June

It's June and it's another cool, gloomy day in the city.

The Southeast Asia trip planning is getting difficult. There are so many rules (and given my luck with trying to get into other countries, I don't want to do anything wrong). I think I'll talk to Jeffrey to see if he can give me any suggestions and I'll also try to contact Kristin when she returns from France for information on her travel agent. Her travel agent always manages to find her interesting independent travel options. I'm leaning towards Vietnam (specifically North Vietnam) for a 2 day trip (most likely leaving Bangkok at night on the 8th and returning the evening of the 10th. Then I'll have an opportunity to do a day trip to somewhere in non-urban in Thailand (haven't looked into options yet, but I have plenty of time to think about that) and explore Bangkok during the day (something I won't be able to do when taking a break while working at the convention centre since it's all the way out in the middle of nowhere).

I had a ton of trouble getting to sleep last night. I didn't have a lot of energy all day, so I decided to get in bed around 11:00. But then I got caught up doing something and didn't get in bed until around 1:00. After an hour and a half of trying to fall asleep, I got out of bed and didn't try to fall asleep again until around 3:30. I eventually got to sleep and woke up around 10:00.

And in other travel news, I was thinking about my road trip this summer and decided that I'll probably leave out Wisconsin (I would like to visit Madison again but don't mind skipping it this summer) and Minnesota (I'd like to see Jeff, but he might have new job in another city by then and there's no other reason I want to go to Minnesota). Then I could go directly from Chicago to Iowa and have more time for things like relaxing in Phoenix, climbing in Utah, and driving around tiny towns in Nebraska, Iowa, West Virginia... I know I have to plan my trip heading west a bit more than heading east since I'll be staying with people along the way west and I need to tell them when to expect me, but heading back east, I plan on taking my time and planning as little as possible (other than possible towns to check out).

Looking forward to (although a little nervous about) SFU tonight.

Now I'll answer some long overdue email before getting ready for SFU.

SFU:
- So Nate and Brenda are switching roles- that's fine, I just don't like the fact that they put eligible single people at dive bars in the middle of the afternoon or as a neighbour in an apartment complex.
- It's really nice to hear Keith say nice things to David- and it wasn't sentimental and sappy, it was very realistic.
- Great scene with Ruth and Nate.
- No, Brenda- you should run from this freaky guy, not go and talk to him. But I did like the "think of dinner as lunch in another time zone" line.
- I don't get why Claire decided that people can go to the bathroom when they're dead. Intentional? Or are they getting sloppy in their attention to detail?
- And the Keith/David scene continues to be a great one.
- How come background noise (radio, TV, singing...) on this show always gets quiet as the conversation intensifies? Again, is this intentional? I don't think so.
- And how is everyone the same age, in the land of death, as they were when they died but Claire's aborted fetus is about 4 months old?
- Don't know why they cut from Nate finding out about Lisa to Rico dancing- that was a bit jarring- unless the point was to show, one right after the other, the 2 people out of control in this episode.
- Wow! Ruth looks gorgeous on her wedding day.
- I knew Claire would go to the wedding. And the earrings were obvious but perfect.
- I don't know what to say about Nate.
- Oh hey, David and Keith made it to the wedding too- that's wonderful!
- Lauren Ambrose was amazing in the wedding scene!
- Oh, I forgot about Arthur.
- I do like Keith and David together.
- Aw, and that was a cute little scene with Maya (who's now walking) and Claire.
- I still don't know what to say about Nate. His actions don't seem believable to me.
- And now everyone's had a scene with Mr. Fisher.
- Now I know what to say about Nate (and I can't believe I'm saying it)- I'm actually glad he went to Brenda. The actors and crew are great at manipulating my mind about this relationship.
- And I didn't feel anything about Lisa's death until I saw her dates at the last scene- I think it would have made even more of an impact if no one died in the beginning so Lisa's dates would have been the first we saw (and the last thing of the season that we saw).
- But are we not supposed to care about HOW Lisa died?
- So, this was the finale. It wasn't as powerful as I thought it might be, but fortunately it wasn't nearly as depressing as last year. In short, I enjoyed it.

I got to sleep around 3:30 and woke up feeling wide awake at... 6:30! Fortunately, I got back to sleep and woke up again twice more before getting out of bed.

Over the Rhine's "Faithfully Dangerous" is an excellent song.

Tonight's the first night of classes. REALLY not looking forward to making myself go there 4 nights a week for 6 weeks. I'll have to try to find interesting places (like cafes where I can do math work- maybe the few on 2nd will be good enough) to be right before class- maybe that will help get me there every night. I think the math-work-in-the-cafe idea will probably be necessary anyway since I have trouble doing that stuff at home.

Oh! And it's actually warmish and sunny today! Can't believe it! There are a ton of people on the streets.

Soon I'll leave to get a bite to eat and to pick up some things at the drug store before class.

Classes actually don't seem to bad. The math professor has an accent but not impossible to understand- the main problem is that she's very quiet so you have to strain to hear her. She's not great at explaining things, but so far she's going slowly (and I already know this early stuff) so it's not too bad. I don't know why I'm feeling so optomistic about the class then. But for some reason, I feel that I may pass this time. And the film class shouldn't be too bad. The professor seems pretty laid back except for attendance policies. We get to watch 2 movies a week, so that's only 2 real days of class each week. Tonight we got to watch "Living in Oblivion". I was going to leave since I've seen it several times, but decided to stay since I hadn't seen it in a while and I didn't want to leave early on the first day. But the main good thing is when the tests will be. The math will be on Mondays and the film on Thursdays. Not only is it great that they won't be on the same day, I can take the math after having the weekend to study and the film could be any day since I'll always just study for it on the day of the test.

I almost just remembered my dream from last night. I remember feeling both adventurous and peaceful, but the details are just beyond reach. I've felt like that for several nights recently- where I know I had a good dream but can't quite remember anything about it.

I actually had a lot of energy when I got home, so I cleaned the apartment. Now I still have too much energy, but my eyes are killing me (they've been bothering me all day but this past hour has been a bit painful). So I'll get in bed and close my eyes soon, and hopefully it won't take terribly long to actually fall asleep.

And while my eyes may be painfully dry, my hair is actually not too dry at all. It's still a bit frizzy but not as bad as it had been in the winter. And today part of it was actually shiny! I don't remember it being shiny since last summer.

Yesterday, I remembered 2 bits of my dream from the previous night: I was taking care of someone's baby and part of the dream I was at Paula and Harvey's house in the little room with the freezer. It's nice to remember something from a dream even if it's only a tiny amount.

Yesterday morning I had Over the Rhine's "Faithfully Dangerous" in my head and then again last night when I was trying to fall asleep. It really is a great song.

Got a B (as expected) in human development. Now my GPA is something like 3.4. If I actually pass math this summer, my F will be erased and my GPA will be much higher. Not that this really matters.

And in other school related news, I didn't learn anything in the film class last night. He went over the basic parts of a film crew and talked about how a movie is made (just scratched the surfance and he's not nearly cynical enough). We also finished the end of "Living in Oblivion" and started "State and Main" (which we will finish tonight). The movie selections go down from here. And he asked if any of us had worked in film before. I was the only one who said yes, so I guess everyone else is at least learning a little bit. But it's an intro class so most people don't care what's going on at all.

Last night when I was trying to fall asleep, the rain was crashing so hard against my window I thought it might break. Then it sounded like someone was knocking hard against one of the windows. I actually got up and checked to make sure no one was out there (I was certainly hoping no one was out there). No one was there. It was only the rain. I just didn't know rain could sound like that. And of course I awoke to the same sounds this morning. And it's really cold today. I can't say enough good things about this weather.

Paula told me the other day that Jon Stewart said that he was busy on Memorial Day building an ark. I want to get in on the action and try to secure a place on the thing. I really am beginning to wonder if we will ever see the sun for an entire day again.

For the first time in my life, a math class was extremely easy. Sure, I took it last semester and sort of understood this part, but I don't remember it being quite this easy. So at least for the first test, I should do well. Of course I always say that and even almost always think I did well after taking the test but then get back a failing grade and discover I really didn't know anything. But I really mean it this time (of course I always mean it every time). But I still think this time is different (and of course I always say that too). We'll see...

Enjoyed "State and Main" again. I realised that this was the only time I've seen Phillip Seymour Hoffman in a role where he was not loud and/or obnoxious (not that I've seen him in that many roles), and I thought he did a fabulous job. I should rent more movies that he's done. Though watching "State and Main" with this class was a bit annoying. They only laughed at the obvious humour and laughed anytime someone cursed (how old are these people?). But hey, a class where you watch movies twice a week (even if I really don't like some of them)- I'm certainly not complaining.

While last night there was only a light rain while leaving school, tonight was a major downpour. I'm starting to get serious about that ark thing. I even told the woman walking next to me about it after we both walked into an unavoidable, deep puddle.

I've been having terrible luck with trains recently, especially the 6 train heading downtown at night. I've never waited less than 15 minutes at 68th St. after 9:00 at night and usually it's more like a 20-25 minute wait. Where am I living? Small-city USA? And even during the day I've had long waits. It's usually only in the direction I want to go though. I typically see 2-3 trains heading in the other direction before the train I want shows up. Oh, and of course once a train does show up, it's completely packed.

I feel myself starting to get on a night schedule. Of course it didn't take long. When I got home at 10:00, I was hyper. Now it's 2:15 and I still am no where near ready for bed. I like this schedule though. I can get stuff done most of the night, go to bed in the early morning, sleep until late morning/very-early afternoon, get stuff done in the afternoon, go to classes in the evening, come home, rinse, repeat- for 6 weeks.

And I woke up singing "Kiss at the End of the Rainbow" (the song by Mitch and Mickey in "A Mighty Wind"). That was a strange one.

Fell asleep around 6:00 and woke up at 11:00. I got in bed around 5:00 which was when all the trucks (garbage trucks, delivery trucks...) start making their rounds. Of course they're loud, and their horns are really loud too. And the sky was getting light at this point (I guess the sun is still up there somewhere). Not an ideal time to try to fall asleep, but I'm usually more tired at 6:00 AM than I am at 2:00 AM, so hopefully I'll continue to be able to continue this schedule without taking hours to fall asleep every morning.

I heard a noise that sounded like an explosion out my window around 2:30 AM. I wonder if it came from the Bloomberg Tower. No one has posted anything about another explosion, so maybe not.

Math was a little harder last night but nothing I can't handle yet. One woman was funny though. The instructor was going over one of the problems that we all had trouble with, and she said that we didn't have to worry about getting that one right on a test. Without missing a beat, a woman in the class asked, "Do we have to worry if we don't get any of them right?"

There's one woman who is in both my math class and film class. She said something about the math class to me in the film class, otherwise I never would have known it was the same woman. She's pretty confused about the math, so I suggested exchanging phone numbers and studying over the weekend. I've always wanted to do that and have only managed to do it once (in Phoenix I went to study one time with Bill, Erica, and Shelly [can't believe I remember their names] and coming home was when I was in that car accident). I'm hoping this time doesn't result in any kind of accident. For this test, I'll mainly be helping her, but I'm hoping we can study for other tests which I will need help with and I think it could be useful to figure things out with another peer.

I trimmed my hair this afternoon. It's slightly shorter and I like it.

I was reading random old journal entries last night and read one when I was writing about the fact that I dreamed while taking Zoloft (you're not supposed to be able to dream while on anti-depressants). I wonder if that's more proof that the drug really didn't work. And I hope it's not more proof that I don't have receptors that know how to bind to most chemicals (or receptors that don't know how to bind to all chemicals at least some of the time[since once in a while, I'll take some kind of medication and it will work]). That would be really scary. I need to ask some people who know more about this so I can get more opinions.

Last night when I was trying to fall asleep, I thought of a screenplay idea about life in the future and living under a fascist US government, and in the movie you learn that the problem started with the Bush administration. I don't know why I like to think so much while I'm trying to fall asleep. I don't spend the time worrying about things like most people who have trouble falling asleep. I usually think about random things and come up with creative ideas that I almost never remember in the morning.

It's sunny today!!!!! I'm so excited!!!! And I the rest of the city feels the same way. The people I saw on the streets this afternoon were in much better spirits then the people I've seen most of the year. I really think the weather this year has made people more obnoxious.

Okay, so the sunshine didn't last very long. It's been raining and gloomy all day.

Yesterday was great though. It was sunny, and I had one of those great (rare) days where time didn't affect me. I love days when I don't notice time and time doesn't really mean anything. Maybe my Fridays for the next 5 weeks (minus next Friday) can be like that.

Eytan called today without having a reason! It was nice catching up with him.

Then I burned some CDs and might make 1 or 2 more tonight.

I also talked to the woman in my math class for an hour. She had to go out of town for the weekend, so we decided to go over stuff on the phone. We spent about half of the time talking about non-math-related stuff which was fun. I'll look over the material tomorrow morning and call her if I come up with any clever ideas for the few problems we're both having.

Last night I remembered one of my creative ideas (a tv show) and remembered to write it down. Now I just have to figure out what to do with the idea. I'm serious about this one; I really think there's about a 90% chance of someone wanting to produce it. First I need to fine-tune the idea and then I'll contact my cousin, Yudi, since she's in the business and might have some ideas of where to start.

Worked on some math a little last night and this morning. I feel very confident but will still look over it for an hour or so before the test tomorrow.

Tonight is They Might Be Giants with Jennifer. We're trying to get a table but can only do that if we make a dinner reservation and Joe's Pub is not answering their reservation phone, so Jennifer is going to get down there early and wait, and I'll get there a little before they open their doors for dinner at 6:00 and hopefully we'll get lucky and get a table. I'm sure it will be fine. Last time we only went for the show and still managed to get a table (of course it was Valentine's Day and it was freezing outside).

Now I'm going to burn some more CDs.

Puerto Rican Day Parade today. For me, that means hearing the obnoxious horn songs of all the cars with Puerto Rican flags on them.

Last night's dream- I was in a large office-type space with Abby, Carol, and some other people working at the office (I don't remember exactly who they were, but I did know them- they might have been Lynn and Maureen). I had just gotten back from Vietnam and China and realised that I didn't remember the second part of the trip at all. I didn't remember getting my passport stamped or the flight or customs or getting from the airport to this office-type place. Then I realised that I missed Abby's first birthday because I was away. I was upset about that. Then the place where I was turned out to be a hotel. I needed to find a bathroom and finally found one, although it was really uncomfortable (that surprised me since it was such a nice hotel). Somehow, my pants wound up in the toilet and I was irritated trying to get them out. Somehow 1 pair of pants turned into 3-4 pairs pf pants and a few shirts that I had to pull out of the toilet. Ick. Then I went outside to a swimming pool (I don't really remember this part anymore). But there, I finally remembered more than just little bits of a dream.

The people I saw coming from the Puerto Rican Parade were all obnoxious (and all under 30- do people over 30 not celebrate with the masses?). They just acted like they owned the streets and like they weren't in anyone's way. They walked in rows of 3-4 across the sidewalks, blocked the stairs heading down to the trains, blocked the turnstiles while talking to friends/family, and held the train doors for too long while continuing to talk to family/friends.

The TMBG show was fun! It was fun hearing "Spider" and "Hall of Heads" (2 songs that were strange to hear live). Hearing the entire "Apollo 18" album in order really made me remember 1992 (the year the album came out and the year I listened to it the most [I don't think I've listened to it since 1995, so I'd forgotten about some of the songs]). It reminded me of Moe and Ruthy and Stephanie. It reminded me of driving around Olney and Columbia and Parkville. Fun times.

Then I came home and halfway watched the last 2 hours of the Tonys (while burning some more CDs). No surprises. When the "Hairspray" producer went up to give her speech, I knew instantly that she was from Baltimore; she was SOOOO Baltimore.

And when watching specials on network tv, we get to see ads to be informed of all the networks' shows. Even though they look pretty crappy, I have to say that CBS shows, in general, don't look as horrible as the other networks' shows.

The Turkey office of tourism is really doing a lot of advertising recently- I've seen tons of commercials and posters around town.

Time to get ready to head up to school (I want to get there early to do some more studying).

I feel like I haven't had visitors in ages (it's only been a little over a week). That's what happens when you have an average of (approximately) 1.2 visitors per week. But Neil, Maxine, and Abby are coming up on Thursday, and I'm looking forward to that!

Had a flashback of sitting in that coffee shop in Cardiff. Wish there was a place like that near me.

Heard another explosion around 2:30 AM. Will this be a nightly event? I really wish I knew what all these noises were.

I think I did really well on the math test. I know I say that every time, but this time I think it's for real. If I'm right, I'll get around 90-95%- that will average in nicely with my subsequent D's & Fs. And if I can manage to get 2 Cs, I should finally pass the course.

In film, we started watching "Stagecoach" last night. If I pay attention to other things besides the story (like the scenery and the characters and the stylistic techniques), it's not that bad.

I'm going to run to the grocery store after classes tonight and hope they have everything for Neil, Maxine, and Abby. Food shopping really gets frustrating here.

Speaking of Neil, Maxine, and Abby, I'm hoping to take pictures while they're here so I can finish off the roll and get both this one and the one that I opened towards the end of the roll developed and see what's happened with those pictures.

Got the groceries on the way home last night. They were heavy (and I barely got anything- I think it was the milk that was so heavy), but at least I found everything and it's over with. Have I mentioned how much I love food shopping in my neighbourhood?

A tooth that started growing over a year ago continued to grow the other night. I felt it pushing through and now it's definitely bigger.

I got a 99% on my first math test!!!!!!! But not to worry, I don't understand some of these permutation/combination formulas so I won't have an A average for long. But at least I have a great score to average in with my 60%s.

I forgot to mention the trouble I had when trying to fall asleep Monday night. I started to feel a little strange and then got the thought that when I went to sleep, I'd never wake up. I HATE that! Fortunately, it's only happened 2-3 times. It's really difficult to fall asleep no matter what I tell myself. I've tried "it's irrational, you've thought this before and have always managed to wake up" and I've tried "if it's your time to go, it's your time to go, at least you can leave this world feeling somewhat happy and peaceful", but neither of these thoughts have worked. Eventually I just fall asleep and then tomorrow is another day.

Jon called last night. He and Michelle are coming up on Friday and spending 1 night so they can visit a jeweler. Michelle lost her wedding ring and found a new one she likes up here. So she'll get a wedding ring and celebrate their anniversary on the same weekend- very appropriate.

I've been in the mood to watch "Clue" - haven't seen it in years.

I think the oddest song to get stuck in my head (and it goes through my head every few months) is "Dog Eats Dog" from "Les Mis".

Sometimes it gets really exhausting having the desire to know and understand EVERYTHING. I wonder if it's possible to be okay with not knowing and understanding 99.9% of things in this world.

Don't like that Bill Mahr was with a supermodel at the Tony's. Unless he brought her for reasons other than her looks (doubtful), my opinion of him has been lowered.

I stopped by the Four Seasons for a few minutes this afternoon and everyone made a really big deal about my hair (I felt like I was being looked at under a microscope- not fun). I guess because none of these people have known me for very long, it was a big deal to them. I don't get it. I've really had short (or semi-short) hair for most of my life, so I don't see what the big deal is. But I wouldn't make a big deal about anyone changing their hairstyle, no matter what the situation.

While at the Four Seasons, I got a little camera-happy taking pictures out the window. I wound up finishing the roll, so now I can take the 2 rolls to be developed soon.

Our film instructor decided that rather than watch another film in another genre while studying genre, we should watch another western so we could understand more about a particular genre. I see his point but wish it wasn't westerns we have to watch. So, tonight we started "Unforgiven". Not my thing. I usually have tons of energy leaving that class in the evenings, but tonight I was exhausted (still am- but that's a good thing since it means I'll hopefully be able to fall asleep somewhat early tonight and be awake when Neil, Maxine, and Abby get here tomorrow). Plus, I really wish he would pick movies that are shorter than the length of the class so we don't have to break up the movie into 2 nights- I hate that.

And in other film related news: I need to find a movie to go see this weekend so I can write a review of it before the 19th.

Now I'm thinking about setting my alarm clock even earlier and finish cleaning up tomorrow morning rather than now- I really am exhausted. I'm so glad I typed most of this entry this morning.

Last night I had a flashback of riding in Terry's car the second time I met him (at Eytan's parents' house in Baltimore). It was a red Honda Civic hatchback with a sunroof. It was a somewhat warm evening in October, we opened the sunroof, and listened to Rusted Root. I barely remember it (I probably only remember the bit about the ride in his car because it's music related), but that was a great night.

I REALLY like The Bobs' "Plastic or Paper" song!!!!! Anyone who wants to hear it, let me know, and I'll send you the MP3" (don't want to use the space on my site for the file).

Another movie I want to see again soon- "Dazed and Confused".

Neil, Maxine, and Abby got here this afternoon, and I hung out with them a bit in between being productive.

Tomorrow will be a long day- at work by 8:00 AM, hectic work day, Over the Rhine concert at 8:00 PM. I'm actually a little nervous about the concert. It's general admission on a first-come-first-served basis, so if I can actually manange to get up there by 7:00, maybe I'll be okay. But if I can't get up there until close to 8:00, it may be a wasted trip. But hopefully I'll be able to leave early even if the workday isn't over and I'll be able to get into the concert. But then again, even if I can get into the concert, I'll be exhausted so I might not enjoy it as much, but I'm going anyway. How often do these guys play in NYC? Answer: not often. Oh, but I just realised that tomorrow is Friday the 13th, so maybe I'll have good luck with the concert.

Time to start trying to fall asleep...

I'm a bit overwhelmed with this journal entry, but I'll try anyway. I'll start with the mundane.

Friday work finished up much faster than we all were anticipating, so I had plenty of time to go to the concert. But I didn't go. I decided staying at home with Neil, Maxine, and Abby was more fun (especially since I was pretty tired) than going out in the chilly, gloomy, rainy weather to go to a concert even though it was a rare opportunity to see them. So we ordered delivery from Shun Lee and then went to visit Paula and Harvey.

This is where the evening went downhill for me. Neil and Maxine took Abby back to my apartment to get ready for bed, and I stayed a few minutes longer with Paula and Harvey. I was telling Harvey about my exciting plans for Vietnam, and he stupidly told me about all the snakes that would probably be in my hotel room there. He knows I have a fear of snakes, and I really didn't appreciate him putting all those ideas in my head. He felt bad but the damage was already done. I was 90% sure I would cancel the idea of my Vietnam excursion.

I went home and did some research on fear of snakes. I realised that I don't have a phobia because a phobia doesn't come from an actual problem with the thing. I had 2 snakes come towards me in the water 2 separate times. Neither of them bit me, but I think I still have a good reason to be scared of them.

But I don't want to be scared of them. When I was a kid, I kept the snake skin we found on our lawn for years on a shelf in my bedroom. And in high school, I actually liked snakes and wanted one as a pet. When I started remembering those times, I got confused about how my fear came about. I had both snakes chase me after I found the snake skin but BEFORE I had my love of snakes in high school. Did I have a delayed reaction to the snakes-in-the-water-coming-at-me events? The timing of the fear made me start thinking about how my fear is irrational and I should be able to get over it. But I couldn't find anything that would help me. Then I started searching for people who had written about boat trips in Veitnam to see if any of them mentioned snakes. I couldn't find anything quickly which made me begin to think that the chance of running into a snake were low. But that didn't help calm my fears. I still have the fear that I'll be on the boat and a snake will come up from the river and come towards me. I'm still fairly determined to either get rid of my fear or convince myself that no snakes will bother me on my trip, but if I don't find a solution, I really don't think I want to go. I don't want to be out on the water constantly thinking about the possible snakes that would visit us on the boat.

So I was pretty upset Friday night. First I was upset about not going to Vietnam and then I got upset that I didn't go to the concert that night. I thought that if I went to the concert, I wouldn't have visited Paula and Harvey, and Harvey wouldn't have brought up the snake subject. But he really did me a favour. I had thought about the possibility of seeing snakes in the river but didn't think about it seriously. Harvey made me realise that I need to deal with this BEFORE I book the trip. I'm happy that today I'm over the fact that I missed the Over the Rhine concert.

But Friday was Friday the 13th, and I thought I'm supposed to have good luck on those days. Ever since I realised that I usually have good luck on Friday the 13ths, I've had average days or bad luck days.

Before going to sleep Friday night, I read old notebooks (particularly one from my senior year of high school & the summer right after). I started looking at the patterns of my writing (most of it was lists of random things from the shows I was in- "Anything Goes" & "Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum"- and some poetry/prose).

Then I started thinking about all kinds of things- age, creativity, patterns, death, relationships...

And of course once I started trying to fall asleep, the traffic noise was particularly loud. Plus I actually heard whistling several times. Shouldn't whistling be impossible to hear through my CLOSED window on the 24th floor?

Yesterday was mentally and emotionally exhausting. The thoughts I've been having the past month came to a peak yesterday. All of the thoughts of philosophy, economics, mainstream culture, etc. have become absolutely overwhelming, and I need to figure out how to change my thought patterns. I wish there was a simple way to explain my problem, but I'm not sure if there is a simple explaination. That could be the bottom line- that I don't like over-simplifying things the way most people do. In fact, I feel the exact opposite. I'm not happy with accepting answers unless they can be as close to 100% truthful as possible. And of course the answers I'm looking for are answers to complex subjects. I have this need to know everything there is to know in this world. I understand that's impossible and that bothers me.

I've also been thinking a lot about the meaning of life. Of course it's impossible to have 1 definite answer to this question and that REALLY bothers me. I go back and forth between thinking that the point of life is to enjoy it and thinking that there is absolutely no point to life. Of course the 1st option is easier to deal with but the 2nd option occupies my mind quite a bit. And if there isn't any point to life, why bother doing anything or trying to figure it all out? And why bother writing any of this in my journal? And why bother having a journal at all? This is where the downward spiral begins.

So this is all I thought about yesterday, and it was exhausting.

Paula came over for a bit yesterday afternoon and I tried my best to explain the way my mind works. First I sat in silence with a zillion thoughts swirling around in my head. I couldn't figure out a place to start talking for 15 minutes (I'm sure Paula was getting pretty irritated). Then a stream of consciousness started to come out and she was amazed by my brain. I told her it was overwhelming to think like that, especially recently when I think like that almost all day when I'm alone. We talked about obsessive-compulsiveness, quantum philosophy, the meaning of life, and other related subjects.

It's really difficult to type all this. I want to include every detail of my thoughts but can't do that. My thoughts go way too quickly to type everything. I couldn't even verbalise all my thoughts to Paula yesterday (I think I got about 75% of them by the other 25% came and went too quickly to share out loud). Plus I want things to make sense and thought patterns don't always make sense in the way I'd like them to make sense.

I wish we had more insights into how people thought about things. Everyone has their own original views and maybe we could understand more if we could understand more about how others understood things. I've never seen thought patterns discussed. I guess stream-of-consciousness writing comes the closest.

So I've been having these complex thoughts for about a month, but yesterday was the first day I had them while I was in a depression. It was a strange state of depression since I was being analytical about my personality and mood swings. I've never been this analytical while in a depressive state (I assume because most depressive thoughts are usually irrational and it's difficult to analyse the circumstances surrounding the irrational thoughts). So this just made me more exhausted- analysing my thoughts and depression and thinking that there is no point to life so why bother analysing any of it.

I also had the thought yesterday that I don't know anyone I'd feel comfortable calling at 4:00 AM. I wish I knew someone that I could call at anytime day or night.

And of course I want to indulge in the depression, but I realise I don't have time to do that. Wish I could afford a week of indulging in the depression rather than use all the energy I have to make it go away. How will I manage to make the effort to pass the math test? I did manage to do a little studying this morning and Diana is planning on calling me later today so that will force me to look at the material some more (and of course I'll look at it before the test tomorrow evening).

I also thought about how I could make my life much easier if I didn't impose so many restrictions on how I do things ("you have to finish x before you can do y", "you have to understand everything you hear about"...). Why can't I just do things without thinking too much about how I'm going to do them? Why can't I just live my day-to-day life without analysing everything? Because when I try that, I feel like I'm wasting a chance to understand something.

I tell myself that I'll miss an opportunity if I don't fully analyse whatever it is that I'm doing/seeing. You don't get do-overs in life (something else that really bothers me). I want to make sure I always make the right decision so I don't regret it later. But what is the "right decision"? A decision you make could be the wrong one that you'll see in hindsight. In that case, I tell myself it had to be the right decision at the time because there is a reason for everything.

Yes, that contradicts my thoughts that there is no point to life, but I haven't figured out a better way to accept the fact that we only have 1 life.

Sometimes I feel like I live mini lives (various theatres, various jobs, various schools, various cities, age 17-18, age 23-24, age 24-26...- each of these periods have been different enough to make it sort of feel like a different life). Maybe that's a good thing. It could be my compromise to the law that you can only live one life. This is such a jumbled entry. It's only a third of what's really going on in my head, but I don't have the time to really analyse everything. I am feeling better today though. Not 100% my usual self (for this particular mini life), but definitely better than yesterday. Yesterday really drained me.

And to try to make myself feel even more like my usual self, I'll write the plan for today: clean apartment, work on math, and start making notes for my film review (I decided just to do "Gigantic" since I saw it recently and don't want to take the time to see something else, especially since I couldn't find anything that I thought I could tolerate). I know I need to reply to some long overdue email, but I don't want to get overwhelmed by doing too much today, so I'll wait until I have some time on Wednesday for that (I've waited this long, what's a few more days?). I also am completely behind on my bills, but I'll do that tomorrow. Again, I'm already behind so what's 1 more day?

One little random thing: I have no idea how or where, but I lost my ATM card. I used it on Tuesday (I think), realised it was missing on Wednesday, and finally remembered to call to cancel it this morning.

So I want to try to record more that's real (the stuff that goes on in my head). I think I'll be more satisfied looking back on these entries if I include more of everything (except personal stuff about other people of course).

Another thing I want to mention is that I don't think I have unconscious actions anymore. Most people do at least some things unconsciously, but I don't think I do. I analyse everything I do so much that nothing slips past me. There may be times where I don't understand what I'm doing, but I always notice what I'm doing.

The reason I ended the conversation with Paula was because she told me about Bob Graham's compulsive journal entries. I started to search for information on that but didn't get very far. Then I realised that this was part of my obsession with knowing everything. That's when I got overwhelmed and told her I'd call back. [I still need to find information about Graham's journal.]

One more thing I remembered from yesterday: When involved with Paula and/or Harvey I am very perverse, especially when it comes to wanting to hang out with them. For example: Paula said she would stop by yesterday afternoon. I was looking forward to spending time with her, but when she got here, I didn't know what to do. I knew if she left I'd want her to come back, but I didn't know how to start a conversation. This was partially because my brain was going at warp speed, but partially because I almost always act this way this them. Another example: If they suggest going to dinner, I look forward to it. Then when the time comes to go to dinner, I don't want to go since I don't know how to be with them. If I don't go, I get upset that I don't go, and if I do go, it often takes me a while to get into the evening and until that time, I am in a lousy mood. I hate the fact that I do this, but I don't know how to change it.

Now I'll go call Paula back and start cleaning at the same time (and of course observe all the top left and bottom right corners of anything that comes into my field of vision).

Oh, but one more thing (I'm actually on the phone and told Paula to hold for a minute- poor Paula). I've always known that I'm obsessive-compulsive, but it's never interfered with my life so I've never done anything about it. I'm sure there's a medication I could take, but knowing my teflon-coated receptors, it wouldn't work. Besides, medication is artificial. I like seeing how my brain works and don't want the medication to interfere with the true me.

But us humans are just one big chemical and even I don't take prescription medication, everthing I do/eat/see changes a bit of who I am. So why am I so against prescribed medications?

Now I'm watching "Company Man". It's a lot funnier than I thought it would be.

My tooth was growing again last night. This is beginning to get annoying.

6 days till "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix". It snuck up on me. I wanted to read "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" again before I read the 5th book. Maybe I'll get it from the library tomorrow and try to find time to read it before the 21st. Yeah, I can read it Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Glad I remembered.

Since I lost my ATM card, I need to go to the bank to make a withdrawl today. Just one more thing that will take more time out of my already busy day.

Speaking of my busy day, I shouldn't spend anymore time on this entry. Time to deal with all the mail that's been piling up for far too long.

When I checked the weather report earlier yesterday, it sounded like it would be pleasant. When I left yesterday afternoon, it was chilly. When I left my film class at 9:30, it was cold! When Diana saw that I was wearing a t-shirt and sandals, she said, "You must be under the impression that it's summer". And it's chilly again this morning. Why isn't warm, sunny, summer weather an option anymore? Paula mentioned the other day that it's almost June 21, the longest day of the year, and it won't matter. It's so cloudy and gloomy that what difference does it make that technically the sun sets later on the 21st than any other day of the year? Poor Paula. It's her favourite day and it will probably be dark and gloomy. Maybe the weather will be nice to her and it will be a bright and sunny day. I hope so; she deserves it. And Harvey should have a nice sunny day for his birthday as well.

Yesterday was a frustrating day. I had nothing to eat in my apartment and no cash in my wallet. I was going to order delivery, pay with a credit card, and then go to the bank to make a deposit and get some money. Well, I had 3 different problems with the restaurant from which I ordered, and on the 3rd problem, I told them to forget about it. The first problem was that they were running late. The place was close by, it wasn't raining, I didn't order anything complicated, and it should have taken less time than 45 minutes to get here. So 45 minutes after I ordered, I called them. The guy said that he had called to tell me they didn't have part of what I ordered. He must have been lying or called the wrong number since I never got the call (and I checked the caller ID in case for some strange reason, I didn't hear the phone ring). So I added something to my order in place of what they were out of. Then he called back to tell me they raised the mimimum amount for delivery, so I ordered something else I didn't really want just so I could eat something already. Then he called back to tell me there was a problem with my credit card (I had plenty of credit and obviously the problem was on his end). That's when I told him to just forget about it.

By the time that was all finished with, the bank was closed and I couldn't get any money. So I just went up to the Italian restaurant near Hunter since it's usually not crowded and I could try to work on the math material on their TINY tables. I figured that was better than nothing. Well, they were closed when I got there. Figures. So I went to Oren's and got an iced tea and a cookie (that was the most substantial food they had) and the nice guy let me charge it. Then I had to sit on the floor near the math room and eat and study there since there were no available tables. I can't believe how few places there are to sit at Hunter. There are the couch-like chairs in the West Building, but you can't spread out and do your work on them. Then there is the cafeteria, but they lock that room in the summer. Then there's the library, but you can't bring food in there. Then there are a few tables in the lobby of the West Building, but they were, not surprisingly, all taken.

Plus during all this time, my teeth were still bothering me (and still are bothering me today- I wish it would finish growing already so they're not so sensative and I must have been sleeping hard on my left side since they especially hurting when I woke up).

By the time of the math test, I was tired and a bit woozy. I realised there were 2 little things I forgot to pay attention to while studying, so that partly screwed me up. There were only 10 questions but most of them had 4-5 parts to them. If you don't know how to do the first part of one, then you will almost definitely get the rest of the parts wrong. That happened to me on one of them. There was also a question that I didn't recognise but figured out how to do the first 2 parts of it. The problem? I couldn't figure out how to do the last 2 parts. So I'm pretty sure I got between a 65-75%. That pisses me off- that I knew 90% of the material but because of the bad test format and my tiredness and the fact that I forgot to look at the 2 minor things (it was whether you multiply or add for a certain type of question), I will get a bad grade. I guess it's especially bothersome since I did so well on the first test that I wanted to continue doing well like that. Diana had a good point. We were basing our outcome of this test on our stroke of good luck grades on the first test. Neither of us have ever done well in math. Our results on this last test will be representative of our abilities; we just had forgotten about our true abilities after doing well on the first test. So we shouldn't feel bad. But I still kind of do.

Our film instructor kindly pushed the deadline of our papers to Monday. It made sense. Why should we have a paper due the same day of the midterm if we can easily have another weekend to work on the paper and turn it in 1 class later? Fortunately, I guess he's a somewhat rational guy (which means he won't be teaching at Hunter for long), which makes me very happy.

We started watching "Citizen Kane" last night. I am happy that I'm finally forced to see the movie I've been trying to see most of my life (I even have it on tape, but it's become a running inside joke with myself that I'd probably never watch it at home by my own choice) but slightly irritated that I have to watch it in 2 parts (we'll finish it tonight). I'm also glad he told us what to watch for in terms of stylistic techniques since it was fascinating to see and I never would have noticed the techniques (lighting, shadows, transitions...) on my own.

I decided that rather than pressure myself to read "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" again before Saturday, I would ask Rebecca (Brian's fiancee) to remind me of the details. She emailed a few details this morning (she's great about answering email quickly), and I'll check for more of a synopsis online sometime this week.

Today I'm going to start reading the film book so I can be more prepared for the midterm on Thursday (even though it's an open book exam- I just want to look at the material to see if there's anything that needs clarification). And since I've been meaning to get a few things in the Village, I'll go down there and find a fun place to read (probably the Peanut Butter Company- comfort food sounds perfect right now). And then this weekend I'm planning on shopping at either Grace's or Eli's and getting healthy food since I've really been eating a lot of crap (not by choice) recently.

And sometime in the very near future (maybe this weekend in between the other 50 things I need to do), I need to start looking for information on extremely rural towns in the US so I can know where to go on my road trip next month.

Speaking of my road trip, it's going to be really difficult to keep this journal updated then. Once in a while (but not often at all), I have the idea of stopping this journal altogether. But I really don't want to do that. I wish I could compromise and only update when I really have the time, but then I'll feel like I'm missing so much. For some reason, with this journal I'm an all-or-nothing gal. So while I'm on the road, I'll try to keep my entries short and try to find a place to update at least once a week so I don't get overwhelmed.

Oh, and yesterday when I dealt with my mail, I saw that I wasn't nearly as far behind on my bills as I thought I was (unless I still have a pile somewhere with the past-due bills, but I really don't think that's the case). So at least something was positive about yesterday.

Another chilly, gloomy day in the city. Although, sometimes I think it's just midtown/uptown that has this weather. Yesterday I left my apartment and it was cloudy and cool. When I got down to the Village, it was sunny and gorgeous. Then when I went up to Hunter, it was chilly and gloomy again. Fortunately, it's not pouring today, so I'll leave early this afternoon to run a few errands before heading up to school.

The math instructor is nice. She only takes off the points from the first part of the question and then 1 point off from each of the other parts (instead of all 4 points). I also got lucky and guessed right on 2 parts of another question that I thought I completely messed up on 3 out of the 5 parts (I only messed up on 2 parts and she took 1 point off each part). So I wound up with an 88! And I understood what we did today, so I'm off to a good start for test #3. I could get 65% on the next 3 tests and still come out with a solid C (almost C+). I almost want to put 110% (which we just learned today is an impossible percentage- obviously) into the next 4 weeks and come out with a B, but if I'm completely lost on the material that we do in the last 2 weeks of the session, I'll try not to beat myself up. I didn't know it was possible, but it's actually difficult, emotionally, to be doing well in this class. If there's actually a chance to get a B for the class and I screw up on enough things to bring my grade down to a C, I'd be upset. Crazy. A few weeks ago if someone told me I could get a C in math, I'd be beyond excited.

Yesterday I bought some incense and a burner. I haven't burned incense since '98 (and I barely burned it at all between '96-'98), so I'm hoping it will bring back some memories from my teens/20s (when I burned incense regularly). I'm still sort of interested in recapturing thoughts/feelings from then to see what's different, what's the same, and anything else that might be of interest. I think my goal is to remember how to be the positive things from then and add it to the positive things of now, but I'm not sure how that will work or if it's even what I really want to do. I'm just in the experimental stage of my life right now and I don't trust anyone else's experiments/thoughts on the subject except my own.

I'm realising more and more that I don't really like people, although I like myself (most of the time) and a very select few of other people and some aspects of some others. In my late-teens/early-20s, I seemed to like most people. I think the main difference is that when I was younger, I didn't care much about people's thoughts or understandings or common sense; I only cared about their interests and/or personalities. In a perfect world, I'd be able to find people whose interests, personalities, and thoughts were all great, but we don't live in a perfect world. And, unless I become a hermit, it might be easier for me to recapture my opinions of people from when I was younger (or at least partially try to do that) so I'll have an easier time dealing with the outside world. Sometimes I can see myself easily isolating myself from the world and I really don't want to be that kind of person at this point in my life. If my life continues socially the way it is and has been for 99% of my life, perhaps my brain will devise a coping mechanism for not being able to have positive relationships with people, and I'll convince myself why it's so great to live alone and not have to depend on or deal with anyone. Perhaps I sort of do that now on a low level, and that's why I catch myself enjoying my solitude once in a while.

Actually, I just thought of this while I'm typing (typing really does help me understand things), and I think it makes a lot of sense. Since I've actually been enjoying solitude (or at least desiring solitude even if I don't wind up enjoying it) more and more recently. I've always been pretty disappointed in people, but recently it seems I find more and more fault with more and more people. And some of it might be my high standards, but it's also a fact that people are less caring about the way they deal with people in their community. Communities aren't really around anymore since it's so easy to move about the globe, so why should the woman ringing you up at Duane Reade care about how she treats a customer? She's probably not going to see them again. But it works both ways. People usually don't even say hello before shoving their items on the counter and impatiently wait for the slow cashier to ring them up. But that only explains the acts of strangers. I haven't figured out why acquaintances and/or friends have been more and more disappointing (other than the fact that I expect more of them than I expect of strangers).

We finished watching "Citizen Kane" last night. I really didn't like breaking this one up into 2 parts. I want to find some time to watch it again at home, but knowing my track record with this film, that may take a while.

Making a deposit/withdrawl at the bank yesterday was extremely difficult. This is part of why I get so irritated with people. First, I had to wait in line for 20 minutes because there were only 3 tellers and they were very slow. Then the woman who "helped" me had no idea what she was doing. I understand ATMs have made tellers practically unnecessary, but they should at least be trained on all transactions just in case someone actually doesn't have an ATM card and has to do things the old-fashioned way. She started the process and then folded her arms signaling her giving up. When the teller next to her finished with his customer, she shoved my checks at him and yelled at him to deal with it. He did the part she was confused about and then handed it back to her. Then she started typing information on some of the checks into her computer. She handed me a check and asked me to sign it again. I did and she told me it wasn't right. I told her I didn't understand, and she said that I had to sign it the way I did when I opened my account. I tried to sign it again and she said it still wasn't right. I told her it was the way I sign my checks but perhaps it wasn't 100% because no 2 signatures are 100% identical. I signed it one more time and she said that last time was right. Then she began typing more numbers for a few minutes. I asked her if there was a problem and she looked at me like I was crazy and said, "I'm working on cashing your checks," and then went back to typing all kinds of things. Then she folded her arms again and waited for the guy next to her to finish with his 3rd customer. She shoved my checks at him again, and in literally 5 seconds, he was finished. Then she took a good 3 minutes counting out my money before handing it to me with the receipt. The entire process took almost an hour. I plan on complaining to the bank but probably won't take the time to do that until Friday when I have more time.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I talked to Marcell the other night and learned that she has shingles. Poor thing- she's really had a tough year.

As for my own aches and pains, my teeth are still bothering me. I was in a lot of pain last night but woke up pain free. Then around noon, they started hurting again, so I took some Advil. The Advil actually seemed to have worked this time (about 85% anyway, and it took almost 2 hours to kick in so part of me thinks the dulling of the pain has nothing to do with the medication), so I'm happy. I took some yesterday afternoon but it didn't seem to do anything at all. I'm hoping that once the tooth finishes pushing through, it won't hurt anymore. But part of me is scared that the pain has nothing to do with the tooth growing in. A tiny part of me thinks I should find a denist but a huge part of me says "no way, not yet... maybe next year".

Yesterday on the bus I saw a Peanut Board ad that said, "How many things can improve the taste of beer and chocolate?" I thought that was a good point. And it was coincidentally appropriate to see the ad on the way to the Peanut Butter Company for lunch.

And one quick thing in tooth-related news: right now it doesn't hurt but is just kind of annoying- the kind of annoyance you feel when a tooth is coming in.

Happy birthday Sylvia!

I'm getting terrible about answering email and dealing with things in general. If I don't deal with it as soon as I get it, I wait far longer than I should to get around to dealing with it. I really need to get better at this before it REALLY gets bad.

In fact, I just realised something. I'm slacking more on the enjoyable parts of life (burning CDs, planning the road trip, watching movies) and not slacking too much on the not so enjoyable parts of life (school, errands, cleaning). What's wrong with me?

Speaking of not slacking in the school department, I've attended almost 3 entire weeks (it will be 3 weeks after tomorrow evening) of classes without having a real problem of getting myself to go. I can't believe it. It's not as if I'm enjoying these classes more than I have any others. Maybe it's having someone I actually like in both of the classes with me. It's great walking into math class knowing Diana is there (or will be there shortly- she and I are always a little early). And maybe it's because they're evening classes. Except for a few early days, I like the schedule on which I am currently on (stay up late, get a nice amount of sleep, get a lot done during the day, and have evening classes). Plus, the students are harder working and more serious at night. Even though Hunter has the largest amount of older students than any other traditional 4 year college I know, most of those students still attend classes in the evening (I still feel fortunate though that since theatre classes are all during the day, there are a few adults taking classes during the day). But back to the not having any problems getting myself to leave the aparment and head up to school, I just remembered that I didn't have any problems getting myself to summer classes at Scottsdale. Maybe summer classes are just easier to deal with and last year was a fluke. But I think I was the same way with some of the other semesters at Scottsdale, so maybe it's when there are people I enjoy talking to in the classes with me that it's easier to get myself there. In any case, after tomorrow evening the summer session will be halfway over (which I also can't believe), and I'm doing a-ok (even though I haven't started my review of "Gigantic" and for the first time in this summer session, I'm pretty confused about the math material).

I really think there is something to my theory about enjoying the reclusive life. Every time I'm in the outside world and have to deal with customer service, something goes wrong. And just dealing with ridiculous people in the outside world is really unpleasant. Then, 85% of the time I'm home alone, I'm happy, or at least content. These repeated events are causing behaviour modifications. My brain is saying, "going out in the world causes problems which results in a bad mood while staying at home results in contentment; therefore, you should stay home more". Can someone please remove whatever is giving me the shock I get on the pathway that leads outside? I am not a rat in this maze of life, and shocking people in this country is deemed inhumane.

So what got to me yesterday when I ventured into the outside world? First I went to Staples to get some J-cards for my CDs since the big packs of CD-Rs don't come with them. The only J-cards they had were the ones that you print on and then fold on the dotted lines. I only wanted the simple, lined front card on which I can write. They didn't have those. Does anyone have those or do they only come with the single and small multi-pack CD-Rs? And it bothered me that I had to spend 10 minutes searching the store since no one who worked there knew what I was talking about. Also, it was not a pleasant store to search. Rather than have products on the shelves, they had huge piles of stuff on the floors in the already-to-narrow aisles. What a mess.

Then I went to CVS to drop off some film and pick up a few things. I dropped off my film with no problem but was unable to get anything that I needed. They were out of everything. I walked up and down the aisles looking at all the half-empty shelves. I think this store started with a finite amount of stuff and they don't want to order more of most of the products. And of course this is New York, so the stores are small with a small selection to begin with. CVS is the biggest though AND they're open on the weekend, so I had hopes for this store when they opened. I didn't know they weren't going to replenish their supply of most things. They did have toothpaste though, so I got some of that plus a few other things I didn't really need just to make the trip seem worth it. There were 2 lines, and I got in the longer line since I knew the cashier in the shorter line from previous trips and knew he was the slowest, most incompetent person there. In the longer line, there were 11 people ahead of me. I waited for 10 minutes and there were still 5 people ahead of me. I couldn't afford to wait another 10 minutes (I was already late since I spent so much time searching the 2 stores), so I just put my basket down and left. And the incompetent cashier? He was still having problems with the person who was in line when I got in the long line 10 minutes earlier. They really need to let him go.

So I got to Hunter late and barely finished the math homework and got to class on time (but fortunately I did finish and still got to class before the instructor).

Today I'm going to leave much earlier than normal and find somewhere comfortable to do my math homework and study for the film test.

And in other noise-related news: there have been emergency vehicles trying to get through traffic the ENTIRE day. Yesterday's relative quiet was an extremely rare experience (one I very much appreciated).

Still haven't found anywhere interesting to go to school stuff. Everything's too far out of the way.

Yesterday, I wound up going to Fauchon to study- overpriced but useful once in a blue moon when all else fails.

The film test last night was ridiculous. I don't think he had ever given a test before. He had 3 pages of multiple choice and true/false and then 8 short essays. He said it should take an hour, but almost the entire class was still there when class was over (it's an hour and 40 minute class). I was finished but didn't have time to read over my essays and all of the essays were poorly thought out rush-jobs because I knew that if I took any longer on each one, I wouldn't finish. When class was over, he said he would take the tests and give them back to us on Monday to finish up. I would have to rewrite all of them since I didn't leave any room in between my lines to add anything extra. I don't think they're horrible though, so maybe I'll leave them as is. Or maybe I'll ask him what he thinks I should do.

Last night when I was leaving school, I was absolutely exhausted (mentally, physically, and emotionally- mainly from film test but also from all of the irritations of the day), so I took the train home and waited for what felt like longer than waiting for a Sunday bus in Boston (New York is losing more and more of its conveniences). I still managed to stay up past 4:00 AM though- first I was productive ( because I couldn't stand the idea of saving EVERYTHING for this weekend even though I was exhausted), then I had to unwind (because I couldn't stand the idea of not having my I-can-completely-relax-without-feeling-guilty-because-I-don't-have-anything-that-has-to-be-done-by-tomorrow night), and then I had to try to fall asleep (which always takes, at the least, 30 minutes).

You know what bothers me more than most chains stores/restaurants? Independent businesses all obtaining their goods from the same crappy supplier.

One of the reasons that I enjoy the math class is because we're all on the same level and we're all in it together (asking the same kinds of questions, joking around...). Also, doing well and understanding much of the concepts encourages me to continue trying to understand as much as I can and do well. I'll be embarrassed if I get below a B on Monday's test.

I've been home the entire month of May and almost all of June. Quite a change from the last 3+ years- I've been out of town for at least 2 days every month for the past 3+ years.

I think I put my finger on what I don't like about Disney movies (well, I guess Disney in general- not just movies). The characters are completely simplistic. They are either all bad or all good; nothing ambiguous, none of the complexities that make us human. That's why the movies (or theatrical productions or TV shows) seem so fake. I especially don't like their remakes of movies. You get used to a realistic movie with complex characters and then Disney gives you the simplistic, watered down version.

I've been pretty productive today so far, but I have a long way to go before I reach today's goals.

And now back to being productive.

Happy birthday Harvey!

About the last article above: I love the bit about the tunnel vs. GW Bridge (why don't any of the sites want you to take the bridge? I once did the same thing the article mentioned- enter an address right near the GW Bridge to see if they would choose that route over the tunnel- nope, they didn't). And I can't believe some of the maps give you directions but fail to leave out that you are, at that point, crossing the border into Canada. Um, I think that's an important point.

I answered all email yesterday!! I feel so much better and hope I manage to never get that behind again (although that will be difficult on my road trip, but I'll try my best).

I made memory CDs (CDs with songs that bring back memories) last night and put the songs in chronological order of when the memories were from. Anal? I don't care. It was fun making them and it will be fun listening to them.

Had an occular migraine last night which, for the first time, led to a normal headache. I also just had a bad eye day in general- just not being able to see too well (this happens way too often). Today I decided to try out my contacts again. They were fine for 6+ hours, but I decided I would take them out after that since it was the first time wearing them in a while. I got the left one out with no problem, but the right one took a while since it was REALLY dry. How can my eyes be so dry with the current weather conditions (rain and humidity)? Now my glasses are back on, and I'm trying to readjust to them.

It's amazing how many emergency vehicles go by my apartment every day. I'd say it's an average of 30-40 go by every day. I think that's a lot of people having an emergency in such a small area, but maybe that's normal.

I had The Beatles' "Dear Prudence" in my head most of last night.

This weather. There's nothing else to say about it other than, to me, it's become laughable. If we were living in the middle ages, we'd think that our evil ways are causing God to punish us by brewing up some terrible weather. But don't worry everyone, I will soon be heading west, bringing the much needed rain to them and letting the East Coast people have their summer.

My copy of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" arrived this evening! I'm planning on reading it the week after summer classes are over. Can't wait!

My phone rang more today than it has all year (that's barely an exaggeration). One of the people who called though, called 3 times. That would have been Rebecca. She kept having little questions about things to include in the package she's sending me. She's so thoughtful.

Neil brought up the Vietnam trip thing which reminded me that I still need to look into the snake thing (either get over the fear or prove to myself that there won't be any around to bother me and if there is, other people will be around to help). I really want to do the overnight boat trip over there.

Got an email today that a new remix of Tammany Hall's "Always on Sunday" will be used once again by HBO. I'm cautiously looking forward to hearing it (I'm liking HBO less and less these days, so I can picture them ruining what they do with the song). I am planning on watching some of this season's Sex and the City (just because I'm usually home on Sunday nights and it's something mindless to do for 30 minutes and maybe I'll see some interesting aspects of my city), so maybe I'll hear the new version of "Always on Sunday" soon.

So today was very productive. I took care of all my email (even the difficult stuff which I usually save for a few days after I deal with the easy mail and sometimes forget about it which can sometimes be a bad thing), wrote my review of "Gigantic" (and it turned out rather well, I must say), burned a few CDs, and took care of a few odds and ends.

Now I'm planning on having a relaxing evening.

Gloomy, rainy, 'nuff said.

Paula and Harvey left for London today. I'm jealous.

Oh weird, I just thought I smelled rosin (no idea where the smell came from but it left as quickly as it came), which reminded me of Sudbrook. I can picture the wood floor (on which they later put down grey Marley), the barely-working water fountain in the lower-right corner, the closet in the lower-left corner... I wonder if they still use that room as a dance studio. Maybe when I'm in Baltimore in August it will be open and I can go check it out.

I've started planning some things for my road trip, which is great, but I think I looked at maps a little too long. As I was looking at the West Virginia map, I thought I saw a town called Urinetown (it was actually Uniontown, PA- on the border of West Virginia).

The best part I learend so far is that I can go in and out of Blacksburg without going on I-81 AND without going out of my way. I'm going to be coming in from Kentucky and going out towards West Virginia, so I don't have to drive alone on the part of I-81 where I had my accident.

I'm getting excited for my trip!

I did some studying this morning/afternoon. I'll be okay with the first 2 chapters, but I'm having trouble with the 3rd one. We usually do practice problems in class before going home and doing the homework, but on Thursday we didn't have time to do any practice problems. We just semi-learned the material and then reviewed the other 2 chapters for the test. The book is completely useless in explaining, so I don't understand the second half of the chapter (the part we didn't even talk about in class). I'm hoping that since we didn't go over it in class, it won't be on the exam, but some of that chapter has to be on the exam and I don't have a strong grasp on any of it. I'll look at it again tomorrow and get there early to see if anyone is around to help me on the ones that completely baffle me.

Rebecca's father is coming up to New York tomorrow and wants to get together, but I don't think I can make the time. This coming week is getting more and more busy. Reality about my road trip has sunk in (I guess since I actually started organising some of it), and I realised how much I have to do before I leave. I can handle it. I've been very good at being productive these past few days. I'm making to-do lists and actually crossing things off as I finish them. Don't know what changed, but I like it.

New season of Sex and the City starts tonight.

But I do like the looks of this seasons's SATC (or at least it had some funny moments in between all the not-so-cutting-edge/more-mainstream/we-really-live-in-a-feminized-society stuff).

Something woke me up at 5:45 AM (I had just gone to bed a few hours before). It was this bright light shining through my blinds. I looked again closely and saw it was the SUN! I went back to sleep since I wasn't ready to get up yet, and when I woke up again, the sky was back to its usual cloudy self. I was sure the sun shining was a dream. But now at noon, it's partly sunny and WARM!!! I can't believe it! I can't wait to go run errands in an hour or two!

Wow- people have been recently buying things through me from Amazon. Thanks- every penny adds up (I think this quarter I'm up to $3.00- not much but it's basically something for nothing).

I'm still not really comfortable with the math material. It's a lot of stuff, and I'm not sure I'll be able to figure out which formula to use when. I'll look over it for another hour before the test, and that will have to be good enough. I'm back to being okay with getting a C.

Kim emailed me this morning. She's doing a day trip up here with a friend on Thursday, so we're going to get together for lunch. Looking forward to that! I love these little get togethers with Kim and wish we were able to do it more often. Hopefully she'll be in town when I'm in Baltimore in August.

In case it's not obvious, I'm in a good mood today. Must be this unusual weather.

Wow, and more people buying things through me from Amazon. I wonder if it's a mistake. Who are all these people suddenly buying things? I'm up to $8.00 & change now for this quarter.

And it's another sunny, warm day. I could really get used to this!

Got my last 2 rolls of pictures back yesterday. Most of them are not too great.

I didn't get much sleep last night (technically, this morning). I fell asleep around 5:30 this morning and planned on getting up around noon since I got a lot done last night and didn't leave much for today. But at 10:00, I woke up and was wide awake, so I just got out of bed. I wonder if the weather is helping me get back to my not needing too much sleep. That would be wonderful as there is so much more you can get done when you don't need to sleep for long periods of time. I love getting 4-6 hours and feeling great all day. I hope I didn't lose that ability completely. I blamed the weather when I first started needing more sleep, and maybe I was right. Sure hope so.

The math test was ridiculous, and I might have done better on the unfamiliar problems than some of the familiar. I'm always torn between leaving an answer blank and definitely getting it wrong or making up an answer that's probably wrong and will be embarrassing to show the instructor (I always put some kind of answer and deal with their opinion- they probably get a lot of crazy stuff). We all have different ways of being creative with our answers. Some people put 2 different answers, hoping one of them will be right. Some of us write messily so it could possibly look like the correct answer. Well, guess I'll find out this evening how I did.

I'm liking the film instructor less and less. He has no idea how to teach; he keeps changing the syllabus and I already wrote about his absurd test. But now I realise that I really don't like his taste. On the few good movies, he didn't seem to get what I did out of them, and now he keeps showing similar movies (death, gloom, bad guys/good guys...). Last night we started watching "Thin Blue Line". This is getting tiresome.

IM-ing Josh right now. He's so fun to chat with, and I can't wait to spend some time with him hiking through the canyons and climbing the red rocks of Utah, exploring the caves of Arizona, and doing other stuff as well.

This is it folks! A real summer! For the third day in a row, it's warm and sunny! So happy!

And in other good news, I've had an easily productive day so far. Can't remember the last time I had to call serveral companies, deal with customer service, and received quick and easy answers (I know it was over 5 years ago). Today I called Avis to see how to change my rental to unlimited miles, and the guy answered the phone and helped me in less than 2 minutes. Then I called RCN because I was trying to sign up for online billing (something I was excited to see because of my upcoming road trip and it's one less snail-mail bill I'd have to deal with but am also happy to use it from now on since it's just so much more convenient). After a little bit of the run-around from automated voice prompts, I got to a human, and he was able to help me also in less than 2 minutes. They really do have a silly way to sign up though, which should be simplified so less people will have to call for help. Then I called Hunter to see how to pay my fall bill early since I'll be away until after the due date (they only send them about a week before they're due and expect everyone to be around to get and pay it- I've had this problem almost every semester). It was a little tough to find their phone number, but I eventually came across a webpage with a phone number on it (they must have forgotten to delete the number on that page as none of the other more likely pages had the number). Anyway, I called once, and the line was busy. I called again later and got a person right away (she must have been picking up the phone to make a call and her bad luck got me on the line instead). She quickly told me where I could get the bill early, and I was off the phone in less than a minute. I really thought these issues would take much longer. These days, it normally takes an average of 30 minutes per company; today, it took less than 30 minutes for all of them! Was this a glitch in the matrix (having customer service actually be helpful)? Whatever the reason, it really put me in a good mood. But don't worry companies, I won't get used to it.

Last night the math instructor walked into the room, looked at us for a few minutes without saying anything, and then asked us what was going on. One woman spoke up about what was difficult for her, and then a huge discussion started. The instructor wound up telling us that she was happy to receive the criticism as she eventually plans on opening a school and would like to know what works and what doesn't work for students. She told us a long story about her goals (business school, law school, opening a school- this is after her masters in economics). She explained that she could be working for a company making zillions of dollars (her words, not mine), but instead she is teaching for next to nothing so she can understand students which will help her in knowing how to plan her school. Every little story she tells us ends with the fact that she's really brilliant and knows how to do things most people can't. It gets old. But I am happy that she at least thinks she's trying to be a good instructor, and she really isn't horrible- I've had much worse. She hadn't finished grading the tests, but she said that we didn't do so well as a whole. She said that this 3rd test is always the one people mess up. Well, if that's the case, she should look into why that is. I wanted to tell her that some of the questions were worded in ways we've never seen before and also each question was worth too many points, but I didn't bother since the discussion was going on way too long and I wanted to have enough time to learn that day's material. She said we could write down our criticisms and give them to her today, so maybe I'll do that later. She also volunteered to meet with us on the weekends since the class time isn't enough to really understand the material. That was REALLY nice! That's the way it should be in a perfect world. Hm, helpful instructors AND helpful customer service? I know this is a coincidence, but I can't help but wish this is the beginning of a positive change in our society (I think that's the only idealistic comment I've ever thought in my life). So we'll be meeting on Saturday mornings. Wish she would have done last week, but I'm quite happy she's doing this at all. I wonder how many of the 10 people who said they would come will actually show up. We actually did a problem like that in class (as we're continuing probability stuff and it was relevant), and when making up the numbers to see how to solve the problem, she suggested it would be 80%. I think that's a bit optomistic. I think 6 is more likely. I'll try to remember to mention the number in Saturday's entry.

Last night was the night for instructors-giving-us-a-lot-of-personal-information night. The math instructor told us about her plans for a school, why she got overlooked for a job in economics (it was related to a probability problem we were working on), and a few other arrogant comments. And the film instructor wound up telling us a story about getting his car towed by the marshal and went into a lot of details (the place he went to pay for it, how much money it was, how he also had to pay the garage for storing it...). It was a very relaxed evening. He also told us he would drop the other paper we were supposed to write for the class. More evidence he has never taught a class like this before. There's no way he can read 40 movie reviews, 320 short essays (40 students, 8 essays each), however many essays he'll put on the final * 40, AND 40 3-4 page papers before the end of the semester. We'll be lucky if we get our reviews and tests back before the last day of the semester. Right, so it was a strange coincidence that both instructors used yesterday as a day to divulge personal information.

I'm almost all ready for my road trip. All I have to do is get a few odds and ends (film, batteries...), do some clothes shopping, check a few mileage calculations, finish burning CDs, make sure I have everyone's contact information, and pack. I'm really starting to look forward to this trip!

Last night I used my Amazon gift certificates (which totaled over $80) to get some music ("American Graffiti Soundtrack" , "The Beat Generation", "Magical Mystery Tour", and "Pentimento") and reading material ("My World-and Welcome to It" and "All in the Timing: Fourteen Plays") for my trip. That was fun!

For the second time in my life (the first time was for 2 weeks in high school, which I only remember since I recently found a notebook with the information), I'm making to-do lists and actually keeping to the schedule (with putting off things a few times but nothing too drastic). It's so much fun deleting the completed things! I'm not even putting superfluous information to be able to delete and make myself feel better. And with today's positive customer service experiences (I really still can't believe that 3 out of 3 phone calls went well- it's above normal odds and certainly above the expected odds- this math class is really driving me crazy sometimes, looking at the probability of EVERYTHING), I'm ahead of schedule. So I'll burn a CD or 2 before I head up to school. I'd get ahead on my to-do list, but everything on the list will require more time than I have and they're things that I can easily get done tonight.

Yesterday afternoon was not as nice as yesterday morning- nothing awful, just irritating things that brought me back to the real world. First I tried to get some pretzels from a vending machine at Hunter (I actually tried twice), and neither time would the pretzels come out (and of course there isn't anyone around to help). Then I was having real problems with the math homework, so I decided that since I was there early, I would go to the math lab to try to talk to a tutor (even though I've had terrible experiences with those tutors). I just wanted to try one more thing to understand the material before class since we move pretty quickly and if I didn't understand one part, I probably would have trouble with the next part. I got there, and they didn't have any tutors for Math 100. They only have Math 100 tutors from 10-2. Why bother?!? Then I went to Duane Reade because I still sort of wanted some pretzels or something similar. The line had 15 people in it and only one person working (and the people working there are super slow and have major attitudes). It's always like that at that particular location. I guess because there's no where else to go nearby. So I just went back to Hunter and waited for class. The one good thing of the afternoon is that, after a little bit of effort, I paid my bill for the fall semester so there should be no class of them kicking me out of the classes for which I signed up (knock on wood).

Now for some good news: Thanks to the kind grading practices of the math instructor, I got an 87% on my last test. And since she decided to drop the lowest of 5 plus made the final optional (she's really nice to us), if I do well on the next test, there's a chance I won't have to even bother with the last test (I'll ask her what she wants me to do since she's been so nice already, I don't want to take advantage of her anymore than we already are).

In film, we watched most of "Crumb". I saw it in the theatre when I was out in Oregon in '95 but didn't remember much of the details. I remembered being bored through most of it, but I forgot about just how much of the documentary is about sex. I still find that it could have been a 30 minute documentary instead of 2 hours, but I did appreciate more than I did the first time I saw it. I liked some of his comments on the way he saw the modern world (advertising, non-thinking people...). But that was it. I still don't like this instructor's taste in movies.

The lightbulb went on in my head last night when I was looking at a map of New Mexico at the border of Texas. The town is called Texico. And I said, "Oh, that's where the gas company's name came from. Brilliant." Then I learned that on the Oklahoma border with Texas, there's a town called Texola. And Surprise, AZ is not on the Arizona map- guess they really want it to be a surprise.

I finished calculating miles last night and it is possible to go on my prefered route and do almost everything I want (and need) to do. I'm excited! Although it's a little scary being this excited. Now I'm scared something will go wrong. But I'll try not to worry about anything until there's something to worry about.

Something major was going on last night near my building. Tons of emergency vehicles were heading up 3rd for a good 10 minutes. Cars kept making U-turns. It was actually getting scary.

And it was an emergency vehicle that woke me up this morning (although I didn't really mind since my alarm was going to go off a few minutes later).

I was so tired last night, that I didn't finish yesterday's to-do list. It was actually got that I was tired, as I went to sleep much earlier than I have been and was able to wake up early to get stuff done before the supposed lunch with Kim. She hasn't called yet though. I really hope she doesn't flake out on me and instead calls when she gets into the city, but that still doesn't leave me much time to meet them down in Nolita after she does call. I was hoping she would have called last night. Well, if she flakes out, at least I'll have a full day to finish stuff on yesterday's to-do list and get a good start on today's list. Then I won't have as much to do tonight when I get home and can have more of a relaxing evening. But I'd rather meet Kim for lunch and run a few errands. I want to get some hair stuff at Ricky's even though none of their stores are conveniently located to where I'll be, and I just realised I'm almost out of eye drops, so I want to stop by a drug store and pick up some more.

Oh, and I picked up some black and white film yesterday for my trip, so that's one less thing to do.

So many people are complaining about the heat, but I don't understand. I think it's wonderful! Yes, it's hot, but it's not disgustingly humid, and after this winter and "spring", I am so happy to be walking around in short sleeves and sandals and squinting because of the sometimes bright (this is still Manhattan) sky.

But still no Kim. At this point, I'm ready to start being productive. I really hope she doesn't call at noon and expect me to be able to zip on down to Nolita to meet them. If she calls, I'd want to meet up, but I also wouldn't want to rush down, have a quick lunch, and rush back uptown. I'll give her another 15 minutes, and then I'll start doing something constructive. And if she calls, I'll just tell her that I don't think I can make it down quickly enough and I don't want to keep them waiting.

While I'm waiting, I'll mention what I have kept forgetting to mention for the past few weeks. I've been seeing Harry Potter Any Flavour Beans in delis recently. I kind of want to try them (even though I'm sure they're very normal and just a clever marketing gimic), but at $3.75 for a TINY package, I don't think I'll bother.

I just had a flashback of driving up Cambria Rd. (I think that's the name) in Christiansburg. If all goes according to plan, I can do that again soon! Have I mentioned how much I'm looking forward to my road trip? I'm still scared something will go wrong; I really need to stop thinking about that.

New York Magazine had a little blurb on a company that does good soundproofing for apartments without drastically changing the windows. The problem is that it costs $500 per window. I have 3 windows in a row in each room (although I would only bother soundproofing my bedroom), so that would be $1500! That's absolutely too much. So sad to read about exactly what I was looking for, only to find that it's way out of my price range. I didn't even know what my price range was, but I wouldn't even want to pay $500. Although, maybe $500 would be worth it if they had a money-back guarantee. But soundproofing only one window would be pointless.

So now I'll just a nice (hopefully) productive day. But before I start doing things that have a deadline, I'll spend a few minutes checking some soundproofing ideas again. Maybe I'll find something this time.

Went to sleep late and woke up late (slept about 7.5 hours), and I still have plenty of time to complete my to-do list for today (still keeping up with my lists except for the things that are beyond my control). I'm really happy with my life recently.

I never pictured wanting to attend my graduation, but after seeing the obnoxious pre-graduation chaos, I am positive I won't be going to mine. The group of students gathered in the lobby of the West building and the woman in charge was yelling orders that shouldn't have been addressed to anyone over 10 years old. Then she had them line up single file (no talking and eyes front, of course) and marched them out the door so they could get across the street to where the ceremony was being held. Of course this would be the situation at a Hunter graduation. This school is ridiculous. I hate that I'm giving them my money (and it will be even more money soon as tuition is going up shortly) but less ridiculous situations available at other schools would be even more money, and that's not worth it.

This year is really going at a normal speed for me (unlike the past several years). I'm noticing each month and each month feels about the right length. It's kind of comforting this way.

I didn't get to go to Ricky's yesterday. At 3:00, I waited for the bus. After 25 minutes, it still hadn't shown up, so I walked up to the subway. Waited 20 minutes for the train (and of course there were only a few milimeters between people in all the cars when the train finally showed up, but I pushed my way on), and by that time, it was too late to do anything other than my math homework and then get to class. I'll go after the math study session tomorrow. Also after the study session, I decided I would try some clothes shopping. Wish me luck.

This afternoon I had a AT&T experience. First, there was the wait time. After several voice prompts, they tell you that the hold time will be 10 minutes or longer. Guess they think discouraging people from calling for help with their problems is a good thing. Then when you finally get to talk to a human being (in India), they want to keep telling you what the problem was rather than why and what to do about it. I understood the problem the first time (in this cast, the problem was that my credit card couldn't be authorized because my card was "lost"); I'm telling you that it makes no sense, so how can I fix the problem? Eventually she transfered me to another department. This guy had no idea why it said that my card was lost, and when he tried the credit card authorization again, it worked right away. I guess I was part of that 1% error that's included in all of these automatic things.

And in other customer service news: I called the Avis location from where I'll be renting and asked if it was possible to make sure there was a mid-size car available since I really don't want to drive a Grand Marquis across the country. After an slightly obnoxious way of explaining it, I learned it was not possible. So there's a chance I would have to drive a boat across the country. I really hope that, since I'll be renting on a weekday rather than a weekend, there will be an Sunfire or something available.

I updated my photo pages last night. Updating them made me realise what a task it will be to update after my road trip. I won't think about that now.

I think I figured out what I like least about this math class. All of the material is about learning different methods to determine probabilities. We're learning about things we do naturally without really thinking about it. Unless you're in a science or math related field, estimating the probability of things is enough. We're being asked to take something we've easily estimated all our lives and to make it exact. Why bother? It's something most of us will never need to do. But I guess that's the case with most things involving math. They should have a math class where you learn easy tricks for currency convertion/temperature convertion/measurement convertion, how to determine stock market related things, a brief unit on percentages (so people can easily figure out sale prices) and how to measure the demensions of your home properly so you know how the furniture will look before purchasing everything. These things would make a difference in many people's lives. How does trigonometry help us in our daily lives?

My building is more active these days. I hear people in the hallway at all hours of the day and night. My neighbour again my living room wall has been loud again recently (music, drilling, banging- 24/7). The elevators are more crowded (there were 9 people waiting when I got out of the elevator yesterday). It would be nice if something positive came out of this rise in population. I know, it's too small a rise to make a difference, but it would sure be nice if the small increase in population of this area in general brought more conveniences to this neighbourhood. But actually, I don't mind some of the recent losses around here. For instance, one of the Subways closed. And it was the one that smelled awful every time I walked by it, so I'm really glad that one's gone.

About that last article: I missed this attraction by a year (I went across that part of I-80 in '99). I don't think I'd want to go this time though, even if I was going to be driving by it. I don't even think I want to go to Mason City's Music Man Square (I would put a link but their website has some problem that makes my computer freeze[which made me have to start this entry over and I had re-doing things], so I wouldn't want to direct anyone else there- but this site problem is adding to my not wanting to visit) like I was originally planning. Why do I want to be at a tourist attraction in the middle of the summer with all of the other irritating tourists? The point of this road trip is to get away from people like that. So even though I would love to see Meredith Wilson's hometown, learn more about him at the museum, and see a 1912 Iowan town square, I really think I'm better off going some other time (if that's ever possible), preferably in January or something.

People are more impatient late Friday nights than any other time during the week. Sure, people honk their horns constantly during all days and nights, but on Friday nights, they lean on their horns for entire light cycles. It's so obnoxious to try to fall asleep listening to that. I think it took me this long to realise that it's more of a problem on Friday nights because of all the travelling I do. I never remember which days are which, especially when I'm travelling for a few days of each month. But I've been home since the end of April, and I've begun to notice the pattern. Why have I known, practically since I moved in, that Sunday mornings are almost always quiet? Because it's easier to notice the pattern of 1 quiet moment per week than 1 super-noisy moment in a week with all but 1 moment of noise.

Well, the outcome of students showing up for the math study session was 10 out of 10 (although I'm pretty sure some of the people who said they would come did not while others who said they wouldn't come did wind up coming). So 100% of us were there, but 0% of the instructor. After all that effort to try to find a time to get there, she didn't show up. I'm hoping it wasn't an emergency that made her be a no-show, but if it was a matter of oversleeping or something, I'll be pissed. We should have gotten her phone number in case of something like this. the subway and was stuck, I guess we wouldn't have been able to reach her, but even then, in most cases, she probably wouldn't have answered the call. So we sat around for almost 2 hours trying to figure things out on our own. To me, it was completely unhelpful. Believe it or not, they all decided that since I was the smartest one there, I should teach them the material. I just had to laugh. Never in a million years did I think I would be the one in this class who knew the most. It's partially true though (I think there are 3 people in the class who know how to do this stuff better than myself). So I explained how to do a few of the problems, and then we left the instructor a note that we were there (taped it to the door where we were supposed to meet and hoped she'll find it) and left as confused as we came in. I guess I'll just memorise as much as I can (the same way I've been doing for all of the other chapters) and hope that's good enough to do reasonably well on this next test. I think I'll also get there a little early to ask her a few questions (after I ask what happened to her on Saturday).

I decided to postpone clothes shopping until Tuesday since going to Hunter, then to Duane Reade, and then to Ricky's was enough zig-zagging through the UES for one day. But I did get all I needed (except 1 minor thing) today, so that was nice.

I had fun reading an old notebook last night. I stopped at the part right before I moved to New York (in '93) since that's where my writing started to go downhill (although there are still a few interesting things between '93-'96 that I'll read later). I burned some incense (since that's what I used to do when writing at home in high school), got stoned, and recorded some thoughts into a tape recorder. Fun.

And this is why I DON'T like wearing glasses (as opposed to wearing contacts): I was walking across the room while I was burning incense last night, and I saw this white thing in front of me that I thought I was going to walk into and bang my leg or something. It was just the smoke from the incense burning several feet away. It really scared me. My vision and depth perception is really much worse with glasses. And this is why I need to get used to wearing contacts again (even if it's difficult to get them out at night) before my road trip. So I just put them in, and even though my vision is a little fuzzy getting used to this way of using my eyes again, it still feels much more clear than with the glasses.

Last night I had a flashback of being in Ocean City with Gail and Lisa. While that was the best trip I had to O.C., it still had problems (for instance, my almost drowning in the ocean). I think it's just a bad luck town for me (like Atlantic City- guess I should stay away from beach towns, which won't be a problem as I'm really not a beach person), and I hope I won't have to go back there.

There is an increasing number of motorcycles in my neighbourhood (specifically riding on my street late at night). They are SO LOUD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last night, I talked to Diana on the phone for an hour. I really enjoy talking with her (and it helps that she thinks I'm a neat person- finally someone who sees the truth). And then I talked to her for 2 hours this afternoon. She's so easy to talk to. I really hope we can continue talking to each other after these classes are over (which will be hard since I'll be gone for so many weeks right after classes are over).

Last night's dream: was with Neil, Maxine, and Abby at Matt & Sylvia's apartment, an auction was being held there, Allan Katz and Harvey were there, there were people all over the apartment, Sylvia put in new fixtures and shelves in the bathroom (I was in shock to see it looking different), I was supposed to either drive or take the train back to New York, Neil and Maxine wanted to give me a birthday present- it was my apartment decorated like their house, complete with ping-pong table (I didn't know they had a ping-pong table- I don't think they do in real life), then I was running errands for Harvey, then there was a performance part of the evening and I was going to sing for someone who was sick but Harvey didn't want me to so Lynn took the sheet music away from me (or something like that), so I drove to Timonium to keep running errands, and then it turned out I was on a city bus going to Timonium which soon turned into a public transportation van, we passed by a snowball stand and I was excited to see it, rather than want to stop and get one though, I just wanted to take a picture of it, then I realised my window was open and I should take pictures of all the scenery (woods, fancy houses...), the people behind me in the van were Scandinavian, we got to the shopping centre (the one with the Blockbuster across from the Fairgrounds- it's been in my dream before and it looks different in the dreams than in real life) and it looked much different than I remember from previous dreams (and didn't look like it does in real life either), then I might have been at the Hyatt downtown in their elevators but this part got fuzzy, then I was back at Mayy & Sylvia's and Allan Katz and Abby were still there, Neil wanted me to watch GH with him but I didn't think I had time, Abby turned into a 3 year old child of someone else (she looked very different) and we were watching her do gymnastics in the apartment which I thought looked dangerous (doing a handstand on the floor starting from her crib and then flipping over) but no one else seemed to think so, then Kim and some of her family came by, I think I woke up shortly after. I'm sure I have some of these details out of order, slightly different than they happened in the dream, and left out other parts of it. But all in all, it was an enjoyable dream and finally nice to remember this much of one. I've missed my dreams.

I feel confident with the math material (except for 1 or 2 things which I plan on getting there a little early and asking her about tomorrow).

Now I'll spend the rest of the evening working on my to-do list (still doing well with that- I'm so impressed with myself) and then I'll have some relaxing time, watching SATC and maybe finish reading the notebook I started last night.

I think I found Geoff from GSO. If it's the same guy (and it sounds like it is), he's in a band in Chicago. What are the chances he'll be playing a show while I'm there? I just sent an email to find out.

I read the rest of my '93 notebook last night, and I found out that clearly didn't have a problem with snakes that year; I was writing about them all the time.

One of the problems with SATC is that the pace is too fast to absorb the good parts, so you're just left with a general feeling of the episode.

A few guys driving on my street last night must have thought it was Friday. Lay off the horn, guys!

Part of last night's dream- I was in a large auditorium in a school. Then I was supposed to be performing in a show and Tom was directing (I think Jason might have been working on the show as well). I think the building where we were performing was Beth Tfiloh Synogogue in Baltimore (it was a super-vivid image in the dream- I recognised the bathrooms when I was running down a hallway when I think I was trying to hide from some people- it's amazing all the information your brain retains). Then I was running all over the theatre, trying to get ready for the opening number. I made it backstage with several minutes to spare but then realised that I wasn't in costume. It was only dress rehearsal, so I asked Tom if I could just perform in street clothes and he said yes. I was still wearing my Docs though which I couldn't dance in, so I quickly took them off and got back in the wings a few seconds after the opening number had started. I rushed into place behind Meital and barely made it across the stage with my group (it was the typical I-really-can't-dance-anymore dream). Then the dream switched to another topic, but I don't remember that part anymore (strange that I remember the earlier dream and not the one I had right before I woke up).

So I woke up 6 hours after I went to sleep. More evidence that my theory about needing all that sleep the first half of the year was because of the gloomy weather. Now I just need to figure out a way for sleep not to be affected by the weather so I don't have this problem the next time we have a gloomy period).

So now I have much more awake time for my day. I'm going to be ahead on my to-do lists. Still can't believe this non-procrastination side of me.

I'm still wearing my contacts today, and they feel fine (except for the occasional irritation in my right eye- the eye that originally made me start wearing my glasses again). Now I just have to hope it's not too much effort to get them out tonight.

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