Dear Amers

So, yeah about the self esteem thing. I can't bring a dictionary because that is way too much of a Jack thing to do.
Last night they DID talk about self esteem and Mr. Dearing said that esteem is when you lift something/someone up in appraisal.
And I was like, nuhhuuhhh!
Just because someone said they "Highly esteemed" something doesn't mean that the word esteemed by itself means high regard too.
I just looked at the definition of esteem by itself and it says, "The regard in which one is held, most commonly used positively."
And it annoys me so much because every single week we go there and they're like, "Do you think self esteem is a bad thing or a good thing?" and I'm like, "Its necessary," and they're like, "But self esteem means you think a lot of yourself," and I'm like "NOOOOOOO it is what you think of yourself. Positive or negative! GET IT RIGHT!" and then Jack always says something like, "Can you define some words for me? Because Self-esteem means you think highly of other people and you put other people before yourself, but selfISH-esteem means you're selfish." and then everyone looks sideways at each other and them Mr. Dearing says, "And thats a great point." and then moves on.

I presented my Island thing, it was totally awesome and everyone loved it. Some of the other ones were really funny and cool.

Me and Angela watched camp rock 1&2 back to back and it was like the best thing we've ever done together.

Can you believe it, we're actually BONDING without you!

And she has hardly said anything about how dirty the bathroom is ALL WEEK! Its a miracle or something.

Yesterday I drove to peculiar with Angela. It was awesome except on that curve on that hill in freeman we past A HOUSE. YEAH. A trailer house. ON THAT HORRIBLE CURVE!

I almost died! Thankfully there was a driveway that I was able to pull over into a little bit, but HO my gosh it was horrid. It was like he was driving on my side of the road, and then the house was like overhanging the trailer by like five feet. It was so bad, and then Angela was laughing because the guy driving was on the phone and she thought it was like the most unfortunate funny thing to happen to me.

I, personally, was scarred for life.

On other news, Joseph got some of those little magnetic balls that the Packinghams have, and after working at it for like three hours over the span of like three days, me and angela BOTH made cubes and its totes awesome.

And on OTHER news, you haven't called me enough. I want you to know that you can call me anytime because I never do anything.

Unless its on wednesday any time after 3. But ANY other time I am completely free, and you should call me because I never know when you're free, and I'm always like, "Oh I should call Amy! Wait shes probably at work, or school or something equally horrible that has to happen."

Angela is leaving early early early on friday, so you need to rush back home because I will have no one.

Stay Classy
Michelle

It is almost 4:00 AM

Just thought you might be proud of me for staying up all night like this. It was out of necessity, I assure you. And it pretty much turned out exactly how I predicted it would in my last post (my eyes are indeed red-rimmed, and my brain is indeed oozing vital liquids). However, I'm amazed at how long nights are if you're not spending them sleeping, and how much time there is to get things done. For instance, I was able to write a speech, preactice my speech, compose a Powerpoint presentation (an AWESOME powerpoint presentation) to accompany it, finish all my Neitzsche reading and questions, and still have a couple of hours to spare. I think I'm going to clean my room next, since the cleaning ladies are coming later.

Anyway, just thought I'd drop in and say hi. Hope you're having a really good night's sleep.

-Amy

Dear Michelle,

Your ideas are all good. The only problem is that even though I really want to do all those things so I can stop being sad, I don't actually have the time to dance to Imma Be at the moment. Actually tonight I'm planning on imbibing massive amounts of hot, caffeine-saturated liquids, then turning my burning, red-rimmed eyes to the evaluation of the flowery, elitist philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche. And when I've finished pounding at my brain with a giant cast-iron tenderizer, when it is seeping vital fluids, prostrate in a position of abject, miserable submission, I shall sit down to write the speech that I have not yet begun, which I will be delivering tomorrow at half-past 11. And when the sun finally climbs over the horizon, and I'm still slaving away, I shall recycle yesterday's outfit and head off to open at work, beginning yet another day of this long, long week.

It's cool that you get to write about Communism. It's good to know about these things. I read the Communist Manifesto the other day for school, and it was pretty interesting. Way better than Nietzsche, who is a big fat meanie-faced elitist toadstool.

You're right, it is kind of dumb to talk about self-esteem for so long. From what I remember, it seemed like, yeah, those people don't really know what the definition of self-esteem is. Because I'm such a nerdy nerd, I looked it up. Self-esteem: a realistic respect or favorable impression of oneself. I bolded it for emphasis. Maybe you should bring a dictionary next meeting and read it aloud to them.

I have to go. Tonight I put my foot in my mouth and agreed to go to Bible study with the girlies. So now that I'm well and truly screwed on homework, I may as well just resign myself to not getting any sleep at all tonight.

Imma be

If you're not feeling good, theres a number of things can do.

1. Go to Edward Monkton site (www.edwardmonkton.com) and watch the little videos.

2. Listen to Imma Be.

3. Dance to Imma Be.

4. Wear more make up.

5. Watch fun movies. Like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

Things to do if you want to feel horrible.

1. Read A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift. ( You should read it because its like a "classic" or something. Keep in mind while you're reading it that Mrs. Finley had us read it OUT LOUD in literature class. It was horrid.)

2. Watch "Its Friday,"

3. Do school.

4. Work in the freezing cold/smoldering heat.

5. Write a paper about Communism.

Yeah neither of those lists had anything to do with my week. At all.

OK FINE, I pretty much did all those things this week. The paper was actually about Anti-communism, but in order to write about that you have to write about communism. It was not awesome.

So I hope you have a good week.

I'm going to drive to freeman today. I'm going own the road.

I'm also going to Youth Group tonight and if we are talking about self esteem for the FOURTH WEEK IN A ROW I'm going to eat someones head off. Probably my own. I don't have a problem with self esteem. No one in the group has problems with self esteem. How many hours are we going to spend talking about other kids problems? Lets talk about OUR problems! Hahaha just kidding, I would rather talk about self esteem than talk about our for real problems.

I have a question. What do you call that....emotion? that is like you being worried about what other people think of you? Like I don't think thats self esteem.

Because self esteem is like what and how you think of yourself, right?

So what is it when its you worrying about what other people think, right?

Like when your worried that everyone will make fun of you for wearing something bold?

I don't think thats self esteem. Maybe it is.

Pathological liars are crazy weird. I don't understand how they can live with themselves.

Stay classy

-Michelle

PS the other day I heard a song that said "physique" and it made me think of you.

PICKER-UPPER

This one describes my mindset about three days out of the week. I couldn't make it smaller. Those little drawings were the bundles of joy I needed to rise above my melancholy. Who is this Edward Monkton guy? When can I marry him?

It's funny that we posted at like the same time. Now my post is buried beneath a pile of delicious snippets of wisdom, and I'm okay with that.

The interesting thoughts of Edward Monkton

Edward Monkton: My favorite person. Here are some (LOTS) of his amazing works.

Bring you some joy? Yeah!

-Stay classy

Michelle

Homework Eats my Soul

I had to post all the poems so I could get some sort of approval from you. I like to think that I'm an island, but in reality I crave affirmation at every turn. I probably should have showed you my short story before I left, because now I'm really super insecure about it, and I'm handing it in in a little under four hours. I just started printing it out (19 copies, 9 pages each). It's going to take FOREVER, and there's going to be SO MUCH PAPER. I'm really killing trees here. There must be a better way to do this whole peer review thing. The earth is crying simply because I'm required to kill it's children in order to express my creative self. If there was the option of printing double-sided at school (which there isn't), I would definitely be doing that.

Okay, so I just went to grab my stuff off the printer. You know how many pages 19x9 is? 171. A hundred and seventy-one fractions of a carbon footprint that makes a bunny cry. On a side note, paper fresh from the printer is the same as clothes fresh from the dryer: warm and delicious and environmentally homicidal.

I'm going to be giving a speech in Personal Communication on Thursday and since the teacher really didn't like my unconventional approach to the art and skill of asking great questions, I need a new plan of attack. So I was wondering if you had any suggestions as to which species of questioning skills I should focus on speaking about. I made a list of a few possibilities of settings in which a different set of problem-solving questioning skills are needed:

Academic setting (student/teacher)
Job and workplace setting (coworkers/boss)
Justice setting (prosecutors/defense/witness)
Law enforcement setting (interrogator/suspect)
Personal/emotional setting (romantic/family relationships)

I'm leaning towards the law enforcement setting simply because it'd be the most interesting, but I'm pretty sure that my teacher really isn't going to like it. We shall see. Anyway, stay classy. I might be making more posts than usual this week because I'm so lonely.

-Amy

P.S. I don't know why the computer won't let me post this without paragraph breaks, but it just won't. So sorry for the wall of text and the apparently random topic changes.

P.P.S. Fixed!