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bedlamsbardAaaaaand I have succeeded in waking up depressed, confused, and crying on the morning of my 21st birthday. Gee, I hope this isn't a harbinger for the rest of the year.
I've been having trouble sleeping since I got back to school, and for a couple of nights before that back home. The worst part is not being able to find a comfortable position to sleep in -- you know how it is when you toss and you turn and no matter how you arrange your stuff animals, you just can't get comfortable? That. I have the specific problem of trying to figure out what to do with my right arm, which sounds really weird, but for some reason I just can't seem to arrange my arm so that my right wrist doesn't feel stiff, even if it's in the exact same position as my left wrist. I think, feeling them both, that my right wrist is a bit nobbier than my left wrist, but I have no idea why or what I can do about it. It's still a little bit stiff now, and I finally gave up the ghost and got up about half an hour ago, deciding crying at my computer with the light on was probably a better idea than crying in my bed in the dark. It's really hard to get to sleep when you keep feeling like one part of your body is at a really awkward angle (even when it shouldn't be! by all the normal laws of physics!), either when you're first trying to get to sleep or when you've woken up at 5:30 in the morning and you're trying to get back to sleep. There's still some -- soreness? numbness? I can't really tell, and I don't think I'm pinching a nerve or some other more nefarious cause, because it's not just when my hand's in any one specific position, but pretty much all of them. Including, yes, lying flat on my back with both hands flat on the bed on either side of me, as well as lying on my side (either side; my right side is a little more awkward but my left side isn't considerably better) with my arms in front of me, curled around a stuffed animal. I have a larger stuffed bear at home, about a foot and a half to two feet tall, and that's a little more leverage than my foot or less stuffed animals that I have here, but it's still awkward. As is lying on my stomach with both hands under my hipbones. (I do this a lot when I'm cold.) So I don't know what's going on with that, and it's irritating and a little worrisome, but not actively painful.
*
I hate being at school for my birthday. I'd rather be home, with my family, not because there's any particular kind of celebration there that I really miss, but -- I just want to be home. My first year and a half at Tulane I was never homesick. Oh, I missed the structure of high school, and I missed my high school specifically, but I never missed home. The second year and a half have been very different, and half the time I'm in New Orleans I want to be somewhere else entirely. This semester started off pretty bad really fast. I didn't want to leave Ellensburg in the first place -- I started crying on the shuttle from Ellensburg to Sea-Tac -- and the thrill of going, "Oh my god, I'm in New Orleans," has worn off. I'm sick of flying cross-country, sick of the way that makes me feel, sick of the time it takes. I don't mind being in classes, but coming back to the city, to a college campus, is such a shock after being home in the quiet country, where the biggest disturbance is when all the dogs start barking and howling at once. (Also, my room's on the backroad into the parking garage, so that doesn't help.) I came back stressed about my living situation, and I'm still stressed about my living situation, though aside from Minnesota being gone and Alaska having moved in, I'm not entirely certain how much it will be different. I got stressed out really fast on the first day of classes, with what happened with Latin (I've spent around ten hours in the library, over the past two days, and while I'm more or less caught up and can probably recognize anything up to Chapter 22 of Wheelock, I can tell you right now that I probably didn't internalize anything I learned, because I went through it too fast. Will internalize later, but I think only an hour or two at a time, not in two or three hour chunks), and then some minor WTF over another class. Still some minor WTF over a couple of classes, I haven't had all my classes yet, so I'm not sure what's going on yet. Also, it's freaking cold in New Orleans. We don't have snow, but it's cold!
Anyway, I'd built myself up to be sad and depressed and lonely today, because I didn't think I'd get a birthday cake since I'm pretty sure Maryland hates me at least half the time and also, it's the third day of classes, who has time to do that, and then yesterday she and the other two baked and decorated a cake. So on the one hand, cake! On the other hand, it pisses me off, because I'm fucked up in the head, apparently. It's not like I'm saying, "SHE RUINED MY PLANS TO BE MISERABLE," although kind of, I guess, but -- I don't know, I feel like I've been cut off in mid-stream or something. And I feel like I should be stupidly grateful or something, and, no, I'd rather she'd not baked the cake and I could go through with my prior plans of going to the Maple Street Patisserie and getting a cupcake and then going to Starbucks and getting a free birthday beverage. Which I could still do, I suppose. Agh, I'm messed up, and I want to be home and not here.
The problem with having one's birthday at the beginning of the semester is that I want to buy myself something, but I keep freaking out because of money. (I have the money. My grandparents gave me money last semester, although to be fair, most of it has gone to groceries.) But I still have to pay my tuition, and buy about half my textbooks, so I get hung up on whether it's okay to pay $25 for a poster or a pair of earrings or a necklace or something pretty and happy and frivolous when besides my sizable tuition, I still need to buy, oh, maybe half my textbooks. (And I've already spent about $200 on what I have bought, and last semester's textbooks are still sitting on my bookshelf, and I don't want to sell any of them back, and even if I did, they're not worth all that much. Last semester I lucked out and mostly had cheap Penguin translations of primary sources. This semester, actual history books: not cheap. And I did splurge and buy myself a set of mixing bowls and biscuit cutters -- I KNOW SO EXCITING -- with my Christmas Amazon gift card, which covered a little more than half the card, but the remainder went towards textbooks, which sadly didn't even knock that much off them. I don't like spending money I got as presents on things for school, even if it's very practical. I think present money should be for fun things.)
Anyway, I would like to be home, and preferably not crying, and without my wrist being funky.
And if you made it through that, here is something happy: Knitters knit a GIANT CARDIGAN for the 900th anniversary of the town of Cardigan in the UK.
I've been having trouble sleeping since I got back to school, and for a couple of nights before that back home. The worst part is not being able to find a comfortable position to sleep in -- you know how it is when you toss and you turn and no matter how you arrange your stuff animals, you just can't get comfortable? That. I have the specific problem of trying to figure out what to do with my right arm, which sounds really weird, but for some reason I just can't seem to arrange my arm so that my right wrist doesn't feel stiff, even if it's in the exact same position as my left wrist. I think, feeling them both, that my right wrist is a bit nobbier than my left wrist, but I have no idea why or what I can do about it. It's still a little bit stiff now, and I finally gave up the ghost and got up about half an hour ago, deciding crying at my computer with the light on was probably a better idea than crying in my bed in the dark. It's really hard to get to sleep when you keep feeling like one part of your body is at a really awkward angle (even when it shouldn't be! by all the normal laws of physics!), either when you're first trying to get to sleep or when you've woken up at 5:30 in the morning and you're trying to get back to sleep. There's still some -- soreness? numbness? I can't really tell, and I don't think I'm pinching a nerve or some other more nefarious cause, because it's not just when my hand's in any one specific position, but pretty much all of them. Including, yes, lying flat on my back with both hands flat on the bed on either side of me, as well as lying on my side (either side; my right side is a little more awkward but my left side isn't considerably better) with my arms in front of me, curled around a stuffed animal. I have a larger stuffed bear at home, about a foot and a half to two feet tall, and that's a little more leverage than my foot or less stuffed animals that I have here, but it's still awkward. As is lying on my stomach with both hands under my hipbones. (I do this a lot when I'm cold.) So I don't know what's going on with that, and it's irritating and a little worrisome, but not actively painful.
*
I hate being at school for my birthday. I'd rather be home, with my family, not because there's any particular kind of celebration there that I really miss, but -- I just want to be home. My first year and a half at Tulane I was never homesick. Oh, I missed the structure of high school, and I missed my high school specifically, but I never missed home. The second year and a half have been very different, and half the time I'm in New Orleans I want to be somewhere else entirely. This semester started off pretty bad really fast. I didn't want to leave Ellensburg in the first place -- I started crying on the shuttle from Ellensburg to Sea-Tac -- and the thrill of going, "Oh my god, I'm in New Orleans," has worn off. I'm sick of flying cross-country, sick of the way that makes me feel, sick of the time it takes. I don't mind being in classes, but coming back to the city, to a college campus, is such a shock after being home in the quiet country, where the biggest disturbance is when all the dogs start barking and howling at once. (Also, my room's on the backroad into the parking garage, so that doesn't help.) I came back stressed about my living situation, and I'm still stressed about my living situation, though aside from Minnesota being gone and Alaska having moved in, I'm not entirely certain how much it will be different. I got stressed out really fast on the first day of classes, with what happened with Latin (I've spent around ten hours in the library, over the past two days, and while I'm more or less caught up and can probably recognize anything up to Chapter 22 of Wheelock, I can tell you right now that I probably didn't internalize anything I learned, because I went through it too fast. Will internalize later, but I think only an hour or two at a time, not in two or three hour chunks), and then some minor WTF over another class. Still some minor WTF over a couple of classes, I haven't had all my classes yet, so I'm not sure what's going on yet. Also, it's freaking cold in New Orleans. We don't have snow, but it's cold!
Anyway, I'd built myself up to be sad and depressed and lonely today, because I didn't think I'd get a birthday cake since I'm pretty sure Maryland hates me at least half the time and also, it's the third day of classes, who has time to do that, and then yesterday she and the other two baked and decorated a cake. So on the one hand, cake! On the other hand, it pisses me off, because I'm fucked up in the head, apparently. It's not like I'm saying, "SHE RUINED MY PLANS TO BE MISERABLE," although kind of, I guess, but -- I don't know, I feel like I've been cut off in mid-stream or something. And I feel like I should be stupidly grateful or something, and, no, I'd rather she'd not baked the cake and I could go through with my prior plans of going to the Maple Street Patisserie and getting a cupcake and then going to Starbucks and getting a free birthday beverage. Which I could still do, I suppose. Agh, I'm messed up, and I want to be home and not here.
The problem with having one's birthday at the beginning of the semester is that I want to buy myself something, but I keep freaking out because of money. (I have the money. My grandparents gave me money last semester, although to be fair, most of it has gone to groceries.) But I still have to pay my tuition, and buy about half my textbooks, so I get hung up on whether it's okay to pay $25 for a poster or a pair of earrings or a necklace or something pretty and happy and frivolous when besides my sizable tuition, I still need to buy, oh, maybe half my textbooks. (And I've already spent about $200 on what I have bought, and last semester's textbooks are still sitting on my bookshelf, and I don't want to sell any of them back, and even if I did, they're not worth all that much. Last semester I lucked out and mostly had cheap Penguin translations of primary sources. This semester, actual history books: not cheap. And I did splurge and buy myself a set of mixing bowls and biscuit cutters -- I KNOW SO EXCITING -- with my Christmas Amazon gift card, which covered a little more than half the card, but the remainder went towards textbooks, which sadly didn't even knock that much off them. I don't like spending money I got as presents on things for school, even if it's very practical. I think present money should be for fun things.)
Anyway, I would like to be home, and preferably not crying, and without my wrist being funky.
And if you made it through that, here is something happy: Knitters knit a GIANT CARDIGAN for the 900th anniversary of the town of Cardigan in the UK.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-12 01:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-13 05:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-12 01:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-13 05:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-12 01:55 pm (UTC)It sucks that you're feeling down on your birthday but even so, I do hope you'll find something some joy and happiness today. Your roommates baking you a cake is really sweet!
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-13 05:46 pm (UTC)Well, Maryland's baked a cake for everyone else's birthday, so I don't feel that special. But it was a good cake. A little dry.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-12 03:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-13 05:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-12 03:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-13 05:48 pm (UTC)Ha, we don't get extra move-in time anyway. Because Tulane hates its students. (That's the theory I'm going with, personally. We did when I was a freshman, but not last year or this year.)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-12 04:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-13 05:50 pm (UTC)