May 4th
The sun is shining, the grass is green, and I am very bored.
Normally, this would be… well, pretty much the same. Idleness does not serve me well.
It would usually be a much shorter period, though.
The schools I've attended have always had much shorter breaks, and would hover somewhere around two months for the summer. Now… now, I've got four.
Four months to balance.
Four months to schedule.
Four months to figure out what in the world I'm going to do.
And I am going to be absolutely bored to tears.

And it helped that I actually liked school this year. In previous years, there's always been a few lessons I've been genuinely interested in, and many which are a little bit appealing, but I've usually found the lessons to be geared more towards students in general – to teach everyone a wide yet shallow range of knowledge (and ideally, skills) so everyone knew what they were interested in – or to students in a very specific range, to those who knew right off the bat what they want to
I had never been one of those people.
Either, really.
I knew I wanted to do... something, and I didn't know what, exactly, that something was, but it felt… different. Different than just drifting around, between ideas.
It felt more like I was waiting for something. And this – magic! – how can this not be the thing I was waiting for?
Even if I had something else, something wonderful, I think I'd feel the same. Magic seems to fill the gap.

Anyway, since I don't show a proper interest in science, or math, or even in art, I think my parents were getting antsy. That's why the mindwipe settled on what it did to replace their memories – a place to help me 'find myself,' so they wouldn't have to worry anymore.
And in a way, the Academy was.
Not in any of those fake ways like in movies – where the main character's nerdy girlfriend takes off her glasses and shakes out her hair and finds out she's beautiful all along and they count that as 'finding herself.'
…alright, that got a little out of hand, but the point is – Iris Academy has actually helped me in more ways than one. Beyond teaching me that, a), I have magic, b), how to control it, c) how to protect myself with and from it, I was learning something new in class every day. It was something different every time, something I hadn't known, and then I would learn spells that would let me put what I learned to use. I could actively see the result of the lessons. I understood.

But. No magic for me.
...not on a large scale, anyway, that would just be poorly planned. I'll need to find something else to occupy my time.

...right. That reminds me. It's as bad a time as any to bring it up (yes, I'm mostly joking, it's really nothing grim), so!
Now, to find a place to start.
You know, my dad's always been pretty relaxed on the subject of romance – he knows I'll have to date at some point, knows I'll fall in love at some point, and accepts it, but essentially just pushes it to the back of his mind. So have I.
And I had assumed, up until this point, that my mother felt the same. But... she's been dropping hints – no, not subtle ones – that... she wants me to date, diary.
Yeesh. That is not a pleasant topic.

And. Something else.
I am writing a letter.
I am writing that letter.

Starting this is painful.
Writing letters isn't a particularly daunting task, especially since it gives me a chance to organize my thoughts more - carefully arrange what I wanted to say ahead of time, instead of just stumbling over my words.
But writing letters to him... means that not only will I be talking (sort of talking. Talking in writing form. That counts) to someone I like and respect, but he'll forever have a transcript of every stupid little slip-up I might make.
…will make. And he'll have it if he doesn't dispose of it.

He did say he would want to read my letters, and I do want to hear from him, but what if – what if he didn't mean it? What if he gets my letter and is just reminded how childish and silly I am? (Seem? I don't' know, am I actually childish and silly in comparison to – everyone else?)
What if, what if, what if? There's too many possibilities, a thousand variables, each more nerve-wracking than the last.

...but I'm going to give myself a little credit and say he won't burn it outright. Maybe if what I write is particularly inane, so. Gotta be careful.

I'll get it done, I'll write it, but – diary, I'm wincing here. I'm going to end up writing a line of the letter, then writing to you about how nervous I feel about... whatever it is I end up writing.

Here. Um. Before I write anything for it –

Here, she taps the pen against her cheek, trying to think of how to phrase this next part.
When she's got it, it's obvious from the way she shifts closer to the diary – and it's also obvious that it's not going to be as eloquent as she would have liked from the way she curls her hand into a fist to rest against her cheek.

Look, I know we've moved beyond strict teacher-student conventions – I think it'd be like that even if, y'know, he hadn't kissed me - so no 'Professor Grabiner' to start (and 'sir' is right out). What do I start with, then?

From this, she knows, she will get no response. She taps her pen against her cheek slowly, once, twice, three times, dragging it out. Finally, finally, she scrawls something on the paper covering the other page.

Okay.
So.
...
'Hieronymous' is how it starts, and I'm actually feeling a little bit relieved, but – oh, I am actually wincing here, diary, this is not hyperbole. I am berating myself mentally and I am very close to curling up into a ball and giving up on it altogether.

I'm writing that… that I miss him, that everything is normal here, that I wonder what he's been doing and what he plans to do…

Yes. Okay. There.
That's a start.
…I haven't really done anything yet, though, so I don't have much to write. I'll… wait a few days.
Then I can fill it up with all the things I've done since I've seen him well, not everything, but he doesn't need to know how long I'm inevitably going to be lazing around and doing silly things like climbing trees and, um, also I'm maybe sort of contemplating how to look better in front of him. Yep.

I'm done for now diary. Who knows how long I've been staring at these pages?
Not me, that's for sure.
I've really got to get to get on top of replacing the batteries in my clock. I shouldn't have left it running while I was away.

-Illia

With this written, she rolls onto her back with a sigh, staring up at her ceiling. If she doesn't want to spend her summer sighing and waiting, she's going to have to get much better at this.