It's funny how stress and grades can totally shift one's state of mind. Last night, just before I went to sleep, I was feeling pretty stressed for a number of emotional reasons. My chest cramped up, and I could barely take a full breath, and when I did it felt like someone was pushing as hard as they could on the left side of my body. I woke up and it was all tingly.

Starting they day was a bit slow today, at first I was thinking, "Wow, today's going to suck - I have a test first thing in the morning, and I'm going to have to run a mile this afternoon against my will." Well, the English test was simple and I was prepared for it, and I'm confident I had a high score. Instead of running the mile we, "moved for six minutes" - I'd say we "ran" for six minutes but there's no such thing as effort in teenage physical education. I'm one of the few rare birds that tries.

Today was a happy day. Hence my title - Happy Happy Revolution. I received the greatest advice on how to stay jolly from the master of jolly, my friend Ricky. It's working. Even though I knew it already, he said that fates path is unchangeable (basically, he would never word it like this), and that people just have to accept things as they come. Even though I already knew and understood this, it was really nice for him to say it to me because I'd been so stressed earlier - it's like coming home and taking a hot shower after a long day of hard work - sometimes, when someone says something that's kind, it really just clicks and puts you into one of those thrill moods.

Taking the us home on Thursdays is always really nice - we don't pick up any of the young ones so I have the pleasure of riding home on a bus that's semi-quiet and semi-peaceful, and that gets me home a lot faster. So, I got home nice and early, and I was in my good ol' jolly mood, so I decided to run out into the backyard and practice running, jumping, and flipping. Who knows, but it sounded like a good idea at the time, and I wasn't doing that bad. Only really hit the ground hard once, and my tailbone popped and it felt like the world had just stepped on my ass (take that very literally). So, after the world stepped on my ass, I tried once more, got it, and came inside for some relaxation here on the good old computer and instant messengers and such. A few people were on, so I talked to them, then I went back to doing the "Bob meets energy" mode and started playing Dance Dance Revolution. Hadn't played it in awhile, but I enjoyed it nonetheless, and I wasn't doing half bad either.

I always take a shower after DDR, so I took my shower and came back to my room. My mom was just pulling in, and she wandered off and did something or another - which I later discovered to be collecting gourds down at the pumpkin patch I'd mentioned earlier in another entry. They are truly fantastic looking, so my insatiable nature took over and I decided to venture down and grab two - one for each side of my desk. Goody goody, I've got two beautiful white gourds on each side of me! As I told my friend earlier, they either look like something trying to break free, reaching away from itself, or a second grader with a terrible accident in art class.

Shortly after my gourd expedition, I had this sort of strange cleaning fanaticism. They rarely occur, and rarely remember them, but in the future I'm always happy with myself because conditions in my room become livable. I cleaned my desk, and a good portion of my closet. In the process of cleaning my desk, I also made the gourds stand out so they look pretty awesome, and I'm thinking about decorating them with markers and stuff. I finally got a chance to put all my pictures up on my photo wall - I put everything up there - pictures of ex-friends, ex-girlfriend memories - a picture of The Lost Coast, a picture of Texas (an aerial view I took on the plane from Florida), a picture of my brother and his girlfriend Michelle of many years, some cool artwork, some happy cow stickers, some signs that say "WAHOOS!" and some other stuff. Express originality, wee!

My latest statement of decoration is that I'm going to glue army men all over the top of my ceiling - I've never seen anyone else do that before, and I've had the idea to do so for quite some time. I like making my room a full expression of everything that I stand for - not that army men have much of a literal significance, but analytically one could interpret it to be a strive against conformism perhaps. Then again, as we seek to be original, we all become the same, at least so I've heard.

Tomorrow is going to be a bit busier for me - I'm going to have the typical 7 classes, which means a heavy backpack, and then I'm going to run a mile or two after school and go to the weight room. People ask me questions like "Bob, why are you working out so much lately?" Well, I'm not really working out all that much, and I've discovered that I'm not in the best fitness possible for my age, and I'm going to be as soon as I can. I don't want to be some sort of muscle bulging burly guy, it wouldn't make sense with my figure, but I do want to be very toned. Lately I've noticed that I'm quite a bit stronger, I can lift a lot more - especially with my arms. I'll stop lifting when I'm happy with how much I can lift, and how I physically feel at the point of lifting. When I don't feel like lifting, I don't lift. Tomorrow, if I don't feel like lifting, I won't go. Today, I feel like I could bench press a lot more than I could yesterday, which doesn't make sense, but it's a state of mind. By the way, for those of you that are interested, I learned from some article online that bicycle-style sit ups are 300% more effective than the regular sit-up - so those of you who want to have a six pack (like me, joy!), I recommend trying those. For biceps, I've found that chin ups are the most effective, especially if you can do them with extra weight on you - for example, putting on your backpack an bending your knees to 90 degree angles is what I do sometimes, and I've found it really helps. As for girls, don't lift, you're cute how you are. I don't like girls who are stronger than I am - I like girls with flirty smiles and keen intellect, and who value more than that which is superficial.

A lot of that foliculitis stuff has gone away since I started the treatment I'm currently on, it's pretty exciting for me, a real boost in sexual esteem I guess. A lot of people commented that they liked my hair today at school, which made me happy. Overall, if I could sum up today in one word, I'd say:

Great.