Well, it's another birthday. This year it's seventeen. And I must say I had a wonderful time. Where to begin...
I got to start off the day alone, meaning I didn't have to wait for anyone to wake up before I left. This was about the best thing that happened to me all day. For shortly afterwards, I got a call from my mother stating that not only did I have to bring her shoes to her, but that my birthday party was to be held there. Where is "there?" Why, it's the house of my mother's boyfriend, a man whom I have known for roughly one week. Now, I consider my birthday to be a very special and familial event. Not enough to where he couldn't be invited, but certainly it shouldn't be held in a stranger's house. I said so, though not quite so eloquently, and she was adamant that I go and hold my party there. I'll get into that in more detail later.
Then after getting locked out of Spanish before school and listening to an anti-flippant speech--I, personally, have always been a great admirer of the form--I got to write a DBQ. Now, for those of you who don't remember, that is where you are handed a series of documents on a particular topic and must write and essay about them. Only this year there's a twist: you must draw all of your conclusions from the documents--for they choose something obscure, this time the extent to which women were encouraged to be educated between the 16th and 18 centuries. Last year's question in AP US History (I'm in AP European History this year) was on the changing role of women from the Colonial period to the Civil War, including the Mothers of the Republic and the Cult of Domesticity; which led to an interesting pair of quotes, though the second, in my opinion, didn't get enough credit: first, the good ol' Puritan-basher and nudism causer from the quote compendium, whom I sould give and alias, even though I already used her real name on my comment on the Xanga version of that post: "I don't like women anymore!" Followed by the course's instructor: "I thought that that was a genetic predisposition, and you didn't get a choice in it." Regardless of this, it was a miserable essay as I failed to prepare, and only ended up writing half of it by the time class finished.
Then in English 'twas a similar tale, though I ended up handing in nothing. And on to lunch, where they had Polish sausage on main line. So, of course, I had to take it. And with the main line trays being so small, I walked away from lunch hungry.
On the plus side, after getting my name on the local radio, though I didn't win--and I did last year, and so it makes sense--I had two people who heard the announcement wish me a happy birthday. Would that their wishes had been fulfilled...
So, after an all-right next few hours, I went to my mum's work in order to tell her that I wouldn't be at her boyfriend's place for my birthday, as it would be completely inapropriate. And she was going far to quickly with this one, which she promised she wouldn't. She insisted, as my sister was coming, and I begrudgingly accepted and left. Maybe on the way home I should have unbuckled and crashed: I mum's grieving is anthing like her love, she'd be over it in a fortnight. Anyway, at home I got a call saying that she would call it off if that's what I wanted. Yes, of course. If I don't want to hold my birthday celebration in the house of someone whom it would be a streach to call an acquaintance, someone who's name it takes me ten minutes to remember, someone whom I could not pick out of a croud, then I must want no party at all. So finally after some time she called back saying that her boyfriend was willing to take the party to me if that's what I want, but no-one else could make it to my house because this was all planned out already, and couldn't be changed. Great, so she organised a party in a strange house with people I don't know for my last birthday before eighteen, and didn't consider me in the equation untill it was too late to change it. She sounded somewhat teary, but like they say, sometimes you have to let them cry it out...
So I said, "okay, I'll have a meal--a nice, polite meal--there, and then we can have the cake and present-opening here." For my sister's sake, I let some cake be eaten there. So what happens? What should be and hour, hour-and-a-half ends up being three hours, during which, in more of mum's wonderful logic, they placed a candle atop the cake and sang "happy birthday." Then we went home and mum's boyfriend talked to me endlessly about unrelated things--I'm not trying to be your father, that kind of thing.
So, though it didn't turn out that way: Felicem diem natalem.