Shy and Awkward Because....?

I consider myself as already, really, naturally boring.

So, it doesn't help to feel as if I am reverting to my old ways. Which I am. And I don't want to do this...If I revert to how I used to be, I become the quiet or awkward kid in the back of class staring at everyone. Some will mistake me as mentally ill...or just stuck up. I can not tell you how much I've been taken as a stuck up bitch.
I feel the need to clarify:

I am an awkward, shy and terribly insecure kid. I'm sorry I don't know how to respond to you. That is why I don't. I rather not make a really stupid remark and have you laugh at me instead of with me, thanks.

I just don't want to end my year this way, though. And it seems to be heading that way.
I don't know why. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. I was doing fine. I was happy, I was content, I was [still am] ready for college and just gliding through the school year...
What happened? Why, all of a sudden, have I digressed? [So to speak.]
I think it might have something to do with the image that I imagine people see of me. I can't deny that it's been bothering me lately. Like, I know that it's mostly in my head....but then again, I know that it's not.
It's not because it's something I've struggled with all my life:
People taking me seriously.
It's true, I'm usually never serious. And I mean ever. But I do believe that I am never serious due to the lack of being taken serious my whole life. It really messes up your self esteem growing up....ESPECIALLY when you have a mother like mine: A cute, short, Asian-looking mother who laughs at everything.
No, she never laughed with me growing up. She always just laughed AT me. A trait that annoys me till no end with her-----yes, she still does this.
A kid can't grow up healthy when a parent, instead of laughing encouragingly, laughs to ridicule the kid. Maybe the parent doesn't mean to do this, but trust me when I say that little kid's don't like to be seen as stupid as much as older people.
How can they be expected to have confidence in themselves, otherwise?

And the Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree...

I have, what you'd call, "A Cute Mom." Just by her way of speaking butchered English with sheer dedication to do so, I can understand why she'd be considered as one. She's shorter than me and definitely more humble, she has the ability to be very prompt and anal [definition: precise, ready, organized etc.] and doesn't really back down from a challenge...
But she's still nuts.
Cuckoo.
Crazy.
One screw loose in the head.
I love her, I really do. I love her life story, I love her dedication to get things done and her sweet and sometimes VERY annoying tendency to want to tell me everything about herself.
But I can't help but notice that my mom is a little...strange.
I blame it on her lack of childhood.
She had none.
At eight she started working in a chocolate factory, mixing the ingredients, helping her mother by selling flowers in the stands at the market, and selling plants and herbs shouting out things like "You want love? You want magic? You want a quick cure for ugly? Get this plant! It will help you with all you desire! Only fifty cents!"
Haha, I always laugh when she tells me how she would make up complete bullshit to try and sell simple weeds...and it also makes me sad. I picture my mother in her childhood: small, very young looking [at least younger than her actual age], dark, skinny, always trying to earn a living even though she was just a kid.
Let me help you out with the picture of how my mom grew up: you know those commercials where a spokesperson walks with a child in hand, the setting behind them being a neighborhood made out of dirt? You know the one. Where the spokesperson tells you about how hard the child has to work and what the living conditions are, how they will take anything they can get and how we should please, please, please call and donate at least a dollar which will help feed a family of four? Yeah, picture that as my mom's whole life. Only, instead of just one sibling, my mother grew up with seven.
I think she has a reason to be a little nuts.
She has tendencies to act like a child sometimes, especially when she's happy. I'll be sitting in the living room and she comes out skipping merrily like a little girl.
"Mom?" I will ask, a little confused but not at all surprised. "What are you doing?"
"Skipping," she will answer, flatly.
"Oh." And I return my attention back to what I am doing.
Other times, the house will be quiet, and I mean completely quiet, and the only sounds are coming from the fan over the stove as she cooks when suddenly my mom starts singing a song. It's terribly out of tune and at the top of her lungs, but I know she does this on purpose. She laughs at my near heart attack and continues to sing. Yes, she truly has her moments.
I'm pretty sure that's where I get my random burst of craziness. I'm sure that's why I'm a little insane as well. I'm sure that's why I love being how I am and why I love my mother so much.
The apple really doesn't fall too far from the tree.
Yup.
Anyway. Twas just a thought.

I'm A Senior?

"Can you believe we're seniors?" Uh. No. I can't, to be absolutely honest. I can't get past the idea that I'm about to leave a routine that has been instilled in me since age four or five. It's all too strange to think that I'll be going to 'college' soon and that the big 1-8 isn't too far away. I mean, I'll be fucking legal!
"Man, I can't wait to get out of school."
"I know, right?" I say, like I'm totally agreeing with that. Truth is, I kind of am, but kind of not. I don't really know if I want to leave school. Or at least the security of it.
Once we graduate, it's all up to us. And our parents. I'll soon have to get a job---I've never had one before, I'm ashamed to admit--- and I'll have to pay taxes and recieve bills and have to deal with all this number business. Just thinking about the numbers scares me. The complexity, or perhaps the meaning of numbers totally freak me out. The meaning being that everything should add up right. Numbers, are numbers, a square is a box with all even sides...they all add up correctly.
But for me, things never turn out as they should. I always mess up, I always get confused and so I'm left in the dust. My numbers never add up as they should.
]But, ahh, that's just how it's been for me. Confusing sums that don't make sense. Confusing conclusions about life that seem completely irrelevent to what the problem was at hand. I guess I'll take things in stride. And get used to that.
Wait.
What am I talking about? I take everything in stride.
Always.
Sigh.
The curse of a procrastinator, it seems.