I sit quietly in the corner of senior and junior hall, just outside room 113 and across from the vending machines. I wait, alone, until my lunch group decides to show up. These are friends of old; since freshman year, the same group of girls from my IBET have sat together in close proximity to our old Biology classroom. Our group has grown slightly, but these other friends usually come and go. It just feels natural to sit with them day in and day out.
Recently however, our group has diminished due to physics and whatnot of junior year. And the less I see them at lunch and more in the hallways, I feel less of a friend to them. Just today, I was passing through the halls and not one said hello.
When did our relationship get so awkward? I feel like I hardly know these people anymore. True, I have always been reserved and never was very close to any of them, but it still pains me to see our friendship broken so easily by the rush of schoolwork. We used to share secrets together, talk about pop culture and express our differing opinions in heated discussion. Today, we barely talk about anything other than school, if at all. When we do, it feels wrong - I feel like I need to escape as soon as possible. But how can I leave these friends when we've been together for so long?
I simply smile and munch on my sandwich, thinking to myself that every moment that my heart leaps at the old spark of friendship is only an illusion, that tomorrow they will not even speak to me, that I can only carry on and make new friends.

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I don't understand my mother sometimes.
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She's still got the emotional mentality of a 5 year old. So that means violent outbursts of anger from anything as little as a technology problem to spilling food on the floor.
Here's the current scenario:
Tomorrow we're supposed to go to Philly to visit some college. Since we can't visit 3 in one day, we have to spend the night at a hotel. Incidentally, my sister needs to send in a piano academy registration (including sample tape and forms) very soon and that means missing 2 days of valuable practice time. Now, this wouldn't be a problem if 1) she had practiced during the week leading up to this past weekend, and 2) if she had sent in her tape and form in today as my mom had planned earlier. Our trip was also pushed back due to inclement weather which only happened in the morning.
During the process of recording, my sister and my mom invariably got into an argument. Shouting, slamming doors, furious piano playing, the works. As the onlooker and cool-headed member of the family, I end up mediating or being forced to take sides. So my mom comes up to me and asks me, "Do you think if we send in the tape on Saturday it would still count as early April?" I, not wanting to be mixed in with the whole mess, stare at her and say, "It's all your business." My mom, using her blind logic, blows up and starts going off about how selfish I am and blaming me for the two whole days that we're spending on college visits. She stomps upstairs. I, slow to form arguments and trying to think logically of the next best step, decide to walk up and clarify. I try to reason, saying I don't want to get involved in the argument between her and Jessica, I don't think the date matters as long as the tape isn't sent in too late, and that I don't see why we have to spend 2 whole days in PA in the first place. She keeps yelling, and retorts she doesn't want to visit when I'm not getting into college anyway. I tell her I'm fed up with this stupidity and her pointless anger. The volleys go back and forth for a bit, then I march back downstairs.
I understand that she is like this but I feel I don't need to be involved with their business. I mean, she plans the whole trip without my input, then asks me for advice on my sister's piano camp application? And she in the first place is about the only one who even thinks I have a shot at getting into UPenn, nonetheless Princeton.
Not just this incident, but she feels as if being a mother is not an obligation but a job. A job where she is supposed to be recognized for and constantly being praised for. As if. Not being ungrateful, Mom, but mothers have been doing this job, far better than you I might add, with much less complaint and appreciation. I mean, am I supposed to thank you everyday for a role that's a given when I'm not being getting any respect for taking on the tasks of sister, daughter and student?
I just don't get you sometimes.
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Just to clarify, I don't get angry very easily and when I do, I rarely am angry for long. In fact, by the end of writing this, my initial rage has simmered down to lukewarm. I'm already over with this battle, but posting it just 'cause. My rational mind, I suppose, takes me back to look on these incidents in perspective. (It makes for a boring life though.) So if I seem more impartial to the matter than I should probably be, that's just how I am.

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