Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Graduating Sucks.

So, here we go! My first blog as an official college graduate.

Can't you feel the difference?

Can't you?

Ahh, yes. No one can. Not even me.

Except for this difference. I am now unemployed. At all prior sans employment periods in my life, I was simply a student without a job. I am now totally freaking unemployed.

Graduating, it seems, is really rather traumatic. All those late nights spent up during my undergraduate days, working myself up into a stupor over what in the holy living hell I was going to do with myself after graduation have turned into the most terrible reality. Here I am, all graduated, with no idea what in the holy living hell to do with myself.

Great.

I'm now overqualified for all of the jobs I could've hoped to get hired at last week, and still totally underqualified for all of the jobs I started going to school in hopes to get. They require grad school, where, I am at least at this time, not.

Dude. Graduation sucks.

Thursday, August 19, 2004

Jake, Etc.

This week has been tiring, above all else. Or in any case, I've been tired. I kicked off Monday with an exam, and that's always a pretty lousy start to a week. But I ended up getting an A on it, which is nice.

Tuesday my niece told me that she was going to have to get rid of her hamster, Jake, so I took him home with me. He had a hamster car already, but I bought him a ball today, which I think he enjoys more. The car is cuter, of course, but the ball is more mobile. And I think Jake's concerns are more centered on mobility than cuteness. But hell, I've never known anything about men. After all, poofy boy keeps a hairbrush in his truck.

As I speak, Jake's rolling around the floor in his hamster ball. He especially seems to like sprinting down the hallway, picking up as much speed as possible until he finally and inevitably, and might I add drunkenly, smashes into my mom's bedroom door, at the end. He rolls back, looks stunned, and then takes off again, top speed. Good boy!

I like Jake a lot. I haven't had an intentional rodent around the house since my last guinea pig died when I was like eight. I had two guinea pigs, and two rabbits, once upon a time; Benny and Minnie Guinea, and Eddie and Peter Rabbit, respectively. I was one of those 4-H dorks for about a year. I was supposed to be raising rabbits for the fair, but I never got around to really doing the work. I just had a crush on some boy who wanted me to join, or something silly like that. I was a surprisingly average eight year old in some respects.

Anyway, last Friday I got sick. Like vomity sick. And I was running to puke at one point, and I stubbed my little toe like the devil. Ended up, I'm pretty sure that I broke it. At the time though, I was more concerned with getting somewhere safe to throw up, so I didn't even realize the toe thing until the next morning. It hurts a surprising amount for such a little digit. But
mostly only when I've got a shoe on; barefoot isn't so bad at all.

Yeah, well, that's my life right now. I went to a party last night, and tonight I went out with Ferg-o to BW's. In a little over a week, I'm going to be a college graduate. That's scary/exciting/kind of boring all at the same time. Speaking of which, anybody want to have an impromptu sort of graduation party for me? Just go out and get drunk, or stay in and get drunk, or you know...um...just go out/stay in and not get drunk, or something? I know everybody's busy, but it seems like I ought to do....something.

Well, I have to get up early tomorrow for school, and InuYasha's on. Plus, I have to try to convince Jake that going back into his cage for the evening is a good idea. I think it'll be a hard sell.

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Post-Philly Update

I've had an eventful week. I was so busy, through most of it, that I could hardly breathe. But it was mostly quite nice. And I guess I got a lot done, even though I still have a lot more to do.

The biggest thing was my trip to Philadelphia. But before I could get to that, I had to take this midterm for my online Vietnam history class. I'm not doing well in my class; it's poorly designed, and nobody's doing very well. When I figured out that hard work wouldn't get me good grades, I started slacking. My average actually went up in the class after I stopped reading everything; it's so bad that blind luck is often better than actual preparation. But anyway, that left me rather ill-prepared for the midterm.

So I spent the majority of my time last week catching up on stuff I should have been doing for the past eight weeks. I had to read two books, as well as take notes on the lecture notes. And then I had to take my exam. Outside of the horrible rush, and all the pressure to do well, it ended up not being so bad. I had until Sunday night to take the exam, but since I was leaving for Philadelphia Friday morning, I ended up taking the midterm Thursday night/Friday morning. So, I finished the exam at 4:30am or so, and since I had to be at Jasmin's by 6:30am, and I still hadn't packed, I ended up not sleeping at all.

That made for an inability to calculate time all throughout the trip. Which day was which day? It's hard to remember, because I was drowsy, to say the least, throughout. And I took a lot of five minute naps, which sort of reset my internal clock each time. I didn't sleep much on the trip in general, thanks to Jasmin's super-hyper mom. So it's really sort of confusing.

But the trip was great. We saw all of the big things: the Liberty Bell, Ben Franklin stuff, Independence Hall, the Art Museum. But my favorite stuff was a little more off the beaten path: the Mutter Museum, the Eastern State Penitentiary. We also had a really nice tour of Christ Church, which is a pretty convential tourist attraction I think, but not very many people were actually there.

I got to think a little on the trip, which is something that I haven't had much time to do lately. I feel pretty disconnected from a lot of things just now. But through the first part of the trip, I was sort of walking on air in a lot of ways. Every person I saw made me happy; I had this strange connection with them. Or really, not with them, but what was within them. I had a strong sense of the image of God in each human being; of the presence of God in man, and actually, in all things.

But the problem was, much as with my moods, my spiritual highs are usually followed by spiritual lows. Sunday was a difficult day. It was almost impossible to control my temper. I just kept getting mad about things that can't be helped. I was jealous and unusually temperamental. I didn't feel any connection to anything much that day. I spent most of my time wishing I didn't exist anymore. Which isn't to say I was suicidal. I'm never that. But when life gets to be too much, I do have a tendency to daydream. It's probably a sin, but it makes me feel better, and it's helped me to cope with a lot of seemingly endlessly desperate situations.

Anyway, I'm feeling a little better now. I skipped my Biology exam Monday. I got away with it, because you can drop one of your tests, and I chose that one. I feel a little guilty about it - I've never done anything like that in college, but I know it'll be okay if I can just wake myself up and make myself work hard. I can do that. I think I'm even prepared to do it.

Other than that, I've been working on Jasmin's computer, and I think I almost have it fixed now. That makes me really very happy. I feel sort of responsible for it being broken. I didn't break it, but when somebody has me looking at their computer a lot, I unconsciously assume guardianship over it. When something's wrong, I always feel like it's my fault for not taking better care of it. But it's almost fixed now, so that will be nice.

I think I'm going to spend some time with my niece tonight, which should also be kind of fun. I don't know what we'll do yet, but it's always nice to see her. I've been so busy lately that I'd sort of forgotten where my real priorities are. But now I remember.