to all of those dynamic girls i mentioned above with their beautiful, long, salon ad hair. i prefer short. and looking like a boy when my hair is tucked behind my ears (which is...always). alright, androgyny.
• SOMEONE STOLE MY SCHOOL SKIRT. pants for me until they show up.
• i'm fat. and no, i'm not fishing for compliments. i need to lose weight and stop my nervous eating. i've been told before that my weight is a problem. those instances were a long time ago, but i haven't changed, nor have i forgotten. if only dynamic girls weren't so skinny.
• my confidence fluctuates like my moods. tomorrow i will be happy and carefree. friday i will wallow and cry. guaranteed.

okay, that's all i can think of for now.

oh shit

january is going by so quickly.

i've decided

the worst thing about mater dei is that there are no private places to just sit and cry.

first post in the middle of school.

i'm incredibly bored right now. my french teacher is absent (possibly because she has haitian relatives affected by the earthquake. oh my.)and so we have a sub. our assignment is to work on the midterm review study guide, but i really have no drive to do so. i'll work on it tonight, along with geometry and world religions (although i am exempt from the latter, i still have to do it.)

three twigs are in the corner discussing diets. well, one is trying to convince the other that she is completely idiotic for even thinking she needs to watch what she eats. . i think it might be more eating more healthy than actual weight loss. i wish i had their metabolism. the third is talking about hangovers

tomorrow i have mock trial, and then i'll work on midterm stuff all day. saturday i'll do more reviewing, and then at noon i'll go on my annual shopping spree with my aunts and grandmother. i can't wait.

in the corner, a couple that takes french together are "interdigitating" (in the words of the sub. a word he made up, surely). she's sitting on his lap, and his head is nuzzling her back. all the time she seems so morose because he's essentially a big tool. but when he's calm, and when he's not acting up and being a clown, you can see that he really loves her. in his own way, at least. her eyes are closed, but there are little crinkles around them to match her smile. she's content.

i want to interdigitate** with someone.




**interdigitate: apparently, to hold hands; contact with the hands.

okay, a clarification

so i was replaced. fine, whatever. but i was replaced by a girl/girls that are literally just like me. at least, in the dynamics of their relationship. if anything, they have qualities a certain, disliked person once mocked. or just never paid attention to.


what gives? damn.

people

what makes a person (un)/attractive? and not necessarily in a sexual way. just in general. for me, i think it's unnatural when a guy has long fingernails. but i love long eyelashes. there's this guy i sit across from in geometry, and he once took off his glasses and asked me if the orange paint on his eyelid had wiped off (he's the artsy sort). and he had the most lovely eyes, framed by the longest black eyelashes i've ever seen. well, at least up close and human. they're the kind i'd be afraid to look into, for fear they'd look right through me. but he has those antsy hands, and often scratches his nails against papers on the table. i think he knows how particular i am by now. i like him a lot, but his head works far too fast for me to keep up. he's brilliant. we'll stick to math.

i don't like girls that make stupid comments about themselves. there's this one girl that is kind of like my in-between-class-i-hate-school ranter (she is in the locker next to mine)and today she said "Ugh, I need to go on a diet, I'm so out of breath!" most likely in reference to the four flights of stairs we climb between our first and third floors. she's quite pretty, and twig-like. i knew what she meant, but still. i like her, though. we commiserate often, and i suppose that redeems her. i'm not sure if she sees me in that way, but i don't really think it matters.

purge

i didn't eat anything today. it felt good.

the CJ war

1 year on
battle.
1 year off
the smoke clears.
a month veryvery on
a couple months meh, a few battles
and then BAM. the war begins and ends in like, two days. cool.
no really, cool. that's not sarcastic.

since like 2008 i've been waiting for a definitive end to all of this. an end in which i actually am willing to just let it go. and although i have just let it go, this is just ridiculous. i hate no knowing what's actually happened, other than the fact that i "bothered him for some reason, but he wasn't sure." mkay. that's fine. but then doing allll of the things you were always so set against, now that's just rude. on top of that, you've been dragging me along through all of your phases. it's just wrecking havoc on my emotions.

i recall this crazy dream i had in august of this past summer. i was on vacation, and it was right in the middle of all of that whirlwind lust phase we went through that lasted like a week. (it fizzled when i said no to -sexual- physical things and such...ya know how it is. i got a ring on my finger now reminding me i'll never make that mistake again). the dream was essentially that he fell in love with a bimbo, did all the things he condemned when we were going out (like pda, facebook official, etc.) and it was bad, and she replaced me as the Number One Girl in his life. i then found myself in russia running from nuclear warfare. i blame the last part on too much sun, but it could be interpreted as "running away from the feelings i can't express" (he was under the ruse i had legit feelings for him still at that point...uh, no...i'm just a fan of kissing, cuddling, and security, especially after such a dry spell). i remember him being like "oh, that could never happen. i don't see you being replaced anytime soon, or ever for that matter, because it's good to know someone out there actually cares..." or something along those lines. i did care for him an awful lot, but not in the way i used to. that was old news. that was in our first year. this was our second going on third. it was the effect of yet another chance i had given him.

and so, i currently find that the dream was foreshadowing now. everything he ever hated (or wasn't as important to him) is now what he wants. obnoxious facebook, obnoxious girls, obnoxious people, sex (as if he has a chance...), etc. etc. my only theories are that: he was always like this, and just adjusted for the girl he could actually get (me). OR. he changed when he found something more appealing than me.

either way, i'm insulted. in a snap, it was all "you bother me, i won't contact you anymore, i'll always treasure what we had." shit like that. i didn't know i was so easily disposed of and replaced, especially when i was told time and time again it just wouldn;t happen. i knew it was coming eventually (how many times has he said he will never talk to me again? matt has a theory we'll be friends again by summer...i hope to fucking god not.) and i could sense that he was in contact with me because he felt obligated. (flashback to the first year, when he dumped me because "he couldnt stay with me any longer because he didn't really like me, and only was in a relationship because i was happy")

i'm hoping in the next few months, i'll find myself with friends just as obnoxious, but twice as true. i know i'll always come out on top in the end. for a long time i asked myself "What can i change to make him want me?" and not even in a relationship, just in general. never had i faced such rejection from someone i cared for. but it's not me that had to change. i never could. i know my heart well, and i am incapable of changing my character, my values. but him? he's so fickle, and that will ultimately be his downfall.


i can't wait to watch.

hatred

you can't bring up this important topic and not have any idea how to handle it. this conversation could have been great if you had actually dedicated some time to it. it was like 4 hours long, with like 20 minutes between each response.

i feel sick and i have this knot in my throat. i want you outoutout. go away. i hate you.

it had to be said

so ever since facebook allowed for user created fanpages and what not, my homepage has been clogged with "Such and Such is a fan of this or that". and i absolutely refuse to join so many that my entire profile is taken over by those updates (i'm particular about that). but if there is one that really makes me chuckle, or holds a certain truth, i will make an exception. so, i have to give some credit to the really good ones out there.
my favorites:

• "I survived Y2K, Bird Flu, Mad Cow, 9/11, and Swine Flu. 2012, Here I Come!"- what's funny is that i remember all of these. of course, to go along with this...
• "If the world ends in 2012, ive wasted my whole life in school"- by then i will be in my second year of college, so at least i will have gotten some taste of real life.
• "You won't talk to me, I won't talk to you, so why am I happy you're online?" - it's sad that i experience this on a daily basis. and it's true, i will literally sit here to make sure whoever in particular comes online, just to make sure that they do. i'm such a fucking creep- but so are the 150,000+ fans of this page.
• "I'm the Girl. You're the Boy. You text me first or we don't talk today"- another reason i end up just sitting here. i'd happily break this unwritten rule, but i get really paranoid about it.
• "I don't know you, but I hate you."- I actually searched for this one on facebook, because i'm finding it increasingly true to my life. with all these new privacy settings, it's really easy to stalk people out that aren't your friends. and even if i don't know you, i always end up hating you.

i'm need to stop. i obviously have no life outside of my head and beyond my computer. but like that page says, "At least I'm safe inside my mind."

dreams

there are certain circumstances that produce very vivid dreams.

when i am sick
when i am in some sort of very emotional situation and i am aware
" " and i am not aware
when i haven't been able to fall asleep and finally do, very deeply, for like 5 hours.
in this situation, it's 1, 2, and 4.

Dream #1 Wednesday (12/30/09) into Thursday (12/31/09)

Details: I don't really remember the little details of this one, but i'm pretty sure it was set in the funeral home that was featured in a ghost hunters episode i watched recently. well, now it's a museum, but it used to be a funeral home (and before that, an episcopal church). i was really emotional and scared, and there was some guy speaking solemnly. my youngest brother, andy, was supposedly the one he was talking about...but he was still alive. from what i gathered, andy had some disease and needed to be cremated. and so he was. so he was cremated alive.

Reasons: well, like i said, the setting was strikingly familiar to a place in ghost hunters. as to why andy had to be cremated (technically burned alive) i recently read an article about how humanity's abuse of vaccines has allowed for strains of viruses and diseases to come about that cannot be simply cured or wiped out. (there's a word for it, but i can't remember) there was some guy in florida or something that got a deadly strain of tuberculosis (which was supposedly wiped out in the 20th century) and there are a few more cases like him in the world. i guess andy got one of those diseases. i also didn't fall asleep until around 2 am, and i woke up suddenly around 4 am, checked my phone, then realized that no one was going to text me at that hour. i blew my nose like 5 times, coughed like i had emphysema, then i fell back asleep and that's when the dream happened. i woke up around 9:30.

Dream #2 Thursday (12/31/09) into Friday (1/1/10)

Details: There was this kid i graduated with in 8th grade, Raymond. I don't even know him all that well, but random people like that always make their way into my dreams. in my dream, he wrote me some letter. or rather, he sent me a survey (facebook/myspace kinda survey) about me filled out by him. odd. the dream had an almost bittersweet feeling to it. like, "this guy loves me, but...i am indifferent. i can't help it." something like that. i almost want to say that i wanted to love him, but just couldn't.

Reasons: not sure why ray was in my dream, but i think i came across his facebook not too long ago. i think in this dream, it's influenced by those "she loves me, but i just can't return it..." situations that i see all the time. i don't even know if that is how people feel, but maybe this was my subconcious trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, to rationalize.

ah.