  Oh, the waves of addiction are going to consume me soon. I can feel them waiting to swallow me up with their enticing nicotine. And yet, I don’t want to stop. In my completely fucked-up realm of living from school-day to school-day, smoking is the only time that I feel calm… at all. I know it’s bad, I know it’s stupid, I know it’s going to slow down my mile (and I recognize that that isn’t nearly as bad as the other health risks) But the second the smoke hits my lungs I feel docile, I stop analyzing everything.
I just sit and breathe and taste the smoke. Meghan really is experiencing some strange “ That Anna thinks she’s so cool! Well, I’ll put her in her place! ”-syndrome. As I skedaddled to homeroom, so I could review for project with Adrienne, she became angered. Hence, “ God, Anna, you always have to do everything better than me!” Yes, Meg, I really want to beat you to homeroom. You sure got me there. I discovered something out about myself today and I hate it. Deep down, as disgusting as it is, I secretly am concerned with what people think about me. It’s so gross. And here is the proof: public speaking. I had to speak in front of my fellow AP students for 5 minuets this morning. And I bombed . I couldn’t even distinguish the shaking of my voice from the shaking out my hands as I held the note cards.
How come I can dance (pre-high school) in from of 500 people without so much as breaking a sweat, put on a cheap accent whilst portraying a holocaust victim, give speeches at school and yet standing in front of twenty people freaks me out? I hate public speaking, but I hate that I care about it even more. I tried to remind myself that the kids in front of me were the ones who listen to Chingy and got drunk at mixers.
These were the kids who stand for nearly everything I hate. And they made me nervous, those Ambercrombie-worshipping, materialistic, animal-eating, environmentally unconscious nasties and the wanna-be ganstas … good god! And so, today was not the best day. Today was a shitty day, in fact, the kind that breeds chain-smokers and therapy clients. Affectionately… Anna -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *I may be overusing the exclamation points tonight. 
