Nah. Today wasn't that bad.

I was alone for most of the day. But I can deal with that, I was alone for most of year 7, the whole of year 8, most of year 9, a lot of year 10 and some of year 11. I'm used to being lonely. I just don't like it.

It wasn't that nobody talked to me, lots of people talk to me every day. People come up to me and say "Hi Annie!" and start a conversation. Frankly, I'm popular. Seriously, first time in my life, and I'm not kidding when I'm saying it, I am actually popular. A lot of people like me.

But

I don't like the way they see me. I mean most of them are perfectly nice people, and they start genuninely interesting conversations, and they're genuinely polite and friendly, and I genuinely like most of them. But - they see me as like... a pet. A weird and wonderful animal. They're fascinated by me. They think I'm somehow really strange. People always have. It's not my being "alternative", I mean Ryan and Ben and his friends, neither of them get it. I guess Nathan does a little bit, I saw some townies playing with his hair one time, but... no. I don't know what it is about me. I suppose I'm a little eccentric and very opinionated, and I sit by myself and read in the rain and suchlike, but... I'm not that strange.

I feel like people only want to know me, because they're fascinated by me. They want to work me out. Decode me. And I'm not decodeable. There's nothing special about me. I'm very open with who I am, and when I'm not, heh, I openly admit that I'm covering up a part of myself and explain what that is. It is stupid I know, but I'm just a very open person. Is that bad? I don't know... But I'd rather that people wanted to talk to me because they liked me as a person. I mean eventually they start talking to me cause they like me I gues. But I don't like the reason that they START talking to me.

It bothers me too, that some of them are nice, some of them are in my classes and they come up to me and start conversations which focus on something completely different to my eccentricity. Me and this girl were talking about football today, strangely enough. We talked about politics to start with, but when it was obvious she wasn't really that interested, we moved onto something that she was interested in, and even though I don't know that much, I enjoyed talking to me about it.

But I don't know her name. She came up to me and said, "Hi Annie!" and so many people do, and I don't know what to say back, because even when they do tell me their names, I'm so quick to forget them. Becuase there are so many. I mean... seriously, so many people consider me like... a "mate" and I kind of recognise them by face, but for the life of me, I cannot recall their name. And this bothers me. So I tend to wander off and sit by myself. I'm just not used to it.

It was kind of like that in Secondary School too... but... more sarcastic. People talked to me cause they felt sorry for me. People don't feel sorry for me here, they talk to me because they're interested. And I don't know how I feel about that. But it does bother me.

In politics today, Sheila finally worked out how to use power point. She was showing us loads of pictures of protests and suchlike, and she came to a gay pride thing, with everyone dressed up in pink. And this one stirred up a bit of a debate.

There were three views:

1. Homosexuality is wrong.

2. It's cool that they let people know that they're there, and it's no different to black history month or whatever.

3. They're not doing themselves any favours by dressing up in pink, confirming all stereotypes and seperating themselves from the rest of society.

Sadly, view one was about 50%, view 2 maybe 10% and view 3 the other 40%.

I actually got the final word in the debate. And I was quite pissed off that I had to wait so long to say what I was going to say, because everybody else was just rushing in apart from em and a couple of other people who had our hands up for however long, and basically, I frankly thought we were wasting time and that it was ridiculous, and what I said was that I generally agreed with view 3, but that they do have every right to go out there and show people what they're about. They have every right to dress up in pink and say "We don't give a fuck what you think". What's the fucking big deal?

This guy was standing there saying that homosexuality is wrong, awful, terrible, and that he'd hate to look out of his window and see that. My head was about to explode.

And then this girl, she's quite ... "nice", but she's a Christian, anyhow, someone asked her what she would say as a parent if she had a child who told her that they were gay. And she said the strangest thing. She said that the way she brought up her children, they would never be gay, because she would bring them up to know that it's wrong. And... well... I was shocked to be honest, because I think that is the most stupid and naiive thing that anybody could ever say. Maybe if she had a child that was gay, he or she would not tell her about it, but how narrow minded of her to believe that they would not be gay just because of her own values.

Fuck. I hope she fails as a parent to instil any of her values into her children. I hope they all turn out gay or drug addicts or criminals or muslims or anything else that she might not agree with, just so that she can learn, she does NOT have ultimate control. People are there own people and that's that. As a parent you can influence your children, but they will never turn out to be exactly like you. Never never never. And they will always have values somewhat different to you.

And that's one thing that I think I'd like about being a parent.

I want to adopt children when I grow up. Cause they ain't so bad. My sisters are okay, in fact, I rather like them. Love them even. But I don't want to bring any more children into this world, cause there are so many kids out there who aren't wanted... why make more?

Some girl in my sociology class was talking about a friend of hers who got pregnant as a dare. Well, a bet. Over �100. Who the hell ... and she kept it. But who the hell would ever do that? She must not have had very much going for her in her life.

People are so strange. I don't understand them. I understand my cat. All he wants is comfort and attention. He curls up to me at night, he plays with me, he sleeps on top of my computer where it's warm, he lies on my lap and purrs, when he's cause out of the rain and comes back inside soaking wet, I take a clean towel and wrap him in it. He's lovely. He has quirks, but he's lovely. He doesn't do anything insane, but he needs me, and in an odd way, I need him. I love him.

When I've had a bad day, and I'm walking home, I think about seeing my cat, and that cheers me up. I know this is insane AND off topic, but, I guess what I'm saying is that people are insane. They make fucked up and dodgy decisions. My cat is totally rational. He knows what he likes, he knows what I like. We have an understanding. I feed him and pet him when he wants it, and he keeps me warm at night.>