Who is your oldest friend (i.e., the friend you have known the longest)? How often do you see or talk to each other? Do your close friends tend to stay the same year after year or change over time?
I was going to say 'none' but there's this one boy who I've known for about five years now. I don't really have any other friends I've had for a long time because I was always getting shipped between foster homes every year when the family decided I wasn't exactly what they wanted. Makes it complicated to form lasting friendships when you never spend more than a year at a school.
But university so far is really great. Most of the people in McKinley hall are pretty cool although there are a few s**theads as is to be expected with any sort of communal living.
There's an on campus house called The Vatican (no idea why) and they threw a party on Friday that got pretty wild. I don't know how many jelly shots I had but it was probably too many and I ended up kissing some boy I didn't even know the name of. How cliche is that?
Scenario: For exactly 1 minute, you get access to all the databases of all the intelligence agencies in the world (CIA, FBI, KGB, MI-5, etc). What do you want to find out before time is up and you're caught and jailed forever?
What if I was theoretically a super hacker though? If I got in I would have made sure to cover my tracks and be out again by the time they tracked down my location.
When the shooting happened at London College on this day last year I'd only be going there for about a month. I didn't know Gloria. I didn't know most of the people who died. I held the hand of a girl next to me in the library after she was shot and stayed with her until an ambulance took her away. Her name was Juliet. I'd never talked to her before that day and I only ever talked to her once more in the hospital before she died.
I don't think any of us will ever forget that day. I won't.
There was a memorial held today. It was 'nice' in the way that things like that can ever be nice, I guess.
The students of London College seem to really care a lot about the sexual orientation of others. They get themselves all worked up about where people are putting their bits, or if they're even putting them anywhere at all. Things like other people's sex lives hold so little interest to me and I honestly couldn't care less as long as it's not effecting me. But that's how I feel about most things in life. Do whatever you want just don't try and drag me into it.
The US election is getting most of my attention a the moment and I wish I was eligible to vote. It seems sort of insane that it's even a race between Obama and McCain. The choice seems completely obvious, but maybe again that's just me following the whole do what you want just don't make me do it too. McCain wants to control too much of what people want to do and that's not the kind of thing anyone should be encouraging. I want to hack the country and remove the option to vote for him, but alas any hacking skills I have don't extend far beyond the very basics.
I like Obama though. He's very likeable. I'm not sure many world leaders are usually 'likeable' but he is. Hey, maybes it's just because he is, just like me, a mixed mutt. We're both biracial and there's still prejudiced against that even in this day and age, which is pretty insane. You'd think we all have bigger things to worry about than what percentage of what makes up my skin colour. I don't have a speck of white in me but I manage to get out of bed in the mornings without any disasters so it can't all be too bad. My Chinese mother and African-American father haven't instilled my genes with any timebombs ready to explode in your living room should you meet my eye.
It's 2008. Two thousand and eight. So why are we still having so much problem with who loves who or what colour people are? Shouldn't we be over this by now? You'd have thought we'd had enough time as a people to realise that it doesn't really make that much of a damn difference.
I can't believe it's already time for school to be starting up again. Tomorrow morning I'll be waking up early and making the trudging and boring journey to London College. But this time I'll be in my final year. And then, after this, I am outta there.
Of course college has to go back just as my computer needs a serious work over and I'd much rather be doing that.
I love the way computing moves forward every single day, constantly changing and bettering itself. Computer always make so much more sense to me than people I suppose it's because I've spent so much time in and out of children's homes and foster care, but computers are reliable and trustworthy. If there's a mistake in the workings, it's because you made it. I like that certainty. Only in computers can you find such a thing.
My own laptop needs repairs beyond my own powers but I bet Demon can at least give it a look for me. I don't have the money to take it to some idiot in a shop who probably doesn't know much better than I do what's wrong with it.
Bret and Carol are taking me out for dinner tonight as a fancy restaurant. They do this sometimes and I still can't quite get used it it. I've been with them four months now which, while it isn't a record, is better than some of the families before them. Congratulations all around, for me and them, both sides of the equation holding up.
This was the best Easter I've ever had with a foster family. Carol and Bret remain pretty cool human beings but there is a little part of me that keeps waiting for them to show me their ugly side. Could it be there exists foster parents that don't have an ugly side? I can scarcely even believe such a thought. I'd say it was just me who'd have a bad run of it but I've talked to too many other people on the inside who have horror stories about families that put mine to shame. At least I've only ever been in one house that was violent and I was out of there pretty quick anyway. So all the bad foster parents were bad in the passive way most of the time.
I think if this one goes the wrong way I'm just going to split and move in with Demon. I couldn't afford to go to school any more but I could get a good enough job to pay rent and then I'd have all my time to work on computers.
When I was quite young I had a friend who went to church every week. I didn't really understand the concept of church since dad was never religious and he was the only home influence I ever had. But I knew this girl went and believed in some god she couldn't see or hear or touch which just seemed strange, because I've never been one to believe in something I can't find tangible proof for. I like to feel things in my hand to know that they are real.
Once I went with her to Sunday school which consisted of a group of us young kids sitting in a room with someone old woman who smelled a bit too much like beetroot (I can still remember that clearly) and being read bible stories. I can remember her telling us all about something to do with a river of blood. I don't even remember what the story was meant to teach us any more but that image of a blood red river haunted me. I had nightmares for the next week. I was scared that god was going to drown me in blood while I slept. I dosed myself on sugar so I could stay up later than I was supposed to, hidden under the blankets of my bed with a torch and magazines.
I haven't been hiding under my blankets so much as then but it's still like my childhood nightmares have come back to haunt me. The Thames is normal again now but I can't help waiting for the next nightmare to show up. I used to have one about lions escaping from the zoo and coming in my bedroom window but I think the chances of that are pretty low. But then I would have said a few weeks ago that the chances of the Thames turning into blood was actually impossible. I think I'll keep my windows locked when I go to sleep from now on even though I am on the second storey.
Unrelated to nightmares is the events happening on the internet for those in London. For those who are smart enough to spot the signs and to be in the right places, there is definitely something going on. It's a sort of Alice Through the Looking Glass scavenger hunt for those of us who have no moral qualms or creative limits when it comes to finding their way through cyberspace. Luckily for me I am one of those few and I'm following the little leads that are taking me further and further toward some sort of secret goal. There's going to be a meeting of the greatest hackers in the London area but to get there we have to make our way through the rose-thorned path. It's not as hard as one might think but it is taking a lot of time. But I know I can do it. There's no way I'm missing out on the chance to meet some of those I play with in the online world. I'm almost there, almost all the clues are mine. And once they are I'll know the time and the place.
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