One Year Ago: I learned to copy an angle. Hee! Go Geometry. I finally got past whatever this whole winter blues thing has been. I found the very first mix CD Bob ever made me this evening on the way home from work and put it into my CD player. It reminded me of of 9th grade, and was filled with songs that helped get me through 9th grade. It's the strangest thing, hearing a Blink 182 song and have it make you feel so alive. But riding along listening to it, singing horribly, headbanging as best you can in a car, screaming, ecstatic with joy, feeling alive...it was amazingly wonderful. In Teacher Cadet, we've been "filling" our "pots." Everybody was instructed to write a nice note to every other person in the class. So I got 30 notes telling me about the kind of person I am. I never realized that just my general attitude brightened people's days. I think a lot of the things I've said in there have shocked some people. I don't think people realize that I hurt so much inside for such a long time. I don't think anybody realized that I spent years slammed against a brick wall with no way out. And now that I've gotten past that, all I know how to do now is live my life so that I can prove to myself that I'm a lot more than worthless. That I'm capable of doing anything that suits my fancy. To not only teach, but to guide and set an example. To show myself that everything that anyone said to me about being a failure and unable to succeed was a load of crap. Things still hurt sometimes...when you go through hard times, the end results of those times will always sting in a way, but the pain doesn't last forever. You are a changed person, and the only way left for you to go is up.