First...a few thoughts. I'll put these at the front, because I think that it's really important that I write them down before they get shoved back in the big, large, gray, dusty storage room in the back of my mind.

People are like sponges: the more holes the people have, the more absorbent they are.

Human potential doesn't vary a whole lot for most groups of people. Each person's accessibility to their potential does vary greatly, though, and their potential to excel at certain things varies too; different people have a knack for different things.

We are all superheroes. What are your powers?

Well, now that that's over:

It's times like these when I can take a look around me and find that I see so many awesome people when I do. Some of the people who show their inner awesomeness are ones from which you don't expect to find it. And still others show more awesomeness than I could have ever imagined-- well, a certain someone. : )

She made a card for me. Just a little thing she put together with colored pencils and a sheet of printer paper. But it is just the sweetest little thing. It beats the crap out of all those cards that you pick up at the store with their generic humor. I read through her cute little card, and I am just immobilized. And it's not because I'm tired and that it's late at night.

My family, the Dopps, and Colin came to school! With pasta. Cold, but damn good pasta. And Tucker came with entertainment, even if it wasn't intended for me. He brought a GameCube. The Dopps got me this collection of world maps (awesome) and staff paper (w00t), my grandma sent me some money (good, cuz I need it to save up for a camera), and Zexi, out of the blue, got me these audio CD's with which I can learn stuff about Japanese! WAS NOT expecting that.

Then I played Melee on the GC that was there. I played as Yoshi. People were like "wtf? Who's Yoshi? He sucks!" And then I won, got 2nd place (because of a sudden death where I got bombed-lame), and then got 1st again. Damn right. Don't talk shit about Yoshi. (That goes for you, too, Macy.)

I can't believe all of the cool stuff people did for me. That's partly because I don't believe that it's my birthday. I don't feel it at all. It's nice that all you people picked this day to give me all this neat stuff, but why today? Am I going to leave somewhere? OR DIE? PLEASE tell me I'm not going to DIE...just kidding. I know, I just don't know deep down. It hasn't sunk in.

And thanks to everyone who casually told me "happy birthday," in whichever way you individually chose to do it. Whether you used Facebook, in the hallway, referring to me as "Chuckles," or giving me the cutest little piece of 8 1/2"×11" paper I have ever seen, let alone received, I thank you.

I don't know about turning eighteen, but experiencing all of these people being so kind and loving toward me, even when I didn't expect it in some cases, really makes me feel great.