Monday, January 31, 2005

Going back to school.

I haven’t much to blog about. I could complain about not sleeping, or having had nightmares, but I guess it’s been done. Particularly in this blog. For years. I think I need to see a doctor about sleeping pills. No kidding. I’ve been just randomly up since 3:00AM.

A little while ago I broke down and brought my laptop into my room. This isn’t the first time I wished I didn’t type so loud. Baby Ty is trying to sleep about five feet away from me. He’s a light sleeper too, and my typing is, as usual, rattling the windows. It’s nice to be able to type well over a hundred words a minute. The trade off, of course, is that you can’t break the damn sound barrier without creating a sonic boom.

My brother used to tease me about how loud I typed. It’s hard to do his impression justice in print. He’d tell his buddies about how I always had an empty pop can or two laying on my desk (I used to drink like three Mt. Dews a day on a light day). AIMer would ding, I’d look serious for a second. Then tap – tap – tap (slowly, lightly) and then TAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAP (mixed with sounds of a race car speeding by, hands imitating the pop cans jumping up and down).

I love that impression. My brother is usually pretty much my favorite person ever when he’s in a good mood. And if he’s in a good mood, like most older brothers, it means that he’s teasing me.

Another time, I was blogging in the computer lab at school. There was only me and some older guy in the room. Our computer labs at school were pretty small. Much smaller than say, the size of your average high school classroom. So when there were only two people in there, sound sort of magnified. I don’t need the sound of my typing magnified.

This poor guy, who was of the hunting and pecking variety of typers, was working on a term paper. He was frustrated anyway. And then I come in, typing as if I’m lead snare in a particularly obnoxious marching band’s rendition of Wipeout in a fourth of July parade, and the poor man couldn’t think at all. Every two or three minutes he’d say. “Wow, think you can finish typing this up for me? It should only take you a few seconds. It’s only five pages. Geez, girl!”

I felt bad and left after a few minutes. I just went to the lab across the hall. It probably wasn’t far enough away, actually. Those halls at school echo. Poor guy.

Anyway, I haven’t a lot to report outside of that I’m an obnoxious typist. I’m getting very serious about going back to school for Social Work. I know I already told everybody I’d decided against it, but time changes things a bit.

For one thing, it’s nearly February and I still haven’t seen a damn job that interested me that I’m qualified to do with my history degree. All of the jobs that do interest me are in Social Work. I’m still not really particularly impressed with the Social Work program. But on second thought, if I can stick it out and get my masters, even if I don’t like it very much, two-and-a-half years of my time is actually rather brief when considered in the scope of one’s lifetime. If I can get a decent job when I graduate, and the chances of that are quite likely, considering the mandatory internships I’ll be part of, I should be able to suck up how much the program sort of sucks. At least, that’s what I’m banking on.

It’s mostly just hard thinking that I’m going to be in school until I’m 25. The idea of being broke, and most likely living with my parents, until sometime in 2008 is less than totally thrilling. I love my parents, and I’m hardly what could be described as a high maintenance sort of girl, but damn! My parents, God bless them, are actually happy about the prospect.

The bright side of going back to school is that a) it’s something to do that’s measurably positive; b) even if it means taking out loans, I’ll probably be less broke as a student than I am as just an unemployed bum; c) it’ll mark a return to having health insurance, yay!

Thursday, January 27, 2005

And yet, I still insist on individual titles.

Life is kind of strange. Just the other day, I was telling Jasmin that I was really impressed because my mom hasn't been in the hospital for almost a year. I guess I cursed it because she's back again.

She had to go to the emergency room yesterday, after spiking a pretty decent fever and vomiting. I wasn't home for that part of it. I was at church with Jasmin. Yes, church. With Jasmin. It's taken her two years of near-constant guilt tripping and nagging, but I finally went. I sort of lost a bet, in a manner of speaking, over a year ago, and promised her I'd go to her church twice. I'm happy to report that, while her church really wasn't as bad as I thought it might be, I'm 50% done now. Yay!

I did get to the hospital not long after my parents did. As of 2:00AM yesterday, the plan was to take her down to Columbus by ambulance this morning. But they don't have any beds at OSU, I guess, so we're going to have to wait it out up here a bit more and see what happens.

OMG, Aaron Neville's "Don't Take Away My Heaven" is on! 1993 was an awesome year.

Oo, it's after 10:00 now, I have to get a move on.

Saturday, January 22, 2005

Titles are more burdensome than previously considered.

I’m miserably incapable of blogging right now. Words just don’t seem to convey the things I’m thinking and feeling. I’ve wrote four entries tonight, none of which seemed worth posting. I don’t know if the problem is that I’ve lost sight of myself, or if I’ve maybe just caught sight of myself and found me lacking. I don’t know if I’ve lost sight of you, dear reader, or if I’ve just now remembered that you existed and found you less appealing than when I last really considered you.

I apologize if I’ve not been what I should have been; if I’ve said things that I shouldn’t have said or if I left unsaid those things that I should have said. I can’t and won’t promise that I’ll improve on future attempts.

The nature of this blog is a flawed one. My audience is simply too mixed. Who are you, general reader? Will you stay for more than thirty seconds, or will you count down these few, wasted though precious moments of your lifetime and rush on to waste thirty seconds more? Are you a long lost friend who’s missing me from afar, or simply waiting and watching to see how long it takes me to fall flat on my face?

I’m becoming increasingly uncomfortable with beginnings, middles and endings. It’s getting harder to care about keeping up with the Jones’, or giving a damn who holds political office, or what taxes are going to be raised, or if we should teach this or that in the schools.

I want simplicity and wisdom. I want being and not becoming. I want love. To love and be loved. To smile without guile. To receive a smile without cynicism.

Saturday, January 08, 2005

Out of Place.

Sometimes you're happy neither here nor there. You are out of place when you feel at home, and at home you feel out of place. In the end, it doesn't matter very much. Not, at least, when you've already made the most essential decisions; decisions about things like not going away, not trying to save the world, not trying to become some great hero or saint. When you've decided to stay at home, even when you're out of place, there's nothing to do but be out of place.

Friday, January 07, 2005

Electricity.

My lack of internet access is no longer relevant. The far more pressing concern is my lack of electricity. Our power's been knocked out for going on three days now. Hopefully it will be restored tomorrow. I'm staying at Jasmin's until all is cleared up. Lousy Ohio weather. They say we're going to get hit by another ice storm tonight. Wee.

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

Internet.

Sorry there've been no new blogs for a while. My internet connection has been dead since New Years Eve. Will probably be back soon. Elsewise, will blog from a friend's house.