Rough Day

I am my own person. I have a personality that is unique, and is no more influenced by others than anyone else's except in the fact that I am more open minded than many.

Why is this so hard to believe?

First, tonight, I was informed that I am gullible. Impressionable. Easily swayed by the will of others. I have no personality of my own, and I simply absorb the personalities of those around me. This will, inevitably, wind up with me becoming an apprentice to a serial killer, joining a cult, or killing myself when a man breaks up with me.

This was informed to me by my parents.

And then, when I sought validation that this was not the case from my significant other, I was informed that it was a "reasonable concern" on their part. In fact, said significant other in the past has expressed concerns about my lack of my own personality and the fact that I seem to simply become whatever those around me are.

I AM NOT GULLIBLE.

No, I don't have a unique fashion sense, so yes, I wear whatever people around me who I care about the opinion of tell me looks good. Want to know why? Because I DON'T CARE WHAT I LOOK LIKE, as long as I am not revealing too much for my personal comfort, I feel comfortable, and those around me consider me attractive. You know what else? I don't have a favorite color, really. I wear red because people tell me red looks good on me. So I say it's my favorite color because I wear it all the time. In truth, I don't give a shit what color I am wearing unless it is purple. I don't like purple.

So I'm not a fashion horse. I don't care if I express myself through my clothes. So what? I still want to look attractive, naturally, so I wear clothes that other people tell me look good. When I valued my mother's opinion on my appearance the most (read: no friends), I dressed as she wanted me to. When I valued my peers' opinion the most, I dressed as Vivacia wanted me to. Currently, the only person who I want to find me attractive is Ryter. So SURPRISE, I wear what Ryter says looks good. Do I have to have a fashion sense to be my own person?

And yeah, I listen to metal a lot now that I am dating him. I also still listen to country, and pop, and emo. Around him, I listen to metal most of the time because I don't want to subject him to music he doesn't like. I also listen to it on my own. Because he introduced me to metal. The truth is, I like music that has an effect on me. Metal has an effect on me emotionally. The music is emotional. For country and pop, the lyrics make me think, especially with story songs. For emo and some pop, I can't understand the lyrics anyway so I use it as background noise because it's not distracting. Different music serves different functions for me, just because I was introduced by someone in particular doesn't mean I am influenced by them, it means I share their taste in music.

My politics have always been my own. No influence there, at least not recently. Ryter and I disagree on McCain vs. Obama. He doesn't share the importance I put on sex education, science education, available and safe birth control and a reformed healthcare system. When it comes to politics, we have different priorities. I have different priorities from most people in my life.

And yes, I changed my career goal from "doctor" to "ecologist." Part of that was admittedly Ryter, in that I chose to become a doctor when I was convinced that no one would ever love me so it wouldn't matter that I wasn't going to be financially stable enough to have children until my eggs started to churn out clunkers. I have since realized that medicine is probably not the ideal career for me because I actually will be able to have children with a guy I love some day, and I'd like to do it before I am 30. In addition, it was pointed out to me that I don't handle stress well and I don't function well on very little sleep, and I'd like a career where stress on the job means a few weeks of studies get derailed instead of a person dies and then I lose my license because of malpractice.

Also, I hate willfully ignorant people. I'm not talking about people who have no access to education, that's not their fault and I can't hate them for that. I'm talking about people who are presented with evidence and ignore it or disparage it to fit their preconceived notions. I hate Creationists, and anti-vaccinationists, and HIV denialists. I hate anarchists and communists and fascists, and freegans and vegans (well, religious/moral vegans who don't try to pretend it's healthier or more natural are okay). I hate people who believe telling kids about birth control will make them have sex and people who believe kids who don't have sex education don't have sex. I hate people who think America has the best healthcare system in the world when that only applies to people who have good health insurance coverage, and everyone else gets screwed, resulting in our average life expectancy being lower than most developed nations (I will concede that for those with good insurance, it's probably the best you can get). I hate people who refuse to see reason under any circumstances because it contradicts what they want to believe.

This would not work well in medicine. I think I would stab a scapel into the heart of the first person I met who insisted vaccines were wrong while their toddler was in agony with pertussis. Not good for business.

This does not mean Ryter is controlling me. It means that I am learning who I am. Ryter doesn't care if a mother he doesn't know doesn't vaccinate their child. I do. It just happens that much of my self-discovery is coinciding with when I met Ryter.

I have a personality. I am both compassionate and passionate about causes I believe in. I am fiercely loyal to those who are loyal to me and I want to help everyone who cannot help themselves, and some who will not help themselves. I care intensely about the world around me and want to make a difference, and yet I know I am powerless in many ways, which disturbs me. I am silly and goofy at times, and angry at others. I am slow to warm up to people but will share anything once I am warmed up.

I like music that isn't rap, I like clothes that make me look beautiful to the man I love. I like dancing and singing, which I don't indulge in much for others' sake because I am not very good at either. I love to cook and love to see people appreciating food I have prepared for them. I love to learn about the medical world and read about the environment I would not do well in and yet can appreciate on an intellectual level. I like biological sciences and puzzles of biology and learning how the mind works. I like dark humor but not embarrassment humor, and I like good wordplay. I like technology and imagining the world of the future, I like anthropology and the history of human evolution, I like weird, rare languages and uncontacted peoples.

I like the outdoors. I like hiking and swimming and camping and skiing an riding horses on trail rides, but not in a ring. I like animals and plants and interesting fungi and stargazing and the process of forest decomposition and regrowth and encouraging life to grow on a petri dish, in a cage, in a garden, whatever. I like obscure and ugly animals and anything that lives it's life in the dark. I love viruses, as long as I don't have them.

I like to track diseases and find the patient zero and where they got it from, I like to rant about the way things should be versus the way they are versus the way they will be. I like drawing and sculpting and writing and attempting to recreate the images I see in my head for those around me, and for my own future reference. I like learning about religion and myth and why it exists and what it teaches us, and considering what my own beliefs are. And yes, I am a raunchy person and have my own likes and dislikes there too.

I don't like being around people that much, and I need a lot of down time to process everything around me. I don't like when people criticize my beliefs or try to correct me when I am not right or wrong, simply in disagreement. I don't like crowds or mosquitoes or taking pills every day, or unapplied math or sleeping in the heat or any time the air does not move. I don't like being interrupted, cut off, not allowed to finish a thought, not allowed to take a breath in conversation for fear of that being the case, or when people misinterpret my words, which happens often because I have a tendency to use words in a manner which is slightly unlike their normal use and not even realize it. I don't like roller coasters, horror movies, sudden movement in a quiet area or being touched by anyone I am not very comfortable with.

Not one of the above is influenced by Ryter, or anyone else for that matter.

I'm sorry, world, but I don't understand what the problem is. I don't see where I lack personality. I often change what ASPECTS of my personality I present to people, which is something I am actively attempting to change and which action I believe is what is leading people to believe I myself am changing. Well, no, I am not. I am simply showing you the real me instead of the custom-made-for-you me.

I can recognize when a person is attempting to control me and I will cut them out of my life as needed. I usually recognize it when they start to resent positive changes in my life and when they resent efforts on my part to reveal my true self to them. I can't really cut my parents out of my life yet. But I can still limit their exposure to me because they are a negative influence on my life. I know my parents want to control me, consciously or not, for a simple reason: They are resenting the changes in how much of me they see.

So please. Stop telling me that I have no personality of my own. I have one. I have likes and dislikes and values and priorities and they are all mine. I can recognize attempts to control me and circumvent them, except as regards my parents. No one's gonna talk me into smoking a joint, joining a cult, or eating human flesh and the fact that I have almost no friends outside Ryter has nothing to do with Ryter and everything to do with the fact that I am too shy to make friends or maintain a large social circle. I have almost always had one friend and built all other friendships off that, and right now, it's Ryter. Is it ideal? No. But it will not change any faster if I am living on or off campus, if I spend more or less time with him, or anything else. The only way that will change is if I can convince myself I care enough to change it. I don't care enough about it right now, I'm more concerned with school and my health and doing things I enjoy to change something which, while annoying, is not impacting my life except as a nagging "probably should get around to that" thought in the back of my head.

And if I am talking and talking and don't make sense, please, for the love of all that is good in this world, BE PATIENT. I have a point. But I don't think in words and phrases and I am trying to make connections between my brain and my mouth and convey how I am thinking, but if you interrupt me, you break my train of thought and then I can't finish it. I do have a point, I will get to it, but I do not have the communication skills needed to do so quickly. Please, just... be understanding.

Short entry today.

And the Ludi Cereri continues...

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I felt like I should say something about the shootings at Virginia Tech... I found out yesterday in the dining hall, watching CNN, but it didn't really register with me. I mean, I was like, "Wow, that's terrible," because it's the worst campus shooting in history, but I didn't really think that much about it, you know? It wasn't like September 11th or even just Columbine when no one could talk about anything else. So I kind of pushed it out of my mind.

But then today, after various events made the day suck and I was complaining to Mistake, we went out for drinks to distract ourselves-- me from my day, and her, I discovered, from the fact that a friend of hers who goes to Virginia Tech hasn't been heard from yet, either way. So I immediately started to think about it, and it's very scary. Because that could happen anywhere. It could happen here. It did happen in Virginia and I can't imagine what they're feeling right now.

Every time something like this happens, I feel terrible for all the jokes I make about going postal...

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Ryter's power was back on today, so he came and picked up Constantine before I went to lab.

Got back my last Bio test, the one I thought I failed. Guess what? I failed. I got a 44%. I'm going to talk to my professor tomorrow...

Then I went all the way out to Dover to meet with my therapist before I remembered that she changed the appointment to next week, when I have a Chemistry test that I have now had to move a day earlier than anticipated, meaning extra studying on Sunday night. And I had to pay to get a taxi back to campus.

Plus I have to revise a paper by Thursday and my Chemistry teacher is being vindictive.

Great.

"I bring you love, peace, and pie."

Nate is a Blog is back! Or... it was back, for a while, but I didn't know about it. Anyway, hopefully we'll get to read more of his funny stuff since he's no longer 1 of 1.5.

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Today was a good day.

Why was it a good day?

Because I didn't finish studying last night, of course, so I took my biology test today vastly underprepared. And guess what? According to Mistake, who has some friends in the class, Bio review wasn't canceled-- it was at 7 instead of at 5. So I could have gone. Grr.

Anyway, after failing that test, I headed over to the library to work on my English essay, still unfinished. It's already eight pages long and I still haven't even gotten near the end. This is frustrating.

Caught the bus over to Dover and went to Store 24 for some food. Alas, they were out. Yes, of food. There was nothing I could eat in the whole damn store. Finally I grabbed a frozen chicken pot pie and decided to hope for the best; my therapist's office has a microwave.

Half an hour later, I'm still trying to nuke the damn thing... It wouldn't cook the crust properly, so I ate it doughy. Not a great idea. The texture made me nauseus so I set it aside until my therapist attempted to stick it in the toaster oven. It cooled as I talked and then I wolfed it down before running to the bus-- literally, I would have missed it if some dude hadn't seen me sprinting up the street, waving my arms frantically and trying not to kick my laptop bag so hard that it wound up in the street.

Now there's an image for you.

I got more of the essay done on the bus. Want to get carsick? Type in a moving vehicle. Ugh. I got back to campus, staggered back to my dorm, started printing what I had of the English essay and proceeded to throw a coughing/gagging fit. Then, calmed by Coke and some deep breathing, I arrived ten minutes late to class and realized I hadn't done the workshopping I was supposed to do on this girl's paper, so I did it as we discussed it and hoped for the best.

Good news? They liked what little I had finished of the essay...

Post-class, 3:30, back to the dorm to finish the lab report I hadn't even started that was due at 6. Because I am a terrible procrastinator. With some help from Maritima, who is way too patient with me, it was completed in time, though I didn't get to eat dinner and subsisted instead on popcorn and Ramen. We then did a gaseous chemicals lab and I totally inhaled (there goes my political career), returning my nausea/headache in full force.

Got an A on my chem test, though. She handed them back during lab. That was pretty awesome.

Then I got back after lab and realized I screwed up my housing stuff, but thankfully that was worked out with my hall director fairly easily. I just was rather panicky for a little bit there.

Anyway, normally after one of these days I'd come back here, write a blog entry about sucky dayness, and then curl up in bed thinking, "It will be better tomorrow. It will be better tomorrow." But I totally didn't have to do that today, I just had to come online and talk to Ryter, and he basically managed to say everything that I needed to hear but don't trust if I have to ask for.

And that's why it was a good day.

"Be Magnanimous, Be Trustful, Be Hopeful and Be Patient"

Wow. Today was... awkward.

It might have been awkward because I'm moody lately, but still. It was can't-use-first-person awkward. Which is pretty damn bad.

So imagine you're me, and you wore the new yoga pants, and, of course, they're too short for you (as in, you don't step on them when you walk), which is fine when one is doing yoga but not so cool when one is let out of yoga late, because they started late, because there weren't enough mats for everyone; it's also not so cool when one is subsequently sprinting across campus in them, and wearing them through Bio lab despite having brought pants to change into because there wasn't enough time.

Then what's not cool is coming into your first Bio class five minutes late, and thus having all eyes on you, when you're still exhausted from dashing across campus and doing yoga before that and you know your hair must look terrible and you might even smell, hard to tell. And naturally the professor notes your late arrival, the same professor whose class you idiotically skipped the first day, and probably thinks you're a total flake, despite the fact that all last semester you missed like, one Bio class and then only because that professor said it was okay.

So having distinguished yourself thusly, you then proceed to notice that your lab procedure sheet is missing, which does not endear yourself to the professor any more, though he is at least good-natured about it. Then the announcement comes that the entire class is to stand up, one at a time, and say their name and hometown and major and what they want to be when they grow up. You immediately panic, because you do not want to introduce yourself as the girl who came in late and looks like hell and probably smells, and you can't decide if you should go by your real name or your nickname because you've been using the real name more, now, rather than have to explain yourself; on the other hand, there's another girl with your real name in the class. She introduces herself, and you start to see other people you recognize, including lots of kids from the previous semester's class- including the Incredibly Hot Guy, who, you note, announces that he is a classics major but he's taking Honors Bio because he wants to go into oncology, which is SO NOT HELPFUL to the whole stupid-high-school-girl-crush thing and only serves to make him more hot, and also his attractive but short and so not quite as hot friend who Flirts With TAs, and you're about ready to kill yourself because "crazy chick who totally killed herself like, right in the middle of Bio lab" is a lot cooler sounding than "flaky girl who looks like crap and probably smells." So when it's your turn you stand up really fast and don't meet any eyes and say your name, your hometown, Biology General, want to be a physician, sit down, then breathe.

Then the professor starts talking about the lab and what you're to do, and he says you're going to test your environment for bacteria, and he suggests a bunch of places to test, including your rectum, and he explains how to test for it, and you quietly think, I do believe I'd rather be embalmed alive than stick a cotton swab up my ass and let people check out the resultant e. coli, thanks. And to be honest you don't even want to touch your hands to the agar, because you know they're probably nasty from the yoga mats and sweaty and you really don't want people to get the wrong impression of you, like they haven't already.

So you volunteer to do the roach instead, which means picking up a live, squirming, giant hissing cockroach and trying to keep him under control as he hisses and flails and tries to escape the agar that you're trying to put him on, so that he can walk around, and the first one practically jumps out of your hand so you get the smaller one but it crawls up your arm, little tiny feet, a giant bug on your arm, and you don't mind bugs but you're still extremely creeped out by the whole encounter.

Plus the TAs are taking pictures of everyone and you know that your disgusting current self shall be immortalized in Polaroid, and you can't really think about anything and you really hope you don't screw up the lab too much because you don't want your lab partner to insist on a different partner next time, and you occasionally have to remind yourself that it's bad to cry in public. The only times you should ever cry in front of people are funerals and when you get delicate body parts smashed by hard, heavy things, because otherwise people assume you are insane.

You finally leave there an hour early, which is good at least, and hurry back to your dorm to change and brush your hair and grab your dance shoes, then you run over to eat really fast and rush to the library to meet with your stupid INCO group, and you're totally not prepared for it, and the directions say "1st floor study room" and you haven't a clue what that means because you don't realize that the floor you walk in on, the one at ground level, is floor #3, not #1, and you get completely turned around and arrive fifteen minutes late and flustered, again, and they're talking about what it takes to be an MD and that just depresses you, and even though it gets out early you still have only half an hour to go back to the dorm and meet with your roommate, who you're taking to Swing Club with you and who doesn't own anything but sneakers. And you're stuck wearing your 3 inch heels that make you look ridiculously tall, because you can't spin in sneakers, and you get there and everyone's wearing sneakers or at least flats and you feel like an idiot.

And while you remember a lot, you're still miles behind everyone else, and you're so stressed out about the rest of the day and life in general and the fact that you're too tall to do the cuddle step, especially with the girls who play the guys because they're so short, and you make mistakes and slip in the stupid shoes because they're so worn, and one time that you slip you're mid-dip, so the poor guy has to catch you and he thinks you did it on purpose because you didn't understand that you're supposed to support your own weight, but you knew that, because you always support your own weight even when you're not supposed to because you're really too big to be supported by anyone else. And making mistakes is really bothering you, as is the fact that everyone is really good, much better than you are, and they're all couples. Like, every single damn one of them.

So you have a really sucky day that starts with not enough sleep and ends with seeing lots of happy couples dancing together and remembering that that will NEVER be your life. Because honestly, on the off chance that you actually get a guy to like you, chances are he won't be the kind of guy who dances with you, because honestly, he'll probably like you for your brain.

I'm not depressed. If I keep saying it it might come true...