You might not get it right, or you might realize that it's too late

I've noticed whenever I write in here I usually take whatever I'm thinking about, then conceptualize, generalize, and ambiguify it until it turns into the topical rants we all know and love. It's kind of a trying process.

No, "ambiguify" isn't a word.

I'm trying to figure out when, exactly, I became the kind of person who speaks her opinion without concern for what the response might be. This is a quality I think other people sometimes shoot for, but I don't know how much I like it. While not being burdened by the agony of striving for the approval of the general public is a pretty good idea, I still care about the feelings and opinions of those I talk to, and I'd hate to be one of those people who regularly hurts or offends others and has to be explained for by friends with a "she didn't mean that; she just wasn't thinking."

I'm also hoping that the feeling of terror that grips me every time I think about my first speech tournament will go away within the next couple weeks.

Actually, I guess that whole "speaking your mind thing" would be fine if you're ideally composed, humble, mature, and wise enough to always say the right thing. So as an alternative I guess I could just strive for utter perfection.

12 - Days until speech tournament #1.
8 - Final count of years Z will have worked for Neuqua.
3 - Total number of colleges I applied to.
5 - Months Northwestern might make me wait for a response.
0 - Days I've gone without a college conversation since August.
3 - Number of people who really caught me off guard this weekend.
24 - Days until I'm 18.

"If we were not something more than unique human beings, if each one of us could really be done away with once and for all by a single bullet, storytelling would lose all purpose. But every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world’s phenomena intersect, only once in this way and never again. That is why every man’s story is important, eternal, sacred; that is why every man, as long as he lives and fulfills the will of nature, is wondrous, and worthy of every consideration."

(It's from Demian. If you haven't, you should probably read that.)