Lamia

I found this when I was cleaning my room today. I barely even remember writing this.

The night was cool and the sky was p i t c h b l a c k. It was as if someone had thrown a moth-eaten blanket over the earth, and the stars were the little holes that had been eaten away by insects. I sat by the windowsill as clouds began to roll swiftly into view, masking the distant suns. The clouds were dark and ominous, though still quite visible in the light of the moon. The street lamp outside my window had gone out a week before and yet no one had been sent to fix the damned thing. I didn't mind, because I saw much better in the darkness anyway. There were few people still awake and wandering the streets this late at night; mostly beggars and streetwalkers and the thieves and rascals. They stayed mostly in the shadiest alleyways anyway, waiting to pillage and plunder the next poor sap that haphazardly wandered into their midst. But I suppose everyone had to make a living somehow.

The clouds had aggressively made their way across the town and hung low, as if they were trying to smother the village with their immense weight. A bright and jagged piece of lightning lashed out in the distance, momentarily blinding me. Moments later, a grumble of thunder growled to life somewhere in the horizon. It happened again; a flash (causing my vision to go stark white once again), and then a low clap of thunder... this time closer and angrier than before.

I sat p.e.r.f.e.c.t.l.y s.t.i.l.l, as I waited for the inevitable rain, by my windowsill. I was on the third story of a tiny inn that overlooked the cobblestone street below. It was the "main drag" and many shops or mobile vendors were meandering along this street during the day. Though, it was but a ghost town at this time of night.

The tiny room I chose for the night was a stifling 90 degrees, but my skin remained cool and recognized no temperature. The only thing that bothered me about the heat was that it made my tongue sticky and it made me so... thirsty...

Another blinding flash and an almost immediate clap of thunder sounded and finally the first droplet of rain struck my window pane. It slid down the glass, leaving a slick trail of moisture in its wake. The little light that was shining in my window from distant street lamps seemed to be sucked into the droplet and its wet trail. Here, the light was scattered and little flecks of color sparkled ever so slightly around it. I found myself mesmerized, as I often was when there was a storm brewing.

I suppose I am getting ahead of myself, I tend to do that. You see, it is very difficult for one of my kind to focus on just one thing at a time. Our senses are so exaggerated that sometimes they manage to overcome us. They fight with one another; sight, the feeling of a soft caress, distance sounds, and particularly the smells. It doesn't ever stop, but I suppose one could say it becomes easier to manage, years of practice to ignore, but never to overcome.

More tiny droplets hit my window or plummeted to their deaths on the cobblestones below. It began to rain harder and heavier, and the flecks of color dancing on the glass moved faster and faster until my eyes were frantically trying to watch each individual sparkle. I fought the urge to swat at them like a fascinated kitten.

I would remain here for the next seven hours, watching the continuously falling rain, closing my eyes only when the white flashes of light s.p.a.r.k.e.d and t.w.i.s.t.e.d through the distant night sky.

Have I Mentioned I Hate Physics?

Summer school started yesterday and it was just as t e r r i b l e as I anticipated.

Thought you oughta know.

Insomnia

Can't sleep again. It's 3:00 AM, and I've woke in a panic.

I'm feeling extremely 'eh', and can't seem to shake this feeling that there is something wrong with either me, everyone that I meet, or everyone in general. This anxiety is very irritating; plus, I've had a cold for the past two or three days so I'm having a coughing battle while I'm trying to sleep and that's just not really working out, now is it?

At least my brother is home. We had a bonding moment earlier today when he got home from camp. I sort of think he can tell me most things, which is interesting for a little brother 6.5 years younger than you. We talked briefly about how he wished he was more 'different' from everyone else, and I expressed the same sentiments. We have both lived an outwardly generic life; we've lived in the same house our whole lives, we both have always gotten good grades, never failed anything or gotten any big achievement awards, and I feel personally... maybe faded into the background a little bit. We've even had the same friggin' dog our whole lives - he's 18.5 years old!

Which brings me to another point; my dog, Spuds. He is getting extremely old and getting very skinny. He can't see but a foot in front of him and he can't hear unless you're yelling. He's slip-sliding on the hardwood floors because I don't believe his hips are holding him up the way they should. I slip him pain medication sometimes, wrapped in cheese. There isnt much quality of life there, but he still eats and gets around and my ...ah, my father. He loves that dog and could never willingly end his life unless under extreme circumstances. And what can be said of quality of life anyway; so ambiguous, and who is to say what is right and what is not. I will support his decision, and I love my dog.

Ah, but I digress. Maybe that is what sets us apart and actually makes us different... that we've had such an uninterrupted and seemingly generic life on the surface. I never even got a detention in high school, if you'll believe it. But I wish there was something that I was particularly good at. Sure, I like animals and I'm trying to get into Vet School or whatever, but that's not really a talent. Yea, I play the piano sort of and I played the violin for seven years, but I never really got that good at it. ehh...

*Bangs head on wall*

I just wanna drop everything and move to a jungle!

Wait a minute... this sounds a little like the start of a habitual theme :P

I Got a Dolla and a Dream

I took my cat to the vet today, aka I took him to work with me. He is quite displeased with me, after getting all his shots and blood work done. Luckily his blood work came back perfect so he's a perfectly healthy pissed off cat. Sweet.

Now, I am staying in for the first time in like 5 days, because my brother went to camp and I took full use of the time to not feel bad about going out all the time while he was gone. He gets back tomorrow morning, so yeah.

I start my summer school classes on Monday :[ and I'm really effing sad about it. If there's anything I hate more than Chemistry, it might just be physics. I can't really decide my hate for both of them is very very close.

Ok, I thought I had more to say but I guess I don't.

At Night, They Creep

It's 2 AM. I am still awake because I've been at Ashley and Samantha's house talking about the most random stuff for the past 4.5 hours straight. I came over to go on a bike ride, but instead sat on the couch and didn't move the entire time. We talked about some deep stuff, I'll tell you that much. Mostly about d r e a m s and the way people interact with other people, living in the jungle, you know, that kind of thing.

So, tell me world, have you ever considered dropping all your friends, your family, your job, your school, and basically everything and everyone you have ever known and just...

...Leaving?

To anywhere, any country -- let's just say you decide that you're going to move to some Peruvian jungle and you just go into the freaking wilderness with only a backpack on your back and whatever else you can carry on your person and you just... try to survive.

I know it sounds insane, perhaps, to some of you. And those of you who know me may be confused because I don't even like camping, let alone bugs, feeling dirty, hunger... BUT, just the fact that that's how we began, humans, living for the wild, in the wild, hunting my own game and skinning my own food. How extremely rural and animalistic and PRIMAL!
How extremely intriguing, you know? And perhaps the aforementioned plan is a little ridiculous, but even moving to somewhere extremely rural or at the very least away from everyone and everything you know -- this must be an exhilarating feeling! [anyone seen 'Into the Wild'?]

Unfortunately, there are too many worldly ties to friends, family, jobs, money...

Disgusting money; how I hate to always follow your elusive shadow.

The Blurred Line

I had a D R E A M last night about a baby elephant being kept in this cell, and we [me and my boss/Dr.] were trying to keep it alive and safe from these people who wanted to hurt it. And it drank milk. It was a very strange and confusing dream, but it involved people hunting for it and as I was in their way, I suppose they would hunt me as well. Leaves one waking up to a strange feeling of foreboding...

Woke up late today, for the above reason. The s t o r m last night was Monstrous but I only half heard it, I'm mad I didn't wake up more fully to look outside.

Finally scheduled my GRE for July 14th, and contacted the Humane Society to finally volunteer again; my schedule is just so busy that I don't have time for that stuff, although I need to make more time. It's just going to be especially difficult since I'll be going to class from 9-1 Monday through Friday and then working right after than until 8 pm every day except Wednesday. I work on Saturday's too and half the Sundays... :/ Plus I'll be studying for my GRE until July 14th and then studying Swedish more extensively after that until i leave.

Speaking of which, I really need to buy those plane tickets.... note to self; find father...

I'm ashamed to admit this, by the way, but I like that new Miley Cyrus song 'Can't be Tamed'.

DON'T JUDGE ME.

:P

Good Morning

Hello. My mother just called and woke me up at 9 am to tell me to put up some cushions that are on our patio because it's about to rain. Thank you mother, I am now awake quite earlier than I would have intended. No matter, now I am blogging.

*Pauses to run outside with her computer*

Now I'm blogging outside while it's raining!

*Another pause*

Wind shifted and started getting me and my computer wet from under the overhang of my porch. Had to go inside. Felt like maybe it would stop, came back outside. Got rained on again. Pretended it wasn't happening...

THUNDER! Sweet.

I like t h u n d e r s t o r m s. And while I'm now protecting my computer from it with one of the cushions I vowed to protect, it's still pretty sweeeeeeeeet. Actually I like s t o r m s better than I like it when it's sunny. Although, back in April it rained for literally 4 weeks straight and that wasn't very fun, but that was probably because we were on the ass-end of winter and I was begging for some warmth.

Okay, enough about the weather, today I am going to study some more for my GRE, because now that I'm going to be running around like a chicken with my head cut off at work, I'll have no time to study [this may be confusing to you, because most people don't have time to study at work, but I did].

Not to get all hip hip hooray on you but there's only 59 days until I go to Sweden. I got my housing and my classes via email yesterday - I'm living in a student housing apartment in town called Rackarbergsgatan [say that 3 times fast] and I have my own bathroom [thankyou, thankyou, thankyou]. This is in the actual town of Uppsala, but the school I'm going to is actually on the o u t s k i r t s which means I'm going to have to purchase a bicycle and get myself to school, which is something of a 25 minute bike ride, apparently. Every day. I think [hope] there's also a bus system so I don't freeze in the winter.

Just so you know, where I'm living is on the same latitude as Anchorage, Alaska. Yea, I'll let you think about that for a minute.
...
...
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Anchorage, Alaska. Seriously.

If this whole being out of the country thing goes well and I DON'T get accepted into vet school this year, I'm thinking about going to A f r i c a for a couple months to volunteer at a school or something. Something I'm playing with in my head anyway.

Okay, back to storm-watching.

Stretched Too Thin

I feel like I'm being s t r e t c h e d too thin. Someone always needs something from me and usually there are conflicting needs. I feel almost required to spread myself out to hang out with different people but then those people complain because it's been a while (while I'm trying to make time for other people) and I just start the cycle all over again. It makes for one extremely stressed ginger, I'll tell you that.

That's part of the reason I've been dropping friends like nobody's business lately. I just don't have the patience to put up with everyone's whining when I don't do what they want to do or call them every day or hang out with them enough. Sorry, some people have to work and study and actually try to do stuff with their life, and I can't always be there when you need me. It's not that I don't try, I just can't. I just CAN'T, you know???

It's not just friends, it's also work. There are two positions where I work (an animal hospital), one is up front doing secretary work, making calls, appointments, filling medications, etc. The other is in the back, doing Vet Tech stuff, checking on the animals, doing notes, temperature, eye pressure, dentals, etc. So where am I? Somewhere in the middle, where the people up front want me to help them, the people in the back want me to help them, and the Dr. who doesn't really know what the hells going on also needs me to help her. What is my job, exactly? What am I supposed to be doing???

I asked for a raise, for one. Today. And I actually got it. Thank god too, because I threw a fit like a p e t u l a n t c h i l d last night because I found out this baboon that works with me gets paid more than me. Uh. No. Think again.

On another note, it was fathers day today, and we had a family thing at my grandmother's house. Lots of food, went out on the boat, way too hot.

I haven't been sleeping much or well lately (or really ever); I am such a light sleeper and I wake up at any change in light intensity, if it's too hot or cold, the drop of a pin... Plus I think I'm in a constant state of paranoia or anxiety or something because it takes me forever to go to sleep and I never really feel fully rested. I can't remember the last time I slept the whole night through, got enough sleep, and woke up by myself, no alarm or with something imperative I have to be doing as soon as I awake. Sometimes I can't get to sleep at all, like Alice in Wonderland and that little white rabbit...

What is it they say about people with insomnia?

You're never really awake and you're never really asleep.

Stuck Between a Rock and a Hard Place

These past five months or so have been extremely arduous for me. I've had my share of ups and downs and by ups I mean downs and by my I mean fifty grown men('s). I can't seem to get out of this funk I'm in; it's as if I have slipped and fallen only to keep slipping down the same muddy slope and every time I think I've gotten my footing, I stumble and lurch this way and that and I'm on my face again and no one will grab my hand.

Where I used to be, there is a h o l e in the world where by day my shadow circles, and by night it tumbles in.

I just can't find the right words to express what it is I'm trying to say...

Have you ever felt like you're the only one who really...
No, that's not quite it.
When you look around, do you feel like the people around you aren't really...
No, almost.
Do you ever feel overlooked? overworked? under appreciated?
Do you feel like you're effing losing it?
Yes Yes Yes.

You don't drown by falling in the w a t e r you know, you drown by staying there.

Remember me?

Hey I have a question for all of you out there that know me...

DO YOU REMEMBER ME? DO YOU REALIZE YOU HAVEN'T SEEN ME IN MONTHS?

ANYONE?

CAN YOU EVEN HEAR ME?

Ah, fair-weather friends.

Touching Base

Just touching base. My passport is done (yes, I'm quite dashing in my picture) and my Student Visa is getting processed now (but it takes months). I'm learning some basic Swedish words/phrases right now on my own (Jag talar bara litet Svenska :P) and studying for the GRE ( :[ ) which is coming up near the beginning of July (actually I haven't scheduled it yet, but ehh...). Additionally, I'm now starting to volunteer at the Hamilton County Humane Society, which is just as depressing as every other humane society I've volunteered at but still rewarding in the long run (plus I need volunteer hours for my vet school application, which I should start soon (aka I won't). I was thinking about doing Habitat for Humanity but in reality I just don't have the time. I'll be starting my Physics II class at IUPUI June 28th which means that's the day I'm going to die. Just kidding. But seriously. I. Hate. Physics.

I've just finished hitting up my study abroad adviser, trying to get all the kinks out of my trip and now apparently I have to have proof that I PERSONALLY have an account with $5000 in it. YEA GOOD JOKE SWEDISH MIGRATION OFFICE. GOOD EFFING JOKE.

Okay, talk to you in a few.
<3