Eh, I love Greg, yes, but he has priorities that come before me.

Sometimes I get sad at the direction Greg's career will take: he's determined to become a proud Chicagoan at Second City. And he's well on his way. I've no doubt that he'll make it, either. Why not? With his cleverness, and his wittiness. And that's just what he shows people. I show people a glimpse of myself from the surface. But never, ever did I ever show anyone my writing I used to do...my own little screenplays and stories that I act out in my head, haven't written down in years. But Greg writes them down. And he keeps them for himself. And I'm sure they're magnificent.

But who wants to live in Chicago? I mean, I don't know. As long as I can remember, my dreams have always involved here. Here and San Francisco. And before I fall for some guy, there's my career to be taken care of. Of course, if I get the job I really want and I become the columnist I've always dreamed to be, I could work for any newspaper in the country. Chicago, Miami, New York, or the Merc. But first I've got to get there. And that takes getting sent wherever they decide to send me, whether that be Albequerque or Alabama.

Oh, this is going to sound really stupid, but what if Chicago really is a nice place? I know, I sound like such a desperate baby, following around some chap like this. But eh. I was just thinking...all my life I've thought of myself as different. As a 12 year old I wrote in my journal "Why am I different from everyone else? Why can't I just blend in and be the same?" But in the same entry, on the second page, came the resolute acceptance. "I'm kind of glad I"m different. I've got something all of them don't."

I didn't really get what was so damn different back then, either that or I couldn't put it into words. Now I sense it more. I don't know what...a sort of maturity or understanding? An attitude that needs adjusting? The weakness of being too empathetic to too many characters in books maybe. But why have I always wanted to go to San Francisco? The same reason I rant to my friends why

I refuse to shop at American Eagle. I have an imagination! I have a personality! I don't have to look at what everybody else is doing to try to find my own identitiy: I've got it, and may I burn in hell if I'm going to bite off suburban teenage yuppies to get it.

The big cities...the people there are less brainwashed, less conformist. More individual! And San Francisco...it's made up of all these individuals! But there lies the problem. I guess it takes living there to know it, but like in Brave New World, like Myspace...you get too many "individuals" and then bam, you're right back where you started...you're just like everyone else. Beyond all these punk kids' aspirations to be different, everyone has an elemental, inbred need to be with people who are like them. It's the same reason there are asian cliques at school...hell, it's the same reason there are cliques at school. People habitually strive for sameness. And this is why San Francisco is full of liberal scene kids! This is precisely why I wanted to go there. A quest to find people like you, a whole town of people like you that you can relate to and be with and love, love, love.

But a perfect world can never be satisfying, as shown in Brave New World. You get spoilt, ridiculous after a time. Unfulfilled. Bored. How can you appreciate happiness when you don't know sadness? How can the game be fun if one of you doesn't lose? (especially if it's strip poker.)

Of course, this guy John decided to eliminate himself from society and be a total individual and look how that turned out...hanging from a lighthouse.

But not considering that...maybe--mayyyybe--a city full of freaks like me, many of them asian, isn't all the way to go. Well, maybe a really different city like Chicago is what I need, what I want. I need a big city to become invisible in, to seek out some freaks, yes, to elminate that Hamptons mentality. So to a degree, I must have that sameness, but I also crave a little out-of placeness. To be a little weird, to not always be too comfortable in my surroundings. First of all there are like, no asians in Chicago. So that already isolates me.

And who's to say Chicago's the limit? London, for christ's sake. Japan! Tokyo!

I am sixteen! I am full of dreams and naive hopes. And for now, at just this moment, the world is my oyster.