Most changes are gradual. You don't realize that you're moving away from something until it's gone. But occasionally, you can pretty much pinpoint the exact moment when something happened. In my case, it's the realization that I'm not that cool older sister anymore, if I ever was.
You know the type of older sister, they're always in books. The sort that make you up when you're much too young to be wearing mascara, gossip about boys, share clothes, teach you about the world, etc., etc., etc. I was always jealous of people who had older sisters. I had a sort of surrogate older sister in my cousin Bria, but that's another story.
Anyway, I decided that if I couldn't have that sort of sister, at least my sister could. We've always been pals, we were best friends when we were little. (And by little I mean up until 9th grade when I abandoned her for school). She's allergic to most makeup, and certain things make her break out in hives. She's never really expressed an interest in boys (although that might be changing. :O). Clothes have always been handed down from her to me, not the other way around, because she's been taller than me for a while. Still she's always looked up to me, in a metaphorical sense.
It's one of those older-sibling stereotypes, "I'm older than them, so I must be smarter, faster, and better than they are." Well... that's been pretty much falsified for a while. My parents helped with this. The comments about her being the pretty one and me being the smart one aided in this, especially after we found out she's like some uber genius. Ok, she also rocks at the trumpet. And she's written a couple of books. (Let me say that again. She has written several novels. Like, full length chapter books. She's 13). She's never let me read one, which I'd always assumed was like a "ohh they are so bad and I would feel embarrassed showing them to my awesome older sister" type thing (I have an ego... shut up).
But then today I got to read a short story she wrote in like five minutes for Neopets. Yeah... the reason she doesn't let me read her books is so I don't shoot myself out of jealousy.
When your younger sister starts censoring what you read in order to stop you from feeling bad about yourself, you know you've lost the cool older sister thing completely.

As part of the coming of age program (the UU version of confirmation) at my church I had to stand up in front of the congregation and tell everyone what I believe. It was so hard to do... I've lost all my beliefs and ideas about life purpose with the depression. So I pretty much stood up and talked about what I didn't know. It was fine, though, because Unitarians are question people.
After the service, everyone had to do this receiving line thing where the four of us who came of age this year stood and got talked at. Then we got presents and letters, and ate cake.
Want to know what I believe? Read more.
What I believe, as of April 23, 2005---

I’d have to say, figuring out and writing down what you believe is one of the hardest things you could ever do. I think it’s rather unfair that this is expected of the youth and not of the adults, but such it is.
I would have had a much easier time writing down what I believe a year or so ago, but as most of you probably know, my friend Justin died this last December. So I’m fighting the invisible tigers of depression and guilt, and trying to come up with some new beliefs after my old ones were rather shattered. I’m questioning all the beliefs I once had; is there a God, is there a life after death, what’s the purpose in life, etc.
My life is full of questions. Which isn’t all bad, as I think that Unitarians are pretty much questioning people. In fact, questioning, or the “free and responsible search for truth and meaning” is what I think makes Unitarian Universalism right for me. If I had answers for everything, I’d get pretty bored with life.
I’ve started wearing this chalice necklace, mostly to get people to ask me more questions (I really love them), but also because I think it is very symbolic of this guiding principle. It is the light (or the truth) that I’m looking for in my search.
At this point in my search, I find my most spiritual connections to be in the outdoors. I think my most uplifting moment was at Icaghowan when I was lying on my back, looking up at the stars and just feeling so infinitely small.
As of right now, I have a limited opinion on the existence of God. I think that, depending on how you define it; God is whatever set the Big Bang off. But again, I am always questioning beliefs like that.
So far, the largest impact on what I believe has been from books. [points to some books] These are my Bibles. When Sam in American Gods says that she can “believe things that are true, and things that aren’t true, and things where nobody knows if they’re true or not,” I completely agree. I believe in science, I believe in gravity, in homeostasis, in neurons and cells. I believe that the world in round like an orange
But I also believe in fairies, I believe that the answer to life, the universe, and everything is 42, that lightning remembers where it has struck, and I believe that all the atoms in the universe are made up of tiny vibrating strings.
Even within those few beliefs I’ve enumerated above, most come from books. Fairies come from the fantasy I read as a child, 42 as The Answer comes from Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker’s Guide. The idea that lightning remembers where it has struck comes from Tangerine.
Books have given me a sense of wonder, which lets me believe almost anything within reason.
In American Gods, Sam goes on to say that she can believe in a whole barrelful of ideas, so to close, I chose a few that I pretty much agree with her on.
“I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen---I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, […] I believe that the future sucks and I believe that future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. […] I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. […]."

It's one day to my birthday and three days to Justin's. I can't help but feel that I'm leaving him, growing up, moving on. Obviously, I was always older than him, but the ratio of our ages was upset on December 14th, and it gets worse and worse. It's really going to hit home tomorrow when I turn 17 and he stays 16. I feel like rewinding time, getting us back in sync. Once I'm a year older than him, what do the rest of the years matter?

Since his birthday falls on a Tuesday, it's also the 18 week anniversary of his death. I feel like going somewhere to commemorate it, but I don't think I could handle the intersection. All I know about his burial is that "internment will be private." I think he was cremated, but no one told me what happened to his ashes.

I'll probably end up in a random cemetary, crying on the ground.

I was at the sculpture garden the other day, and I was standing and looking at the spoon statue. A couple of years ago, church took a trip to the Walker during the winter, when the pond under the sculpture was frozen, and took a photo of a group of us standing out there. While I was standing in front of it, middle of a hot sunny day, I was suddenly sucked into that photo. It was winter, we were sliding on the ice, Justin was there. I definitely could have lived in that memory, but I snapped out of it, was given a strange look by my dad, and walked on.

My life has become full of these trippy moments where time slows, paintings come to life, colors become emotions, and people lurk behind every door. I think i'm going crazy.

For example, I have one song on my computer that makes me cry, and lately iTunes has sensed that I don't want to hear it. It comes up at least 8 times as often as it should.

I've been seeing strange ironies lately. In my head, my birthday is an unmistakable reminder that Justin is dead, as I explained earlier. I just realized that the cigar box I keep all my mementos of him in is the box that the chocolate cigars given out at my birth came from.

Or smaller things. The Walker has been closed for the past year or so. I believe that the last time I was in the exhibits was with the field trip I was talking about. And when do they reopen? April 17th. So, a new building, new exhibits, and no way to revisit things I remember from that day.

Basically, the world is pulling me back and forth. Time marches on and seperates me from the past and landmarks of my memory are being destroyed. On the other hand, paranoia, ironies everywhere, and the refusal to let things go keeps me from forgetting anything for more than 12 hours at a time.

French man: "You know how dumb I think the Americans are? I bet they'd buy bottled water"
[French people laughing]
French man: "What do you mean how will we sell it? Just tell them it's French water."

Today I found yet another piece of evidence that the world knows us Americans are dumb. I found water with "5 times as much oxygen as regular water!" Yeah... the ingredients were "water, oxygen."
First, I know you can add oxygen to water. Fish need water with a lot of oxygen. But this is because fish have a way of removing the O2 from the H2O. They're called gills. Humans absorb oxygen through the specialized cells in their lungs, not through their stomachs. I learned that in bio.
So why would I buy this water? Apparently, it will give me more energy. But how?

The ACT is over. I may not have rocked it, there was a crazy section about altitudes that screwed me up in the science test. (By the way, why did no one tell me there was a science test? I mean, it's like you expected me to have looked up what was on it.)

Since I got away with the flannel pygamas for the SAT, I went with the silk pjs for the ACT. What am I going to do if I take the SAT IIs? How can I up the ante?

People were looking at me kind of strangely even with the silk. But we were sitting in a lunchroom, on those little round plastic seats that are attached to the lunchtables. And it was uber uncomfortable, but who got the last laugh? Me, cause of my silk pjs. If there is a feeling better than silk pjs on your legs, I don't know what it is. As Chinh would say, "orgasm."

There was this other girl who was wearing flannel pjs at the ACT, but she looked really uncomfortable. Like "please don't think I regularly wear clothes like this!" kind of look. I hope I didn't have that look. Hopefully I had the "yeah, I wear silk pygamas everywhere. All day, every day." look.

I have decided I need my own personal photographer. I have hated every picture of me that I have ever seen. But occasionally, I'll be doing something and I'll be like, I feel really hot right now. If I had a photographer, they could capture these moments for me. And then I would have pictures for, say, a profile. Or just to look at when I'm feeling ugly.

I have no money, but I'll pay you 8 dollars to follow me around everywhere and take pictures of me when I say "photo, please."

I should be working... but this had me in side-splitting laughter for the first time in days. Gizoogle some other sites!

Against my better judgement, I took a mental health day today. I basically slept til 11, watched TV and then did a little homework. It was very relaxing, but I know I'm behind in school now. My plan was to get up early and finish my TOK journals, but I definitely didn't motivate.
I had a series of horrible dreams last night. They were basically 6 different versions of the killer-comes-to-get-you theme. Scary. One involved a Chinese man who came to kill another Chinese man who happened to be sitting in my kitchen. Another one had me running over my mother with the car to get away from a maniac. Still another had me in a dress and high heels clinging to the ceiling of a mall in order to escape notice.
I think tic-tacs are one of my favorite foods ever. I bought some in NY and I am addicted to them. I remember when I was little, I used to collect tic-tacs I found on the ground. I had a box of them, and I had every color. Ah, those were good times.

(Click for a larger image)
So this college says that if I go there I will be "ruined for life." What? Why would I do that? Apparently being ruined has some positive connotation in the Jesuit faith. I don't know why.
It looks like the most crap school I've ever seen. Don't go to Regis college. You'll get "spolled (sic)" by their location, get "special" treatement and learn how to question ideas.
Apparently they can see me at their college so well that they made me my own, personal, website!
http://location.regis.edu/AmeliaMcnamara
Yeah... I wish a decent school would email me every now and then.

I woke up this morning panicked because I'd just had a dream that I was scheduled to give a lecture on "Designer Sharks and the Eddinger-Haus Equilibrium." I think this has to be attributed to the extreme amounts of studying I did this week. No, I don't know what a designer shark is. I think it must look like one of the sharks in The Life Aquatic. I do know for sure that the "Eddinger-Haus Equilibrium" is based out of math class where we learned about the "Ebbinghaus model for human memory."
I must compliment myself on the amount of recall I had of this lesson in my dream.
The scary part of the dream was that I created an entire power-point presentation of this subject. I figured it would take me about an hour to show, but I had no illustrations. So I put my shoes into this bookcase, dropped my sleeping bag onto the floor and started googling pictures of related things. It was hell. How many pictures of designer sharks do you think there are?
Luckily, it was just a bad dream, and all I have to do this weekend is a couple of internal assessments, some math homework, and essay, and a bunch of TOK journals.
On second thought, I'll be ready for my lecture in five minutes.