Five weeks at the New Job and I'm up to 140 pounds for the first time and down to 10% body fat... but I'm constantly tired and always cramped for time. I think I'm going to give it a couple more weeks and then put in notice so I can go back to the Old Job, which pays poorly but is much more student-friendly.

I'm considering getting rid of the commenting function on the blog, since this is a personal journal, after all, and I more and more frequently find myself censoring my thoughts because of it. It's easier to be honest with myself when there's less proof that anyone's paying attention.

Matt's and my two-year anniversary was last weekend, but since he was out of town we decided to celebrate this weekend. Tonight we intended to go to a nice restaurtant for dinner and then a bar or two. While we were killing time this evening, though, I passed out on his couch for two hours and it more or less spoiled everything. I guess it's gonna be a little while longer before I'm used to being so active again during the day, but I'm getting really tired of being really tired!


A post written last night:

Oddity number one: For the past few days my car's had a thick sour kind of smell. Around the time it started, I'd left the windows cracked during a heavy rainstorm and I assumed it'd caused some mildew in the seats. I can live with that.

Oddity number two: I keep a jug of water in the backseat of my car to help me remember to refill the coolant each week. A few days ago I emptied the jug in the process, refilled it at home and put it back into the car. Today, after coming home from Matt's, I glanced in the backseat and noticed that the jug was almost empty again.

Now, that's odd.....

Then it hit me. I tore open the door, yanked out the jug and, sure enough, it leaked onto my foot. I had a bag of papers and CDs sitting next to it on the seat, which is of course completely soaked, and the water also ate through the bag. All the papers-- bills, notes, directions, etc-- are trashed. The CDs were all fine except for...

The Cowboy Bebop CD-Box Set that Devan gave me while I was going through chemo. (For those who don't know, it's a limited-edition soundtrack set for Cowboy Bebop, my favorite anime, composed by Yoko Kanno, my favorite musician.) Possessions I can live without. This was a gift of something I love, from someone I love, that was given to me during an exceptionally important time.

The cardboard case and the glossy CD holder itself are like putty. The huge full-color booklet is, miraculously, still mostly intact and readable, but all the pages are severely curled, water-stained and clumping together-- now I'm afraid to let it dry.

God damn it. I'm a fucking idiot and one of the few things I really care about is ruined. I feel like crying.

It's day four of work+school and I ache in the most amazing places. I'm blaming my Volleyball phys ed requirement, which on paper is an easy 50-minute class for an entertaining sport but in reality is a twice-weekly lesson in pain. Somehow, spending yesterday's class trotting after my runaway volleyball was the catalyst for making me feel like I've been running an Olympic marathon. At the end of the semester, though, it'll at least be nice to be able to say that there's a sport I can play. Theoretically.

Being back on campus so much has reminded me how unfairly attractive Georgians are. It's simply written into their DNA that they'll have the perfect proportions, tan easily, look great even when sweaty, and exude comfortable Southern charm. And then there's me with, if my family's any indication, a fun-filled future of baldness, heaviness, impotence and neuroses (got that base covered early). Ain't Judaism the best? How on earth have we been finding mates for thousands of years?

On the bus home an obviously destitute man was talking to the driver about how, despite his circumstances, he still knows God has a plan for him and will protect and provide for him. So where was God for those 3,000+ people dying 10,000+ people still dying in the heat wave in France-- taking a bathroom break? And the babies being born with AIDS in Africa to soon-dying parents, and the millions of people living in shantytowns on the outskirts of Mexico City, and the innocent civilians being bombed in the Middle East because they happened to leave their homes-- where is God for them? I guess he's half-right, though. God did provide us with something: it's called autonomy. Stop waiting around for a blessing or a miracle and make something happen in your life. Once you've done that, you can even feel free to thank God for all your hard work.

Dan's mom has come down from NYC to stay for the weekend; I only remembered this because they just walked in the door. Time to go play nice.

--Turns out I can't.

As it stands I have three classes Mon/Weds/Fri-- a Lit class, my phys ed (Volleyball), Biology-- and two Tues/Thurs-- Poli Sci and another Lit class. I have an online Geology course due at the end of this semester as well. All of them look enjoyable... The problem is simply that they give me no time to actually study. The second Lit class requires about 200 pages of reading per class, and even if I had absolutely nothing else to do, I read so slowly that staying caught up would be almost impossible. Dropping that class tomorrow will both cut out that workload and give me a solid five-hour block of time on Tues/Thurs to do my homework. I'll actually have a shot at succeeding this semester without having to quit my job and revert to being unhealthy, lazy and poor! (And for the record, I understand that there will soon come a time when I'll have to read several hundred pages of text daily, but I'll cross that bridge when it doesn't require me burning quite so many others.)

As for being a full-time student again, it's kind of bittersweet. Athens was so peaceful during the summer, when everyone was gone, but now the city's back to being crowded and noisy and hot. It's fun to be learning again, and I think I'll quickly settle back into the routine, but at the moment it's kind of refreshing not giving a damn-- especially when I think back to Freshman year, during which I was constantly on the verge of a panic attack. Sometimes I think I'm still the same person I've always been, and then I remember...

As of today, the summer's officially over. Classes start tomorrow and regardless of my determination, I'm not sure I can juggle 16 hours of classes (not including an online course), a 25 hr/wk job, a boyfriend, friends, homework and perhaps even some sleep. Guess I'll find out soon enough.

I worked at the New Job for 15 hours straight yesterday-- doing my shift from 3-8am, then helping another employee with theirs from 8am-6pm. It wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't injured myself almost immediately after the start of the second shift. Ironically, the money he paid me to help is about what I would've made if I hadn't stayed home today to heal up. Since the job's going to get a lot more intense in the next few months and shrinking my class load for it isn't an option, I'm not so sure I'll be able to stick with it for much longer, no matter how much I love it. For more irony, the Old Job's moved to a place on campus it's going to be almost impossible for me to get to, so very soon I might be completely jobless. I'm tired of pissing and moaning about job stress, though. Seems like that's all I do these days.

Matt and my two-year anniversary is this weekend but Matt's going to have to be out of town. Maybe I'll just spend it curled up in bed.

I keep thinking about something Matt and I talked about over the weekend: getting plastic surgery on my nose. I never really considered it before but it makes a lot of sense-- and, before you start to think even less of me than you do now, not for cosmetic reasons. The bridge of my nose is unusually high and pronounced, to the point that glasses never fit over it properly. The shape of it is probably constricting airflow; Matt said he had the same problem when he was younger and surgery like this corrected that. And if it did happen to make my nose less ugly and my voice less nasal, well, I wouldn't complain about that either.

Fuck, I forgot to pay the mortgage this month.

If the day before yesterday was Reunion Day then yesterday was the Day of Suck. Matt and I saw Tomb Raider 2 (sucks), watched Donnie Darko (double sucks) and rented Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness for PS2 (triple hardcore loser megasucks). How disappointing! Especially about Donnie Darko, which is great so long as you don't think about it. At all. To its credit, however, it does feature one of the most disturbing creatures in the history of cinema.

Today was my last day off and I spent it doing absolutely nothing. It was fantastic.

I'm not sure how an entire week has already slipped by, but I guess it's a decent indication of how active I've been lately.

Work is going great. Not only do I still love the job but I'm also much better at it now. Right now I'm torn between dropping it for the Old Job due to time constraints or possibly cutting back my class load just so I'd be able to continue it; I'm not sure what would work better but I need to decide soon, because classes start in a little more than a week. I don't really want them to. The last thing on my mind right now is going back to school. I finally have a job that I love, that's great exercise, that pays well and that makes me feel proud of myself and I don't like the possibility I'll have to give it up. It's been over a year since I've been a full-time student-- I had to drop out for chemo two semesters ago and only took one course last semester, remember-- so the task of diving back into the fold also seems a little daunting. And so much has happened in the past year! My priorities have changed. My tolerance for bullshit and stupidity has plummeted, too, and if there's anyplace that's rife with both, it's a college campus.

I was able to hang out with my friends a few times over the week, and yesterday was the Day of Reunions. Luna, one of my best friends here who moved away after graduating, has moved back to Athens for several months, so we had lunch and caught up on things. Matt and I then went to the party of his friends, Julie, who he'd lost touch with for a while. It's make me realize how much I need to get ahold of all the friends I haven't spoken with in a while... One of my high school friends got married last week and I forgot even to send a card. I'm a pretty lousy friend.

Links of note: Politics & Science, MetaFilter, blinktag.org.

Spent all weekend with Matt hunting down the best computer for him to buy (a Gateway 300S), reaping the benefits of Books-A-Million's liquidation sale, spring cleaning, seeing Pirates of the Caribbean (he liked it too) and The Transporter (dippy but amusing), and just enjoying ourselves. I fell asleep on the couch today while we were relaxing and had this very odd dream:

I dreamt that I awoke right where I'd fallen asleep and that Matt's dining room and kitchen were filled with thick brown and grey smoke. I got up and rushed over but my eyes were very blurry and sensitive and I could barely see anything. While groping my way through the dining room and kitchen to try to find the cause of all the smoke, I hollared for Matt again and again. He was upstairs, and merely replied a few times to ask what was wrong-- though since I didn't want to tell him, I only said "just please come down immediately"-- or to tell me to wait. I checked the oven and the thermostat but nothing was out of the ordinary. Finally he came down the stairs and into the kitchen, at which time I realized most of the smoke had subsided. I vividly and vehemently explained the smoke I'd seen but he didn't believe me.

I awoke with a start and, of course, immediately looked at the dining room. And, of course, there was no smoke. Matt was in the kitchen reading a magazine. I went in and tried to explain the dream, but he tossed the magazine on the table and interjected, "I know. We need to have a discussion about the implications of this." I stared at him blankly and asked what the hell he meant.

And then I awoke with a start on the couch to find Matt sitting on the floor by me, touching my shoulder to wake me up.

Creepy, huh? I never thought that dreams within dreams ever occured outside of shoddy storylines.