(sneezecough)

Got home yesterday in one piece! I have yet to unpack the car though. I got home and left to go to my friend Emily's house about 20 minutes later. And then I came home and went to bed early, and woke up about an hour ago with a fever and a massive splitting headache.
I'm glad my body waited until after finals to completely fall apart. Not that finals were all that stressful for me this semester, but they probably would have been if I had been sick. So at least I'm home where I can be taken care of. :)
Although, the medicine my mom tried to give me was not medicine at all. She just pulled out this little bottle that looked like eye drops, and squeezed some of it out into a glass half full of water and told me to drink it. So I did, thinking it was maybe legit. It tasted awful, so I asked her what it was. Turns out it's some sort of fruit and vegetable wash that removes pesticide residue...so I mean, I'm sure it's nontoxic and all that, but I don't know how it's supposed to help a headache and fever...?

Despite my being sick, I still have a lot to do today. One task involves going to the mall, which I am dreading as  Christmas is in 2 days. And I can't go to the mall until I get my van unpacked. Which I am also dreading because my limbs are weak and my head is killing me and I just want to go back to bed and sleep until I have to go meet my friends at Applebee's later.
Sooo tired. I should go take some real medicine...so far I don't feel any different after drinking pesticide wash.

Sleepless rantings...

I wasn't able to sleep at all last night. It's currently 5:36 AM and I finally just decided to get up and take a shower because I couldn't stand laying there and thinking anymore. I'm thinking and worrying myself into a panic lately and I need to stop.

I had so much fun last night and I'm so glad to have such amazing friends. And I keep thinking about how much I'm going to miss them. And then I just kept staring around my empty apartment getting sad, and then thinking about the fact that my apartment is empty reminded me that all my shit is in my van about 3 blocks away and I hope to god nobody decides to break into it. Not that there's anything all that valuable in there, but it would definitely suck. And then I realized that it snowed overnight while I was laying there staring at the ceiling, and that today is an even number day and I parked on the odd side of the road and I don't know if they need to plow or not. Meanwhile, as I'm needlessly worrying, my next door neighbor is blasting her TV all night again and the people across the alley from me apparently don't feel the need to sleep either and would rather play blaring music with the bass cranked up to 11 until about 5 AM.

I literally haven't slept. It's going to be a treacherous drive back, with me being barely conscious and with a van filled so much crap that I can't see out any of the windows. If the roads are icy, it'll probably take all day to get home. But I'm glad that by the end of the day I'll be back in EP and I can take a nap and bake cookies with my mom or watch TV with my dad or something. Sounds so nice. Finals are over, the semester is over, and I can finally go home and veg.

I just wish I could get maybe even like a half an hour of sleep. But I tried that earlier when I got out of the shower and was just disturbed again by some truck-backing-up-noise directly outside my window for about  five minutes straight. Typical. One plus of not living in this apartment anymore will be not having to deal with all the stupid trucks and their annoying backing up noises that drive through this alleyway all the time. And at ungodly hours of the morning. It's just evil.

Sorry for all this ranting. I'm just anxious and kind of cranky and a little lonely and sad, and I want to go home so I can sleep and eat normal food again. Mom food that's free and actually tastes good...

Jarreth Merz: Filming democracy in Ghana | Video on TED.com

This was just something interesting I found on TEDtalks while trying to find a video to do my global health homework on. I saw Ghana mentioned, got excited and decided to procrastinate a bit longer...

Jarreth Merz: Filming democracy in Ghana | Video on TED.com:

'via Blog this'

All of my children were accidents.

I wish the temperature in my apartment would hover somewhere around normal for once. It's either 90 degrees in here, or about 35, and never anything in between. I think if the thermostat knobby thingy worked on my heater, I wouldn't have this problem. I'm super cold because my window's open and I took all the blankets off my bed to wash them, but if I close the window, in about 5 minutes I'll be sweating. This is super interesting, I know.

Anyway, today was one of those awkward days where I didn't get out of bed until noon, and then despite the fact that it wasn't morning anymore, I still ate 2 breakfasts because....I can?

And then I went to class, where my crazy professor tried to defend her controversial lecture on Tuesday that was kind of offensive because she was hardcore stereotyping poor people and everyone got really mad about it. I kind of just sat back, slightly entertained, as I watched her dig herself into a deeper hole with everything she said. I kind of felt bad for her though, because I know she had good intentions about her lecture. It just kind of backfired on her. Like a lot of things she says. She's one of those awkward professors who I'm not sure if she really knows how to teach...she kind of just walks around telling us about her personal life for an hour and a half and ends up sharing WAY more than she needs to. Examples?

"The FIRST TIME I had sex, I got pregnant. We used all kinds of birth control, they all just failed."

"All of my children were accidents."

"My sisters interact with each other in a different way than they interact with me. Because I figured out how to get out of poverty." (ouch?)

"My sister wasted all of her money on a new car, and now can't afford to put gas in it or pay her rent." (So I'm sure she's thrilled you're sharing this with a 250-person lecture hall)

"I am considered upper class. I make more in a month than my father made in a year. So why do I take the bus to work instead of driving one of my five cars?"

She's kind of the reason I skip that class a lot. Because I think I've learned more about her personal life over the course of the semester than I have about global health. Any time I do go, I just end up doing a crossword puzzle, only looking up to listen to the person who's bitching her out for something unintentionally offensive she said.

My other class today was pretty uneventful. And now I'm using laundry and cleaning to put off homework, even though I should be memorizing a presentation I have to give tomorrow. Kind of important... but I'll get to it eventually.

Appreciating normalcy

I've decided I'm going to start appreciating the boring in my life before I decide I want it back. I suddenly realized today that in a little over a month, I'm going to be living a completely different life. And I'm going to realize how much I take for granted on a day to day basis. Instead of the normal problems I have now, like not getting my homework done, or not having enough time to clean my apartment, or (insert boring/stupid problem here), I'm going to be feeling my way around in the dark, trying to understand a culture that is not remotely close to anything I've experienced before. It is both really exciting and pretty terrifying, to say the least.

I'm going to be honest and say that at this point I'm probably more scared than I am excited to leave. When I think about all the things there are to worry about, and all the things that could go wrong, I kind of want to cry a little bit and wonder why I decided that this is what I wanted. Luckily, everyone who has done the program that I've heard from so far has loved it, so I know I'll realize there isn't all that much to worry about, but I'm still freaking out. I'm just trying to remember how I felt on my trip to China in high school, when I left with my Chinese host family and separated from the group, and how terrified I was to be in such a different place with people who only spoke broken english, and everything was so unfamiliar. It took me a little while to adjust, but once I did it was an amazing experience. And I only stayed with them for about 5 days.

This time I won't have a host family, so it'll be a different situation to get used to, but the fact that I've had to adjust before will only help me.

I think the biggest thing that's freaking me out right now is how long I'll be away. 5 months is a pretty decent chunk of time...

Anyway, other than freaking out, not much exciting has happened in my life since last I updated this, which was probably a super long time ago and I don't remember what was happening then. Probably also nothing.

School continues to be a burden on my life, as I continue to pretend that I have a life outside of school. The truth is, I don't, unless you count watching netflix, playing guitar, and other miscellaneous distractions a "life". Ha, I just remembered this post was supposed to be about APPRECIATION OF BORINGNESS and I've already forgotten. Now appreciating....and I'm happy again.

It'll be nice to be not-bored for a long time. I'm sure there's nothing boring in Africa. That's what I'm going to assume. I mean, kind of the whole idea of studying abroad is not to be bored.

Another thing I've been thinking a lot about is what it's going to be like when I get back. A lot of people are going a lot of places, and there's a lot of possibilities for lots of things to change. Lots of people are going abroad, or will be leaving to go abroad when I get back, or are just doing super exciting things with their lives in general, and it'll be interesting to see what changes when it's all over. I'm thinking in terms of friendships, and relationships, and what have you.

I'm going to try to start writing in this more often before I go, just to get used to the whole blogging on a regular basis thing... My mom wants me to blog while I'm gone and won't be happy with anything less than hearing about my life in excruciating detail. Just a warning. Everyone else, please feel free to skim or just not read this altogether. I won't be offended.

But that won't be for a while. I still have like 40ish days or so before I leave.

A Shambles.

Looking around my apartment, I am disgusted with myself. How did I let it get this bad? I usually see the condition of my living space as a pretty good indication of how my life is going at the moment, and right now it isn't too pretty.

Clothes all over the place, dishes in the sink, overflowing recycling, stale coffee, garbage on the table, unpaid bills scattered everywhere...I'm embarrassed to even be talking about it, but then maybe I'll get the motivation to clean so that no one actually has to see it in this condition.

My life isn't actually going horribly as my apartment would suggest, but I do need to do some straightening up. I feel behind on everything in school already, and I'm pretty sick, and a few other stupid little things here and there are stressing me out, but other than that I guess I can't complain. Everything that I have to complain about right now is a result of my own actions. So yay.

Buuuut Aarushi and I went to see the Shins over the last weekend! In Philly! And it was incredible. Despite our failure to meet James Mercer. But hey, we tried.

I was glad we did that, even though it was expensive. It was worth the adventure. I'll admit, on the way there I was kind of freaking out about what might go wrong and whether or not it would be worth it in the end, but after a while you just have to tell yourself to stop worrying and just enjoy it. It's one of those things that stops being okay to do once you hit like, age 25 or something. Then if you drive 900 miles to go see a concert, people might question your sanity a little more than if you're just 20 years old and an irresponsible college student. I feel like you need to fit in as many of these stupid things in as you can before you get too old to have an excuse. And that's why we did it. Besides the fact that the Shins will always be worth a 900 mile drive to us. :)

So now, one parking ticket, one speeding ticket, and one stolen iPod later, we are at least still alive, and have a lot of great memories.

But I really need to clean my apartment and get my life back on track (and my finances...). I feel like the better energy flow of having a clean place to come home to just makes everything feel so much better, even if it isn't.

And poor Kilgore has a dirty bowl. I've been kind of neglecting his habitat as well. Sorry, buddy :(

You're full of hope as you begin re-arranging

It's officially the last day of summer. Despite the fact that I only have one class tomorrow and then a three day weekend. I doubt it'll start to feel like school's begun for at least another few days for me. Which is good, because I'm in such hard-core denial about it. I've had such a wonderful and eventful summer that I've (somewhat purposefully) refused to acknowledge the coming changes until now. I haven't figured out my schedule yet, I haven't bought my books, I haven't even looked at what buildings I'll need to get to; you name it, I've ignored it up until this point. And now school starts tomorrow and I haven't studied German in months and I can almost feel the shame and embarrassment already that will surely come my way tomorrow when I'll no doubt have to speak in front of people or answer a question and will have no idea what was said.
Oh, well.

Despite all those worries, I suppose it will be sort of refreshing to have a regular routine again. The only thing that's been kind of irritating about this summer is the lack of a consistent schedule. My work schedule being all over the place made it kind of difficult to plan things, but now I'll be able to know weeks ahead of time whether or not I'll be able to do something or not. It'll be nice to have that stability again.

But I'm afraid of change. This year is weird already. A good weird, but weird is always uncomfortable. Not knowing what changes the school year will bring is kind of unnerving. And thinking about the fact that in less than 5 months, I'm planning on being in Africa for a whole semester is super scary. And really intensely exciting at the same time. I guess this year scares me because I know how life-changing it may end up being, and anticipating that change is freaking me out.

But I'm planning on taking everything one day at a time. I mean, that's obviously the only thing you can really do, but when I get stuck thinking so far ahead like this, it gets me in this mindset that tons of things are happening at once and it's just this big giant snowball of events that you can't stop. And that's not even what's really happening. Really, things will probably be pretty uneventful for a while. But in my head I'll still be panicking.  I need to take some time to slow down my thoughts and just relax about everything.
Change is usually a good thing, after all.

Long time no...write

Oh hey there blog.

It's been a long time, I think. I didn't go back and read the last thing I wrote about, but I know it wasn't recent.

My life has been pretty eventful as of late, or at least eventful in comparison to the monotonous blur it was during the school year. I'm enjoying summer. But I see it could be going back to normal pretty soon, now that I'm back in Madison from home and don't have many exciting plans in the near future. Walgreens takes up most of my time, and soon I have a job interview for UCP Dane County, so that may also give me more to do.

Other than my major responsibilities, I've been trying to use my extra time to do things that are more fun. I've been teaching myself to play guitar, which was actually going pretty well for a while, but I haven't picked it up in at least a week so I obviously need to start kicking my own ass about practicing. It's been fun though, I'm hoping that I can actually stick with it this time. I've tried to start teaching myself before, and ended up giving up after only about a week, but this time it's been easier to get motivated because I now have the time and more interest in learning. I've also been trying to read more this summer, but besides the first few weeks after school ended, I haven't been doing all that much of it. Once we got internet in the apartment, the reading started to become less interesting. Which makes me hate the internet a little, but I know it's my own fault for letting it distract me so much.

I don't have much else that I really want to write about. My life is just a whole lot of Walgreens, and boringness, and trying to make myself look busy so I don't have to do that much actual work. Although I am enjoying the promotion to photo I got, because not only do I get paid more, but it makes work a whole lot more entertaining when I get to creep on peoples' pictures of weddings and kittens and new babies. It's brought a whole new level of interesting to that place. The only thing I hate about being there all the time is that now I see how dramatic all of my coworkers actually are. When I used to work only 1 or 2 shifts a week, I didn't pay attention all that much. But now that I'm there most of the week, I've realized how they all just bitch about each other all the time. It's like a weird dysfunctional family. Because they're all oddly close at the same time. Except for me. But I'm slowly working my way in. I don't know if I want to though, because of all the bitchiness. I might as well just keep my distance.

But anyway, none of that is all that interesting.

I'm going to try to start using this regularly though. I'll try to talk about more interesting things in the future. But for now, I'm just tired and sleepy from work, and have little else to talk about. And I think it's time for a nap.

It hasn't quite hit me yet.

I just woke up. I love summer, because sleeping for 11 hours or more is finally acceptable again. Even on the weekends in the school year I feel guilty about sleeping that much because Saturdays were homework days, and on Sundays I went to work for most of the day. Now that's over and I can sleep as long as I damn well please. At least until I start working full time.

I'll just provide an update here since I haven't written on this blog in a while. Sri Lanka is no longer happening, which is a bummer, but at least now I can save money for Ghana next year. So all that freaking out about passports and stuff was for nothing. I didn't quite have the money to go because I goofed up and thought the Goodno Family Association still owed me half a scholarship. Not so. I really need to start writing that stuff down when I receive checks for significant amounts of money in the mail...

But anyway, so I'm now spending my summer working full time at Walgreens (in photo now! Woot!) and when I'm not working, I'll probably just be lazy and catch up on all the things I didn't have time for in the school year. Like reading and watching tv shows on Netflix and the Sims (yes, the sims...shut up).

So since I woke up super late I should probably go start trying to be productive with laundry and unpacking stuff so I can enjoy the rest of my week.
Happy summer to everyone! :)

Waaaiting

All I can do is wait now. I went to the courthouse yesterday to get my passport, and after I gave the woman there all the information needed for the application and it was all done, she asked me why I didn't go to Chicago because I needed the passport sooner than 2-3 weeks so I could get a visa. And I told her about how the lady on the phone from the passport hotline told me I couldn't get the passport sooner than the expedited processing time for a visa until after April 24th, the day I need the visa. So that didn't make any sense to me, but I was like okay, I won't go to Chicago then.

But then this lady at the courthouse tells me I maybe COULD have gone to Chicago, but she wasn't sure. She didn't think the hotline lady made any sense either. So just to make sure, I asked her if I could go out into the lobby to make a phone call to the Chicago office to ask them directly, but she just said "you already gave me your application. If you go do that, I'm going to have to tear up this application and you're going to have to start again from scratch." All I wanted to do was step outside for like 5 minutes to make a PHONE CALL and she was going to make me do it all over again just because of that. I started to argue with her, but then she got all defensive and cranky and I realized it wasn't even worth it. If I ended up having to go to Chicago, that would mean spending a shit ton of money in bus and cab fares and probably other shit like food for the day, losing my entire Monday and missing a day of German, and then if the government shuts down if they don't figure out the budget by midnight tonight, then I wouldn't have any more options. I would have missed my only chance to get my passport app in for processing ASAP and I would be even more screwed than I am now. And then if I had left to make the phone call and she tore up my application, and I find out that Chicago still isn't an option, then I would've had to go back home, re-do the app, print it out, and I don't have any ink left so I'd have to pay for it at the library, and then walk allll the way back to the courthouse and do it all over again.

It all just wasn't worth it. One thing I hate more than anything is stupid bureaucratic rules in government offices that make stupid, simple things extremely difficult.
And if the government still shuts down, none of it was worth it. Sooo yay.

But anyway, besides Sri Lanka, most plans seem to be solidifying for the summer. Class, working full time, apartment stuff, etc. I can't wait for summer. I need to write these papers and take my finals and figure out this Sri Lanka shit and move on to summer. I'm stressed out, and I need to not be anymore.

Energy Vortex

Disclaimer: I am going to sound like kind of a freak, but these are the kinds of things I think about, so deal with it.

I blame my parents. They're going on a vacation to some random ass place in Arizona for their anniversary so they can go feel this energy vortex thing there. I don't get it, but I guess it sounds cool.
But they tell me about stuff like that all the time. Stuff related to energy and feng shui, and Buddhism, and zen and angels and stuff. They're an odd mix of religions that I can only describe to people as "new-agey". It's quite eclectic though. I like it. It's always interesting to hear what they have to say about things in life.

So my mom had talked to this psychic a while back who had told her that April was going to be a rough month, energy-wise. And I can already tell. If that's really what's going on. So far, I've had a friend dealing with crazy apartment issues and jumping through hoops to get out of her lease, and she's been really upset, and then there's my issues with this stupid passport and the hoops I have to jump through to get it renewed in time to get a visa for Sri Lanka, and on top of that the stupid government might shut down, and then there's all the stress everyone has from school right now...it's just getting crazy for everyone. And it's only the 7th of the month.
So far, I've only talked to my mom to freak out about things and figure out how I'm going to manage this passport business, but I know if I talked with her for a bit longer, sooner or later she'd start talking about this crazy energy that everyone's caught up in. What's funny is that I've heard that kind of thing from her so many times that I start to think along those lines sometimes. Like that everything is due to the energy, or to spirit guides, or angels helping us out, or something. It's usually things she says to comfort me, and it actually helps. So in tough situations, it helps if instead of freaking out about everything being out of control, I rather try to think about what my mom or dad would say to me about the situation. That way, instead of everything being out of my control, it's more like thinking about the situation being in the hands of the universe, unfolding as it was meant to. Or it being in the hands of someone or something that cares about me, like my "spirit guides" or "angels" or whatever you prefer to call them.

It's a comfort. I don't talk about that kind of thing with people a lot, because it makes my parents, and me by association, sound like a whole lotta crazy. But for me it's always been a cool thing to think about, and makes the little issues in life seem like less of a big deal.
But yeah. I probably shouldn't be up this late. I need to be up early tomorrow, but I can't really sleep right now. I should go try though.
But yay for April. And cross your fingers that the government doesn't shut down!!!

Happy Birthday to THE GROUND

Man! I ain't a part of your SYSTEM. This doesn't relate to what I wanted to write about but it's stuck in my head.

I'm upset. And I've been really happy lately and it's making me upset that I'm upset.
But it's a necessary thing. I've slowly been inching toward this point for about a week or so now and it all just kind of built up and hit me tonight.

I've been reading a lot of blogs lately about happiness (it's kinda lame, I know) and I've basically trying to suppress every bad/sad/lonely feeling for a while now, trying to pretend they don't exist, and it's becoming clear to me that you can't just live your life pretending that everything's perfect. When I do that, I end up living my life passively and I never DO anything to change. When I pretend that there's nothing I can do to make my life any better than it is, I basically stop living. It's okay to be upset because then you realize you can actually try to do something to improve yourself, and change what you don't like.

Even though lately I've been telling myself everything's fine and perfect and that I've changed so much from last year and things are going so much better for me now, it only serves to distract me from the fact that I still need to learn things. I've changed a lot, but that doesn't mean the changing process is complete, because it never is. Usually, I just reach a point where things are comfortable, and I start going into safe-mode where if anything comes along that might screw up my comfortable life, I reject it. Either that, or I just become so passive because I would rather not blame myself for screwing things up. At least if something happens TO me, I can't say it was my mistake that screwed up my life.

But that's stupid. And I always live life like that. I don't know what I'm so afraid of. Because even if things get a little screwed up, chances are it won't be anything so terrible that I'll never recover from it. I need to start acting on what I want. It's as simple as this: if I don't start doing whatever I want to do, I'm not going to get what I want out of life.

I love being home.

What could be better than going out for sushi with the parents I hardly ever see anymore, and then coming back home, watching a few episodes of 30 Rock and accidentally end up having a 3 1/2 hour talk about life with my mom? Nothing. If I ever doubted in my entire life that I have the best parents I could possibly ask for, I for sure know it now.
It's nights like these that make me not want to leave tomorrow. But I miss everyone in Madison too, and I suppose I have to go to school as well...
Talking to my parents gives me so much more perspective, and it's so amazing that every time I have a talk like this with them, I learn so much more about them than I ever knew before. It makes them seem like real people, because sometimes I forget that they actually had lives before I was born. Which sounds so selfish, but it makes sense, right? Most of the time when you think about your parents, you think of those people who are just supposed to take care of you and be there when you need them. But the more I talk to them, the less I think about them that way, and the more I see them as just two more of my best friends. They make me feel so lucky to have them in my life.
I just felt the need to write about it. I don't often express my deep appreciation for their presence in my life. So there it is. :)

Goin' Public

My first public blog post! This is quite a big deal for me, as I never post anything publicly anymore. I remember back in the days of xanga, when this was something that was normal for me. Even though people look back on the days of xanga and laugh, I kind of like the idea better than facebook. Because people would share their thoughts, and it wouldn't be quite as limited as the brief pieces of thought that people spew all over facsbook posts and stuff. Even though xanga was just a bunch of emo middle schoolers that would just ramble. But now I'm just a lame college student that rambles. Though I'd like to think I've become much more interesting than I was in middle school.
Or at least I seriously hope so.
I wish I could remember my xanga name to see if it still exists. But I think I deleted it, which was probably a smart decision. I was an idiot in middle school. And I was in love with a gay guy for the majority of it too, so I probably just complained about that. In my defense, I didn't know he was gay until high school.
I always look back on myself in middle school or high school and I'm glad I've changed so much since then, because I never liked who I was back then. But hanging out with a friend from home for the past couple of days and reminiscing about back then has made me realize how glad I am that I went through those awkward and terrible phases of my life. There's so much one can learn from being an awkward child.
Like eventually, you learn that shyness is kind of narcissistic. Because not as many people are paying attention to the little things about you that you always notice and think are embarrassing. But even so, shyness is a tough thing to change about oneself. I like to think that now, I'm more just introverted than shy. There's a difference. I'm still pretty shy though. I'm working on it.
I've also slowly learned to be less socially awkward. Still working on that one too.
Oh, childhood...I would not repeat you if someone paid me. But I'm glad it happened.

I still feel like a child in some ways. Especially when I think about how much I have yet to learn and experience. I'm only 19.
This is a really random digression, but what if the world ended tomorrow? And I'm only 19 years old, with so much I'll never know about being an adult? This odd train of thought is brought to you by a friend's friend, who told him the world was supposed to end on Saturday because of the moon being closer to the sun than it's been in 20 years. It's complete bullshit of course, but if you think about the turbulent nature of current events lately, it's not hard to imagine, is it?
I would be spending my last day on earth on a bus for 5 hours. But at least I would have spent the last week with my family.
This is a morbid topic. But if you think about it from a different angle, the end of the world isn't all that terrifying. It's only because we're afraid of what happens when we're not here anymore. Or afraid of death. Which are both weird things to be afraid of. If the world ends, we're all in it together. I don't know why I'm talking about this.

This is why I'm afraid of blogs or twitters or facebook statuses...there's nothing interesting to say and it gives me a lot of anxiety for no reason. But I'll get the hang of this, and I will try to make it less ramble-y and boring.

And maybe stay true to the title of the blog. Make my life a little more interesting by just getting into shenanigans. Sounds like fun.