My jewelry may be tacky but at least I don't have VD

So I'm sitting in class, listening to our teacher drone on about esterification, and I raise my hands up to fix the little clips on the back of my head holding my hair up, when I hear the sorority sisters behind me talking, clearly not thinking I can hear.

"Huh, you know, mood rings can be cool sometimes, but you know, not ones that tacky..." I am wearing a mood ring, on the hand that is behind my head in their line of vision, a rather large one I got for $2 in Portsmouth that I am rather fond of.

"Yeah, aren't mood rings, like, don't they not do anything? Like they don't predict your mood or anything."

"No, they like, react to temperature or something. They're not real."

"Huh..."

Meanwhile I am debating the urge to turn around and say, "I can HEAR you!" I mean, come on, are we in high school? Who sits there and describes someone else's jewelry (or clothes, or hairstyle, or whatever) as tacky when that person is sitting about a foot in front of them? At least wait until I'm out of earshot before you start critiquing my fashion choices.

Besides, I'm sitting in an Organic Chemistry class, implying I do have some knowledge of chemistry. Did they really think I believe that my ring responds to my mood? I like mood rings because they're cheap, they're fun to look at, and they demonstrate a cool chemical/physical property. Plus, I like having a large colored ring on my pointer finger of my right hand, because I watched too many cartoons as a kid and now I like imagining that I can summon the power of water or fire, and maybe Captain Planet if I got a group together.

Okay, that's a little lame. But whatever. My point stands, Captain Planet and all.

...

Let our powers combine!
Earth!
Fire!
Wind!
Water!
Heart!
By your powers combined, I AM CAPTAIN PLANET!

I should really be doing Genetics right now.

The trouble with being depressed is I have an instinctual need to hide it. When I was younger, I used to practically brag about it, using it to get attention, which helped me feel less alone and uncared for. However, sometime when I was in high school I began to understand good attention vs. bad attention, and that, combined with stern cautioning from my parents and my guidance counselor that colleges and employers will avoid depressed people like the plague, made me force myself to learn how to hide it from people I didn't really, really trust.

Of course, this was impossible sometimes. I remember one of my high school history teachers (sucky teacher, nice woman) confronting me because I seemed "sad all the time, and unusually quiet." My 9th grade science teacher picked up on the fact that at the time I was scratching my arms with keys (my mother had removed all sharper objects than that from my room) and burning the hair on them with matches or candles. I had a bunch of teachers talk to me about low performance or falling asleep in class. They didn't send me to the guidance office or anything, they just talked to me and tried to figure out what was going on, and then once they figured out I was already in therapy, suggested that I talk to my therapist about it (to which I replied that I was already doing so) and did their best to keep me on top of my schoolwork despite my total apathy on the subject.

Then last year, I was forced to reveal that I was very depressed to my roommates, because I was bursting into tears in front of them. See, the way I handle stress and depression has been evolving since I was a kid; when I was little, I took it out on my family members, usually my brother and sister. This, while very effective at making me feel better, was obviously not a good thing to be doing, so it slowly morphed into abusing my siblings less and myself more. This was better than pummeling my siblings, but still not a good system, so it seems to have evolved again, this time into crying. A lot. At everything. And sometimes at nothing. While I'd like to deal with it a bit more productively, at least crying doesn't really hurt anybody, so I'm okay with crying.

Anyway, my problem now is that I really don't want to face the fact that I'm depressed, and yeah, I think I need medication again (I will make a doctor's appointment sometime this week). More significantly, I don't want to deal with explaining it to Cellamica. Two results: first of all, Ryter's been getting 95% of my crazy lately, specifically the bursting into tears at the slightest provocation, which sucks because he's not in the best emotional state right now either. Second of all, I am suppressing and faking my emotions around everyone else, trying to seem at least calm and collected, even if I can't pull off cheerful.

I really, really hate it. Plus I have trouble because someone will say something to me, and I have to scramble for a response and often pause for too long before answering, because I'm not actually capable of thinking about things lately. I don't talk much unless prompted and then my replies are slow and sometimes don't really make sense in the context of the question. Meanwhile there's a fight in my head as I'm struggling to bring my consciousness to the here and now long enough to answer a simple question.

There are few things I hate worse than being stuck in my own head, and I am. I'm forcing myself to seem normal, but inside I feel like I'm trapped in a fog. I feel absolutely miserable.

Nothing induces a desire to diet like watching extreme weight loss shows.

I had a weird dream last night, in which I was slowly losing my vision. I thought, in the dream, that it was just a question of my sight getting blurry, but someone explained to me that I was also not seeing in as many wavelengths of light as was normal. This was then proved to me when I started to be unable to see objects and even people. At one point I took out my contact lenses and looked at them, only to learn they were broken in several places. I stumbled around without them for a while until I realized I was dreaming-- always a good sign-- and made a new pair appear in my pocket. I have no idea, by the way, why I didn't simply fix my eyes.

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I went over to the high school today to try to find the job list. They didn't have anything I was interested in-- just yardwork and baby sitting. I figured I would also see my old guidance counselor while I was there, since she asked about me when she saw my mom and she stitched a picture of me into her quilt and all. But she wasn't there, either, so I'm going to see her at 10:15 tomorrow. And I'm going to the gym. And I have to leave town to head up to Dover by 11. I'd better head to bed soon...

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.

------------------------------------

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.

*can't think of title*

Today isn't a holiday, but I forgot to mention that yesterday was the Palilia, which besides having a cool name was the festival of Pales, a god of shepherds. It was celebrated by offerings of the saved blood from October's sacrifice of a horse to Mars, and the ashes of the calves sacrificed to Ceres. There were no bloody sacrifices that day.

Shepherds burnt sulphur, rosemary, fir-wood, and incense, and made the smoke pass through the stables to purify them. The flocks themselves were then purified by the smoke too. After that, there was feasting and merriment and drunkenness, as all the best festivals have.

It was also somewhere between the 2,800th and the 3,000th anniversary of the founding of Rome. Happy belated birthday, Rome! I'd say you don't show your age, but... Dude. You're kinda smelly. No offense. I mean, it's not like Venice or anything. Now there is a city that needs a good bath.

While you're at it, I'd get rid of the street vendors. They're kind of annoying. Don't they itch?

--------------------------------

I had a teacher in high school who, when a student fell asleep (and especially if said student snored), would quietly gesture to all of us that we should stand up, without making a noise. He would then gently pull down the projector screen enough that the clock was covered. As the students would try to suppress their giggling, he would lead them into the hall, close the doors and turn off the lights. He would then go next door, borrow their phone, and call his own classroom, letting it ring only once so the student would be woken up.

Upon seeing the classroom empty and not being able to see the clock, the student would assume class was over-- in fact, school was over-- and would freak out before he remembered the teacher mentioning this trick at the beginning of the year. One time the teacher even got the vice principal to go in and "discover" the student there.

Only worked a couple of times, though. And we were usually too busy for it. Thus he resorted to throwing stuff at the boys who did it, and banging the desks of the girls. Yes, double standard, whatever.

I've had teachers who slammed your book down on the desk, who would bark your name out, who would call on you to ask you a question. Some, especially here at college, just ignore it. Some ignore it until after class and then they pull you aside to talk about your sleep habits-- that's the worst, because you don't really want to admit that you're tired because you were staying up late reading a blog written by a cat, or a webcomic about a doctor who is also a ninja. So you have to come up with a lie or just cite the fact that you can't have caffeine, despite the fact that people survived for centuries without caffeine and you don't drink coffee anyway...

If I were a teacher I would keep containers of Red Bull in my desk. I wouldn't drink them-- that stuff could kill small mammals-- but I would have them there. Every time a student fell asleep in class I would slam one down on their desk, loud enough to wake them up. Then, though, thirsty students might pretend to fall asleep...

Also, I might get in trouble for distributing drugs. Maybe I should use Vault instead. Except that's no better... I could just liquefy crack...

Anyone got any good sleeping-in-class stories?

No, I don't know why I was thinking about this...

"Romance comes into your life this year in a very unusual sort of way."

I was all set to do absolutely nothing today, but you know, nothing is reeeeeeeeally boring. Luckily, I was trying to decide between actually studying (a sure sign of true boredom) and just playing another rousing game of Age of Empires when Mummy and Daddy called and asked if I would mind them visiting. Choosing between boredom and a seafood dinner at Newick's? Is there a choice here?

In addition to seafood, I got to replace my mood ring-- the one I lost at work over break. I got the original at the Newick's gift shop, so that's where I replaced it. Then, as we went to pick up some more Basiorana Fuel (that's diet caffeine-free coke for you laypeople), Mummy got me some V-Day flowers, and then when I showed her my new room-- she hadn't seen it since we moved stuff around and put the rug in-- she gave me a little stuffed Snoopy holding a box of candy, and there was a little Woodstock with candy for Loquatia.

It's always nice to know that even when you're out of the house, you can still count on your mom to be your valentine.

-----------------------

I saw my old Chemistry teacher from high school today. That was weird. There's some big swim meet going on here at UNH today, and she's the coach of the high school swim team, so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. But you know that weird feeling you get when you see someone you know completely out of context? Like, "I know you-- but why are you here?"

I believe my words were "It's Miss E---!" To which she replied, "It's [Basiorana]!" That naturally only increased my surprise as I really wasn't expecting her to remember my name. I mean, I watched the class fish for the summer (she has cats) and didn't kill it, but meh, I'm always stunned when people remember my name. My mom greets me and I'm like, Whoa, she didn't forget!

I then proceeded to scan her accompanying groupies for someone I recognized, but no luck. Bummer. Not that I actually expected to know anyone on the swim team.

I Am More Yin

Feminine, Devoted, Passive, and Forgiving This is the darker element; it is dark, downward-seeking, and corresponds to the night.

Are You More Yin or Yang?