There is always one person on the Dover bus that is about 50 years old and sketchy as hell

Good news. I got an appointment, not with a psychiatrist, but with a psychiatric nurse, for March 14 (about a month sooner than expected). I know nothing about her except what the internet can tell me, which is that she can prescribe medication, but also provide therapy, that she works with people who have depression and anxiety, and that she does Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which Ryter has suggested would be good for me.

If this works out, I won't need to have a psychiatrist separately, which would be good because the only one I could find that I thought I would be comfortable with (I am incredibly sexist about these things) won't take any patient under age 21. Now, I get not taking kids if you don't really feel qualified to work with them, but 21 seems arbitrary. 18 would eliminate parental controls/high school and 25 would be more likely to mean the individual acts like an adult... but anyway.

If it doesn't, I'll have to find another psychiatrist, and I'll probably try to get an appointment with this one therapist whose office is within walking distance of my dorm. That would be awesome, no hour commute. She also does CBS and deals with depression and anxiety, but she can't do meds, so she wouldn't be able to manage my care fully. She might be affiliated with a psychiatrist, however.

I have a few other prospects, all carefully plotted on my Google Maps that outlines the bus stops. However, alas, this first appointment is on a Friday... at 8:00. Like in the morning. With a fifteen minute bus ride to drop me off at 7:15 and pick me up at 9:45.

So yeah. 6 AM wakeup, that'll be fun. Hopefully future appointments can be at more reasonable hours, and hopefully I can arrange to have my car on campus for Friday, because I really, really don't want to be on the bus that early before classes start...

Life, tube. Aquaint yourself with it, it's where you'll be headed over the next couple of weeks.

I would be crying right now if I didn't think it was a waste of time.

I can't take the classes I wanted. Again. As in, I was flat-out informed that I was required to take three lab sciences a semester. Yes. Three. As in, I am not allowed to take fun classes. I'm allowed one non-major-oriented class a semester, and this upcoming semester it will be Horace. I was also informed that Honors students aren't bad at math, all evidence to the contrary, and I already took a test that I specifically remember not taking, thus proving that I can handle Calculus in the Spring and that I don't need Analysis. Instead, I am to take "Applied Biostatistics I" in addition to my Organic Chemistry, General Ecology, and Advanced-level Latin. Because rather than having about four gen eds left, turns out I have two-- Psychology and Fine Arts. And if I take Fine Arts in the Spring when I'm struggling with Calc and all I can take Psychology my senior year, and Greek next year.

"Take APs," they said. "It will give you more free time in your schedule," they said. Well, whoever "they" are, I'm hating them right now. If I didn't have those APs I would have so many more options for non-science courses. Instead I'm to consider myself lucky that I have the minor to do, and at least one semester will be all science courses.

ARGH!!!

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So, what else is bothering me lately... Bisobrina really, really wants to come up and visit me here at school, and she's on vacation this week. Of my remaining weekends, this is far and away the best for that, despite the English portfolio/final thingy I have due next Thursday and the meeting with my fellow TV announcer (for the Bio Lab presentation) I've already set up for 10 on Saturday morning. Plus the Latin presentations start next Friday and I'm praying I can beg my Latin professor to put mine off until Monday; I also have a Chem test next Friday and I absolutely HAVE to take the make-up test for Bio before the reading (for me, studying for the Bio final) days on the 8th and the 9th; I need to get that done next week, preferably Tuesday, possibly Wednesday if Tuesday is ABSOLUTELY undoable...

Okay, let's look at my due dates over the next couple of weeks.

Monday the 30th, Latin quiz.
1st or 2nd, need to take that Bio test.
3rd, English portfolio is handed it.
4th, Chem ACS exam (like a final only not one of his tests, so harder); also, Latin presentations begin (I haven't even started mine).
Monday the 7th, Latin presentations continue.
8th, dry-run of the performance for Bio Lab.
9th, we actually DO the performance.
10th, Bio Final.
11th at 5:30 PM, I get kicked out of the dorm and summer begins.

That's what my life will be like. So obviously if Bisobrina's coming up, it has to be this weekend.

I'd really rather she didn't. I want to see her, but honestly, I wish she'd come visit me over the summer, and I could take her down to the Cape for a weekend and we could chill out on the beach and do cool stuff there, because there's always cool stuff to do at the Cape. But she wants to come here, to UNH, and hang out on campus. Next year she'll be off to school in Connecticut and won't be able/want to visit me here. I'm just worried she wants to be doing cool stuff, like going to parties or something. Which I don't do. So if she's expecting me to have anything exciting planned, she's got another think coming. I don't think there's that much to do otherwise, either. I mean, I guess we could go to a dorm social or something... maybe hang out with Mistake, if she's not too busy with her own crazy study-fest (which seems likely)...

Sigh.

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Oh, and I was supposed to go see my therapist today, but I had a Chem test. So I moved the Chem test to yesterday. Then I was going to have to take the Calculus pretest, so I had to cancel anyway. Upset as I was with this turn of events, imagine my emotions when I went to my meeting with the adviser this morning (right after the bus left) and I was informed that I wouldn't be taking that exam, after all, as I didn't need it... So basically, I missed the appointment for nothing.

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So I'm starved for time and deprived of sleep; I'm scheduled up the whazoo with projects, presentations, and exams; I can't stay awake long enough to study/work on said projects, presentations, and exams; I'm going to be entertaining a high school student who has declared that she wants to meet all the "hot UNH boys" this weekend; and oh yeah, I just learned it's going to be even worse next year...

I need pie.

"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.

"Oh, look, family bathrooms. We can all go in together!"*

So today Mistake and I were all set to go to the mall, and then she went to go onto the 5A bus, so I, naturally, followed her as I only know that 3A goes to see my therapist in Dover. Turns out that we wanted 4A, so we rode around for an hour and got a fun and exciting tour of Newmarket. Poor Mistake felt really dumb, which kinda made me feel bad, because it wasn't really her fault. We've to the mall like, four or five times, max, and the buses are kinda confusing. They all come at the same time, so it's easy to get on the wrong one. Besides, we just rode it back, took a later bus to the mall and hung out in my dorm in the meantime. This did mean that Closer came with us to the mall, though, since we figured that the fact that neither of us picked up on the fact that we were on the wrong bus until we'd already gone too far to get off meant that chances are we'd screw something up again.

It's okay, all he was planning on doing was, y'know, homework. Like that matters. Pfft.

But yes, mall. I got lightweight sneakers that will be easier to dance in but won't look so formal and Mistake got a Panic! At the Disco poster for her dorm room, and then we grabbed a bite to eat before coming back to campus, partaking in Ice Cream Night at Hoco, and going back to Mistake's room to hang out and talk about politics until Closer fell asleep.

Okay, so that's not totally fair, he was actually tired, but he probably wouldn't have fallen asleep if he'd been contributing the conversation, so it was at least partially our fault.

...This is how I spend Saturday night when there's a huge hockey game against UMaine going on. Maybe this has something to do with the fact I have so few friends.

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Valentine's Day is Coming, according to every store in the mall... and Mistake and Closer, who were discussing the holiday. Closer is planning something absolutely, sickeningly adorable, I'm sure. He said he wasn't going to do something huge, but it will be sweet, whatever it is, because he knows that this is one of the first Valentine's Days when she actually has a boyfriend who won't forget what day it is.

At least, it better.

I might give out carnations, since I definitely can't afford roses this year. They're pretty cheap and I really like giving flowers to my friends on that day, so I can pretend that I don't care that I'm single.

And because I don't have that many friends, it will be even cheaper. It works out to... four. Wow, that's pretty embarrassing. Maybe I'll give Deandron one too, because I think at this point he's the only one of his roommates who's single, and while I doubt he cares... Ah, who am I kidding. I want to see how uncomfortable I can make him. Because honestly, if I have to be single on Valentine's Day, the least I should be able to do is make some poor guy uncomfortable. I think I shall scotch tape it to his door, because nothing says "classy" like scotch tape.

Oh, man. I just realized-- Valentine's Day is on a Wednesday. As in, my weekly Bad Day. Ha ha, God, I see what you did there. Cute. Hmmph.

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And I've discovered a new hair-styling technique that I love, because it's easy. All I do is shower, comb it, let it air-dry most of the way, then take a massive handful of gel, flip my hair over my head, and mess it up. Then I blow-dry it and presto, hairstyle #1, curly and messy and bed-head chic. But it's crunchy, so once it completely dries, I gently comb through it first with my fingers and then with a comb (playing with it throughout the day, basically) so it gradually drops and relaxes and smooths out throughout the day. It only gets clumpy if I stop playing with it. This is not usually an issue, since I always play with my hair when it's down anyway.

Why is it that I always start wearing my hair down regularly around this time of the year?

Oh. That's right... because it looks better, when I do it right. And because I'm lonely.

*Courtesy of Mistake-- she wanted me to put it up as the title. We didn't. In case you were curious.