urbandruid

Friday afternoon, and I'm here again with my laptop and my boredom. There are things I could be doing, but... yeah. I'm just not really in the mood to stare at the several hundred PowerPoint slides I have to study for next week's Cognitive Psych test. I swear, I can't believe that class is only four units. Seems like it should be five or six for all the stuff we have to do. But maybe that's just me being grumpy.

I couldn't get to sleep last night for the longest time, hence the three chapters of fic I posted over at aurordark. I was tired of staring at the inside of my eyelids, so I figured I'd get up and do something (somewhat) useful. I was eventually able to get to sleep, but I did not want to get up this morning.

Part of it, I think, is that it's staying dark later and later. The sun wasn't even fully up when I got to school this morning. Normally I don't go in on Fridays, but I had a couple meetings to go to today.

One, with the Assistive Tech guy at Services for Students with Disabilities, went really well. I actually went in to talk to him about these new electronic pens they have now, which can transfer your notes to computer. But after talking with him, I decided it wasn't going to work for me. He did have some really awesome ideas about how I can keep up with my notetaking, though. It's been driving me crazy that I can't get every word down, but I literally cannot write fast enough. So I'm not going to anymore.

I'm going to take my laptop or my Kindle and a Bluetooth keyboard and type my notes. I'm also stealing borrowing Mom's camera to take pictures of the whiteboard so I don't have to rely on my crappy drawing skills to copy diagrams and such.

I seriously wanted to hug him for that suggestion. And he apologized to me for the e-pen thing not working out. I was like, no, no, this is awesome, you've been so much help, thank you!

Now I just need to talk to my teachers and make sure they're cool with me typing my notes. I think they'll be alright with it once I explain the circumstances, but the thing is, given my disability, it doesn't really matter what their policies on tech in the classroom are. I have the right to reasonable accomidations, and that covers things like laptop use- even in classes where the professors don't want laptops being used. I'll try the nice approach first, and honestly with these profs I don't think I'll have any trouble, but I have backup in the form of the DSS office if I need it. Which is good to know, and takes a lot of the weight off my shoulders.

All in all I'm doing better today than I was yesterday. I feel productive for a change, like I"ve actually gotten things done. And they're things that are going to help me out in the long run.

I've got about half an hour before my second meeting, which is actually a psychology club workship where we're going to talk about classes for next semester, share dirt on what profs are awesome and which ones should be avoided at all costs, that sort of thing. Should be interesting. I register on November 4th, and I only have the most vague idea of what I'm taking. I know, I know... that's bad of me, I should have it more together than this. It's just that I get so caught up in the day-to-day school stuff, that I forget to plan ahead.

One thing I'm probably not going to do, which I'd considered, was a Women's Studies minor. I really wanted to do it, but it's 20 more units, and I'd have to take another research methods class. I loathed the psych one- though I did seem to have gotten the guy who's arguably the worst teacher of that class in the whole department. I haven't heard a good word about the guy from anyone who had that class with him, which at least makes me feel somewhat vindicated in thinking he's a nit-picky jerk. Anyway. I don't want to hang around for the extra semesters 20 more units would take me to complete, but I think I'm going to take a couple of random women's studies classes that appeal to me. I'm looking at one for next semester, History of Feminism, that looks pretty cool. If I'm really lucky the WS teacher I have this semester will be teaching that too. I really like her, she's very good.

I'll probably never take another class from the Cog Psych prof, but that's a whole 'nother story.

When I woke up this morning I really was regretting my decision to schedule the meeting with the tech guy, and to go to the club workshop, but now that I'm here and I've managed to survive most of the day without killing anyone or dying of boredom, I'm glad that I came. I got some very helpful information and suggestions from my meeting at DSS, and I don't see how the psych club workshop could fail to benefit me.

Plus, I'd just have sat around in my PJs all day if I'd stayed home, watching crap on TV and moping around the house. Sometimes I think it's good for me to get out of the house and have to be around people, even though sometimes I'm not awesome at that either.

I will say, though, that I'll be glad when this day is over and I can go home. It's been a really long week.

Also my arm is kinda sore from the flu shot I got yesterday at the health center, though it's much better today. It only hurts if I raise my arm past a certain point, which is much less annoying than the flu would be. Now I just have to hope everybody else on campus got their free flu shots and aren't spreading it around classes or the common areas. As I discovered last year- or was it the year before last? I don't remember- you can still get the flu if you get a shot, but it's much less horrible. More "hey, I feel kinda crappy" and less "OMG kill me now my hair hurts and I'm throwing up air." The latter of which, I've also had in the past, and, yeah, I'd love to never have to experience that again.

I guess I should start hiking across campus for the workshop soon. I'm just not that enthusiastic about the idea. I mean, I want to go, yeah, but it's literally on the other side of campus. But I chose to spend the day on this side of campus anyway because all that's out on that side are the science buildings. Oh, and the agriculture departments. There's no food over there unless you count the vending machines. Besides, the library has a Starbuck's.

I'm getting so spoiled in college, I swear. :)

I was right about what was wrong with my eye. Go me. It's basically a blocked oil gland that may or may not have been infected. The doc put me on antibiotic/steroid anti-inflammatory drops, which have really cleared things up. It's still a little red, but the pain's mostly gone, and I'm getting a lot better at putting the drops in.

I'd forgotten how hard it is to use eye drops when you can't see what you're doing. Not having vision in that eye is great if someone else is doing the drops, because you can't blink. Trying to do it yourself is an adventure. Lost count of the number of times I hit my cheekbone, or my nose, or my eyebrow... But it's coming back to me. And I figured out that if I'm really not sure of what I'm doing, I can stand in front of a mirror. I'm not sure why I never thought of that before, except that I've hardly ever had to put drops in just the left eye. The only thing I've used lately has been allergy type drops, and for some reason I'm a little less worried about screwing up with Liquid Tears, you know?

Anyway. I went looking online for some info about my eyelid thingy, which is called a Chalazion, if anyone cares. Let me just advise you now NOT to check Wikipedia or similar for that one, because they have pics, and they're gross. I mean, really gross. Mine was a little pinprick compared to some of the ones I saw. *shudder*

Interestingly, in addition to the symptoms I'd noticed, the pain and the swelling and redness, this also causes light sensitivity. I thought the eye was a little more unhappy with light than usual, but it was hard to be sure. Good to know I'm not going crazy. Well- no crazier than usual, anyway.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

I actually had a fairly good morning, but this afternoon is turning into One Of Those Days.

I got on the bus to come home, and there was a guy getting off the bus while I was trying to get on. So, no problem, I move over, say "sorry, excuse me," to the guy. He's like, "It's cool."

The driver then says to me something like, "In a hurry to get on the bus, huh? You have to wait, check if anyone's getting off first." Sorta grumpy.

Me: "I'm sorry, I didn't see him." Not even that pissed off. Yet.

Him: "Well, you have to LOOK."

Me: *deathglare* thinking, too pissed to speak, "Asshole, I'm visually impaired.

Next: 30 minutes of me fuming about this, trying and failing to calm down. I decide I'm going to make the driver regret this. Get out my cane, unfold it, make sure he sees it.

I start to get up before the bus is fully stopped. I often do this and I'm fine. I made a grab for one of the poles, thinking I'd just slide to a stop and laugh it off.

I either missed the pole or there wasn't one there. Fell forward onto bus seats. Hit my leg, hip, etc, on seat dividers, hit my jaw, I think, on the bottom edge of the bus seat.

Me: "Shit!"

Other guys getting off bus: "Hey, are you okay?"

Me: "Yeah, yeah."

Driver: Says NOTHING.

Me: Get to door of bus, unfolding cane. Finish unfolding cane, smack the end onto the top of bus steps to make sure it's settled. Smack a bit harder than necessary. Glare at bus driver.

Bus driver: Will NOT look me in the eye, in fact looks AWAY.

Me: Get off bus and walk home.

So now I'm home and I'm still kind of fuming. It's partially my fault, maybe entirely my fault, for getting pissed off and letting that distract me, so that I fell. But there's no excuse for the rudeness from the driver, and no excuse for him not seeing if I was okay.

ARGH!

So, I'm gonna go sit on an ice pack for a while, and see if my face is swelling. I hope to hell NOT, because I still have to go to the bloody eye doctor today.

I see the moon through the leaning pine trees and bits of cloud, walking to the apartment from the garage (having just come home from seeing Matrix Revoloutions), and for a moment it looks the way that it used to, the way that I'm used to seeing it. For a moment I can forget that there are differences now, that everything is different now. For a moment I can forget the eyes and the pain and just be comforted by the famillar.

I see spectral highlights in the dark now, little streaks of light going off of everything- streetlights, stoplights, bright signs and car head and tail lights. I'm not sure if it's fading or if I'm just getting used to it. I hope like hell it's going away. I would like to be able to look at the moon without having to be reminded every single second of what was done to me with the damned lasers, what had to be done to stop the glaucoma. Oh, sure, I could have stayed on the drops the rest of my life, but there was no gaurentee they would work forever, adn then we'd be back where we started from.

I hope it fades. I just hope it fades. I'm a pagan for gods' sakes- lapsing the way I seem to be lapsing on everything lately, but I am. And it would be nice to see the moon...and the moon. You know?

Movie was strange; will review it later, maybe. Tired now.

NaNoWri is going well, or at least better. Latest word count is 12026. Progress. I had some plotting problems, having to get from A to C with no clear ideas on B, but I talked a bunch of stuff out with Mom, emailed a bit to Lindsay, and between the two of them I think I've found my way clear of things again.

I'm almost starting to think, oddly enough, that I can do this. Write a novel, have it done or close by the end of the month... I'm starting to think maybe I really can.

I think it's time to rotate the icons. I need a few more fandom options.

Monday. My least favorite day of the week, without peer.

I'm back to the eye doctor this afternoon. I don't even want to think about it. I was enjoying my eye doc-free life, you know? I hate it, the waiting and the wondering- what are they going to tell me is wrong this time? I feel fine, the eye hasn't really been bugging me at all, but... Yeah. Nervous, I suppose.

Am re-reading the original Star Wars Zahn trilogy, aka the Thrawn trilogy, aka the- what the hell was the other term for it? The Heir to the Empire trilogy? I'm realizing recently that my favorite EU characters are mostly Zahn creations; Mara Jade, Garm Bel Iblis, Talon Karrde, Captain Pellaeon, Grand Admiral Thrawn. Oh, and Jaina Solo, though she doesn't get great lines in this one at all. Neither does Jacen, but I've always had a little less fondness for Jacen. (Actually, the twins get no lines, as they're newborns, but anyway...)

When I was in junior high, I had a battered hardcover copy of "The Last Command", book 3 in the trilogy, which I carried in my backpack for luck. Those were the days- when I had room for a hardcover in my backpack. Now I can hardly squeeze in a paperback. Incidentally, that hardcover is a lot more battered now, as a result of 8th grade, but I survived it, so maybe there's something to be said for lucky books. Or not. :)

In the back of my mind I'm plotting my stuff for NaNoWriMo. But up front I'm just obsessing over fic. Part of it's because I'm on a bit of a roll with my main Star Wars undertaking, have just come up with a really strange plot twist for "Five things that never happened to Alfred Bester", and I've been bitten by at least three different Alias bunnies. I'd kind of like to strangle the bunnies. Lately my stories understand that I have homework and medical appointements. Bunnies...do not.

Although perhaps my fics aren't that forgiving either. Right now, when I should be chasing down a pair of socks and collecting my textbooks, I'm adding lines to the damned SW fic.

Okay. My little cast of Imperials has to shut up now. They really do. I mean, I'd just love to explain to my Algebra teacher (not to mention my mother) that I'm late to class because my original character and Grand Admiral Thrawn refused to shut up. I wouldn't believe me, either.

Right. School, eye doc... Wish me luck, gang. I'm off.

Nonsense title, yes. But I like it.

Sometimes I spend so much time reading other people's entries, I forget I can update this thing at all. Silly, but there you are.

I've been having not really very much fun at all in school, zoning out in PoliSci, pretending to pay attention in computers, and just kind of dragging my way through the math. It's not always this depressing of a picture, but usually.

Will murder my guidence councelor for forcing Comp Literacy on me, if I ever see her again. Bitch.

dagnylilytable survived Isabel; yay! I'd been keeping an eye on the storm on the news, so I was pretty sure she was okay, but it's good to have these things confirmed.

I owe bohemienne two emails now instead of just one. Someday I may even write said emails. Really.

I should be writing more than I am; journals, fic, original stuff. It's really hard to keep my balance right now. I have this diary I've been keeping about the eye saga, and I can hardly stand to update it, even though I need to before Monday, because Gods know what'll happen then- and I can hardly stand to update it because I'm sick to death of talking about the eye.

It's like, my grandmother calls, and she says, "Hi, Christine, how's the eye?" Like everything else has melted away and I'm just this...eye. Green, small, with a lens implant and a half-healed stitch and a laser-carved channel so it doesn't develop glaucoma.

I think I like it better at school, among strangers, who don't know, and don't care. Though I hate that I'm so isolated; no one in my age group will speak to me, and I never can get it together to talk to them. The woman I sit by in computers is an idiot, older, married, pregnant- we couldn't have less in common. In math on one side of me I have a boyfriend/girlfriend pair, and on the other, another older woman. Poli Sci, I have girls my own age on either side of me, and I can never talk to them. Every day I watch one of them walk in, and sometimes I nod, or smile, but I can never open my mouth just to say "hi" or "good morning", or "how's it going?" or anything.

And everywhere I look on my breaks there are just- freshmen. Fresh out of high school, thinking they're on top of the mountain when it's the tip of the damned iceburg, too clueless to know otherwise, too impressed by their own arrival at grown-up school... and I listen to them, talking to each other, and I figure I don't want to be great friends anyway, you know? The ones that don't sound stupid sound racist, and those are two groups of people I can't speak to civilly. The stupid people are just too thick, and the racists I'd just be screaming at for the bunch of biased morons they are.

Is it wrong to wish that maybe someday those idiots will meet, in some dark alley, a gang of not-pale people? We have a lot of those in Fresno... hell, I'm sure it would only make the zealots more zealous, but they just piss me off...

I'm too old for city college, not so much in years, but in...just living, existing, realizing there's more to life than City. I just want to climb on top of the tallest building on campus and scream at them that they're missing the whole point. And I can't tell you exactly what that point is, but they're sure as hell missing it.

How dare all my friends move away over the summer, anyway? Leave me to fend for myself out here where people are just crazy, or stupid, or both-

And all this medical shit, it's just making me...edgey. And almost disappointed. Like, all the crap I have to put up with, the horrid tests and the procedures and the pain, and I don't even get a consolation prize? No cute interns, not even some assistant I could flirt with? Hell, I'd like my own parking space and an exam room with my name on the door (and one of those stars, like Hollywood), long as we're on the subject, but I was really holding out for the cute, single, in my age bracket male person. Who was not gay.

I feel, you see, that I have earned this.

I have half an hour before I have to leave for the eye doc's (yet again). It's laser day. I really don't want to do this. I'm told it won't hurt, minimul discomfort, all that stuff. I still don't want to do it.

I understand why it's necessary, and that I'll get an eye condition I really don't want if this isn't done. But I'm still sitting here going, "But you're going to shoot a laser at my eye. No, really- you're going to shoot a laser into my eye."

Yes, and it's for my own good.

In slightly more cheery news, I think I've tracked down the most difficult eliment of my Halloween costume. I may never finish that fabulious black cloak, but it doesn't matter. Have found small Psi Corps pin. Life is good.

Except for the laser thingy.

Shit.

I'm seriously considering renaming the journal- something like The Eye Saga, or something of that sort.

Went to class Wednesday, then saw the glaucoma doc. I like this guy- he's nice, normal, smart...actually read my chart, did a very thorough exam... He's also the one I'd heard was cute, and he is.

I had a glaucoma test. If you've never had one, I don't reccomend it. They take this... rounded magnifying glass thing, like a giant contact lens, and put it on you eye. And then they push. It doesn't hurt, but it's about the most uncomfortable I've been in a long time.

I don't have glaucoma, but the way my eye pressure's going, I'm pretty close to getting it. So he put me on some drops to reduce the eye pressure, and Tuesday I'm going in and having a procedure done in which they use a laser to cut a channel in my eye for fluid to circulate. It sounds a little horrible, but I think it's going to be okay.

Anyway, I feel better knowing someone's going to do something now, before this crap gets any worse...

My Algebra teacher rocks. Because I notified her I wasn't going to be in class last Friday, she let me turn in Friday's homework late and still get credit for it. I spent all yesterday doing Algebra, but at least I'll get credit for it.

Anyway, must dash. School.

I was going to try to sleep in today, but I couldn't. Too much on my mind, which I guess isn't surprising.

Saw the doctor on the third floor on Friday. Bleh. He wasn't that cute, and he wasn't that helpful either.

"Wait and see," he says.

Oh yeah. I don't think so. I mean, I'm sorry, but I can't see- that's sort of the point.

He had one idea for how to take the stuff out of my eye, but it involves making about four holes in my eye, for: a light, a little vacume, a little thing to add more fluid, and a little scalpul. Riiight. I have- well, there's a medical term for it, but basically what it is, is small eyes. You think I have room for all that crap?

I don't.

Anyway, I wasn't too impressed with this guy. Wait and see is one reason; the other is that I don't think he's ever seen someone with small eyes before- he didn't know they could dialate me, for crying out loud! Was surprised when the drops worked. So I'm sitting there rolling my eyes in the dark, trying to explain to this guy that I can so be dialated- my poor little eyes can be dialated until you can hardly see anything but pupil. They did it for my lens implant surgery, and it took almost 48 hours to go down.

So I'm going back to see this...person today, and then I'm going back to see my 'real' surgeon, and then we'll get some real work done. I hope. Gods, I hope.

What I was really hoping was that we'd be able to plan what to do last week, on Friday. No such luck, but maybe today. That'd be nice, since I have classes on Wednesday, and I'd like to be able to tell my teachers how many more classes I'm going to have to cut. The fewer, the better, but the eye's got to come first, or not much else matters.

Sigh. Sitting here listening to my Pirates soundtrack, wishing I could just be a pirate.

I never get to do anything cool.

Dreams scared me awake this morning; a grey tabby cat like the one I used to have leapt at me, hissing and clawing. Not as weird as the last one, which involved people chasing a rat through a high school I've never been to or even seen, but still pretty strange.

I don't really care about the dreams, though. It just seemed a good place to start.

I'm having trouble seeing things. There's this cloudy film over my eye, like I sometimes get from allergies or sleeping, only it won't go away. Can't blink it out, can't wash it out. I first noticed it yesterday afternoon, but it's getting worse. It was worse when I got up this morning. I tried to ignore it, but when I couldn't, I called my mother. Who called the eye doctor's office, and got me an appointment. I could've called them myself, but even if I could drive, I couldn't do it today, so I figured I'd start with her, let her handle things. I was a little busy trying not to freak out.

My inner eye pressure was up a bit when I last went in for a post-op check. Doc said he wanted to see me in a month, with the glaucoma guy, but that was only a week or so ago. I can't wait three weeks with this, not if it's doing what I think it's doing. See, I don't want glaucoma. And I have this terrible feeling that's what's starting up now. They can fix it, probably, if that's what it is- a little laser procedure to give the pressure a place to go. But I don't want another eye procedure. I'm tired of them. Plus I don't know how it'll affect my vision, and I've got class tomorrow which I cannot miss...

But I really really don't want glaucoma. Or whatever the fuck this is. So whatever they have to do to stop it... I guess I'm on board.

I just- didn't want to be, you know? I wanted to be normal for a while longer. I guess I can't, though. I guess I forgot that no matter what happens I'm never going to be normal, not when it comes to things like this.

Thinking of redoing the journal with a Babylon 5 theme of some kind. Not that I can see what I'm designing, you understand...

New icon is B5's Bester, and don't ask me what the quote means. Right now I don't know. Depressing Evaescence lyrics, and right now it seems to fit. Him, and me in general for the melencholyness of it all.

Okay, so I did explain it, after all.

Please, Goddess, give me a break. I really don't need this right now.