Be it extremely emotional, controversial, messed up, or whatever, this entry has been password protected.

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It's like I'm broadcasting all my thoughts on some weird TAFKAM radio. At one point, I started really missing him to the point where I was actually saying those words (I do not say that I miss people), and somehow, only a couple of days later, without having to say anything, I got a text from him and we got to see each other. Then, I start to worry that being involved is going to derail our friendship completely, and only a day after admitting those fears to myself, he pops up just to chat as friends.

Ugh. It's hard to be content with regular friends when there exist these super friends who respond to my needs before I even know I have needs.

He would hate it, but I could gush forever about how cool he's been lately. There would be eye-rolling. There would be dramatic sighing. There would be unpleasant face-touching to try to stop me from talking. At some point, even, there would be a super macho explanation of why I am wrong, and this would occur only after regarding me with a very condescending use of my name that makes me roll my eyes (but still smile. Out of burning anger). It would be an ordeal. The sighing period alone can last several hours.

To avoid the awkward and persistent wrath of the giant chimichanga, I'll leave it at this: Things are frighteningly content, and it makes me nervous.

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"Everyone loves a little competition, right?" she says, not really asking, and they laugh together, like something built straight from one of my worst nightmares. This is the beginning of the legacy I'm going to build, in the next year, and it is, indeed, a bad beginning.

Everyone doesn't love competition, in fact.

I wasn't always like this. As a kid, I thought that my main drive was competition, but it turned out that competition got me about as far as my front door, and that was it. I needed something else to motivate me, but never knew what it was, so I kept trying at competition, even though it just left a space inside me filled with cobwebs and half-finished ideas.

It took me until this year--almost to age 22--to realize that I hate competition. I hate everything about it--the fact that it pits people against one another, the fact that it is typically cruel in nature, the fact that it defines success by besting someone else, the fact that it finds its motivation in an externalized source... I think we could be so much better than that, as humans: much kinder, much more internally-driven, much more collaborative.

It's as if they're chuckling in slow motion as I try to remember how to smile without feeling it. I've gotten so used to letting the disagreement flow (to turn off men who don't like women with "attitudes" or women who are "contrary," to remind people that I mean what I say, to stand up against tasteless jokes that hurt me) that this smiling politely business is once again foreign.

As it should be. They shouldn't be assuming that my leadership style and techniques will be the same as what they've done, in the past. The word for this coming year is "progress." Not "new," because sometimes old works, but progress. Moving both forward and up.

I'm so passionate about what this next year is going to be like, and to hear that they expect me to bring competitiveness into my board room makes me want to stomp my feet like a child and wait for them to get my meaning. Competition is not going to happen, sorry. Cooperation. Cooperation will have people thinking and believing in ideas, again. Cooperation takes a good idea and makes it great, without any malice. Cooperation is the word of the year, the breakfast of champions, the new black.

Writing that e-mail, today, felt great. I was polite, and sensitive to the amount of work they put into these plans, but also firm that I have my own plans, and that I welcome suggestions on these plans. Were I coming out of nowhere, I would understand any concern on their parts, but I've been with this organization for two years, now. I've seen what I need to see, and I'm ready for this.

This is going to be my year to help everyone reach their potential. While I still welcome comments and suggestions, your chance has come and gone.

It's time to pass it on to someone new.

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The adorable person who sits beside me in one of my classes comes in, and it's obvious that he feels dead on the inside for having to attend this particular class.

He looks at me and says, "I want her to not show up, or for today to be a movie day. That's all I want."

She comes in and I tell him, "Your dreams are dead."

She starts class by talking about the reading quiz we had. Now, I'm not an idiot--I know I've done badly. I didn't even know which country she was talking about, in the quiz, and talked about a completely different area of the world. This is because I hate our assigned book--it's the first-attempt meatloaf dinner of the literary world.

So, she frowns at some of our grades, and says that, because some of us did so badly, we were going to have to watch a few videos in class to clarify the quiz questions.

He looked at me like it was Christmas. I said, "I failed this quiz so you could have movie day. Don't forget that."

"Thank you."

And that was how I learned the true meaning behind the saying, "Sacrifice one for the good of many."

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