it sucks to grow up

so i've been trying to write a post for a few days now. a happy post. a look at my good news post. a post that should not be giving me so much trouble god dammit. but instead, all of the stress from everything else keeps seeping in and my good news sounds like overwhelming news. my happy sounds like i am three seconds away from pulling my hair out and jumping off the edge but i think i may punch you in the face first because aaaaarrrrggggghhhhh.

you guys, why is being an adult so effing hard? mortgages. like, why am i even dealing with this stuff? i was not built for it. i was built for fictional worlds and imagination. this is much too real for me. never ending phone calls from real estate agents and banks and mortgage companies and sales associates and i hate the phone. i will avoid phone calls for as long as humanly possible. i have to work up to them for days and practice what i'm going to say and take three deep breaths before i hit the call button and start praying that it goes to the machine the second that first ring starts. and that's when i call my grandmother. it's even worse with strangers. i really hate talking on the phone. and i do it now. all. the. time. and why are banks so annoying? and how can there be income that doesn't count as income when the money is all very real i assure you. and why are some sources of income more reliable than other sources? if the money is regularly being deposited into my account then why the eff do you care where it's coming from? like, i really swear i am not trying to steal your money, banker. i really will pay you back. i promise. just give me the effing loan. and houses. gah. why are there so many of them, and why are so many sucky? and why are the pretty ones the ones i can't have? and school oh my god. any forward movement that was started at the beginning of this semester has come to a screeching halt because i cannot even think about school right now beyond my office hours (and the first batch of assignments are due tonight. does it look like i have the time or energy to start grading papers? does it?) and i need to think about school because if i do not have solid proof of forward movement then the chances of me getting an extension on my scholarship (which ends this semester ohmygodohmygodohmygod) drop to pretty much zero. and mortgages, man. when did i become the type of person to worry about mortgages? and so much stress eating. i think i just paid the little debbie ceo's yearly bonus on my own. so of course i now feel fat and gross and filled with marshmallow cream as well as stressed and lost and like i should not be dealing with all of this i am the wrong person for the job.

AND my trip to harry potter world was effing cancelled because apparently things just need to suck for me right now with no light at the end of the tunnel and no silver lining.

uggghhhh.

see, this is why i never wanted to grow up.

*Still Fighting It - Ben Folds

get this weight off my shoulders, i've carried it well

sometimes i will have procrastinated too many things for too long, taken on one too many responsibilities, bitten off just a bit more than i can chew, and at first it's perfectly fine. see, i am very good at balancing. i was an excellent block tower builder. i know how to stack everything just so. sure, it may wobble a bit, but then, what doesn't? as long as it doesn't go crashing down, everything is just fine. do you know what block towers go crashing down? those built with jenga blocks. and do you know why they fall? because you mess with them. you start pulling pieces out from here and then putting them back over there and sooner or later you've tried to move the wrong piece or you've moved the right piece too many times and then you find yourself with a pile of fallen blocks. i used to play jenga a lot.

maybe that's why i find myself completely paralyzed at the moment. i am incapable of doing anything. really, anything. from research to grading papers to watching the newest episode of new girl or replying to that birthday facebook message. i can't do any of it. because there is just too much for me to do. if i try to take one thing out from the tower of duties, it will all come crashing down.

but that's not the worst of it. i mean, if this tower was just sitting on the table then that would be fine. i could turn my back on it and let everything just sit there indefinitely. but it's not. it's sitting in the palm of my hand. which of course makes the whole wobbliness factor greater, but it also does something else. have you ever heard of that talk-giving lady who asked the audience how much a cup of water weighed and then went on to explain that the weight was relative: the longer she held it up, the heavier it got. she was talking about stress and stress-causing things in life, but the analogy can be applied here as well. (mainly because i am also talking about stress-causing things in life.) the longer i hold onto this tower, the heavier it gets. if i try to take off a few blocks, it will fall. if i don't take off any blocks, it will eventually fall anyway. i am stuck.

a normal person probably wouldn't have spent so long stacking the blocks. they might have dealt with a couple as they came along instead of just focusing on how best to add them to the tower. they may have stopped accepting more blocks when they realized that they had reached their limit. they might even now deal with the blocks instead of spending their time and energy making block tower analogies. they might ask for help or let it crash and then deal with the pieces or take the least amount of risk and pull out all of the center blocks first so as not to damage the foundation. me, though? i just keep adding to my tower and trying to keep my hand steady.

*Sweet Talk - The Killers

many days fall away with nothing to show

it is so very difficult to do all the things you want to do in your free time when your entire life is no longer made up of free time. i'm still working out this whole having actual responsibilities things, but it's cementing in my mind that what i want to do for the rest of my life is read books, knit stuff, and watch netflix. forever. in the meantime, i'm basically doing a lot of stressing out. because what else are you supposed to do? and the worst part is, despite feeling like i'm going crazy doing so much, when i look back at the end of the week, it looks like i did absolutely nothing. nothing ever gets done. progress is apparently something my life doesn't believe in. (side note: remember that time when i was in my last semester of undergraduate classes and basically said that that was the first time i was really stressed? what kind of privileged life was i leading for those first twenty-some years? it has left me totally unprepared for everything.)

in other news, despite having graduated from high school over seven years ago, my most recurring stress dream has always been and still is high school related. for those that don't know, i went to a private school from fifth to twelfth grade. there were uniforms and hour and a half long bus rides to and from school and multiple languages taught to us. part of the whole uniform thing were tights. by the time i graduated i hated tights so much that i have yet to put on a single pair again. seven years tightsless and going strong. i still shudder when i see them in stores.

anyway, the dream.

there are slight changes in it from time to time, but it always follows the same formula: i am late for school. i am back in the bedroom i shared with my sister at my parents' house. the overhead light is glaringly bright and the red numbers on my clock are flashing: too late, too late. the bus is waiting downstairs, but i have just woken up. i am racing around trying to get ready while simultaneously trying to get the bus to wait for five minutes. and it's always those stupid tights. they take way too long to get on, and in my hurry i end up tearing them so i have to get another pair and the panic is bubbling in my stomach and flowing into my throat. sometimes, i'll run onto the bus with my skirt on over my pajama pants and try to finish changing in the back without anyone seeing me. a lot of the times i finally get on the bus and realize i forgot my bag or something. i almost always make it on the bus, but you know when you wake up late and even though you finish everything and get everywhere on time, you have that feeling of panic all day that you're late? yeah, i wake up with that a lot. which does wonders for the stress that my real life things are causing, let me tell you that.

i would really just like my brain to realize that it has been almost a decade since high school and it should stop terrorizing me with it.

oh, and in case you were wondering, look at that nano word count over there. i wrote a lot over these past two days and am kindasortamaybe back on track for nano. i'm still behind, but i have a plan. and you know what happens with plans: they never work out but they make you feel better for having had them. (also, i refuse to think about anything phd related because my body just can't handle that right now.)

*Pompeii - Bastille

i don't know anymore

so since i embarked on this torturous journey of confusion and politics called a post-graduate degree, i have encountered three groups of people. group a and group b are really big. group c is really small. (if i was being a stickler then group c would only have one person in it. i am throwing in a few others just to make myself feel better.)

[group a] this group is filled with the naysayers. these are the people that tell me that i am not good enough and that i should just drop out. they are the programmer worshippers and the forensics haters. these are the people who have been sucked so far down the black hole of academic bureaucracy that they take their petty arguments with each other out on the students. i do not generally like these people.

[group b] this group has all of the people who do not believe in degrees. they think that i am too good for the program and should be out in the field doing things. they tell me that i am depriving the industry of fresh minds and diversity and awesome people. they think that i should put academics on hold for a bit and do things that will change the world. after all, they tell me, books will wait but the world will not. i generally really like these people.

[group c] like i said, this is really a group of one person. he thinks that i am both good enough to get a phd AND work in the field and he will support me through both. he knows that i still have lots to learn, and is willing to help me fill in the holes of my knowledge. he wants me to continue along the academic path because he believes that i can do it and then go take the industry by storm. (the other three people want me to continue along this path too, but mostly because they need to be on a certain number of committees and i am no use to them unless i am a student.)

now, while group a and group b are vastly different in a lot of things, they do have one thing in common. they both think that i should drop out. at least for now. and i dunno. after finding an adviser this summer i kind of thought that it was a sign from god that i should ride this thing out. but so many people are telling me to drop out. i'm starting to wonder if it's time to start listening to them.

(i met up with a professor yesterday that was so completely in group b that he shook up all of my convictions that becoming a doctor is what i want to do.)

*Some Nights - Fun. 

sometimes i worry that i lost the plot, my twitching muscles tease my flippant thoughts

[one] while fleshing out my novel, i realized that, once again, i'm taking too long to actually start the story. i can basically take out the first three chapters is what i'm thinking. i haven't done it yet because i need the words for camp nano and there are also some parts that i want to keep in. so maybe compress it into the first chapter and try not to make it seem too fragmented? we will see. i also added a house on the corner to add to the description and that accidentally added an entire character and will really help with a side plot thing that needed work so i am happy about that. i'm hopeful about the outcome of this camp fleshing.

[two] i always wanted to be a published author of novels. that has always been my dream. but somewhere along the way i found prosetry and fell in love with it. (i even published a book of it that you can buy here. you can read what other people thought about it here. /self promotion) i've been more geared to noveling recently and most lines that come to me are either put into my novel or left in a half finished blog draft "for later." i didn't think i'd miss prosetry as much as i do.

[three] i have recently discovered that the pitter-patter of guinea pig feet is one of my favorite sounds. who needs kids when you can just borrow your sister's pets? but seriously, it is adorable and makes me so happy. i love darcy to bits, but those guinea pig feet are just really something.

[four] part of me wants to drop out of school and pretend that i am at the same level in life as the senior citizens in my pottery class. i just want to handbuild, knit, and write for the rest of my life. hopefully make a living off of it, too. i mean, amazon has been trying to tell me that i am a middle aged woman for years now. maybe i should just listen to them.

[five] on the other hand, while watching the news recently (especially stuff about the aaron hernandez case), the computer forensics analyst in me gets super interested and excited. like, that is what i want to do with my life too. i just wish it was easier to actually do it.

*Easy Luck Free - Bright Eyes

losing time in the in between

the great idea i had for my thesis that no one wanted to work with me on but that my forensics guy and i thought was absolutely fantastic has just been done by some company out in california. i can't bring myself to read the entire article because, well, i don't really know why. i mean, i was thinking of dropping out anyway. the only reason i was going to stay was because i thought this idea was something worth my time and effort. and now it's been taken by someone else - like my exact thing - and i think that i should feel a little relieved but instead i feel panic. a flood of 'oh god what am i supposed to do now?' and of course the obvious answer is to stop cowering from the real world behind a shield of academia and just get a move on with my life, but i have never really been one for obvious answers. so there's that.

and time has been disappearing on me just like my papaya nail polish and the best friend ring from my cousin did. i remember coming home from class on friday night, then waking up saturday morning, then eating pizza with my family sunday evening, and going out last night, but everything in between is just nothing. maybe i'm being possessed by voldemort. i have to admit i really wouldn't mind that too much of he could do me a favor and avada kedavra my group members that i just don't seem able to stand. at all. even though i've tried. 

i am so ready for this semester to be over. 

oh, and just in case you were wondering, nano is going very weirdly this year. it'll only get done because i refuse to even think that i could possibly lose. i keep forgetting key parts in the story that tie the two narratives together so i'll just throw a scene in the middle of nowhere that addresses the point and then continue on with my apparent inability to describe anything or give any sort of story line. it seems like a lot of dialogue with no story in between. for all the reader knows, i have characters floating around in a black void saying things emotionlessly. i used to write like that a lot, and then some wonderful person on the internet called me out on it, and i got better. i guess i'm regressing. 

*Lose Some Time - Grace Potter and the Nocturnals

and i'll go to undergo a change of heart, a change of clothes

because the more people i talk to, the less likely it seems that i will actually be able to finish this stupid degree (which kinda makes me wish i had gotten the school ring/other mason memorabilia after completing one of my other two degrees), i am now compiling a list of potential life plans. i don't handle failure well at all, and i think working in forensics would just be a constant reminder of my failure and that's not very fun. so here's what i have so far:

• make and sell hats. the day i wrote my last post i gave up on qual exam prep a quarter of the way in and made three hats that day instead. and then yesterday i made another one. and really, listening to music and knitting is probably the most relaxing thing in the universe and i want to do that forever and ever.
  
• become a real writer. i mean, i've always dreamed about it. maybe once i fail out of this pesky computer forensics distraction i can devote enough time to it to make it a reality. of course, if i do actually try my hardest at this and end up just learning that i have no real talent... well, i don't think i could handle failing at my two top dreams in one lifetime.
  
• open a bakery. this was another childhood dream of mine, but i wouldn't be too crushed if i crashed and burned at this one. and i like baking. and being surrounded by the smell of baking goods all day would probably be pretty awesome.
  
• convince the travel channel to give me a show. i always wanted to do one of those best bathrooms in the world shows, but with best chocolate or best bookstore or best apple pie. you know, something really awesome.
  
• open a bookstore. i had the whole thing planned out on this blog once. i could even sell baked goods there and mix the bakery plan with this one. books and cookies and good music... perfect.
  
• be a book critic/reviewer. i mean, i spend most of my time reading anyway (though i'm currently in a bit of a dry spell), might as well make a job out of it. and this way, i can take out all my frustrations at not having what it takes to be a writer on the people who actually do have what it takes. petty and unprofessional, maybe, but i figure it might also be cathartic.

of course, by the time i actually manage to fail out of the degree it will have probably killed me first. maybe i should be looking at headstones instead of alternate careers. 

*Jefferson Aero Plane - Relient K 

there was a time in my life when i didn't know where to go, and now the time is right and i still don't know

so i once again find myself facing another graduation day. and once again, after already completing a semester of my next degree, the whole celebration seems a little after the fact. but that doesn't mean that the butterflies that my stomach grows just for graduations aren't there. (actually, my stomach harbors butterflies to let out for just about every thing that could even possibly be mistaken for an occasion, but the graduation ones are different.)

i was a whirlpool of emotions the day of my high school graduation. the two most prominent of those were sadness and terror. leaving the sheltered hallways of my high school to take my first step into the real world without the teachers and students that i had spent more time with than my family was a big deal. a very big deal. before my undergrad graduation, i was more nervous than anything else. the idea that my time spent in-between school and real life was coming to an end scared me, to be completely honest. it didn't matter that i was doing my master's. i was already a semester into it and i knew it couldn't last forever. adulthood was looming big and scary just a year down the road. this morning, though, the nerves do not come from fear of the next step forward. i've already taken a few steps towards growing up since my last degree, and i find that i am looking forward to finally being done with school. (though i won't be for a while. gah.) no, the butterflies have gathered just to work me up over the passing of time.

it feels like just yesterday that i was telling my kindergarten teacher that i wanted to be a farmer, an artist, and an author. it was yesterday that i was using gummy worms to learn math in first grade. just yesterday i was moving across the country to start fifth grade in a new school, in a new state, with a semi-new language. it was just yesterday when i spent a year in saudi arabia, eating lunch on the stage in the elementary section and starting to overcome my debilitating shyness. it was yesterday when i spent my first day back at school in virginia locked up in the auditorium because i hadn't gotten my tb test after spending a year overseas. it was yesterday when i started mason afraid to be alone. it was yesterday when i finished my first degree at mason relishing every moment i spent alone. it was yesterday that i wrote the story, yesterday that i wrote two and a half novels and started to get over my fear of having my work read. it was just yesterday. all of it i swear.

and when i think about it, think of all the memories i have stored up and the degrees i'm collecting like they're limited editions, i panic. because it doesn't matter that i have two degrees in computers and am working towards my third. i still don't know what i want to do with my life. i still don't know how to balance books and computers without pushing one to the back burner. i still don't know how to walk the line between what's expected of me and what i want without disappointing someone. i still don't know how to fit religion and culture and family and dreams and fiction and reality and loves and distastes and personality and friends and responsibilities into a neatly composed package that is myself. i don't know.

instead of celebrating everything that i learned, that i know, this graduation is just bringing to light everything that i have yet to figure out, that i don't know, but probably should by now. guess i should go get dressed for it.

*Still Don't Know - Icona Pop

and i am so overwhelmed

yesterday was... overwhelming to say the very least. in fact, i'm still feeling overwhelmed and slightly panicked.

see, despite everything i said, i applied for the phd program with absolutely no expectation of getting accepted. as far as i was concerned, after my master's i was done with school. because i am so ready to be done. applying was really just my way to get everyone who was telling me to continue off my back. at least then i could say, "i was going to continue but i didn't get accepted." it was the best way to end all future conversations/arguments/lectures regarding the subject. so when i finished my last class last semester, in my head, i was done forever.

but then things went wrong. mason, going against its word on acceptance requirements, let me in. not only did they let me in, but they let me in late. yesterday i went to get my scholarship upgraded so they'd pay for my next stupid degree. they said they couldn't do anything until i was registered. since my account was still on hold at mason and they said it would be for the next five days, i thought, okay great i won't be able to get this done this semester. but my dad was with me so we went to mason to see. they took the hold off of my account on the spot and i was able to register yesterday morning. (oh, just to throw this out there, the adviser mason originally assigned me to is on leave. thanks for that, mason.) i then went back to the scholarship people and got them to present my file in a special meeting yesterday instead of waiting for the normal one in a few days. i went to my first class yesterday.

now, this would all be great if i actually wanted to continue. if i was ready for it. my dad was ecstatic at the way everything was just falling into place, as was everyone else the story was related to. me? i just felt rushed and panicked. and overwhelmed. really, really really overwhelmed.

after expecting to never step into a classroom again as a student, now i'm starting back up again completely unprepared. i'm behind and lost and so totally not in the mood for this. i know i could have deferred my acceptance for a semester, but i also know that if i did i would be even less prepared later. once i stop, i'm stopping for good. but now i have to look into qualifying exams and people to put on my faculty committee or whatever and all of these other things that i hadn't looked into because i was not supposed to get in. i have absolutely no idea what i'm doing.

i was done. and now i'm suddenly not. overwhelmed does not even begin to cover it.

*Broken Wings - Flyleaf

it's coming to an end, yeah

at ten tonight (actually, it will probably be closer to nine:forty-five) i will be finished with the last lecture of my master's degree. does anyone else find that as crazy as i do? remember when i came on here and announced that i had gotten accepted into the program? remember when i first started it? yeah, it feels like yesterday to me, too. and now the whole thing is over, leaving me with a couple of cool tricks up my sleeve, a few new school friends, and another empty, grey, uncertain future staring me in the face.

i still haven't heard back from the phd program, and there are so many things riding on that decision. i need to know what i am doing next semester so i can plan accordingly. stupid mason. you may have noticed the underlying panic that's started to bubble under the surface whenever i mention school these days.

i mean, i still have the take-home exam to do this week, but after that i'm pretty much done.

i usually do an amazon shopping spree at the end of every semester, but i'm considering skipping it this year because i still have some books i haven't read from the border's going out of business sale. we're also planning a trip down to disney world (and of course harry potter world. EXCITING.) for the christmas break, and i think that may be a better use of my money. unless, of course, there are some books that you think i should get immediately. has anyone read the fourth eragon book, yet? how was it? was it worth me getting my hands on the third and reading that (as awful as everyone said it was)?

anyway, this post was mainly just to commemorate the last day of master's lectures. so yay for that.

*Sowing Season - Brand New

close your eyes, clear your heart, cut the cord

i was originally going to have this post be published later and just pretend that i wrote it tomorrow. but then i thought that we know each other well enough that lies and tricks aren't necessary, right? right. tomorrow i'm thinking i'll be much too busy to type up a post and well, what's a couple of hours anyway?

being an avid lover of words, it always surprises me when words fail me. to be completely honest, though, i could write pages and pages trying to describe the thoughts running through my mind right now and i still wouldn't even come close to making you understand. i would write in circles and jump through loopholes, write myself into corners and then fly off on random tangents. i would contradict myself with every sentence and make barely enough sense to buy a gumball.

so you know what? i'm not even going to try.

why'd i bother writing a post at all if i'm not going to write anything of meaning in it, you wonder. well, i'm getting married. me. and i felt like this should be documented somewhere. so here i am. documenting this. the next time i write in this thing, if everything goes according to plan, i will be officially married. i still think it's crazy and probably one of the hardest things i've ever done.

wave goodbye, wish me well, you've gotta let me go.

(i almost put that lyric as the title, but felt that the one i chose was more about me and this second one is more like to my family. you know, just in case you were wondering.)

*Human - The Killers

and now, the end is here, and so i face the final curtain

sometimes, i get majorly anxious about this summer. i've always had a big peter pan complex and this summer is like taking the dream of neverland that was always hovering just out of my reach and throwing it in the trash. in zimbabwe. a hundred years ago. so far away that i can never even think of it anymore.

it's like my entire "childhood" or whatever you can call this extended childhood of mine that has lasted into my twenties is just ending. at once. all together. it's leaving and forgetting to take me with it.

this all started earlier this year, with things like my sister moving away and all the other stuff that was going on. but the culmination of it, the dramatic dropping of the curtain on my life so far happens this summer.

first of all, i'm getting married. that's obviously a very un-stay a kid forever kind of decision.

second of all, harry potter, which has been a defining part of my life, is ending. that's it. done forever. the funny thing about harry potter is that it always coincided with major events in my life. graduate from elementary school? the fourth book comes out. start middle school? the first movie comes out. i move back from saudi arabia when my brother gets super sick? another book comes out. start my senior year of grade school? sixth book and fourth movie come out. graduate from high school? i'm more torn up about the end of my friend's and my story we were writing than the end of school. my sister gets married? the fifth movie and last book come out. i get married? the last movie comes out. i realize that with a book and movie coming out every year, this is not really an exceptional thing, but it was a big part of my life. so to have it end is like, really having it all just end.

that's it. this summer marks the end of everything. i am coming up to the last page, the credits will soon start to roll, the actors will take a bow, i'll close the back cover... and then i will be an adult.

*My Way - Frank Sinatra

i don't see just how i can be motivated enough to break a sweat

i have no ambition. really. none. the day humanity was taught to want to improve themselves, to work until they fulfill a goal, to aspire to greatness, i was sleeping in. or ditching class. or too busy daydreaming to pay any attention. i view life as two separate planes, or places, or roads, or whatever other analogy you want to use. one of these is dreamland (i'm not talking about pigs flying or anything, just stuff that could possibly happen if i decided to try and make them), and the other is reality (or what will happen if i go through the rest of my life lazy and coasting on my awesome/awful ability to get by without actually doing anything). i'm caught somewhere in between. i won't work for the first but refuse to settle for the second.

in all honesty, i'm too temperamental to actually do anything with my life. i can sit here and talk about wanting to write, i can learn computer forensics from fbi agents, i can go through all the motions of progress, but at the end of the day none of that will matter. i'm just too moody. i cycle through apathy, cynicism, and optimism too fast. before i have a chance to really get anything done in any stage, i'm on to the next one. it's really bad. i think my writing is best when i'm cynical but write the most when i'm optimistic. oddly enough, optimism makes studying impossible, though i seem to do okay when i just don't care.

i've always been able to do well without really doing anything, and now that school may be ending for real, i don't know if that'll cut it for the rest of my life. despite the dream to do something in this world, i just can't find any ambition to spur me into action. my belief that whatever is written to happen for me will happen and the fact that i've never really worked for anything and don't think i know how have pushed me into this rut of complacency that i just can't get out of.

*Apathetic Way to Be - Relient K

and then he says to me, "kill me now, kill me now, kill me now, kill me now."

today is february first. as in, january - the month that simply refused to end - has actually ended. now that it's done, though, i kind of think february came too fast. maybe january dragging on was a blessing in disguise. because now that it's ended, time will surely start to fly. and do you realize that in less than six months i will be married and how much that thought terrifies me?

but i am nothing if not a great avoider of things, so i just refuse to think about that at the moment and instead we'll talk about my tuesday night professor. though calling him boring is the understatement of the century, there are just no words strong enough to really convey the level of torture he can inflict on people by simply opening his mouth, and i don't really want to spend the entire post trying to create them. so, boring he is. well, that and completely clueless about what he's teaching. his inability to read from the slides correctly and the lack of knowledge he has about the subject he is teaching is baffling. really.

the only reason that the police weren't called in to investigate a mass suicide of eighteen students last week was that the class was given in a computer classroom. so while the dude at the front droned on about things no one cared about, we were all online doing whatever. yesterday, we get an email that the room has been changed. to a traditional classroom. with no computers. the change was ostensibly because the room we were in last week was too small. the fact that there were at least nine empty seats, though, leads me to believe that the professor just has a death wish.

what i think he doesn't realize is that, being a class full of IT students, most of us will probably still be online - or at least not paying attention - the entire class time because technology is here to save us from people like him by providing us with laptops, and smart phones, and in my case, a pen and notebook. if he wants someone to listen to him, there are plenty of psychologists around. or, you know, he could actually know what he's talking about. i've heard that helps. i spent a little of last week's class and waiting for my sister afterwards to try and do some writing because i haven't done much in a while. him changing classrooms just gives me three hours of writing time without the distraction of the internet. so joke's on him.

i was supposed to post one of the things i wrote last week, but i haven't gotten around to typing any of them up. whenever i get over my laziness, i'll get right on that.

*Under the Gun - The Killers

all the small things

It's just that every day from the second I wake up till the second I pass out cold, my day, like the day of almost every other mother I know, is made up of a series of concrete, specific actions. And they're actions that kind of wear away at passion, if you know what I mean. The actions are petty and small like... Like refilling coffee cups or folding underwear. But they accumulate in this really debilitating way that diminishes my ability to focus on almost anything else. Bigger things like, you know, ideas or...politics or dreams of a better life.

 ~Motherhood, 2009

i watched this movie yesterday, and this quote was just so true. i could totally relate to the feeling. there are times when your (my) life gets too caught up in the small routine things: wake up. wash up. get dressed. go to school. clean house. do laundry. make lunches. check mail. and whatever else. when you repeat these things enough times, that's all your life becomes. and suddenly, i can't read, i can't write, i can't focus on anything but folding clothes and cleaning ovens and scrubbing toilets. dreams get lost between kids' homework and dirty dishes, and before i know it, days/weeks/months of my life have suddenly disappeared.

according to my sister, the movie was too real to be enjoyable. it was like watching your life ten years into the future and knowing that there's nothing you can do to make it any better cause that's just about as good as it gets. no sparkle, no grand dramatic moments that change the world, no fairy godmother with her magic wand... just real life.

also, the fact that i related to this movie annoys me. it's like how my amazon shopping cart is filled with books i refuse to buy and recommendations i refuse to listen to because they all relate to either middle-aged women or mothers struggling to keep their heads above water. last time i checked, i was neither of these. and the fact that apparently that's one of the groups i relate to most depresses me.

*All the Small Things - Blink-182

your indecisive mind shows me that you are just another girl

"If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell. I'll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days." 

~Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, pg 76

the other day, i was convinced that i had never felt sure about a thing in my life. i didn't know what certainty felt like, had never tasted it, couldn't smell it. certainty just didnt exist for me. but now i think that i might have been wrong. maybe instead of never being sure, i'm just completely sure of too many things. do i want to work as a computer teacher at my old school? i'm sure i do and could be good at it. i'm sure i don't and think the school is going down the drain (or the students at least). do i want to get married? i am 100% certain yes and 100% certain no. i want to live on a beach and in the city. i want to travel the world and stay near my family. i want to devote all my time to writing and devote all my time to computer forensics. i want to go out and stay in. for almost everything i'm sure i want, i'm just as sure i want the opposite. but then again, maybe that's not the case with me.

this is why decisions are so impossible for me. i want everything so badly that killing off an option would kill me. there are times that i prefer having my decisions made for me because at least then, it won't be me closing the door on everything else. i will have one choice and make the best of it and be happy. i won't be second guessing myself and doubting my decision until the end of forever. sometimes it feels like there are just so many things i want with all my heart that choosing between them is impossible and at the end my indecisiveness will have caused me to lose all the opportunities. i just need to grit my teeth and choose.

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. 

From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out.

I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."

~Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, pg 62-3

*All Hail the Heartbreaker - The Spill Canvas

whatever will be will be

i am usually like this. the future will come and i have no idea what it will bring, probably a lot more of the same, so i go with the flow. there's no reason to worry about anything because there are so many outside factors that affect every little thing that your worrying/caring/planning/whatever does little to the overall outcome. to quote eloise hawkings, "whatever happens, happens." i have little control over what will happen in the grand scheme of things and that was always okay. i'm starting to want some control though. or at least an illusion of control i can pretend with. hmm maybe i'm going to start my quarter life crisis a little early.

*Que Sera Sera - Doris Day

with a bleak and violent future

in an episode of gilmore girls last night, rory had a mini panic attack about ending yale, saying that the future was a giant abyss and she had no idea what to do with her life when she finished. my cousin says, "she's so stupid. i couldn't wait to finish school." i tell her that she probably is excited to finish, but at the same time it's scary. i went through the same thing when i was finishing school last semester... probably not as bad though because a lot of "options" for my future really don't exist for me outside of my imagination because of familial/religious/cultural restrictions. but there was still anxiety about what to do next.

my cousin's great response to this, which i think was supposed to be comforting and reassuring, was, "well, when you finish you'll move back to jeddah and just sit at home for a few years until you get married. then you'll sit at your husband's home. or you could get a job if your dad agrees to it. you could teach computer or work at a hospital." she went on for a few minutes longer mentioning how we'd basically have their life, but that was where the panic starting to come in. i could feel my chest constricting and it becoming increasingly harder to breathe. i mean, i do not have any amazingly grand plans for the future, but being forced into a life of aimless visiting each other and gossiping (i realize this is nowhere near all they do, but it does take up a lot more of their time than i would like) is not something i will be looking forward to. i like to at least think that i have options, that i really can do whatever i set my mind to and all that other motivational crap they stuff into your head in elementary school. i mean, deep down i kinda know my future will be somewhere along the lines of what she said (at least the moving to jeddah part), but to have it said to my face point blank as if she wasnt dooming me to a life of nothingness was not nice. i want to do something meaningful with my life, and the picture she painted of my future included no meaningful accomplishments. nothing memorable. *sigh*

anyways, on a much happier note, we finally got around to weatherproofing the back deck a bit and setting up a table, shelves, and the pottery wheel so now there is a sort of ceramics studio out there which is totally awesome.

*Dance Party Plus - Head Automatica

unapologetic apathy

"I think it’s a Western notion of demonizing inactivity. No one can be productive all the time. If there’s a period of weeks when your imagination decides it needs to take a nap then maybe that’s what it needs to do." -- Elliott Smith on writer's block

no, i don't have writer's block per se, but i came across that quote, liked it, and thought i'd share it with all of you. i am, however, suffering from ennui. *sigh* i feel a little like this:

i think the ennui and apathy is my body's attempt at deluding itself into thinking that it's not nervous to start grad school, which for some inexplicable reason it is. very much so. i think the nervousness may be the result of having the threat of getting kicked out of the master's program if i get three c's shoved down my throat repeatedly in the past few days. now this probably wouldnt have affected me so much if last semester never happened. but it did. and i got a c (the plus really does nothing to soften it) and now my confidence is shot. kinda. i think if it wasnt the absolute last thing i did for undergrad, it wouldnt have been such a big deal cause i wouldve had a chance to do raise my confidence in other classes. my sister says i'm nervous because "i'm starting something new." i cant bring myself to believe that because school is school, you know?

worse is that i cant bring myself to care... and that makes me more nervous. i just want wednesday to come so it will start and i can prove to myself that i can still do this whole school thing.

*Sleep - My Chemical Romance

can’t quit carving question marks in my wrist

can you believe how fast this weekend has gone by? actually, this whole month ran past me when i wasnt looking. i got absolutely nothing of consequence done (either in the weekend or the month). i dont even want to think about what i have left to do because then i'll realize how behind i've become and maybe feel a little bad about the whole procrastinating thing. i may also realize that there are only two real weeks left of school. then exams start (i only have three this semester) and then thats it. it's over. not this semester (well, that too) but all of it . my undergraduate years of university. i have a little less than a month before i am thrown into the real world, armed with only my college degree - which, roughly translated, means i am completely unprepared. for anything and everything.

the anxiety i have been supressing amazingly well all semester is beginning to rise to the surface. i will be graduating, and i have absolutely no idea what to do with myself afterwards. yes, all my stupid little get-a-job-at-my-high-school and get-a-job-at-sacm ideas were all well and good when they were just that: ideas. but can i really see myself in either of those places? no. i cant see myself anywhere. i was born to be a lazy bum, a student who never studies, a reader, a writer, a procrastinator. i was not meant to wake up for a 9 to 5 job and do stuff or teach stuff or apply stuff i shouldve learned. i'm not so sure i can do all of that, or that i even really want to. i'm not a fan of tedious routines or schedules or people telling me what to do.

anyways, if the stupid grad school programs would get back to me, maybe i wouldnt be as worried because i'd know what i was doing come january. but one has just told me that i need to get in my teacher recommendation (which i had completely forgotten about) by tomorrow or they're canceling my application and the other is taking so long to look over that i'm afraid they've already rejected me and are just trying to figure out how to best phrase their decision that i was not meant for forensics.

the clock is relentlessly ticking away the days one minute at a time, and i have no idea what i'm going to do. what i want to do. what i should do. what i will do. everything past the end of this semester is a foggy gray screen covered in question marks.

***Update: i got the teacher's recommendation letter. ken santucci (i probably butchered the spelling :/) is the awesomest professor ever.

*The Future Freaks Me Out - Motion City Soundtrack