I don’t see myself as a good person.

Quite the contrary, I view myself as very ignoble, and sometimes it does feel like I am constantly battling my nature, so to speak.

I try my damnedest to be a good person, though I do rather enjoy a great deal of mischief, and some debauchery these days.

I limited myself severely just a few months ago. I looked down on all forms of drunkenness, all sorts of drugs. Part of it was because my boyfriend at the time was ridiculously controlling. It was a passive form of restriction in that he never explicitly forbid me to do anything, but I somehow knew what to steer clear of in order to keep his wrath at bay. My mother is a bit of a drunkard; she enjoys her wine just a bit too much, and when I was younger I used to turn to alcohol to relax and forget about my worries for a while. Now, that was almost six years ago, but he still thought it better for me to avoid the stuff entirely, and eventually I felt the same way about it. I used to hate going to parties because I felt like such an outsider, looking down my nose at everyone enjoying themselves, while at the same time I envied them their relative enjoyment.

I remember once when I tried to tell him I was interested in doing a little bit of social drinking at the parties we’d attend, he got angry, or rather, very stern with me and then tried to make me drink a whole bottle of something. I refused, because I felt cornered, and then I didn’t mention it again. I used to be afraid to talk to him about things because he’d try to force his logic on me, which was very black-and-white.

However, as I grew increasingly unhappy in that relationship (and as I was preparing myself in my mind to terminate that relationship), I thought that I shouldn’t judge without experiencing things for myself. As soon as that relationship was over, I did just that.

I do things for myself these days. Almost utterly. I don’t have to, nor feel compelled to, sway my decisions because of someone else. I thank the heavens that I’ve met people who don’t judge or ridicule me. I am very grateful that David recognizes that I am my own person, and fully capable of making decisions for myself. I know I’ve written this a thousand times by now, but I love him because I can really be myself around him. And I feel perfectly comfortable doing so.

I believe that is a very rare occurrence in life.

I love him for that, but also because he’s one crazy son-of-a-bitch.

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Now for something a tad lighter.

I want to recap this week because it has been rather unusual. This was our last production week. Wednesday night, most of Ed. Board was ridiculously tired, and about ready to kick the bucket at only 4 p.m. I was disappointed that we had to cut down to an eight-page issue again, but we really could not help it. Thanks much to Jesse though, for bailing us out on three necessary stories.

Jeremiah dropped a bombshell when he announced that we would be having one last Ed. Board meeting at California Pizza Kitchen on Friday at noon. All he told us was that we would be voting on something that would have an effect on the fall semester. This made us rather antsy, and pissy.

We finished up at about 9 p.m. It was rather anti-climactic. I didn’t really feel the huge surge of relief I was expecting, and I also didn’t feel very accomplished, which was the other end of the spectrum of possible emotions. By that time, three members of Ed. Board had already left. News, Sports and Jeremiah were the only editors left.

Matt and I really didn’t want to go home without doing something for a little bit, even though we were tired too. Nancy and Robert were just going with the flow. I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t in a celebratory mood, but it didn’t feel right to leave it at that. Jeremiah tried to convince us to hang out with him and old staff at an IHOP in El Segundo, but we all declined.

First, we didn’t want to spend our last production night with people we barely knew, and with people who weren’t part of the newspaper.

Second, we couldn’t really understand why he didn’t want to celebrate or go out with us, seeing as we had been working together all afternoon and all semester.

Meh.

So we ended up at Denny’s on Aviation. We stayed there for about four hours. Just talking. Speculating about the fall semester, about the Friday Ed. Board lunch. It was nice. We all get along very well, which is why time flies whenever we go out. David joined us after he got off work at the Breeze.

We left at about 1 a.m., methinks. After driving Nancy back to her car, David and I went to my place here in Cerritos. I can’t remember exactly, but I’m pretty sure we just fell asleep almost immediately. However, in the morning, I was surprised to find my place deserted. I had no idea where my dad was, and my brother was at school.

This next part is censored. Sorry, folks.

I ended up skipping my classes on Thursday. I was too tired to go to my first class, and I hadn’t done my reading for my Bible as Literature class. I really hate going to a class unprepared, mostly because I can’t stand sitting there and being unable to contribute to the discussion. Still, I managed to get my ass to the newsroom. I planned on getting the majority of my J11 final finished. Matt and Aaron were the only two people in there.

I learned that we would have to decide the new EIC at the Ed. Board lunch. This shocked me, mostly because it made absolutely no sense to me. Half of us applied for the position and our advisers could not decide between themselves, so they were going to have us choose. They felt we worked so well together that we would be able to come to a decision. I was worried that forcing us to choose our leader would tear our group apart. Almost everyone else echoed my sentiments, so we all dreaded the lunch.

To get my mind off of it, and just to simply relax, at 7 p.m. I headed over to Encino to hang out with Mare. We hit the hookah bar and restaurant at about 8 p.m. Curse you, traffic!

It was exactly what I needed. We ordered chicken strips and sweet potato French fries to share. And for hookah, we chose “The OG,” which was lemon, melon and peach. It was very smoooooooth. I hated ordering it though. “We’ll have the OG, please.” Silly.

We spent five hours there. Just chatting and smoking. From 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. It was fantastic. I felt so good, and more relaxed than I have in a while. I simply could not stop smiling or revelling in how wonderful my life is these days.

I was getting sleepy when we were leaving, but when I started driving I woke up again, so I sent a text to David to find out if he was home and awake. He is camping this weekend and was supposed to leave early Friday morning. I was hoping to stop by and see him a bit before he left.

Thank goodness, he had just gotten home when he received my text, so he called me.

I headed over to his house. I had no intention of staying the night, but meh. I should have known better.

Again, censored. I apologize.

We didn’t get up till about 9 a.m. At least, I was up by 9. He sleeps like the dead. I didn’t leave his place till 11, when I headed over to EC to turn in my laptop and pick up people for lunch.

When I arrived, however, the proofs for Warrior Life showed up! It doesn’t look half-bad. We shall see the finished product within a week and a half.

The lunch was fine. For the first half of it, we couldn’t decide on HOW we were going to pick EIC and managing editor. We went back and forth, but eventually we just wrote down names, and explained why we chose who we chose.

Matt came out on top, so he is our new EIC. Angela was runner-up, and she will be managing editor.

After lunch, we all headed over to Anderson Park, simply to “chill,” for lack of a better word since I’m getting rather sleepy. We also figured out what Ed. Board is going to look like in the fall.

We laughed at the children, as a majority of us usually do when we go to a park. Little boys love to wave their arms and hands around when they run. It’s vaguely disconcerting. I managed to convince Jeremiah to get on a swing. It was the most hilarious thing I’ve seen in a while. He was feeling a little odd because he was no longer EIC.

He left soon after that though. He never hangs out with us for long.

I screamed for ice cream, so Matt said he’d treat us all to the yummy treat because he was very grateful that we voted for him. We then sat at a Baskin Robbins for a good couple of hours, just talking.

The fall looks good. We all have the same worries, but I am certain things will work out just fine.

And I apologize for getting so sloppy. I’m getting sleepier so I am very eager to just wrap this up. I would go into much more detail if my eyes weren’t getting so droopy.

Muah. Goodnight, friends.

Isn’t life grand?