174A — That drip of hurt, that pint of shame, goes away just play the game...

Today was a relatively mediocre day. I slept a very long time, and I got up around noon, which was awful because I had a headache from the start, not having breakfast and in general not having had food for a relatively long time. This headache persisted for the rest of the day, which hindered all of my productivity for the entire day.

I did some limited homework before we went to a party with the Chinese Students Association for a departing student. This lasted for a very, very long time, until almost 3 PM. This resulted in a greater headache, as I spent a significant amount of time just staring at my phone reading Hidden Figures and whatnot, so by the time I got home I no longer had the capacity to think.

I spent the rest of the day working on AP Psych homework very slowly. (I still have a lot to do tomorrow, but that's the way it's going to have to be.) My sister and I also watched an episode of Sherlock, and two hours later, after some more very slow homework progress, I watched Rent Live, which was good but not necessarily great—there were a lot of unfortunate changes necessary for the performance on TV (for example, to "La Vie Boheme," which is one of my favorite songs). I still cried though, so that's got to mean something. It was a good time, but took up essentially the rest of the day, intermixed with dinner and (unfortunately) advertisements.

I eventually ended up writing today's poem, "Closed Doors\Self," and I'm writing this blog now with the hopes of making tomorrow as productive as possible following some decent sleep. We'll see how that goes.

Tomorrow, an AP Bio FRQ, a lot of AP Psych homework, and who knows what else. Only time will tell.

---

Now, for a little complaining. This was written last night when I had to vent something, but I don't think the sentiment in here isn't totally ridiculous, so here goes. Change all of the present tense to past tense, however. My emotions aren't as strong as they were in the moment.

I am very unhappy with one of my fellow debaters. And I hate being unhappy with people because it's usually reflects some deep-seated misconception or character flaw that I hold, but I have to write about it so I can get it out and over with.

Two of the biggest things I hate are overconfidence and thinking you deserve something. To be fair, some people do deserve things, but to say so or firmly believe so seems close-minded.

I understand (to the best of my ability) that I have some (relatively high) level of privilege in my life. Here's the thing though: I have poured so much of my heart and soul into debate (which is totally unrelated to my goals in life) and everything else. That doesn't mean I'm better than anyone or even any good or deserve anything. But it hurts to see the suffering you're going through (see blog post from January 9th) and for other people who haven't done the work or helped you out when you needed it think they deserve something or to complain. Five years of my life I have done my best (and it's certainly not enough) to keep this team going. Never once have I come close to qualifying. It is certainly partially my fault, but it feels frankly arrogant to me to see this. Maybe this is fundamental attribution error and I just don't understand. But God does it twist my heart, wring it out and then crush it until it hurts so much. It may not be rational, or correct in a just-world, but it still hurts emotionally, and that is beyond my control.