weirdness

I'm sitting here alone in the Oracle office. It's strange, I wouldn't have thought that I would want to be here by myself (actually I didn't think that I WOULD be here by myself; I was surprised that no one else was around) but now that I'm here I'm finding it hard to want to leave really. There's something bizarrely comforting to me about being here.
Part of me almost feels guilty for having such a hard time with Manney's death. We certainly weren't best friends or anything, but I always enjoyed talking with him and hanging out with him and knowing that I'm never going to see his blue eyes or hear him "choking on his soul" as he laughs leaves me empty. And the thing is, I know that I'll eventually reach a point where I'm okay. But right now I feel like my soul is just weighed down with darkness and grief, and for some reason part of me feels like I somehow don't DESERVE to feel that or something...which I know is a strange thought. I feel like I'm somehow using his death for an excuse for why I can't seem to focus on my homework long enough to accomplish anything or why I can barely drag myself to shower or to class in the morning, and that makes me feel a little guilty, like I somehow don't have the right to grieve this way, which on one level seems ridiculous to me and on the other, I can't seem to stop thinking it. Maybe I'm being too hard on myself. I don't know. I just can't shake the feeling that I'm somehow wrong in how I feel, even though it's how I feel. That makes no sense, even to me.
I'm so glad to be out of my dorm room. I was getting spring fever before but now being stuck in that small messy space I feel like I can scarcely breathe. I shouldn't have listened to Dashboard earlier today; "breathing is a foreign task and thinking's just to much to ask" has been resounding in my head all day long since then. The whole song "The Brilliant Dance" has actually been an incredibly good one for how I've been feeling lately though. "the ringing from this empty sound is deafening and keeping you from sleep" is the perfect way to describe the way in which I've been unable to sleep or do much of anything the last couple of days.
I don't know. Maybe I'm starting to lose it. It's totally possible. Part of me doesn't even want to go to bed at all because it feels like a constant struggle to get my mind calm enough to even attempt to sleep. So many thoughts and ideas and memories and regrets go flashing through my brain when I let it stop for any extended period of time that I feel like everything running around in my head is constantly searching for a way out that doesn't exist. And so it just keeps running, running, running, looking for the outlet that was never installed.
I'm going to go try to do some more reading for my philosophy project. I can't not be doing something.

insomniac

I'm having so much trouble sleeping. Joe yelled at me to get to bed last night around 1 or 1:30, I think, and I went to bed but didn't fall asleep until about 2:30. Then I woke up at 5. And I kinda dozed on and off after that but no real sleeping took place. I'm so tired I divided 84 by 2 and got 41 in my physics lab today. Definitely not a good sign. And the thing is, I know that I'm going to be totally fine and I'm a lot more worried about other people than about myself, by far, but I can't sleep. Apparently it's a common thing; Mal and Mel and Ciara haven't really been able to either.
Everyone is being amazing though. I am so incredibly blessed with just the very best friends a girl could ever ask for. And they've all been so wonderfully supportive and helpful and I just love you all so much, if you're reading this. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Now I do have to go to work today because I didn't yesterday and I know there's stuff waiting for me, but I hope everyone has a good day.
I'm at work now, tranferring this post from myspace to this blog, and my eye-hand coordination is definitely suffering as well. Typing is much harder than it has any right to be. I'm trying to type up some stuff for my boss and on a normal day I would be finished with it already. Bah. I hope I can sleep tonight.

bad

things are very bad right now. a friend of mine who i worked with and had classes with and was supposed to hang out with this summer died this weekend. it's just a horrible situation from every angle. and i don't want to go into any details here because it seems like it would be somehow wrong to do that. but right now i'm just incredibly, incredibly sad and worried for others and overcome with the horribleness of it all, and i'm writing it here so that i have to explain some of it to fewer people and also just so that i can ask everyone to please be praying not just for me but more importantly for everyone involved in the situation, especially his family. it's just so very very sad and that's all i can say at all right now. god bless everyone.

crap

Crap, crap, crap. I hate worrying about my friends and I hate it when there is nothing I can do to make them feel better and I am totally useless. HATE it. One of my friends is not doing so well tonight and I would kill to be able to make things better but there is nothing I can do except perhaps try to visit this friend but that would be very tricky indeed. It might be possible, but I doubt they would want me to do it because it wouldn't be the cheapest thing I ever did. I wouldn't miss class though and I might be able to pull it off if I'm really lucky.
I realize this is totally vague but tonight that is kind of the point, I'm afraid. No naming of names and no details whatsoever, I'm just so incredibly upset that I can't know how to help. I have this sort of complex where I can't help wanting to always protect and take care of and fix things for the people I really love and care about and I just hate it when things go rotten. That's all I have for tonight; pretty unhappy I know, but I can't think of anything else significant right now. Blechh.

sleeepy

Well I'm tired and I don't have a ton of time. But today was a pretty darn good day, as my days go. It was busy but I didn't have homework to work on tonight, and we actually had a pretty good time at our HIRC meeting making random cracks about different orders of business.
I also blushed for like an hour after getting a nice comment on my myspace account. I know, I know, myspace is kinda lame and junior-high-ish, but it's a GREAT way to hook up with new bands and music and stuff. Anyway, so the story goes that I posted a more recent picture of myself with my bangs and I have what I perceive to be extremely chipmunk-like cheeks in the picture. Well, a band for which I know one of the guys in posted a comment about the picture saying, "I have seen this hair walking around campus...and I will admit that I wonder if Hamline paid you for campus beautification. You should check in on that and see if you can make a buck or two in the process... : )" And even though it was corny and I'm not at all feeling all egotistic about this, it was such a nice thing to be said and raised my spirits for the entire day. Maybe it's sad that I feel I need such validation in any way, but when your self-esteem is where mine is, hey, every little bit helps.
Tomorrow is my last day of classes for this week- yay! Friday I'll be at a symposium with Lauren, which should be a pretty decent time and I won't be in Shakespeare or Physics, which will be nice. Of course, I still have my lab tomorrow, which I HATE, but oh well. What can a girl do?
Anyway, this is relatively short but I'm super tired. And Brit and I watched "Psycho" tonight and it has me a little creeped out yet so I think I'm going to take some sleeping aid pills just to make sure I make it all the way through the night. Yes, I KNOW I am a huge wimp, but I don't do suspense well at ALL. I'm proud of myself for actually watching the entire film and all the other Hitchcock we've been taking in lately. At least I'm making the effort.
Right. So. Bed's a-calling my name so off I go. Good night!

something stinks like a dirty rat on a wet day

Shoot. Darn, darn, darn. I just KNEW my incredibly good mood that I had experienced the last couple of days was too good to last. And now I'm back in a deeper funk than I was before, feeling more confused and unsure of myself on so many levels than I had thought I would. Grrr. And the worst part is that I can remember how happy I felt just yesterday afternoon, and then yesterday evening, gloom descended and I haven't quite been able to shake it since then.
My roommate is making me more and more crazy as the days go by. From being out in the sun yesterday and today I got a little bit pink. No serious burn at all, but just pinkish. And then today, she's poking my back where it's red and telling me how dumb I am to be burnt. Well, I wore sunscreen and I was outside TRYING to help HER with our physics, to little avail. And it just annoyed me that she was telling me it was unsafe to be a little sunburnt or whatever. It's not like I was aiming for pink. When I say I want my normally-pasty skin to have more color, what I usually mean is something in a light tan range, not from the pinks. And she tells me this, she who bikes all over St. Paul without wearing a helmet because "it makes her head too hot"? Ha. Whatevah.
I'm a little lonely today. Dangit I hate that about college. I love my profs, my classes, and all the awesome people around campus who I hang out with and talk to but it's so rare for me to find a person I can genuinely connect with and talk to about random nothings as well as serious topics and I really, really miss that lately. I don't have anyone to really truly TALK to here, and I think that's a big part of my melancholia tonight.
I wish I knew better how to make friends and gauge what people think of me. I'm always convinced that people think I'm just some dumb nutbag who they put up with out of charity rather than truly like. And that's probably actually really narcississtic of me, thinking that I weigh that much on other people's minds, but I've had something of a self-confidence crisis for as long as I can remember, just about. I wonder to myself, who ARE these unbelievable people who can just go up to other people and start talking to them without worrying about how they feel ugly or fat or worrying about their hair or clothes look or if they'll say the wrong thing or drop their bag or their sunglasses will fall off their heads or whatever? How does a person get to feel good enough about themselves to believe that they're worthy of friendship and love and trust? How does that happen, because I don't get it.
And how does a person know, really truly for sure KNOW when something is right or wrong for them? I don't want to get too specific here, but there's just some things that I've been doing so much thinking and praying about lately, to no end, and I still don't feel like I'm reaching any place of coherence or clarity. And I don't know if I should talk to someone else about these thoughts or if I should just continue working and thinking and praying and hoping that some kind of answer will eventually arrive...unless I've already gotten one and I'm just too dense to understand it one way or the other, or...arrgh. I don't even know what I'm saying on this subject anymore, so I'm giving up for tonight.
Anyway, this is a pretty heavy post now, I guess, but it felt good to just type for a few minutes without actually thinking about what I'm typing and just letting words and sentences fall out, even if some of them don't make much sense. I may go back to edit later, but for now I'm just going to let my random nothings sit as they have fallen. So. Yeah. 'Night.

hmmm

My computer is weirdly slow this morning. I hope it doesn't have anything to do with my letting my roommate use it because hers is getting repaired. I don't think it should, because I don't think she's opened any stupid attachments or anything like that, but it makes me a little nervous. I know she would never intentionally do anything, but she doesn't know the most about computers and hers is getting repaired because she somehow got a virus on hers, so I'm not 100% comfortable with her using mine all the time, if that makes sense.
A good weekend. My mom came to see me on Friday and we got to chill in a hotel room (a VERY welcome change from my dorm room, I might add) and then yesterday we went and watched some state speech. Anton and Bernadette were both AMAZING. Anton did Allen Ginsberg's "America," which is one of my favorite poems ever, and he did an awesome job with it, and Bernadette got to sing in her prose piece (which gave her a slightly unfair advantage :) and was lovely as always. Jake Scott's creative rocked as well, though I don't know what was up with creative at state this year. I usually love watching creative at state, but this year I only thought three speeches were genuinely good. Very strange. I also got to see Mary, for about five minutes, which was also great. I wish we could've stayed longer, but Mom had to drive home still, so we didn't stick around for awards or anything.
Today I think I'm going to spend the afternoon outside, as long as the weather stays nice, and just do some reading. I don't have much homework to get done today; re-reading "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is about it. I should do some research for my Philosophy project, too.
For my Philosophy of Art class' final project, we're all supposed to pick an art form and look at it from the perspective of at least two theorists. Being the genius I am, I decided to "challenge myself" by examining the narrative structure. Why couldn't I have just picked, oh, I don't know, oil paintings or something? This project, I am realizing, is going to take a lot more time than I had originally anticipated. But I guess it should at least be interesting.
Oh yeah. I should mention that my renewed interest in posting has stemmed from Adam's comments and conversations with him. I promised him I would make a definite mention of him in my next post, as he felt hurt that my last post failed to mention his influence, so here it is. I post for Adam. Happy now?
Yeah, ok. My computer is DEFINITELY slower this morning...and that makes me nervous! It's taking iTunes forever just to let me listen to clips. I think I should run some of my anti-spyware and antivirus software now, just in case, so I'm going to go do that. It's entirely possible that I'm just paranoid (always a good bet in my case), but better to be safe than sorry in most instances.
Although in some cases, I think being safe is what makes a person wind up feeling sorry, at least I know it's true in my case for a couple of instances. But that's a whole other saga that will have to be saved for another day. Or probably never, because chances of my spilling that stuff to the world are pretty much slim to none. Anyway. Yeah. I'm out like a fat kid in dodgeball, to borrow a phrase.

turnaround

I woke up crabby this morning only to find that it was impossible to stay so. Today was a rare and amazing day, in which everything seemed so bright and so beautiful that it was utterly impossible for me to be angry about anything.
The first good thing (and slightly scary thing) was that I found out today that I was a finalist in a statewide undergraduate Shakespeare competition and that I will be presenting my paper next weekend at a conference at the U of M, and my friend Lauren (who's in my Shakespeare class) WON the contest, which is lovely and amazing! I am so excited for her and glad that we will be at the conference together. Now that the initial excitement has worn off, I'm a little scared, because there are some major scholars/speakers there (from Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia, etc.) and I can't help thinking that I'll either totally screw up in the presentation of my paper or that everyone there will just be thinking, "This piece of crap was a finalist?" But I am, nonetheless, happy, because I rather liked the essay I wrote that was submitted even though I ought to have spent more time on it. I think I really am the most unbelievably nerdy English nerd in the world to be so very excited and nervous about this, but hey, that's me.
The second good thing was just the weather and overall mood of the day. Today was the perfect mixture of sunshine and happiness and flowers and tree buds and clean, spring scent. The entire campus - nay, the entire world - seemed too beautiful and untainted today for me to be upset about anything. These days, it ought to be noted, come very few and far between for me. Usually, I can't stop thinking about all of the things that are wrong and terrible and injust in the world. But days like today seem to just about make up for the two hundred or so days in between. All I could think today was, "God is so, so good!" Because He really IS, I think, and I forget that all too often, because there are so many non-good things that happen so frequently to so many people.
I also had my interview for the Oracle for next year today. I'm a bit nervous at the thought of being a news editor, but I think I could handle it. Not that there's any certainty whatsoever that I'll get the position, of course, but I think I have a fairly good shot at it. And I would, quite frankly, be happy in any editing position (except, perhaps, sports) as long as I could keep working there because as much as I hate the late nights and begging people to write stuff sometimes, I do love the people and atmosphere, and it's good experience, as well.
Lena and I keep promising one another that we won't get married for years because we cannot imagine doing it at this stage of life and are terrified we'll be the only single ones left soon. Haha, not really, but at times...well, I'll just leave it at that. It's a fun bargain, anyway, and at least we have someone to be single with all teh time, even if we live hours and hours apart from one another. That's okay. Friendship knows no bounds, my friends. I don't know where that corny line came from. I thought I had rid myself of cliches by now, but clearly, there is yet work to be done.
Speaking of which, I really must go eat something and get some physics out of the way or else I will absolutely choke when it comes time for my exam on Friday. Have a lovely night, all.

ugh

Bad weekend. baaaaad. For so very many different reasons that I shall not take the time to recount here, this will definitely go down as one of my worst weekends. Yechh. With the exception, of course, of the very fine weather we've been having, which did help a little. I did some homework and some napping in the sun, which was very enjoyable, but I'm a mess. I looked at myself in the mirror this morning and thought, "oh. dear. heaven. What has become of me?" I don't know what's wrong...it's like one minute things seem to be great and the next I feel like there are so many things wrong with the world and especially with ME that there is no way for things to be right again. So much I would like to work on and change about my life and it all has to be accomplished in small steps and I get so incredibly frustrated with those small steps.
This is probably coming off as a rather cryptic post, because only like two people have any idea what I'm talking about specifically, but in general I just wish on some days that I could be an entirely different person. I try, I really do, and sometimes I just screw up so much I get so frustrated with myself.
Aaargh. I need to work on my Shakespeare presentation, which I have to give tomorrow and which I am still fully not prepared for. So away I go.