8-15-2005 12:46 PM
Tax stuff is done for the year.  Finally.  At the post office, 5 hours before the postmark deadline to meet the date sent requirement on my 4-month extension...which I requested properly in April...I'm not my parents.
And I'm really getting excited about the whole UK trip thing...it's getting really close and I still have a bunch of plans to figure out...and reservations to make as soon as I have money in the bank...which fortunately I'll be getting tomorrow since I helped Financial Aid find some money they forgot to give me.  That happened once at Chemeketa too; I probably should expect that kind of thing by now.  Oh well, $900 in the bank tomorrow will be nice.

8-7-2005   11:13 PM
OK, so I'm officially a geek.
I think I'm actually gonna stay up until like 2 AM...when I have to get up at 6 AM to work tomorrow...to watch the shuttle landing.
And I've got to spend more time watching the NASA webfeed...'cause this is just cool.

8-5-2005   4:48 PM
It's this time, and I'm not at work...which is good.
On the other hand, my mom did it again...I'm gonna adapt this from the Countdown 'cause I just don't wanna have to write about it coherently again.

I needed a parent signature on my financial aid verification stuff...and I got borderline chewed-out by the financial aid lady for all this being so late that I'm at risk of not getting some types of campus-based aid next year.
My dad's out of the state at the moment, however my mom didn't answer her cell or the landline so I ended up having my dad get ahold of my mom.
My mom then tried to get ahold of me, however she had previously programmed the wrong number for me into her cell phone so naturally I didn't pick up when she called someone else's number.
I eventually got out to the farm (where my parents and sister and sister's boyfriend are essentially living off my aunt and uncle)...my mom wasn't there because she'd taken my sister to the gym.
I got my mom on the cell...I probably had a tone during this phone call because I'd tried a few different ways to call ahead and because of getting chewed out by financial aid lady earlier.
My mom was in the Wal-Mart parking lot waiting for my sister to get done at the gym or something. (Why are these people living out of my aunt and uncle but buying gym memberships, anyway?)
I, therefore, went to the Wal-Mart parking lot. (Wal-Mart...*shudder*)
We figured out what the problem with my mom's cell phone was, and then she signed the paperwork.
I was prepared to spend a few minutes politely chatting because that's what you do.
Unfortunately, I made a comment about being frustrated, and neglected to specify that I meant frustrated with the process in general.
My mom then said that I always jump all over her...just like how I "could've walked down last Christmas."
I shouldn't have been surprised that bringing up something dumb from that long ago wasn't beneath her, because she does it to my dad all the time...but it took me a minute to process it enough to say "OH YOU DID NOT JUST GO THERE!!!"  I know I had a tone when I made that statement.
I don't remember exactly what she said at this point but I think it was to the effect that she'd go there if she felt like it.
The next thing out of my mouth was "I'M GOING BACK TO MONMOUTH!" also with tone...she then had the nerve to suggest I drive carefully...I don't know what she said next because my car's engine drowned it out...and I was out of that parking lot like a bat out of hell because I didn't want to give myself time to reconsider leaving and punch her instead, assault charges look funny when applying for teaching license.
Back in Monmouth, I turned in the verification stuff and picked up the paperwork to try to get my financial aid status for next year switched to Independent by Special Circumstances...I haven't decided if I'm gonna try to do it yet...but I may be able to sell them on what I went through as a kid as emotional or psychological abuse.

7-27-2005 11:17 PM
This figures.
I don't have to get up early tomorrow...so all my friends logged off early tonight.
I should actually DO something, work on the ClubED web site or my web site or transferring my stories from "Little Buddy" to "Trip the Laptop" or something like that, or maybe spend some time with the math book or the Welsh tapes...but none of that sounds good.
And I shouldn't be tired this early, 'cause I got well over 7 hours' sleep last night, but I am.
So screw it.  I'm gonna catch some sleep.

7-22-2005, 2:41 PM
Wow...I let this thing get out of date again...oops.
Summer term's been crazy, especially the first three weeks when I had that super-condensed class.  After that it cleared up some, but I'm still not really sure where all the time went.
Most weeks I've gotten decent work hours, which will help with stuff like paying the bills...I've been over 20 a week for a few weeks now, so I should actually be able to eat in August and September.
My super-frustrating parents are still living on my aunt and uncle's land...and they were supposed to be out at the beginning of this month.  And they're thinking about moving to Monmouth because Dad saw a lot of For Rent signs when he was making a delivery out this way...however, if they were actually going to, I think they would have done it by now.
Oh yeah...and for some repair-related reason or something like that, the power's out to my apartment right now...which is frustrating, because my DSL modem likes to be plugged in...so even though the new laptop's battery is well-charged, I have no internet.  So I'm typing this up to post later.
At least it's a good computer, though...and at least I was in the middle of doing something offline when the power quit.
Unfortunately the air conditioning also requires electricity...so it's starting to get a little warm in here...and I'm thinking about the library across the street if this takes much longer.

3:21 PM: Power's back, posting this now.

6-18-2005 9:50 PM   For everything else, there's...heck, I don't know.
Summer term is going to be insane...but, I think, in a good way.  About week 1, I can say that for sure, especially with the 27 hours of work, but...
I'm taking two classes.  Six credits isn't much.  However, summer term is shorter and one of the classes only meets for half the term, so for the first three weeks if the 2:1 ratio holds I'll be spending 45 hours a week on classes and studying.
On top of work--a LOT of work if the 27 hours is an indication.
On top of hitting Career Services hard so I'll nail the interview cold next time.
On top of trying to actually be a human being in there somewhere.
And the thing that may label me as certifiable is, I can't wait.
I got an A- in History of Spanish and an A in Foundations of Bilingual Ed., so I'll break 3.0 for spring term even after the C hits.  So I can't complain.  And that horrible screwed-up term is over forever...I wouldn't mind revisiting some of the courses, sometime when I'm not probably clinically depressed, but that'll be a choice, if I make it, and anyway that term is behind me forever.  And I NEVER want to be that screwed up in my head again.  Any time punching windows seems like a good idea at the time...
I'm officially broke, and I'm psyched to have a fresh start.  Some things money can't buy.  For everything else, there's...heck, I don't know, but it works.

11:13:
Oh yeah...and loading 3 Steve McDonald CDs into the changer and hitting 'shuffle' is also way into the land of cool stuff...it's more than the sum of its parts, kind of like a new term is more than a new class schedule.  And, of course, I hit 'repeat' when Flodden Field popped up, and listened to it for about an hour.  There's money involved in that, I guess...electric bill, CDs, the player once upon a time...but more coolness comes out than was paid for.  By a lot.

6-14-2005, 8:40 PM   So that's what happens when you leave popcorn in too long!
It doesn't actually burst into flame...it just turns into this horrible charred mass and puts out insane amounts of smoke.  That bag is now in the garbage out back, and I popped up a new one.  And opened the door and turned on the stove's vent to clear the smoke.  And turned the air conditioning on on general principle, though I don't think I'll need it tonight and as soon as the smoke's cleared I'll turn it all off.
On the good side...I have more popcorn.  Popcorn gooooood.
We got our work schedules for next week today--I'm getting 27 hours!!!  That's almost $200!  That'll sure help with moving expenses, bills, and vacation expenses.  There's a lot of dishroom but I can hit the ibuprofen pretty hard, I guess.
I'm going in to MES tomorrow to help with the end-of-year stuff...and I have something of a devious scheme about that.  Since I'm going to be teaching a science unit next year, and maybe other things too, I could borrow a video camera, tape myself, and pick out a good lesson, so that if I have to try to appeal my way into the program I'll be able to say, "Yes I can too do it...here's the proof, I've done it."  And the early ones, I can look at to see how to improve.  I guess that'll mean sending permission slips home to parents 'cause their kids might be caught on camera...that's easy enough, though.
I still need to pester the financial aid people and that OSU education advisor I've been e-mailing, and do the summer term health insurance thing.  And send out some address changes.  Annoying practical stuff.
Oh yeah...and at work today, for some reason people including one student supervisor were telling me, right and left, what a good job I was doing.  I'm not sure why 'cause I just did what I do--the job I'm paid for.  But whatever--between yesterday and today, I'm $30 closer to being able to give a firm Yes to the people who want to see me at SBI.  I need to actually sit down and work out a serious budget...maybe I'll do that tonight, since I still don't have TV or internet here.

9:26: Well, I've got some numbers on paper...resources are still looking sketchy, though.  And I still want to start on the whole braces thing.  But...the more I do the math, the more doable it all looks.  As always.  I shouldn't be surprised any more.

6-12-2005 11:35 PM   Just to catch up...
I finished the Spanish paper, on time.  I'm kinda thinking I'll get something in the B range out of that class.  Not what I wanted but I can live with it.
Thursday, I was late to field day but they had plenty of people so it didn't matter as much...and then I went back to the classroom a little after the kids did (I helped break stuff down), where they proceded to bombard me with thank-you gifts and tell me how cool I am.  And I've been in a better than average mood since then, partly because of that and partly, I suspect, because I caught a lot of sun.  Which I guess probably means I've got at least a touch of seasonal-affective disorder.  Oh well, there are worse things, I guess.
Thursday night rated a major grrr because I finally managed to psych myself up and ask Jeff if he wanted to go see the new Star Wars movie sometime, and he said he'd already seen it but it was good and I should...and I don't think he actually meant it in a shooting-down kind of way, and according to everyone I've asked he can be as smart as I know he is and still dense enough to think the movie was the point of the conversation, so...nice tasty ambiguous situation: was he shooting me down but being so nice I couldn't tell, or is he actually that dense?
Friday wasn't much fun.  From 6:30 to 9, I worked.  From 9 to about 9:30, I ate breakfast.  From 9:30 to somewhere in the 5:30 or 6 range, I moved...no break for lunch, and dinner was late because I then went to my sister's high school graduation.  It was, I guess, 9 or a little later by the time I ate 'lunch'; fortunately my dad paid, and by the way, the Carl's Jr. guacamole-bacon six dollar burger is, in fact, quite worthwhile.
To be honest I'm not totally sure what all happened on Saturday.  I slept WAY in...unpacked some stuff...found the ibuprofen I desperately needed after doing bad things to my back all day Friday, including carrying a full-size microwave from the third floor with no cart or anything similar (so when the graduation speech made reference to The Matrix and "taking the red pill," I cracked wise to those around me that the red pill I was thinking about was Advil)...watched some Enterprise because I have no cable hooked up, but I do have DVDs...went to the library briefly...came back and unlocked the apartment so my parents could bring my bed in...and went food shopping and had dinner.  I think that's about it.  Oh, and I jumped in the real bathtub, not just a shower (wahoo!), to wash my hair and hot-soak my back.  'Cause red pill alone isn't always enough.
Today...there was furniture shopping involved, and some unpacking/organizing kinds of things.
I still need a couch and maybe a chair or two.
I still need at least a phone line other than my cell, and cable and internet hooked up.
Oh, the other thing...I don't remember what day this was, but...I was messing around with the thermostat over here, making sure it wasn't pumping out any hot air, and I saw this little switch to the side that could be set to "cool."  So...I wasn't sure if it would do anything or if that was just standard design, but I tried it...and a few minutes later, the vents were pumping out cold air.  I have a downtown loft with no downstairs neighbors, no upstairs neighbors, a skylight, a less-than-one-minute walk to the city library, a bicyclable commute to school, and air conditioning for $425 a month.  I've died and gone to heaven.  And heaven is getting high-speed internet and will be a wireless hotspot as soon as financial aid comes through.
The money part isn't so hot right now.  Other than that, life is good.

6-7-05 10:04 PM
This has all-nighter potential; I need to clear my head a little.
ED 483 is going to be a B.  I can't complain.
ED 482 could be an A or maybe B+.  I can't complain about that either.
WR 460 is going to be an incomplete for a while and then a C, maybe B- if I can sell Dr. Schmidt on extra credit or alternative workshop partial credit somehow.  It's not the greatest but I can live with it.
SPAN 480--jury's still out, this paper's taking so long, that's why I'm thinking all-nighter.  And why I've already sucked down two and a half cans of Barq's.  I was going to do it earlier today but I wasn't feeling great and left work something like an hour early this morning...the queasiness I wrote off as, well, cramps, but that didn't explain when my knees started shaking.  So I came back to my room and crashed, then woke up and went, late, to a ClubED officer meeting.  At least I seem to have slept off whatever it was beyond cramps.  I have to work at 6:30 again tomorrow, so I'm gonna be wrecked but I think I'm just gonna stay up.  I can crash for a few hours after work before I move stuff, and I can keep moving on into the night.  Apartment keys work in the dark.  I just have to make sure I'll get enough sleep to get up and hang out with the munchkins on Thursday...last week sucked 'cause I didn't know if I was gonna have to go on antibiotics, so I couldn't go hang out with the third graders.
This isn't gonna be an honor roll term.  I'll be lucky to break 3.0 once the C hits.  But it'll be over.  Some things money can't buy.  And breaking a B average with what I've been going through--depression, insomnia, stress-induced ADD, strep throat, and writing more depressing poetry than a human being should be legally allowed--that could be a lot worse.
It's not perfect.  But I can live with it.  It's not so bad.
Being a year behind isn't perfect.  But it gave me the chance to complete a major soul-search and figure a lot of stuff out about myself.  I can bounce back.  I can live with that.
And I think I'm going to use the insurance through Dad's work, over the summer, 'cause it covers prescriptions, and see if I've got some kind of social anxiety thing that they can give me a pill for...I don't think talking to a shrink is gonna do me much good, but if I can go on meds to take the edge off and prove to myself that I actually can do stuff without freaking out, I probably won't need to stay on them for that long.  I still don't approve of the stuff as a permanent solution but I'm OK with it as part of a strategy.
OK, back to the paper.  1000-1250 words in Spanish about the evolution of the spanish language...ugh.  Why didn't I do science for a focus area?

6-3-2005, 11:48 PM   Now I need furniture...
It actually hasn't been that bad lately.  Maybe for real this time.  Maybe this time I won't end up punching a window because of reading the Interdisciplinary paperwork and hearing people talk about being in the program.  The window was stuck, that was why I thought I was punching it the first time, but by the third time I had it figured out. [Later note: the window-punching incident wasn't recorded at the time but happened on the 27th of April.]
I'm fighting off strep throat but apparently the good kind...or, anyway, not the bad kind, 'cause they don't give out antibiotics for this one and I don't have to miss work.  I wasn't aware there was such a thing as good strep, but whatever.  So unless it gets worse, I'm supposed to keep at the orange juice and chicken soup and let it go away on its own.
I officially have the apartment...in fact I put my winter coat in the closet, claiming my territory.  Mine, all mine...now I need furniture.
I'm insanely tired.  Not borderline euphoric like last time things seemed to be getting better.  That's why I think this one might be for real.  The other, in comparison, wasn't believable.  This maybe is.
I didn't write this down at the time...I was up too late the night before I was supposed to do my Spotlight workshop for WR 460, printing and stapling, so I slept in and missed it.  I'm taking an incomplete so the rest of my work will be incredible so I'll be able to get a C.  And I may end up with incompletes in one or two other classes.  ED 482 may still be an A, though.  I don't guess it's a coincidence that that's the class that I still would have taken if I'd gotten into the program.
Summer term's gonna be different.  I'm ready to actually take it on, this time.
Fall term's gonna be totally different.  I'm taking a real courseload, I'm even going to take a real math class, finally.  That's been a while.  But that's ahead of where I am in the story.
I don't remember exactly how I decided on Early Childhood/Elementary as opposed to Elementary/Middle.  I think it was somehow practically by default, though, and I think that's part of what I did wrong.  That took a major soul search...but someone said a while back that for some reason she saw me teaching middle school.  I'd been thinking about adding middle level in grad school anyway...but it filtered through my brain and got me to thinking.  I don't think I'm wired right for anything below third grade; maybe because I skipped over too much of my own childhood.  And I can definitely see myself going higher than fifth grade a lot more easily.
So it'll mean a few extra classes, but I need to take something anyway--so I'm just gonna do it, switch to Elementary/Middle.  That's why I'm taking MTH 111--it was that or 292, and 111 will let me continue to trig and calculus when I have time.
And I'm looking at grad school, that kind of thing, though I'm going to reapply in fall term for winter, and winter for spring if I have to.
It's not perfect.  It's not gonna be perfect for a long time.  But I think I'm finally really ready to take it on again.

5-18-2005 1:29 AM    "One Thousand, Two Hundred, and Twenty-Eight Days"
One thousand, two hundred, and twenty-eight days
That my feet have been walking this path
Not that I've counted them one at a time,
I did the math
But more moments than anyone could count
Than I could even guess
And eighty-nine days since one moment
Changed my path forever
I got the mail I'd been waiting for,
    working for, hoping for
Only not like I'd been hoping for
Shaking fingers tore it open
Shaken mind refused to believe
Then I made them tell me why.  Then I believed it.

One thousand, two hundred, and twenty-eight days
And more moments than I could imagine
I look at myself and I see
I am so far from who I was, who I thought I was
But I'm not who they want me to be
Eighty-nine days since one moment
Changed all the moments after
A lot of fears, a lot of tears
Three weeks when I didn't cry, one meltdown,
    now a few weeks that I didn't again
But the worst was a week and a half,
    most of it over Spring Break, when I couldn't
Crying doesn't help (but my throat still gets tight)
Talking doesn't help (because to talk I have to think about it)
    (but I always think about it)
    (and somehow I end up talking anyway)
Letting the moments slip softly away makes it worse
Every moment, I'll never get back

One thousand, two hundred, and twenty-eight days
I'm so far from the girl that I was
But everything that's changed me has been because
It was time, or I chose it, or I would have chosen it anyway, or it would have happened anyway
Near-eighteen thought in absolutes
Twenty-one weighs conflicting demands
But who weighs mine?
I walked their line, did all that they asked, freely gave of my mind
Now I see it again, in this place, in this time.
Their demands matter.  My needs don't.
They call this opportunity, say it's set up for me, say they're on my side
They lied
The power's with them, and the twenty-one-year-old is as helpless before the system as the nine-year-old before the mother who wanted an unpaid shrink

One thousand, two hundred, and twenty-eight days
Or a bit over three years
Eighty-nine days
Or a million tears
All down to now, here, alone,
Everything I ever was slipping away

One thousand, two hundred, and twenty-eight days

5-11-2005 11:35 PM
What I need to do is go down to my bank, get the loan paperwork, make a phone call to Portland, and get the ball rolling on the whole rearranging-of-teeth thing.  'Cause that'd be one less thing to have messing with my head--every time my tongue gets cut up, I end up thinking, what the heck, this isn't supposed to be happening, my parents could've taken care of it.  It would've involved loans or payment plans or something, same as it will for me, but they could've.  I know how much money they waste on dumb crap when they have it.  They always spend exactly what they make, and I've never noticed them being better off for making more...
[later note: I got distracted in the middle of writing this and never finished]

5-9-2005 1:45 AM (though I'm typing it in later)
I literally broke down and cried at the end of writing this.

I did the best I could
Nothing's right and nothing's fair
Now when everything's gone wrong
It's just too much work to care

Think I've said a thousand times
Nothing's changed; it all still hurts
All alone now, thinking, quiet
And that's when it gets me worst

I'm behind in everything
Stuff I didn't want anyway
"Second-choice courseload"
It'll count toward Interdisciplinary
I make fun of Interdisciplinary
Only now I can't
I don't even want to be here,
    this term,
But I want to be home even less
'Cause I can't take what's normal there
And 'cause I let them down
All the hope they had for me
All the hope I had for me
And it's me that I let down

I did the best I could
Nothing's right and nothing's fair
Now this one thing changes everything
And when it comes to everything
It's just too much work to care

5-8-2005 3:17 PM
It's been a good couple of days.  That makes me worry.
And I have way too much that I need to do...and I can't help but think that trying to do it is going to make the good days end again for a while.
I really, really miss being able to have a decent time without second-guessing whether it's about to fall to crap.

5-7-05 12:14 AM   "I lost something out there; I don't know how to get it back." --Archer, in "Home"
Slight fib, over at the forums, a little bit ago.  I said that my quotes of the day aren't really themed, they're just what I can come up with.  That's part of the truth but they're "what I can come up with" that feels right, one way or another.  Sometimes I don't know why.  Sometimes I do.
Yesterday, that still feels like today 'cause I'm still up, wasn't all that bad really.  Spent the morning with the third graders 'cause I had an inspiration yesterday about how to put a tassle on a bookmark and Mortlock wanted me to be the one to show the kids how.  Went to Chemeketa and got a wrap.  Went to work and actually had two BS sessions with Jeff--one of which I started, the other of which he started, which had me somewhere between "YES!!!!!" and "Crap now it's my turn again."  Couldn't get stupid grin off my face for half an hour once I got home.  Watched Enterprise; evil, evil cliffhanger, though.
It gets so much worse.
As long as I don't think about it.
But the thing is--I've never been a short-term kind of person.  I need to be doing something about this.  I wish I knew what.
And I lost something, not getting into the program, and I don't know how to get it back.
I want to start this term over and keep stuff from piling up on me like it is now.
I want to flash straight to the end of the term and not have to deal with the rest of it.
I want to go back to believing it mattered, because from what I can tell right now, it doesn't.
That's what I lost.
And I'd give just about anything if I could get that back.

5-5-2005 11:10 PM   It wouldn't bother me for it to not have to hurt
Aye, there are options open.  But every time I try to look at the options, all I can think about is why I have to.  And then I can't think.
It's been a little better, I guess, over the last couple days.  But I don't know how long that'll last.
I'm mad at myself for letting this happen.  I still don't know what I should have done differently, but we're not talking logical.
I'm mad at them for setting the system up so that it could.
And I'm mad at myself for letting it get to me so much, to the point that it's messing up other things.
I just don't get that.  Last term, I got this torpedoing news in mid-February, which as I recall was in the general area of midterms.  And somehow I came out of it with two As, two A-s, and a B.  Now, I can't think, can't make my mind stay on schoolwork, and every day it's a little worse because I have more piling up.
I know it's a reality I have to deal with.
But it wouldn't bother me for it to not have to hurt.

5-2-2005 9:51 PM    I am truly beginning to hate studying
What I said about being done with freaking out was clearly a self-delusion.  It's interfering with everything.  I need to get my head shrunk, I know, but I just can't make myself do it.  That part's nobody's fault but mine.
I can't concentrate on schoolwork.  Every day I'm further behind.  Doing a little better now sort of but the backlog from the first couple weeks is its own source of stuff in my head.
I don't know if I'll make it to the end of the term.  Every day it's more and more, "I can't do this."  And I know I actually can survive a rough term, 'cause I've done it, but I really miss last spring.  18 credits, family stuff, money stuff, but the future still looked OK back then.  Now, the path I've taken to get to this point looks like wasted effort, and I don't really have a path to take to get where I want to be.
Lord it sucks.

5-1-2005 6:55 PM
How can I be this tired from sleeping late and hanging out online?
So, I worked two shifts yesterday, brunch register 3 and dinner Spotlight.  Spotlight was soft taco bar--busier than usual, especially for a really dead weekend, and good enough that I could make some up for myself as opposed to being sick of the sight of the things.  And they turned out quite good too.
At the beginning of brunch shift, I checked the position assignment list of the day, supposedly to make sure I hadn't been switched but really to see if Jeff would be working later.  And at the time he was; he'd taken a sub-slip for Wok watcher, which is the only job more boring than register 3 and I don't know why they don't just consolidate them, at least during weekend brunch since that's what we do to go on break or when someone doesn't show anyway and I've never had a particle of strain from it.  But at least that meant that we ought to be able to BS some; maybe it would even have been justifiable for him to help me slop beans and lettuce onto tortillas.
So I checked again as I was cleaning up and getting ready to leave, for no reason other than to be obsessive, and Jeff called in sick sometime between 10:30 and about 2:00.  Completely unfair.
And then I stayed up rather too late, posting my brains out, and then I slept in this morning.  I should be doing tons of homework but my brain seems to have slipped an important gear and I'm not entirely sure what or how.
The flareup of meltdown seems to have subsided for the moment; we'll see if that lasts.  But I'm pretty sure all that has something to do with why I'm so bloody tired.
And if I may state the obvious, I'm way over the legal limit on stuff that sucks.

4-29-2005 11:43 AM   Wrote a poem last night (this morning really, 12:55 AM)
I don't know if it's any good.  The rhyme scheme's erratic and I didn't even try to do anything metrically, but I needed to write it.  Maybe I'll even think of it when I need to...

too tired these days
and at night I can't sleep
almost all the time it feels
like the worst of both up and down hill
never choked up so fast just from thinkin' before
never cried so many times about the same thing before
some days it's hard just to get out of bed
some days if feels like somethin' in me's dead

and then some days
the sun's out so bright
the sky's so blue it hurts my eyes
twenty-seven kids lookin' up to me
they don't know I'm not worthy for their eyes to see
and nothin' gets me through like the trust of those innocents
and its warm out as I walk to my night class
not really night yet, sun's still everywhere
and a little cool wind, just enough to feel
some days, it's good to be alive

too much to do, test tomorrow
I'm not ready, I'd kill for some crib notes (but not really)
future's too scary for the next few years,
can't make myself think it through
but somehow it's good to be alive
some days it's enough to be alive

4:03 PM
I so don't want to go to work.  Blah.
But I need to, I sub-slipped all my shifts last week 'cause they're Friday and Saturday and I had the retreat.
I just don't want to slop food around.  If I were working register it wouldn't be so bad, I'm still learning that so I'm kinda challenging myself to improve, but I don't like working Spotlight that much.
There's still time to *cough cough* call in sick, but I don't want to...'cause there's a chance Jeff'll be working.  Not that I can actually talk to him, I mean not like I need to, because it's work and because I'm a chicken anyway.  But maybe we can BS for a while?
I'm way overthinking this, I know.
I need to come up with a way to get him to read all this or something.  Hmm...I could put a link in my sig line, manufacture a reason to e-mail him...or else I could just grow a spine and actually talk to him.
Bloody blazes, this sucks.  I mean why can't he just say something?  What part of "Hey, you've still got my number, right?" means anything other than "USE THE FREAKING NUMBER AND CALL ME!!!" ?

10:11 PM
OK, that was just about a non-ending ending on JAG.  But still...dagnabbit, first Trip and T'Pol, now Harm and Mac.  I'm really running out of anything to say "well it's kind of like..." about.
And just to add insult to injury ahead of time...this would be the one Friday night all term that Jeff wasn't working.  Very likely I'm going to go after that writing center thing for next year, since working at the same place doesn't seem to be helping.  We rarely end up working together...and even when we do, I mean I like it and all, but it's not helping make any progress.
I don't suppose it helps that I've spent more than the last two months completely obsessed with my now-screwed-up future.

4-26-2005   1:08 PM
Night before last: couldn't sleep in time to trust myself to be able to get up in time to do something for Writing, so I stayed up.
Yesterday: drank a 12-ounce Vanilla Coke with breakfast, which barely took the edge off.  Did project thingie.  Went to class.  Presentation actually felt like it went well; maybe I need to be fuzzed one way or another to take the stress out of it.  Got back from class.  Crashed.  Missed ClubED meeting.  Wish I felt worse about that but I can't be perfect at everything.  Besides, I did the retreat this weekend, and, well, I got way more than my dose of having to swallow when someone talked about their Ed program classes--Janelle, usually, was the one who prompted that, not her fault, but we were supposed to be in the same term.
Went to Independent Study with Martella today.  I think I'm forgiven about inadvertently blowing stuff off last week; she said something about how this term is getting to everybody.  Spring term in general, actually, she said.
Then went to Dean Chadney's office to talk to Kathy Hill about Interdisciplinary.  And I just want to start screaming and throwing things because I can think of four things that are possible and that I want less than an "Interdisciplinary" degree, but three of them involve being a victim of violent crime and the fourth, let down everyone who ever believed in me, I already did.  Hill said something about how many people are working on Interdisciplinary degrees right now; I wish I cared but I don't.  I did everything right morally.  I can't even see anything I did wrong strategically, based on what I knew or could have known at the time.  And I'm still being forced to major in Underwater Basketweaving.

4-22-2005  12:03 AM, the land of "still feels like Thursday"  I may actually get to bed before 1 AM!
Technically, it's my sister's birthday, I'd call her but I'd have to be a jerk to do that right now.
I'm fuzzing already, the Vanilla Coke at about 6 is wearing off, it really does take six hours for me.
Contributing factor: -4 hours of sleep last night because I had a friend with personal problems to talk about, and it's someone who's listened to my problems so I wasn't jerk enough to bail, so I was on the IM until I think 2:30ish, eyes losing focus, and then I think I was too tired to sleep for a while 'cause I remember seeing the clock getting really close to 4:00.  And then it was Thursday, so I went to go hang out with "my" third graders, who really needed me 'cause they had a brand-new, hasn't-gotten-the-shiny-rubbed-off-yet, first-DAY substitute for the morning so it's a good thing I didn't go late.
Another contributing factor: I had to grade spelling and math drill.  I hate grading.  Assessment to see what the kids should do next is OK, but I hate grading.  I hate having to put numbers on the kids because some of the numbers end up meaning "not good enough."  And I hate saying that.  I hate it worse than anything.  And it's always the same kids I have to say it to, the ones who haven't figured out yet how to put school stuff and other stuff in different boxes so all their problems show.  I'm sure lots of the bright kids have problems too but I don't see it because they've learned, by third grade, how to mostly leave it at home.  Not inside, but as far as letting it show.
They're the ones who I see in them what I mostly don't let other people see in me--the feeling like not measuring up.  And I'm not sure that's a sentence but it's what I mean.  And I want to tell them it's OK but I know I wouldn't be doing them any favors by setting them up for an even worse time when I can't shield them, or by telling them that I expect less of them, and the kids do know, I don't know how but they do.
But I hate grading.
It doesn't take factor analysis to see that there were some things about this spelling test that set some of the kids up for failure because some of them play the odds and figure they'll know part of it but a lot of it was linked this time--"dry," "dried," "drying," "carry," "carried," "carrying."  OK, that happens.
And if a kid reads a multiplication drill sheet wrong and does addition and 2x2 isn't anywhere on there, the kid is going to get them all wrong.  Sucky but understandable; it's a fairly easily fixable mistake.
But HOW can a kid think that 1 times everything is 1, anything times 0 is the number you start with, 3x9=29, and 2x9=56 (or something like that, the last one I don't remember for sure) on the same worksheet???
I could just cry, except that's not something I do.
I want to say yes.  But saying yes when it's not justified isn't something I can let myself do.
I have stuff in my background that makes me have to watch my present behaviors.  That's true of lots of people.
But it still sucks.

4-18-2005, 2:32 AM   Truly dire news tonight...well, technically last night
Trek United got well and thoroughly shot down.  A fair number of us are staying to keep fighting but it's doing crazybad things to morale.  I'm fuzzed from tiredness but not sure I dare go to sleep now as I have a class at 10 and feel I could use about 12 hours.  Will probably do so anyway...but dang, the morning's gonna blow, I'll be all space cadetty.
And I have a headache, back of head, and my neck is also not so happy.  Exactly how it would be if stress hit me between the shoulders like it always does and worked its way up.  (Stress?  What stress?)
Got my USS Tigris signup form filled out today--only took me a MONTH and some change.  Still must send.
Too tired to think.
Didn't get half the stuff done this weekend that I meant to.  For example, retreat shopping will have to happen on Tuesday.  Thank God I can fall back on Tuesday (no disrespect intended to God; I just appreciate it that much).
And about the Jeff drama--still pretty much how it's been for a while.  We talk when appropriate; some tendency to gravitate toward situations where conversation is appropriate but not more than could be written off as people being friends.  And it's driving me up a wall.  I didn't say anything earlier on because I didn't want to say anything that would mess it up but now I'm almost thinking that not saying anything earlier on messed it up...and he's not just a term ahead of me, now, I'm gonna be in school so long it's not even funny, so my loser quotient went up exponentially.  And he's in the program with probably the highest girl-to-guy ratio outside of an all girls' school.  How am I supposed to compete with that?  He could have his pick of better-looking non-neurotic girls who aren't years behind him careerwise.  So I keep thinking I should just write it off to lessons learned...but then I run into him again, and I temporarily lose half my IQ points.
Bloody blazes, why do people look for people to get stuck in their heads?  This blows.

4-9-2005
"Flodden Field" is officially in my head.  I gave in and hit the repeat button.
So, I ran into Jeff a little bit ago and he asked how it was going...which is technically a good thing since it means he still knows I exist at least in the literal sense of the phrase...but I really, really miss being in that writing class with him because it gave me something to talk about instead of just using stock responses that make a conversation last 15 seconds at best.  'Cause I can't think of anything except stock responses at the opportune moment; it's like talking to him makes me lose half my IQ points.  The stock responses keep me from actually going "duuuuh" but I like my IQ points, I've gotten used to having them and I really need them.
And I'm running out of "really"s.
I just...gAAAAAhhh, I must really be turning into a girl...I can't believe I'm potentially this close to having a guy interested and I may never know 'cause I can't think of anything to say.
Not being able to shut up used to be my problem--not on this kind of thing, but other things.  I repeat, gAAAAAhhh.

4-8-2005    Today I'm magically old enough to be responsible with booze
Happy 21st birthday to me.  It doesn't feel all that celebratory.  I don't think anyone here knows; I'm pretty sure Jeff doesn't 'cause I ran into him when I was grabbing lunch and I think he would've mentioned it.
I work in half an hour.
I'm tired.
My back hurts.
I know I have homework but I can't think of what.
It's Friday; Enterprise will be on.  Kind of a mixed blessing since I'll have to make sure there are no bricks for me to throw at the TV when UPN starts gloating again about how they're tossing their only good show.
I slept way in.  I could've slept even later but I wanted lunch.  I could sleep now but I want to get paid.
I probably should go home for the festivities this weekend, since they're for me and all.  "Quality time" with my mom isn't my idea of birthday fun, though.
And I'll get to do it again in two weeks when Rianna turns 18...which is the weekend of the retreat, so that weekend's pretty much shot for homework purposes.
I heard back from Financial Aid today--working on a second bachelor's degree won't make me an independent, so I have to either get a guy for one purpose or another or report my parents' information two more times, have them get shot down for the PLUS loan, take out the unsubsidized.  Hopefully whatever job I can scrounge up won't actually mess up my financial aid.
And Caroline wants to talk to me...something to do with the procedural stuff...and I know she's right about at least part of it, I do need to get on my meaningless degree plan.
I'm going to make it all work.  I know that in my mind and in my soul.
But no system that's supposed to provide opportunities should be set up to screw people over so efficiently.

4-7-2005, the last day I can't legally get drunk
Tomorrow, I will reorganize this journal.  At least, assuming I remember and get around to it.
Although "reorganize" kind of implies it was organized to begin with, so I'm not sure how accurate that is.
Let me explain: I've already sort of partway done it, in the way I decide what stuff to keep in "Archives" and what to move to "Old Archives"--I do it by whether the stuff that's in those entries is part of the "drama sequence"--like a "dream sequence" but awake--that I'm on at the time.  I mean, yeah, I end up picking a cutoff date, but that's how I pick it.  It's not "the last fifteen entries" or something.
And the part where I stress and freak out about not making the cut is over.  It still sucks...but it's not the only thing I can think about any more.  It'll always be part of who I am, and like everything else, even like things that are just meant as casual random comments (if you're reading this you know who you are) I'll try to use it to make myself better.  But now it's something I use, not the other way around, like my stubbornness.
The year I go through the program will double my student loan debt.  It sucks.  But I can live with that better than I can live with giving up.
And I'm not going somewhere else. I'm going through Western.  First I was going to do it to prove to them that I could.  Then I was going to go somewhere else to prove to them that I could.  Now I'm going to do it to prove to myself that I can.
I choose to live my life proving myself to myself, not to other people.  I guess I had to learn that again.
The student loan money will be there; that's why people pay taxes.  I'll have to pay it back; that's why I'll need a job.
I still want to use ClubED to make sure this doesn't have to happen to anyone else, because it's not everyone who can push it to the Dean, squeeze the system until some useful feedback drips out.  Well...OK, I guess they probably can, but most people just don't.
I'm done being invisible.  I'm done with waiting for everything to work itself out while I ride along.
I'll still go to the University of Wales sometime for Welsh or Celtic Studies or something.  And I'll run up a ton of student loans on that too.  And I can't believe this but I'm OK with that.  But teaching--teaching I'm going to learn here at Western where I planned.  I spent too much time making it real in my mind.  And if I changed that part of my plan, it'd be for all the wrong reasons.
I don't give in, I don't back down, and I never learned how to give up.  I wrote that a while back.  But some people did learn how.
And I learned how to shut up.
It's time for us all to unlearn some things.
And it's time for my life to go on.

4-5-2005   "Do I really need a cell phone that takes pictures?"
So maybe it's time I write in this about something a little more toward what everyone else my age is worried about--Tru, the girl in Tru Calling who rewinds days when people die, said it pretty well in season 1: stuff like "Do I really need a cell phone that takes pictures?"
Trivial stuff, and stuff that's more than trivial but isn't truly massive.
Like yesterday morning and this morning.
Yesterday morning, I set my alarm to give myself plenty of time to hit the snooze and wake up.  But I couldn't sleep the night before, so I was too deep asleep when it started going off.  I woke up an hour later when it stopped going off on its own and the room got too quiet.  I had 25 minutes to get dressed, brush my hair, and make it to my 10:00 class.  Breakfast, naturally, was impossible.
This morning was even worse.
I set my alarm for, I think, 6:45, figuring that would leave me plenty of time to hit the snooze a bunch of times, grab breakfast, and make it to a 9:00 group study meeting thing with a professor.  I didn't take a melatonin because it was after midnight by the time I got to bed and less than 7 hours would be cutting it close even if I got to sleep right away.
I just couldn't sleep.  I just couldn't.
I don't know how late it was when I finally got to sleep because I stopped looking at the clock.  I do know that I specifically remember it being slightly after 2 AM, and I was relatively unfuzzed then so I wouldn't be surprised if it was 3 by the time I got to sleep.
This morning, I didn't even hear my alarm.  No snooze-hitting, no pulling pillow over head, no waking up when it stopped, nothing.  I woke up at 11:40 or so, pulled clothes on, brushed my hair, missed breakfast again, and ran to the ClubED table to watch people not sign up for the retreat.
I e-mailed the professor afterwards and everything's basically OK--but dang.  Normally the gears in my head still catch a little when I have to actually make it to class or something like class.

4-4-2005
11:27 PM-12:27 AM (I couldn't make that up!)
I'm reminded of a Gatorade commercial...
ClubED was tonight again.  Every time I hear someone talking about starting the program, it's like getting kicked in the teeth.  But as of tonight, I think because of some outside reading I've been doing trickling into my thought processes, I think I know what I'm going to do.
It doesn't have to happen to anyone else.
But let me rewind for half a minute.  I went to Salem yesterday to get a Spanish dictionary and some recreational reading from Borders (the outside reading I mentioned).  On the way back I got my first speeding ticket--I'm pretty sure it's bogus but I have no real way of fighting it and my mental state of late is hardly in my favor, so I sent the slip in with a No Contest plea and a statement of mitigating circumstances on the order of "I was doing the safest thing I could at the time by focusing on other cars, not my speedometer."
There is NO WAY I was doing 72--I know what my car feels like at that speed from other times--but I can hardly use THAT as my defense.  I was really polite, though, I even thanked the cop when he gave me the ticket, 'cause I bet that confuses the crap out of 'em.  At least this happened in the part of the term where I can take the bank hit from the ticket.  My insurance'll go up, but I've had my license for a little over a year now so not like it would if I'd gotten the ticket last month, and it was gonna go up anyway 'cause I'm turning 21.  It gets so much worse than this.
And, weirdly, I think that might be what started me snapping out of it.  I didn't cry last night; I haven't cried since.
That and the reading.  And something the ED 483 instructor said on Thursday that's been also trickling through my brain.  And ClubED's thing tonight, that the NEST mentors did.  But it crystallized for me afterward.
It's gonna be like getting kicked in the teeth for a long time when people talk about getting into the program, being in the program.  But that's my sacrifice, and hopefully this will be my legacy as a club officer.
Right now, it's possible to have an actual one-on-one with Dawn Wildfang once and only once, in the second term of junior year to do a degree plan for the application, and do the rest through group advising sessions.  And the people who do it that way probably have an overlap population with the people who need the one-on-one the most to find out about stuff like what's holding me back.
The thing is...if I'd found out earlier, I might have had a chance to do something about it.
Now, Dawn's schedule is slammed, I understand that.  And anyway she's a coursework advisor, not a counselor.  But we have those here.
ClubED is known on the College of Education's student links list as "The official College of Education student organization."  So maybe it's time we start acting like it--asking for stuff in the students' interest to be done, not just planning parties.
And if not us, who?
First of all, I don't agree with one thing that was said about this "Intergenerational Mentoring" thing--that the idea is to focus on juniors, seniors, and first-year teachers.  Maybe at other schools that would work but not Western--any time junior year would have been too late for me.  We have to get the sophomores, and the transfer students the second they show up.  Like, if I'd found out in spring of my sophomore year, that might have been time.
And once we get them, we have to have something for them and find out which ones need it.  We need to come up with some kind of supplementary materials for the practica--even just something for students to voluntarily do--so that it's not just a case of being in a room for so many hours a week.  And we need to get the College of Education to talk to the Student Counseling Center and come up with something students can use a counseling session or two on in sophomore year or so to find out if there's stuff they need to work on.
It still won't get everyone; some people just don't take advantage of what's available to them.  (Which I guess means I need to use this year's sessions while they're still there for the family stuff.  Bloody blazes that's going to suck; I'm still mad about my mom being the one not in therapy, not even admitting she should, when her being messed up is what messed up Rianna and me.)
But it would have gotten me, and it'll get the people who want it bad enough.  The ones who don't want it bad enough would probably be in the 50% that wash out in the first three years anyway.
So if ClubED will be doing this, maybe with variations based on what we can pull off, I'm in for the duration.  And if not, I'll train my replacement as Webmaster and come to meetings to hang with my friends, because that's what I can live with.  I can't be an officer in a club that won't step up to this.
And when they'll take me, I'm coming back here.  Not because I have to prove anything to them.  Because I have something to prove to myself.
When they'll take me.
Not if.
I shouldn't have had to take it to the Dean to get feedback that made sense.  From what one of the professors said at the Ed program orientation thing that I went to the last half of last Monday in case, I'm "the one who..." which means a couple of things--1) my stubbornness is legendary now 2) because most people don't push it that far.  Which is no surprise, but it means most people don't push it far enough to get something they can use.
That has to change.  And that, I think, I may be able to help make happen.
Oh yeah, and what the ED 483 instructor said--but let me give the context first.  He was wondering what the WOU policies on on during-class breaks work; one of the other girls said something to the effect of a 10-minute break after every 50, which is right for your average class, but this was a 3-hour time block with 15 minutes at the end already built in as break, so theoretically there would be 15 minutes of break somewhere in the class...and I said so, with the reasoning.  So he said the two of us were future union presidents, well-versed in the contractual stuff...which got me to thinking.
I never really saw myself as leadership material.  I've deliberately never angled myself into place for being president of anything since I started an online homeschool club, and that was mostly so I could write a newsletter.  But now that I think about it...I'm not actually the way I know I come off sometimes, even to myself, kinda pushover-y.  I get it now; I got burned by crap people said to me, one time too many, and I don't want to be a person who says that.  But the thing is...I won't, I get it now, I just have to go with my instincts.  The ones that said to back off a little, talk about other stuff instead for a couple minutes so the kid could pull himself together, and give the crying kid a Kleenex already!!!  (And I think it would've worked if I'd actually been in charge of what had happened right afterward.)  The instincts that I also used to keep five special ed kids in line on a project while the rest of the class was doing test prep--I wasn't crazy-strict, I know what that looks like, but they got the project done and didn't make trouble.  The instincts that I used when a first-grader was sent to room 6 for time out and ended up left there longer than he was supposed to be and wanted to leave, in fact said he was going to, and I kept him from leaving with nothing but words saying I thought that was a bad idea, while making a chart.
It's been fear of saying something wrong that's been paralyzing me.  And now...now I think maybe I'm done with that.
If I'd known this last year--heck, maybe if I'd known it at the beginning of this fall--I could be in the program right now.
And this doesn't have to happen to anyone else.
So I'll now be taking on something pretty major...maybe even the kind of thing a future union president might take on...so maybe the instructor was on to something.  It'll mean using everything that right now I don't have.  Trial by fire, straight up.
Which is why I'm reminded of a Gatorade commercial from a while back: "Sometimes getting to heaven means going through hell."  (Which is, in this sense, a place name, not a swear word, so EAT THAT censorship people!)
This is my sacrifice.
This is what I can do.
And somehow, I think it's also going to be exactly what I need.