So, post-hurricane my life continues to be fairly normal. We didn’t lose power, or John’s car, or anything. School was cancelled all last week and I did not take advantage of the extra study time. I have to start making up for that today. 

Others, though. It’s terrible. I was so impressed by how fast they got the subway up and running again, even if it’s not all of it. My facebook is full of people posting donation and volunteering links. So many areas were just destroyed, including my boyfriend’s parents house. Their neighborhood still doesn’t have power (day 6 now), their basement was completely flooded, to the ceiling, mold is starting to set in, they have no phone service, landline or cell. They’re one of the few in the neighborhood who have a generator. Gas lines are still working, so everyone has a stove still, so that’s good. But no heat.

And gangs of looters are going around robbing people. There are a few ‘worst things’ about this. 1- people doing the looting are pretending to be from the power company, knocking on people’s doors and asking if they’re okay. 2- while the looters have guns, if you shoot someone while they are robbing you, you are still at fault (I’m iffy on this one, but in total support of protecting oneself. I just don’t like guns in general) 3- the National Guard was nearby on the main drag, directing traffic. You’d think they’d be protecting the neighborhood too, no? No. Not at all. And then they just left. So. There goes that. And their neighborhood is not the only one. 

So, shit got fucked up. Is the end result of that. It’s slowly getting better, but for a lot of people it never will. A ton of houses were destroyed and people have nowhere to go. To my mind, this is worse than 9/11, though I know that’s a dicey thing to say. But 9/11, while it killed a lot of people, was very contained. The dust and smoke cleared, and just that small area was affected. This has only killed a handful of people, but destroyed far more, and will take far longer to rebuild. 

And school is back up monday, so I assume I still have a test in chemistry then, and a bio test on tuesday, and a term paper due thursday. So life rolls on. 

Storm storm storm

So there’s a hurricane or something, and my class was cancelled today. Hooray! Please cancel tomorrow as well. But I’m okay with wednesday.

The wind is finally starting to pick up and make the cats nervous. John’s parent’s neighborhood already flooded. I have an extra day to study and write papers and such, but let’s hope I use it for that and not as a nice lazy day off. Yesterday was a nice lazy day off that included the waffle truck and a chili con carne waffle. Amazing. I love their sweet waffles with the spekuloos, but the corn waffle with the fantastic chili has won.

We met with the chair of the department about that terrible teacher and maybe things are starting to happen in that area. We’re unfortunately so far in to the semester that there’s not much to be done, but hopefully a few good things will happen. My statistics class, though. Eesh. I just need to learn that on my own, I guess. Maybe over thanksgiving, in between bouts of writing my chemistry paper.

I’ve been looking at graduate type schools and trying to figure that out. Probably could have spent that time studying, but bah. In any case, I found another program that  I’m interested in, and one of professors wrote a book about cheetahs that I love. I figured out that I need to stay here (boooo) for another year of classes before I can reasonably apply to grad school, but I emailed this guy anyway, asking if I could come with him on his research. He replied within a few hours asking for my resume, so I sent him that sad thin lacking-in-experience thing. So we’ll see what happens with that.

So. Storms and plans and potential studying. Let’s get to it.

This semester is crushing me. It’s going roughly. In Anatomy and Physiology my teacher is so bad that we are going to the department chair about him. Yeah. Maybe I’ll say more about that later, but dealing with that has been most of the last two weeks so I’m tapped out. Suffice to say, I have never before actually wanted someone fired. I want him fired. Statistics is fine, but he’s hard to understand and the expectations of the course aren’t terribly clear. Also, I took a test thursday and completely blanked on a question because I didn’t understand the wording. I figured it out an hour later and was so upset with myself. GIS is fine, but I’m teaching myself and there’s no set deadlines for most things, so I’m letting it slide. Which I feel bad about, but I’m so overwhelmed with other things that feeling bad just makes me more exhausted. Bio is great, except that I was just not prepared for the last couple tests. Fortunately I think I can drop those grades, but it was startling and depressing and means I need to put way more time into that class. Chemistry is actually going excellently. It’s my best subject at the moment. Weird. But there is SO MUCH work to do for it. Every week. 

I’ve also been working. 53 hours last week and 20 hours this week. Which is good, I need it. But. My feet are bruised. Literally. From all the cement and tile floors I’ve been working on. 

Here are some good things- I hauled myself out tonight to go see Jack and Madeline at the aerial studio. Jack left after the workout time, but Madeline and I went to dinner and it was great. I’d missed her a lot, and it was the first time we’d hung out since camp. 

Also, I have a rope class scheduled tomorrow. 

Also, John comes back in a week. 

Also, I have this whole weekend off and don’t need to worry about anything but schoolwork.

Also, the weather has turned a bit and the cats are cuddling a lot more. 

So, good things. Perhaps more of them will poke up here and there and the stress and overwhelmingness will die down. 

Season shift

I’m trying to write a lab report, but those are boring so I’d rather write here. I also am not quite sure how to write this report. It’s a lot better than last week when I wrote about how I measured and weighed water, but There are a couple questions I have about how I’m supposed to present things and I have no one to ask at the moment. 

In other news, I probably need to stop being so antisocial. I’ve bailed on the last couple times I was supposed to see people socially, and both times I had been looking forward to it. But then the time came and…. eulch. I just didn’t want to go. And while I either enjoyed that time or did needed things with it, I kind of regret not going. Mostly, I regret bailing on friends who wanted to see me. If I keep doing that, I’ll run out of people who want to see me. And that’s sad. I just feel very isolated and insular these days, and it’s so much effort to maintain friendships. And I want them maintained! Just not right now! Right now I want to hide and hibernate and I’m scared that people won’t be okay with that, that they’ll get tired of waiting and just file me away. So I need to keep reaching out and making myself do the upkeep.

It’s finally turning cold which I am happysad about. I am happy because I hate the humidity and all in summer, and I don’t have many shorts options and like jeans better. I also have a lot of long sleeved shirts and just got this awesome warm insulated vest thing that I’m excited about wearing. But- now it’s cold. My feet won’t be adequately warm until May. And I can’t leave the windows open any more. And there’s a lack of sun. But, the cats are starting to sleep with me instead of near me again. So, mostly happy. 

I should get back to this silly lab report. It’s not that hard, I just need to make decisions and I’m never good with that. 

Okay, so today …

Okay, so today is better. I slept as much as I wanted, got up and started cleaning. For about 4 hours, I went through everything and came up with three bags of clothes and a bag of shoes to give away. It’s still not super clean, there’s a lot of work to do, and more clothes herd-thinning to do once I get laundry back and can really see all I have and what I can do without, but it was a solid start. I have a lot of shit, clearly. This is what happens when you are a packrat who had managed to hold on to pretty much everything you’ve ever bought in the last 10 years. 

Or longer. I have to shirts that I’m keeping for purely sentimental reasons. It as three, but I decided I can let go of the Ireland shirt my grandmother bought me when I was 11. The Calvin and Hobbes shirt from my 10th christmas, that stays. This is going to get much harder when I start going through my things and books, especially since I want to donate books to my favorite used bookstore which happens to be across the country. So, either I hold on to boxes of books, or I give up that dream. 

I did my chemistry homework and all, but I still have this stupid lab report to do. I think it on’t be so bad once I start, but oh do I have a giant mental block about starting right now. And I have to do one of these every week. I think from now on, I’m going to make myself do it as soon as I get home from class, so I don’t have to deal with it. 

As for John and I, I have no idea. I was pretty upset last night, but as per usual we just kind of ignored it and moved on. I know we need to talk and sort things out, but I really don’t want to do that, and we’re both pretty busy with not much overlapping time and there just isn’t a good time to bring anything up. Not that there will ever be a good time, I know that. Frustrating. But at least my room is livable now. 

Glub

I feel like I’m drowning sometimes. John and I ere doing okay for a bit, and then something happened, I don’t even know, but then he was all pissy and went out last night and so I got upset and cleaned the living room and kitchen. Partially because I was angry and had energy, and partially as an appeasement. Yeah. 

My method of cleaning the living room, though, is to throw out all the flotsam, and take all the jetsam and throw it in my room. Currently there is about 2′ sq of clear floor, between my bed and the door. Everything else is covered. I have a crapload of homework/studying to do (and I’m working 14 hours tomorrow, so now is the time) but I think instead I’ll start on that thing on my list about cleaning and getting rid of stuff. Hopefully I’ll still have time for all the chemistry work due first thing monday morning. Oog. At least I have spotify. 

Fighting sucks

So, John and I had a sort of fight this morning. But not quite? Who knows. He got back from work and came to lie down with me and talk about stuff, and for a while it was really good. But then. He has this paper to write for his silly english class, and it’s a weird assignment. I keep suggesting things, and he keeps rejecting them. I mostly come up with silly things, but here and there I have ideas that could work, if he were so inclined. We started talking about that again, and after a funny bit of me explaining one of my ideas (not my best, but a plausible one) he jokingly said something about “how did you manage to pass anything, ever?” and he didn’t mean it. And I knew he didn’t mean it. But somehow it was worse than all of the times he’d said “wow, no, that’s a terrible idea.” 

So a few minutes later I told him to go upstairs to sleep and to let me sleep a little longer, and he whined about how he looked forward to seeing me and talking like this, and remember how you used to like me… and I said something about how he was just making me feel stupid, and he got up and left. 

This already ran through a bunch of our issues, I’m not sure if I wrote about them here so much, but yeah. Issues. Like- I am pulling away and kind of want out, but also still love him and am massively indecisive and he knows this and feels it and is hurt. We talked about it a little several weeks ago, but never came to a real conclusion, just started airing it out. But our non-conclusion was good, I thought. Anyway.

Not long later I’m napping till my alarm goes off, and I get this text- “I wasn’t being serious and I didn’t think you were either. I don’t think you or your ideas are stupid. Trying to explain what I was thinking didn’t work. I should never have asked in the first place and I won’t do so again. I’ll also try to avoid any such language even in jest. Sorry.”

To which I replied “I knew you weren’t being serious, but I was. And most of it was fine, you just went a little far with the hyperbole. The solution here is not to ever ask or anything, just to recognize what part of what you said went to far, and avoid that. Not the entire situation. Baby and bathwater and all that.”

Oh my god. FRUSTRATING. And he wonders why I don’t tell him when I don’t like something he’s doing. Instead of figuring it out, he just draws a circle around the entire thing and quarantines it. Not how to deal with issues. So then I got up and went to work, and that was fine, and on the way home, the waffle truck was outside my train stop! Hooray! Really good belgian waffles, all kinds of great. It was around the time he would be waking up for work, so I texted that I had a surprise for him and bought us some waffles. And then he wasn’t home. At first I thought he was just sleeping late, but then I realized I hadn’t seen his car, so I checked. Yeah, he left way early. And had his phone off. I still haven’t talked to him about it. I know he dropped off his sister’s birthday card, so that’s kind of a reason to leave early, but he left way early. And didn’t tell me. And didn’t reply to any texts until after he got to work. Between his work and school and my work and school, I’m not really going to see him until tuesday night, and at that point he’ll have been up for over 24 hours (his tuesdays suck) so that seems like a shitty time for a conversation, and in any case it will be way after the fact. I don’t want to just let this drop, but I also don’t want to seem like I’m dredging things up and all. Who knows. Frustrating. 

Whenever I have ideas about what to write about, I always file them in my head, where they get lost more or less immediately. Then when I’m sitting at my computer thinking “hey, I should update” I have no idea what to write about.

Also, things are up in the air, so much. Mostly with the california thing. I don’t know that I’ll be able to get into the grad program I want- or any grad program. I’m smart and driven enough, but I think I just don’t have the base that they would want. So- looking at doing their undergrad program. Oof. It’s a great program with lots of interesting classes. I just really really don’t want to do general ed any more. I’m not sure how to investigate that. Is it possible to apply for both grad and undergrad? This is weird.

Current school is going okay, but weirdly. Because of Rosh Hashanah this week and Yom Kippur next week, I have a lot of cancelled days and things moved around. It’s making getting into the swing of school really hard. I need to sit down and study a bunch, and I just haven’t quite felt the impetus with all my classes skipping a week at one point or another. I have a chemistry quiz on monday that will be easy, but I definitely need to review a couple particular things for it. And then a take home quiz for statistics due thursday. Maybe working on those will get the ball rolling.

I’m a tiny bit torn about all the political shitstorm going on. Rather, I like Obama and hate Romney, so that part is clear, but (and I know this will sound ridiculous) I took a quiz about what candidate I agree most with, and for a silly quiz it was pretty thorough in asking my views on all arenas- foreign and domestic policy, education, immigration, environmental, etc, and it turns out I agree most strongly with Jill Stein, the Green party candidate. And I HATE the two party system. I think it’s one of the worst corners we could have backed in to, and it sucks. So, it would be really nice to break with that, and vote for the person who most represents my views (95%, according to this. Obama was 88%, which is still pretty high). But, it is like back in 2000, when “a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush”? I really don’t want that. It’s just all stupid and arbitrary feeling. Blah.

In happier, consumer news, I ordered a lightweight pea coat, and I’m super excited about it. Silly, yes. But it’s the little silly things that keep us going, I think. I also have all ingredients for a smoothie, so perhaps it is smoothie time.

Is over!

Fashion. Phew. Is gone! This was possibly the worst Fashion I’ve been through. Everything was disorganized, painful, and nothing went right. That’s not true. I had one day where it all went well and I accomplished things. Other than that, it was a tangle of frustration. I’m very glad it’s over, and a little mystified about how low my direct deposit was. I need to get the check thing version so I can figure out if they shorted me or if I over estimated. Rarg.

And school started! Mostly good. Somehow I’m not enrolled in my stats class yet, which means I need to go argue with people and try to prove that I did the overtally sheet and all that. But bio is good! I really like both of my teachers. Chemistry will be easy, because of the overview I did last semester. Anatomy and physiology will be … we’ll see. It’s not promising so far, which is terribly disappointing, but we’ll see. I’m also going to be hanging out a bunch with my old bio teacher, doing some field research, so that should be good. But, the head of the vet tech department quit/was fired, so I no longer really have her to talk to about the Germany idea and all.

To sum up- I love three of my classes, and the rest of school is in upheaval. Sigh. At least I’m getting back into the swing of school, which is always enjoyable. And I get to write a term paper on rabies. I’m so excited. What a nerd.

Aaaannd the GRE…

Aaaannd the GRE is done. I did okay, 161 verbal, 156 math. Which is what I got on the practice tests and I didn’t study much more, so. All in all, decent scores. Definitely good enough for school, but nothing stellar. I did feel really good about the essays, but I have to wait a couple weeks to see how they went. 

Fashion is starting! I spent the last three days prepping these stupid lanterns, wiring up lamp bases and hot gluing the cable up the side. A bunch have glass, and they’re all being painted this weekend, so we had to take the glass out for that. And will have to put the glass back in later. Awesome. I also hot glued my hands a lot, so I have some good blisters from that. BUT it was easy work. And work means money. And I have a bunch more lined up for the next two weeks, so this is great. It’s been a weird summer and it’s hard to get back into the finding-work-making-money thought process. It was nice to not worry about that for a while. 

And I got all of my classes! I can stop worrying about that now. I am thinking about swapping precalculus for statistics, though, and all the stats classes for my schedule are still full. We’ll see about that. It’s nice to have a reasonably solid schedule though.

I have real things to writ about but I think working long full days with not enough sleep and then taking that test today has wiped me out. I’ve had a headache all day and I might give up and go to sleep soon. Oog