Solitary

Today, after getting dropped off to the bus stop by my dad, I realized that I left my phone in his car. On my phone are pictures of shounen-ai, or Japanese-style cartoons of softcare male homoerotica. My dad is pretty open-minded, but he's also pretty old-fashioned. While he treats gay people the same as he treats straight people, he believes homosexuality is a kind of a mental illness. Oh, and this also might be helpful: I'm female, and I'm completely straight. However, I don't know how to explain to him that plenty of straight females actually enjoy male homoerotica.

In addition to my shounen-ai pictures, I also have a picture of me and my high school physics teacher together; I'm in my graduation gown and he has his hand on my shoulder. Normally, having such an innocent picture on my phone, especially because I already graduated from high school last year, wouldn't be such a big deal, but I had the biggest crush on him (it's still there, too!) and my dad knows it. He had already heavily advised me against listening to my physics teacher's garage band's music, or doing anything that reminds me of him, but having his picture on my phone perfectly contradicts that.

.... So what do I do, y'all? I can only imagine my dad being pissed as hell finding the stuff I have on my phone. I'm pretty nervous right now.

I'd love to think that the Christmas cards I've handwritten and decorated to troops were read with a smile and appreciation, but recently I saw a YouTube video of a military unit viciously mocking holiday letters school children have made for them. Being a fairly reasonable person, I understand that this is only one isolated incident, but it still hurts me think that there's a probability that the troops I've written to didn't care about the effort I put into my cards. I hope these cards, and not just mine, aren't generally received with apathy and disdain. What say you, troops? What do y'all think of them?

Oh my gosh... *I just found out my AP exam scores today. I did amazing in Calculus in Psychology; 5's on both tests. Woo hoo!

...

However, I didn't do so hot in either Physics exam; I didn't do well in either Electricity & Magnetism or in Mechanics. Respectively, I made a 2 and a 3. Before the Physics exams, I spent so much time prepping. I stayed after school every single day with my Physics teacher to get some one-on-one tutoring with him till late after school, some days till 6:30 in the evening. I really wanted to make good grades on those exams. My main objective to making good scores was, of course, to earn credit at my university. I'm a budding engineer, physics is a very important subject to my major, but also, I wanted to make good grades so that my teacher's hard work doesn't go to waste.

But not only have I failed myself, I failed him, too. I feel that it's necessary to apologize for failing him. Is it? I really appreciate your opinions.

*In case you also took some AP exams yourself and wondering why I received my scores so early, it's because people who go to the university to which I'm going get early access to their scores, so that they can plan their course schedules.

A few hours ago, I sent this email to my physics teacher's work email. The email is below, and it gives details about my situation.

I hope this doesn’t fall into your spam filter. :/

Anyway, I know you said that you were just going to forget about yesterday and I know I agreed, but I just can’t; what happened bothers me so much! Why was I so careless? I can’t forget, but I also think that maybe you don’t want to read my explanation for why I wrote that sort of stuff on my homework… however, please at least understand that I need to at least attempt to explain so I can get some sort of peace of mind. You can stop reading here if you want, but nothing in this email is TMI. At least I don’t think so.

Usually I wake up at around 4 or 5 in the morning to do homework, but Thursday morning was kind of weird: I woke up to a “strange” dream, and felt dazed in a happy and really odd way. For the first ten minutes or so upon waking, I couldn’t concentrate on physics, so I started doodling on the back of my homework. Then my mind started wandering elsewhere and wrote things that had nothing to do with… well, my private fantasies. After doing some homework, I went back to sleep at around 6:30, woke up at 7, and began my day normally. I completely forgot about my dream and the stuff I wrote until I left my homework on the whiteboard and was discovered.

So you see, one of the reasons why I’m so hot and bothered by that incident is because I’m afraid you might’ve have taken one of the not corrupted things I wrote out of context. It’s already bad enough that you probably think I’m totally screwed up, dirty, or used, or all three. I don’t need my physics teacher to think I’m more messed up than necessary, because I haven’t even had my first kiss yet. On top of that, nobody knows about my private daydreams except my best friend of ten years (as in, she was my best friend for ten years, she’s not ten years old!) but even she doesn’t know about them in such detail, well, at least till yesterday when I told her what happened. But I decided to be an idiot and vent on a place where I could easily be found out. Actually, when I really think about it, I think I’m actually lucky that it was just you who discovered it. Things would’ve been a whole lot worse if my homework fell into the wrong hands. Nevertheless, I still feel guilty as hell. My physics teacher knows my darkest secret all because I decided to be stupid.

Thank you for reading what I had to say.

I'm so freaking worried! Is this going to get my teacher fired? I swear, there is nothing more going on between me and my teacher than a normal student-teacher relationship. I care about him as a mentor, a teacher, and almost as a father so much, but because of my stupidity, one thing lead to another, and now here I am, risking an innocent man's teaching career. If I was 18, I'd go and give it all I've got if we were dragged into court, but I'm a few months too short...

Please tell me if this is going to jeopardize my teacher's career. Thank you so much.

Please make note that I'm fully aware I'm still a young and growing woman, so my perceptions on myself, society, and life are probably going to change.

However, as of now, from the way I see things, I'm not sure how to be happy in the end. You see, I'm going to become at the very least, a computer engineer when I grow up; if not, a computer scientist. I equate happiness to being able to do a service to humankind and leaving a mark on the world (this could be anything from making a new discovery or creating a new concept). Additionally, happiness for me also means companionship. In short, success + companionship = happiness.

... But according to me, I see myself as completely undesirable to men, particularly to those in the States, where I live. I'm not ugly or socially awkward or anything like that; I'm just too independent and too unwilling to be subjugated to any of my intellectual peers and equals. If I'm going to submit to someone (and we're NOT talking about the bedroom!), he better more experienced, educated, and/or emotionally more mature than I am. I don't want children, because who's going to raise them, me, the scientist? I'm not going to have time for that! He's not going to be willing to be the assistant breadwinner, either. To top it all off, although I'm a strong progressive in women's rights, I'm also a pretty strong conservative when it comes to premarital sex and such topics. None. Absolutely no premarital sex for me (for ME, I said). However, it seems that the only men who would respect my wishes and be happy with it are devout Christian men. I'm a Theravada Buddhist, which is also an atheist.

Given the details of who I am, is there a way for me to be happy by doing and having all the things I want to have and do? Or will I have to make some sacrifices?

Here's what I can gather about the book:

There are two main characters, a thirty-year-old man named Ralph(?) and a seventeen-year-old girl named Io. Io meets Ralph in a bus/subway/train (I can't remember which) and develops a crush on him. Initially, this flatters Ralph, but eventually, he convinces her that her feelings for him are out of line. Does anyone know this book?