Monday, March 31, 2008

Surrender

I have had a hard time posting this entry. I keep opening a new post and then sitting here with nothing to say. I'm tired. Very tired. Monday's do this to me. I just can't function on the amount of sleep that I get Sunday nights. Now, I realize that this is an indication that I should leave Maryland earlier and not get home at 3am on Sundays, and I've tried, I really have....but I can't seem to do it. I like being up there too much and want to get as much time there as possible.

Today was good....great even. A kid came into my office crying and unhappy and unwilling to do anything and by the end of a 20 minute session, he was smiling and laughing and much happier, not to mention willing to make art and discuss his snake creatures. I felt effective. It was nice.

I have a hard time thinking of titles for these. Much of the time they've nothing to do with what I'm talking about, so don't mind that.

I'm finally up to a whole 10 participants in my study, which is where I think I'm going to stop, because I don't have time to run any more sessions. We have internet and cable and phones at the house now and it makes us happy. Granted, that's 2 more services than I have at my current place, but man, not having internet is brutal. I have been realizing more and more lately how much I've missed having tv though.

I watched 6 episodes of make me a super model on Friday night. You know, for as dumb as I thought that show would be, it's actually pretty darn fantastic. Although, by the last episode I found myself fast-forwarding through the petty crap going on in the houses to get to the photoshoots and challenges, cause those are the interesting parts. It's actually down to 4 people that I feel deserve to be there. I mean, Shannon should be there too, because she is amazing and very good. But Ben has done a 180 and become fantastic in the last two episodes and Holly....oh Holly, I so hope she wins. That girl is something else. Perry of course is there, Mr. bigshot himself. And you have to admit he has a good look. And Ronnie, shock of shocks is still around. Which is nice, cause I like him....even if he is a bit to clean cut all american for high fashion and editorial work.

Okay...I'm going to sleep. Yep. 9;30 pm. Yep. That's really early. I might read a bit from my new book before I sleep though. Oh....speaking of that new book....guess what the lovely miss Athena did Saturday? She ate the first 70 pages of it. Now, admittedly...I was on page 221, so I'd already read them, but that's not the point. The point is that she ATE 70 PAGES OF A BOOK, plus a pen, and a catalog, and a piece of Styrofoam packing stuff, and part of my computer mouse. Yeah....we were annoyed. She didn't manage to cause herself any harm in the process though, so I guess that's good.

Friday, March 28, 2008

Avast

My back hurts. Yeah....I know.... I whine a lot. Oh, that reminds me...if I'm going to send out an email about another thesis session, I should do that now. *wanders off to do that*

Anyway... We have a dishwasher. It's new and shiny and portable (cause that was cheaper and easier than redoing all the cabinetry). But it's made the kitchen crappy, so we have to work on trying out different arrangements, cause right now it is just obnoxious to try to get into the fridge. Although maybe that would be a good thing, cause then we wouldn't get in it so much and we're sposed to be dieting. Meh, who am I kidding....all the snack foods are in the cupboards, so all this would really do is keep us from being able to access the milk and fruit.

I've come to the conclusion that cleaning a place that you aren't fully moved into is just a pain. I keep trying to pick up and put things away, but most of the stuff I pick up doesn't really have an 'away' yet, cause we haven't figured out where to put everything yet. We need to work on that. Maybe once we have more storage space. Although, it's not like we're hurting for storage space...we're just lazy and slow at unpacking. Although really, I guess that's not true either, because we've both been very busy and we have gotten quite a lot unpacked and put away.

We should really have a new house party...but meh...I would want pictures on the wall first, and that's a lot of work. Wow...I have really become lazy in my old age.

I swear that the purpose of this thing is not entirely to whine. I do have intentions of doing nice happy productive things with it too. We'll see.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Meh

Today sucks. Now...there's no real reason for today to suck. Nothing particularly horrible has occurred. I got my interview comments back, I did well, got a 96. In symbolism we watched a very amusing art history movie of which I've seen all of the pieces discussed. Lunch was tasty and inexpensive. Sarah brought cookies for Maggie's birthday and they were yummy. I made intelligent comments in Ethics class. It was beautiful outside. I'm not feeling exceptionally stressed and I have nothing exactly 'due' tomorrow, so it was really okay that I did nothing. However....today sucks anyway. And I can't explain why. I'm just.....annoyed. At Everything.

Let's make a list, shall we?

Things that are annoying me today...

1. Not having a chair. - Okay, this is actually a kind of big one, because yesterday I spent hours sitting at the computer working on that silly paper and now today my back is killing me whenever I sit at it. Suffice it to say, an air mattress is not a good computer chair.

2. Applying for jobs. - It is stupid and redundant for companies to make me fill out every piece of information that is on my resume, and then have me attach my resume as well. Also...none of them will call me back because I don't have my license yet, and I can't get my license until I have work experience. It's a vicious cycle.

3. Not having my engagement ring. - The stupid resizer person screwed it up and we had to send it back....again.

4. Having to drive up to Maryland this weekend. - I want to be in Maryland, I like being in Maryland. I just hate to drive there.

5. I ate pizza for dinner. - This is annoying me because I am on a diet. Clearly I completely sucked at that today, what with the cookies.....AND pizza.

6. I have no motivation or willpower and am exhausted.

7. My apartment doesn't clean itself.

8. Mordokai and Curly posted scary crap and now I'm freaked out.

9. Jerry wasn't able to sleep today.

10. I can't find anything...ever.

11. I have a research participant who was supposed to have a follow up session Monday. He didn't show up. We were supposed to meet yesterday. He never got back to me. We were supposed to meet today. He never got back to me. I swear if he doesn't show up tomorrow I'm taking him off the study. That'd be great, a study based on med students without a single medical student participant. *sigh*

12. Nearly half the class didn't show up for ethics this afternoon. It pissed Kay off.

Sigh, okay, I guess that's enough.

Maybe if I sleep I'll feel better in the morning. I just want to be done and settled and through with all this limbo crap.

Spiraling

Do you ever get to that point where you have so many things on your mind and so much to do and so much to think about that you just shut down? That you find yourself not caring if you have finished any of the reading for the next day or spending close to 12 hours on a 3-5 page paper because you can't bring yourself to do it? That's me today, this week, this month. It's not like this time last year, where I didn't do anything because I was completely depressed and unhappy. No, this is just good old-fashioned being overwhelmed.

I'm getting married. Did you know that? Probably, because I can't imagine you reading this if you didn't. But suffice it to say that that is where a good chunk of this stress is emanating from. The average couple is engaged for 16-20 months before they actually tie the knot. Jerry and I have been engaged for about a month, our wedding is just more than 3 months away. Now, it really isn't -that- difficult to plan a wedding.....except that ours is taking place across the country, so arranging things there has been a bit of a chore. And it's my last semester in grad school, so I'm crazy stressed already. Of course, I have no desire to work on papers when I could be picking out napkins or goblets, but...there you go.

It's actually all coming together pretty well. My family has taken on a good chunk of the responsibility, so that's been nice. I'm tired though, and not 'it's quarter of 2, I should be in bed' tired....just wishing my life were started tired.

We've gotten a house and a dog. The house is great, although it has its quirks. The pipes are obnoxious and there's no outlets anywhere, but we're working on that. The dog is a total sweetheart, but the biggest pain in the ass I've ever known. I'm glad I'm not there every day, because from the stories I hear, I don't know that I'd refrain from strangling her as well as Jerry is. She's a cutie though. A basset hound...who loves us...far too much. She cries and howls and whines and bays and makes a mess of things whenever we leave her even for a few minutes. It's very sad....and annoying the neighbors.

My regular blog has been gone for some time, so I'll repopulate it here. I miss blogging actually. I saw an article the other day...let me see if I can find it. Bleh. No idea. I've no idea how I can never find anything when there's not even that much stuff left in my apartment. Anyway, it was a neat little article talking about how blogging and posting on the internet improves mood, self esteem and socialization. And really, it makes perfect sense. I mean, I've done all this research on how journaling decreases stress and anxiety and can improve mood and what is blogging, but just online journaling.

I'm going to make an effort to add things of interest in here that I'm learning as well. Today has been focused on the symbolic meaning of the door and I've learned a lot of rather interesting things. Like did you know that it's said that if you are an author and you dream about someone else going through a door, it means that you're worried about people continuing to read your works? The ancient idea that the threshold of a home is sacred is actually pretty interesting as well. Men used to sacrifice animals on the threshold of their home before they took possession of it. This was seen as entering a blood covenant with the god of that threshold, who would now be responsible for protecting the people living within it. If someone was invited across the threshold, it became the man's duty to protect that person. It was also found that thieves feared the wrath of the threshold god and would seek ways to enter that didn't involve passing through the doorway. And the romans felt the threshold was so sacred that when they marked the areas where walls would be built with the furrow from a plow, they carried the plow over the area where they planned to put the gate so that they wouldn't disturb the sacred ground. I've been looking at a lot of religious and mythological iconography related to this area as well over the past few days and must say that Janus is a fascinating god and it makes me sad to think that his name has come to be synonymous with deceitful or hypocritical when he was a benevolent and protecting deity. You're bored already aren't you?

Anyway, it's 2am, so I'm going to head to sleep. I didn't keep up that regularly with my previous blog....let's see if I do a bit better with this one.