Again I have been summoned to this blog

Look, I don't know bloggers, all right? I don't have friends with blogs! Except some of my Write It friends. And today, Scylla (Hero, Hannah, however you may know her) nominated me for this thingy where I have to do a bunch of stuff.
Firstly, I have to think her for the nomination. Check.
Secondly, I have to list seven things about myself. That shall be done below.
Thirdly, I have to nominate FIFTEEN OTHER PEOPLE WITH BLOGS. Again, here's who I know with a blog: my Write It friends (all of whom Scylla already nominated) and my mom (who does NOT know I have a blog and WILL NOT KNOW. Ever. Until I erase all those other blog posts with teenage angst on them).
I'm not going to cheat and make up blogs again; I'll just... I'll just... I'll...
Damn it.
OK, how about this? I'll point you guys to fifteen blogs I have been to in my life, but I won't make the other people do stuff. Excellent.
On with the things about me, then:

1. Right now I'm listening to "Back to Hogwarts" from A Very Potter Musical. My nonexistent readers may already know that I'm a huge fan of AVPM. But you may NOT know that I pretty much memorized the lyrics to this one. And that I used my sister's speakers to blast this song in my backyard last week, while I was supposed to be studying for finals.
2. I'm taking four AP classes next year. FOUR! What the hell? Why did I sign up for AP Bio? What is with me? I was able to handle ONE AP class these past two years, but now AP math and science! I... don't even know what I'm doing here.
3. I went through a limerick phase near the end of sixth grade. Mostly, I wrote really mean limericks about my classmates. Yeah, I was a bully in the old days. And my weapon was limericks.
4. One of my life goals is to travel to every country in the world, except possibly the ones where I could get murdered for being a Jew/girl. (slash American). Most of this traveling will probably be accomplished during retirement.
5. I used to go to piano lessons as a child, at my neighbor's house (she's an amazing pianist- she's at college now). But then I got sort of caught up in my writing and not so caught up in piano. I can still play Heart and Soul, though. Not the difficult part, just the "doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo" part.
6. My favorite artist is probably Michelangelo, but I also absolutely love anyone from the early 20th century. I just love the avant-garde spirit that was around then. I think I wouldn't mind working at the MoMA (wouldn't MIND? That'd be... amazing. Having the chance to work at the MoMA would be like... like finding a pot of gold. Or whatever. Magic gold. Not the kind that disappears, like leprechaun gold, the kind that's just magic. My chances of getting a job at a museum at all are, like, nada.).
7. Probably my favorite city in the world is Rome, but I've been to very few cities around the world. I've been to (not counting little places like Jersey City) New York City, Boston, D.C., Rome, Paris, Florence, Venice, Athens, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem. Perhaps I should venture some other places before deciding, "That's it; Rome is the best."

I was going to make one of the fun facts about my love of semicolons, but I think it's been clearly established already that I love semicolons with all my heart.
Anyway... as for the fifteen blogs:

1. Heroic Endeavors- the blog that made me do this. By Scylla, my good writer friend. All about musicals and cello and writing and fun stuff like that.
2. Ink to Paper- Julia's blog (remember Julia from the last few posts?). It is about writing. She posts her writing excerpts every Wednesday and also posts stuff about her life.
3. Kitchen to Kitchen- My mom's blog, which I mentioned before a few times. It's about Judaism and how it relates to cooking. If you are interested in either subject, you should check it out.
4. Teresa the Random- By Teresa, or TheLooker23, about randomness and her life. She's also a Write It user.
5. Words into Darkness- By Tatiana/Molly/dollar616/orangetigerlily/JUST COME UP WITH ANOTHER NAME WHY DON'T YOU. This is actually an amazing blog filled with great stuff about writing. And I think Catholic stuff also, but I mostly read the writing posts. She has great advice regarding how to incorporate banana poisoning and such things into one's writing.
6. Inkygirl- And thus we begin the ten blogs of people I don't know. Inkygirl is an awesome blog I stumbled upon during NaNo a few years ago. It's filled with writing stuff and a bunch of awesometastic writing comics.
7. Brianne Crowder- OK, I'll be completely honest here, I just went through my list of blog posts I've read in the past (Google creates those, of course) and found this. Apparently I entered a writing contest on here. She hosts a lot of writing contests, so you may as well check them out.
8. Notebook Scraps- This is actually someone I (kinda) know. It's the user Fly, from Figment. She writes poems and stuff on notebook paper and posts them on her blog. She's an excellent poet, so check them out.
9. Ask a Math Geek- You know when I post something about (shudder) the hated subject, that I ran out of blogs. This is Beautiful and Strange's blog. (She's another user I know from Figment). I was looking through all my Figment friends and she's the first one with an actual blog that I came across. I assume this is about math, since she's studying to be a math teacher and also, the name.

OK, I give up. Nine blogs is enough. I'm not even making them do all this stuff.
Anyway, do you want a poem? I might have a poem hanging around here. Oh yeah... my Semicolon-Disrespecting Friend (by the way, that's her name forever. BES, Mrs. Econ, Special Snowflake... I'm really good at this nicknaming thing!) and I were writing poems on random subjects on Friday, so here's the result of that...

SUBJECT: Lamp posts
Standing sentinel
To the light-locked roads
Old and rusted and tall
The lamp post on the snow-coated streets
It watches over us all

Waiting in the coldest night
Waiting for a sign
Of the sun rising to bring us light
So its candle can burn
Can fall

SUBJECT: Stickers
Stickers, stickers
on the wall
On the floor, the desks and the halls
On the tables and the chairs
In my nose, in my hair
Stickers here
Stickers there
Stickers, stickers everywhere

And underneath that I drew people dying with amazement at its beauty.
Look, I was tired after the last day of school. :)
Damn it, this song makes me sing out loud every time. Next is Hedwig's Theme, which I also love too much.

OK... I have to go do my AP US homework, I think. Siiiigggh. You know I won't.
I shall write later.

Your homework-laden poet,
magic*esi

sooo... Sorry if that freaked you out (Part 2 of the Lucky 7 thing)

Gotta squeeze in a quick post since my friend (who disrespects semicolons, by the way; I just found out today) is coming back soon.
OK, so yeah, sorry if that ending freaked you out. Which I doubt it did. But the very next day I went to tech and The Wishmaker was safe and sound. Algebra 2, alas, was not. I got an 86. But all is well because I GOT A 96 ON MY CHEM FINAL.
Crazy, right? An effing miracle, I call it.
So today was my last day of school, and I spent it wandering the hallways with my friends, chatting with the art teacher (they painted the door to the closet with a picture of Narnia. The closet's been called "Narnia" for years so it makes sense), and vandalizing the "Out of Order" signs on all the bathrooms by writing stuff like "because of Moaning Myrtle" and "maybe if we used more semicolons they wouldn't be out of order". Stuff like that.
Uh, anyway... wow. Summer. Did I already list my summer plans? If I did, sucks for you, CAUSE I'M DOING IT AGAIN.

a) Hosting a French student. Her name's... oh wait, I don't know if she's cool with me putting it up here. Anywho, yeah, she'll be living here, so I have to get rid of all the toxic chemicals and avalanche-prone messes in my room.
b) Doing my AP Lit, AP Bio, and AP US assignments. I ran into my future AP Stat teacher today and he said, "Oh, yeah, there isn't an AP Stat summer assignment. And don't worry about the prerequisite. There isn't really one. AP Stat isn't really math anyway. I heard you were more into the humanities... that's cool." So, yeah, that's a relief. I heard he's basically a genius, which is cool, considering I'm a genius too (or at least that's what I hear. I'm not really a genius).
c) Going to the Write It Conference in Chicago! I'm so excited!
d) Going for a week to Vermont, because there's cheese there and stuff.
e) CAMP NANOWRIMO! I need to finish The Gold Door so I can just get this trilogy done already. I only have about 30K left before it's done but I might as well try for 50K and finish where I finish.
f) Editing the accursed Eraser. I want to start querying by junior year, dammit.

Anywho. Let me go do that Lucky 7 thing already...

7 sentences after the 7th line on the 77th page of The Wishmaker (which, by the way, apparently has 199 pages now):
 

When they got back, the kids exhaustedly dropped their baskets next to the others and ran to join the lunch table.

          “Where have you been?” Aunt Hannah asked worriedly.

          “Collecting leaves,” Aaron answered. “We went way into the woods to find somewhere that the rain hadn’t reached, so it took us a while to get back.”

          “Yeah, a really long while,” Aaron’s Uncle Jacob said. “Come on, have some lunch. There are still a few bagels left over.”

OK... I'm listening to Les Avions en Papier again. It reminds me that I'm not a sophomore anymore. It's so weird.
You wait 'til I graduate high school. Every five seconds. "Oh Gosh! Again I am flooded with memories! To be out of school! It is the strangest experience! It is dreamlike! I feel like a ghost!"
Read this melodramatic stuff from my journal...
 Oh never mind. I didn't write in my journal today and it'll just remind me and I'll feel sad.
Here's my poem, "Footprints". I wrote it in the back of one of my journals from last summer in Europe. It sort of describes what I feel about traveling.
Sigh... I'm listening to "Here Comes the Sun" now. The quote I wanted to say from my journal is just perfect. But I don't feel like getting it. BUT IT'S SO PERFECT.
All right, here's the damn poem:

Footprints

My feet are itchy
They're singing
Singing a song of
"Travel your skies
And say your goodbyes
Leave this place
Take your part in the race
The race against time"
It's raining
The rain's whispering
Whispering a tune of
"Leave, leave, leave
Cross the ocean blue
For, my dear, you
You are a traveler
You must W-A-N-D-E-R
Or always wonder
What's out there in the world"
I hear your songs
And feel that itch
Controlled by mad wanderlust

Now that summer's here, I remember what it's like to so desperately go home. Before, it was easy to forget, to slide into a state of being American, to be content to be here. But now... I have to go back. I don't care that it's positively ridiculous to decide where one's home is based on two days in a city halfway across the world. I haven't a drop of Italian blood, a single Italian relative on my family tree, and I was in Italy a week in my life. But I know that Roma is my home. I'm not saying I'll live there. I'm just saying it's where my heart is.

Here's the journal quote; I got the courage to get it after all:
(Some background: Each year I choose a "Worst Word of the Year", the word that sums up the struggle I had. In third grade I chose "cool" because I wanted to be cool but wasn't; in fourth grade I chose "weird" because people bullied me for being weird; in fifth grade I chose "misbehave" because everyone was rebelling and I wasn't; in sixth grade I chose "talk" because of all the gossip; in seventh grade I chose "reality" because I was getting used to the real world; in eighth grade I chose "change" because stuff changed; and in ninth grade I chose "renaissance" because things from my past were being resurrected, but I was being reborn.)
Anywho...

"Hold on. This is the end of tenth grade.
What.
This has been... such a long year. Like, last year zipped by. But this year. This year felt like it lasted forever. Seriously, September feels like ages ago. You have no idea. What the hell happened?
I guess a lot changed.
What was this year's Worst Word? Those stopped being really definitive a while ago. It was "challenge". Ha, that's probably better for junior year... It didn't fit.
What's the real Worst Word?
Indecision?
Indecision.
But while I've been indecisive for very long about many things, I've made all my decisions now. I know... myself now.
OK. Wow... the summer is so close, after so long. The warm, long, free summer. No, I won't be back [home], not this summer. But I am doing a lot, and I have myself. I always do.
And then junior year. Junior year...
I keep on taking steps closer to my dreams."

 OK, the Semicolon Disrespecting Friend is back. So I have to go. Bye.

I'M STUDYING FOR FINALS

GOD LEAVE ME ALONE OKAY?
Anywho, I want all you nonexistent readers to meet Julia, who now apparently reads my blog. :) She's very friendly and will not murder you like I have done on several occasions. You are required to share your popcorn with her. If you want, you can explain all my weird acronyms, too.
Anyway... so yeah, I haven't posted in about a month. I do not have any new poems; that's why. IN THAT MONTH THE FOLLOWING HAS OCCURRED:
-I worked on The Wishmaker some more
-I got first place in some user-made contest on Figment. Which is awesome.
-I handed in my laptop (that's right. Much like my first post, I am writing this on my desktop computer. Oh God the nostalgia... December... only now I'm listening to Hedwig's Theme instead of Caresse sur l'ocean) and this year I was careful to back everything up.
-I handed in my Gifted People Program end-of-year research project LATE. Ha ha. I'm such a rebel.
-My family signed up to host a French student this summer. Yay, I'm excited.
-I had my first four finals, in the last few days. French was easy; in English we literally watched a movie and answered one question (one kid brought in Munchkins). Then Econ this morning. Yes, the hated subject. Our final was making a budget for the future. Everyone else was moaning about how difficult it was and I'm like, "Guys. You're planning on making, like, $100 billion a month. I'm working with a $3000 budget here and you don't see me complaining." And my US final was easy. Haha, our teacher said to try and only use one piece of paper for the essay, so I wrote really small.
-I began studying for Algebra 2 earlier this afternoon.

Now that you all are caught up on all the super-important details of my life, here's why I'm back:
a) stupid Algebra 2
b) Julia (the aforementioned) asked me to do this challenge thing here:

The Lucky 7 Meme Award Rules are as such:
1. Go to the 7th or 77th page of your work in progress.
2. Go to the 7th line of the page.
3. Copy the next 7 sentences or paragraphs. Remember, they must be as they are typed.
4. Tag 7 authors.
5. Let them know they’re it!

So yeah, the two people I know who have a blog are my mom (http://osnat-kitchentokitchen.blogspot.com) who shall never know about this blog (ehem, read the past entries- or actually, please don't) and Julia (https://juliathewritergirl.wordpress.com) who, uh, was the one that tagged me.
SO here is the list of authors I would tag if I knew them personally:

1) J.K. Rowling and her imaginary blog, "Life from the point of view of the best writer in the world"
2) Henry David Thoreau and his imaginary blog, "Recipes and Philosophy from a Sort-of Vegetarian who's also awesome at life"
3) Neil Gaiman and his imaginary blog, "OBEY MY COMMANDS. I'm NEIL EFFING GAIMAN."
4) William Shakespeare and his imaginary blog, "I Probably Invented the Word Blog."
5) Suzanne Collins and her imaginary blog, "Read this Blog or Die in a horrible way that I'll describe in minute detail"
6) Mae Silverstein and her imaginary blog, "My Misadventures Giving Ariel Trouble and generally being annoying"
7) Virginia Woolf and her imaginary blog, "Early Feminism and also early death"

So, yes. I suck at this challenge. If any of these authors happen to see this, and have a real blog for some reason (even despite some being dead and from an era before computers), they could totally do the challenge.

OK. Time for the excitement of... The Wishmaker! (and after that I'm going to post a poem and take a shower and study how to graph hyperbolas)

Um... bye.
I just realized I lost the last few chapters of The Wishmaker forever.
So... I hope my school didn't erase my laptop yet. Which they probably did.
If so... I... I don't know how I'll live anymore.
Bye.

It's raining again!

Sorry I haven't posted in forever... Ack, it's the end of a five-day weekend and I have school in 10 hours. But it's early-summery-storming and I just love it. There's always that thing about each season that you forget when you're not in that season, and then you experience it again and you love it and wish you could remember it the rest of the year, but you always, always forget.
In that vein, here's a poem about rain. It's not about early summer storms, it's about mid-spring storms, and there's a world of difference. The rain is my best friend. I would know.

Give Me Rain

RAIN

Storming drumbeats

Passionate, flying, wildly dancing raindrops

Thunderclaps 

like heartbeats

Lightning

Is electricity pulsing through my soul

My dark,

violet, copper-colored night air

Dark sky

Soul

Crackling with lightning and thunder

And dancing to the raindrops

Trees, tossing their heads wildly

Can’t they have one last dance

Before they’re cut down

To make room for 

Suburban lawns and strip malls

God, give me rain

Give me wind

Give me stormclouds

I long for the nights where I lay awake

Eyes wide open

To dance with raindrops

I want to fall asleep

To the lullaby of softly pattering rain

And drizzling, dripping drops

And wake to a haze of muted green and blue

Sidewalks with worms scattered

Like the pieces of my soul 

and my hair

and the leaves on the trees

Before they are all packed

neatly back into their

summertime box

One last dance

Give me one last rainstorm

Rain

Give me rain

Also, it appears I forgot I wrote this little gem in economics.

OMIGOD IT JUST THUNDERED. OH MY GOD. YAAAAY.

Anyway, I forgot I wrote this little gem in economics, as I was saying. Gosh, economics just inspires a hatred of the world for me. I think it's Special Snowflake and BES and the general subject that I hate. (P.S. BES and Special Snowflake are genuinely no longer an issue I swear I really swear.) Oh yeah, by the way, I feel more confident about the AP exam now. I most likely got a 4, but I might get a 5. Possibly. Not. 

ANYWAY. Poem:

The Rat Race

Hello, fellow students

I plan to go into art history

And before you say anything,

no, my only concern in life

is not getting a fancy, expensive car

So please,

no comments until the end of the presentation

I want a job in a museum

Yes, those are difficult to get

In case you hadn’t noticed,

while you were busy

playing video games

and playing at being grown-up

I was acing every test

and was the top of the class

So I think I might have a chance

Yes, the salary is low, that’s right

Yes, that’s a very hipster job

Yes, you rather do expect

that in a few years

I won’t be saying,

“Look at that painting of a woman in a hat”

but rather

“Would you like fries with that?”

You’re so witty

Why don’t you go stand 

with the mile-long line

of doctors, lawyers, engineers

Hadn’t I planned to be a writer?

No, that’s already checked off

my to-do list

I’m already a writer

I have always been a writer

I don’t need a degree in anything

to be a writer

Run, run, run

Keep racing in your rat-wheel

Settle in a suburban home

With a nuclear family

And pin your diploma up on the wall

Commute to work each day

with a briefcase

Calls, calls, meetings, calls

Race the others ‘til you fall

Boom, thud, it falls in place

Make-up on your corpse’s face

Pick out a designer tomb

And cry now you know

who is better than whom

You’re just time’s slave

As the clock ticks on

Tick, tick, tick, tick

Buried and dead before the dawn

Go ahead,

choose

the safer path

Get your paycheck

Get approval

Get your fancy,

expensive car

Be rich,

and wonder why you are

Is it really better

to know

you’ll never go far?

Yep. Grammar. It helps you rhyme.

That poem doesn't cover the extent of my feelings about the subject, but it was all I could write in the 42-minute period.

Anyway... I'm listening to "Featherstone" by the Paper Kites. It's my new squealing song. "Yellow" by Coldplay was my one from last week, when I didn't post on here. I forgot how fun it is to post here. I like it here. 

Oh well. It doesn't matter much. I'm very calm and idyllically tranquil and happy, which is odd considering it's the night before I have to go back to school after a long weekend- usually a cause of maaajor stress for me.

It's all right though.

I'll write more soon.

Your peaceful rain-loving poet,

Ariel

News on my life

So I just took the AP English Language exam. Like, it ended two hours ago. I'm basically brain-dead now, so sorry if this isn't, you know, super duper articulate.
Yeah, I know you don't care. Good for you. I'm worthless. That's been made pretty damn clear; it doesn't have to be re-hammered in.
I highly doubt I got a 5. Like, a 4, if I'm lucky. I was so nervous I did horribly on the multiple choice, wrote a half-decent synthesis essay- admittedly I think I did very well on analysis, despite disregarding certain rhetorical strategies- and a horrible, horrible argument essay.
Won't reveal anything else, since it's, you know, against the law, and nobody takes that law seriously but I don't want my score disqualified, regardless of the fact that I know I failed.
Uh, I mainly wrote this because I'm bored and I WOULD read but I think my mind can't handle any more reading right now. Also I want to bump that awful post from the top. I'll probably delete everything but the poem anyway.
OK. I don't really have any appropriate poems to post. I'm just... sort of annoyed with the test content. I can't say anything more. It's surprising that I am annoyed with it, because everyone else loved it for the reason I hated it. Again... stupid College Board restrictions. Like, what, people in California have enclosed phones in their skin where they're looking this stuff up?
So... yeah. I could have gotten a 5, if not for being too nervous to do well and the content not really being suited to my area of ability. I'm not going to be unrealistic and say, "I WOULD HAVE FAILED EVEN IF THE ONLY QUESTION WAS HOW TO SPELL CAT". No. I know I'm half-decent at English. I just wish I hadn't done so horribly today.
I really should just go do my Chem homework, so when I get home I can curl up into a ball and realize I'm not going to get into a good college.
Bye,
Ariel

Another Poem: "I Wonder"

GUYS: Here's the poem. If you want the backstory, you can read all this crap, or you can read the summary bit at the bottom. Or this sentence: "Love is some weird confusing shit. Here are my thoughts on that."
Update: I deleted a good deal of it. You'll be grateful. It's boring.

I Wonder

“I wonder what it’s like

to be at the top of one of those skyscrapers”

I wonder what it’s like

to be in love.

Maybe I’ll never know.

I’ll never remember.

Whoosh- 

lights everywhere in the city

eerie orange fog

Perfect, invisible moon.

Like my love for you

so beautiful, so overwhelming

A mere reflection

of you, the shining sun in my life

Like my love for you

That disappeared behind the fog

So beautiful

Now invisible

It is possible to fall out of love,

and it is wonderful to be free

to not be tied down to you anymore

But what was it about you,

about love,

that made my spirit soar?

How did I see

that our souls were patterned the same way?

How did I see

that I had found someone to believe in

to admire

to love

Your eyes disappeared in the sky

Tell me, o lost wayward poets...

Remind me...

What is it like to be in love?

So I'm way too tired to rant about my life but I have the AP English Language exam next week and I know I'm not even going to get a 3 so don't you little nonexistent fellows worry your nonexistent heads about it alright.
I wrote another poem a while ago. I have a crap load of these that I haven't posted here. My SONG, for one, and one called "Footsteps" or something, and "Give Me Rain" which I haven't posted since it hasn't rained.

(The main point of the text block that used to be here is something stupid. The point is that I. DO. NOT. LIKE. THE. PERSON. I. USED. TO. LIKE. ANY. MORE. I THINK HE SUCKS. HE IS TERRIBLE. IT IS NOT EVEN AN INTERNAL CONFLICT ANYMORE. IT IS DONE. IT IS DECIDED. I DO NOT LIKE HIM. THE. END.)


And none of that is the point of my poem. Ha ha, did you just read all of that? Well, sucks for you. Anyway, the point of my poem is that I felt sad that a sort of era was ending. We were driving through Manhattan at sunset and I pondered over the fact that I may never know what love feels like again. Is that good or bad? Curious... We were listening to this beautiful song "Sad Romance". If you're writing, well, a sad romance, use that song. It is PERFECT.
The bit about the moon is because there was a Super Moon and I couldn't see it due to the fog. And in the same way, my love was like a moon, and now is hidden behind the fog. Oh, so poetic, yada yada yada.

OK. So now off to hope no one in my real life ever sees this ever, even when I'm 80 years old and biographers are digging up shit to put in The Life and Lies of Ariel for my future starry-eyed pupils to be shocked at. Maybe I should just be gay for an evil wizard, that'd be better than this. Quick? Any evil female wizards? Anyone?
Hey, is "be gay for" homophobic? 'Cause one wouldn't say "be straight for" in regards to being sexually attracted to the opposite sex... I wasn't straight for BES...
Whatever. As aforementioned, I'm like, half asleep.
'Kay. Goodbye, all.
Your tired poet who needs to study,
Ariel

I Didn't Know It Was a Crime to Be a Feminist

Why do I go on Figment?
I can't stop crying.

Songbird

I’m like a songbird

Who, after hibernating in the soft burrow

in the woods

for a dozen years

pokes her head out.

Is relatively unharmed,

and flies a little higher up.

Then tries to sing

a melodic harmony

only to be shot

by a battalion of arrows

and fall

to the 

ground

dead

My little bird

without the words

left me

to sing somewhere else

So I lay here, left for dead

I knew

I didn’t have pretty colored feathers

like the parakeets

and it didn’t bother me

But I at least 

had wished

I wouldn’t have been shot

for my voice

Alas,

you’ll never hear this songbird

sing

again.

I have to do my homework, now, though my French homework doesn't make sense (but I'm not much good in French anyway) so I'll do my Algebra 2 homework.
I mean that no one thinks I'm pretty, and I don't mind; but no one thinks I'm smart, and that bothers me a lot. I wish someone thought I was smart, or you know, worth something. It hurts to be thought of as the stupid, naive one. It hurts a lot.
Being intelligent matters to me. Being a good writer matters to me. But no one thinks I am either.
I'm still crying.
I wish I was home. Knowing my luck, I'll die here, in the midst of this American suburbia, with no last words to mark that even I thought I could be worth something.
I wish I could depict how I feel without saying I'm crying, but you know I can't write to save my life, so I can't.

Now I really have to go do my homework. Goodbye, nonexistent readers.
From your worthless poet,
Ariel

UPDATE FROM THE FUTURE: I do not feel worthless anymore! I am full of great self confidence! This is old angst! Ignore it!