Friday, June 27, 2008

Untie me; I've said no vows

I'm going to write a bunch of disconnected thoughts. I'm not in the mood for paragraphs.

"Saint Simon" is a beautiful song. The video just makes it even better.

I had an interview yesterday at Office Depot. I really hope I get the job.

I can't figure out if I actually like Bright Eyes or if there are just a couple songs of theirs that I adore.

If it were suddenly, say, the middle of August...I wouldn't object.

My headache is going for a longevity record. I am not pleased.

About what I wrote about "Saint Simon"...it still stands, but I'm going to just go ahead and say that as a general rule, The Shins kick some serious ass.

My eye doctor smells like scalp and toothpaste. It's very strange.

I miss you, I miss you, I miss you.

Five miles a day on the stationary bike is starting to get kind of easy.

I wish I had money to buy clothes. This is why I need a job. Well, and for other reasons. But still. Clothes shopping would be kind of enjoyable right now. Retail therapy!

Thank God for the internet.

I'm gonna go claw my own face off kthxbye.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Compare, Contrast, Combust

When Mom Is Home:
She and my aunt talk nonstop about how dysfunctional their family is/was. Living here is like sitting in on marathon group therapy sessions.

When Mom Is Not Home:
Nobody talks to anyone unless it's Amy taking out her teenage wrath on Julie or me.

I can't figure out which I prefer.

Nah. I do prefer it when Mom is home. I get along with her pretty well, second to Julie I suppose. When Mom's home there is some semblance of order around here. She does this "parenting" thing. I mean, Dad has a basic grasp on everyday parenting duties: he tells people when to go to bed. Oh, and he paid for dinner tonight. I'm totally not downplaying the fact that he supports the family financially--that's obviously vital and much appreciated. But on a day-to-day basis, he pretty much lurks in the basement and occasionally pops up to tell people what to do "so your mother won't get mad." As for my aunt, she's in a weird position. She's deliberately trying not to parent anyone around here, which is probably for the best. She's not one to tell anyone what to do, unless it's Mom's instructions, in which case the request is always phrased as such. However, she's not quite sure yet how things run around here, so I get a lot of "um, is this something I should take charge of?" God bless her. She's toeing a fine, fine line between Aunt and Babysitter. And throughout all this, everyone seems to forget that I'm 21 years old and more than likely entirely capable of managing a household for the weekend.

Anyway, aside from analyzing my family (it must be an inherited tendency)...

...today Julie and I wandered around the mall and made fun of skanky clothing. Hooray. We had the most fun at Wet Seal. See, Wet Seal has a fairly large array of...panties. Ew. That word squicks me out. Anyway, Julie and I played a little game I like to call "What Do These Panties Say?"

The yellow flip-flop-print thong says, "Kick me in the vag!"

The frog-print bikinis say, "A biblical plague upon your genitals!"

The lipstick-mark print underwear says, "Nom nom nom."

The blue hipsters with little whales all over say, "Shave the whales!"

And a great time was had by all. In other news, today the little counter thing on the stationary bike hit 100 miles. Woo and yay! I've done a little over 35 miles since I got back here for the summer--5 miles a day, starting 7 days ago. Today I was walking downstairs and I thought, "My legs feel weird. Holy crap. Do I feel...muscular?!" Yeah, sort of. That, and I just shaved my legs, so that's a little unusual too. But really...yay for working out and such. I've also discovered the joy of the punching bag, so there's that.

I should probably make some effort to go to bed. Here's my thought on that. Going to bed is kinda depressing sometimes. Lying in the dark, alone, frustrated because I can't fall asleep, trying to keep stupid thoughts out of my head, et cetera. Or...I could think about it a different way. In the summer anyway, going to bed means one day closer to going back to school. This is a very, very good thing. Heartening, even.

So, perhaps I've talked myself into going to bed.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Well, that's enough of that

It's really nice having my aunt staying with us for awhile, because I don't get to see her much. However, she and my mom spend all their time analyzing how dysfunctional their family (my grandma and other aunts) is. And I appreciate that they think I'm mature enough to hear it all, and that they don't hide it from me, but for the love of God. There's only so long I can listen to them talk about how mean and crotchety my grandma is getting, or how annoying their older sister is, or how dysfunctional their childhood was. Apparently I come from a long line of manipulative, two-faced, screwed-up people. Hooray. I mean, I love my family because they're my family, but holy shit.

Even my mom is getting a little snappy lately. She yelled at a fly this afternoon. No f'ing kidding. I think she was sort of yelling at Amy, who had left the door open (and let flies in), but Amy wasn't around so Mom starting yelling and cursing at a fly. Evidently she also yelled at Kate the other day. If I'd been there I would've gone batshit. She was also yelling at Brian, too, who was doing most of the work of moving my stuff out of my apartment (I was taking finals at the time). Evidently he scratched the ceiling of the van while trying to put the vacuum between the seats, and Mom fucking exploded. I can see her getting upset if it were a new vehicle, or a huge gaping hole in the ceiling, but the van is 8 years old and falling apart, and the scratch was barely anything. Sigh. Kate was horrified at how tense and volatile my family was. Welcome to my world, darling.

But, hell. Apparently my mom and her sisters grew up with that kind of thing. My grandma, who used to be one of the sweetest people in the world, has apparently turned into an impatient, crotchety woman who curses like a sailor and has a sense of entitlement the size of Texas.
I don't care that she's 82 years old. Just because somebody is older does not give them the right to act like a bratty 6-year-old just because they can. No matter how old or young you are, the world does not revolve around you and your wishes. We don't tolerate that kind of behavior in teenagers, or young adults, or middle-aged adults, so why should people suddenly be allowed to act hideously when they hit a certain age? Politeness doesn't have an expiration date.

It's going to be a very, very interesting summer. I'm becoming kind of horrified at the way my family operates. Not all of it, I mean, there are good things too, but I need to start compiling a list of Things I Vow To Never Do.

Oh, also, happy Father's Day!

I'm trying to get excited about Father's Day. I haven't seen my dad all day. He's either out playing baseball or he's hiding in the basement. Whatever works. I helped Mom make dinner and I went out yesterday and got Dad a present. His favorite candy and some golf tees. The most unimaginative thing ever, but oh well. We seriously get Dad the same things for Father's Day every year. I don't know what the heck else to get him, because I hardly ever talk to him and have no clue what he wants other than the usual.

On a happy note, though: I got A's in both of my summer classes! 4.0 for the term! I am super excited. Also, my phone vibrates now. Hmm. Yay.

Ackmmphhgahh. That is how I feel. But don't tell anyone.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Call me! Stalk you. (sorry, just saw the movie)

Well, it's about that time. Time to leave my life and the one person who makes me totally comfortable and the place where I can be myself and where I don't have to hide anything...and time to go back to awkwardness and hiding and being uncomfortable in my own skin and not being able to see that one person who makes me totally comfortable...yeah, it's a fun time of the year. I need to be in a coma until mid-August.

Fuck summer and the four horses it rode in on.

But there's still a couple more days. A day and a half. Whatever. These last hours are always the most frustrating, because I'm always torn between wanting to enjoy every moment and being overcome by panic. You can't enjoy life when you're busy panicking.

"Panicking" looks an awful lot like "packing." I have started panicking. I have not started packing. Go figure. I like to make it quick and painful. Better that than slow and painful, right? I was about to type "quick and painless" but then I realized that "painless" isn't quite the word I wanted.

In entirely different news, I would be very interested to know how many friends I have left, and how many I've lost for the ones I still have. At least at the end of freshman year I went into the summer knowing that I had a huge support system of friends at IU. It pisses me off that it apparently came down to my having to choose between one incredibly wonderful friend and a plethora of other people who were very good friends as well. But the thing is, I didn't choose. I refuse to do that kind of shit. I don't cut ties. If people want to cut ties with me because they don't like who I've grown close to, that's their own issue and they can choose whether or not to work it out. Past middle school, the "I'm not your friend anymore because I don't like your other friends" bullshit isn't going to fly. Hell yes I am going to stick by my best friend. She doesn't let me down and I'm not going to let her down. When people try to put me in the place of choosing between one friend and another, I refuse to step into that place.

Also, I know confrontation is hard and all, but seriously? All it takes is a few words: "I don't want to see you." "I don't want you in my life." "I'm done with you." Yeah, it hurts, but it's a hell of a lot better to have a definite answer than to wait in silence for months and wonder how I should feel. I am fucking sick of always being left to wonder. And if you (undefined you; I'm not addressing any one person here) do want me in your life, gee, it would help to show it once in awhile. Many thanks to the people who do just that.

Shit, I have class in...some hours. I have to be up in 8 hours, and I've discovered lately that if I don't get 8 hours of sleep--well, more like 9 or 10, but I shoot for 8--my brain ceases to function. I need my brain to function. I have two exams this Thursday. Right now I have A-pluses in both classes, and I would very much like for that to continue. This means that I need as much brain function as I can get in order to kick the shit out of my exams. And tomorrow is a day for studying and packing. Hooray, studying!!

In other news: I'm 21 1/2 now, babies and toddlers are fantastic, and I want to sing like Vienna Teng.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Ackmphgaaaaah.

It's beginning to sink in more and more:

I really, really can't wait to move back to the dorm.

I love my apartment, of course, and living here definitely has its benefits. My roommate is the most wonderful person in the world and it's going to be very hard to not live with her next year.

But I have so many good memories of dorm life. Even from the very beginning of freshman year, when I didn't know anyone and kind of had to carve out a niche for myself. This fall, I'll already have a niche of sorts--I'll be the RA. That's another thing entirely to be excited about. I can't wait to get to know all the people on my floor and on my staff. I can't wait to decorate a dorm room again and actually be able to buy food when I need to (living off-campus without a car sucks balls, by the way) and live with a bunch of people instead of just one or two others (however awesome the one or two may be). I'm already starting to online-browse-shop for things with which to decorate my roomS. Yeah, plural. Ashton RAs get a bedroom and a sort of living-room. With a COUCH. I am totally excited about having a couch. Dude. Freshman year, Jill brought the couch out to the lounge, and it was the best thing EVER to sleep on. I have yet to decide if I'll bring my couch out to the lounge. I kind of want it in my room. Maybe right by the window, so it can be sort of like a window seat. I think I'm going to make my "living room" very open to my residents. Not, like, a free-for-all second lounge, but kind of like "hey, if my door's open, come on in. There's Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit and a deck of cards on the table." But probably not until halfway or so through the semester. If I have a crazy party floor, I don't want those motherfuckers near my Scrabble board.

I don't want to be the Mystery RA that no one ever sees. Of course, I don't want to totally relinquish all authority by being best friends with all my residents. I kind of want to be a fusion of the two RAs I had the past couple years. My first RA was more of a friend than an authority figure, although she did sort of yell at us for having cake fights in the lounge. By the end of the year, I was really close to her, but pretty much nobody on the floor saw her as an authority figure. Much drama ensued. Last year, my RA was a nice person, friendly, but she definitely had her own separate life that did NOT include RA duties like "getting to know your residents." She was definitely there for us during, um, crises, and she did nice things for us and was awesome at planning programs, but I didn't feel like I really knew her as a person. Made it hard for me to really go to her for advice on anything (fortunately, I was/am still friends with RA #1, so I'd call her if I needed sage advice from someone older and wiser). I want to fulfill RA duties like planning programs, enforcing policies, allowing no shenanigans, etc...but I also want to get to know my residents and be able to hang out with them and have fun.

In other news, I think I have perfectionist tendencies.

That definitely relates to being an RA. I want to be, like, the poster child for RPS, I guess. I want to be the best RA EVAR. I want to make my residents' freshman year(s) the kind of year that makes them not want to leave school for the summer.

The perfectionism thing also relates to my schoolwork. The other day I caught myself talking with Maren (sociology teacher) about what I could possibly have done wrong in order to get a 96% on my exam. OH NOES! a 96! Which is STILL AN A! But it wasn't as high as my last grade, which was an A-PLUS! Bloody hell. Halfway through that conversation I realized...wait...shit. This is getting out of hand. That, and Maren had made mathematical errors and I'd actually gotten a 98%. Thank God. I was in danger of failing college.

I think last semester went to my head. My GPA last semester was 3.93. My sole A- was in an honors literature class, and I'm terrible at literary analysis. So I was kind of proud of myself. Like, a lot. And now I'm freaking the fuck out, trying to get perfect grades in both of my classes this term. Granted, it will be nice to go into my senior year with a higher cumulative GPA, and maybe a burst of perfectionism toward the end of my undergrad career will make it easier to get into grad school. But really...an A counts the same as an A+, and neither is a particularly terrible grade, you know? And as Kate pointed out to me, you know, people are able to value you for things other than academic performance. HOLY SHIT, REALLY?! I mean, I'd never thought that through to that extent, but really, let's diagram this (in text because I'm useless with Excel):

Preschool/kindergarten. Bored out of my skull in school and pretty much coasted. Didn't have much of a concept of self-worth yet, but people tell me I was a happy child.

1st-3rd grade. More or less got straight As. Every time I missed a spelling word on a test I'd spend the whole day in tears and dread telling my parents, but generally I was kind of the teacher's pet. Probably could've skipped one of these grades. I still didn't have much of a concept of self-worth, but I definitely remember being happy, and I don't remember thinking anything bad about myself at this point.

4th-6th grade. Still got mostly As, with the occasional B in my advanced reading class. I was still a crazy perfectionist, and many battles were fought at home over that one class. Apparently, because I was getting a B, this meant I was slacking off and underachieving and blah blah blah. This is when I started getting depressed and withdrawn. Not too severely, but it was beginning.

7th-8th grade. Crashed and burned, epic fail. I still had a couple As, a B or two, but I was way confused in my math and science classes, which resulted in Ds and Fs. Cs in geography. I won't go into my parents' response right now because it's not something I like to remember, but these years were when I was depressed, suicidal, thought I was a worthless jerk from hell, etc. Yay.

9th-11th grade. Getting better. My grades were basically As and Bs with the occasional C in high school (I think my whole transcript had maybe 2 or 3 Cs on it). Also, I started feeling better about myself. Not entirely, of course, but I didn't hate myself and want to die anymore. I started to kinda like life.

12th grade. Burst of perfectionism. Didn't get straight As, but I tried my damndest and I knew it.
Hardly slept that year. Still felt pretty good about myself, though.

Freshman yr of college: Grades fluctuated. Nothing below a B, but I was still unsatisfied with that. I was happy, but I lived in constant fear of Not Being In School. Different story. Confusing.

Sophomore yr: Grades same as freshman yr, basically. Emotional state also the same...basically I was glad that it was not summer. Failing all my classes would've made me happier than that summer did.

Junior yr: I've been pretty happy with myself this year. I have my typical Moments, but in general I think I'm a fairly smart, competent, intellectually sound young adult. I made the Dean's List both semesters.

'Course, it's just a correlation.

Fucking balls, my hand hurts and I still have to write a paper for the most irritating professor since Sarah Sinwell. DOCTOR Sinwell was easier to listen to than Ann Carmichael, though. Carmichael can't get through a sentence without saying "um, uh, um" about twelve times. And she's impossible to reason with. And she tends to dismiss everything everyone says, and then she'll say it herself in this tone that's like "Listen To Me! I Can Teach You Things! Underlings!" I won't hold it against her that she's slightly incompetent with technology, but it gets annoying.

Anyway, I have to write a paper for her. Yay.