It's normal for people to observe others. We are constantly looking at each other, making judgements and creating opinions based on them, but it is rare that we can actually do this with ourselves. We rarely see ourselves for the people that we are. Sometimes when I am laying in bed I kind of detach myself from my body. I forget who I am because I am thinking about something so much bigger than myself, but that is the closest I've ever got to lot being me. The other day I was watching the footage from the day I spent filming randomness with Katherine and Matt that I talked about yesterday, and I realized that I am a weird kid. I was looking at all of he mannerisms that I have, and that I don't notice that I do. I was critiquing my whole essence and it was today, as I'm sitting in chemistry writing a blog post that I start to pay attention to everything I do. I started to imagine what if a camera was watching me judging me the same way that I was when I looked at myself on camera. I think I'm weird, and when I looked at myself I felt that I don't really know who I am. This is going to be a short post, I just a thought I'd type in between periods because there was nothing better to do.
I'm in Spanish class now. I've been noticing that I bite my pen a lot, I wonder if it looks weird when I do that. Other people do it and I don't notice it as something weird on them when they do it, but maybe I knaw on my pen, because I was chewing it pretty vigorously in math. I'm not trying to change myself, but today I'm just going to observe myself.
In social studies I realized that I don't talk much. I used to talk all the time in the past in social studies, I remember calling out all the answers and I felt so smart when I would, but now I don't anymore. I still know all the answers, but I don't get that satisfaction of answering a question correctly anymore. And I never had any questions, and if I did I would just answer it myself. So now I barely say a word in soc.

My Day with Kat

I worked on editing a movie with Katherine. Last week we had decided to film everything that we saw while with Matt. Most of it didn't make any sense but the idea is that we have an hour of footage to make something out of. There are actually a lot of good idea within what we shot. We have beginnings and endings to probably a dozen movies that could be made, and I think that what I want to do next is continue with an idea that we had within the hour. We have these wonderful shots of me and Matt bouncing a ball with each other and we talked about things. I like that idea a lot, two guys casually talking as they bounce a ball between each other. I want to re-film that, more cleanly but still being loose like we had originally done it. There are some great little pieces of dialog without the hour but if we tried to recreate that then it wouldn't have the natural feel that it had the first time. The issue with the first time was mainly that it was unclean and very rough. It we could get the same footage, but with more attention to quality, then we would have a great project. There was an hour of footage, and Katherine and I didn't watch it all, but I think that just having the footage is an amazing pool to get ideas from and keeping that with me can be extremely useful for me in my life. 

I've been watching a lot of Game of Thrones episodes and that is thanks to Katherine who has also been watching it. I had been on episode seven for over a month because I wasn't motivated enough to watch it, but now Katherine and I are at the same place in the show, so the next day we can yell about how much of a dick Joffrey is and how awesome dragons are. This motivation that I get from Katherine can be more than just in a tv show, she had become a huge part of my artistic community and I enjoy talking to her about my own artistic endeavors. And she talks to me so I would imagine that she views me in a similar way. 

Cousins

I have learned to tolerate people. A lot of the time I don't actually find certain people stimulating, but I talk to them and converse with them and act a certain way around them because that let's me navigate life successfully. Yesterday night I was at my cousins house. I haven't seen that side of my family in over an extremely long time. The last time i saw them was before my hair was red. I like my cousins, they can be fun people and I used to love playing with them when I was younger, but now as I get older, and as I don't play much anymore, I can really connect with them. They have created their political view and I have mine, it makes me upset that I can't share mine around them but they can share their ideas around me all the time. They are hardcore Christians and there is nothing wrong with that, but when they found out about my religious beliefs they all kind of freaked out. I never even told them, it was just a slip up on Facebook. They don't know about my sexuality, and I don't plan on telling them anything. What I hate is how I have to hide being gay around them, but yet they can lecture on Jesus. If they knew my sexuality then they wouldn't talk to me and family get togethers would be extremely awkward. I don't want that, so I am the one who has to sacrifice. They only joy I get from going to my cousins house was that I am smarter than them. I present myself much better than they do in an intellectual sense. My aunt compares my cousin in our intellect but I am much more mature, even if we were the same age (he is 14 and i am 15) and we know all the same information but I can pull it out of context and relate it to other things. For example, my cousin and I both very much enjoy social studies we both get the same grades in the class and my mother and aunt never did so in the car yesterday we were trying to explain why we like it so much. My cousin couldn't say anything more than that it is a fun and interesting class, and even when he said that it was filled with "likes" and pauses. I started to go off into how social studies is what makes our societies function and it teaches ideas and concepts and even morals, to the population of the people. If humanity as a whole doesn't remember its history then how can we progress? My aunt and cousin were speechless for a while, I don't really know why, but I'd like to believe it was because I stunned them with my awesome intelligence.

I have been blogging everyday for a while now and I like it. I like seeing how the page views increase and the folders if posts gets larger and larger. I'll probably keep blogging like this from now on. It isn't hard, and I can write a blog anywhere, like right now I a m writing this on my phone, and that makes it easy and I don't have to finish is all in one sitting. I started this post last night while I was at my cousin's house and I finished it when I woke up the next morning. And I find myself very often just waiting around for things, a lot of the time I'll do something stupid on my phone so that I don't look weird just standing and waiting, but now I can write a blog post, and I like where all of this is going. Thank you for reading. 

I fell in love with a girl. I am also an Ecuadorian.

I have spent the last hour or so at the Ecuadorian consulate. I remember coming here when I was younger and applying for my citizenship. My mother is renewing her Ecuadorian passport because she is going to Ecuador this May for my cousin's wedding. I never got my passport from Ecuador, but I haven't been there in over five years. When you say that to a normal person it sounds like a short amount of time but I have only been alive for 15 years so five years is a third of my life. My iPhone is running out of battery and that is what I am writing this blog post on. I have a triple citizenship. I think that having that makes me special. Many white people don't keep up with their families at home, and this isn't something that is their fault, it is just because when they immigrated to the US they didn't have the technology to be communicating with their families. This generation is seeing another wave of immigration, but a key difference is that there is communication within the families, so Latinos keep their ties with their origin countries. Facebook is huge is Ecuador and before that existed MSN messenger was huge. And everyone uses Skype down there. White people nowadays can't get their citizenship to their origin counties because their ties were forced to be broken. I have my citizenship, and it is pretty easy to get it. All I needed was to have my mother be a citizen of Ecuador, so when I grow up and have my children they can have their Colombian and Ecuadorian citizenships. And then they can pass it down to their children and this can continue on and on. 

The field trip yesterday to the city was fantastic. I don't know really what to say about "Old Hats" other than that it was amazing. I was surprised with the amount of music that was in the show, and it was a pleasant surprise. If I liked girls then I think I would fall in love with Nellie  McKay. It was her voice. Not just the way that it sounded but the things that she said. During the intermission she walked around the audience and sang a list of important things that happened today in history. She read of the page and she would make mistakes because this haven't been rehearsed, but you wouldn't care because she was that adorable. She is confident and outgoing, and you can tell that just through her voice. I feel like I know her. I never talked to her, and I can barely remember her name, but I feel that I know who she is. You want to be her friend, and she probably has boys falling in love with her constantly because she is just that likable, you want to love her. When they hired her they probably realized this, and she was just as important to the success of the show as the actors. I have two percent battery left so I'll end this here. Thank you for reading. 

I Don't Sleep Like A Normal Person.

I don't sleep like a normal person would. I think that my method is better. I procrastinate and I'm not going to pretend that I don't because the sooner I can accept that I do, the sooner I could fix it. I go to sleep at seven or eight or nine every night depending on the amount of homework that I have that night. So if I had a lot of work I'd go to sleep at seven, and if I had less then I'd go to sleep at eight and if i had even less then I'd sleep at nine. Then every morning I wake up at three. And depending on what time I had gone to sleep the night before, I would either stay in bed and go back to sleep, or I'd do my homework. Like I said before, I procrastinate, but I have created a method where I can do it more responsibly. I make sure that I have enough time to finish the work that I'd have to do, and that way I don't fail school.
I put a lot of effort while I'm in class. During school I actually am almost always focused. People don't realize this, but if while you're in class you are focusing, then you don't have to study enough. So many kids complain about how they have to study so much, but if you understand the information as the teacher is teaching it, then you don't have to spend hours trying to teach it to yourself. I'm mainly thinking about my chemistry class. It is extremely easy to lose focus while Mr. Arralde is talking. The guy isn't the most interesting fellow in the world, and what he is saying is normally very confusing, so most kids would just take the notes and not be trying to understand what he is saying. I never did this because I never knew that you were allowed to. I thought that as a student, your job was to pay attention, and so I always did that. Kids in my chemistry class are constantly texting while Mr. Arralde is talking and they aren't focused at all, and then they would complain when they get a bad grade. I don't have to study much to get the grade that I want in that class, even though it is very hard, because I can retain most of what my teacher would teach. Last year I had an issue in my social studies class because my class last year was one that was heavily based on the work that you did outside of class. My teacher would assign textbook reading and then sometimes in class she'd never finish explaining what we had read. I can't learn very well that way, and so I didn't get the normal A+ that I'd get in social studies. I still really liked my teacher last year though. She is a really cool lady and I would love to discuss politics with her sometime. This year my social studies teacher isn't liked by much of our class, but that is because she doesn't give notes on everything like we are so used to, but she talks a lot about the information. She likes to lecture and I like listening. So I remember most of what she says. And other people could too if they actually paid attention like I do. Even in classes that are boring to me, I'd still pay attention, and I never put much effort into my notes, because I know that if I can understand the information as my teacher is talking, then I wouldn't need them later. The point of notes should be to remind yourself what you had been learning about, not to teach yourself the lesson again. A teacher's job is to teach you, but if you aren't paying attention, then it is your own fault. I don't talk much in class, but that doesn't mean that I'm not focused. My social studies teacher this year doesn't really know me and that saddens  me because I want her to. I have had a close connection to every social studies teacher that I've ever had. I remember eighth grade I had Mr. Nahoum. He was an incredible teacher. Mr. Nahoum put extra effort into teaching. He had this thing that he made up called Nahoum's American Legends. He made movies and every topic he'd have a new movie that would star his buddies and they would act out the stories we'd learn about. Mr. Nahoum was laid off because of the budget cuts. Our schooling system is screwed up, and I first realized this after I heard he would get laid off. He was one of the greatest teachers I've ever had, and ask anyone one else in his classes, and you will probably get a similar reaction. He was a weird guy, but after spending a year with him you learn to love him. My grade was the only grade that got to experience the awesomeness that is Mr. Nahoum in Herricks and that isn't fair. What is even more unfair is that Mr. Nahoum might be jumping around from school to school because of the current system. I saw the movie called "Waiting for Superman". I was a great documentary that explains why the education systems are failing. There are a number of problems, and basically everyone is to blame. First is the teachers union. I am liberal, so I am supposed to be in favour of things like unions because they protect workers rights, but the teachers union has come to the point where they are taking advantage of their power. You can't really fire a teacher if they have tenure so bad teachers are kept in the system, and if you try to then the union will get mad. People forget that the focus should be on students, not on anyone else. When I criticize the schooling system to my father he gets defensive because he is a teacher and the things I say would threaten his job. If a teacher like Mr. Nahoum is constantly getting laid off because the system won't let anyone else get laid off because the older teachers have tenure, then the students are suffering because you are denying them the right to a better education. At the same time you can't have teacher grading in the way that currently have now because then you put good teachers at risk of getting fired.
I want to write blog posts like this more often. I've done it for the past four days now, but I don't want to start to say that this would become a 365 because then I'd probably stop just because I wouldn't be able to commit and then I'd end up hating it. I have a lot of thoughts about a lot of things, and I never really tell many people, and having them recorded on the internet makes me feel better about myself. I could go on for hours about everything I have an opinion on, and still have more to talk about. I started this blog post at 4:50 in the morning and it is now 5:50. I have been writing for an hour, and I could still keep going. I don't really care if anyone reads my blog, I'm doing this more for myself, and that is all that should matter. I'm not making art as I'm writing, but I am recording my mind, and my mind is something that is artistic.
Today we have a field trip. I'm excited. I read some reviews on the show we're seeing, "Old Hats". It seems like a pretty cool show. My sister has a show today, and my mom is going. Her show is in Boston. Freshman aren't allowed to be in the shows, but she isn't in a normal show, she is part of this senior's final piece. His thing is lighting and other tech stuff, so he got a bunch of people to put on a show so that he could light it. Then he presents that to his teachers and that is his final. I was supposed to go, but then I begged my mother to let me stay home and go to the trip. I don't like going to Boston, I've seen it enough at this point. It is a pretty city, and I feel awfully bad about the bombings, but it gets pretty boring. And I don't like that it isn't as diverse as NYC. Boston isn't racist at all, but like in Queens, I go to my grandma's apartment, and in that area, everyone speaks Spanish, and you go a couple blocks down the you'd see a bunch of other races of people. I was drinking coffee in a shop with my grandma a couple of Buddhist monks where just casually walking around. You don't really see that in Boston, and that is what upsets me. All the cultures of the world are within a few blocks in NYC and that is something amazing to me. It is an American city, but it isn't at the same time. It was founded by the Dutch, and has always stood out as an individual. I like living around a city that is so influential in the world. It isn't the biggest, it doesn't have the tallest buildings, but it is still one of the greatest cities in the world. Boston isn't on that list. I think I'll end here because I have to get ready for school. Thank you for reading.

Another Thing. This is Going to Become a Normal Thing So Yeah

My draft folder in my blog is getting progressively larger and larger. The same thing used to happen when I was in middle, except it was with bad poetry. I used to be signed up onto this website where a bunch of people shared their poetry. It was mostly middle aged adults but I participated in that website. I forget the name but the last time I check the website was deleted. I remember actually being part of that community though. Random people would read my poetry and comment. Mostly they just said how amazing it is that a twelve year old could write like I did, but honestly what I wrote wasn't that great. I remember that the website gave out prizes to certain poets. If you got a high enough score, because the viewers could score your poetry, and if enough people bothered to score your poem, then judges would read them and then give out prizes. I never actually read the other peoples poetry though. I would give everyone a 10/10 that would comment on my page because I felt special that they bothered to look at my page. I remember bragging about my "followers" to my sister because should would envy me because on her blog for STAC, no one would read it. Later that year I tried to start a 365 after watching Julie & Julia, where Julie Powell cooks every recipe in Julia Child's cookbook in a year, and I wanted to do something like that, except with poetry, so I did. I lasted about a month before I forgot a day, and then I would forget another and another and eventually I just stopped completely. I don't even remember the name of the page. I do remember that I would pressure all of my friends to read it and comment because I wanted to become Internet famous.
I sent in my application for an internship with an organization called Transportation Alternatives. You could Google them to find out some more info about what they do, but they seem like a really cool organization, and I'm not just saying that because they might eventually read my blog, but I seriously think that these guys are cool. Anyway, I really want them to give me an interview because I know that I could dazzle them if I don't get too shy. I really want that interview though. It would give me an opportunity to try and show off how awesome I am. I always wanted to be in a situation like an interview because I know what to do now. I know how it is I'm supposed to present myself and I know not to say "like" and I know how to dress.
When my mother drops me off in  morning she normally tells me some advise the pertains to me doing better in school. They always sounded the same, except this morning she said "do well in school, it is your ticket out of here". I am very public with my dislike of suburbia so my mother knows and she is trying to convince me that the only way to not end up in the suburbs is to study. I don't why this struck me but it did. I don't want to stay in the house when I get older, but I don't think that studying will ensure that. It isn't the first time she'd said something like that. I really want to yell out that I'll find a man to support me. It would piss her off so much. That is the only issue that my mother has with my sexuality, I mean she doesn't like it when I talk about drag, but I'm not a drag queen so there isn't much argument because I'm not constantly dressing up like a woman. My mother hates the idea that I am a bottom. Tops and bottoms are more than just sexual positions, they're a lifestyle. Every relationship needs a "top" because he or she is the one that takes charge. Most of the time in straight relationships the man is the "top" and the female is the "bottom" and so my mother had been raising me to be a good "top". She always emphasized making sure that I help doors open for women and treated women with a lot of respect.  The reason she did this is because she was trying to morph me into the husband that she'd want for the next girl. So now that I am gay and a bottom, all of my mother's efforts had been destroyed. This isn't because I'm gay though, it is because I like the idea of having a boy hold the doors open for me and it is attractive to me to see a guy who takes charge. I never discussed sex with my parents. They have been talking about it with me as if I had known what it was ever since I was born. They had been telling that if I ever had sex to use a condom, before I knew what a condom was. I used to get condom and a condo mixed up. I thought that  they were the same thing for a a little, so imagine how confusing when my aunt is telling me that she is considering living in a condo. I knew that a condom was used for sex so I was really confused why she would tell me this. I had to learn sex on my own. I had to figure out what it was all by myself. I never had a relationship where I could talk to someone about my sexual issues because there was never anyone close enough that I trusted. I think I might have some attention disorder because I cant focus on one thing before I just jump to the next. I am honestly just writing down everything that I think about in my head. As I type it all of it becomes way more clear. I don't really read these over for grammar or spelling mistakes and I know I should, but if I do then I just get discouraged about writing. Tomorrow is the field trip to the city, so tonight I don't have to do any homework. So I might just type all night. I could. It isn't very hard. I am thinking about things constantly, especially on days like this because I don't have anything better to do. Ellen's blog posts are really long so I never finish reading them. I have that issue with things. I never really get into books because my mind can't focus on the same thing for too long. I like to read articles though. I have the NY Times app on my phone and I read a lot of articles from there. I get alerts from it whenever something important happens in the news. I knew about the Boston Bombings a few minutes after it happened. The thing is that I never take any of the news alerts seriously until everyone starts talking about them, because I get an alert almost everyday about some place someplace in the world getting bombed. I read an article about 200 civilian dead in Africa this morning and no one is talking about that the way they did for the Boston Bombings. I think I'll end this here. Thank you for reading.

I Had Time So I Wrote Another Rant, My Blog Is Going To Become My Journal At This Pace.

I have a number of friends that I don't see very much. Text messaging holds up our relationships. This is going to sound very weird, but sometimes I don't think that the people I am messaging aren’t real. I know they are because I've meet them and hung out with them, but for some reason when I'm texting them it seems fake. These people have become my imaginary friends. They exist unlike actual imaginary friends, but I know them as people that I text with, not as actual people. It's weird but I think I actually prefer having friends like that in some cases. If I want to talk to someone about something awkward it is easier to tell it to someone whom you hardly ever see because then you are spared the embarrassment of having it come up in real life. I can talk and complain all I want to these people without worrying about embarrassment of any kind because if I just stop messaging them then they basically stop existing to me.

I joined a dating website a couple weeks before I came out. And about a month ago I deleted that account. That website was my place to vent about anything. I would start conversations with random people and just complain about all of my issues. I also learned how to act when you are flirting. Most people suffer through embarrassment while they are talking to their actual crushes, but I was able to do this with Internet people, and now I don’t embarrass myself as much. The thing about Internet people is that if I turn off my computer, these people stop existing. It is the same with my text friends, except my text friends are more real. These Internet were totally temporary. I would flirt with a guy from California and then just forget about him for the rest of my life, and that made me feel good. When you're going through self-image issues this site can actually be extremely useful. I didn't think I was attractive but when guys on the Internet are calling me cute, then my self-esteem grows. Things got weird with the website because I wasn't using it for the right reasons. I always tried to make things real. I wasn't content with just casual flirting and I brought my own downfall. I ended up meeting a guy from the website. He turned out to be very odd, and I had never had any experience with a guy before, so I fell for him. He said that after he knew me better we'd date, but after a month I saw that he was really weird. I told him that I'd just want to be friends. Then he introduced me to another guy, and instantaneous I fell for this new guy, and not for the same reason that I liked the first guy, but because this new guy was actually fantastic, and I still think that he is a great guy, but I'm not into him like I was before because of my current relationship status. I joined another dating website where I meet another guy and I was not attracted to him at all, but he and the guy that the first guy introduced me to had dated once. Things between them were starting to bubble again and I put myself in the middle of that because I was emotionally weak and I needed someone to be happy if I couldn't be. So I put actual effort into making the two a couple, and then I realized that the third guy was doing the same thing to the second guy that the first guy did to me. He was teasing him with the possibility of becoming something more, but not really attracted to him the way he was to him. They never ended up together. The reason I'm explaining all of this is because I wanted to make an analogy but I didn't think you'd understand it unless you knew the whole story. But now that I think about it the analogy wasn't too good but I'll say it anyway just because then this whole rant will feel like a waste of time. My relationship with these boys is like the Cold War. Nothing really happened in real life, but it impacted my life very much. I met them all in real life, but in my mind I know them as text messages, but those text messages changed my life.

I have gone through a lot of shit this year, and in this case “shit” means good and bad things. I am experiencing things, but I'm not just experiencing, I'm learning from them, and I am truly happy. I am living in a point of my life where I am happy almost always, I might get sad, or there might be an issue I have with someone, but generally everything in my life is good. I remember two years ago I had only a couple of friends, and I never really talked to them much, but now I have so many friends, and even more acquaintances, and I can honestly say that I have no enemies that I know of. You can't hate someone who doesn't get angry, because then in the end you just seem like a jerk. That is how I normally get out of any trouble. If you can make yourself weak then you can manipulate people from that position. I used to do it subconsciously and so do many people. People don't like to think that they are being manipulated though, it makes them seem stupid, and I understand, so I try not to talk about this much. I realize things a lot. I remember that last year I was learning about how in acting every character has an objective in a conversation, and they want to accomplish this to feel satisfied. If you can identify what someone's objective is in real life, then you put yourself at an advantage in life, because you know exactly what the other person wants. Even if you're wrong, you still have an advantage in general, and then you also have to try and understand what it is you want exactly. Sometimes you might say you want something but actually not, like I might yell at you because you ate my cookie, and I say that I'm yelling because so that you wouldn't eat my cookies anymore, but in reality I could just want to assert my own power over you and see you fall. That situation happens very often, most of the time people can get satisfaction if you just fall to their will. I understand that I am not a take-charge type of guy, but that doesn't mean that I can't manipulate people like everyone else does. I know that I sound like a jerk when I talk about this, but I just think about things like this more. You probably do the same thing, but you don't realize because you are too busy focused on your emotion or something else like that. I'm reading East of Eden now and there is this character named Cathy. The first thing we learn about Cathy is that she is evil. Cathy is evil, but one of the reasons John Steinbeck gives for why she is evil is because she manipulates people, but that isn't so evil, what makes her evil is that fact that she killed her parents and shot her husband and left her children to work in a brothel. Cathy is a smart girl, and I respect her for that. I see a lot of myself in her, even though I probably shouldn't because she is evil and crazy. Cathy doesn't talk much while she is with others, and I do the same. Cathy observes people and she thinks about things and plans out in her head. She examines people like I do, except she does it with they intent of creating chaos, while I just do it because I use what I learn to give myself a better life.

I guess that I'm done ranting. Thank you.