Okay. So, right now, I am scared. I was okay, when I was talking to you (Chris), but I still just have to get this all off my chest. (You know how I am about writing.) I’m absolutely terrified. It’s pretty much a granted to know that my mother is at the basis of this. (Shocking.) I’m going to try and sum up why I am so upset as briefly as I can, but I’m feeling quite rambly at the moment (clearly) so …yeah. I’m not sure how this is going to work. Please just bear with me. I’m trying to be logical here…but I’m not sure it’ll work.

There was a great deal of drama at work tonight, which essentially culminated in a lot of stress. In addition to having to watch my little cousin get her teeth pulled and be in serious pain for a while…*sighs* It just wasn’t a good day. But at any rate, after all was said and done, I was so fucking tired and stressed out. After spending a little while hanging out with some coworkers and talking (gossiping, really) about everything, my mother called, jumping my ass. I’m just going to forget the conversation that consisted entirely of her yelling at me (over the phone) for being late coming home and accusing me of lying about where I was, because it doesn’t really matter. She hung up on me a few times, I called her back and told her I’d explain further when I got home as to why I was late (my manager/talking with coworkers and all). I came home after that, and I basically said “Mom, I’m really tired, really pissed off, and really stressed out, can I please just TALK to you?” after she made a sarcastic comment along the lines of “Oh look who made it home.” (For the record, I got home at 12, after telling her I was hanging out with my coworkers, which is ONLY an hour after I usually get home anyway.) She rolled her eyes and goes, “Okay, whatever.” I started telling her about how stressed I was, partially because of my coworker and everything she’s going to (she’s really nice, we always get along great), and about the whole deal with my manager and the napkin holders. I started tearing up a bit at this. I KNOW it’s because I’m so tired and stressed, and I said that in some way, like, “I know I”m only so upset because I’m so tired, but still” or something like that. And as I keep talking, the tears get a little bit worse– honestly, I’m not sobbing or anything, I’m just talking and crying a bit to relieve tension and all. My mother goes, “I think you need to call the doctor, clearly your medicine isn’t working.”

This is what still has me so upset, three hours later. I didn’t get more upset in front of her, I just said something like, “Mom, look, honestly. I know how I was when I wasn’t on medicine, and I know how I am now. I know I’m only tearing up and crying because I’m especially tired and stressed, so please just trust me that I know I’m okay as far as my medicine goes. Don’t you ever just have moments once in a while, because you know I don’t do this often, where you just get so stressed out you just cry a little to relieve it? Doesn’t Grandmom?” (For the record, I have only seen my grandmother cry one time, when my mother was in Intensive Care. I’ve never seen my mother cry.) And my mother says, “Of course.” So I asked her, “Why is it when I cry or when I’m really happy or when I’m anything other than just ‘okay’ do you tell me to call the doctor? If you cry too, if Grandmom cries too, why do I have to call the doctor because my medicine isn’t working right, apparently?” She says, “Because I don’t know what’s normal for you.”

I tried to tell her, “Mom ,look, okay? I’m going to say some not-so-nice words, but just LISTEN, okay? I know how fucked up I was when I wasn’t on medicine. I KNOW. I was out of control. I could have been completely manic and happy, and there’s a part of me that was just always scared. I could have been completely depressed and suicidal, and there was part of me that was scared. I was terrified. No matter how I felt, I was always feeling out of control, like I wasn’t myself. I felt like I was just watching myself live, like I was outside of my body. I’m OKAY, Mom. I know why I’m crying, and it’s because I’m tired. Please just fucking STOP telling me that I need to see a doctor at every mood swing!” My mother goes, “Okay, you’re right.” I said, “No, Mom, don’t say that either. I’m going to go to bed now. I’m going to go up to my room, call Chris, and talk to him. Then I’ll go to sleep. I KNOW I’m right. But don’t tell me you think I’m actually right until YOU believe it. It’s not going to do anyone any good.” And then I just came up and went to bed.

I didn’t break down in front of her. I almost did. I called chris, and talked to him for two hours-ish. And he’s made me feel a lot better, but I just need more opinions on this, because now that I’ve hung up the phone with him, I still have my doubts, and I just want some feedback I can access whenever. Because right now, even after talking to Chris, I’m crying harder than I have yet, and I’m really, actually frightened.

I’m scared my mother may be right. I’m scared at even the slightest possibility that maybe my medicine isn’t working. Logically, if I sit and think about it, I know I’m doing really, really fucking awesome compared to where I was even last year. But the thing is– even when everything was out of control, I still rationalized it. I rationalized the shoplifting, the drugs, the drinking, the …out-of-controlness. I chalked it up to primarily being a teenager. I still made straight-A’s through it all and worked my job. I took care of what I had to. I’m just terrified that maybe my mother has a point– maybe my medicine isn’t working– and that this is just the tip of the iceberg before it comes crashing down around me. And that scares the shit out of me.

It’s like I told Chris– if I knew tomorrow that I was going to be hit by a truck and put into a coma OR if I knew that tomorrow I was going to be as out of control as I was not all that long ago– I’d prefer the coma. The thought of being so out of control is so, so scary to me. I don’t talk about it much, probably because I’m now sobbing as I write this (please forgive any typos, I don’t really care right now). But back then, I didn’t know what was going on. All I knew was that I felt like I could do anything, get away with anything, was happy as could be, and then I would be in the hospital from a suicide attempt or doctoring the deep cuts I made on myself. I rationalized this all. Somehow– I can’t quite remember how, honestly, I’ve blanked out on a bunch of these past several years– but I did. I made it be “okay” in my mind, because “everyone has problems” and “well, this must just be teenage hormones.” I made it ALL OKAY in my mind. I didn’t know any different.

After I was arrested (during an extreme manic phase– I was shoplifting a ton) and sat back in front of a psychologist for several, several hours, being tested and quizzed, they diagnosed me as being Bipolar, instead of simply suffering from Depression. They said it explained the memory loss, the acting out of character (shoplifting, drinking, lying, etc.), the rage, and several other things, and started me off immediately on 200mg of Lamictal. It took a while, but I believed that I noticed a difference, I felt more in control of myself, I knew what I was doing.

My mother, however, didn’t. Any time I’ve suffered from anything ranging from mild depression, extreme aggravation (often at work), to incredibly happiness (most recently, getting a new car)…she tells me I need to see a doctor. Usually when she makes some of her comments to me (those that know of my mother and I’s struggles will understand this, those that don’t can ask), I can brush them off now. For example, if she calls me fat, I can brush it off mostly (FINALLY)– after the eating disorder and everything, I gained a pretty realistic view of myself. That comment doesn’t affect me. If she tells me I’m stupid, I have my grades and transcripts to look back on, and if I’m feeling *really* vulnerable, I can pull out the couple of IQ tests I took in elementary and high school (LOL). Stuff like that. But when she told me tonight that I “need to see a doctor” because I was crying– this is it. I can’t brush this off.

I’m so, so scared she might have a point. Yes, right now I think I’m okay, compared to where I was back then. But the thing is, I thought I was okay then too. What if I’m not? What if I”m about to lose control all over again? I’m really, really not trying to be overly dramatic, I’m trying to get a grip on thsi as best as I can– but I just don’t think I could safely handle that. And that comment is probably the one comment she can make to me for the rest of my life that I will never be able to brush off. I don’t ever want to go to that place. If you’ve never been there personally, I don’t expect you to fully understand. If you didn’t KNOW me back then, I don’t expect you to understand at all– but those that did know me, those that have been there, I need to know what to feel right now.

I know my mother doesn’t cry. I know my grandmother doesn’t cry. No one in my family cries. It took so, so long for me to even be ABLE TO cry after what happened when I was eight years old (recap: My grandfather dropped to the ground as I was running to hug him, in the rush to get him to the hospital I was left alone to care for three other children. My mother came home at five that afternoon and told me that my grandfather was dead– but told me not to cry, I had to be strong for everyone else. I took it to heart.) Honestly, it still takes a LOT for me to cry. I still hold everything I can in, way more than I know is logically healthy, and then it all explodes. I do NOT cry. I hate unloading my problems on everyone, I hate being a burden. I shoulder everyone else’s problems, I listen to them, I give advice, I talk to them– I have no problems doing that. I don’t talk about myself much emotionally until it’s too late– and I don’t talk about my past at all unless I”m seriously close to losing it (which I’m just going to admit right now, because this isn’t getting much better, honestly.) But I don’t cry. I don’t unload. It’s something I struggle with in therapy– five years later, and the fact that I cry at all when I’m overwhelmed is considered progress. But I do try, I do. Hence why I tried to talk to my mother tonight about what I was feeling. That I cried.

But then she said that I needed my medicines checked. Honestly, it’s not just that she said it tonight. She’s said it SO often lately, every night (almost entirely without fail) because I’m not HAPPY when I come home from work, I’m usually aggravated. And then tonight, when I wanted to talk to her, because our relationship was so strained and I know she can at least relate a little bit to bitching managers and last-minute schedule changes (she works in a gas station, I work in fast food), because…well, you know, she bought me my car, and I’ve been sick lately, and I just try and talk to her once in a while, and when I left she was in a decent mood. But then she said that, and now there are so many things going through my head right now.

First of all, right now, I am absolutely sobbing over this, I am SO terrified that she might be right. What if the medicine doesn’t work? I am on SIX HUNDRED milligrams of Lamictal now– yes, mostly for the anticonvulsant factor the medicine has (Bipolar, I was only on 200), but what if it’s not working? What if I am rationalizing everything I’ve done lately– even if it’s not actually all that bed, save the weekend drinking once in a while and the occasional mood swing)– what if I’m not going to be okay? It’s like I told Chris– I wish, at this moment, that my moods had been nothing but ALL up and down, repeatedly. But even when I was so sick, there was middle ground. What if this is just a cycle of middle ground? I can’t go back to the way I was. I can’t handle it. I am fully aware of how dramatic that sounds. All of this probably sounds drmaatic. I don’t expect most of anyone to fully understand. But just the thought of going through that again– I can’t take it. I’m so terrified even thinking about it. I’m sobbing, shaking, and I feel a bit like I’m about to vomit. I can’t do that. I felt like I was outside of my body. I felt out of control. I didn’t know what was going to happen enex.t And in spite of it all– I rationalized it to myself.

What if the fact that I’m so upset at all of this– when it just started out as me being tired and wanting to talk to my mother– what if that’s just proof I’m about to crash and burn again? The damn darkest times of my life. None of this stuff I will ever forget. I can’t. What if the fact that I’m so upset about this– that this is the one comment that gets under my skin, after all is said and done– what if that’s just proof that I’m really still unstable?? I’m doubting myself. I used to believe in myself. I really did. Right now, at this moment, I don’t. I NEED to know I”m doing better. I really do. I NEED to know the medicine is working, that I’m a better person, that everyone has fucking emotions. No one in my family has emotions. my grandmother and mother don’t cry. I was taught not to cry.

Part of what Chris and I talked about is that some of my problems are behavioural problems, not chemical. The thing is…it’s taken five years of therapy (seriously and literally) just to be ABLE to cry. To know that it’s okay to talk about my feelings. That’s actually about the time I started journalling. My family doesn’t talk. Somehow, something got mentioned about positive behaviours being used than negative behaviours…like talking instead of cutting. Stuff like that. I know he’s right about that, I don’t cut anymore…but when I think about the fact that I hit rock bottom only about two years ago (if you count cutting/being arrested/suicidal/etc, ha)….it’s not that long ago. It’s really not. It’s entirely possible that I’ve just had an extended middle ground.

I’m trying SO hard to be logical about this. And it’s just making it worse, it’s making me worse right now. But that’s what I do, I rationalize things, I overanalyze things. I would give ANYTHING to have all the doubt in my mind erased right now. It’s tearing me apart. I know it’s such a small, small thing…one comment, but this just…did it. I can’t be quiet about this. On the good side, I guess, I’m “letting it all out” (my doctor would be proud), but on the downside, talking about all of this is so damn hard, and it hurts so fucking much. I have never really known what my biggest fear is. Everything I hate, I block out. I push it to the back of my memory, maybe bring it up once in a blue moon to discuss (fairly apathetically, I tend to ignore the stronger emotions)….but I think I do know now. My biggest fear is losing control like that again. I can keep my emotions in check really, really well most of the time (unless I’m feeling aggressive after one too many drinks once in a while). I don’t cry in front of people, I don’t talk about how I feel or anything that *really* bothers me. I brush things off. The fact that I’m so upset over this scares me– I do feel a bit out of control right now. I just…I can’t go back there.

And please, anyone, I need to know that I’m okay, that the medicine does work, that I’m not about to lose everything I’ve managed to piece back together. I need to know that I’m going to be okay– because if I lose it again, I really believe that…that’s it. Checkmate. Please just reassure me that the medicine is working, that I’m going to be okay, that I AM okay. Please. (Yes, I know this entry is probably just pointing to the fact that I’m losing it all, but…any words of comfort, advice, support, questions, ANY comments at all…are appreciated.) Just please let me be okay. Let me not be about to lose it all again. There is honestly so, so much more I want to say, but I just can’t do it now. I might update again later on, I have a couple of really good friends I’m talking to online about it– I need to calm donw, I know I do. Please, just let me know I’m not alone.

I spent nineteen years of my life living a lie. I didn’t know. I was the only one, it seems, who didn’t know that there are seven/eight children by my father. I knew of three children. When Marie found me over myspace, I thought she was insane. I didn’t know.

When we all started talking– Marie, Stacie, and me– both of them resented me. They hated me. For being the last child. For being the only child our father didn’t abandon. They were furious that I was never told about all of the children. They held it against me. It caused several, several fights. I came so close to saying “fuck it” so many times.

It wasn’t worth it to me. Do any of you know what it is like to realize that you have been lied to your ENTIRE life? And then, before that thought even has time to sink in– to realize that your sisters are furious with you because you didn’t know about them?

Welcome to my world. That’s what I went through when we all first met. I was the one they both disliked. They thought I thought that I was better than them– neither one of them went to college, both have kids out of wedlock (both two kids, both with two different men, both married at one time or another to a man who wasn’t the father of *either* child). It took a long time. I withdrew from them.

Over time, they realized that I didn’t think badly of them. They realized I wasn’t perfect. It was about that time that they started fighting with one another. One, two, three times I was called into referee. To run interference, to try and persuade them to make peace. More than often I was cussed out in the process, because clearly, if THEY hated one another, I should pick sides. I never did. These past two times, I just stopped listening. They made up on their own.

And now, less than one month after their last big fight, they’re at it again. Both are now proudly declaring that they are finished. Marie “doesn’t love” Stacie, Stacie “hates” Marie. That’s it, game over, checkmate. Period. How did I discover this?

Myspace, of course. My other myspace. I’m not stupid enough to answer the phone at 3AM when it’s one of them, I already know what they’ll say.

They hate each other.
They’re done.
They’re finished.

Nevermind the situation we’re all in anyway…the fact that we’re all torn apart because of our father, spread across the nation, ages ranging from 42 (I *think*) to me, at 20. The fact that I will more than likely never know any more of my brothers and sisters. Nevermind that, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, frankly, that I am still DEEPLY hurt by the way I have been treated, and I still feel shattered that I was lied to by my mother and grandmother for so long. My fucking life has been a lie.

I don’t cry anymore. Not over this.

I just feel fake. Like I’m not a real person.

I’ll be called on to run interference again. I know this pattern well.

Now, though, I won’t be answering the phone.

It kills me that nineteen years of my life– fuck, TWENTY if you count when my mother actually told me the whole truth– twenty years of my life it took to learn the truth about everything. It kills me that I am resented because I didn’t know. It kills me that I have so much more family that I will never see.

I think what hurts the worst, though, is seeing what little family I have found– my two sisters– destroying each other and all of our relationships.

Fuck this. I’m not strong enough to handle it. I’m not going to, either. Neither one of you will speak to me again, unless you call from a new number or come to my job. Neither one of you will see me again, unless you come to my job. I’m not getting involved anymore.

I wish I could rewind to November 1st. Before this all began. It was a lie, but it was so much better than this. I didn’t feel like a liar, I didn’t feel like a fraud, and I didn’t have two sisters ripping apart what little bit of love that there should be. The lies were so much better than this truth. So, so, so very much better.

Enjoy, peeps.

I just have nothing to say lately.

And honestly, it's because I'm having some trouble lately. Just, in general, being freaking exhausted and depressed. I don't know why, I'm just incredibly down and out. I know I have friends from "real life" that read this, and I promise if I want to talk about it, I will. Just don't get all offended and shit if I don't mention this at all. I don't want to talk about it.

At least, not untilI figure out what is going on.

In other (boring) news, I'm working full-time. Thankfully, Kim's giving me all the hours I want. Which means no off days. Not two weeks ago, not this week, and not next week, anyway. But it'll be worth it in the end, because that just means I get my car sooner. I really want a Kia Rio, but I might end up getting a used car. I'm not sure yet. I just want a fucking car already, so I don't have to talk my mother into letting me take her car out whenever I have to go to work or something.

Speaking of my mother, she's been in one of her moods. She keeps freaking out because my eyes have two or three red arteries/veins/something like that showing, insisting I'm smoking pot or something. I hate pot. And we got into a screaming fight over it, so now I'm hoarse and she and I aren't speaking. This is definitely a case of "silence is golden." Fuck her freak-outs. I hate that shit. And it came out of nowhere, too. She was fine, and then she was psycho.

As usual. 

This lack of eating isn't intentional. It's really not. But I don't mind it. My mother told me today my stomach already looks "MUCH better" (read: a tiny bit smaller) and she told me how proud she was of me for losing weight. That's about all she ever is proud of me for. Go fucking figure. I have been eating some, don't get me wrong. I know I need to eat to function and all (duh). But…well, yesterday…I ate an apple. At night. And that's all.

At least, I think I ate an apple. And maybe a couple pieces of meat from some beef stew my grandmother made. But that's all.

Even if this lack of eating isn't intentional…I'd be lying if I said I wasn't enjoying this weightloss.  Rather rapid weightloss, too. It's definitely triggering. I always drop a ton of weight when I get in this "mode", and then I eventually level out and plateau, but I still keep losing at least a pound or so a week. Trigger trigger trigger.

I can't think of a single person who's absolutely 100% content with my weight. Or my appearance. Everyone has standards. Myself included. I just tend to base my personal standards on those little comments that people make towards me– and I make my standards just a little bit harsher than those comments. It all hurts. I really do want to be pretty and thin.

Vanity. Yes.  I know this. I'm just not sure if I care at the moment. I want to be vain and superficial and work on looking good. Even if I do get hit on already by some of the skeeziest (yes, I just said 'skeeziest') guys this side of the Mason-Dixon line. *sighs* It's bad when getting hit on becomes an almost *offensive* experience.

C'est la vie. Such is the wonderful fucking world of working at Long John Silver's. I close every single night this week. Except Saturday, then I work a day shift. I have no off days. Instead, I'm just going to be spending every single day sleeping until about 2, then waking up, showering, and going to work. Repeat daily. Every. single. day.

Can I drop dead yet? Yes? Thank you. 

2. When is the next time you will have sex? Let's hope in…what, 3 months?

3. What's a word that rhymes with "DUCK"? Fuck, Luck, Muck, Puck, Tuck, Yuck…

4.What's your favorite planet? Saturn

5. Who is the 4th person on your missed call list on your mobile? My mother

6. What is your favorite ring on your phone? "Mockingbird" by Eminem (I need new ringtones)

7. What shirt are you wearing? My "Agnes Scott College Dance Team" t-shirt that says "Shut up and Dance" on the back of it.

8. Do you "label" yourself? All the time.

9. Name the brand of shoes you're currently wearing? I was wearing Timberland boots to work a few hours ago, now I am barefoot.

10. Bright or Dark Room? Dark. I don't do bright lights. At all. Ever.

11. What do you think about the last person who took this survey? Tracy…she's a sweetheart and stronger than she knows. <3

12. If you're alone in a room with two beds, which one do you sleep in? The one with the foam pillows and no feathers sticking out anywhere.

13. What were you doing at midnight last night? Sitting at my computer, talking to Paul and Billy and some other people, waiting to get sleepy. Kind of like tonight. Except Paul's not online.

14. What did your last text message say that you received on your mobile? "Ok" (From Rodney)

15. Who is the coolest person in your life? Chris is cool. But so is Rhiannon…I love that girl. <3 And David and Billy are pretty decent…. ;)

16. What's a word that you say a lot? "Fabulous." "Fuck!" "Merde!"

17.Who told you he/she loved you last? Chris.

18. How many drugs have you done in the last three days? Hahaha, don't even ask me this. Prescription drugs run my life right now.

19. How many rolls of film do you need to get developed? 1 or 2.

20. Favorite age you have been so far? So far? My 12th birthday was pretty cool…I was Clara in the Nutcracker…and I have never felt so special as I did that year to so many people. Admired, loved, adored, respected, looked-up to.

21. Your worst enemy? Me.

22. What is your current desktop picture? Kittens.

23. What was the last thing you said to someone? "I will soon." (In response to my mother telling me to go to bed.)

24. If you had to choose between a million bucks or to be able to fly, which would you take? A million bucks.

25. Do you like someone? Oh, yes.

26. The last song you listened to? "World of Make Believe" by Within Temptation.

27. If the last person you spoke to was getting shot at, what would you do? Push her out of harm's way.

28. If you could punch 1 person in the face who's in your life right now, who would it be? Oh, god, there's a lot of people I want to hit right now.

29. What is the closest object to your left foot? A toy chair- I have my legs propped up, and my feet are resting on it.

30. What are you angry about right now? I'm not. I'm very apathetic right now. Yes.

Marie left me a comment on my myspace talking about how Stacie is going over to her house to talk because she wants to work things out between them. I am just sitting over here, and I feel rather smug at the moment. They have talked so much shit about each other, and have sworn up and down never to talk to one another again. And now they'll start working things out. Things will be okay for a little while, but then they'll fight and it will all blow up again.

Then I will hear this all over again. And then it will happen again…and again….and again. And I will point and laugh at this all over again, while making the same sympathetic comments to both of them that I have already made twice now in the mere 6-month-span that Marie's been living in Alabama. Just….whatever. I'll get dragged into this again. And again, I just won't care. I care about them both. I do. I don't care to be dragged into their shit repeatedly.

I like my own little world. It's nice. I don't have to worry about anything other than myself. 

<<More later>> Maybe. 

That's all.

Um. Yeah. 

Makes sense, right? I mean, really. Can you imagine what that would look like? There are several different scenarios we could go with here.

* Imagine a little green lizard. Maybe think about the gecko from the Geico commercials. Only…he's a gecko. Not a lizard. But whatever. Now, imagine this lizard with a mane, tail, and a horse face. Whenever someone would try to catch this lizard, he'd lose his tail. That's a lot of hair, people. Furthermore, he'd shed his skin. Which could easily be tangled up in the mane or tail, and that shit would just cause TOO many problems!

* Or, take a donkey. A donkey with short little green legs, the body of a donkey, the tail of a lizard, the head of a lizard. Or, hell, we can give the donkey his normal legs. I do have a bit of sensitivity going on here, somewhat, anyway. Let's give him normal legs. Because I can't really imagine a donkey with lizard legs.Now, just throw in a long green tail, and a small green head. The tail would shed. And let's make sure the tail still breaks off when being chased. Because tails falling off? They're really cool.

So. You see what I mean? Except now I'm leaning toward actually cross-breeding lizards and donkeys. Because how freaking cool would it be for a donkey's tail to fall off when feeling threatened? Sure, it's a lot of hair (unless we go with Lizard McLizard's tail, which would still be awesome), but it'd just be so cool.

If only donkeys could have tails like lizards. My life would be complete. (Well, not really, but you know what I mean.) Ahem. Anyway. To prevent donkeys with really short lizard legs that would result in their bellies scraping the ground (ouch!)…no cross-breeding donkeys or lizards.

And that's that.

(Real time: Worked from 9:30 – 4PM today. Ate apple dippers from McDonald's. Came home, ate fruit salad. Really freaking wired right now. And rambling. And FUN. Yep yep. And listening to Within Temptation…but what else is new? XOXOXOXO) 

Anyway. I went back to Long John Silver’s today. It was really sudden, too. Kim called and she goes, “You want to work?” I said “Sure.” She asked when I was available, I said today. “Well, want to come in then?”

“Okay!”

So, I worked from 5:30 – 10:30 tonight. It wasn’t half bad, actually. I like working with Kim. I worked with Dewann, too, and he’s not half bad when he’s not checking me out. Ha! Which is about 1/20th of the time, but whatever. It’s an ego boost. And he never acts on it. He just looks. A lot. And it doesn’t really bother me anymore– it did at first, but you kind of get used to it after 2 straight years of working followed by two summers’ worth of working.

On the upside, Kim’s running the store now. Which means I get full-time hours. FINALLY. I really need them. Mom and I have been talking about putting a down payment on a car– SOON. ‘Cause it’s a bitch trying to share cars all the fucking time, and she’s starting to realize it. She had a good day today, which makes me feel a lot better.

Anyway. I’ve felt kind of ‘off’ all day today. I don’t know why, I don’t really know what the fuck is up, but I have that same ringing in my ears I have the other night, and my vision’s a bit off. Whatever. I’m bitter at the moment. Very bitter. I’m so tired of this. (Rhia… <3.)

I want a haircut. And plastic surgery. A tummy tuck. Gastric bypass. Something. I feel fat. (Yay, I’ve been put on a diet *again*.) And it’s not really an ego boost to be told you should lose 30-50 pounds. Not at all.

I’m so bitter right now. What the fuck ever. I don’t really care.

This morning I had an episode of my own. I think. I'm not really talking about it, it freaked even me out. You know that snowy static that goes on television when a channel goes out? I don't know if I was asleep or awake or what. But that static flashed in front of my eyes, and my body started jerking. Black and white little streaks. Exactly like the static on TV. All over the place.
And I was concious. I think I was awake, too. It didn't last long. Not long at all. But it was the black and white static-y thing, and there was this shrill noise. Like a sharp ringing in my ears. Then it stopped. And I've been really spacey all day. After mom had her episode (it's just easier to say that than deal with the "Mom went on a stark raving mad rampage and freaked me, my grandmother, and K out" over and over again), I took the car and drove around pretty aimlessly. Hindsight, I really shouldn't have. I went to Starbucks and got a drink, and then just came back home. And I still feel really dazed and out of it.

And I don't want to say much about it, 'cause I'm kind of freaked. So I haven't mentioned it to anyone until tonight. I'm talking to Billy about it right now, 'cause he kind of understands this whole deal, but I'm just still freaked. That's never really happened before. It's NEVER happened before. I don't know if I was awake or asleep. I just know I was conscious, I knew my body was jerking, and there was that static and shrill noise.

So I'm freaked. And I've had this persistent, mild headache all day, and very quiet ringing in my ears. My vision's been *slightly* blurry today, even with glasses on. I've never been conscious during a seizure, so I don't know what it was. It wasn't a dream. I just don't know what happened.

Once I start breathing.

So, I'm sitting here, clicking around TF, talking to Billy and a couple other friends, and I hear this creaking on the staircases. I ignore it at first. I have a hyperactive imagination on the best of nights. (Hence my nightmares occuring every single night. It's bad when the worst ones are the only ones that wake you up anymore, and they make even horror actors cringe. Bad analogy, but whatever).

Back to my imagination. 

I know I have a crazy imagination. So I ignore it, thinking I'm hearing things. Um, no. I hear steps. And then creaking stairs again. So, I tiptoe over to the staircase. (Yes, tiptoe, I'm a dancer. Besides, my mom was asleep in here, so, I'm not gonna wake HER up.) I get about halfway up the stairs, and someone dark lands in front of me, coming down the stairs.

I scream.

My grandmother screams.

Turns out she'd gotten up to get something to drink from the kitchen. Now we're both getting cussed out by my (now awake) mother.

Fun times. Once my heart settles down, I'm going to pass out. 

So. *picks up pen* This is it. I don't really feel like writing very much right now. I have much to say, especially about my trip to Texas, but I'm very much out of sorts right now. Not sure why, either, but the feeling is there. I did have a wonderful time in Texas. I just wish I'd had more time there.

It's the one thing I hate the most right now. Having fun, so much fun, despite the occasional arguments. Knowing and feeling that serenity I mentioned earlier, only to have to leave it again. And again. And again. Grrr. All that aside, though, it was great fun, honestly. We went to the zoo, to the Scarborough Faire, ate out at various places, saw X-Men III, and visited Austin. Had a bit of a misadventure with Chris's car, but that's all worked out now :) and didn't bake as many cookies as usual. (Though I did make spaghetti that would have been better with more sauce! LOL)

The zoo was wonderful. Skipping around looking at animals. I felt like a little kid. Okay, maybe a little kid who is exceptionally skilled with a camera, but still a little kid. The pictures: Baby Bobcat, Bald Eagle, Crocodile, Pile of turtles, Elephant, Giraffe, Hippo, Zebra, Flamingoes, Rhinos, Apes (or Gorillas?), Monkey (chilling), Lion, Lioness and Cubs, Bear, Tiger, Another Tiger Picture, Another Tiger Picture, White Tiger, Another White Tiger Picture, Another White Tiger Picture (How freaking cute is this??). Anyway. Yeah. So…those are just a few of the pictures I took. I ended up with about 160+, but I didn't upload that many. I didn't really feel like killing my internet connection all at once. So I had a great time at the zoo.

And at the Faire! I ended up barefoot a lot of the time. And listened to more perverted jokes than my uncle could have ever told me in a million years. It was fabulous! ;) I also had some damn good pretzels, and saw this really awesome musical instrument. And bought the CD for it. And now have Carol of the Bells playing on my computer now. I just wanted to be insulted! Except I have to admit that (you know, being blonde and all), I don't think it would have been much of a challenge for Christoph to find something to insult me for…. *ahem*

So I've done a complete one-eighty from the time I started this entry until now. But I'll wrap this part up here, and I'll end up talking more about everything later. Ciao.

i failed that kitten. i failed stormy.

i hate myself so much right now. i hate this, i hate me. god, i put it to sleep. i had it put down.

i fucking gave up. it couldn't move. it was so lifeless.

my fucking god, i'm losing it. i can't. i can't do this. i failed that kitten.

i can't breathe. 

Her front paws are getting a little bit straighter, but they’re still deformed. I’m going to start splinting them tomorrow– I’ve been waiting for a few days for her to get stronger.

Which she is. She’s eating more, staying awake more, and whining when I’m not holding her enough It’s …day three, I think, now. This Saturday, I’m taking her in for shots/etc. (Because I leave to go to Texas on Sunday, and that’s a day that my mother won’t have to take care of her– she’s not a cat person! But she’s agreed to feed and care for the kitten while I am away. )

She’s got such pretty blue eyes. She’s got this amazingly soft fur, and she just seems so happy! Don’t get me wrong, I mean, she’s still so tiny, and she fusses if I don’t hold her until she falls asleep, but she’s just so…peaceful. Happy, and peaceful, and it seems like she’s healthier. I’m hoping so, anyway.

I am sooooooooooo in love with this kitten. And soooooooo encouraged that she’s getting better already. I don’t know if we’re over the hump or not, because I don’t want to get my hopes up, but I’m feeling really optimistic in spite of myself. I am not an optimistic person. And I don’t want to be optimistic, but I am right now. I loe this kitten so much.

Pictures!

Sleeping in its box
Resting on my lap
Awake but chilling (that’s a toy mouse under its chin)
A bit blurry, but wide awake

My mother kind of goes… “What the hell have you done?” And all I said was, “I couldn’t leave it alone!”

Which, really, I couldn’t. My mom knows how I am, so now I am nursing a kitten back to health.

The backstory:

There is this stray cat that went and gave birth to four kittens at my cousin’s house. I went over there yesterday, and one kitten was dead, two are perfectly healthy, and Stormy (I’m temp. calling her Stormy Hope, because I think it’s actually a he now, post-bowel-stimulation) was tiny. Bone-thin, weak, and can’t even walk. I kind of wrestled the mother cat down for about an hour so that Stormy could feed, and she ate. And ate. Eventually we left, to go see the Da Vinci Code, and when we came back, the mother was at least laying down with it. Yesterday I went over there, and yet again wrestled the mother cat, and let Stormy feed again. This time the mother cat stayed still with Stormy eating for a while (yesterday my arms got all kinds of torn up). Stormy ate some more, and I was able to get both of her eyes open. She seems more alert, and is looking around and all. But, I don’t really think she’s getting fed unless I’m wrestling the mother cat, so I brought Stormy home with me. I went to this Animal Medical Hospital, got a small bottle and cat milk for kittens, and they told me how to feed it and get it to go to the bathroom and all, which I’m doing. It’s probably about a month old, if not older, but it’s so weak it might as well be a 2-week-old-kitten. I fed her a little bit more with the formula, now she’s sleeping on my lap. (Just a side note– not only is she the runt, but her front paws are a bit deformed, and I don’t know if they’ll develop and straighten out with time or what.)

So, the update today:

The vet said (when I took her down there to get the stuff) that she’s lost a lot of blood because she’s got a LOT of fleas on her. So it’s a little bit of damage control, too.

I bought some baby food (beef, for the iron) and mixed it with a tiny bit of formula– she ate a couple bites of that, (yay!) and then took the bottle. Now she’s resting. Oh, and I bought some flea spray, sprayed it on a paper towel, and wiped her down with that. (The vet said that spraying it directly was way too strong for her, as was powder and a flea collar, and that’s what she said to do.)

Now she’s resting. But she is going to the bathroom on her own now, so I know she’s not dehydrated. She still can’t walk, but she’s definitely getting stronger. I was holding her against my chest, and when I tried to pull her away to lay her down, she held on with her claws– from her front paws! So that made me excited.

It doesn’t sound like much, but it is. Baby steps. Also, she kind of pushed herself up a little bit in her box. She fell almost right back over, but… :-D

I am SO FREAKING TIRED though. I haven’t slept at all. I slept a couple of hours, but the rest of the time is feeding her, staying up with her. I still wish I knew if it was a girl or boy, but… LOL. The important thing now is getting her healthy. I also bought her a few tiny mice to play with, and she sniffed them, licked them, and fell asleep again!

I do have pictures, though. :) The face shot and A full shot. Next week, the day I leave for Texas, I’m dropping her off at the vet to get some shots, and a bit more care. Other than that, I’m pretty sure Mom’s going to take care of her. (Shocking!) Which, I mean, she doesn’t require much care. Eat, sleep, change the bedding, rinse, lather, repeat. ;)

This stray cat had a litter of kittens at my cousin's house. A litter of four. One of them died already, and there is another one that is just skin and bones. A little gray one. The front legs on it are deformed slightly– but it's hanging on to life, somehow. 

So. I held the mother cat down. Forcibly. Got my arms clawed up and shit in the process. (This isn't the first cat I've done this with, either.)  And held her down, just so the little one, the little gray one could eat.

It ate. And ate. And ate. After awhile, the mother cat started sniffing it. I had to leave after an hour, to go see the Da Vinci Code (good, but not great movie). When I came back, the mother was licking and letting the runt feed along with the other two (healthy) kittens.

Progress. Gave me the warm fuzzies in spite of the raised pink and bleeding scratches. Oh, and the sneezing.  Obviously, the mother cat is fine. I know how to hold her without letting her go, even if I did get torn up in the process. But she recognizes the gray one as her kitten again, at least for tonight.

I'm not sure if it's too late or not. I do know I'm going to be checking up on that kitten daily, and if it gets neglected again I'm taking it and I can bottle feed it for a while, care for it like a mother cat would.

I think I've dealt with too many cats in my time. I just really hope this one makes it. I named it Hope. I don't know if it's male or female, and don't really care right now. I just want to keep it alive. But…I felt SO happy when I came back to see the mother cat treating Hope as her own again. If nothing else…at least I did that.

Hugged her mother, grandmother, father, two younger sisters, people I grew up with. Janie's just gone. Hugged her fiancee.

One year today. You are loved and missed, darling. You were too young. And it's scary as hell to think about. I remember it. I remember everything I know about it well, It's so hard to forget. Only one year? I remember how we used to be as children. Watching cartoons, eating cereal. Going to school. Grew apart, bonded again.

After,
the cold darkness,
in the heart of the forest.
Where birds are singing,
for the new born sun

In the womb of the leaves,
on the branches of the trees,
lies the treasure of the morning,
the pearls of light.

Carried away by thee truculence of my world,
I got lost in the search for enlightment,
The blue rain,
Covered my roots and I forgot where I came from.

Carried away by thee truculence of my world,
I got lost in the search for enlightment,
The blue rain,
Covered my roots and I forgot where I came from.

Song is Pearls of Light by Within Temptation. Rest in peace, baby girl.

I hate my body. *grrmumblesobscenities*

Anyway, then I went to the mall, where I got some awesome pink sunglasses. (Bling!) A few people stopped to ask me about my shirt. (It's a top ten list of "Reasons Why It's Great to Be Class of 08" or something like that. #1 on the list is "G-E-T NNNNNNNNN-A-K-E-D GET NAKED!" followed either immediately or a bit down the list by "We can steal 400 pairs of boxers and get away with it." Which is true, which is probably one of the craziest things I did this year. Aiding and abetting the stealing of 400 pairs of blue boxers (all either were blue or were mostly blue) from Georgia Tech frat houses and Georgia State guys. Oops.

We strung these boxers up on clotheslines and hung them all around our dining hall during our party day. How freaking cool is that? I think I actually have a pair of the blue boxers. I don't know who took what, we all took a random pair to wash and wear after that. I'm not sure any of them made it back to their owners, really. Which, if you're trying to imagine this, is pretty damn hilarious. Approximately 400 Georgia Tech and Georgia State guys wondering where in the hell those damn blue boxers are. I say approximately, because of course we asked a few frat houses personally if they would donate to the cause. But there was a great deal of…blue boxers magically being whisked into our secret party day hideout, only to be displayed in our dining hall.

Beautiful, it was. Absolutely beautiful.

Clearly, you don't tell this to a bunch of strangers. You simply tell them you're part of the Black Ring Mafia (ASC ALL THE WAY!) and you smile, nod, and move on. To see another glorious day, to look forward to increasing your boxer count to 1,000 next year. (That's our goal, anyway……….) 

Human beings need a lot of things to feel alive.
Family
Love
Sex.
But we only need one thing
To actually be alive.
We need a beating heart.
When our heart is threatened
we respond in one of two ways.
We either run or
we attack.
There's a scientific term for this:
Fight
or flight.
It's instinct
We can't control it.
Or can we?

I first heard about the fight or flight nervous system response when I was in college classes. Tenth grade. I studied it extensively, wrote a paper on the phenomenon. I prided myself on the fact that I was a fighter, I stuck through the toughest of situations. When my mother was in Intensive Care, my senior year in high school, I was there. I was there until I had a seizure,  I was there. I was there until I had a panic attack a few days after the seizure. I did everything I needed to do.

Everything I needed to do, only without my heart. I had a shell. I cried, but it was enough of a wall to keep me from breaking down. I don't cry, I don't have breakdowns. Tears slip through, I stay closed off. Otherwise, I'm not sure I'd stop. And I'm not saying that to be dramatic. I think most of my friends know I tend to downplay the worst in my life, and don't ask for help until I either have to, or it's too late and the damage is done, and it's time to repair things. I want to break down, sometimes. But I…can't.

I get pissed when I get hurt. I scream until I'm blue in the face. I use every bit of foul language I know and then invent some. Twice, I've had to be held back from absolutely beating the hell out of someone. Mostly, it's words. I don't back down from a fight. I fight for what I want. I think.

But I hold back, I shut off. At the same time.
Fight or flight. Which is it? Which is better? Which is worse? And what, exactly, is worth fighting for?

I feel like I personally know Derek and Meredith and Addison. I can give you all the details on that little love triangle. Oh, and this most current thing with Finn, McVet, too. Never forgetting McSteamy- Mark- either. There's Cristina and Burke, and I can probably detail every fight they've ever had. Izzie and Alex and Denny, and that damned cupcake, the beginning of the end. A simple cupcake.

Never, ever give me a cupcake as a surprise present.

Let's not forget the ten judy doll heads, the murderer who swallowed four razors and then a lightbulb to get out of solitary confinement for a few days and spent most of the time demanding mint chocolate chip ice cream, the standstill operation with Joe, the spelling bee champion, the man whose fiance left him because she 'wasn't strong enough', the woman with the massive tumor, and those damn 'hillbillys' that ended up touching everyone. Oh, and the Dead Baby Bike Race.

Then there's the Chief's surgery, Addison's poison oak in a …VERY uncomfortable place for females, Denny (and holy SHIT at that drama tonight!), Mark stitching up his own face to 'turn me on' (<- Cristina quote!), and Bailey giving birth and almost squeezing George's hand to the point of cutting off circulation. "Stop looking at my Va-jay-jay!" Oh, and the disgusting pus that covered Meredith. That was fun.

I. love. this. show. I read the writer's blogs whenever posted, I read the bar blog, and I read Debbie Does Seattle. I post pretty regularly on The Incision (love you all!), and freak out with everyone else after every single episode. Seriously, you know it's a damn good show if you freak out after EVERY episode and spend the rest of the week speculating about what'll happen next.

Seriously. Tonight's episode? SERIOUSLY?

I. love. this. show. To the point where it's going on my "likes" page in my college scrapbook. (Grey's Anatomy for Television, and Within Temptation for Music. That's all I'm putting in there. 'Tis special.) I know the actors, I know their names, and their emotions? Make me feel like my life is pretty damn sweet, which is an extreme accomplishment as of late.

Clearly, this season finale has made me write the entry I've been meaning to write. Because my heart absolutely stopped– apparently, along with Denny's and maybe even Burke's. I, along with every other poster at The Incision, is just waiting for tomorrow and thanking the kindness that is Shonda Rhimes not making us wait an entire week for this episode.

Now, off to do some writing exercises that I need to focus on. School outside of school- loving it. 

Mom and I are scrapbooking my college experiences so far. I am so glad I've saved everything I have. We have the very first page, which is my acceptance and a brochure from ASC. The second page is a certificate I received for my scholarship, and then it's orientation, my class schedule fall semester, and then we have DPK.

DPK. It still makes me giggle. The explanation, if you're curious: One night, the girls living on the second floor of Winship Hall decided to go to a fraternity party at Georgia Tech. (I went, because I was “adopted” by the second floor.) We all got dressed up and drove to Tech. When we got there, we realized that we didn't want to tell these guys we were only first years. We decided to make a sorority, and the first three Greek letters yelled out were “DPK.” From that point on, everyone (including the deans at ASC and all the guys at Tech) knew who we were; and we hung out together the rest of the year and listened to the other classes at ASC talk about us. (Jealousy!) Anyway, we had cheers and chants, one of which was "DPK all the way!"

Such great times. You know, in the stress of finals and everything, you kind of lose focus of what you're doing, and why the hell you picked a school with such a tough academic program. And you wonder why you're going to an all-women's school, wonder why you went to college period. You question everything, including your future.

But doing this scrapbook, I'm remembering why. And smiling. In the end, it's all worthwhile. 

My mother and I actually are getting along. We have a mother-daughter project we're going to start working on– a scrapbook of my college life thus far. I am (shockingly) REALLY excited to do this. My mom used to scrapbook all the time, and I know she really enjoys it, and I do too. I have a bunch of stuff saved from my freshman year and this year, and earlier today ordered prints of about 47 digital pictures I have of my freshman and sophomore years. 

I was standing outside the car today, about to get in, after I'd finished loading all my stuff into the car. It hit me that next year, I will be a Junior, and after my Junior year…I'll be a Senior, and then I'll graduate. It feels surreal. I just started my Sophomore year not that long ago. And it's gone. It's over. I want it back.

I'm not sure what the point of this is. I just freaked out earlier, and everyone's asking me how it feels to be going into my Junior year, how it feels to have two years of college under my belt. How am I supposed to answer that? I know logically, I should be excited and thrilled and happy to move on. Instead, I am absolutely terrified. And I don't even know why I'm terrified. I'm almost completely done with my Women's Studies degree, and I'm getting certified in Early Childhood Education. I have plans for my future, I know (essentially) that I'll have a job, that I'll be perfectly self-supporting. I know where I stand, I know where I'm going, but it just feels like it's moving so very, very fast.

I’m a bitch. I can be a bitch, anyway. First and foremost, though, I’m upfront with people about things. For once, I’m going to cross-post to my different blogs. My myspace blog to my online personal journal that only a few people have access to. And suddenly, I’m glad I have my privacy. I’m not ashamed to say some less-than-enjoyable adjectives to people right now.

You have to take responsibility for once in your fucking life! Stop dumping this on everyone else. I’m not exactly home at the moment– well, I am home, Atlanta is my home now– I’m not in Alabama. Every single bit of contact is because something dramatic is happening, and then you write this passive-aggressive blog about how you try and try and nothing comes of it. Here’s a newsflash, and read it loud and clear sweetheart. I have told you repeatedly that I’m not dealing with your drama if that’s the only reason you ever contact me, I meant it. You whine about losing everyone, you are pushing them away. With your stupid little “losing them” comments and bullshit. I wasn’t aware that you and I had any problems recently, but clearly we do since both of your sisters don’t want to be in your wedding and you’re losing them. Yes, you ARE. But you know what? It’s not everyone else’s faults.

Deal with it, grow up, and cut it out already.

Your little self-fulfilling prophecies about how you’re losing your family and no one wants to be in your wedding? How appropriate. How truly, truly accurate. Because when you drive anyone crazy enough, they’re leaving and eventually they won’t come back. You’re older, that doesn’t mean wiser or smarter. You try so damn hard to be this older sister, but if something doesn’t go your way you accuse everyone else, you judge people you have no right to judge, and then whine about everyone abandoning you and judging you. Grow up!

I told you you’d only contact me when some drama was going on or you were pissed. I was so, so right. Only this wasn’t some damn self-fulfilling prophecy, because I can’t force you to contact me. Frankly, I don’t want to. I’m not going to force anyone to contact me. And I sure as hell won’t be reaching out to anyone who does that to me.

See, kids, self-fulfilling prophecies! Break a fortune cookie in half and read it, the message on there is a LOT more inspiring than these mind games will ever be.

The next one was, “An influential figure will make mention of you in a positive light.” I had no special reason for saving this one, I just liked it a lot. Liked it enough to keep two of them. It is a popular fortune cookie, I suppose.

“Your winsome smile will be your sure protection.” I kept this one for hilarity purposes. My “winsome” smile cost my mother several thousand dollars. Once I got my braces off, a couple of years later I broke a tooth. Half of my front tooth is fake and I’ll be damned if my smile isn’t straight and white despite it all. My smile? It needs to be its own protection, not mine.

“You will take a chance in the near future, and win.” India. Very recent fortune, and I took the chance of applying to get in the program. Win or lose, I’m not sure yet. Tonight’s fortune, “An unexpected event will soon make your life more exciting.” Well, India is quite exciting.

Call me superstitious. I used to be very superstitious. Not out of entire belief, but it was so much fun. Doing odd things. It stemmed from a research paper I wrote back in high school…I kind of want to start picking up all those odd habits again. Maybe I will. Maybe that’s what this fortune is. It could be India, or I could just start hopping over cracks and not walking under ladders.

Both cases are unexpected. I don’t know if superstitions count as taking a chance, though. Unless, you know, I just put an eyelash on that crack in the sidewalk. Taking a chance. I either put it on the sidewalk, or the wind blows it away in the process. Lets it tumble down the street.

Chance. Fate. Destiny. Not exactly what the fortune’s talking about, is it?

Quote of the day, from chat. 

I want some fucking chocolate, sugar, and an overdose of caffeine rightthefucknow. Clearly, I am cramping and cranky, and not having a good night tonight. I should sleep, but I'm not tired, just pissed-off and bitter.

I'm entitled to a bad night. My uterus is screaming at me, my hands are cut up from working and trying to fix a paper shredder, and I am OUT of chocolate.

Go away. Now. 

• School: Agnes Scott College
  
• Where did you live? Winship Hall; room 327
  
• Who was your roommate? Adrienne for the first semester; had a single room second semester
• Do you still talk to them? Not really, she's nice enough, but we have nothing in common except our graduating year.
• Ever get in trouble in the dorms? Haha, yes. 3rd floor Winship was legendary. I think the first time we got into trouble was for playing field hockey in the hall.
• Something you remember about when you first lived on campus? Never forget the field hockey! I was also adopted by the second floor, 'cause I stayed down there all the time. My friend Gretchen and I used to always order food at 3AM and either watch movies or study, depending on our mood. Aside from that, I can easily remember this one incident where someone got in trouble for performing oral sex in the hallway on someone else's boyfriend or something.
• Your campus phone number or other number? My campus phone number… 404-471-6472. I think. They change every year.
  
• Favorite place to go out to eat? Thai noodle bowl; delivery-wise, it was Wing King.
  
• Did you go to the library? Not often.
  
• What was your favorite floor you'd always be on? Umm…the patio-type thing.
  
• Club/Athletics/Frats/Sororities, you joined? Haha, 2nd floor Winship (myself included) made up a sorority. We were all going to our first party over at Georgia Tech, and none of us wanted to admit we were first years. So we invented this sorority, Delta Pi Kappa, and told everyone at Georgia Tech we were members of that sorority. It became vastly well known across Georgia Tech and legendary at Agnes Scott. We had photos, etc, of all our outings and whatnot; during this pottery-thing where we made mugs and plates and whatnot, we all made DPK mugs. In terms of "real" clubs, I was a member of the Agnes Scott College Dance Team, Common Ground, Aurora (the creative writing magazine), and I'm pretty sure that's it.
• Where did you buy your books? I didn't, mostly. I did buy a few books at the Agnes Scott College bookstore, but my aunt and uncle took care of my books spring semester. (My aunt works at the University of Mississippi and my uncle is an economics professor there, so they were free for me with their funds.)
• What classes did you take? Fall semester, I bypassed Spanish 101. I ended up taking First Year Seminar 190G (Pirates, Privateers, and Smugglers), English 110 (The Craft of Writing), and Psychology 121 (General Psychology). Spring semester, I took Religion 275 (Religion and Morality), Spanish 102 (Elementary Spanish II), Theater 108 (Voice and Diction), Women's Studies 100 (Introduction to Women's Studies), Dance 211 (Intermediate Ballet), Dance 213 (Intermediate Jazz Dance), and Dance 312 (Advanced Modern Dance)
• Did you declare a major or concentration? I did.
• What was it? I originally came to Agnes Scott for the creative writing program; but after I took Introduction to Women's Studies, I declared a Women's Studies major. (Within the first two weeks of that class, actually.)
• Ever attend a sporting event? All the home basketball games, and one volleyball game. The volleyball game was a requirement of being a first year, and the basketball games because the dance team performed at them.
• Ever attend a concert or comedic performance? Um…I attended Studio Dance Theater's spring concert; working backstage.
• How was homecoming? We don't have a "technical" homecoming. We have Black Cat, which is a week of class competition and insane decorations. I was so taken aback my first year! We decorated the quad, we hijacked the alum. fountain, and stole blue boxers from Georgia Tech. Our class color is blue, and our mascot was the Luna Moon Goddesses. We dressed up in costumes, wore blue all week long, and tried to keep our mascot a secret from the sophomore class, like they do every year, and they found us out, like they do every year. The dance at the end of the week was amazing, and nothing beats being surrounded by the topless seniors (girls) streaking across the campus. We had a lot of cheers, but most prevalent was "G-E-T-N-A-K-E-D GET NAKED!" Black cat rocks! ♥ (Especially since our class kicked ass and won many of the competition and came in second overall!)
• Have you ever spent the night on campus not in your dorm hall? Nah, but I spent many nights at Georgia Tech or at Josh's apartment. (Josh was my romantic interest from before college well into my freshman year.)
  
• Favorite night to go out on, and where did you go? Thursday and Friday nights, we went to Georgia Tech.
  
• Where did you get coffee? Starbucks!
• Did you ever have a job at school? Yeah, I worked in Human Resources for my federal work-study.
  
• What did you hate about your college? I was so enthralled with my school my first year. I think the main thing was the waiting lists for classes, and they weren't all that bad.
• What did you love most about it? Everything, mostly. The classes, the campus was beautiful, the fact that it's so close to Atlanta, the food…yep!
• Ever leave to go on a road trip, where? Road trips to Alabama. Josh and I would take road trips to go up to Cheaha Mountain in Alabama, where we had our first date. Or we would simply go driving, anywhere, and it didn't matter where we ended up.
  
• Where would you believe is the best location to live in? On campus? I dunno. It never really mattered to me where I lived. All our dorm rooms were huge anyway, much bigger than most other colleges.
• Oddest thing that happened to you? Getting stopped by the police! Gretchen and I went to Taco Mac (a sports bar/grill) to watch the world series. On the way home, after it was over, we got stopped by the cops. They thought we were buying drugs! They ended up running our licenses and I showed them the receipt from the restaurant.
• What was the craziest thing you did? Craziest or stupidest? Either way, it's debateable. I would say the stupidest thing I did is accidentally (honestly, accidentally) is drinking a cup of hydrogen peroxide. I ended up in a hospital, and then into a mental institution where the nurses hid me in their office away from the crazy patients and helped me get out of there. (Ended up having to call a lawyer and social worker both.) Came out of the mental hospital with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, though, and had to go into counseling for a bit. It was awful, but…over with, now. ;)
• Graduated or still attending? Still attending.
• Will you go back? After I graduate, I'll come back and visit, yeah.

Fun times. Hooo, boy, the memories. And enough procrastinating for now… ;)

What they do know right now is this, or at least what I gathered through the medical mumbo-jumbo of two doctors. My brain wave/brain activity scans (all of them) all showed contining seizure activity. Almost constant seizure activity. (I got to see scans of it, which was wicked awesome.) Basically, I've been having seizures when I didn't even know I was having seizures. All the time, all day long.

No one in Alabama picked up on it because I went to the doctor/hospital when I had a seizure, but I'd never stayed long enough for extended observation or anything. So when they'd do my scans, it'd show seizure activity because I would have just had a grand mal seizure.

Anyway, I'm going on a tangent. It didn't matter what they did with the tests– simply monitoring, flashing lights, hearing sounds, sitting in darkness; there was always ongoing activity. Not grand mal seizures, and nothing that I was aware of, because it was short, fast, and then would happen again, short; fast, over with. Am I making any sense?

So, yeah. The doctor said that he wants to double my dosage of Lamictal, and take 200mg in the morning and 200mg twelve hours later; because Lamictal is a half-a-day drug. (This also explains why all my grand mal seizures were in the day/afternoon and never in the early morning or late at night– I take Lamictal at night, and when I'd been awake for a few hours, it would wear off.) And I have to see him again in a month to run more tests and see how the new dosage is working.

Also, this explains my complete, often sudden memory loss and trouble with words at random moments– all seizures. There are several parts of my memory that have probably been completely destroyed, but I am so happy with this, that I don't really care. It's nothing I'll ever really miss– I have a hard time remember years past as a whole, but I won't forget who I am anymore! I won't forget my age, I won't forget where I am, I don't have to be scared and freak out over suddenly forgetting everything! So I can deal with a blurred memory of the past several years, easily. I will be able to remember my age! My name!

I have never been more in love with a hospital department as I am now. I am so relieved. I started bawling earlier…I'm just really, really glad to know what's going on.

Picking up where I left off last, which was only the day before yesterday but seems so much longer. As you can see, I did turn in my application for the India travel seminar being given fall semester of next year. Now, I get the amazing opportunity to simply sit it out, and wait for a decision. I know I have the grade point average: 2.75 is what I maintain for my scholarship, which is a B average. (I am aware that my school does grade point averages in a really odd way, but in most cases, a 2.75 translates to a 3.0 grade point average at other schools.) I wrote the letter that has kissed much more ass than I ever wanted to admit to publically, and I filled out all the necessary forms. My academic advisor wrote my recommendation letter for me, and when I approached her about writing the letter, her only concern was my health; which is fine and being addressed seperately anyway. I will be a Junior next year, which means I get at least slight precedence over sophomores and freshman. I'm also a Women's Studies major, which is one of the majors required to go on the trip. (The other majors accepted are literature, post-colonial studies, religion, art, and anthropology.) Logically, I think I will be accepted.

In the meantime, though, my heart is going absolutely insane wondering if I've said or done anything at all to make someone in the International Education office not happy with me. Inside politics worries, things of that nature. Frankly, I'm also worried about actually going on the trip. It is simply not possible to make a trip to a country half-way around the world for three weeks without doing a bit of worrying.

Random things, too. For example, I am extremely fair-skinned and will need sunscreen lotion with a proof of approximately 1,370. There's always the fear of having lost luggage, though I am the first to admit that it wouldn't be half bad to spend three weeks in the beautiful clothing they sell overseas. There is the food issue, and worries about whether or not I will be able to eat without getting sick (which has been a concern ever since I fell ill for three days during a week-long stay in Cancun in 7th grade due to drinking a coke with ice cubes in it).

Overwhelmingly, though, are two basic emotions. The worry, but also the sheer excitement.

If you've read this, you're aware of my family's financial situation (and by association, my own present financial situation). The trip (as of right now) is $4,100. If I do get to go on this trip, I will be more than likely recieving financial aid in which ASC pays $1,200 of the program fee and I will be taking out a $3,000 loan from my school (which is interest free, starts getting paid back 3 months after graduation, must be paid in eight years, and has a minimum of $50 payments). Am I worried about the money? Of course I am, even though I know that if I go, I'm financially covered, and it's a completely feasible payback plan. And in the end, Tuesday night before I turned in the application on Wednesday, I pondered even applying. I wondered if it was worth it at all. And I can't explain it, but I have come to the conclusion that it is. It will be. I have the opportunity to not only travel abroad, but to learn about a country that I, for some reason, have felt tied to all my life. I don't know if I will ever have this chance again, but I do know that if I don't take it now, I will regret it for the rest of my life.

And so I submitted the application, and am looking forward from here. No more doubt. Simply excitement. Soon I will be looking at websites, pictures, anything and everything I can get my hands on. About things from laws and cultural practices to the average temperature and the currency exchange rate. I am absolutely thrilled. I started off this entry rethinking things, and now I'm just absolutely giddy once again. (Thanks, wordpress!)

Before I paste part of my essay, just an update. I'm completely done with my dance classes, the coursework for my math class, and the coursework for my Women's Health class. I have a few more papers/essays to write for my women's studies seminar, and the 15/20-page group project paper we have to turn in. Then 2 finals. This weekend will be spent catching up on my Above and Beyond coursework, providing I'm not an absolute wreck (for whatever reason) following my neurology appointment on Friday. Phew!

It's just two paragraphs from the essay, but should give you enough to get the idea of the rest of the essay I'm submitting. In the meantime, cross your fingers. I find out by June 1st if I've gotten into the program…and will be going insane by that point.

From an academic standpoint, I feel that participating in the Global Awareness: India program will aid in not only allowing me to pursue my goal of learning about another culture, but also give me a chance to develop skills that will prove useful to me as I continue my education at Agnes Scott and into the professional world. Participating in this program will allow me to strengthen my leadership skills as well as aid in enhancing the skills necessary to embrace different cultures and lifestyles. These skills will be useful to me as I hope to spend the years following my education at Agnes Scott volunteering with the Peace Corps and studying a culture different from my own. I am eager to learn more about societies that most Americans never get the chance to experience, and grateful to have this amazing opportunity through Agnes Scott College.

I feel that I am well prepared to attend this class. For reasons of which I am not entirely sure, India has always been a fascinating country to me. The chance to get to learn about the history and culture of India while gathering foreign language skills is a huge motivation for me, and an exciting academic prospect. In my undergraduate career thus far, I feel that Agnes Scott has provided me with challenges and opportunities that have enhanced my leadership skills, sharpened my abilities to fully understand cultural differences in American society, and provided me with an internship that has allowed me to become more responsible, as well as fully appreciate the value of personal responsibility in group settings. All these skills and qualities are necessary to participate in the Global Awareness: India program, and as a result of my undergraduate work so far, I feel I am prepared to face the intense and rewarding academic challenges of the program.

That's that. Night!

I just found out today my mother made $19,000-ish dollars last year. I had to fill out the financial aid and it requires different parental education. My school cost $32k a year. I should feel grateful I’m going to such a good, prestigious school.

Instead, I’m wondering if I’ll ever be able to be the one to not live in poverty. And I feel horrendously guilty.

The estimated family contribution for my education next year? $40. That’s all. Forty dollars. I. feel. poor. I feel guilty. I should be happy it’s so low, that means more aid, more grants. But I feel so, so guilty.

Because I don’t want to be supporting three people on less than twenty thousand a year. I know I don’t. I want better. And I feel guilty for wanting better, because she has managed, somehow, to do so much with so little. I’m so grateful to her. I don’t know, now, how I have gotten everything she’s given me. Not realizing how much money we’ve lived off of my whole life. I had everything I ever needed, and a lot of what I wanted.

How did she do that? I don’t know. But I…wasn’t an inexpensive person. I know that. I didn’t get everything I ever wanted, but I came damn close to it. I don’t know how I came so close to having everything I wanted. I don’t know how she did it. I still don’t. She doesn’t think I’m grateful (she doesn’t think I notice this stuff), but I am. And it hit me today. I feel guilty for all the “extras” I got and I feel guilty for wanting more. I’m probably not even describing this accurately. I’m torn. I feel like because I want more, I want to earn more money in my life, like I’m being selfish. Selfish and ungrateful. Which is what I think my mother thinks of me, is that I am selfish and ungrateful. I’m not. I just…can’t talk to her about stuff like this.

I want more, and I feel guilty for that. I feel like Ariel in the Little Mermaid. Desperate to get out of the ocean of not having money and into the sun, into money, whatever kind of analogy you want to insert here. I remember the day I got a job at Long John Silver’s, my high school employer. My mother told me I wasn’t working during school. I told her I was, I wanted spending money. Now I kind of wish I had given some of it to her. That the money I earn working in college now, which isn’t much, I could give to her. But I get my own books, I need this, I need that. I know that logically, I really do have to have these things. But I feel so selfish. Selfish, selfish, selfish.

In one sentence…This freaking sucks.

Nightmares aside, it's been a pretty decent day. I feel off, but that's nothing unusual. I really should have worked on that paper. I'm kind of kicking my ass for it, but at the same time, I'm not terribly worried about it.

Still, a bit of sadness is left over from yesterday. I still feel like there's way too much stuff left out of my control. I don't like having things left out of my control. I need concrete answers. Decisions. I have this feeling of being trapped. I don't like being trapped. Decisions.

I have no idea if I spelled the title right. Right now…I am too tired, too exhausted to really care. I'm happy right now, very happy, but I'm still tired. And I still want decisions.

Monday I write the check for $250 dollars for my trip to India. I have been hit by overwhelming nervousness. Over flying over the ocean. I'm not nervous  about what I'll do when I get there (clearly) but over flying over the ocean. I love flying. Just…I'm nervous about it now, I suppose. Whatever. 

I disagree. I think the dominant emotion is sadness. Of course I do. I expect any responses to this to be, "You're too pessimistic." Right now, they're probably right. But as a whole, I still tend to think that sadness is the dominant emotion. Hell, we come into this world bawling our eyes out.

And frankly, that doesn't really change.

Yes, I am being pessimistic right now. I'm sad. I want to be loved right now, I want to be hugged, I want to be kissed, and I want to be cuddled. I want someone to cheer me up right now. I want to have to stop spell-checking my every entry, anywhere, everywhere. I want to cry,  I want someone to make me smile. I'm just depressed. Sad.  And the eating disorder I thought I was overcoming reared its ugly head tonight. In a big, big way.
Anyway. This is so damn emo and depressing. And that's been my day today. Now, to sleep it off and hope for better tomorrow.

There's so much to do now. And I, I am just so freaking exhausted.

In other news, I will be kicking the lovely Morphine's ass for getting me addicted to Kingdom of Loathing. (www.kingdomofloathing.com). So, if she stops updating her blog (which we all know she needs to do more of), it is because I have kicked her ass. Oh, and I am a Sauceror by the name of Crystallia over there.

World of Make Believe

Within Temptation

On golden wings
She flies at night
With her dress
It's blinding white
Countless diamonds
And her long blonde hair
The queen is coming
So you better be aware
Her plums and flowers
They're never the same
Blue and silver
It's all her game
Flying dragons
And enchanted woods
She decides, she creates
It's her reality

[REF:] In her world of dreams and make believe
She reigns forever
With all her glory
In this world of endless fantasy
She makes it happen
It's her reality

I'm forgetting many things. I know. But this is the basic. And right now, basic is all I can hang on to.

This has been my face for the past three days. Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday afternoon. Today.

But it went well. I'm pretty tired, and I have shin splints (that stage didn't have any springs underneath it) so…ouch? Anyway. I'm really happy. We got so much applause and congratulations, and it was just…amazing.  &hearts;

The 24+ hours countdown is on. I am sooooooo sleepy, though…already. It doesn't bode well for tonight. If I start speaking gibberish, forgive me.

akljfdk fjfi fififi hohooho tomatoes penguins fork spoke spork. ;) 

I just sat here, still, for about ten minutes, completely zoned out. Oops.

My heart rate is up. As usual, lately. All things considered…I suppose it makes sense. I should go to bed really early tonight, I should. I have an EEG on Friday, so I have to stay up from 10AM Thursday until after the EEG. Over 24 hours, and I have a dance performance that night. I'm really kind of sort of hoping I don't pass out on stage. I don't think that would be very good of me to do.

I'm listening to the Requiem for a Dream soundtrack, over and over again. Watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, watching their minds get completely erased away. I once wrote an entry on that movie, some thoughts it inspired in me. (erase me…from your mind. would you?) At the time, I couldn't say whether or not I would erase anything.

I'm starting to think that I would. If I could forget all this shit going on in my life right now, and yet…remember the most basic things I keep forgetting…I would. I would give anything to have this behind me, never to be thought of again, and to be able to remember my age. What I did with such-and-such papers. If I could keep numbers and dates straight. If I didn't have to think twice about who I'm talking to on the phone, because tonight I forgot I was talking to my mother. I heard her voice. But she was, for a time, a stranger. 

For the record, if I should ever be in a Permanent Vegetative State or something similar, please let me die. If I should flat-line, however, fight like hell to keep me alive. Please. </end morbidity>

I really want to cry. And I can't. I am so stressed out. I have so much going on. I have a presentation in Women's Health (10 minutes), a paper for Women's Health (5+ pages), and a final exam. I have a test I need to do in math (assuming I don't mix up the numbers again). I have papers I need to do for my Women, Leadership, and Social Change seminar. I need to do laundry, I need to clean, I need to shower, I need to cry, and I need to eat. I need. I need. I have to. I have to do this. I have to do that. It's too much for now. Let me know what's wrong with me, then let me handle this.

When you literally feel like you are losing your mind, you want to hold on to everything you've ever known, good and bad. You want the memories, you want the here and now, you want to know things. It's stressful, but it's real. And it's nice to remember what I have to do. Except I'm forgetting something, I know. I need to ask my classmates what I'm forgetting. There is always something else. Fuck!

I'm frustrated, depressed, and tired. I don't think this is going to get any better tonight. I just need to sleep. After I do my test and homework. Oh! And I need to take a shower. I should probably do some laundry. I don't know what's clean and what's dirty anymore. But I'll probably do laundry tomorrow night, when I need to find things to occupy me for over twenty-four hours… 

he offically hasn't asked yet, and there is no date set yet, just a knowing of getting married, so i'm sorry it wasn't finalzed yet, but it's not like you call me at all. through this whole thing meeting you and being sisters i've hardly seen you, and we don't talk. there for a while you wouldn't even answer my phone calls or write me back online. i'm telling you know cause the possiblity of the wedding is getting more real by the day. i had told you when you were over last time that we were going to get married, i'm sorry i didn't specify how soon it would be, cause honestly i didn't know. i just got his ring, and he's getting mine this week. <other sister> and i are not fighting right now, and i'm contacting you to let you know what is going on. to blunt here, i don't feel like you care what goes on here. you've kept yourself so far away it's hard to keep in contact with you about everything. you say you're busy, well so am i. i do love you though, and i'm wanting my sisters in my wedding. let me know i'm not wanting to fight with you.

I am so unbelievably pissed off right now. Unbelievably pissed. There's a LOT more backstory to this drama, but I don't feel like detailing it, and the bitterness I harbor towards them, and they towards me. (A random example, they think I think I'm "better than them" because I'm in college.) I heard that one awhile back. A pretty long time ago, actually, but that's just not something you can forget. Mmhmm.

So, the response. (Which is, as a few of my friends will concur, the culmination of a LOT of bitterness due to recent events.)

Yes, I DON'T CALL YOU. Because I am sick and tired of being left out of every-fucking-thing, and it's EASIER for me to stay away than to deal with the fucking drama.

Which IS the ONLY time you call me, when you're fighting with <other sister>, and vice versa. I'm not going to be damn guilt tripped when the only time you people ever bother to contact me is when you're pissed at the other person.

I'm not going to put out any effort when all I get in return is a call whining about how angry you are at Stacie and how hurt you are by what she said, and the same thing for her calling or writing when she's mad at you. That's all I ever hear, and it's bullshit. And you wonder why I don't call. Never mind the fact you guys have set up your own life down there, and I got pushed out IMMEDIATELY because I'm in college, and I don't live most of the time in Alabama anyway.

I have held this in for SO fucking long, and I'm tired of it. For that matter, my best friend is damn tired of hearing about it. About how hurt I get (God forbid I have hurt feelings) because of you two and your little secrets that I don't know about, about those stupid bulletins "Hey are you happy you're NUMBER ONE in my top eight again" and all the little stupid shit that adds up.

No, I don't call. I'm too fucking hurt, and I'm sick and tired of getting the stupid ass guilt trip about how I don't call and I don't do this and I don't do that. Because it is NOT just my fucking fault! When all you two do is call and whine to me, don't wonder why I don't write back!

Though I seriously am giving <other sister> props here, she called me up a few days ago and we chatted for a few minutes (I was going to class) and she was just saying hello, which was REALLY nice. And I appreciated it.

You don't want to fight, fine. But I'm not putting up with a guilt trip about EVERYTHING *I* don't do when you don't do much either.

(And, to maintain some sense of a LITTLE bit of civility) I'm going to bed early now. Tomorrow I have to stay up 24 hours before I go back into the hospital. 'Bye.

Gah. You know, maybe they're RIGHT. And I DON'T understand them. Because I don't understand how anyone can be so blatantly in denial about what's going on now. What's BEEN going on. Check your damn phone bill and your wonderful myspace blog entries and see how nicely the dates coincide with the fights. Seriously. And you REALLY wonder why I put myself away from that shit?

And one more thing. Stop resenting me because Dad stayed with my mother for a whopping two years after I was born. Here's a hint: He cheated on her too! And frankly, he DIED three days before Christmas, so I'm sure he'd have left me, too, if he had the damn option!

I am desperately trying right now to piece together how I feel. I feel disjointed, disconnected, unattached, all the adjectives. I feel like I don’t belong in my own skin right now, kind of like I’m observing a stranger. A stranger who looks like me, who has the same stage make-up on (from a dance dress rehearsal tonight) and who’s wearing my clothes and jewelry, and whose feelings are unknown to me.

Am I happy? Maybe.

Am I scared? Maybe.

Am I depressed? Maybe.

Am I angry? Maybe.

Am I tired? Maybe.

Am I apathetic? Seems so.

I wish I had one of those damn “feeling” wheels they give you in places like NA/AA meetings, in-patient hospitalization type-settings.

Maybe this is part of the antibiotics affecting my Lamictal, I don’t know. I like broomsticks and mardi gras beads. And breadsticks. And reaching for my ceiling. Reaching for my ceiling. I can’t touch it laying down on my bed. Obviously. But I wish I could.

I wish I could do a lot of things. Feeling like ME again…that’s one of them, too.

hey <insert short sentence here>… but i need ya to call me soon cause i have to get your messurments for my wedding!!!!!!! love you!

That, ladies and gentlemen, is how I found out my sister is getting married. Fair warning, I am NOT a happy camper right now. Deal.

My sister, that I met last November (assuming I'm remembering properly). My sister that came down here to visit me, sometime around that time frame, is getting married to a guy she's been dating/talking to since late November.

My sister, who was so upset because I was in school in (god forbid!) Atlanta because she wanted me to come home often, to see her when she moved to Alabama. So we could be close, because she always wanted her sisters. Sure, you did.

Out of sight, out of mind is the thought that springs to my mind here. Yes, honey, I'm sure you wanted a sister. You wanted a sister to call and bitch to whenever you and our other sister got in a fight, just like she did. I am NOT going to listen to your complaints and moans and shit anymore. I'm not. You don't have the decency to call me or contact me more than about once a month or two months, and you yell at ME because "I don't put forth any effort." I think the fact that the STUPID message up there is the way I had to find out you were getting freaking MARRIED speaks for itself, don't you?

Let me tell you something. I am having major, major health problems right now. I am a full-time student. I have an internship. I have a job. I have Studio Dance Theather and other college-related activities I have to do. I bust my ass to come home when I get a chance to, but I can't even drive now because of these health problems. Are you willing to come by and pick me up so we can go do something? Oh, wait, you're hanging out most of the time around you fiancee that you've known all of less than even SIX months, so it's not even us hanging out anyway. Oh well!

Yeah, I'll be in the wedding. IT'll be a BLAST knowing just how important the 'sister you always wanted' is to you.

Out of sight, out of mind, people. 

The downside…my eye is bloodshot, and swollen shut. I'm not entirely sure what to do, but (as usual) I see the lovely doctor tomorrow, so I will know more then.

I fell asleep around ten-ish. I think. I can't remember. And now, I am up again. But I want to go back to bed, kind of. I will soon.

I have people calling me. A person, whom we'll call Brian. More than they have lately in approximately the last year, and being more of a friend (?) than they have in the past three. Three years, does that really add up right? Two years, maybe. I have such sporadic contact with him, I don't know. I like talking more to him. He was, once, a huge part of my life. He was a huge part of my life from…when I was fourteen/fifteen, in the ninth grade…to my junior year. From 2000 – 2003; and again my freshman year of college, in the fall 04/early spring 05. I have known him for over six years– my years in Jr. High, in seventh and eighth grade, I was an acquaintance of his, for I was head over heels in crush with one of his friends, Michael.

Which is why we started talking. And we happened to fall for each other. Oops.

I laugh now to think of the pictures that he took of me and Michael, only to get Michael to give me a hug, because I was too shy to do it myself. Michael was a skinny junior in high school when I was in eighth grade. We all played the trumpet, and jeez, how they messed with me. I was the favorite rookie, but gods, I was so awkward. I could never talk to Michael, and after awhile, having a crush on him was something I was known for; just as he was known for getting into trouble for his "unnatural hair colors". Pink, purple, and blue.

There were three of them, Brian, Michael, and a guy named Dustin. All upperclassmen of our high school's trumpet line, all that loved to mess with me. I vividly recall them (and the section leader, Jason) wanting me to flash them one day. (I showed them my stomach, and told them that's all they got.) I remember the very perverted messages in my band folder; some including raping a bunny with a rake (all in the form of a rhyming poem, in fact).

Most of all, I remember when Brian and I began. In Florida, on the band trip. We sat on a picnic table– literally, on– and talked all evening. He said later he fell in love with me that night; with the skinny, awkward blonde geek that I was. I had never really spoken to him before, and I fell in like that night. Because, naturally, I was the girl with the crush on Michael.

Within the next two weeks, Brian and I started dating. So much for that crush on Michael. The next several years of my life were spent in a tale rivaling Romeo and Juliet in melodrama and intense periods of true happiness (in getting engaged to be married) and despair (in my suicide attempt).

As for now…the friend thing? It feels a bit weird, but also like coming home. There are some people you just can't throw away, and someone so big a part of my life… he's known me at my best and worst, my true worst, and still loved me in spite of my faults. And we had our problems, big problems. People change, they get therapy, and some things need to come full circle.

And now I know that it's okay. It's okay to keep some people in your life, to speak on the phone every once in awhile, and have a civil conversation; a genuinely good conversation. Nothing will ever be like it was between myself and Brian, but I don't want it to be. But friendship? That gets a definitive yes. :)

On the subject of phone conversations…I am happy. I think we've finalized plans with me going to see Chris. (YAY!) I can't wait to see him. I talked to him early tonight (of course) and after looking up some dates for a couple high-school graduations I must attend (eek!), I told him when I should be all set to come up there. Finally!

Just something I want to record…here, now… I had a great time talking to Chris yesterday night. In case you don't know, I have a stuffed Gizmo that comes everywhere with me, I sleep with it, no questions asked. Gizmo is there, a part of my life. A large part because it's 22 years old, this stuffed animal, and he used to be my fathers. So now, I keep him with me. And we were trying so hard to do the Gizmo voice. I have not laughed so hard in a long, long time. It was SO much fun. I don't know why, but it was just so funny to me. It was one of the best moments I've had the past couple of weeks. I'm really thankful for that.

Anyway. There is a potential bedtime in my future in the next several minutes, so goodnight for now. Gizmo and I … we're heading out.

Yeah. Happy Easter to you.

(I have no life. I got bored tonight, and made this, okay?)

(And whatever, copyright and stuff.) 

I walked back into my room last night. That sounds weird. My room. It's not, really. It hasn't been since I first left for college in August of 2004. I recognize it, but I don't. I know it's my room, but it…isn't. There are the pink (yes, pink) walls, with the flowered border. I have so many memories of this place, but I don't have any at all. I remember sneaking my ex-boyfriend over to see him. I remember the years of teenage angst and drama and the cutting of my skin. (Thankfully, a lot of the scars are no longer visible.) I remember falling asleep every night to Sleeping Beauty or Beauty and the Beast or Aladdin. I remember buying all the crystal trinkets on my bookcase (carousel horses, dolphins, and various other trinkets). I also remember when that bookcase was absolutely crammed with the Sweet Valley High: Senior Year, Sweet Valley High, Baby-sitter's Club, and Gaia book series. I also had a few books from the Thoroughbred series. And other various books, random psychology textbooks from my college courses while I was in high school. If we want to get truly personal and add in a bit of TMI, it's also the room that I was in when I first tried on a bra, I refused to try something so "personal" on in a department store. It's where my cousins and I developed our secret "Unicorn Club" that had two members. It was supposed to be three, but my cousins fought so often (they were sisters) that it ended up typically being one or the other in the clandestine meetings held in the ricky old treehouse in the backyard. (The treehouse that wasn't really a treehouse. It was on the ground, propped up on wooden poles and made of wood. We had a secret handshake and password. We had secret "elegant" names like Jessica and Miranda and Olivia. We had "dues" of a quarter, and I was the President.)

Memories.

It's also the room my cousins and I locked ourselves in to hide from her brother, when we wanted to gossip. (We still do, when we're all together.) It's the room with the broken door because I accidentally slammed it too hard in one of my mother's and my legendary arguments. It's the room I did my homework in at 3AM in high school, the room with the completely trashed closet because I have too many clothes and ballet costumes in there. It's where I jumped on the bed because I was bored, even at age seventeen.

I remember all this, but I don't. They're faded memories, but they're there. They feel fuzzy in my mind, but at least they're there.

In the meantime, I will be taking care of my eye that is swelling shut, the sores, and getting some damn sleep. Ciao.

Having been there personally, it's pretty damn complicated. Having studied it academically, it's even more damn complicated. But what about someone you're afraid for?

I can name about six different people, offhand, who will read this and tell me I'm absolutely nuts and I need to focus on my own damn self and my own health issues. Too fucking bad. Because I don't DO that. This is reminiscent of the question I posed to my therapist today, when I got the weekly lecture about needing to eat more than I do and to take better care of myself. I interrupted her (shame on me) and asked her, "Since when have I been the type of person to worry about myself first?"

She said she didn't know. And I don't know. So, there.

I have a friend, who I have not seen or heard from since April 6th. Seven days. Which, even if it is not unreasonable, is worrisome in the situation that we are in. Disney world, stuffed animals, Alaska, Christmas lights, and sprinklers in the bathroom. Remember? I hope you are okay.

ON the other hand, I know I am one of those people that people tend to worry about. I don't like this. I just…don't. I don't get sick, I don't like attention. I don't care, really, if I am visibly ill (which, apparently, I am), or whatever. There are only so many ways to say "I'm okay" and even fewer ways when you can't tell your ass from your elbow and you mix up words all the time.

Negativity. It's all negativity. But right now, I am not an optimistic person.

Except I did get a wonderful present in the mail today. Three books off the wishlists I posted, from THE boy. *insert random winking smiley here* That absolutely made my day. Right from the morning. And this is a short entry because I'm going to go start reading one of those books. 

First and foremost, I am confused.

It is Tuesday. It is Tuesday. Technically. It is not Wednesday. Not yet.

I now have two new medicines. To pull my body together. Properly. Work properly. (Did I spell that right?) The antibiotics are for the staph infection. Because the first ones didn’t work so damn well. And it can interfere with the Lamictal.

Read: Potentially make me completely fucking insane.

This is my life. I am tired, I am sore, I feel like hell. And I hate people. Or my brain. I hate my brain. And I hate hospitals.

Disjointed, nonsensical rambling. It all is. Nonsense.

Bed.

Charlie has a fanmail page now. Enjoy.

(More will be written when I feel a bit better. I am out of sorts right now, sorry.)

When my schedule is finalized for next year, Fall semester, I’ll post it. I am holding off on posting it because I am waiting on two things to go through. In one case, I have a meeting with a professor to see if I can bypass the Introduction and Intermediate Fiction writing classes and just go straight into the 300-level workshop, given my past and present experiences with creative writing as a subject. So, I’m looking to meet with her next week. In another case, I am waiting on an application to go through for approval in another class, which I’m fairly certain is pretty set in acceptance. All of that probably sounds really conceited, but it is 3:44AM right now, and I’m not particularly bothered enough to care.

It is Sunday now. I have to write two response papers: one for a ballet video, and one for a ballet performance I went to see. I have to write a five-page paper on a biography for my Women’s Studies (I have selected Emma Goldman; someone new to do). I have to re-write a paper on Gendered Organizations for revising, to bring the grade from a B to an A. I have to do a set of math problems, except I may wait on those and speak to the professor on Monday, because it’s straight numbers, and I’m having trouble with numbers lately, mixing them up more than usual. (Probably due to my current lack of focus in anything, but whatever.) It won’t be too hard to do. I can do the biography paper in about an hour, easily, and the others in about ten-fifteen minutes. Assuming I get the motivation to do them. I have another paper to write, too, but I’ve forgotten what it is. It’s due on Tuesday, so I can ask my roommate (who, for some reason, keeps track of my life better than I do) what it is. I wrote this down on a piece of paper, but it’s been lost somewhere. I will find it after Tuesday, when it won’t matter anymore.

I really, REALLY hope they find out what is wrong with me soon. This memory loss is driving me insane, in a very real sense of the word. I feel like I am losing all touch with reality. It does not help that I have acquired a staph infection from the hospital (MRSA, I don’t recommend researching it unless you like to be a bit grossed out) that has spread from one sore on my ribs to three additional sores on my hip, back, and leg. I can deal with this, though. They are working on treating it without me going back into the hospital more than necessary. It is my luck to gather a staph infection that does not respond to antibiotics well at all and leaves me with open…sores. And that sounds disgusting. It IS disgusting. I have a brain wave scan coming up this week. The MRI was on this past Friday. It wasn’t so bad. April 21st is the EEG, sleep-deprived. It is also the same day of opening night of the dance concert.

I will be pleased if I don’t pass out on stage.

May 5th, hopefully, this ordeal will come to a close, and I will have my COMPLETE mind back, my memory. I won’t have any more seizures. I’ll be okay. Just in time for finals, too. But it is May 5th that I will have the test results back, all of them, in my neurologist’s office, and I can start working on getting rid of the seizures, gaining my memory back, and begin feeling more alive again. I hate feeling so lost.

It’s almost over. Almost there. And I have Charlie in the meantime.

He’s cute. He’s graceful, elegant, and has a sense of humor. He has patience, and is infinitely wise in his “live life and do what you want” philosophy. He has beautiful dark brown eyes that I can just stare into forever and ever, and has the softest skin. He’s not afraid to show his emotions, but is most often just content. Sometimes, when I look at him, I feel like he might be thinking “What the fuck is going on here?” but that’s just understandable. We have a unique connection, him and I.

Charlie is…simply Charlie. He makes me smile when I am stressed out or crying, he gives me a reason to keep working in life. He gives me direction when I have none. He gives me hope for the world! His patience is unending, his consistency in his life is unwavering. I like that kind of consistency.

Meet Charlie.

Some people like to download music. I am one of those people. I love my utorrent, and I will spend weekends going through and selecting CDs or even movies to download. My recent favorites have been Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Closer. I think I have actually mentioned this before. Do I remember? No, I never do. Right now, I am downloading Grey’s Anatomy season 1 and season 2 episodes 1-20. When this finishes, I may move on to Family Guy. I actually like that show.

I know a few people who love to read, and learn. Again, this is something I do. Particularly when I am bored. I recently recieved a textbook I ordered– Charts of World Religions– and am planning on flipping through it and reading it as soon as I am bored and in a mood to learn. Read and learn, study something new.

Sometimes, though, I go off and do something I’m not sure I’ve heard anyone talk about doing when they are bored. Recently, I made a photobucket account filled with various Within Temptation icons. Not only that, I sorted these icons in to various sub-albums. Last night, it was smilies.

Yes, those lovely little emoticons. I think I need a life. Or, perhaps, a different hobby. The smilies are fun, though. I will (more than likely) post a link to the album in which I am keeping them when I’m done uploading them. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

(I am. )

1) Who is your protagonist?
Hanalia — The Guardian over Llevaeh. She was raised by her parents until she was thirteen, which is the pre-determined age for each person to become mature enough to take over as Guardian of Llevaeh. After she becomes the Guardian, she must personally process the souls of her parents to grant them reincarnation abilities. She spends ten years ruling over Llevaeh when war breaks out on Earth, and suddenly a vast number of souls arrive in Llevaeh for processing. Most of this goes smoothly, but right at the beginning of the processing of this mass number, one slips through the cracks while adjustments are being made to the system to accomodate such a large number. Hanalia takes on responsibility for this one soul, Damerian. Through tending to him, she develops an ability to love and care for him. After a realization that she cannot give him the ability to reincarnate– which he wants– she realizes that the only way to give him this ability is to give her own self to be killed and then processed with him, and leave Llevaeh. First, she must have a child to raise until the age of maturity, so she must convince Damerian to have sex with her. Right now, I'm uncertain as to how this will play out, but either way, she will have to learn to cope with emotions she has not dealt with before.

2) What is his/her main conflict or goal?
Hanalia's main struggle is learning how to handle emotions and feelings she wasn't even aware of and has never learned how to deal with, and most importantly, deciding what sacrifices she is willing to make for her child and/or Damerian.

3) What does she/he most want? Why?
She wants to be able to give Damerian what makes him the happiest, the ability to be reincarnated and go back to life on Earth and have a "second chance".

4) What subplots or plot layers come immediately to mind?
Hanalia learning what love is.
Hanalia learning how to handle emotions she knows nothing about.
Hanalia choosing between her child and Damerian.

5) Who are important secondary/supporting characters? What are their main problems, conflicts, and/or goals? What do they want?
Hanalia's daughter (Celestia) will come into play in a major way later on in the book; and Hanalia will be raising her as she was raised, but will also not be able to raise her without giving her the ability to love. This will bring up complications with Celestia, who, being raised with love and compassion, may not be able to fully handle the processing of the souls that will occur. Hanalia's parents will be mentioned periodically throughout the book, not only in explaining some of the reason for Hanalia's development emotionally, but also in explaining some of the culture of Llevaeh. Mardienk is Halania's "right-hand man" who delivers the orders from her and keeps a closer eye on things than she has the ability to. He is a processed soul, but waived his right to reincarnation to be able to assist each human in his or her Guardianship. He is a bit power-hungry, and will attempt to influence Hanalia into making a decision that benefits himself the most.

6) Who is your antagonist? What are his/her conflicts and goals? What does she/he most want? How do they conflict with your protagonist's?
Damerian is a soul whose processing went…wrong. He is still, technically, dead, but unlike the other souls, he hasn't been stripped of any mental functions or emotions. As a result, he is traumatized by what he sees in Llevaeh, and wants nothing more than to be reincarnated so he can go to Earth, completely having his mind erased of anything he witnessed in Llevaeh, and starting anew.

—-
Hanalia is a human born into Llevaeh, which is, for most humans, purgatory. It is where the soul travels AFTER death. Not someplace they are born. Obviously, Hanalia is an exception.Like her family before her, Hanalia grew up learning and presiding over Llevaeh. She became acquainted with the various souls that worked for her and her family, learned how to guide and train those that worked on the assembly line, processing souls, and adapted to the ever-changing environment and population of Llevaeh. For all its change, really, it wasn't such a hard task to handle. Everything was the same, after all.

Including the souls. Sometimes she wondered what would happen if just one change could be made to the processing, to make the souls more alive, more enjoyable. Right now, the things are dull. Boring. In her heart, she knew she could never make an alteration to the assembly line. The results were too unpredictable, and that wasn't a chance she was willing to take.

But when a war breaks out on the Earth below and a nuclear bomb is detonated, Hanalia learns exactly what will happen when the processing must be speeded up and when a soul slips through the cracks. Because this soul has already been processed once, even unsuccessfully, further processing will destroy it forever.

As it stands now, Hanalia gains a new job in Llevaeh: guarding and watching over this one soul, who is traumatized by the world he left behind and shocked at the things he witnesses in his afterlife. Hanalia has grown up in this environment, so it is all she knows. She can’t comprehend how anyone can be horrified at what he sees, how anyone can have empathy to non-living (as she considers the souls) things. She is amazed at how the screams and the monotony brings him to tears. Similarly, he does not know how a woman can be so seemingly apathetic to what he views as people, spirits. He wonders if he is losing his mind, moreso than one normally would in simply becoming a spirit after death.

Gradually, he has to learn to adjust to this shocking lifestyle. In several attempts by Hanalia to do what she can to grant him reincarnation, as is the standard process, she finds that because he was only half-processed, he will never be able to rejoin Earth. By this point, she has come to care about him and fall in love, a feeling that is new and unusual for her.

She keeps her findings about his reincarnation to herself as she attempts to find a way through for him and also hold on to him at the same time. While she is struggling through this, he is continually questioning about when he will get to leave this “inhumane” place, completely unaware about the feelings she has for him– because she does not know how to express them. In the end, Hanalia discovers a way to be able to let him go and allow him to be reincarnated without killing him, but she will have to leave also. She has to find a way to convince him to love her, as she does him, and then give birth to a child to rule over Llevaeh when she (and he) both leave.

You may notice to the side that there is a new numerology report linked. Yes, a numerology report. Curiosity killed the cat, and then the cat ran up a tree in fear of how accurate it was. Or perhaps in fear of how too introspective I am. Either or, it doesn't matter now. It is there, for you to read if you desire. Some of the key points from this thing, the more accurate points that I found upon skimming it.

&the Random Pulled Tidbits™: 

• Change will be a recurring event throughout your life, and you will welcome these changes as gateways to new opportunities and the development of free will. With time you will become a defender of freedom. You will view the world through liberal's eyes, and will most likely champion the causes of the world's underdogs.
• Your life’s mission is to build things which will improve the plight of humanity.
• Your soul yearns for beauty, balance and a stable, warm home. You are loyal and affectionate, and need to protect, nurture and love your family for your soul to feel complete. You need the full commitment of marriage to fully satisfy you.
• 7s are intelligent, perceptive and introspective.
• 7 Personalities can be difficult to get close to. They have the air of a mystic about them and can be quite aloof. Also, 7s love their privacy.
• A 4 Balance Number denotes a real need for self control during stressful times.
• A 14 Karmic Debt Number indicates that you have abused your right to freedom. Possibly you increased you freedom to act at the costs of others, or you exercised your free will in ways that abused your own spirit (e.g., drug use). The solution for you is to find a true path to freedom that does not harm you or others around you.
• Having an E End Letter denotes someone who will bring a creative bent to project throughout its lifetime. You will be around to see it finished, because in the end it will probably be “your baby.”

Read more that way. ——->

I have a lot of work to do, so this is all for today. 

We will run away, with the sprinklers, the Disney movies, the popcorn. We'll have a blast.

The padded room and trampolines. The delicious smelling candles.
I promise. The best roommates ever!

Stay strong, darling. 

I told someone today I felt like I was about to lose it. In a very big, very dramatic way. I don't want to. I like having things under control, as best as I can. But I'm losing my mind. I'm losing my sanity. I feel like I'm living in an alternate universe. I shouldn't be spending Fridays/Saturdays in hospitals having tests run on my brain, I shouldn't be having seizures.

I should be dancing. I should be studying. I should not be this way. THIS way. The way I am now. 

I shouldn't be forgetting dates the day I make them. I shouldn't be forgetting what I have to do today, what days my classes are on, any of that. 

So I'm going to make a to-do list. And I'm gonna try to keep it updated. I'll make a new page in here. It'll be listed on the right side, I think with everything else. To feel more in control. Yes. 

I want to be loved.

I want to sleep. Sleep in that peaceful, seemingly eternal sleep. A kind of sleep that lasts forever, at least forever in this moment of time. With no worries of tests, projects, nothing like that. That doesn't matter anymore, not right now.

It doesn't matter that you went to the hospital today, that you saw a neurologist. That they took your (high) blood pressure and your (low) body temperature. You're asleep, not walking from the fifth floor, where the neurologist is, down to the second floor for vials and vials of blood being drawn for endless tests. Dates of month, days of the year don't matter like they did when you were paying the doctor and listening to him set up your appointments for an MRI, a brain wave scan, a sleep EEG, and a follow-up appointment with him, in a month, to learn the results of these tests.

One test per week, all on Fridays.

I am happy, mostly. (You can be happy, but still be tired. They're not mutually exclusive, you know…) My joints ache, I forget what I've said moments before, or where I am at. I am bruised all over my body from dance, I'm propped up on pillows while typing this (like I usually am, the wooden desk chair hurts). I scheduled my classes for next year today (I'll list them all when it is official), I got a book on world religions and a book on teaching that happened to come with the four childrens' music CDs I wanted, and I have my Gizmo. I'm happy, for the moment.

But so uncomfortable at the same time.

Rest, for now. Sleep, fall away into the pillows that sometimes make me sneeze in the morning. Dream the most wonderful dreams until my feet get cold because the blanket sometimes doesn't cover them. Stare at my screensaver pictures until I drift away and it all begins…

Good night. 

Memories. Having the ability to erase something from a memory. Would you do it? Erase a piece of you, a memory, a part of your life, a part of your reality?

Life, in general, doesn’t feel real. To me…it’s not real. It can’t be.

What is real, anyway? What is reality? What is the concept behind erasing a memory and taking away a part of your life that you cannot relive? Why is it that… ‘once this is done, it’s done. This is your new life.’ Translation…your new reality.

We have a basic concept of reality, from the time we are old enough to comprehend this idea. Our lives? They’re real. Our hands, our face, our lips, our eyes…they’re all real. The toys we play with as a child, they’re real. The food we eat that Mommy fixes for us is real, the clothes we wear are real, the shoes we learn to tie the shoelaces on are real. Living and reality are interconnected, they can’t be seperated. We have make-believe friends that “aren’t real” but our imagination that creates these… our thinking… that is “real.” How are these seperated?

As we grow older, we are told that our thoughts and feelings are real. Happiness, joy, love, lust, envy, anger, greed, pain, sorrow, and sadness are all real. If we feel them, they are real. They are real to us. Our thoughts, our memories, what we know, is all real. The sports we play, the friends we gossip to, the family we see at family gatherings are all real.

There’s a surrealness about this all. There is an aspect of the surreal in reality itself.

Right now, I am a college student. I have five books and one magazine on the computer desk. I also have six prescription bottles and a glass of Diet Coke on this desk, which is where my computer monitor, keyboard, and computer mouse sit. By the prescription bottles is the alarm clock, which shows 12:39AM. There is a portable DVD player behind the monitor, and a cordless phone right in front of it. I’m listening to Pale, by Within Temptation, on my headphones. It just ended, and now it’s playing Forsaken by the same band. There is a tube of Carmex and Neosporin by my diet coke, which is by the books. I’m wearing black shorts and a slush puppy t-shirt. I am sore from dance, and my shoulder is particularly aching. I have nineteen bruises on my legs that I can see to count, small ones that make me look like a human leopard. I have three AIM IM windows up, but they’re all tabbed in DeadAim. I have Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Closer downloading on my computer via Utorrent. I am twenty years old when I can remember my age correctly, otherwise I am eighteen.

You see that last sentence? I am twenty years old when I can remember correctly. Correctly as in, remember the number of years that have gone by since I was born, as it is printed on all of my identification. What if I forgot, forever, how old I was? What if I became another one that slipped through the cracks and somehow…I was forgotten by the government? If I forgot my memories, the people in my life.

"You get a card in the mail that says: someone you know has just erased you from their memory…" (The basis of the idea for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.)

What if it was deliberate memory loss? There are so many people I used to know that have almost entirely slipped my mind now, unless I struggle to try and remember them. Flip through an old schoolbook, you see the names and recognize the faces, but they mean nothing to you now, and more than likely, vice versa. More recently, in the past five years of my life, I remember being hurt so desperately by people I wanted them gone. Go away, I’m finished with you. And I would push them to the back of my mind. Never to think of them again, until for whatever reason, I absolutely had to. But for all purposes, they were erased. What if this were deliberate, though? What if I had the ability to forget them on purpose?

Would I ever actually erase a time, a memory, or a person from my mind? What if you actually forgot someone, only to meet them again? Fate, destiny, coincidence, whatever. What if your life, your memory, was gone, and all you knew and remembered was today? If you had a chance to relive a life with someone, past memories forgotten, would you? Could you? If you had a chance to relive an experience, a memory you had a bad thing associated with, would you?

Would you erase something for a chance to do it over again? Erase all the memories involving a person you used to love, but had been hurt by– for a chance to do it all over again?

But with the possibility that it would never happen again?

Obsessive-compulsive much? At any rate, this is the entry for today.

Nothing terribly deep or pondering about it. Though there is a good bit I do want to rant and rave about. I have no energy to do that right now, though. No energy equals no desire. No desire to do much of anything except lay on my bed, aching and sore, propped up on pillows with my wireless keyboard in my lap and my headphones on so I can listen to all one hundred Within Temptation songs I have.

Yes, I am quite serious about that.

My schedule this week has been incredibly busy. Almost insanely busy. Monday itself wasn’t so bad. In fact, it was pretty nice. A casual, calm day. Tuesday was busy. I had work and classes, and then I had an audition for a dance piece in the spring concert– which I got into. (Yay.) Today– Wednesday– I woke up vomiting. I had to cancel all the appointments I had today– I had an appointment with my therapist, an appointment with a doctor, and an appointment with my academic advisor. None of those happened. I tried to go to class, only to get sent back (I must have looked awful, but whatever), and I slept the rest of the day until seven this evening, when I had to get up and go to a dance rehearsal for the piece I got accepted into last night. From seven until ten. I spent most of the time dancing and all of the time trying not to throw up again. (At this point, there was nothing in my stomach, but seeing as to how I threw up pure stomach acid a few times, it wasn’t something I wanted to repeat.)

Now, after a nap after dance, I’m feeling a tiny bit better. I was able to eat an apple and a salad, and I don’t feel so nauseous anymore. So, tomorrow– Thursday– my day is as such: Work at internship site from 9 – 12:30. Try to get back in to see the doctor at 1PM. Leave there, go straight to class (at 2). Get out of class at 3:15. From 4 – 6 I usually have a class, but I might not tomorrow, depending on circumstances. (God, I hope I have a break.) Then I have dance practice from 7 – 10PM.

Friday, I have class from 9 – 10AM, work from 10 – 2, and dance practice from 3 – 8PM. Saturday and Sunday I have dance from 10 – 4PM.

I’m exhausted. There’s no other way to phrase this. My body is so very, very sore. I mean…my sides hurt, my back REALLY hurts, my arms and legs are aching rather painfully. I am happy I got into this dance piece, don’t get me wrong…but everything hurts right now. I want a full-body massage. That would be great. Or about five heating pads.

Ow. This dance piece is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I guess that’s why I’m so tired even though I quite literally slept all day. I just want some peace, some physical serenity. That’s all, right now…

Sometimes, I wonder why in the hell people come to me with their problems. Is it because I am a good listener? Because I (for the most part, I won’t lie) tend to geniunely care about people, especially people I consider my friends, and I try to offer sensible advice and/or a reality check? (Yes, some people do get wind of my smartass mouth, but there are just some things that seem blatantly obvious, and I tend to have moments of “they cannot be serious” and react accordingly.)

I got a call from one of my sisters today. I haven’t mentioned them much in this blog, primarily because my family life is so unbelievably messed up that I’m not entirely sure who I am related to and who I am not. It seems that she and my other sister (that I know) got into a fight. My other sister, S (I’ll just use initials for the sake of privacy) has apparently decided she doesn’t need M in her life. That she doesn’t need, want, or have to have anything to do with her. Naturally, M is hurt.

As for myself, I am not surprised. S has pulled this shit before with me. It’s a back and forth game you grow numb to after awhile. You get tired of having stories and lies spread about you, you get tired of giving all you can to a human leech, and then getting yelled at and “cut out of her life.”

People, as a whole, take other people for granted. We don’t feel a need to treasure every single moment we have with someone, because they’ll always be there for us, right? They’re not going to leave. We will end today and wake up tomorrow, and all will be the same. We get confronted with problems, sometimes over and over again, and we work them out, and we move on. Nothing will change, our relationships will be eternal. “GTG, TTYL,” has many fans and is a frequently used phrase. Got to go, talk to you later.

In some cases, though, today is the end of any tomorrows. Sometimes, things are damaged to a point where they just can’t be salvaged. Other times, people become unwilling to try to work things out. They get scared. They will never admit it, but they get scared. Sometimes, you run out of tomorrows, plain and simple. We take people for granted until given a reason not to. We do the opposite of what we should. They’re always going to be there.

M and S’s relationship will never be the same. M’s not like me, she won’t go back to her over and over again. She’s hurt. Of course, she has a reason to be hurt. Me…I like to try and fix things. Hang on to people I know I should. Sometimes too much, sometimes at the wrong time. But it’s not because I’ve done it voluntarily. I’ve taken a lot of people for granted, people I shouldn’t have taken for granted. At first, it was my mother. Then she got a death sentence of a week, was in ICU, and all I could think about was everything I’d done wrong. Granted…it’s fair to say my mother is not perfect. But no one is. Things are better between us than they ever have been before. I’m not above admitting, however, that had she been perfectly happy, had she not been so sick, things would probably have continued on the same path they did throughout my teenage years.

It’s hard to digest, though, when attempting to pull certain things in life together, that some things, some people, refuse. And then you wonder why you wasted those years, those opportunities. Why you argued and fought, and now that person can only remember the fights. Not the good memories, just the fights. Not the inside jokes, the birthdays, the secrets, the love, the knowledge (at the time) that they’d always be there, no matter what. But then it happens, the person refuses. And you sit, and wonder how much time to you devote to making things right? If you think it’s worth it, you keep trying. But for how long? When is enough enough?

Eventually, though, you give up. You have to. You just have this hope, in the back of your mind, that they’ll change their mind. Sometimes, you cry. You might get angry. But eventually…it will fade away. It’s a matter of taking what’s offered to you at that time– because someday, there won’t be any tomorrows, and it will be too late. That’s it. That’s the end.

Then comes the regret. “Why did I say no?” and the tell-all, “What might have been?”

Things change. I don’t want to have any more regrets. I have enough of those. But there comes a time when there’s nothing left to give. I am holding on, but I can only do it for so long.

Checkmate. Game over.

1) Most people consider this fact to be astonishingly weird about me: I study extracurricular things in addition to being in school. Right now, it's various world religions. Before that, I became quite well versed in psychological disorders, fairy tales, Charles Manson & the Family, and a bit of sign language (which I am still working on, only I believe I may sign up to take a class in signing at another university this upcoming academic year). Oh, and naturally there are all the how-to's and whatnots I studied for my writing career. (I'm also dabbling in and out of studying Romanian, as I want to work overseas for two years teaching after I finish up college in the United States.)

2) When I was in tenth grade in high school, I took a full-time summer college course load (four classes). Three of which were under a man who had worked with forensics. I did extra work with him outside the classes and seriously considered an internship offering to work in this type of investigative field. I ended up attending regular high school after that summer, but still retained the knowledge on reading people and how to investigate things. It was fascinating.

3) Grey's Anatomy is the one television show I have ever found worth watching every single episode, and I continue to do so. In addition to posting on a Grey's Anatomy message board. I have never been a large fan of television.

4) Alice in Wonderland– both the book and the movie– are fascinating to me. I often feel like my life is as tumultuous as Alice's. Chasing a rabbit to a fantasyland through the looking glass. I wonder what my own world would be. "Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary, what it is, it wouldn't be, and what it wouldn't be, it would." (Quoted from the movie.)

5) I misplace my mind a lot. At least, it seems that way. If I get worried or stressed, it's hard for me to string my thoughts and feelings into sentences. Instead, I tend to say short, jarring things, or struggle to find a picture, song lyrics, anything to convey what I literally cannot at that moment in time.

6) I am having a really hard time trying to come up with more things to say. I think of myself as being a rather boring person. There, you see? That's number six.

The world seems not the same
Though I know nothing has changed
It's all my state of mind
I can't leave it all behind
I have to stand up to be stronger

I have to try
To break free
From the thoughts in my mind
Use the time that I have
I can say goodbye
Have to make it right

Have to fight
'Cause I know in the end it's worthwhile
That the pain that I feel slowly fades away
It will be all right

Lyrics: Pale, Within Temptation

I don't frequently intersperse my entries with song lyrics anymore.
Once upon a time, I did. I did this frequently both at in my former
Livejournal blogs as well as my diary-x blogs. Often times, I felt,
these songs convey my feelings more accurately than my own words could
ever dream of doing. Now, upon a bit of reflection, they didn't convey
them any more accurately than I could have. I was just lazy, unwilling
to have to work through and dissect my own feelings.

Is this kind of thing, really, that all these "adults" in our
society deem as being 'teenager-itis'? In the end, does is it honestly
just chalked up to an unwillingness to be introspective before the age
of, say, eighteen? Perhaps so, but this argument would be so much
stronger if so many adults did not act the same way as the 'children'
in society do today.

To move back to the original topic of this all…when I first began
blogging, I almost instantly developed a fondness creating entries
based around song lyrics. I could sit down, open up whatever client I
was using to script an entry in whatever journal I was using at the
time. It was so astonishingly easy, I felt. Someone had created these
words, these lyrics, for my personal purposes of detailing my life in a
journal entry. All I had to do was transcript the songs, and I was
finish. The entry was completed, and from there, I could easily store
it into a box and tuck it neatly in the extensive bookshelves of my
mind.

And until such time came that I wanted to think on these things, to
reflect, these thoughts and feelings could sit there, on the bookcases
(in alphabetical order, mind), never to be dealt with again.

Bookcases can only hold so many items, though. Philosophically, one
can argue that any space, in and of itself, is both infinite and
contained, because no matter how "full" something seems, there will
always be more space– whether it is for the tiniest sliver of paper or
one millionth of an atom– because space has the potential to be halved
and divided infinitely, no matter the circumstances. These bookcases,
however, would grow to be as full as they could be in the pragmatic
sense. Too full. And the bookselves would fall the boxes would break,
and the contents fell to the dusty and dirty floor.

Then, I would have to clean it up. I have to repack and place all
these boxes back on the bookshelves. Many would consider the height of
this scenario to be the collapsing of the bookcases, the spilling of
the contents. They were all wrong. It was never that. The explosion
would come as I was kneeling down, picking up the pieces, having to be
confronted with everything I had stored away for so long. As I cleaned
up this disaster, dusted the bookcases, it was a calm serenity. It was
not until I began repacking the actual contents that it would become
too overwhelming, and the real explosion would occur.

It would be the true breaking point. Confronted by the shadows of
fear, the green cat eyes of jealousy and envy, the red silk of
sexuality and seductive sins, the blackness of fear, the spots of rage,
the blinding, flashing lights of confusion and chaos. All at once, all
attacking.

There were few, if any, good memories.

And there was never any peace. There was never any serenity.

Those flashing lights, the shrieking voices, the screaming of
desperate tears. A dusty floor surrounded by everything that was once
hidden and never fully realized until this point in time, and that's
all I had. And would be all I knew, until I could handle no more. All
would fall silent, then, soft cries of despair, regret, and anger at
myself. Everything would magically fall back into their boxes, only the
boxes would be so much, much smaller now. They would be clean, and
sealed again, and would hold in them a less intensity than they once
had. They would never again hurt as much as they once had.

I would forget. I would move on. Others might, they might not. Some
didn't, some couldn't. It would take work, but it was okay now. My
bookcases were picked up and relatively empty again. I could handle it.

But it would repeat itself.

And again, and again. I would forget, again and again. I wouldn't
remember until I revisited the past. Not through the bookcases, but
through the written contents of them, stored physically in journals.
Many, many journals. I never blogged in the same place for long.

You, too, would have run away.

Years later, I still have forgotten. Eight of my journals are gone,
now, fallen with a slain server. The rest are still around, journals no
one will ever know about, and journals of not only my life, but what I
put those around me through with the dusting of the contents.

I still revisit those journals. I will, as long as I can. I have no
physical memory of what I have said, what I have done. All I have are
the words that I once wrote, whether or not I remember writing them. I
own them, I claim them. I am ashamed, but I claim them. I am sorry.

Please know, however…I will remember this.

It’s just a bit maddening to have to feel as though you come in second place to something. Not even a person, but a true, real, non-human-type thing. And yes, I am rather bitter about this fact right now. Specifics notwithstanding, as all of this could change in the course of the next five to ten minutes. Though, frankly, I doubt it. It seems that I’ve talked to everyone but the person that I used to talk to daily, real or at least semi-real discussions that lasted more than fifteen minutes long.

The phrase, “This too shall pass,” is floating through my head right now. Or at least… “This, too, damn well better pass.” I can concede perhaps a bit more impatience than usual, because I’m under a bit of stress lately, entirely relating to my physical health and upcoming life at the doctor’s office. Which is why this is bordering on unhappy as opposed to completely fucking pissed. (Please notice I am at the “bordering on unhappy” phase right now. LOL)

But on the upside, I’ve gotten a lot done today. After sleeping until about 3:30PM, when I awoke to a rather exciting Livejournal entry by a friend of mine that happened to mention moving…from there, the day progressed to Chinese food, listening to my sick roommate, downloading CD’s and Family Guy episodes, and finally embarking on another attempt to track down at least a semi-comprehensive list of world religions.

Only on this attempt to find such a list, I succeeded! Not only with a list of religions but also a list of cults! I am extremely excited about this, and have already been flipping through these. Not only for Hell’s Light, Heaven’s Fire but for my own intellectual curiosity. It’s so interesting to play scroll-through-the-page-randomly-clicking… a bunch of religions I’ve never even heard of. Which really, isn’t that hard to believe, as there are so many religions in the first place…

I am off to play more scroll and click. Night!

Note: Again, this is simply a second part of the previous entry. If you have not read the previous entry, I suggest you do so before reading this one.

The essential plot will have the overlay of the background and all, but the main aspect will be the dark angel developing feelings of some sort for one of the low-class workers. She’s got to struggle with how the hell she can have feelings for someone, when her own soul has been processed, and furthermore to how she can love what is a robot. It’ll play into the person’s life on earth and how she hears about his background and how he lived, whatever, all that…but he’s got this shelf life, so she’s got to deal.

Or, hell, maybe she can give up and be reincarnated, though then there’s the chance they’d be two different forms, on opposite sides of the world, and never come in contact with each other.

At any rate. I have to figure out to what exact degree will her soul be processed. She’s not going to be lobotomized like most of the souls. And obviously, she’ll be far more advanced than anyone else. (Unless I end up giving her a couple of minions. Which I might.) Does she feel pleasure? Pain? Regret? Sympathy? Empathy? What should she be able to feel? Is there passion to be found here? Is there a sexual nature to this? (In such a case, would the souls have to be gendered?) Do they even develop any sort of relationship? Is there a way to advance a soul once it has been processed, or are they stuck in their level forever? If they can advance, to what degree can they advance?

And now, I hunt down a program to start jotting notes in. Suggestions are wanted and welcomed!

Assignment #1: Idea

There’s one subject in particular, one idea, that I have felt very strongly about for quite some time, and am absolutely giddy to develop and start working on.

Hell’s Light, Heaven’s Fire
This story will be set in an afterlife-type setting, where Heaven and Hell are one and the same. (Not sure of what exactly I’d call this place; but for the moment, we’ll settle on Purgatory, from Dante.) In this purgatory, when a human being and/or creature dies in the mortal planet (more than likely Earth), their souls will progress to this purgatory.

From here, the souls are processed in an assembly line type fashion– first, the physical form of the souls will be all transformed to an identical form depending on a certain classification. Then, also depending on their classification, the souls will have their spiritual and mental capabilities altered. The society in this purgatory is run, first and foremost, by a Dark Angel, who will be the main character of the story. There will then be a certain form of social classes: there will be the “grunt” workers, who will all be identical solely to one another and will have no mental capabilities. There will be those of a certain ‘higher’ rank to supervise these grunt workers and who will oversee the processing and the evaluation of each soul that passes through. These workers will, also, be identical solely to each other in their class, and will have the mental capabilities of seeing what each soul accomplished in their lifetime and will then make the judgements on what ‘class’ each new soul will come into. Then there is the final, upper class. This class oversees each set of workers in their division, and are the only ones to glimpse and speak to the Dark Angel herself.

However, the higher the class the soul is in, the shorter their time in this purgatory. The Dark Angel is forever, granted. Those that report to her have a set shelf life of one month, then they will evaporate and reincarnate in some unknown form on the mortal planet. Those in the middle ‘class’ will have a set shelf life of three months. Those in the lowest class have a set shelf life of six months. (This way, I can explore the training and thought that goes into the ranking of each soul as it is processed.)

I expect the vast majority of the story to encompass the background of the main character (the Dark Angel), the purgatory itself, and the social classes. However, underneath it all, I plan on incorporating a love story between the Dark Angel and…someone. I’m not sure as to what class he/she will be in, but it will be really exciting (for me) to explore the idea of sacrifice in a land where souls are processed and [shouldn't] have feelings.

Essentially, I really want to incorporate the basic principles of several religions and belief systems in this. Obviously, there is the Heaven/Hell Christianity aspect. But there is also (I hope) going to be the following elements:
* Buddhism (reincarnation)
* Witchcraft (I expect to somehow implement a curse/spell casting in here)
* Wicca (a respect of nature and the three-fold belief system)
* Santeria (the ancient Santeria ritual of human sacrifice)
* Hinduism (enlightment measured by karma; in this, it will be the classification system)
* Judaism (one creator as a universal ruler)
* Shinto (the ‘Matsuri’ practice, a festival honoring spirits)
* Paganism (everything has a supreme spirit) [Note: I'm refraining from the 'Godly' spirit in this, given the nature of the story]
* Mormonism (Humans are individually responsible for their own sins.)
* Kama Sutra (Celebration of love)
* Catholicism (anointment of the dying)
* Sikhism (cycles of births and deaths before reaching the ‘human’ form)

Note: I am aware of the fact that many of these elements that I’ve pulled from the individual religions share a common theme, but there is a reason I have pulled them from their respective religions– when I begin developing each aspect a bit deeper, it will tie into that individual religion. For example, Wicca and the respect of nature. Respecting nature ties in with may religions, but the meaning and reasoning behind the Wiccan belief of respecting nature is the reason I have pulled it from that belief system.

I do have a few other stories I could play on for a novel, mostly young adult, but I have yet to develop an idea that I feel as interested in as this. Some of you may know the short story that this is based on. (As a matter of fact, several of you are responsible for me fleshing this out in greater detail. *eyeroll* *LOL* ) This novel in and of itself, this idea…it just holds everything I am interested in: different religions of the world, an exploration of basic morality, an exploration of karma, whether or not something can live as a *real* robotic form, and the depths of love and passion and just how far someone can go in the name of love, as well as an aspect of self-sacrifice.

And…this is incredibly long-winded, so I’ll wrap it up now! I do want to say that the title of the novel itself is pretty set; but I have yet to develop names for each of the ‘classes’ in the as-of-yet-unnamed-land (I will not label it as ‘purgatory’ in the novel, but haven’t gotten a name for it yet). I also haven’t decided on the four varying forms of what the souls will look like– I need to develop one for the main character, and each of the three classes. Which I am a bit stuck on: what do you make a processed soul look like? So I have a bit of a way to go in fleshing out specifics of the idea, but I’m looking forward to it.

Jeez. Okay, NOW I’m done.

I feel a bit neglected lately. Nothing in particular…just people in my life in general. This isn’t aimed at anyone in particular, just a bit of almost everyone. Then again, it’s really early in the morning, and maybe I’m just feeling alone. I don’t know why I’m still awake. I have every intention on knocking back some sleeping pills if I don’t get tired soon.

I mean…on AIM, there’s definitely a “late-night” group I talk to every night. Typically a few guy friends and girl friends overseas, and some in the same timezone as myself that are just as nocturnal as I am. And I love them all. Suse, Amy (when she’s online), Billy, Nonny, Chad, Carol, and a one or two odd stragglers. I have over one hundred names on my buddy list solely of people that I talk to almost daily (or at least every other day), and I feel lonely. What is wrong with me?

I feel like I’m pulling away from everyone. And I’m not sure if it’s my fault, or…well, someone else’s. First and foremost, Chris. I’ve had several three to four minute conversations with him lately, and then that’s about it. I ask him to call me back, but he just got a new game that he’s really into (which is great, because I haven’t seen him so psyched about anything in a while, it seems), so that usually doesn’t happen lately. And I admittedly tend to get so wrapped up in things, I don’t call either. (Such as my five page paper to answer six questions that I turned in today! See, Carol, I told you I’d do it today. And get an A on it!) I just feel really alone, and I don’t know if I should or not. It’s like…I’m happy about everything over there, but sometimes it just feels like a dull happiness.

Next…my family. Though I was completely honest with my mother about my grades this midterm, and she does know all the health complications I’m going through recently, there’s a lot that my family just doesn’t know, and that they won’t know. Namely, my immediate family. I’m not telling them how much I’m struggling with my weight issues, things like that. I feel completely disconnected from my cousins, but particularly Ashley, who I’ve grown up raising hell with. She was my sister, and still is, in a way. But we’ve grown apart. Mostly because I’m in Atlanta. Then there are my biological sisters, and I can’t even begin to tell anyone what’s going on in their life right now. I know basics, but I don’t know, at the same time.

Then there’s Josh, who I used to date. Hell, who I used to think I’d marry. Frankly, we thought we’d be together forever, but that didn’t happen. His job got in the way, and my life pulled me in a different direction. He’s now living in California, and I think the last time I talked to him was weeks ago now. I still consider him one of the dearest friends I will ever have. We’ve grown apart, though. But I fear now that we’ve grown apart, and I can’t begin to describe the…just… immeasurable hurt and pain and just sorrow that I feel at this. The pain and the hurt I feel because I fear that he’s moved on, and that I won’t be included in his new life at all, even though I know him, and I know he loves me, and I know, simply put, how he is. This is the man that I didn’t speak to for three months at a time, but would always come back. Logically, I know he’ll call, and he’ll come visit, and we’ll go get Iced Grande Caramel Mochiattos at Starbucks with three shots of espresso in his, and five shots of espresso in mine. (I am an addict. This is how I live, and function.) When he first left, when we did go days without speaking, I knew he’d be back, but it still hurt. It was the kind of hurt of feeling like the love of your life was slipping away. Now, this kind of pain is both more intense and not as intense. Because now it’s become simply losing a best friend, someone who knew you inside and out. I haven’t had that much. So it’s not a sharp, intense pain of losing a love anymore, but a continuous ache of losing a best friend. I’m not entirely sure which is worse. (And this is rambling, so I’ll end this part here, but expect a more filled-out entry on this in the future, because I feel like I need to let it all off my chest.)

Am I pulling away from people? Is this a result of the health problems recently? Some of you know precisely how freaked out about everything I am, most don’t. I’m tired of feeling as though I whine all the time, tired of medications and diagnoses and doctors. God, I have a doctor’s appointment on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday next week. Yes, every single day of the business week. Neurologists, mostly, consults and then the brain scans. Back to a general doctor to monitor my heart rate further. A new psychiatrist that will hopefully monitor my meds just a little bit more closely than the previous one.

At any rate. This is far too long-winded for me right now, though this blog in and of itself is quite the rambling one. I’m finally revealing it to more people, other than the test readers (Hah, Carol!) that also lost their diaries when Diary-X crashed. I posted in my livejournal that I made a new journal, though I didn’t link it. I’m afraid if too many people catch wind of this…I’ll start censoring myself, and I don’t want to. This is the first journal I’ve had that I have been totally honest and open in about what I write, and I don’t want to lose that, nor do I want to password protect anything.

So, this ends now, after writing the beginning yesterday (and then falling asleep after sleeping pills finally kicked in) and the end after the classes of today. But I may post another one a bit later. ♥

Purple it is.

So, I’m not entirely sure what to write about right now. I feel like rambling, but I don’t have the words right now. I should be doing an assignment, but of course that just doesn’t always happen with me, does it? No, of course not. That would make my life far too easy, and that’s just not going to happen at this point in time. Why, I don’t know, but I do admittedly feel a bit cursed at this point.

Almost amusing, because I was talking to a friend of mine about Wicca and curses and the like a few days ago. It’s going to be my latest subject of interest to study and read up on, in addition to teaching. (Naturally, teaching will always be there at this point in time.) I do, admittedly, know a bit about Wicca, as it was something I dabbled in as a teenager, around ages fifteen/sixteen. After my stint in religion, anyway. So I may very well pick it back up, not for the purpose of practicing Wicca, but simply as an addition field of study. Then I think I’ll continue on my journey to study the Kama Sutra. I briefly studied in the class I took “Religion and Morality,” and it’s another lifestyle I find fascinating, and far more appropriate than I think people realize in society today.

It is NOT all about the sex, people! It’s a lifestyle guide, on the art of love and romance. Beautiful work, what I have read of it so far. Which, admittedly, isn’t all that much, but only brief summaries that I prepared for my class. Literally translated, the phrase Kama Sutra means Aphorisms of Love. (For those who don’t know, an aphorism is defined as “A tersely phrased statement of a truth or opinion; an adage.” (My paper cites www.dictionary.com as the source of this definition.) So by the title in and of itself, the Kama Sutra is, essentially, phrased statements of a truth or opinion on love. Interesting. I think I will be ordering the unabridged Kama Sutra in the next few days. Just for something to read. After I make it through the Rookie Teaching for Dummies book I ordered.

I also have the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Conversational Sign Language and the American Sign Language dictionary I’m working through. Mainly because I’m trying to get into Sign Language classes at Georgia State University. Technically, I’m stressing over getting into classes at GSU, because they only accept seven students in them. So I’m really crossing my fingers on that, and hoping that I get in. It’ll be really wonderful to learn Sign Language, because then I could teach children with hearing problems as opposed to solely teaching children who have no hearing problems. And I’m just really interested in AMSLAN (the abbreviation of American Sign Language) and have been ever since I learned finger spelling in fourth grade? Just as a random thing to learn.

It’s weird how some things come full circle. A desire to teach, and actually teaching children in fifth (kindergartners) and sixth (first graders) grade, and now I’m going to get certified in Early Childhood Education, even though I originally came into college a Creative Writing/English Literature and Psychology double-major, and then went to Women’s Studies, and…well, teaching.

I’m getting off the subject. Except…I don’t think I started this blog with any particular subject in mind. I should probably end this soon, it’s getting rather long. And I really do have to do my homework at some point in time, even though it’s exceedingly mind-numbing right now and I see no purpose in doing it. Then I think I’ll add some pages on this blog. I’ll change Creator to Author , add Book Listing , add Creative Writing, and leave Desired the way it is, and add an Education link to detail my classes and grades thus far, but I don’t know for sure about any of this yet. Yes, it’ll be alphabetical order, because I’m weird about things like that, and I alphabetized my buddy list after I got DeadAim last night. After setting aliases for the whole damn list, anyway. And after I do my homework– assuming I actually do it– I have to do my section for the Above and Beyond novel writing class over at Evolution writers. At any rate, I should go and be more productive than I am now…I may end up starting my Rookie Teaching for Dummies book. I need motivation to get what I have to do, done, instead of doing and learning what I want to learn. Because nine times out of ten, the subjects that randomly spark my interest are subjects that will never come in handy in real life.Goodnight, loves.Edited for this note: Yes, I am aware there is something strangely perverse about having the words filled and Kama Sutra in the title of this entry, but I don’t care enough to change it.

But this is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately…chances are, you’ve (if you talk to me frequently) heard this all before, because it really has been on my mind an exorbitant amount of time.

Sometimes…and again, this is going to sound very conceited…I think my biggest problem is that I’m too intelligent for my own good. And I’m confident in saying this, because…well, I just am. I was labeled “extraordinarily gifted” as a child, and was reading books on a sixth grade reading level by the first grade. I gradually would spend my time teaching other students instead of attending my own classes in elementary school (I’ve spoken about teaching first graders instead of attending sixth grade classes in a previous entry), and I was teaching kindergartners in fifth grade (though my fifth grade year in and of itself was a complicated story), only instead of daily, it was two/three days out of the school week. I make A’s on math tests I work on at 4AM, make A’s on research paper I work on for about two hours from midnight until 2AM the day they are due. I don’t bother putting in a lot of effort because I score high and get compliments on my work no matter when I do them, with only the smallest amount of effort on my work.

What prompted this entry? A discussion with my therapist, in which she flat-out said I was too smart for my own good. She said this after we discussed the fact that I know how to get the medicines I want and know how to manipulate my doctors into giving me the diagnoses, and lack thereof, that I want. (And the original discussion was prompted in and of itself as a result of my recent hospitalization; because I was put on the ADD meds …well, because I’ve wanted them for quite some time, for my own less-than-honest purposes.)My intelligence is a curse. I’m lazy as hell, I know this. When I really want something, I go after it. And if I have to do something, I’ll get it done, but usually at the last minute. I lack the motivation to truly do anything full-out unless it’s something I really want done. And half the time I do things, I don’t focus on them. I listen to music and click around online when I do my math tests. I sleep in all my classes. Despite all my health problems, my “other” problems, and my memory loss, I’ve kept my scholarship easily the past few years. When I go for something that I want, I still feel as though I only do a half-assed job at it, but it’s more effort than I would normally put into anything. It’s like my therapist later said in the conversation, that I am an all or nothing person. She’s right. (But then again, I actually like her because she puts herself on my level to challenge me, minus the psychobabble. Though she did pull some psychology talk on me when I first when in, but the ended rather quickly…I don’t have a lot of patience for that.)

Honestly, though, I’m not going to be able to keep this procrastination thing going for long. I think next year I’m going to take five academic classes, in an attempt to force myself to put more effort into things. I’m rather bored only taking four classes, and I think it’s showing (yet again…ugh). And even though I have good grades with the health problems I have, I’m starting to want more. I want all A’s as opposed to A’s and B’s. Hell, I did it when I was a sophomore in high school going to college full-time in the summer. Easily. I have the capabilities, I just need the motivation.

In the end, that’s what it comes down to. A sheer lack of motivation and willpower. Until I find it…I’ll keep procrastinating and avoiding doing any “real” work. And yet still keeping my scholarship and my B average. This kind of sucks.

I’ll end my ramblings now, but I’ll leave you a quote from the Livejournal community I belong to, 1st_year_teachers.

Today’s HeadDesk™

…brought to you by my very best seventh grade class.

“But I only plagiarised one of my poems!”

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at that…

Modern Dance: A
Ballet Dance: A
Women’s Health: B-
Women, Leadership, and Social Change Seminar: C (will go up as soon as she grades my papers; probably to a B or A)
Finite Math: D (will go up as soon as he grades my second test that I turned in this morning)
Internship: Pass (pass/fail class)

All in all, things are looking good for a change, in terms of my grades! The reason I have so much late work that’s just being graded and turned in is because of the whole hospital trip the week before spring break and then this recent seizure.

In other news…hmm. It seems that Thursday, April 6, 2006 is the day I register for my classes for next fall. This translates to: The day I actually register for the Education classes that will enable me to be a teacher. (See also: The day the rest of my life is really and truly decided.) So, yes, I’m a bit nervous.

I just want to know that I’m doing the right thing. I know I’m going to be doing what I want, but I have all these doubts and concerns floating through my head now: What if I fail? What if I’m not good enough? What if, what if, what if. Along a similar topic, though slightly unrelated and related all at the same time, I did finish reading The Everything New Teacher Book. Next on the reading list is Rookie Teaching for Dummies, which I’ll read…basically as soon as I have time. In addition to my schoolwork, I’m also in a novel-writing class over on the Evolution writing forums (www.evolutionwriters.com), and I have an assignment (the “idea” of my novel) that I have to type up and do at some point this week.

But for now, it’s going to be…sleep. Deep, deep sleep, beginning at probably 9:00PM. Call me lame, I don’t care, I have slept only two hours in the past day anyway. Good night, lovelies.

You see, I’ve always felt fat. Ergo, eating disorder! When your mother keeps putting you on diets, and whatnot, it does have a tendency to lead to fucked up eating issues, yes? Yes. So, I’m used to diets and either not eating or throwing up what I do eat. I’m used to it, as bad as that sounds. I think nothing of shoving a finger down my throat (always one; I’ve never used two, I’m not sure why not) and throwing up whatever meal I’ve eaten. Or, rather, just not eating at all, and subsisting on smoothies instead. It does not bother me in the slightest.

Yes, I am aware as to how fucked up that sounds. Bear with me.

The carpet burn thing? On my face? I can’t handle this. I don’t like it. At all. For the first time in my life, people are staring at my face wondering “What’s wrong with that girl?” They’re wondering why my face is a wreck. When you puke, when you starve– few people pick up on that out in public, unless you’re just really sick (which I’m not). No one cares to notice much.

But this, people are noticing. And it’s not a good noticing, either. I don’t mind being watched when I go out normally, I know it’s because I look pretty decent most of the time. I wear make-up, I dress decently, I know how to make myself look good to the public eye. Even when I don’t wear make-up, I get looks sometimes, flattering looks, not looks of sheer … horror? (That’s too strong of a word.) At any rate, those “Ew!” looks people give out when they see something nasty.

Like…right now, my face.

I feel ugly. Scarred. I don’t like this at all.

I mean, really. So, I’m back in Alabama after my (previously mentioned) vacation in Mississippi. Naturally, I can’t just have a relaxing, uneventful vacation. I have to go and have a damn seizure. And now, I am stuck with carpet burn on my face of all places. I could handle carpet burn on my arms, my stomach, or my legs. But it is on my damn face, and it’s not exactly a mild case of carpet burn either. It’s bloody and disgusting. Suffice to say…it’ll be on my face for a while, too.

I am not happy about this.

Not happy in the slightest.

In the meantime…I’m taking painkillers and looking up lesson plans in an attempt to brighten my mood. I posted on a forum that I frequent asking what they, in particular, learned in Kindergarten, First Grade, and Second Grade. It’ll be interesting to read their responses.

I had a rather large, long detailed entry planned out, rambling on about a certain ex-fiance of mine that gave me a phone call out of the blue, my vacation, my school plans, and so on…but I don’t even feel like it anymore. I slept over twenty hours after my seizure, so now I can’t sleep when I need to sleep, and I’m in pain.

Again…to reiterate my earlier sentiments…

This sucks.

For once I won’t bother ranting on the political correct-edness or lack thereof in calling the letter “P” a humpback. Then again, I do now want to rant on the fact that the term “humpback” exists at all. It just seems degrading to me. A person with a curved spine (I’ll even allow “hunched over spine”) is not a humpback. That person should not be defined by the fact their back is curved. Just like a person who is blind shouldn’t be a blind person– people shouldn’t be defined by one or two physical attributes (or disabilities). Why don’t we just accept them for who they are, and why do we feel a need (“we” referring to society as a whole) to label them as a “blind girl” “humpback” “deaf boy” and so on? I’m not a dumb blonde ditz (or, well, maybe I am, but that’s not the point). I’m a girl with blonde hair.

Ditziness notwithstanding.

At any rate, if I do choose to rant more later, it will be…well, later. I’m in Mississippi at the moment, and I won’t be returning home until Saturday, which means that I won’t be updating this blog until Saturday (after this post, of course). I’m at my cousin’s house at Mississippi, but from tomorrow until Saturday we’re going to the casinos, so my family can squander away the bit of money we do have. (In all fairness, it’s a much needed vacation for everyone presently, but I can still say they’re squandering money. Because…well, they are.) If I do, for whatever reason, come back here and can access their computer again, I will. But as of right now, I won’t be back to write at all until Saturday.

Do try not to miss me all that much. Fare thee well, my dark star. I am checking out. (Good bye, all.)

Oh, and a bit of a post script: If you have not clicked the lovely little “desired” link to the side, do so. It contains my WISH!list…and it’s quite a full wishlist, for anyone that feels the desire to pamper me with one of my desires from that list.

Woke up about an hour ago, and now I’m going to go back to sleep. Maybe I’m trying to do too much too fast or something? I’m not sure.

I will write again, the long rambling entries that have made up this blog since I began it. I want to. I have so much to say, unbelievably detailed rantings on right versus wrong, whether or not all humans would kill if in the appropriate situation, and what, precisely, defines a ‘moral’? Meaningless rantings that I enjoy, and have been lacking lately.

As I lay me down to sleep…

For now, however, I leave you with this interesting tidbit of information from my college: “Touchstone Productions will shoot scenes for a TV pilot called “October Road” on Thursday, March 16.

“October Road” – In the storyline, a novelist writes a very successful first book, but then can’t seem to get past his writer’s block to finish the second book. In an attempt to refind the muse, he goes back to the apartment where he wrote the book, and finally back to his small hometown and college to teach in an attempt to find some inspiration.”

(Yes… this pilot? And TV show? Will both feature my campus.) Good night, lovelies.

Hi L*******,

I just received your scores from the registrar’s office. I really believe that campus mail is SLOWER than the regualar snail mail.

You are good to go. Your combined score is is 55 where 42 is needed. So no worry. I will keep a copy of your ACT scores in my folder and when you apply to the education department we will already have it. You will just have to remind me.

Have a great and safe break.

Dr. *****

I’m really happy right now. It’s officially… “official” I suppose. I start my teaching certification next year. Wow! Yay! It just feels so surreal. It is surreal, in a sense. I saw my ex today, and we were talking…it was nice. He’s in college to be a music professor, and he was shocked to hear that I was going into education myself now. (But then again…to be fair… most people are shocked to hear it.) I got one of those, “Since when did this happen?” responses.

To be fair, I’ve changed my major so much that it’s understandable why people are reacting that way. ;)

I planned to go into this whole tirade on how I felt like I was being objectified by men and other people today. I took my mother’s car to get the oil changed, and they didn’t charge me as much as they’ve charged her. I took her car to get the air pressure in the tires checked…it was free. Though it cost my mother $5, and had a $5 price list on their charts. Oh, and this guy changed the windshield wipers on the car for free. Mom put it, “You’re on a roll.” Yeah, well, I looked good today. Doesn’t change the fact that I got all this stuff for free because I looked good and because I’m a young female. But, at any rate…right now, I’m too happy to go off on a rant.

Because I’m officially in the ECE program! :)

Which is somewhat pathetic. I mean, I’m a writer. I grew up under an English teacher. I should be able to be literate and focused at least a little bit when I’m sick. Unfortunately…I’m not.

So instead of trying to drag this out when I’m about to pass out at the keyboard again (even though I have literally slept 64 of the past 72 hours), I’m just going to wrap this up. Keep it brief. Though I do feel rather useless doing nothing other than sleeping…at least I don’t have that much longer to have to take the meds-that-make-me-dead-to-the-world. Even if they are doing their job…I still dislike this uselessness feeling I have right now.

Instead, I leave you with this link. What is that link? It is my wishlist for teaching books and supplies and so on. I think you all should send me get-well-soon presents off of it. Or just be really nice to me, because my bank account is suffering at the moment.

Here’s to hoping I stop being dead and start living again soon.

I’m still pretty out of it. I slept most of today and yesterday asleep, and I’m going to go back to bed soon. I promise, as soon as I feel a bit better I’ll update further. In the meantime, I’m going to make good and necessary use of the spell check (my spelling is quite frightening right now) and go to sleep again.

Apparently, I was extremely dehydrated. My pulse was wayyyy too high at the ER, and they started me on a saline IV. After freaking out in front of me, anyway. Good job, there. After the first saline drip, they took it again, and it was down to 128, which was better, but not anywhere as low as it usually is. So I got a second full saline IV. And blood work. And more blood work. My blood pressure was way on up there as well, but I can’t remember those numbers.

That’s all fine and good. Whatever. The reason behind all this? The new medicine my doctor started me on. I asked him about side effects (ever since the Zoloft-when-I’m-bipolar-that-made-me-so-fucking-crazy-incident, I tend to ask), and he said (direct quote), “You’ll lose weight. It’s an appetite suppressant.”

And that was it.

Apparently, he didn’t realize that combined with the other meds I’m taking, it made my blood “too acidic”. Or that I wouldn’t be able to keep the majority of liquids down (including water). OR that it would affect me so fast “like this.”

At the hospital, they gave me Toradol (sp? on all these meds ’cause I don’t know anything) because I had a migraine, Benadryl 2? I think, and some “anti-medic med” to get the medicine that was making me so sick out of my system as fast as possible and get rid of the side effects of it. I fell asleep and stayed asleep after that for a bit, after they injected the meds into the IV line. I still have to go and get the prescriptions they gave me filled, but I’m still somewhat out of it.

I just woke up a bit ago, to e-mail professors about work and shit, because it’s midterms, and I have a test I need to do and a paper to do, but they’re giving me extensions (thank god). I feel a little better right now, but I haven’t moved much nor tried to eat anything, so. I don’t know.

I don’t know what I’m trying to accomplish by posting this. Obviously, I’m not going to be taking that medicine anymore that the doctor gave me. But that’s it. I”m just pissed because I asked about side effects, I wanted to know I would be okay, and whatever. Now I’m on three medicines to replace the one. The toradol because I still have a migraine and probably will for a few days, the anti-medic med also acts as anti-nausea, and the benadryl to make sure i don’t have naother bad reaction to meds because my body is going to be sensitive to meds for awhile.

This sucks.

I knew something was wrong. I knew it. ANYBODY that talked to me about the meds knew I knew something was off. I said a few days, the medication effects should wear off by then. I asked him about side effects. I fucking ASKED him.

I still feel woozy. I’m gonna go.

Just kidding. That’s finals week.

So, I have one midterm that’s open-note (Women’s Health) and one test that’s take home that I can use one page of notes on (Finite Math; aka Math for Dummies). Except the Math for Dummies (TM) isn’t an actual midterm, it just happens to be another test in that class that falls on the week of midterms. (Gee, thanks, Prof.) I took the Women’s Health midterm today. Aside from writing far too much (which, in case you can’t tell from here, I have a … rather LARGE tendency to do), I think I did rather well. I was particularly worried about 2×2 tables (really damn complicated statistics thing that I don’t care to explain right now), but I know I got one of them right. The other one, I skipped, because I didn’t have time to finish the test. It was out of 250 points. I think the 2×2 table I skipped will be, say, 5 points maximum (it was one of four parts of a 15-point question, I believe) and then I didn’t reach the last question at all, which is 15 points. So…that’s at least 20 points I didn’t get. Assumed I really, really messed up and lost 30 more points, that’s a score of 80 that I’m looking at. It’s not bad at all, and I don’t think I missed or got anything that wrong on the rest of the test.

So, now, I have to write a bunch of papers tomorrow. (All one to two page papers, but still.) Then I have to do this math test, and then I’m pretty much done for this week, and I can go home for spring break! Except Tuesday I have to come back and work a full day at the domestic violence cetner, but that’s all.

Yay! I just…I really, really need a break. And to sleep…that’s probably my biggest problem of all. I can’t sleep at all. I take pills to sleep, and pills to wake up. And pills for a bunch of other things. All prescribed, but…yeah. I need to just sleep off all this exhaustion and work. I’m just really, really happy I’m caught up in all my classes and that things are finally going well college-wise. Granted: none of my academic problems have been terribly troubling, and none of the circumstances surrounding them have been my fault. But it’s so much less stress to be able to stay on top of my academics, and not in and out of various hospitals. ♥

* The numbers in parentheses represent required observational hours to the best of my knowledge. (ECE Advisor marked them down on this schedule.)

Fall 2006

EDU 210: Understanding Learners (10 hrs.)
EDU 217: Schools in Society

Spring 2007

EDU 212: The Arts in Education (2 [recommended])

Fall 2007

EDU 380: Teaching Diverse Learners (20)
EDU 320: Exploring Children’s Literature (20)EDU 213: Teaching Physical Education in Elementary School (3)

Spring 2008

EDU 303: Language, Literacy, and Assessment (20)

Summer 2008

EDU 312L: Opening of School Experience (Will work in school the last week of summer/first week of the school’s reopening)

Fall 2008

EDU 306: Exploring Social Studies with Children (20)
EDU 307: Exploring Mathematical Ideas with Children (20)
EDU 308: Exploring the Natural World with Children (20)

Spring 2009

EDU 420: Student Teaching (12 weeks; all day)
EDU 421: Problems Seminar for Early Childhood Certification

So I’ll be done in Spring of 2009. That’s really not so bad. Except I think I’m just trying to convince myself that it’s not that bad. I have to go through and fill in all my other classes, too, but I think I’ll be okay. I hope so, anyway.

Somewhere into this, I have to fit the rest of my core curriculum and my Women’s Studies classes by the Spring 2008 semester; because that’s technically when I absolutely graduate school. The 2008-2009 school year is just to complete the teacher training classes and to get certified in teaching. I don’t think either of these will be a big deal. Oh, and I also have to take the American History class, but that will probably be…hmmm. Spring 2007 or Spring 2008, for that one…probably 2008, because Spring of 2007 I’m taking Spanish 202, a Women’s Studies class, and my science w/ a lab requirement. One of my Women’s Studies classes will also count as my Literature requirement. That just leaves my Fine Arts requirement, and I’ll take something in that at some point in time.

Wow. It’s all coming together. I can’t believe it. I didn’t think figuring this out would be this easy. But next year, I’ll be a junior. And everything’s falling into place so neatly. Thank the gods. It’s about time.

How many of you remember the songs you sang as a child? Songs that were fun to sing and dance to, some songs that made you think and learn how to count? I can name quite a bit off the top of my head…

The Ants Go Marching
Baa, Baa, Black Sheep
B-I-N-G-O
Do Re Me
Do Your Ears Hang Low?
Frère Jacques
If You’re Happy and You Know It (Clap Your Hands)
Hickory Dickory Dock
How Much is That Doggie in the Window?
Hush Little Baby
It’s Raining, It’s Pouring
Itsy Bitsy Spider
John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt
Kookaburra
London Bridge

Obviously, that’s not all of them. Just off the top of my head, having spent a fair amount looking at songs and CDs for Kindergarteners and first graders to sing along and learn things with. And I realized just how many of these songs I could still sing just as easily as if I were back in time…eight years old again. I want to be able to give kids that same thing– to have something fun to learn by and remember over ten years later, when they don’t even need the songs anymore.

But they’ll still be able to delight in them.

I’m still so excited. I can’t wait. I feel like I’m on the path right now, to knowing and doing what I really and truly want to do. I can make a difference this way. And it’ll be so much fun– so challenging, but still fun.

However. After all is said and done, I’ll be damned before I teach those kids Alouette, London Bridge, and Ring Around The Rosies. That’s just kind of sick. ;)

It is.

I never really thought I’d ever teach. I wanted to be a lawyer. Or a professor, for college students, lecturing on feminism and women’s studies issues. I wanted to go to grad school, travel the world. (Well, okay, to be fair, I still want to travel the world.) Or I wanted to be a writer, selling the next hot novel and making lots of money off of my own creativity. Or be a college professor and teach creative writing. Any of the above would work.

Where am I now? Well, honestly, I still want to be a writer. But my biggest problem with writing is that I’m lazy with it. I lost my passion for it, and it’s hard to get back up. But I’m doing better than I was before. Plotting out stories, novels, getting back in the swing of submitting and re-submitting. It’s nice. But I’ve realized it’s not what I want to do with my life. It’s just something that will be a hobby for me. A great hobby– I will always love to write, even if I am lazy. But it is a hobby.

My life’s work? I want that to be teaching.

For the first time…I don’t feel confused about what I want to do now. I’m not thinking things like…”What if I’m not good enough?” or “What about money?” like I often thought about with creative writing. I was talking with someone tonight, a girl who teaches kindergarten, and now I just have this unbelievable warm and fuzzy feeling in my stomach. I can just see myself teaching as a career.

I mean, seriously! I’m imagining the lesson plans– all the detailing every minute bit about what you want to teach, and how you’ll teach it. The sick little kids with the runny noses and me using an excess of hand sanitizer. Taking kids with (real) ADHD to go and get their medicines while they try to run in the hallways (like I did with first grade kids when I was in sixth grade…boy, was that a tough 30-minute job). And thinking about those situations? It doesn’t bother me. And they’re the less-than-ideal situations.

With the situation when I was in sixth grade…I would go down to the first grade and help teach. (Provided I kept my grades up in my real classes and did all the work.) I was an assistant teacher to two or three different classes– just depending on who needed me where. But every single day, I would take four little boys with ADD/ADHD down to the office to get their meds. They were truly, absolutely and truly, wild. Almost uncontrollable. I remember one in particular– he was worse than the others, and the one that got in the most trouble. I haven’t thought about any of this until just now, but…I got attached to those little boys. They tore up and down the hallways and talked louder than any kid should in a hallway. But they were sweethearts. Such sweethearts. And they’d hold my hand if I asked them to, they’d stop running (or, they’d try to) when I asked them to. It was great. A handful, but great. I’m smiling just thinking about them.

But in addition to the “bad” situations… I mean, it’ll be so rewarding! Helping out in first grade when I was in sixth grade was awesome! I loved that! And still, I never pictured myself being a teacher. I never pictured myself making those pencil name tags you put on desks the first day of school, decorating bulletin boards, teaching kids their ABCs and 123s, watching the girls chase the little boys around the playground during recess, teaching them how to read and write, teaching them their colors…I never saw that. (I have the biggest smile on my face right now.) But now I do! And it’s so wonderful. I am really and truly excited about my future right now.

I haven’t felt this way in a long time. I am…ecstatic. Doling out school supply lists, making sure the children get on the right buses, telling them why they can’t kiss each other the way Mommy and Daddy do, giving them juice boxes and animal crackers for a treat, deciphering the messy but adorable kindergarten scribbles that is their writing, letting them color, teaching them addition and subtraction and counting, telling them they shouldn’t be eating that glue or that red crayon…it’s remarkable how excited I am about this. I can’t wait.

(Note: I know I said I’d write on the responses to the strengths/weaknesses question, but that will be later, in a future post. When I feel like being more introspective than I do now.)

So, I posed this question: What do you think are my strengths/weaknesses? And how do you think I can/should work on my weaknesses?

After all was said and done, these are some fairly interesting answers, and most of which I didn’t really expect to get. It was in a, well, a no-holds-barred-on-opinions forum, so I expected much…bitchier, for one, negative answers. Instead, these seem pretty positive and uplifting answers. Something I was pretty happy about. But these all have made me think, a great deal, which is something I am rather happy about. At any rate, I’ll post these answers, and come back and speak some more (in a part two section, as this will be dreadfully long as is) on my own reflections of it all.
The answers were:

• Strengths are you’re smart as all hell and you’re an amazing friend. Weakness you’re like me you tend to act before thinking.
• Strength: Articulate. Weakness: Weak in the face of temptation (meaning: bad habits, bad people, giving up on things prematurely). The weakness will get better with time and experience. Unfortunately the experiences you’ve put yourself through leave mostly unhappy memories.
• I’m sure you know by now what I think your weaknesses are. In case you don’t, I think you vastly overreact sometimes, and you often seem hypocritical. You also get really defensive about what you think people are saying — thinking that people are bringing up your own history, for example, when you were the first to bring the issue up in that particular thread — and by the time the smoke settles, everyone’s been bitching at each other for 10 pages. I do think you have strengths: I think you’ve been through a lot, and I don’t know what all of it is, but I know it’s more than most people have to go through. And I think that in spite of all of that, you’ve made real efforts at turning into something better than what you should, on paper, be at this point in your life. I really respect that determination in the face of adversity, and I think you have become a great person.
• Flaws – defensiveness, impulsive. Strengths: strength, quick-witted
• Strength: driven… when you want to get something done, you set your mind to it and you GET IT DONE. Weakness: short-tempered… you tend to lose your cool a little too easily, and flip out over the littlest things, sometimes you just need to ask yourself “A week from now, will this really matter?”
• I think you’re a bit scattered and some focus (not add type lack of focus, long term goals) would help clarify why you want to be in school and what you want from life… but eh, isn’t that all of us?
• I just believe you should try not to be so abrasive. Also, stop saying ‘fuck’ so much. It makes me cringe, and is off putting.
• You’re taking a huge first step the last eight days. I think you take things really personally and get very hurt and inappropriately angry when people don’t live up to your expectations. It’s good because you care, but I think you’d be better off if you were able to get a little less invested. People are going to make their mistakes, and while it might bother you, you have to remember it’s not about you. Your biggest strength is that you genuinely care about people.
• I think you are brilliant, and bursting with potential. I’m not completely current with your situation, but I think continuing to do what you’ve been doing the last few months (less moody, taking better care of yourself, etc.) is the best plan.
• don’t think I really know you well enough to answer this but I DO think you’re determined. From what I’ve seen, you stick with what you say and don’t back down. That’s something I admire.
• Strengths – you are often very kind and supportive. Weaknesses – you are sometimes too defensive when things should be left to die.
• Strengths: you speak your mind, you’re truckloads more confident than I could be, and you’re intelligent. You typically handle conflict well. Weaknesses: Hmm… maybe your temper. It’s quite similar to mine, only I can’t be bothered to express mine, so I usually just shake my head and curse at the computer screen, haha. I don’t think it’s debilitating or anything, though.
• I think you’re clearly very smart and dedicated (in that you do what you say you’ll do). Along with “dedicated” comes “a bit stubborn.”
• Strengths: creativity, intellect, honesty. Weaknesses: It’s not a weakness, but you often distract yourself from your real issues by focusing on other people’s stuff. You are very helpful to others, but at what expense to you?
• I think your strengths are your weaknesses… Being smart and strong-willed/ stubborn
• I think you let your heart rule your head. The results: STRENGTH: you can be passionate WEAKNESS: you can be passionate. You seem to feel things more *intensely* than the average person. What makes for good writing doesn’t always make for a peaceful life (how many happy writers can you name?). I wouldn’t want you to lose your passion, but try not to internalize everything.
• i cant decide if i like you or not but i do respect you. i respect that you can admit you are wrong and can take criticism and learn from it (eg geatheredthings flame- a lesser person would have just dropped [person's name] as a friend but you considered what she had to say), however you do have this tendency to fly off the handle and ive seen you be quite vindictive to people without good cause. i guess your weakness would be your inability to see beyond the next few minutes (at times) and the best way for your to deal with this is everytime you feel yourself about to fly off the handle take a few moments out, reconsider your position and look at the situation objectively THEN if you need to make katrina seem like a gentle breeze go for it! your strengths are your ability to forgive, your kindness, and your dedication to your friends.
• I personally think your strenths are your kindness, you’re good at listening and forming opinions/advice. I also think that you are very smart, and have pretty interesting educated views on things. Your weaknesses: besides the obvious issues, you tend to doubt yourself and your own personality, you don’t like yourself enough and this can tend to make you doubt easier, and give in to someone elses views of yourself. Which, I think is something that will change with time.

As I said above…it’s just something I’ll come back and mull over tomorrow, or the next day. Food for thought, as it were.

]]> http://worldofmakebelieve.wordpress.com/2006/03/03/depth-perceptionjust-not-my-own-2/feed/ 1 worldofmakebelieve http://worldofmakebelieve.wordpress.com/2006/03/02/for-god-so-loved-the-worldor-did-he/ http://worldofmakebelieve.wordpress.com/2006/03/02/for-god-so-loved-the-worldor-did-he/#comments Fri, 03 Mar 2006 04:50:41 +0000 worldofmakebelieve http://worldofmakebelieve.wordpress.com/2006/03/03/for-god-so-loved-the-worldor-did-he/ ]]> Once upon a time, shockingly enough, I was religious. I went to church. Actually, I went to church every Sunday and Wednesday. Two services on Sunday, one on Wednesday. I carried a Bible around school, tried to live as best as I could.

I’ve always grown up in an Atheist/Agnostic household. I was never told about any god or any religious texts. My knowledge of the church and its existence came solely from what I saw on television and the buildings with the “weird plus signs” I saw on the thrice-yearly road trips to visit relatives in Mississippi.

I don’t know when I was first told about the Christian God, the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, and so on. Probably in a history class in elementary school, learning about how Christopher Columbus discovered America! (*twitch*) Or maybe during a visit to my great-grandmother’s house. My great-grandmother is, and always has been, an avid Methodist. And she has set out to get me in church. I do remember being young, and listening to her question my mother about whether or not I was in church. At any rate, I was curious. As a child, I was curious and nosy, much like I am today. (Only then, education wasn’t quite as expensive as it is now.) And so, at some point through this all, I asked questions. I attended church with my childhood best friend, Brantley, at a Baptist church. Several times, actually. I hated dressing up for Sunday school, even then. (I have always been quite the tomboy.) I would go on and attend church a couple of times with my neighbors, who attended a Methodist church.

And so, it began. And God said, “Let there be light.” And I saw the Light! (I just don’t know when.) I was around thirteen or fourteen when I started attending church regularly, at a church essentially across the street– a Christian church. My youth directions were Brian and Jerry. I would come to love Jerry as a second father. I told him things I did not tell my mother. He was the first person I went to when I lost my virginity and I was scared about being pregnant. He helped me through it, all the while directing me to places I could read and find solace and comfort in the Bible. I would be saved (for a second time, the first time being as a child during some random visit to church with Brantley, I believe) again. And my strength in God grew, and I learned what it was to love.

Later, I would start questioning. The one thing I have carried with me, steadfastly, in all my life, no matter what I do. I carry my desire and love of questioning things at all times. Anything I do, I ask why. Anything I am taught, I ask why. How? When? What led to that? I have always been very analytical. Of myself, though I’ve not always shown it, and of others, and (most often) of things. Why is this the way it is? Why do we believe in something? How do we come to know things?

Why do we claim a molecule as being so small, when it can continually be divided beyond human knowledge? Why is the sky blue– why did the person “naming” the colors choose the word blue? How far can we go, in human thinking and the mere believing in things, until we are simply forced to quite analyzing? And just have faith? What is faith, anyway? How can these things happen?

And on and on it goes.

And I never have any answers. Most of the time, I can call it quits, I realize I have no answers. I was never able to do that with religion. I tried. I tried for years. About three, actually. Then the youth group was disbanded at the church, and it was the end of the road. I saw no reason to go anywhere after that. Not after my faith had already been wavering.

And still, I have no answers. I don’t expect I ever will. Instead of being religious, I just like studying religions. Wicca, Christianity, Kama Sutra (lifestyle religion), and so on. They’re all interesting. I just don’t have the faith to put up with them. Do I wish I did? Yes. I wish I did. It’s nice to have something to believe in for things like the future, any sort of after life, some faith to rely on to get you through the hard times. But things just don’t add up that much for me and religion anymore.

I don’t regret it, though. I don’t think I was blind-sided or anything. I don’t look back to those days and say, “How ridiculous was I?” (Even if I do view a lot of faith-based things as foolish now.) No, I’m not religious anymore, but at that time in my life…it did so much for me. It pulled me out of what would be one of the darkest times in my life. It gave me something to hold on to when I thought I had nothing. It was the only thing I had when, now and previously, I didn’t really believe in it. It kept me going. Kept me alive.

Faith.

Yes, I fully recognize the irony in this. The one thing I cannot have, that I question unceasingly, was honestly, for some time there, the only thing I had. I’m grateful for it. For the longest time, I have had so much anger and resentment towards religion. And now, right now…I’ve realized I don’t have that anymore. I listened to a Christian song on the radio, a Mercy Me song (I saw them in concert two times during the time frame that I was attending church), and I realized that it was okay now. That I shouldn’t have any anger. And that I don’t.

It’s a great feeling.


]]> http://worldofmakebelieve.wordpress.com/2006/03/02/for-god-so-loved-the-worldor-did-he/feed/ 1 worldofmakebelieve http://worldofmakebelieve.wordpress.com/2006/03/01/whats-there-to-be-said-about-education-anyway/ http://worldofmakebelieve.wordpress.com/2006/03/01/whats-there-to-be-said-about-education-anyway/#comments Thu, 02 Mar 2006 03:59:28 +0000 worldofmakebelieve http://worldofmakebelieve.wordpress.com/2006/03/01/whats-there-to-be-said-about-education-anyway/ ]]> So, I am a Women’s Studies major. I have been since…wow. It’s been a year now. The first Women’s Studies class I’d ever taken. The first time I had ever even thought about such classes. Okay, so I grew up in a “You can do whatever you want” household-styled environment. But Women’s Studies? Studying Women’s Studies? What the hell, right?

Yeah, so, two weeks into that class I declared the damn major. All was fine and good. It still is, really. I love my major. Despite all the damn difficulties I’ve stumbled across during my college career…I truly love my major. So, my life was set. I was going to get a Women’s Studies degree, maybe minor in either Sociology or Political Science, and after I graduated in 2008, I was going to go to law school. Harvard Law. Or somewhere nice like that. After graduate school, I was going to join the Peace Corps and work overseas with children. Maybe do a semester abroad in India teaching English.

When did this change? I’m not sure. Other than a growing, more intense desire to go to Peace Corps after I get out of undergrad. And a steadily growing desire to teach as well. Granted, persuing a degree in education would keep me out until 2009. But…I’d be certified to teach! A Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education, a complement to my Bachelor of Arts in Women’s Studies. I’m really liking this idea.

But I’m waiting on it. I’m not declaring anything spontaneously. At any rate, I’m going to meet with both my Women’s Studies major advisor and someone from the Education department.

I have already learned, however, that the (Elementary) Education B.A. program is intense. To put it mildly. The classes required:

EDU210: Understanding Learners.

EDU212: The Arts in Education.

EDU213: Teaching Physical Education in the Elementary School.

EDU217: Schools in Society.

EDU303: Language, Literacy, and Assessment.

EDU306: Exploring Social Studies with Children.

EDU307: Exploring Mathematical Ideas with Children.

EDU308: Exploring the Natural World with Children.

EDU320: Exploring Children’s/Adolescents’ Literature.

EDU380: Teaching Diverse Learners.

EDU420: Student Teaching, Early Childhood.

EDU421: Problems Seminar for Early Childhood Certification.

MAT101: Finite Math (Which is the math I’m in now, so this is not a problem.)
MAT104: Introduction to Mathematical Thought is recommended.

One course in American History is required (I would take HIS108; The Foundations of United States History.)

See what I mean now? A lot of work. But it’ll be worth it. If everything works out, it will all be worth it in the end.


]]> http://worldofmakebelieve.wordpress.com/2006/03/01/whats-there-to-be-said-about-education-anyway/feed/ 2 worldofmakebelieve http://worldofmakebelieve.wordpress.com/2006/02/28/another-day-a-new-life/ http://worldofmakebelieve.wordpress.com/2006/02/28/another-day-a-new-life/#comments Wed, 01 Mar 2006 04:33:10 +0000 worldofmakebelieve http://worldofmakebelieve.wordpress.com/2006/02/28/another-day-a-new-life/ ]]> I’m a poster child for women and men who create journals, then abandon them. A poster child for those that write and pour their souls into a journal, then gradually fade away. Those who post their hearts, and then post nonsense. The pointless surveys, the random and junkie memes.

However, I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t a fan of the surveys. I am. A rather large fan of them, in fact. I have an interest in introspection.

But now, there’s a problem. It’s too soon for the memes, too soon for the random surveys. This is another entry, to me, but for this journal, this wordpress thing, it’s a first entry. So, where do I begin? Shall I tell you that my alias on this journal will be a simple L? That I am twenty years old, but I’ll be twenty-one by the end of this year, the year 2006? Do I tell you that my favorite books are The Count of Monte Cristo (though I will only read the 1000+ page, unabridged, version), The Princess Bride, and Harry Potter? That I have a passion for words, educational research, and the Grey’s Anatomy television show?

At any rate, I hope I’m telling you the right things, because you’re already reading at this point. I should go on to mention that I am a published writer, a student, a girlfriend, a family member, and a self-proclaimed dork. I write fiction. I can’t put it any plainer than that. My short stories and novels run from young adult fiction to science fiction to dark fantasy. It’s probably important to note that I’m struggling with a 2-year-long writing block, because I’m sure that particular problem will be mentioned from time to time. I am a student at a small, private college in Atlanta, Georgia. I am a girlfriend to, obviously, my boyfriend. We “officially” started dating March 14th, 2005. My family situation is complicated beyond belief. (Yes, I mean that quite literally.) My self-proclaimed dorkiness lies in my love of words and language, researching and learning new things, and a love of school. Particularly in my main fields of interest: Women’s Studies and Education. (Yes, I am a double major.) But I also have a love of studying Creative Writing, Psychology, Sociology, Political Science, Morality and Society, so on. And various other things. Including Sign Language, which I’m presently teaching myself to do.

I’m somewhat of a musical snob. Not in that I think the music I like is the best of all, but because it is hard for me to enjoy other types of music. I listen to mainly soft-rock/goth bands with female vocalists. My favorite band is Within Temptation, bar none. They are closely followed by Evanescence, and then followed by Leaves’ Eyes, After Forever, Epica, Nightwish, Lacuna Coil, and Flowing Tears (somewhat).

I dislike religion. I enjoy studying religions, though. I identify as Agnostic, and hate overzealous religious freaks who enjoy shoving religion down my throat. If you name a religion, I will research it. Learns its basic principles, and perhaps adopt some of those principles for personal practice. This does not make me any set religion, however. Please do not make the mistake in thinking that it does.

I also dislike government. I’m very liberal in my beliefs, and I try to avoid allying myself with a party I don’t agree completely with. I don’t feel that either the Republican nor Democratic parties have much to offer me, and in several cases I ignore parties and just vote for who I feel I agree the most with. Suffice to say I did not vote for George Bush. I rather think of him as a pansied idiot who needs speech classes, but this is just my opinion.

Although I’ve also been told that I may very well have been kicked out of any government party. Not only am I completely non-religious, I also identify as pansexual. More often, I simply say “bisexual,” but that’s because few people understand pansexual and all it encompasses. I don’t believe there are only two genders, I don’t believe that there are only three types of sexuality. Pansexual simply means you don’t discriminate, at all. You don’t simply love men AND women, you love men, women, transgendered, anyone. To put it simply. Human beings are more than their physical entities (in my opinion), anyway.

But this shouldn’t matter to most of you. I am, as previously mentioned, a girlfriend. The girlfriend of a really great guy, in fact, that I have been dating since March 14, 2005. We have had our ups and downs just like any other couple, though perhaps harder hurdles to jump through as the relationship is long distance. But all the same, he is a source of a lot of smiles, laughter, and support for me, and I’m very happy with him.

And that is it about that. A general summary, one may say. There’s more to be said. There is always more to be said, but I prefer to write those entries along a one-or-two topic line. For example, I’ll write another entry, but talking specifically about my educational background and plans. Rather than dragging this out.

Yes. I am weird. Enjoy. ♥


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