Dear Lauren,

I'm sorry it's been so long. With everything starting up and so much work to do, it's hard to find time to write to you.

Today I took my math retest because I almost failed the first time. I told a girl in my theater class about it and she said, "Really? I thought you were good at math." I'm not, I'm stupid. Doesn't she get that? Doesn't anyone get that?

There's this one person who pms me. They're really annoying. I'll admit, I'm definitely at my worse whenever I talk to them. Sometimes I'm tempted to block them, but they've done nothing wrong. Other times the smallest thing sets me off.

One time I was teaching them Spanish because they asked and I'm trying to be nice, although I'm not really good at it. I was telling them about how two Ls in a row make the y sound, and I gave them the example ella, which means she. It's a popular example for beginners, but they said that they were concerned that I was only using feminine nouns. All I taught them was the L thing and how to say 'my name is' in Spanish. That's literally only one feminine noun out of the one noun we covered with a gender so far.

You know who you are, person who's doing this. I'm asking you to politely stop since I'm pretty sure you read these even though you never vote on comment. Today they started another argument about how "they think I'm beautiful and I should too." That's a load of garbage. If I were beautiful, people wouldn't have called me Dora the Explore to make fun of me. If I were beautiful, people might actually compliment me and not only see me for how smart they think I am. They've never even seen my face yet they can't seem to get this idea out of their that I'm like one of the most beautiful they've met or something.

If I say that I'm ugly, that's my opinion. In no way, shape, or form is it your job to fix that. Plenty of people are ugly or average looking. I have things I don't like about my appearance, sure, but so does everyone. Other than those insecurities, I think I'm fine. I may look hideous to everyone else, but I'm content. If I say I'm dumb, same thing. It may just mean I might need to be moved to s lower level class. I'll be sad and angry at myself for it at first, especially with how high my parents the expectations my parents have are so high, but it doesn't change anything. I'm just learning better.

Anyways, in English we were also grading our stories and essays we wrote according to how we feel we did. I think I was pretty honest to myself and graded myself a 57, maybe more if I weren't so picky with numbers. Today my teacher said we weren't allowed to grade ourselves anything below a 70 because someone in her first period class gave themself a 56. It took two tries, but I eventually lied enough to get to a 71. I feel like a liar. I definitely don't deserve that high.

Original grading
Originality: 10/25
Organization, Ideas, & Development: 25/30
Author's Craft: 10/30
Grammar: 12/15, although I probably would have given myself a 13 or a 14 if I didn't dislike those numbers as much
Final Score: 57

New Grading:
Originality: 17/25
Organization, Ideas, & Development: 27/30
Author's Craft: 15/30
Grammar: 12
Final Score: 71

Even though it was failing, I like the 57 better. It feels more honest. Like I wasn't like one of those people just trying to give themself a hundred.

I've been thinking a lot about memories. I don't want to forget them. I don't want to forget my friend who abandoned me's birthday party in second grade, I don't want to forget when I went to that gymnastics place for your birthday and lost my anklet, I don't even want to forget that time I threw up in front of my entire class. Really, I should have seen the signs earlier, especially with how tiring walking was and how I shook with every step.

My Spanish teacher gave me a penguin. He used to belong to the old librarian that died. She knew I was very close to the old librarian so she gave me the penguin. His name is now Billy Bob Brown Jr. or Frank after one of the characters from This Light Between Us, the book Mrs. Trumble did her Christmas gift thing around. I did The Unteachables.

Life's been getting very hard. I feel worthless, like I'm just getting in the way of everything or I'm rude. People were saying that I shouldn't be making fun of a dead slave, even if he did have a funny name. I'm also the lead role in the thing we're doing in social studies. I feel bad because I'm kinda dictating everything. I chose the story, I'm the one who's the main character and the only consistent person in there.

I once read a quote about how everyone does stuff out of selfishness, even if they don't realize it. Is that what I'm doing? I'd say that at least it's just because it's human nature, but my school did a whole presentation about responsibility and how you can't blame others for your actions. I guess that it's just because I'm a horrible person then, not human nature.

I'd tell you more but it's getting late and I'm already crying enough as it is.