Xanga! Total Embarrassment!

Oh man, I was just reminded of Xanga by one of my facebook friends. In high school, or more specifically, from the end of freshman year of high school to the end of freshman year of college (2003-2007), I had a Xanga that I would update very often... at the very least, monthly, but usually, once or twice a week. Everyone who was anyone had a Xanga. It was our way of fighting passive-aggressively, of keeping up social networks without really knowing what social networks were, of writing a diary hoping at least one other soul would understand your angst and realize that it wasn't angst at all. Looking back on how we felt in high school, I can't help but feel a surge of embarrassment for being in a bad mood all the time. I had a pretty good time in high school-- far better than '90s movies would lead me to believe. But aren't the teenage years just so embarrassing?! I just browsed most of the entries for the past 8-ish years and realized just how much incredibly personal and, I think, absurdly obvious information about my personal life existed on the internet with my full name attached. I also wonder how I even got into college with all of this emotional baggage pasted on the internet for all the world to see. Ugh. I wrote about everything from crushes to teachers possibly being crossdressers to my "firsts". I copied and pasted a lot of song lyrics and did many of those ridiculously long, egotistical tests ("100 things few people know about me!" etc). I also used the Xanga as a dream journal before I began keeping one at the end of my freshman year of college (strangely, also the time I stopped using Xanga...) Mostly, though, I ranted. Pretty pretentiously.

It's also odd to see how my music and film tastes developed. Weird to regress from modern times to senior year, when I listened to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs nonstop, to the Cure (I thought I was so cool), to Led Zeppelin, and Tool before that... and the Doors and Bright Eyes... I also seem to have listened to a lot of Pink Floyd and the Requiem for a Dream soundtrack (creepy!)...

Snippets from my 2005-and-younger self:

"Tomorrow I'm getting four TOOL cds! I art rule."

"Mood: Melancholy, as always. "

"And maybe I will got to junior prom. I don't want to, though. If anything, to keep my division teacher company, who will inevitably end up sitting uncomfortably in a corner reading a novel. I guess I'll do the same. Too bad I can't go in ripped-up jeans and an old t-shirt." (NERD)

"I was a neurotic jerk yesterday. But that doesn't mean I had to get punched! Does my shoulder really deserve such a bruise? Ouch. Now I refuse to apologize. Fuckass." (Mean? Angsty?)

And aww, the first entry when I talk about wanting to go to Columbia: "I'm hoping that I'm going to get into Columbia University. It's both an ivy league and an artsy liberal arts school. The best of both worlds. We'll see where I go from there. I checked into it today, and they have coed dorms only! FUN STUFF!"

"Wouldn't it be weird if say... I was in my mid-twenties, and all the sudden someone comes up to me and says, "Oh, yeah, you're God. We forgot to tell you for the past 20 something years, but you are, and you have all these cool powers." Maybe that's why I kick ass at the Sims." Huh?

"There are no more cookies..."

"You have no idea how much I love iambic pentameter...

Or at least structural poetry,

although I love writing free verse and blank verse a lot better.

Usually blank verse.

Tres cool.

But anyways... GO POETRY!" (How to know that 15-year old me has NO IDEA what she's talking about)

"I love being liberal. Except for affirmative action. That shit should die." (I still believe this, but this sounds really strange and very egotistical coming from my old self)

Oh, and then there were the Theorems. I had Theorems. And because I love(d) Oscar Wilde so much, I thought a pretty sweet pseudonym would be Julia Wilde, so I called them my Wilde Theorems. For example: "[Wilde] Theorem 1-1: If a person perpetually claims themself as an intelligent person when it isn't necessary to do so, then they are most likely not very clever (or just plain stupid) to interrupt their conversations with exclamations of "i'm intelligent and don't deserve this." A true intellectual would usually shirk away from praise and, if needed, replace self-gratification with comedy." The more fancy words I use, the less I know what the hell I'm talking about, which is pretty obvious.

This is how most of the entries began: "I had an interesting dream last night… it was trés cool."

When I realized I hated economics after having to study it for Academic Decathlon: "QUESTION: If you could have been working at $24.00 an hour for the two hours it took you to shop for the $59.99 lava lamp, and its ugliness caused your rich significant other to break up with you right before he or she was going to give you a $100 watch, what is the total cost of the lava lamp? I have some problems with this... #5. WHO CARES ABOUT MONEY??? You just got dumped! For a lamp!You're not going to find out the economic cost of the lava lamp! You're gonna bawl your eyes out and empty out 2 pints of Ben & Jerry's!"

Nonsequitors: "Ugh, well, my contacts are messed up.

Funny moment today: (don't remember most of it, but I'll try my best)

(Ginny, Shaina, and I sitting on a front porch outside)

Me: There's an ant on my arm...

Shaina + Ginny: Flick it off.

Me: But it's so cool... so tiny and cute... it's running all over my arm... so tiny... and THEN I SMUSH IT TO PIECES!

Ginny: You are SO sadistic!

Me: ... (The ant doesn't die even after smushing, so I flick it off)

Shaina: You're such a freak!

Me: Says The Shaina...

Ginny: Shaina, she makes a point."