Tuesday, September 30, 2003

In an effort to make myself feel better, I bought The Shop Around the Corner, About Last Night..., and The Goodbye Girl.

I haven't seen any of them. But hopefully they'll be good to me.

Wednesday, September 24, 2003

A lot has happened this past week. A lot will be happening in the next few days. I'm running through life.

Last night, one of my residents collapsed after a fire drill. She couldn't move; she felt like vomiting but nothing was coming up. As my RC watched over her, I went to get my wallet and car keys. Nothing felt real. I felt like a cop as I drove down the sidewalk to retriever her from outside the building. I wasn't alone. Another RA and two of her friends accompanied us on the dark drive to Good Samaritan. It was just food poisoning... but I couldn't help thinking back to the time I drove my father to the emergency room. I thought he was going to die. And there I was again, waiting in a similar emergency waiting room. The minutes passed by slowly. My companions cracked stupid jokes to pass the time. Finally, after six and a half hours in that hospital, we left. My resident was fine. She's a bit weak now, but she'll be okay. I'm glad I didn't have to leave her, like I had to leave my dad those years ago. He was okay in the end too. But times like this, I get so scared. I don't want anything to happen to my residents, my friends, and especially my parents. I can't control these things, and that also scares me. But I was proud of my reaction - I appeared to be calm, a rock in hard times. Thank goodness no one saw my inner self freaking out.

Between this incident, the Reel World dinner, the mountains of homework, and the water-damaged cell phone, I've been dealing with a lot of shit. I'm on edge. I need to go on for another week and a half, then I can crash. Four papers, two midterms, the Radiohead/Supergrass concert, my haircut, the Weekender... these are all the things I anticipate and loathe, all at the same time.

What do I want to do when it's all over?

You guessed it. Sleep.

Thursday, September 18, 2003

Don't call me.

I don't have a cell phone. It had a water incident. I was sad. Now I must buy a new one. Tomorrow. That makes me sad, too. The new one will not be my spiffy color display - instead, it will be ugly. And not half as cute as my Samsung.

Sad. Just sad.

Wednesday, September 17, 2003

One of these days, I'll learn. I didn't do laundry in over a month, and now I'm washing the motherload of clothes. It took THREE washing machines to accomodate all of my stuff. Ridiculous. Let's not even mention how heavy it was to tote down to the laundry room. It'll be even worse when it's done - the dryer makes everything all fluffy!

I got NINE hours of sleep last night. Maybe if I keep up these regular sleep cycles for a bit, my life will improve in the following ways:
1. I'll be less cranky.
2. I will be amazingly efficient with my time.
3. Who will be Super RA? Oh, yeah, ME.
4. No naps = time to talk to parents

You see? I will be happier, my residents will be happier, my teachers will be happier, and my parents will be happier. Sleep is definitely a quality thing.

Sunday, September 14, 2003

Sleep.

I just slept for eight hours. This has been the longest sleeping period of the last week. I'm very excited about that fact. I always forget how nice it feels to wake up WITHOUT feeling like you've just taken a nap.

My to-do list for the day.

1. Have breakfast with Justin and Yasmin.
2. Come back to PIRC in order to have multiple one-on-ones with my residents.
3. Do laundry.
4. Finish drafting homework, French homework, and English homework.
5. Call my parents.
6. Clean my room.
7. Put up my (new!) oversized Sex and the City Poster.
8. Meet with my co-RA to go over RA Partner agreement and plan programs.
9. Try to contact Emily in order to schedule rock chart review time.
10. Encourage people to finish online ANAs.
11. Email Jessica about resident's emails.
12. Email academic committee about upcoming event; make advertising materials for aforesaid event.

God. Who said anything about Manic Mondays? This will be a Manic Sunday!

Oh, well. Got to head over to Justin's place now. The day has officially started.

Thursday, September 11, 2003

In my Intro to Art Direction class, our professor made the students stand up, close our eyes, and then reach out to grab an imaginary door knob. When we opened our eyes, all of our door knobs were at approximately the same height.

Makes you think, huh? Maybe we know more than we think we do. Maybe we've always known certain things, but we've never acknowledged our own brilliance. For example, can you guess how high a typical chair stands off the ground? How tall is a table? And can this idea extend to things beyond the physical?

What would happen if mankind stopped running around and listened to his heart? I think people would stop wasting time in a lot of useless endeavors. Being busy for the sake of being busy is just a ridiculous way to spend one's life. Staying with the same old friends and the same old lovers and the same old mental attitude may not actually be what your life needs. But in the same way, look for the truly important things and grab them. Hold onto them. Don't be afraid to state your true intent; don't be afraid to look stupid.

In the long run, I think I've always known what I wanted. Now, it's just a matter of seperating the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. I'm trying to dig out the superfluous items in my life in order to reach for the authentic, for the truth. I think I'll be in this stage for years. But after that class discussion, I have a little more faith in my own intuition. Who could've guessed that the height of a door knob would mean so much to me?

Monday, September 08, 2003

It's been a tough weekend. While I enjoyed the football game on Saturday, it was a million times harder as a squad leader. I didn't realize that it would be that much different. I HAD to be perfect. I COULD NOT mess up. I performed a lot more. I yelled out all the routines. I yelled at people to guide. It was just difficult. So, I left the game, utterly exhausted and slept over at Liz and John's place on Saturday night. I seriously could not move my muscles enough to get myself off the couch.

Sunday was also difficult. I manage to scrape myself off the sofa at about 12. Then I come home and find that two of my cokes managed to explode all over my refrigerator. I clean that out, and start to work on homework when my dad calls, wanting to know if I've fixed my PC yet. I call him back after eating dinner and we proceed to spend two hours on the phone, trying to find different methods of fixing my computer without needing to reformat the hard drive. Finally, he just gives up.

And then, just as I'm about to hang up the phone, he says to me, "Oh, and I think I should tell you this. Trixie (my dog) is no longer with us." Evidently she died on Wednesday and THEY DIDN'T BOTHER TO TELL ME. What is this, the THIRD time someone (thing?) has died and they didn't tell me until days later? So, not only am I upset about my dog dying, I'm upset about my parents' refusal to tell me in order to protect my feelings. To be honest, I'd much rather know than find out later. I've been spending all semester preparing myself to hear about Trixie's death. It's not a surprise, even though it's really sad. She was healthy all summer, but during the fall, she doesn't have me to stay home with her and baby her. This dog never did anything. She followed me around and stared at me. Sometimes she sat in my lap for hours at a time. Occasionally she pooped on the floor. Sometimes she liked to wander off after going outside to pee. But for the most part, she was a very sedentary, boring dog. But I still loved her because she was MINE. She was a part of the family for thirteen years. To be honest, I think my parents are having a harder time than I am - they keep imagining that they hear her wandering around the kitchen, looking for food. And my mom STILL gets up at the crack of dawn in order to walk her... and then gets upset when there's no one to walk.

So, anyway, I also didn't finish all of my homework due to that news, a long-ass area wide RA meeting, and the fact I'm on duty. So, I need to work on that some more. Hopefully it'll all get done.

Monday, September 01, 2003

Recap of Labor Day Weekend:

Thursday: "Beat the Tiger" Night at Tigerbeat
- Have dinner with Semhar and amazing architect guru, Jason.
- Walk down the hall and talk to several residents. Invite them to gay club, and Jocelyn, the newest member of the Silk section, accepts.
- Get dressed up in 'SC gear.
- Headed to Webb where I proceeded to down a Coke with lime in a martini glass.
- Gather my already drunken car and leave campus. They have the munchies, so we do a McDonald's run, despite my protestations of "There's no eating in my car."
- Park and almost get a ticket for jay-walking. I hate the LAPD.
- Go into the club and immediately see two co-RAs and two other residents. Secretly thank the Lord that I was the DD.
- Danced in both the 80s room and the top 40 pop room.
- Declared my love to Justin who sadly rejected me, yet again.
- Drove to Del Taco and ordered a $4 "frat boy" combo.
- Dropped people off at various places, including making a special run to the band office just for Samantha, aka the unofficial Lazy Whore.
- Almost fell asleep, then Nietta calls, asking for a red shirt.
- Finally hit the sack.

Friday, "Beat (up) the Trojans" night at 'SC
- Woke up and realized that the "frat boy combo" from Del Taco isn't the greatest thing for my stomach.
- Went and hung out with Brad, where we commiserated over mutual stomach dissatisfaction.
- Came back to PIRC where I found Semhar and her friend Jason. Ate at the cafeteria and felt inspired by Jason, artist, designer, and architect extraordinaire.
- Called Hector, drove to Wendy's and watched him eat $6 worth of food from the 99 cent menu.
- Parked my car, then walked to City Park for Dan's party. Had a great time, danced to Britney, talked to copious Marks Hallers, and got a number. (True, it was a friend, not a romantic interest. Whatever.) Laughed at Hector's oogling of my RHP friends.
- Walked down Ellendale to Jay's place. Laughed with Jay for twenty minutes, but left after some guy started molesting me. One word about that: Ew.
- Saw Henry and Eric on Orchard as we were walking back. The following occurred:

A man walking in front of us turned around with his hand in his pocket and said, "Hey, give me all your shit. I have a gun." He took the wallets of the boys... but I noticed he wasn't really paying very much attention to me, so I started to slowly walk away. He finally notices me and said, "Hey, give me your purse or else my friends in the car are going to shoot you." He came over and grabbed the handle of my purse and yanked it... but I said, "No." He yanked again, and I said "No" again. He said, "Gimme your purse, bitch" and again, I said "No, you're not getting my purse." He stood there, shocked that I resisted. He ran away to his getaway car and they leave in a hurry.

(to be continued.)