I promised an update, didn't I? Yeah, I thought I had. It's taken me a few days to get to it- and I actually have been meaning to do it for a while.

I guess the easiest thing to do is to group the updates by subject, so, in no particular order-

State of the Kidneys: I had blood work. I had a CT scan. I had other tests, and the less said about those, the better. What did my doctor learn from all this, you ask? #1, by the time the doc decided to do the CT, the stones were gone. The only thing he saw on the scan were really good pictures of my poor inflamed bruised-up kidneys. He thinks I had a couple stones and they passed. No, really? #2, as to the blood work and other tests- half the reason he wanted to do these was to get baseline readings. But at least according to his nurse who called me with the results, all of my results are 'normal', nothing jumped out at them, I'm probably 'just one of those people', etc. *headdesk*

State of the School: I still think they should issue hunting licenses for freshmen. We have way too freaking many as usual. It's about the middle of the semester, and my teachers are piling on the work. Especially my Spanish prof, who is really easygoing but who I think my classmates have managed to royally piss off. Our attendance has more weight on our grades than our exams do, and you get extra credit points at the end of the semester if you have perfect attendance. Which is great, except it means everybody comes to class, even the people who don't want to be there. And all they do is talk. In English. When we're supposed to be working in pairs or groups or even when the prof is lecturing, these idiots are chattering away, texting, answering their cell phones... Today he took roll halfway through class, gave us a ten minute break, and told us we could all leave if we wanted to. He says next time he's just going to tell them to leave. Three people left, and you'd be amazed how much quieter it got after they did. Here's hoping they don't come back.

State of the Laptop Hateway: This stupid fucking computer, I swear to Gods... it's been trying to die for a while now, you all remember the keyboard adventures (I still have keys that don't work, or work very rarely) but now it seems to be spreading to other components. A couple weeks ago, Anna here decided she didn't have a CD drive anymore. And has been unable to recognize that the thing's still there, ever since. Then one day last week my mouse refused to work. It came back, but I'm seeing a sign of the times here. Mom was talking about replacing the computer for Christmas anyway; now we're crossing our fingers the thing lasts that long. Also wondering how much fun it's not going to be to try and get all my stuff off of here without a damn CD drive. (I hadn't, of course, updated my backup CDs in a month or so, as of the CD drive crash.)

State of the Big, Time-Consuming Project: Goes a little like this. School's doing a semester in London in the spring. It's not cheap, but it looks fantastic. My geology prof, who I really like, is one of the teachers who's going, and she clued me into a major national scholarship for students who want to study abroad. I had to write an essay, plan a project to promote studying abroad and the scholarship, send transcripts, and fill out a ton of forms, which is what I spent half of September and the first part of October doing. I'll know if I get the scholarship in mid December, and at this point I've just accepted that I'm going to be stressed beyond belief until then. The scholarship is up to $5,000. Even with the financial aid I discovered I qualify for this semester (*thwap* to the guidance counselor for sucking at her job as usual) if I don't get the scholarship, I can't go. And I really, really, really want to go. I think I have a fair shot, because the scholarship people like junior college students, students who've never studied abroad before, and, yes, folks, disabled students. Check, check, and check. It's gonna be great if it all comes together, but in the meantime it's also been this huge mess of stuff and bureaucracy and red tape and nonsense, and it's driving me insane.

State of the Fam: You guys know I love my family. I do. But with everything that's going on lately my bullshit threshold is practically nonexistant, and hanging around my relations isn't exactly stress free. Sometimes we think Grandpa is doing better than Grandma, which, considering, is really freaking scary. They both tripped and fell last week; Grandpa bruised his knee, Grandma gave herself a hell of a black eye with her glasses. They did at least get checked out by the infirmary people at their nursing home, but still, Mom and I were facepalming when we found out about this. (And note that we found out when we met them for dinner one night last week, when Grandma took off her sunglasses.

State of the Parent: Mom gets her own section, because she's saner than the rest of them right now. Of course, it turns out that her foot still hasn't healed from the fall she took months ago, so now she's in physical therapy for the foot. Only the doc who's sending her for the PT just put her on medicated patches, and while she's wearing those they can't do half the treatments at PT that have really been helping. Mom's been getting that kinesio tape like that US women's beach volleyball player wore at the Olympics, and she says it's really been helping. We're pretty sure all the drug patches are doing is masking the pain, and I know there've been a couple days when Mom has pushed herself too far, because it didn't start hurting when it should have. Mom's considering smacking the doc upside the head. If she doesn't, I may do it for her, 'cause I've about had it.

State of the Druid: Actually, between one thing and another I've about had it in general. It's election day, to which I say, "Thank Gods, now you can ALL shut the fuck up." We vote absentee, I sent in my ballot last week, and I really do not care at this point. California has this charming measure on the ballot, Proposition 8- asshole conservatives want to amend the friggin' state constitution to say that 'marriage is only between a man and a woman', blah, blah, blah. Bigots and homophobes r'us, especally around here. They've been demonstrating for the damn thing in major intersections, the mall, and around the Barns and Noble. I gave them the thumbs-down, each individual idiot, as we drove past on Saturday. I swear they were so pissed they were turning purple. One guy waved his giant American flag at me, like the finger of admonishment. To which I say, it was fucking raining, asshole- flag's supposed to be put away. Honestly I felt like I was very restrained- I didn't give them the finger, or roll down the window and scream at them, which is what I really wanted to do.

I really wanted to dare them to take their little hatefest on the road to San Francisco, and see how it played out there. I'll spare you guys the rest of the rant, but those people really made my blood boil.

In better election news, our illustriously moronic mayor, Alan Autry (yes, that Alan Autry, whom you might remember as "Bubba" from In the Heat of the Night...) decided not to run again, so at least we're rid of that embarrasing idiot. Who always seeemed to be under the impression he ran the county and the state, instead of just the city. IIRC, he wanted to pass a city ordinance about illegal immigration. We're in the middle of California, not the Mexican border. He spent most of his time at Starbuck's and the gym, anyway. I may miss having him to kick around, but... I think he'll be like George W. Bush. We can always still make fun of him.

*sigh* Moving on. I'm so stressed I'm hardly sleeping, or at least I don't feel like I am, and I need a vacation. Oh, and if I could just hear a "yes" from the scholarship people...

Oh yeah, I knew I forgot one.
State of the Ants: Because it's only just now starting to cool down, the little fuckers have been making incursions through most of September, and we found a few in the kitchen last week. I foolshly put on some clothes they'd had access to, and ended up with a TON of bites, 10+, which is not good when you're as allergic as I am. It rained a lot over the weekend and yesterday, and I hope they all drowned.

...I think that was everything. *hugs*

They ain't kidding, either. Today it was 109. Tomorrow it's supposed to be 112. Right now, it's 95, with 25% humidity.

Mom was out smoking on the front porch around sunset, and called me outside to check it out. It was pink, until it dropped into the smog layer, when it looked like somebody stuck a piece of wax paper in front of it. Purple, smoggy wax paper.

I hate summer. I really do.

I'm spending most of my time vegging out watching TV, or reading in the living room, because it's really too gross to be in my room. I'm thinking about changing rooms and taking what's now the office. My room has an outside wall and shares another wall with the garage, and it gets a ton of sun in the afternoon. For a couple hours in the afternoon, 3-5 or so, I literlly can't be in there. The office has one outside wall, but it's out front which is practically never in direct sun. I was in there this afternoon rearranging some books, and the only time I was really hot was when I was dragging some boxes out of the closet.

'Course, I also whacked my knee on one of the boxes. I was also silly enough to try shoving a paper box full of books with my foot. Didn't work, and I pulled a muscle in my foot trying. I was hoping it was just a minor thing, and I'm still hoping it's gone in the morning, but with my luck... I took some Advil earlier and am wearing one of Mom's ankle brace thingys on it. Guess we'll see.

I'm still kind of bummed about the lack of summer job. I really wanted to make some steady money this summer, instead of the drips and drabs I ocassionally get from selling stuff on eBay. (And don't they suck now? Argh!) But the economy sucks, it's a bad time to try and find even a crummy part time job; people are laying off, not hiring. But I have the job fair at school to look forward to in September or so. Plus all the retail places looking for temporary help around the holidays. I mean, retail sucks, sure, but it's not like I can work fast food. Talk about an OSHA violation waiting to happen! Visually impaired people and fry grease do not mix.

In other news, the ants are starting to show up again- Mom killed a couple scouting parties in her room and bathroom tonight. We figure they built our house on top of a bunch of anthills, and we're slowly wiping the fuckers out. I was freaking out a bit earlier, but when I calmed down I realized we're actually doing pretty damn good here. Last year they started marching in in April, and there were LOTS of them. It's July, and this is the first sign we've seen all year.

Of course, I'm going to be checking all the corners and places they usually turn up for a while, and every little itch, every stray cat hair that tickles my arm, or whatever- I'm going to be paranoid about. Oh well. We'll replace the bait stations out back this weekend, dump a bunch of bug spray and ammonia down any hills we find, and go from there. I just hate the things.

We couldn't get the regular black ones that just eat crumbs off the kitchen counter, nooo. We have to get the bloody fire ants, which I'm allergic to. Also their bites hurt like hell. Someone told me that all ants bite, even the black ones, but I've always seen them as somehow more benign, because they never really bothered me. We used to find them crawling around Grandma's front porch, and we'd just kind of idly step on them, or ignore them. They'd crawl over my feet, and I'd brush them off. Whatever they were looking for, I wasn't it. The fire ants, on the other hand, seem to be thinking more along the lines of, "Mmm, urbandruid, yum!" Little bastards. I still practically have nightmares about last year, when I woke up with them in my bed and crawling all over me. I still have to check the bed every night before I get in it, just in case. They also ate holes in my clothes. I have this theory that there's something in my sweat that they like, but... yeah. Going to change the subject now.

I managed to survive Father's Day, although we went back to the library there, and we did get another little speech. It's getting less weird; I guess I'm getting used to us talking about things but not talking about them. (Please don't worry if that made no sense to you; it's my family and sometimes I don't understand them.)

We keep making vague plans to take the train to Reno to see my aunt and uncle's new place (new being a relative term, I think they moved almost a year ago or so) and I hope we'll pick some days and actually go. I'm starting to feel the need to get out of here for a while again. I just have this feeling that it's going to be a crazy semester, once it gets going, with not much of a break at the end. Just holidays, and that's... well. I'll cross those bridges when I have to.

Honestly, it may be almost a relief to have something to focus on like school. I'm going to have a lot of work this semester with Spanish II (which reminds me I should review my Spanish again a few times, so I don't forget everything...) I'm not looking forward to the workload, exactly, but having something I can do, things that need to get done- the whole "can't freak out, must conjugate verbs for tomorrow" thing.

And I have good teachers this semester. I really wanted to take Spanish II from the same prof who taught my beginning class, and I was able to do that. He's amusing and I passed his other class. Life is good. And to balance out the Spanish, I signed up for Oceanography. Sounded interesting, and my favorite professor of all time is teaching it. Being able to pick my teachers is really awesome, and takes a lot of that beginning of the semester stress out of things.

I start back on the 18th of August. Week before that, I have a checkup at the dentist. (Oh yay.) It should be interesting- school, I mean, not the dentist. Personally I hope the dentist is very boring. They're really nice there, but it'd be cool if I didn't have to see them again this year. :)

So I guess the short version of the story is that I'm hanging in there. Doing pretty good, all things considered. Just hot. And tired, although less tired since I started taking my vitamins again. Putting the bottle where I can actually see it helps... Anyway, overall I'm trying not to worry too much about what might happen later, or when things may happen. This is kind of hard for me, but, I'm discovering, pretty essential to my sanity.

I still have a bunch of stuff I want to get done around here before I start back to school (see upcoming to-do list, if you really care. :) We'll see how much of it I manage to get done. Trying not to stress so much about that either. I'm trying to be Zen, as Mom says.

Some days it works better than others. :)