Hello, fellow internet user. I am glad to know that, with you reading this, you have taken the first step to try and access the thoughts of another human being (if that is indeed what you are). Personally, I enjoy reading what others have openly written, and it makes me happy to know that I am not the only person in this world who likes knowing how other people think. First off: Introductions! My name is Alexander Shackles. I am 17 years old, a Junior at White River High School, and frequent thinker at the time of this journal entry. I will be 18 years old this January, along with 1/12 of the population, and I can't say that I am looking forward to another year of tortured sleep, obscure portraits and endless cigarettes. I digress, I still live on, and I expect the same from anyone who reads these words (yes, that DOES include you). I would like to know more about you, though. For someone who enjoys reading about what I have written, I would like to think that you would show the same courtesy. While I do not order you to go out and make a journal of yourself, I do ask that you at least give me a name with which to call you. For now, you may call me Andre. I have always been called "bright" and "gifted", and I have always understood what these words meant. However, I dispised every teacher and adult showering me with such words, often to the point where I would intentionally fail just to seem like I was human. Now, knowing the error of my own ways, I see that this is a stupid way of dealing with my issue. Why show that I am human by conforming to the standard of expectations (which is quite low in this day and age, sadly)? I say, "No. Let everyone else be who they wish to be. I am myself, nothing more. These are my hands with which to build my future, not the hands of others. And if people don't accept me for who I truly am, then so be it. I am not here to please them. I am here to live life as I wish, with no regrets of the past or aspirations of the future. This is who I am, and by God, I am not going to change for anyone." Thusly, I am who you see (or read about) here. I am myself. You are yourself, with any hope. And, if you aren't, then perhaps you should look inward to try and find what you may have lost. I am rightly insane within my own mind and to the world. But I am a good insane. I use my words to tell what others haven't been saying for hundreds of years or hundreds of seconds. I am human, flesh and bone and blood. I deserve all that you may give, and I give all that you may deserve. I wish not be a celebrity or to have wealth. I have everything that I will ever need within me, and i couldn't be happier to know that i have found enlightenment and peace in so short of a time. I am me. Who are you?