urbandruid

So... I seem to keep going for ages and ages between updates lately. It's not that there hasn't been anything to say, more like there's been too much and I hardly know where to start.

I'm writing this on one of the school laptops because I didn't feel like bringing mine today. The college has this cool thing where you can check out a laptop from the library for a few hours, it's really awesome. You can take them anywhere on campus, as long as you have them back by the time they're due. And do not be late, the fine is insane. (No, I've never been late with one, but it's posted on a big sign by the checkout counter.)

Anyway. School has been my main focus since I started back in August. I always try to take a couple easy classes and one more difficult one, and I always end up having more work to do then I think I will. Add that to the fact that it's midterm/paper season, as I call it, and... yeah. I'm lucky if I can catch my breath lately.

But things are better. Last month I had a sinus infection which wasn't properly diagnosed, so by the time they got me antibiotics, the first round didn't work and I had to go for a second, higher grade antibiotic to kick the infection. While still going to class, taking exams, writing papers... you know, life as usual. So that was fun.

Then there was the anniversary of my grandfather's death. If you've been following me on Facebook you know he died last September. We knew it was coming eventually, but he had a bad fall with a head injury, and just never recovered from it. I miss him. I think about him a lot when I'm at school because he used to teach out here, and I just... I wish he could have... Well, hell. I wish he'd never gotten Alzheimer's, that was the start, you know? Fucking horrible disease.

My family is coping mostly okay...now. But it was pretty rough for a while, especially for Mom and Grandma. I still worry about them sometimes, but it's me, I worry about everything and everybody.

You know, sometimes I think I'd just like to totally erase 2013. It pretty much sucked start to finish, with a few exceptions. And I'm not really thinking of any particularly good ones right now. All that stands out in my memory is the bad stuff. There was a lot of bad.

So... Mostly I post on Facebook these days (drop me a comment or an email and I'll shoot you the link) or on Twitter at @technomagecray. Both are friendslocked, but if I know you, I'll add you. Fair warning though, Twitter is where I mostly bitch about things I can't bitch about on Facebook because Mom and my aunt read it now. The joys of family networking. No, really I don't mind, I made the decision to add them, it just changes what I post a little. That and I don't totally trust Facebook's security to be as secure as they say it is. I don't want stuff coming back to haunt me later, so I'm careful about what I post.

I guess I'm still trying to come to grips with everything that happened last year- my cat Samantha dying, my grandfather dying, the break-in and everything that we lost...

Today my Women's Studies prof said something about how there should be support groups for break-ins. Yeah, no shit. I'm not going to try and claim it's as traumatic as some other crimes that people could experience, but it was a major thing for me.

Mostly what I am these days is angry.

Well, no. Not angry.

Furious. Pissed, white-hot rage furious. That people could come into my house- my house! and take things we'd worked and saved for, and just shatter that sense of security that everybody ought to be able to enjoy in their own homes. Sometimes I start to think I've gotten over it, and then something will remind me, or I'll notice something else missing, and it's just like, really? Really, you bastards? You had to steal my favorite tote bag, too? Probably put my (stolen) Mac and Mom's (stolen) Toshiba in there. Fuckers.

The things I really can't get over losing are the sentimental items, and the laptop. Not so much the laptops themselves as what was on them, before I had the sense to back stuff up. I lost years of writing- and I know, you're all tired of hearing about it. Plus I should have backed up more often, which is just- yeah, I know. But seriously?

I'm lucky, that's the thing I have to keep reminding myself of. I was lucky not to be found and hurt, or worse. I get that. I just... Yeah. I hope they catch them someday, but I'll never know if they do or not. I didn't get that good of a look at the one who came to the door, and the neighbor saw them from across the street. Unless we get really lucky... *sigh* I think the police will probably catch them one of these days, because people who kick in doors in broad freaking daylight are just not that smart. But they'll never be able to tie them to our break-in unless they were stupid enough to keep some of our stuff and get caught with it. Makes me wish I'd had my initials engraved on the back of that pentagram necklace they swiped from my room. I figure karma will get their asses in the end, I just wish I could know about it.

...Yeah, this entry is a massive downer, and I apologize. Hopefully I'll have some better news soon.

Let's see. The psychology club is having a get-together tomorrow afternoon so we can all talk about what classes to take next semester, what professors are good, and stuff like that. Should be fun. It's a great group of people and I have a good time every time we get together, even if it's just an informational meeting. I went ice skating with them last year, fell on my ass and got off the ice real fast, but had a great time anyway.

I've been sick for every event they've had this semester, which sucks, but I'm hoping that's over. I am so tired of being sick.

Other news. I'm starting to look into graduate programs, which is scary as hell but necessary at this point in my career. The really scary thing is that I'm going to have to leave home, because the only school around here that offers a doctorate in clinical psych is a for-profit school, and, no. Plus my stalker is going there, and...yeah. Would prefer never to see her again if possible. It's bad enough she's at the college I'm at now, but it's a big place so I don't see her that much. And at this point I think she's more afraid of me than I am of her. That temper of mine was finally good for something- I think I scared the shit out of her the last time I spoke to her, when I told her to stay the hell away from me. At great volume.

Anyway. Grad school. Where I really want to go is UC Berkeley, but we'll see if they let me in. Not only do they have a great program, but the public transportation in the city is awesome, which is pretty much a requirement for anywhere I end up due to the whole no-driving thing. Which I'm coming to accept is going to be a permanent state of affairs for me. They just can't sharpen my usable vision up enough for me to even qualify for a restricted license, plus there's the whole practically blind in one eye thing. It just scares me too much to even think abot trying to drive with one good eye, even if they'd let me. So I've got to go somewhere where the public transit is good enough that I don't need to drive.

I've heard some nightmare stories about grad school, though. One of my professors, who's from a town around here, ended up in Kansas. Kansas. Another prof ended up in Tennessee, but that was Vanderbilt. I think I'd go to Vanderbilt if they let me in. Well, not if I got into Berkeley, too, but I would consider a good school. I kinda feel like they should be fighting over me, to be honest. I'm an awesome student, any program would be lucky to have me, right? ;)

I think I'm going to try and do NaNoWriMo again this year. I've done it once, but it's been a long time and I think I'm ready to give it another go. Even though it's in November, and that's a heavy month for school, what with being the month before finals and all. And even though I'm always busy as hell in November. I have a lot of free time in my days too, especially the ones when I have class- I'm on campus all day, and have very little to do aside from homework and reading in between classes.

Of course, I don't exactly have an idea yet, or not much of one. There's an old novel attempt I might restart, that I've been toying with since high school, but I dunno. It's this YA dystopian thing, and there are, what, a billion of those out there now? I should've written it in the 90's, and sold it when the dystopian craze first hit. (And why does the Firefox spellchecker not know 'dystpoian'? Stupid thing, I am ignoring you.) Anyway. It's about this girl and her friends, who mostly used the internet to communicate. In some versions they went to high school together, but split up to go to different colleges, and in other versions they only knew each other through the net. But they were the only real friends my main character had, so when the Evil Government hits and things to to hell, she tries to find them.

Anybody want a cameo? I promise not to kill you off unless you want me to. ;)

Yeah, the more I think about this, the more I think I'll do it. Why the hell not, right? I need to write something beside fanfic. And I'm still writing a good bit of fanfic (see aurordark) these days. My obsessions go in cycles- this past summer I had seaQuest DSV nostalgia, now I'm all about Gundam Wing. Not sure what'll be next, once the GW bug burns itself out. Maybe I'll get back to the Honor Harrington fic nobody reads, or the Harry Potter stuff. I like fanfic, though. It's fun, it can be frivilious or serious, and it lets me play with a lot of different things- styles of writing, tone, POV... yeah. This should be an aurordark entry. I'll probably go over there and ramble a bit on the subject when I finish this one.

Honestly at this point I'm just killing time till I can go home. I have no homework at the moment, and am not in the mood to do my psych reading. So, you get a tl;dr update. Sorry 'bout that.

I love October. I think in some ways it's my favorite month. It's finally cooling off a little, though I guess that's subjective- it's supposed to be 81 degrees today. But at least it's not 90, and it is cold in the mornings. I finally put my sandals away for the season and dug out my hoodies. Gods I love hoodie season.

I have an exam the day before Halloween, and a psych club meeting on Halloween itself. That should be entertaining. I'm not really sure if I'll do a costume- probably not. If my blazer still fit I'd dust off the Psi Cop outfit I came up with one year and see if anybody recognized it. I actually got somebody who did one year, it was great.

Otherwise I'm going to dye my hair a nice crimson red, dress all in black, and tell people I'm Sydney Bristow. And see if anyone knows who the hell that is.

I like my costumes obscure, apparently.

Okay, I think that's enough rambling for now. If you made it this far, thanks for listening. :)

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. :)

Okay, so here's the thing.

I think I'm cracking up under the stress of finals. Not as bad as scottiegirlc might be, but anyway... ;) I'm almost to the point of laughing hysterically at everything, and I can very easily see myself bouncing off the walls, explaining to my pals in Soc, "But we've got to save Spike!"

Bizarre dreams last night mixed Fresno City college and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Wait, what did I say about almost cracking up?

Z minus seven days. Which sounds like a long time, until you figure out that it's all rolling down from here.

Wed. May 12 - Class. Study. Algebra homework.
Thur. May 13 - Study. Algebra homework. Eye doctor's appointment.
Fri. May 14 - Algebra chapter 9 exam. Study.
Sat. May 15 - Finish Algebra review. Study.
Sun. May 16 - Finish Algebra review. Study.
Mon. May 17 - Algebra final.
Tue. May 18 - Study for Soc final.
Wed. May 19 - Soc final

I really don't think it would be so bad if they didn't expect us to learn the last of the new material while we're cramming for finals. Or at least while I'm cramming for finals. I know people who haven't even started studying yet. Their perogative, of course, but fifty review problems will not do themselves.

I wish they would, though.

Somehow I'll get it all done. It's not so much that I don't understand the Algebra, because I understand most of it, it's just that there's a lot of it.

Am still v. very worried about Spike, though.

*facepalms*

I've applied to play another character in twisted_hp, and have kind of narrowed down who I might want to play in the_second_war. I'm still having the great debate about Second War, probably because the field is still so wide open. Thinking up a second for Twisted was easier; I almost started with this one instead. Maybe I should have... Tabitha is so...barely skirting canon. 'Course, so is Twisted, but...

Yeah. I'm a geek. But what it amounts to really is that I'm bored- I'm horribly bored, actually. And it's two days till 4th of July, I don't know what I'm doing, but it won't be a thing like last year, when I was working the fireworks booth with Michael and Jonni and the rest of the gang. *sigh* I miss them. I miss the fun we had last summer, even though it was hot and horrible and some of our customers really truly sucked...

We had one of those big party pack boxes of fireworks left over, this thing we were supposed to be raffling off but which no one entered for, and since we'd paid for everything already (well, the school J. worked for had, anyway, and it wasn't something we could sell anyway), we took it and set everything off ourselves. Best 4th of July I've ever had.

I didn't get invited to parties before I met them. Now they're in Arizona, and I'm back to square one. Lonely. Writing and reading away my summer, wandering around town feeling so damn old, like it's been forever since I was the age of all the little teenyboppers who hang around the shopping centers and the movie theaters on Friday nights.

( Fun stuff about the future, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and various other things )

Thanks for some really good questions, Eilan! I had to think for a while on some of those. :)

So...I think it's my turn now. Anyone want to be interviewed by yours truly?