4-5-04
In my defense, it’s been crrr-azy.
Finals week: could have been worse.  Ended up my last term at Chemeketa with three B’s and two A’s.  I’m not complaining about that because one of the A’s could have been a B, and at least 2 of the B’s could have become C’s.  I blame the weatherman.
Spring break: not bad, though a bit insane with moving Teresa into the apartment.  The idiot cable company screwed up our hookup date, so we weren’t there - they’ll be back Wednesday - and I still don’t know what the idiot phone company’s problem is (other that not being able to find something with both hands).
Last week: started at WOU.  Got ID card, sign-in name for their network, insane courseload, all that stuff.  18 credits - what am I thinking?  At least so far it’s okay, and I’m feeling really good about how this Linguistics class is going.  Staying on top of Math.  Getting on top of Spanish.  Just got a quiz back in History - 50/50!!!  And Music - I think I can stay on top of a class where we sing goofy songs and dance around like crazy kids.  Okay, the research and curriculum design might get a little intense, but that stubborn sound you hear is me deciding to make it happen.
I’m also going to take advantage of this school’s legendary campus life - after all, it’s spring on a coed campus that has club meetings or events going on practically every night.  Even I should be able to find a boyfriend in this.
This is the term for me.  Finally.  I know it.

4-6-04
Golly.  Why am I so tired?
18 credits?  No way.
My first upper division classes?  Perish the thought.
Six hours or so, in seven out of the last nine nights?  (Does that mean I’m getting a strong C in insomnia?  Could I pull it up to a B?  How many credits can I get for that?)  No, couldn’t be that.
I shouldn’t need to blow off steam either - I spent close to 2 hours just now (oops) on recreational Internetting and the like, and the RPG I’m in is coming back to life.  But I’m pondering the possibilities of finding some kind of social activity tonight, ‘cause it’s way too early in the term for this.
That, or curl up with my laptop and be a scribe for those voices in my head.  I haven’t decided yet.
Maybe I should use up some of my counseling center hours or something.
Maybe I should quit school and join the circus.
Snap out of it!!!  It’s only week 2!!!  What am I saving for midterms and finals?!?
OK, I know what the problem is.  1) It’s Tuesday, the day you‘re not even halfway to the weekend but it feels like a long time ago; 2) Any residual energy saved up from the weekend would have been demolished by something like five and a half hours’ sleep Sunday night; 3) It’s Tuesday; and 4) My back hurts and I wish the student clinic had a chiropractor.

4-13-2004
A week apart.  I guess I can live with that.
New theory: Music as Lifesource.  According to this theory, by keeping appropriately energetic music in my ears whenever possible (i.e. when I’m doing homework), I should be able to keep my energy level out of the [blankety-blank] basement.  Basically, there are two options: Steve McDonald and Avalon.  (I’m sure there are others, but I don’t have them on CD.)  Rechargeable batteries are my new best friend.
Math is now officially going OK.  My first two portfolios got full credit, as did just about everything else.  Translation: I can ease back on the stress factor.  <great big relieved sigh>
Another new theory: More than Five and a Half Hours of Sleep Would be Really Great.
At least the car CD player Dad got me for my birthday should help keep me awake on those drives home after Music.
My last new theory of the day: Graduation Ceremony Will Be A Good Thing.  I got my plan to have Teresa go to the rehearsal for both of us approved today.  Walking in a college graduation ceremony is a go.  I resisted the urge to shriek excitedly (the one I couldn’t when I got my acceptance letter to Western).  Announcements all around: Granddad may send cash or a gift, though I doubt he’d be able to make it.  And anyway, the guy has a right to know that a quarter of his DNA is graduating.  I’ll understand if he doesn’t send anything this time … though next time, I don’t think so.  Chemeketa graduation is kind of just halfway anyway, but if there’s not cash or a gift when I get my 4-year degree, I’ll be ticked.
Later (5:00-ish): addendum to my Music as Lifesource theory: Batteries are the Lifesource of CD Players, and Dead Batteries are Bad.  This sucks.  I’m bringing spares tomorrow.  At least they’re rechargeable.

4-14-2004
Halfway through the week.  Halfway to midterms.  I feel like I could sleep for a day or two; at least, I could have before lunch, anyway.  I’m glad there’s caffeine in Cherry Coke - it really takes the edge off of these six-hour nights.  Although I’m still yawning.

4-19-2004
OK, I know there are a ton of things I have on paper that I meant to type up for this ... I'll put 'em in when I can.
The "it's been way too long so here's the latest" update:
I go to Western now.  In fact, I'm typing this from a computer in Valsetz, which is our dining hall here.  There's one of those plastic things over the keyboard - apparently they don't trust us not to spill things.  I'm taking 18 credits (eek!) and actually doing OK.
And ... I guess I'm ready to write about this.
It was a couple of months ago now, I think.  After Linda quit as PTK Treasurer because she didn't like how I was being Secretary, she got everyone that was there a few meetings later to vote me out of office.  Just a month before I was going to be going on to Western anyway ... and it's not like I was doing less than anyone on the officer board, except that backstabbing busybody type-A b*#%&.  (It's not slander if it's true.)  Brett was nice about it ... but I didn't go back to any more meetings.  Why bother?  There was nothing for me to gain in that shark tank.
The thing that gets me is ... I wasn't a perfect secretary, I know that.  But she made it a problem between us ... and when it looked like it was solved, I let it go.  And got freaking blindsided.
I try to tell myself I don't care, that in twenty years she'll be dead of a combination of type-A heart attack and being older than me, and I'll have a career, student loans paid off, probably a house and all that middle class stuff.  And I know that the imperfect secretary isn't the one they're still talking about, even the people who weren't there - it's the b*#%&-y treasurer.  But even just writing about this, I get all choked up, I feel like there's a wave welling up in me that I could give in to if it weren't for keeping my self respect.  I gave it a go.  I made sacrifices.  I tried to be a decent human being about it.  And I found out that even when you're around people who should know better, who should be able to remember about not knowing how, it can all just count for nothing.
Every time I think about this, it's a struggle to keep my idealism, to remember that there still are worthwhile people out there, to hold fast to my trust that there is a way that doing one's best can pay off.  But a big layer of my innocence burned off that night, and there's nothing I can do about that.  I expected that kind of thing from Linda.  The others ... I don't know.  I'd like to think that they would have listened if I could have made my case, but now I can't help wondering if my belief in them as people was justified.
For a job that didn't pay anything, it sure cost me a lot.

4-20-2004
Maybe all this proves is that my dad served, that I grew up on patriotism and the whole respect bit.  I don’t know.  But the thing is, I’ve got this usual desk I work at now in Hamersly, next to a window (great location - second floor, the nearest aisle is the last shelf of periodicals, and a few aisles down is the state adopted textbook collection).  And I guess I’d never looked out the window at the right time of day before.  The reason that where I am is important is, I’m right across the street through the campus from the building that the Oregon Public Safety Academy uses, and they have flagpoles out front.
Also, somewhere on this campus (I used to think Werner, but now I’m leaning toward them being on or near the Humanities and Social Sciences building) there are bells that make some music and then count the hour, every hour.  (I’m not really sure how early or how late they go - I’ll have to ask someone who lives on-campus about that.)  Why does this matter?  Hold on.  I’m getting there.
So, I’m sitting here, at 5:00, and I look out the window and see people across the way, doing the marching up thing to pull the flags down for the night.  And as I’m watching, ‘cause after all it’s not really a usual thing anymore, the bell does its thing.  And now I can’t help wondering if they do that on purpose, but it doesn’t really matter whether they do or don’t, ‘cause it works.  I just can’t help thinking that either that kind of thing would be lost on most people … or more people need to be exposed to it, ‘cause it gets me thinking.
And more proof that I grew up on this stuff?  I get seriously annoyed at this fashion trend of wearing camouflage.  Especially stuff involving bright colors and silver … but even for the more normal stuff, I gotta say - camo is like spandex.  Wearing it is a privilege, not a right.

4-26-2004
Really, I know what went wrong with trying to be PTK secretary at Chemeketa. I wasn't prepared for it, and I knew it, and I tried anyway. I let myself be volunteered for something I knew I couldn't do right, and I gave myself permission to screw it up. So that was there the whole time ... and when Linda was such a stark raving b*&%#, I didn't try to prove her wrong like I could have, because there was something in me that believed that, though, she was right, I had a license to screw it up.
The reason I'm analyzing this? Well, first off, it's my journal. Bugger off if you don't want to hear about me. They say, and by "they" I mean the law, that you have to mitigate your damages as best you can. Trying to get some self-understanding out of the fiasco is the best I can do on that. And second, I'm taking on another club project, and in case I have any fans I felt I should explain. Club ED here at Western needs a web nerd ... and I'm great at that.
I'm ready for this. I'm prepared for what I'll have to do - and I'm ready to take on something new.
I'll post the link as soon as I've got the place cleaned up a bit.

Here's something ripped from a post I tossed up in one of my online role-playing groups a couple days ago.  'Cause I'm too tired, busy, lazy, etc. to do anything original, and this should explain why.

And yet ... there are things on this campus that really take the edge off of feeling sorry for one's self.  The best example would be what I don't believe I'll be calling the "Dead Cops Wall" anymore, out front of the Public Safety Academy across from Hamersly.  I went to the library to study, 'cause it wasn't like I was gonna walk in 15 minutes before the end of class, and I ended up leaving my stuff at one of the desks for a few minutes, going across the street, reading the names.  Some days seem like they suck, but it gets so much worse than this.

Anyway, I suppose it was all for the best: I left my lights on, which I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't waited around for people to show up.  Killing time at 8 AM with the sun up beats the living snot out of killing time at 9:40 PM, probably later tonight, in the dark, wondering if anything's going to happen.  With the ASWOU elections signs getting trashed a few days ago, I somehow doubt how carefully patrolled that street is.

I'm still making a copy and taping it to the inside bottom of my purse, though.  This morning sucked.

Night--after 9:30: Unless I get in a car wreck and kill myself in exciting downtown Rickreall on my way home, I don’t see how this day could get worse.  (And yes, I realize that’s a direct contradiction to my earlier entry today.  Screw it.  I’m on a freakin’ emotional roller coaster here, and I’d love to get off if I could find the switch.)  Not only did all the crap this morning happen, but I didn’t get a journal reflection done for Math, and I totally botched (<heavy sarcasm> yes, ‘o’ is the vowel sound I’m thinking) my part of our group’s presentation in Music.  And now I need to cram until Ungodly O’Clock, go home, sleep for not freakin’ near long enough, and do it all again.
Hopefully with my keys in my hand when I lock the door this time … as opposed to the freaking ignition.
Make it stop.

5-27-04
OK.  I could sleep for about a week, I think.  I’m behind in Spanish in a way that will really screw me if I’m not caught up tomorrow.  But there was an e-mail from the Dean of the College of Education in my e-mail today when I checked, saying how great my work on the ClubED website is.  Somehow that makes it all okay, at least for now.  Don’t ask me about tomorrow until tomorrow; really don’t ask me about next Wednesday because I’ve got an appointment with my counselor.  I did my intake session yesterday - not half so frightful as I thought it would be, but I just - I don’t know.  I’d have to be nuts to think I didn’t need to do this, but the way he said something, about just working on stress management in our next session because the clinic doesn’t have the counselors over the summer so as not to open a “can of worms” when I won’t be able to come in - that made me nervous.  ‘Cause he also said I should come back next fall, presumably to crack open said bait.  Probably for the best that I’ll have pretty much my lightest courseload ever (at least, since I went full time, and except for summers).
And people wonder why I bite my fingernails.

7-13-04
I could’ve sworn I’d written something more recently than that … well, as much of a freakin’ zoo as it was for a while there, I’m not really surprised.
I took my MSAT about this time last month; theoretically, I should get my scores sometime in less than a month.  Amazingly, I still have fingernails.
I think I need a vacation or something.  My last term off was literally Fall of ‘01, before I started at Chemeketa.  My next one will be next summer … probably.  And I spent my last break week moving … not recharging … and I was helping Teresa move, the break week before that … so even though I’m down to one class now (First Aid was a 3-weeker), I’m runnin’ on empty.  I could catch up on sleep in one good weekend, I think, but it’s like there’s something in the mix that’s beyond tired … I don’t know.  And I also need a job; money’s way too tight.  Darn transferring away from my work-study gig at Chemeketa.  If I can manage to remember it, I’ll check out temp agencies - I wanna try to keep my take-a-few-weeks-off-and-vegetate options open.

7-21-04
They were faster than I thought - I got my MSAT scores the other day.  My good feeling was right: I didn’t just pass, I kicked butt.
My fingernails are beginning to grow back, but I doubt that’ll last: I’m querying some agents about a book I want to publish.  I need more stamps … I’m good on first-ounce but bone dry on second-ounce.  I had six, I needed twenty-four.  I guess that’s what happens when you mail so much stuff that if it were all in one thing I’d have to use either Priority Mail or Media Mail.  (And Media Mail would be cheaper … )
If I get an agent inside of six months, and my agent can place the book in six months, I should have a royalty check in my hands in time for senior year to go better.  And the next book should be a lot easier - I’ll already have a sort of “tame” agent, a publisher who’s already publishing me, and if neither of those work out, at least a print credit.  (Though I’ll have to make sure to keep setting and character trademark rights … which, I suppose, is what agents are for.)
I want this so bad.  And I think I might actually be ready … I hope.