July 16, 1999.

I'm so fucking miserable right now. This last day has been a horror show, what with my newfound aversion to human company stemming from the deep conviction that nobody likes me. Of course, I also only got 6 1/2 hours of sleep. My already over-sensitive feelings have been rubbed raw by the last week, culminating in the Picture of Ugliness that was greeted by indifference. This morning the kids built marshmallow sculptures representing their counselors, and we were supposed to float. I sat down for a second at my table to get some marshmallows, making sure that my back was to the creation. Immediately my kids started screaming that I was cheating, and it spread throughout the area.

I lost it. I was out of there in a flash, head down & hoping that I'd get to the washroom before the tears started. Didn't make it. Freaked out a couple of girls who came in 10 minutes later...I should've hidden in a stall, like I did last night. Cleaned myself out & told all the counselors that my contact lenses were acting up. I was surprised how many people asked...but I was right miserable, and their empathetic faculties are pitched higher than normal to cope with camp life. Even my nemesis asked me about it; I've decided that she can no longer be my nemesis as a result. Although she will still be called that for simplicity's sake.

I just feel so rotten; so smashed down. It's like being a kid again: I'm disliked so I retreat so people find me unapproachable so I just walk around hurting. One of the nicer counselors told me point blank that I come off smart & serious all the time. Of course, she immediately assured me that I'm not the most unpopular counselor, but I think that the first statement was more objective.

What's worse is that I've been consoling myself for 20 hours with the thought that at least my girls like me. Well, they left for good today, and they couldn't get out of there fast enough. No sweet goodbyes, no regret, no emotion. I feel like I was the equivalent of a highway billboard in their lives: just something to be passed on the way elsewhere.

So I struck out. First session: Amoret bats 000. I don't even know if I want to be a teacher anymore - why set myself up to be a) stared at and b) hated because of my distant personality? Why expose myself to a whole different group of kids who don't like me, differing from the kids who didn't like me in high-school only by absolute chronology? And yes, I know I'm being a big fat sucky baby, but my personal confidence is at an all-time low. Even when I was a kid, I didn't feel this bad because I had nothing to compare it to. Loneliness, I mean.

And what's darkly amusing is that my mother is offering the exact same advice as she did then: if I complain that no one likes me, she'll say in her unsympathetic, put-upon voice, "there's still time to change your personality." Yeah, thanks mom. That worked so well in She's All That, why wouldn't it work for a soon to be 23 year old who's despised by children?