Cracked.

I just cracked. Snapped. Today.

It's not the best time for me - gotten over *another* guy - well, trying to, anyway - and not exactly the best time of the month for me. But today I cracked.

It was already a bad day - I left my notebook at home, and my new, unfamiliar, year eight/year nine schedule.

At recess, my friends and I went to the brand new, too small, smells-like-ammonia cafeteria to meet up with one of my friend's new boyfriend. Jimmy is really sweet and nice and cute, and I'm so jealous of my friend - not that I like him in that way, but the fact that she's got someone who's not some flea-bitten, moral-lacking hoebag.

Jimmy is really sweet - and funny - and he treats my friend like a princess. It was hard sitting there, my self-control and tolerence waning fast, with the prettiest girls in the school, one of which had the perfect boyfriend.

I survived the day. I was proud of myself. Normally I would've snapped.

It was on the way to the train station when I heard a voice say "Did you ask John out?"

John was that guy I was talking about on one of my earlier posts. Yeah, that guy. The Perfect One.

I was overconfident, totally over BSC and eager to bury myself in a new world of exciting opportunities. I asked John to go to a gathering, a sort of hook-up thing Jimmy's girlfriend devised to get my other friend and I hooked up. Publicly, in front of all his airhead friends, he said no.

That was shattering, but I could take it. Rejection is cold, bitter, painful, but bearable. I'm thirteen, been there, done that, and I could take it when some idiot rejected my own personal brand of radness.

What I *couldn't* take when he boasted about it. Some nerd who takes year nine classes asked me out. First month. Aren't I hot?

He told all the year eights. Half the year nines. Most of the year tens. For all the Americans, that's most of the freshmans, sophomores and juniors.

That's nearly half the school.

That was harder to take. It was like having my heart ripped apart, both bits dunked in acid, then stuffed back into my body.

Several Kleenexes and sleepless, teary nights later, I got over it. It wasn't as long and as drawn out as the whole BSC saga. Well, not really.

I was fine until John's best friend coughed 'rejected' everytime he saw me, causing laughter to ripple through the whole stupid group.

He stopped, eventually, because I showed no emotion when he did it. I was used to containing it. Of course it hurt, and I wished I could rip his miserable little throat out and scream at him that he knew *nothing* about all of this shit. But I didn't. I buried myself in my studies, teased my friends about their respective crushes, even though I was secretly thinking that they had so much more chance of making anything work than I did. And I had no idea why.

But it faded over a couple of weeks. I confronted John, but he laughed it off. I dropped it. I wanted to make him cry and blubber pathetically like I had, I wanted everyone to laugh at *him* instead of me. But that wasn't going to happen. So I dropped it. Anger is a deadly poison.

Then, today, that idiot airhead called out 'Did you ask out John?'

I felt like murdering her. How many boyfriends, perfect, gorgeous boys that had treated her like a princess, had she thrown away? How many times had a guy turned her down in front of the whole grade? How many times had she been the dog chasing the uncatchable car? She was probably the goddamn Aston Martin.

Cool and calm, I replied 'Maybe'.

'Maybe' really pisses them off. They can't comprehend that 'maybe' means 'I don't want to talk about this, bitch. Back off before I kill you'. They want a 'yes', which means they can outright tease me, or a 'no', so they could have the chance to say 'I bet you did'.

She seemed a bit shocked. 'Oh. It's just that everyone's talking about it"

My calm and collected cool mood evaporated. It was replaced by ice - cold and deadly.

"What business is that of yours?" I asked her coldly. I stalked off.

I don't care I've made another enemy. I don't care. I'll make a thousand enemies. A million enemies. The whole world can hate me.

But never again will I *ever* be laughing stock.

Why?

Why is 'C' called 'Satisfactory' when it's the most unsatisfactory mark a student can get - neither pass nor fail?

Why do adults take the student train and expect schoolkids to give up their seats for them?

Why do teachers use the excuse 'We're just human' but throw tantrums when we say 'We're just kids'?

...Come to think of it, why are teachers allowed to make excuses but we aren't?

Why do we always have to do what they say but they never do what we say?

Why do teachers yell at you if you're dumb and yell even harder if you're smart?

Why do teachers assume they know everything? Why do teachers assume that they're better than us?

Why are teachers allowed to be late but we aren't?

Why are teachers allowed to wear and do whatever they want and we have to wear a uniform?

Why do teachers always use the phrase 'It just makes our job easier'? No-one ever said teaching was easy.

Why are we yelled at if we call in sick and yelled at even harder when we come to school feverish? I've never seen a teacher come to school ill and I've never seen a teacher been scolded for having a cold.

Why do teachers get really pissed when you beat them in something? They're supposed to be happy - it means that someone else has done their job for them.

Why do teachers get really pissed when you correct them about something? They're supposed to be happy - it means they don't have to go to the trouble to teach us to be humble citizens. Oh, wait - don't worry, they never do anyway.

Why do teachers yell at you when you do really messy work because they say 'Presentation is Everything' but give the top marks to the *messiest* essay because 'It's the Content That Counts'?

Why do teachers say we're ungrateful when we ask politely if we can actually learn something this year? It's not like we pointed a gun to their head and said 'Teach us or die'.

Why do teachers say we're ungrateful when we say we can't wait for high school, and that whatever high school is it has to be better than primary? We're just stating the truth - something they supposedly taught us to do.

Why do teachers say we're ungrateful because we're going to a select school instead of the local one? Does it really look like I want to spend another five years slowly dying an excrutiatingly painful death of boredom? I'm half dead already.

Why do teachers always say 'you'll get all of this when you become a teacher' when we complain about their overindulgent priveledges? Does it really look like we want to be teachers, and have this written about us?

A New Life

I'll admit it: last year, I was depressed. I believe that life is too short to spend any moment bored, and to spend a whole year bored drove me crazy. Not to mention all that drama over BSC - I'm so glad that was over - and things just changed too fast for me.

Last year was a bad year.

Now, life's taken a turn for the best. The worst thing that's probably happened this year is that I've ended up with the most uncooperative locker in the school, or that I got makeup on my white school shirt collar, or that our school uniform includes the tackiest socks ever invented. School is fun, challenging, and hectic - I don't have time to be bored, and now I'm concentrating on curbing my rule-bending ways. I've got brilliant friends - the kind of friends who know you for three days but still get you birthday presents - and we run on the same frequency, if you get my gist. My writing dreams seem so close now, much closer than they seemed whilst I was trapped in primary school. I've got teachers that actually care about gifted students - well, even if they don't, they can hardly complain because my school is an academic elite school and everyone is top notch. Competing with the state's best is fun, although it takes some getting used to, not being the best all the time. I don't have to worry about appearing 'too weird' in front of my new friends, because, believe it or not, most of them are just as weird or even weirder than me, if that's even possible.

I've got a new crush as well - I won't tell you his name or anything about him because I think one of my classmates might be reading this and he'll tease the mickey out of me if he found out who it is. I'm taking a break from charming, charismatic, confident guys and going for the sweet and shy type - and this guy I like seems to be loads better than BSC. But I'm not going to rush anything - if one of them asks me out and I like him, I'll go out with him, but I'm not going to be the girlfriend of some random hickey. This year, I'm not so desperate for a boyfriend - I'm cool if I get a couple this year, but I'm also cool if I stay flying solo.

I'm also changing obsessions - the obsessive-compulsive behaviour of Bella Swan gets kind of annoying after a while - and now I'm starting to get into Lord of the Rings - my favourite couple is Eowyn and Faramir, but all but *one* scene of them was cut from Return of the King! It's in the extended edition, and I've watched all the scenes on youtube, but still...they should elaborate on it a bit more. They're the best couple of the series - and they're both Australian. Whoot!

I turned thirteen two days ago, and it was marked with tons of presents from friends I'd known for about three days, a balloon my sister sneaked out of campus to get, train drama and a huge steak for dinner.

At the moment, life is good.

Reality Check.

I don't want to sound sympathetic,
I don't want to make girls look pathetic;
I just want to tell all you guys the truth.
All the crazy things that girls do,
All the crazy things that girls go through;
We do it for you.

All my life I've heard guys complaining
That girls are just so hard to understand.
We go through an awful lot,
And yet you seem to want everything we're not;
Our lives are tough enough without you,
And we can live without you;
Yes we can.

I just laugh when guys say,
They're underpriveledged and depressed.
Because if women jumped for the same reasons you do,
We'd all be dead.

Guys have no right to say,
That we cry too much;
We worry too much;
But they do, anyway.
Because if you were us,
You'd make twice the fuss;
And we'd probably have a tissue shortage.

You try living through every day,
Counting pounds and watching your weight.
You try trying to be perfect,
For men that can't appreciate (us).

You try being hair free,
Super thin,
Shoving bleached rayon up your ass.
You try being ridiculed,
Made to clean and cook
Being a woman isn't as easy as they say.

You try hobbling around,
Looking like a clown;
Doing stupid things,
Like putting sulphur on your face.
Just to make those stupid spots go away!

Men think they go through so much pain,
But they don't know pain;
We do!

So don't complain,
Take it like a man.
Men can't even do that,
Women can.
Why do we,
Have to always be,
Everything at once?

But we don't complain,
We can't complain,
We won't complain.
If you treat us with respect.

In Celebration.

Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk. Martin Luther King walked so
Obama could run. Obama ran so that we can all fly.

Despite being on the other side of the world, I am a staunch Barack Obama supporter - as supportive as a legal minor can be, anyways. No, I did not watch the inaugeration (however you spell it), because despite being a staunch supporter, I do have bedtime curfews, and one in the morning is just a little past it (stupid time zones - I really wanted to watch the live broadcast!).

And I hope none of you have a problem with it, because I SUPPORT BARACK OBAMA.

J.E.A.L.O.U.S.Y

J is for jealous
E is for envious
A is for awed
L is for longing
O is for outshined
U is for underpriveledged
S is for social slave
Y is for you and me.

I get insanely jealous sometimes. Normally, I'm a positive person, but it isn't easy forgetting how chances just seem to pass me by.

Take Kristen Stewart for example. I love Kristen Stewart - she's awesome, beautiful, cool, and half-Australian. But she got her job handed to her on a plate - her whole family's in the business. Why couldn't my mum be a producer to give me movie jobs? Why couldn't my grandfather be some famous director?

Same with Keira Knightley. Sure, she works hard to keep her job, but she can't take the credit for *getting* her job.

I have nightmares about publishing my book and ending up a flop. People don't take thirteen year olds as seriously as they should - the X generation has to learn from the Y generation now, not vice versa. I want people to know who I am - if there's one thing I hate, it's being passed by.

And if I do get passed by, that is totally unfair - because I don't want this to sound stuck-up, but I'm not ashamed to admit that I *am* a better writer than most people my age - and I have the statistics to prove that only thirty-six people in the state can challenge me on that - Karri being one of them. I used to feel a bit guilty about it, but I'm not anymore - because I am good at *nothing* else, so why not flaunt my solitary talent? And if my one God-given talent fails me, I don't know what I'd do. I am not the kind of person who can live behind the scenes and be satisfied - I need to be in the limelight; I don't want the fame, I just want everyone to scream my name.

Athletes get medals. Artists get remembrance. So why shouldn't an author get recognition? I didn't ask to be good at writing - I would actually really want to be a dancer or a musician, but this is what I was given and I think it's fair that I get recognised for it. I'm sick of being ashamed of being a good writer. I want little girls to look at me in the kid magazines I used to read and think 'Wow, I wanna be like her'.

I get jealous of other people too: Bethany, Carina...anyone who has what I haven't got. I know that sounds wrong because you might think I should just work for it, but how can you work for some things? You can't buy a boy's heart, you can't buy family connections.

That's what I want. I want people to be jealous of *me*.

Not that people aren't jealous of me, but that's in a bad way. They vent it on me. I want them to be jealous of me and be completely helpless to the situation, just like I am, all the time.

The Eratic Thoughts of a Writer Suffering from Acute Writer's Block

Never think you know me,
I hardly know myself.
Never underestimate me,
Get down from your shelf.
Never overestimate me,
Because I don't live up to expectations.
I am God's greatest error,
Yet his most brilliant creation.
- Anon.

That's not true - this poem wasn't written by 'Anon' - it was written by me. But by crediting it to 'Anon' people will instantly think better of it.

Because in this stupid world talent, credibility and prowess is based on how much you earn, what you look like, what you wear, how old you are, where you come from and who you know - not who you *are*.

Think about it - if that poem had been writen by Austen, or Shakespear or Rowling or Stephenie Meyer, there would be lots of hoo-ha about it. People would squabble over it on e-bay; anyone who had a copy would become an instant celebrity.

But it was written by me. An Asian-Australian thirteen year old. There won't be any hoo-ha about it. I'll be lucky to get a dollar for it on e-bay - and that person would probably just feel sympathetic. If I post it on Quizilla, it will be one of the millions written by what people assume to be wannabe-writers. I'm not a wannabe yet - I'm a *gonna*be.

I am the kind of person who will touch a surface that has one of those 'Caution - Hot' signs on it just to see if it really is hot, or paint my nails with lipgloss to see what happens.

I am a wild child right to the core.

On the surface, it's definitely grungy. I've forgoed the hairspray and opted for hair gel to give an uneven, messy, I've-just-gotten-outta-bed-and-can't-find-my-hairbrush sort of look, then I've pulled it back in a messy knot. Not to be outdone, I've used my fingers to lightly claw at my hair so that it doesn't look the least bit elegant.

My vest, which is a formal charcoal fully-lined affair, clashes magnificently with my casual coral ribbed tee and tiny dark denim shorts, but it still matches, somehow. My shoes are my silver party shoes I normally wear with floaty dresses and cute camis, giving the 'I don't care' sort of look. I'm not wearing any makeup except for a bit if lipgloss, and the girly clashes with the grungy in a very rebellious sort of way.

And tomorrow I'll probably wear a floral blouse and nice pants, and actually bother to hairspray my hair instead of scruching the bejesus out of it with gel. I might actually bother to put some make up on, too. Then again, I might not.

My personality is very much the same as well - I can be dark and moody one day, wild and rebellious the next and sweet and petite the day after that.

I am unpredictable. *I* can't even predict what I will do next.

Yep. Another Blog.

That's right. Another blog.

It's a beauty journal, and I'm not sure how long it will last, but it's something fun for me to do. It's a public blog, so anyone can access and comment on it, but administrative rights will be restricted to LaPianista, Karri, Icy and Doin'Huh3.5.

My philosophy is that all women can look beautiful, providing they follow some good advice - I for one will never pull off a high-waisted skirt and I won't even try it.

I'm writing this before I've actually made the blog, so I'll update it with a link when I've actually created it.

UPDATE: Here it is! http://asbeautifulastheinside.blogspot.com/

Have fun!

Write What You Know and Know What You Write.

That is the most useless piece of advice anyone has ever given me: write what you know and know what you write.

In theory, that works. You write about things that you're familiar with and set stories in places you know of, and you should do fine.

But that's boring. Insanely boring. Life is fascinating, but, especially as a child writer, most people have been there, done that. Sure, my circumstances are very different to the majority of people - but heartbreak, crushes, teenage puppy love - most people know about it.

Besides, it's boring as a writer. I generally don't like recounts, because the ones worth reading are painful to write and the ones that are easy to write are completely sleepworthy. Writing is my escape into a world of passion and love and adventure that seems to be seemingly absent in the real world - at least in my world, anyway.

Take my latest project for example - I'm writing a romance story - a man and a woman fall in love, the calm before the tempest, the wave of calamity, then the fresh dewy morning after the storm - I'm trying to capture all of that. It's a beautiful bittersweet love story, like Pride & Prejudice and Romeo & Juliet mixed together set in modern-day Connecticut.

Okay, so I really don't have much idea what I'm talking about. I have fallen in love, many times, but that love has always been one way - I understand the obsession a woman can develop over a man, but I don't know what it's like to have that man return those feelings. What is it like, fighting with your significant other? What's it like, going through a rocky relationship? The only kinds of relationships I've had are non-existant.

I've never even been to Connecticut - or anywhere in the continental United States for that matter. I made up the town, but the climate, the beaches, the places that I can't make up - all have to be meticulously researched.

But it doesn't bother me. I can bury myself in the woes of non-existant characters - it sounds strange but it is quite soothing - because if things aren't going right in the real world then you can vent your feelings by causing a whirlwind of disaster in your imaginary world - I'm more powerful than all the Gods and Mother Nature in my imaginary world.

Research is ever so important - I can hardly say that Lily is best friends with a koala or that Edward's favourite food is Vegemite on toast. Of course, it would be a lot better and easier if I just went to darned Connecticut to see for myself - but I'm a poor high-school student, I can't exactly zoom around the world whenever I want. Plane tickets are expensive, you know, and the Australian dollar is not doing too well at the moment.

But you can't research love - if I went by the generic definitions given by dictionaries and encyclopedias you'd all fall asleep halfway through the book - and the dialogue would be cheesier than Hayden Christensen's lines as Anakin Skywalker in Attack of the Clones. But I can imagine love. In a way, it sort of doesn't matter that I've never had a proper boyfriend before, because every relationship is different, so even if I did go out with a couple of boys Lily and Edward would be different. Love must be good - I mean, it's what everyone dreams and thinks about, what millions of stories are based on. Love is more than our natural instinct to procreate - but it isn't too good, not the stuff described in fairytales, because life is never that good. Love makes us laugh and cry and smile and causes us pain and lets us heal. Sure the fact that I've never been asked out might take it's toll a little on my story, but I don't think it has a huge impact on the quality of my writing.

Everyone has an outlet to channel excess emotions - music, sport, passions, hobbies, art...mine is writing. My unappreciated love shouldn't go to waste - so instead of pining away (I do a little bit of it so I don't bottle it all up, but I don't rim my eyes with kohl, wear black and cut myself about it), I write about it.

So what you know is not necessarily what you're good at. I've never had any writing training in my life and I haven't got a clue whether or not I'm good, but I like it, and it makese me feel good, and I get lots of praise, so I like to think that I'm good at it. Without writing to draw all the pain and heartbreak out of my soul, I don't know where I'd be at.

Life isn't perfect, but even though the imaginary world seems better, it isn't real - except unles of course you're a weird soul like me and you visit a different world in you dreams, a new world, a better world.

Age

I was considering writing this on one of my private blogs, mostly because there are some eyes that may not like this post. I'll give you a hint - these eyes are big, bright, piercing blue-grey, and I used to dream about them.

I will be thirteen in twenty-five days exactly. But what does that mean? Does it mean that, suddenly, I get older? Does it mean I'm a different person? Am I suddenly going to get smarter or dumber, prettier or uglier?

The owner of the blue-grey eyes is twenty-seven days younger than me - yet he seems so much older in some ways, yet so much younger in others, much more than twenty seven days, sometimes. For one, he's huge - 132 lbs and 5'9" and he has such a big personality, such a big ego. He has lots of girlfriends and lots of girls vying for his attentions - I was one of them, and I almost won. It takes a very mature boy to love women and girls the way he does.

But in other ways, he was so young. He was very naive, and he had no idea I was hurting until I cried. I wanted apologies, but because he was too...young to know what was wrong, he didn't apologise, and it was only after the tears until I got the apologies.

But it takes a mature person to act how he did - that eventful field trip. It takes someone who knows what he's doing to toy with my attentions, to play with everything he had that I so desperately wanted.

The teachers praised him for his maturity and charisma, which seemed to just radiate out of him. I think he is mature in some ways, yet so immature in others. He's a very different boy to the rest, the boy I fell in love with.

So what marks adulthood? When does a girl become a woman? The first time she gets her heart broken? Or is it something else? When does a boy become a man? Is it the first time he has the capability of loving a woman? Do birthdays have any significance? Is there any point in celebrating each year as it passes by, or is it just an excuse to get spoiled and receive gifts?

As far as some people are concerned, my childhood ends in exactly twenty five days time. Some say I have years to go, some says my childhood has already left me, and some say that childhood never leavess you. I personally think I have no childhood to give up, and those who I want to know know why. Childhood is not something that is until a particular point where you suddenly cease to be a child - childhood is a luxury, a privelege, that many must live without.

I've made many posts about the boy with the blue-grey eyes, on both this blog and my others, but this will be the last. It seems sad that I have to leave him in the past when I wish I could bring him into my future, but this is something I owe myself. I've shed too many tears over this boy, lost too many sleepless nights over him. My heart has been battered and bruised over him, and I never gave up.

But now, I'm moving on. Enough is enough. Many people have urged me to just forget about him for a while now, but I had to do this in my own time. I had to write about it, get it all out of my heart, listen to music, and cry those last tears away.

If the owner of those eyes is reading this, this is my message to you: If you ever need a shoulder to cry on, or an ear to talk to, call me - because even though all of this has happened to me, this isn't entirely your fault, and I'm still your friend. Don't think me too melodramatic over it, because this is how I see things and you can't help that - this is the truth as I see it. But if you ever contact me again, please, don't mention the past or this post, please. I'm not going to talk about it again, but if you want to hear more about it, I suggest you listen to the lyrics of How to Save a Life by The Fray closely - and think about it from my perspective. But don't come running to me if you want another girl on your arm, because that girl is not me. And don't feel obligated to contact me - I'll understand if you're not ready, or simply don't want to.