is staring you in the face.'

I looked around, but I couldn't figure out what she was talking about. There was nothing staring me in the face that I could

see. No one was looking at me at all. Boris was busy scraping away with his bow, and Michael was fingering his keyboard furiously (and silently), but that was about it. Everyone else was bent over their Kaplan review books or doodling or making sculptures out of Vaseline or whatever.

I still have no idea what Lilly was talking about. There is nothing I am talented at - except maybe telling a fish fork apart from

a normal one.

I can't believe that all I thought I needed in order to achieve self-actualization was the love of the man to whom

I have pledged my heart. Knowing Michael loves me - or at least really likes me - just makes it all worse. Because his incredible talentedness just makes the fact that I am not . good at anything even more obvious.

I wish I could go to the nurse's office and take a nap. But they won't let you do that unless you have a temperature,

and I'm pretty sure all I have is jet lag.

I knew it was going to be a bad day. If I had had on my Queen Amidala underwear, I never would have realized how

pathetic I am.






Tuesday, January 19th,

World Civ.





 Inventor

    Invention

    Benefits to Society

Cost to Society

  Samuel B. Morse



  Telegraph

   Easier communication


  Disrupted view  (wires)


  Thomas  A. Edison



Electric light




Phonograph

   Easier to turn on lights

  Less expensive than candles


  Music in the home

  w/o anyone playing instrument

  Society didn't trust them

 weren't successful at first


  Music in the home

  sound was bad at first

  Ben Franklin



  Franklin stove



  Lightning rod



   Less fuel, easier cooking


  Less chance of house being struck

  More pollution


  Ugly

  Eli Whitney



Cotton gin

   Less work


  Less employment


  A. Graham Bell



  Telephone


  Easier communications


  Disrupted view (wires)


  Elias Howe



Sewing machine

  Less work


  Less employment


  Chris. Scholes



Typewriter

  Easier work


  Less employment


Henry Ford



Automobile

assembly line



  More cars


  Pollution





I will never invent anything, either of benefit or cost to any society, because I am a talentless reject.






Homework:

Algebra: probs at beginning of Chapter 11 (no review session, Mr G has mtgs - also, just started semester, so nothing to review yet. Also, not flunking any more!!!!!!) English: update journal (How I Spent My Winter Break -500 words)

Biology: Read Chapter 13

Health and Safety: Chapter 1: You and Your Environment

G & T: Figure out secret talent

French: Chapitre Dix

World Civ.: Chapter 13: Brave New World











Tuesday, January 19th,

in the Limo on Way to Grandmere's for Princess Lesson

Things To Do:



1. Find Queen Amidala underwear.

2. Stop obsessing over whether or not Michael loves me vs. being in love with me. Be happy with what I have.

    Remember, lots of girls have no boyfriends at all. Or they have really gross ones with no front teeth like on

    Maury Povich.

3. Call Tina to compare notes on how the not-chasing-boys thing is working.

4. Do all homework. Do not get behind first day!!!!!

5. Wrap Michael's present.

6. Find out what Grandmere talked to Mom about last night. Oh, God, please do not let it be something weird like

    wanting to take me clay-pigeon shooting. I don't want to shoot any clay pigeons. Or anything else, for that matter.

7. Stop biting fingernails.

8. Buy cat litter.

9. Figure out secret talent.


10. GET SOME SLEEP!!!!!!!!! Boys don't like girls who have huge purple bags under their eyes. Not even perfect

     boys like Michael.









Tuesday, January 19th,

Still in the Limo on Way to Grandmere's for Princess Lesson

(presidential motorcade going by, stuck in traffic on FDR, underneath the United Nations)





Draft for English Journal:



How I Spent My Winter Break


I spent my Winter Break in Genovia, population 50,000. Genovia is a principality located on the Cote d'Azur between

Italy and France. Genovia's main export is olive oil. Its main import is tourists. Recently, however, Genovia has begun

suffering from considerable damage to its infrastructure due to foot traffic from the many yachts that dock in its harbour

and

--

--



--

--

--












Wednesday, January 20,

Homeroom





Oh, my God. I must have been even more tired than I thought yesterday. Apparently I fell asleep in the limo on the

way to Grandmere's, and Lars couldn't even wake me up for my princess lesson! He says that when he tried, I swatted

him away and called him a bad word in French (that is Francois' fault, not mine).

So he had Hans turn around and drive me back to the loft, then Lars carried me up three flights of stairs to my room

(no joke, I weigh as much as about five Fat Louies) and my mom put me to bed.

I didn't wake up for dinner or anything. I slept until seven this morning! That is fifteen hours straight.

Wow. I must have been fried from all the excitement of being back home and seeing Michael, or something.

Or maybe I really did have jet lag, and that whole I-am-a-talentless-bum thing from yesterday wasn't rooted in my low self-esteem, but was due to a chemical imbalance from lack of REM sleep. You know they say that people who are sleep deprived start suffering from hallucinations after a while. There was a DJ who stayed up for eleven days straight, the longest-recorded period of time anyone has ever gone without sleep, and he started playing nothing but Crosby, Stills and Nash, and that's how they knew it was time to call the ambulance.

Except that even after fifteen hours of sleep, I still feel like a bit of a talentless bum. But at least today I don't feel like it's

such a tragedy. I think sleeping for fifteen hours straight has given me some perspective. I mean, not everyone can be super-geniuses like Lilly and Michael. Just like not everyone can be a violin virtuoso like Boris. I have to be good at something. I just need to figure out what that something is. I asked Mr. G today at breakfast what he thinks I am good

at, and he said he thinks I make some interesting fashion statements sometimes.

But that cannot have been what Lilly was referring to, as I was wearing my school uniform at the time she mentioned my mystery talent, which hardly leaves room for creative expression.

Mr. G's remark reminded me that I still haven't found my Queen Amidala underwear. But I wasn't about to ask my

stepfather if he'd seen them. EW! I try not to look at Mr. Gianini's underwear when it comes back all folded from the laundry-by-the-pound place, and thankfully he extends the same courtesy to me.

And I couldn't ask my mom because once again she was dead to the world this morning. I guess pregnant women need

as much sleep as teenagers and DJs.

But I had seriously better find them before Friday, or my first date with Michael will be a full-on disaster, I just know it.

Like he'll probably open his present and be all, 'Uh ... I guess it's the thought that counts.'

I probably should have just followed Mrs. Hakim Baba's rules and got him a sweater.

But Michael is so not the sweater type! I realized it as we pulled up in front of his building today. He was standing there, looking all tall and manly and Heath Ledger-like . . . except for having dark hair, not blond.

And his scarf was kind of blowing in the wind, and I could see that part of his throat, you know, right beneath his Adam's

apple and right above where his shirt collar opens, the part that Lars once told me if you hit someone hard enough, it would paralyse them. Michael's throat was so nice-looking, so pink and concave, that all I could think about was Mr. Rochester standing out on the moor, brooding about his great love for Jane . . .

And I knew, I just knew, I was right not to have gotten him a sweater. I mean, Jane would never have given Mr. Rochester

a sweater. Ew.

Anyway, then Michael saw me and smiled and he didn't look like Mr. Rochester any more, because Mr. Rochester never smiled, he just looked like Michael.

And my heart turned over in my chest like it always does when I see him.

Are you OK?' he wanted to know, as soon as he got into the limo. His eyes, so brown they are almost black — like the

peat bogs Mr. Rochester was always striding past out there on the moor, because if you step into a peat bog, you can sink

in up to your head and never be heard of again . . . which in a way is like what happens every time I look into Michael's eyes:

I fall and fall and am pretty sure I will never be able to get out of them again, but that's OK, because I love being there -

looked deeply into mine. My eyes are merely grey, the colour of a New York City sidewalk.

'I called you last night,' Michael said, as his sister pushed him to move over on the seat so that she could get into the limo, too. 'But your mom said you'd passed out. . .'

'I was really, really tired,' I said, delighted by the fact that he appeared to have been worried about me. 'I slept for fifteen

hours straight.'

'Whatever,' Lilly said. She was clearly not interested in the details of my sleep cycle. 'I heard from the producers of your movie.'

I was surprised. 'Really? What did they say?'

'They asked me to take a breakfast meeting with them,' Lilly said, sounding like she was trying not to brag. Only she wasn't succeeding terribly well. You could totally hear the gloating in her voice. 'Friday morning. So I won't be needing a ride.'

'Wow,' I said. A breakfast meeting? Really? Will they serve bagels?'

'Probably,' Lilly said.

I was impressed. I have never been invited to a breakfast meeting with producers before. Just with the Prince of Wales.

I asked Lilly if she had come up with a list of demands for the producers, and she said she had, but she wouldn't tell me

what they were.

I think I am going to have to watch this movie and see what's making her so mad. My mom has it on tape. She said it was

one of the funniest things she has ever seen.

But then, my mom laughs all through Dirty Dancing, even the parts that aren't supposed to be funny, so I don't know if she

is the best judge.

Uh-oh. One of the cheerleaders (sadly, not Lana) tore her Achilles tendon doing pilates over the break, so they just

announced they are holding tryouts for a replacement. The team's substitute got transferred to an all girls' school in Northampton due to having too wild a party while her parents were in Martinique.

I sincerely hope Lilly is too busy protesting about the movie of my life to protest about the new cheerleading try-outs. Last semester she made me walk around with a big sign that said Cheerleading is sexist and not a sport, which I am not even

sure is technically true, since they have cheerleading championships on the sports channel. But it is a fact that there are no cheerleaders for the female sports in our school. Like Lana and her gang never turn out for the girls' basketball team or the

girls' volleyball team, but they never miss a boys' game. So maybe the sexist part is true.

Oh, God, a geek just came in with a hall pass. A hall pass for me! I am being summoned to the office! And I didn't even

do anything! Well, this time, anyway.

This is so unfair.