...and way off in the distance, there're seven new people born.

I must confess that I didn't do any of the things one is supposed to do before school starts. I didn't do any back-to-school-shopping. I didn't buy matching pastel binders and pencils, and I didn't plan my outfit and leave it folded neatly on a chair. I didn't buy a pencil sharpener or a stapler or cute little magnetic clips for my locker. I didn't pack my bag the night before or go over my schedule. I didn't even show up on time. I overslept in a men's plaid flannel shirt (I ran out of pijamas) and almost fell on my face getting out of bed. It was the first day of school and I just simply didn't care.

When I was a freshman I held this belief that there were really cool people in high school doing really cool, intellectual things that I didn't know about. I assumed that every party I wasn't invited to was fun and hilarious and deeply meaningful. I wondered if Blake and Huxley were right about drugs opening the doors of perception. I thought all of the so-called hippies and artistes and musicians were sincere. I thought people read books and examined paintings and cared about classicism. I thought there were lofty and wonderful things going on.

Now I'm a junior and I feel like there's absolutely nothing going on behind the screen. The parties aren't funny or enlightening or even all that memorable, and the people seem like zombies. They keep going around in nice tiny circles like wind-up toys with broken wheels and they barely see each other. Nobody seems to have changed at all. Everyone seems content to keep doing what they were doing. Life is becoming a collage of homework, alarm clocks, bells, classes, faces, pizza, french fries, hallways, silent meeting, lockers. The same faces will keep being thrown back at me in random, meaningless sequences. Nothing's different, except that there's no Harry to smile for or walk through the park with. Maybe I'm different. I don't even know. I ate lunch with my sister today.