Okay, last time I posted, I had my heart set on going to Sant Bani. Well, as much as my mind may shock you, I have decided to stay at Shaker. I know, Sant Bani was great. But then I shadowed the following monday, and...I dunno. It kind of reminded me of a public school, even though I've never been to one. After I shadowed, so many things pushed me away from Sant Bani. The feel of public school, the droning teachers, the miniscule recreation area (outside). I guess one of the large contributers was the fact that the bathroom was a single rather than a multiple stall bathroom. When I asked Deana (a girl I made friends with) where the bathroom was, she showed me, and once I realized that it was a single bathroom, I said I had lost the urge to go. How can I live like that at school? Not go to the bathroom? Damn my claustrophobia. *sigh* Oh well. I guess I'll just have to look depression in the eye and say, 'Whatever dude!' 'cause I aint goin' back to that state.

Getting on to other terms, I'm stayin' home today. We got about...2 to 4 inches of snow last night. Mom was going to send me to school, but by the time she decided to, it was 9:30, and I would have missed any major classes. I was going to take a history test today, but...I can always take it tomorrow.

Well, what else can I say? I finished reading Night By Elie Wiesel yesterday. It makes me think, you know. Elie had to run miles and miles with no food or water, in the middle of the night, during a blizzard, when he was fifteen, and Americans kids today complain about having to go outside and shovel the snow off the driveway after a night's fall. It's...pathetic. I, myself, am included in that group.


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On friday, I toured Sant Bani with my mom. It was amazing. The art room was great, and they had a studio with light and everything. Probably the most glorious thing was the library. It was at least as big as the pavilion. There was tall shelves, tables, a few computers. It ws a real library. Tomorrow, I'm going to shadow some one for the whole day. I'm wicked excited, and wicked nervous. Morning session starts at 8:00am, and school gets out at 3:20pm. I'll explain the day after I've visited.

I'm considering picking up track (If mom ever gets a treadmill ) So my sports schedule work pretty much go: Soccer in the fall, snowboarding in the winter, track in the spring, and fencing all year long. (If I ever get around to picking up fencing. )


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Everything is piling up all at once. School, depression, writing.

I have a history test on monday and my history teacher admonished the class that it the hardest one we'll take in two years. Joy.

I absolutely loath doing my science fair project. Despite the easy topic - a dog leash - the nagging tasks requiring me to do extensive research are inevitable.

And then there's Sant Bani. My mom is currently in England right now, returning on the 14th, and then we're visiting Sant Bani on the 16th. I don't think the moment can come soon enough. Adlai informed me extensively that they focus more on the arts, writing and such, rather than any other subject. That couldn't please me more. Sometimes I see subjects such as math, science and history to be burdens that get in thew way of what I'm really meant to do. I know I'll decide to go there, I can't stay at Shaker after all the memories of gray.

Seasonal depression. The worst part of it was from November to mid-January. I'm still not fully recovered, and I'll remember the months from November 2006 to mid-January 2007. I saw those months in a haze of gray. The memories of my depression are plastered to the walls of Shaker Road School. (Which I currently attend) It's hard to explain. "Invalid Item"  , a piece a wrote about my seasonal depression specifically describes it better. I just know that I can't stay another year at Shaker.

I believe I finally finished revising "Hunting the Black Rose"  [18+] and am now looking for a publisher. But company either has an age requirement, doesn't publish that genre, or doesn't accept unsolicited manuscripts. I seem to have lost my motivation for all my stories except Hunting the Black Rose.

I stayed up editing Hunting the Black Rose until 3:00am yesterday. My head is spinning and I can't think.

 

I've really been thinking about it today-what it would be like if I transfered to Sant Bani for eighth grade. Four more months of Shaker, until summer. Shaker (My current school) wasn't the same this year. The atmosphere, the people, it all changed. Instead of colors, I see grey. I walk into the room, my fellow students have smiles on their faces as they talk, giggle, laugh, but their faces are grey. Sound is grey. I see the school in a haze now. I dread walking up that long paved path and pulling on the metal handle of the heavy white doors, glancing at the people in the tech lab as I walk to my locker. This all happens while being layered with grey. All the same color, not even a different shade. Just, grey.

The people are distant. My friends. I want to seperate myself from all of them, accept for Casey. Some of my best friends I seem to resent, for they lack an understanding of me. My best friend, Morgan, we seem to know eachother like the backs of your hand. At least, that's what you'd think, on the outside. But the more I think about it, the more I find we're just aquentenced. She knows only one half of me, and I'm not even sure that's a genuine half. She sees the crazy, hyper side. I used to be like that. I still want to be, but my other half seems to be taking over now. The calm half, loving to write and read, and just sit at my window and think for hours and hours. She doesn't know that side. The calm side. The spiritual side. The side that sometimes thinks that it will go insane one day. Crack from all the pressure. All the grey. The side she knows is the sixth grade Claire. Seeing colors in Shaker Road School, and getting bored from sitting still for five minutes.

She visited Sant Bani once, took a tour. She hated the school. Hated it with a passion. She told me that I'd hate it to. That once I visited, I'd see how stupid it all was. But here's the thing. Morgan thinks she knows me, but she only knows one half. That half sees Morgan to be partially right, but the other half, the spiritual half, the half that was created from my three years of attending the Cantebury Children Center, (C.C.C.) longs for the day I go to Sant Bani.

Cantebury Children Center. Let me care to explain. The school only goes from grade one to three, so I was only able to attend three years there, but they were the most memorable three years of my life. It was a one-room school, run only bye a married couple, Judy and Bill Egen. There was only about twenty kids in the whole school. I guess I didn't really consider it a school, I considered it a sanctuary. They had a barn, with donkeys and chickens, and sheep. They had a wood, that all the kids could play in. They had an amazing garden, with herbs, they had a sledding hill, a pond, and a personal apple orchard. It was amazing. It was my home away from home. I miss Judy and Bill imensely, along with the school, and all the animals. I miss everything about that school. They recomended Sant Bani, so I know that if I went there, I know that I might get at least a little of the feeling that I had at the C.C.C.

After I graduated from third grade at the C.C.C., I went to Shaker. The change was drastic. I wished desperately to be able to go back. After four years of being at Shaker, I finally realized why it's so different to the C.C.C. My eyes have opened to how cold it is. There is no feeling of love's warmth, and only a dismal grey haze over everything, which is drastically depressing. At the C.C.C., I see colors. They're bright, and happy, and crystal clear. The C.C.C. is a small school, so everyone gets noticed, but Shaker, with over three hundred students, I'm just another fish in the ocean. At the C.C.C. I'm a whale, or a shark, or giant coral reef. I don't feel like just another student, I feel like a person. I know that's what I'll feel at Sant Bani, or at least get a good taste of there. Sant Bani is a small school, with only one-hundred-seventy students. So why should I be a fish, when I can be an entire reef?

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I finished my science fair. Now I have the art project on post impressionism and the cross stitch project to do. One down, three to go. Five hours left.
 

This blog entry will not be written by Eselin.

I am officially doomed. My Science Fair Project, (See previous post) art project and cross stitch project is all do monday. Tomorrow. For my art project, I have to research a certain time in art history and...I dunno, make a book page on it or something. For cross stitch, I have to finish my bear. (*gags* Who said we had to do bears anyway?) I'm about three fourths the way through, but I'm a slow cross stitcher.

Did I mention my mom is going away to England tomorrow? She's going for ten days.

I think I'm going to snap.
 

This blog entry will not be written by Eselin.

Okay, so my day pretty much averages out. I've spent the last...five or six days having sleep overs with my friend. It was great at first, until I stupidly decided to bring out the Wii. She was consumed in the videogame, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. She first started playing Zelda about two weeks ago. We started an account that we would play together on. Then I made my own personal account to play on, just for me. So, When I went to house on...I think, monday or tuesday, after she had played on our account for a while, I asked if she would mind if I could play on my personal account. She said it was fine. Now, on the account that we share, we're at the very beginning of the game, but on my personal account, (I own the Wii that we were playing on) I was about half way through the game. So I start to play, and run into a difficult part, she asks if she could try, and I hesitated, because I knew that if I let her play once, she would want to play again, and again, and again. But I said okay. She started playing, got past the difficult part, and didn't stop. Also, she went online and printed off like, six pages of guides, to tell us what to do when. I'll admit, I use the guide sometimes when I'm completely stumped, but I pretty much like to figure it out on my own, that's the whole fun of the game, tackling a challenge head on. But she kept printing pages, and pages, and pages. What would have taken me about six hours took about a hour. That's not a good thing, because I like to be able to sit, and think, and figure the game out for myself. It gives me a feeling of acomplishment. With her printing off all these pages, I felt like a total idiot, and it spoiled all the surprises. We switched on and off playing, but her playing time ran in on about fifteen to twenty minutes, while mine lasted about at most ten minutes. Anyway, some strange force caused me to ask her if she wanted to sleep at my house that night. So we went to my house, and played the Wii the ENTIRE night. Or rather, SHE played the Wii the entire night. The next day, she went to a dentist appointment with her mom, but came back after. Joy. Wanna guess what she did? Play the Wii. All night long.

She announced after playing on my account for God knows how long, that it was officially now, our account. I was thinkin', what the heck? Did you even friggin ask me if that was okay?

Oh! Did I mention she told me the ending to the game? Yep. She was looking at the guide, going far ahead of where we were, to the end. She said, oh, bla bla bla. (I'm not gonna say the ending in case anyone here is currently playing the game. I don't want to ruin it for them. ) So I said, 'Dude, I don't want to know the ending of the game till I get there.' She's like, 'Oh, sorry." Then she goes on to tell me the rest of the ending! I'm thinking, 'What the crap is your problem?! Are you friggin deaf?!' It was infuriating.

Okay, you're probably saying to yourself right now, what's the big deal, it's just a videogame, right? Wrong. Let me care to explain. For me, a videogame is an experience, like a book. I know their two completely different things, but still. It's a story, but you get to be the character and make your own decisions. She was making decisions for me. That really pisses me off. Telling me the ending to the game pissed me off just as much as she tells me the end to some of the books that I'm going to read and she's already read. And relying on all those cheats? It's pathetic! Can't she figure it out on her own? I don't care if it takes a year, I only turn to the guide/cheats when I've spent at least a hour trying to figure out the same problem! She turned to them when she didn't even need them.

Yesterday, I was fixing up my closet, (All the shelves in my closet had collapsed about a month before, so I had to build new onces with my mom and dad and put all the stuff back in.) and my mom and dad were really getting frustrated. My room was a total disaster because I had taken all the stuff that had been in my closet out, and put it on my bed. (I have a king size. ) All the stuff was too big, and we were missing stuff, and God, it was just a mess. I came down after a few hours of working on it and she, (who had been on my computer playing games and watching TV) complained about being bored. That was the last thing I wanted to hear. She should be up there helping me! I helped her rearrange and clean out her room! I didn't sit and complain about being bored while she did it! So after my break, I go back upstairs to work. Finally, after like, three tedious hours of sawing and nailing and scewing nails into the wall, the shelves are finally set up. (Thanks to my dad, who did all the sawing and nailing and screwing nails into the wall. I held everything to the wall, so he could hammer it, or held stuff so he could cut it with the saw. You ever cut metal with a hack saw? ) So I go down stairs, and she tells me that she's been crying because she's so bored. I didn't even know that was friggin possible. I was about to scream at her. Oh you're bored are you?! Well you wouldn't have been bored if you had gotten off you lazy ass and helped me rebuild my closet! I was so friggin pissed, and still am. But no, I just patted her back and said sorry. Sorry for friggin what? That I had worked for like five long hard hours? She couldn't go home because of the snowstorm. She stayed for three nights. She shouldn't have even stayed for one. Me inviting her was a big mistake.

Every night, she woke up. She either had a bloody nose, or had to go to the bathroom.One night, she woke up at four in the morning, and asked if I could go downstairs to the bathroom with her. (She didn't want to wake anyone going upstairs) I said it would be fine, so she went upstairs and came back. I sat up for a second, and saw my mom downstairs in the kitchen from the window. (My poor mom gets up really early.) Morgan suggested that we go downstairs and say hi. I was thinking, 'It's four o'clock in the morning! What is wrong with you?!' But just said, 'no'. She said, 'Okay, we'll stay up here for a little longer, but I'm not tired. So I go back to sleep, and half a hour later, I'm awakened by a light. Morgan is sitting up with the flashlight on, looking at my bookshelf. I was so close to flipping, it's not even funny. But no, I go back to sleep.

I wasted my vacation on her. I'll never do it again. I know the only reason she stayed for so long was because she wanted to play the Wii.

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ID: 1184968   (Rated: 13+) The Fairy in the Closet  A fairy in the closet is persistant on taking Claire to a 'magical land' by CCWolf

This blog entry will not be written by Eselin.

I first realized I had claustrophobia when I was very young. My memory is a little choppy from way back then so I can't recall an accurate age, but I can tell you it was from the ages of three to five.

I was on a train with my brother and mom. My brother at the time was around eight. We were in a section in between two cars of the train, and we had to wait for the sliding doors to open. Once they did, my brother and mom walked through into the next car, but the doors closed before I could walk through. I was in that little section all alone, and I did not like it. I had to scream for my mom and brother to notice that I hadn't been able to get through. The doors opened after another five minutes.

I know my claustrophobia hadn't fully kicked in at that age, but by the second time I had a serious run-in with my claustrophobia, it had.

I was about seven or eight. I was in a restaurant with my family, (Dad, Mom, and older brother, Mike) My dad came back from the bathroom anouncing that the lock was a little stiff. I had to go to bathroom, so my mom ordered my brother to go with me and stand outside the door. So I went into the bathroom, and my brother went back to the table to sit with my mom and dad. When I tried to get out, the lock would not budge. (It was a sliding bolt) I had to pull on the door handle to get the bolt loose enough to slide, and then the door wouldn't open even with it unlocked! I screamed and screamed, pounding against the door and kicking it. The walls seemed to close in around me. Finally, some one opened the door. Turns out their chair had been in front of the door, (The door opened out, not in) stopping the door from opening.

After that, I pretty much fully established my claustrophobia. I had a mild fear of doors closing and not opening again. I know I had a third serious run-in with my claustrophobia, but can't remember much. The fourth run-in was the worst.

It was about a year ago, when I was eleven, I was in England with my mom and brother. We were on a train going to or coming from London. I told my mom that I needed to go to the bathroom, and she told me to remember that the door slid open, not swung out or in. I said okay, and went into the bathroom. The train was going so fast that my ears began to pop, and I began to get a headache. I worried about being able to get out of the bathroom instead of remembering that the door slid open. So when I tried to get out, the lock came undone easily, but the door wouldn't open. I screamed, and kicked the door, slamming against it with my shoulder, and then tugging on it as hard as I could. I began to cry. I was so scared. After what seemed like forever, my mom slid the door open and hugged me. The other passengers looked at me like I was insane. When I got back to our table, the people who we were sitting across from and had been talking too were silent, just stared at me with sympathetic eyes. My brother laughed at me for being so upset.

It hasn't been easy living with claustrophobia. Since the incident with the train bathroom, I refuse to use bathrooms on trains or planes. I usually refuse to use single bathrooms entirely now, and only use the ones with multiple stalls, because the doors don't lock. At school, if I want to go the bathroom during English class, I can't because the bathroom down in that building is a single. I usually refuse to go to the bathroom in restaurants now, unless I go to that restaurant a lot and am familair with the bathroom. Hell, I'm afraid that I won't be able to get out of my own bathroom.

Unfortunately, it's not just bathrooms I'm afraid of. I don't really trust small rooms anymore. I guess you could just say I'm afraid of doors. There are ten doors in my house that I'm afraid of and resent closing. I guess I'm afraid that they'll close and never open again. And what the hell do I do then, huh? Wow, what a pathetic story, right? A teenage girl that is afraid of doors. There's a story for the ordinary horror's contest.

 

Well, you're probably wondering who on Earth is this wolf and her girl? Well, first things first, you need to see us! Here's me, Esel,

** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** This picture was taken by a passing troll in late December of last year. Luckily he had a full stomach.

Now here's My Girl, Claire, with her brand new glasses that she bought yesterday! She asks that you please ignore her hideous room.

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I know every thought in My Girl's head, therefore know everything about her. But don't forget, fifty percent of those thoughts come from me! When she's not in my form, I'm sitting impatiently in her minding and thinking up a storm!

I'll start with the basics:

My Girl is thirteen, as I am too, but don't underestimate us or our mind! My Girl and I are half British and half Italian, and boy, does My Girl have an accent! We're not a very bright being, and by that, I don't mean that we're not intelligent,(because we are!) I mean that we're not...happy-go-lucky. Unlike other girls, we, or, My Girl, prefers black to pink, writing to shopping, and the forest to the mall. I guess you could say we're a different pair, but we like it. There's one thing that we both love the most - CHOCOLATE.

My Girl and I live a fair life, we make our den out here in New Hampshire. She has two other dogs that I mess around with, a miniature poodle called Lulu and an Irish Water Spaniel called Ellie. They're not the most tame of animals, but they're more than I can say for myself.

We live with three other humans, The ALPHA MOM, The ALPHA DAD, and the BETA OLDER BROTHER of sixteen.

The ALPHA MOM and ALPHA DAD have a strange job. My Girl tells me that they give away old things on the Internet for green pieces of paper. I don't understand it really, all I see is dirty round pieces of metal, big books filled with square things that stick on envelopes, and a bunch of other old things. My Girl calls them antiques.


My Girl drags me around to do crazy things, like strap her feet to a plank and ride down a mountain ontop of snow, run around and kick a checked ball in a field, and now she's thinking about something to do with swords! I don't mind the other two things she loves to do, which are read and write, because I love to read and write just as much as she does.



The worst part is that My Girl drags me through a seven hour day at a boring place that she calls school. The only part I look forward to is English class. We're reading The House of Dies Drear right now and writing a personality paper on Thomas and Mr. Pluto. I help My Girl a lot with the paper. She does very well in English, thanks to me.



My Girl doesn't talk much about her friends anymore, and it's dawned on me that as her love for writing strengthens, her bond with her friends subsides. It saddens me, and I wish there was something I could do. She tells me all the time that she has chosen the more important path, but I know there's uncertainty in her mind and a small growing hole in her heart. She forgets sometimes that we're two in one.

I know that writing isn't the only reason why she's seperating from her friends though. Too many bad experiences, too many scars in the back from too many knives.

"Heck," she'd say, "Some of them aren't even scars yet." She tells me all the time how she loaths being so trusting. It makes me feel real bad for her, but she says that she never wants me to feel any sympathy for her.




I like where we have our den. We live on the top of our own private little two acre hill (Don't ask me what an acre is, My Girl mentioned them.) surrounded by woods on three sides and a marsh on the other. My Girl doesn't take me out running much, but I enjoy it whenever I get the chance.

My Girl mentioned something about a Railroad that's Underground. I searched her mind for a minute till I found something to do with slavery. She told me that The ALPHA DAD had said our den could have possibly been a station for this Underground Railroad. At first I howled with laughter, but after exploring the house a little bit I found some questionable doors and crevices. I'm still not sure that My Girl or I believe it completely, but we try to.

There's occassionally an uneasy feeling of possibly moving to a different den, and I think I dread the thought of moving den more than My Girl does, as I have grown accustomed to the wonderful sight of the familiar woods and peaceful thinking silence for writing.

I grunted to myself over the last words of the previous paragraph. Now that I think of it, it's almost impossible to think of this den acquiring silence. Strange clanging noises erupt from 'heaters' and the machine that makes My Girl's fur dry, screams. Besides that, we do have a few den guests. Vermin. Vermin I wish. No, there's more than vermin in this den. There's squirrels. My Girl's pack does everything they can to get rid of these pests, they've tried fox pee, poison, even traps, to rid of them, but nothing seems to work. My Girl and I hear them almost every night scuttering, scratching chewing etc. right over our head at night. I swear sometimes it takes my whole Girl to keep me from going up there, clawing up those floorboards, and teachin' those pests a good lesson or two. But My Girl keeps me from going, so I just grit my teeth and put my paws over my ears.



My Girl loves writing just as much as I do, but I tend to write differently to her. While she writes stories and novellas, I tend to write more about our life and our thoughts, which is why she asked me to write this blog. Have I got you interested yet? Never quite read anything written by a wolf have you? I'll tell you tales of our adventures, and I'll tell you tales of times when a shoulder is needed to cry on. Oh, how I will tell you tales.