Princess in Waiting (10 page)

7. Captain von Trapp from
The Sound of Music (another fictional character, but the captain is a

hottie

extraordinaire. I would pit him against the Nazi horde anytime)

8. Justin Baxendale
(duh. I heard an eleventh-grader tried to kill herself because he looked at her.

Seriously.

Like his eyes were so hypnotic, she went full-on Sylvia Plaih. She is in counselling now)

9. Heath Ledger
(oooh, in the rock and roll knight movie, totally. Not so much
The Patriot,
though, I

found

his performance in that film somewhat stilted. Plus he never took his shirt off).

10. Beast from
Beauty and the Beast (I think I know someone else who needs counselling)

Tuesday, January 19th,

Gifted and Talented

I am so depressed.

I know I shouldn't be. I mean, everything in my life is going so great:

Great Thing Number One:

The boy I have been madly in love with my entire life, practically, loves, or at least really likes, me back,

and we are going

out on our first real date on Friday.

Great Thing Number Two:

I know it is only the first day of the new semester, but as yet I am not flunking anything, including

Algebra.

Great Thing Number Three:

I am no longer in Genovia, the most boring place on the entire planet with the possible exception of

Algebra, and

Grandmere's princess lessons.

Great Thing Number Four:

I don't have Kenny for my Bio. partner any more. My new partner is Shameeka - what a relief. Which I

know is cowardly (feeling relieved that I don't have to sit by Kenny any more), but I am pretty sure

Kenny thinks I am this horrible person to

have led him on, like, all those months, when really I liked someone else (only thankfully not the person

Kenny THOUGHT

I liked. I still can't believe Kenny dumped me because he thought I was in love with Boris Pelkowski).

Anyway, the fact that

I don't have to deal with any hostile looks from Kenny's direction (even though he fully has a new

girlfriend, a girl from our

Bio. class, as a matter of fact -
he
didn't waste any time) is probably really goingto boost my grade in that

class. Plus Shameeka is really good at science, on account of her being a Pisces.

Great Thing Number Five:

I have really cool friends who seem actually to want to hang around with me, and not just because I am a

princess, either.

But that, see, is the problem. I have all these great things going for me, and I should be totally happy. I

should be over the

moon with joy.

And maybe it's only the jet lag talking - I am so tired, I can barely keep my eyes open - or maybe it's

PMS - I am sure my internal clock is way messed up from all this intercontinental flying. But I can't shake

this feeling that I am . . .

Well, a total reject.

And I will tell you why I feel this way. I mean, take Gifted and Talented class, for example:

WHAT AM I DOING IN HERE????

I am not gifted. I am not talented. I am not good at anything. Really. I have no gifts or special talents. I

AM A POSER.

I SHOULD NOT BE HERE.

It hit me today at lunch. I was sitting there like always with Lilly and Boris and Tina and Shameeka and

Ling Su, and then Michael came and sat down with us, which of course caused this total cafeteria

sensation, since seniors NEVER sit at the freshman tables.

And I was totally embarrassed but of course proud and pleased, too, because Michael NEVER sat at

our table back when

he and I were just friends, so his sitting there MUST mean that he is at least slightly in love with me,

because it is quite a sacrifice to give up the intellectual talk at the table where he normally sits for the

kinds of talks we have at my table, which

are generally, like, in-depth analyses of last night's episode of
Charmed
and how cute Rose McGowan's

halter top was or whatever.

But Michael was totally a good sport about it, even though he thinks
Charmed
is facile. And I really did

try to steer the conversation around to things a guy would like, such as
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
or

Milla Jojovich.

Only it turned out I didn't even need to, because Michael is like one of those peppered moths we read

about in Bio.

You know, the ones that turned black when the tree bark they were camouflaged against got all sooty

during the industrial revolution? He can totally adapt to any situation, and feel at ease. This is an amazing

talent that I wish I had. Maybe if I

did, I wouldn't feel so out of place at meetings of the Genovian Olive Growers' Association.

Anyway, today at the lunch table, someone brought up cloning, and everyone was talking about who

would you clone if you could clone anyone, and people were saying like Albert Einstein so he could

come back and tell us the meaning of life and

stuff, or Jonas Salk so he could find a cure for cancer, and Mozart so he could finish his last requiem

(whatever, that one

was Boris's, of course), or Madame Pompadour so she could give us all tips on romance (Tina) or Jane

Austen so she

could write scathingly about current social mores and we could all benefit from her cutting wit(Lilly).

And then Michael said he would clone Kurt Cobain, because he was a musical genius who was taken

too young. And then

he asked me who I would clone, and I couldn't think of anyone, because there really isn't anyone dead

that I would want to bring back, except maybe Grandpa, but how creepy would that be? And

Grandmere would probably freak. So I just said

Fat Louie, because I love Fat Louie and wouldn't mind having two of him around.

Only nobody looked very impressed by this except for Michael who said, 'That's nice,' which he

probably only said

because he is my boyfriend.

But, whatever, I could deal with that, I am totally used to being the only person I know who sits through

Empire Records
every time it comes on TBS and who thinks it is one of the best movies ever made after
Star Wars
and
Dirty Dancing

and
Say Anything
and
Pretty Woman,
of course. Oh, and
Tremors
and
Twister.

I am content to keep secret the fact that I must watch the Miss America Pageant every single year

without fail, even though

I know it is degrading to women and
not
a scholarship fund, considering no one bigger than a size ten

ever gets into it.

I mean, I know these things about myself. It is just the way I am. And though I have tried to improve

myself by watching award-winning movies such as
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
and
Gladiator,
I

don't know, I just don't like them. Everybody dies at the end and besides, if there isn't any dancing or

explosions, it is very difficult for me to pay attention.

So, OK, I accept these things about myself. They are just me. Like I am good at English and not so good

at Algebra. Whatever.

But it wasn't until we got to Gifted and Talented today, after lunch, and Lilly started working on the shot

list for this week's episode of her cable access show,
Lilly Tells It Like It Is,
and Boris got out his violin

and started playing a concerto (sadly

not in the supply closet because they still haven't put the door back on it), and Michael put on

headphones and started

working on a new song for his band, that I realized it:

I have no special talent. I have no gift. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that I am a princess, I would be the

most ordinary

person alive.

I mean, all my friends have these incredible things they can do: Lilly knows everything there is to know

and isn't shy about saying it in front of a camera. Michael can not only play guitar and, like, fifty other

instruments including the piano and drums, but he can also design whole computer programs. Boris has

been playing his violin at sold-out Carnegie Hall concerts since

he was eleven years old, or something. Tina Hakim Baba can read, like, a book a day. Shameeka knows

everything there is

to know about makeup and amoebas and Ling Su is an extremely talented artist.

But me?

Yeah, I can't do anything. I mean, nothing really well. Nothing better than anybody else.

I am just blah. I do not know why Michael even likes me, I am so talentless and boring. I mean, I guess

it's a good thing my destiny as the monarch of a nation is sealed, because if I had to go apply for a job

somewhere, I so fully wouldn't get it, because I'm not good at anything.

So here I am, sitting in Gifted and Talented, and there really is no getting around this basic fact:

I, Mia Thermopolis, am neither gifted nor talented.

WHAT AM I DOING IN HERE????? I DO NOT BELONG HERE!!!! I BELONG

IN TECH. ED.!!!! OR DOMESTIC ARTS!!!!! I SHOULD BE MAKING A

BIRDHOUSE OR A PIE!!!!

Just as I was writing this, Lilly leaned over and went, 'Oh my God, what is
wrong
with you? You look

like you just ate a

sock,' which is what we say whenever someone looks super depressed, because that is how Fat Louie

always looks

whenever he accidentally eats one of my socks and has to go to the vet to have it surgically removed.

Fortunately, Michael didn't hear her on account of having his headphones on. I would never have been

able to confess

in front of him what I confessed then to his sister, which is that I am a big talentless phoney.

'And they only put me in this class in the first place because I was flunking Algebra,' I told her.

And she went, 'You have a talent.'

I stared at her, my eyes wide and, I am afraid, filled with tears. 'Oh, yeah, what?' I was really scared I

was going to cry.

It must be PMS or something, because I was practically ready to start bawling.

But to my disappointment, all Lilly said was, 'Well, if you can't figure it out, I'm not going to tell you.'

When I protested this,

she went: 'Part of the journey of achieving self-actualization is that you have to reach it on your own,

without help or guidance from others. Otherwise, you won't feel as keen a sense of accomplishment. But

I will give you a hint: Right now, your talent

is staring you in the face.'

I looked around, but I couldn't figure out what she was talking about. There was nothing staring me in the

face that I could

see. No one was looking at me at all. Boris was busy scraping away with his bow, and Michael was

fingering his keyboard furiously (and silently), but that was about it. Everyone else was bent over their

Kaplan review books or doodling or making sculptures out of Vaseline or whatever.

I still have no idea what Lilly was talking about. There is nothing I am talented at - except maybe telling a

fish fork apart from

a normal one.

I can't believe that all I thought I needed in order to achieve self-actualization was the love of the man to

whom

I have pledged my heart. Knowing Michael loves me - or at least really likes me - just makes it all worse.

Because his incredible talentedness just makes the fact that I am not . good at anything even more

obvious.

I wish I could go to the nurse's office and take a nap. But they won't let you do that unless you have a

temperature,

and I'm pretty sure all I have is jet lag.

I knew it was going to be a bad day. If I had had on my Queen Amidala underwear, I never would have

realized how

pathetic I am.

Tuesday, January 19th,

World Civ.

Inventor

Invention

Benefits to Society

Cost to Society

Samuel B. Morse

Telegraph

Easier communication

Disrupted view (wires)

Thomas A. Edison Electric light

Easier to turnonlights

Society didn'ttrust them

Less expensive than candles

weren't successful at first

Phonograph

Music in the home

Music in the home

w/o anyone playinginstrument

sound was bad at first

Ben Franklin

Franklin stove

Less fuel, easiercooking

More pollution

Lightning rod

Less chance of house being struck

Ugly

Eli Whitney

Cotton gin

Less work

Lessemployment

A. Graham Bell

Telephone

Easiercommunications

Disrupted view(wires)

Elias Howe

Sewing machine

Less work

Lessemployment

Chris. Scholes

Typewriter

Easier work

Lessemployment

Henry Ford

Automobile

More cars

Pollution

assembly line

I will never invent anything, either of benefitor cost to any society, because I am a talentless reject.

Homework:

Algebra: probs at beginning of Chapter 11 (no review session, Mr G has mtgs - also, just started

semester, so nothing to review yet. Also, not flunking any more!!!!!!) English: update journal (How I

Spent My Winter Break -500 words)

Biology: Read Chapter 13