Soooo life happened.

Finally went for a walk in College Woods. It was amazing. I didn’t have a map or anything more than the knowledge that I entered from the east and there was a river to the south and that I needed to be out in two hours to make it to class on time. I ended up using the sun to find south (this time of year, it never is east or west - just south) and just wandered on the trails until I needed to head back, and then I did. Beautiful. Being alone in the forest is so wonderfully noisy.

Christmas happened! How about that. My family and friends got me a number of totally freaking awesome presents, all of which I’ve been pining after for ages. Got to see Uncle G again, which was lovely beyond saying. I think everything went well, including the dinner I made, even though it did get kinda cold. Ah well! The clean living room (actually clean, mind you, not just shoving things in another corner!) more than makes up for it.

Toe surgery! How can such an ugly, bloody bandage…

…cover up such an insignificant insult?

Had a bit of a panic today. Talked things through with my adviser and Dad, and I’m going to make another advising appointment. I can’t handle the course load as it stands; my degree path is overwhelming and it isn’t supposed to be but I’ve already done all the classes meant to ease the pain. I’m going to switch to part-time. It won’t hurt my ability to get a degree, and it’s just a change in billing - it’s not like I’m in a rush to graduate. I mean, in my worst case scenario, I’ll be homeless in April anyway. Going to part-time won’t affect that.

I really wish UNH would let me register for the classes I need. I register after freshman because I’m a transfer, I need junior-level classes but I have sophomore-level credits… This is ridiculous. When my adviser is sitting there saying “okay you need these classes, but you’re probably only going to be able to register in two of them, oh well I guess you’re fucked,” there is a problem. When having one lab is overwhelming me with the work of three classes, there’s no way I can take three or four of them at the same time. My greatest fear is another stress-induced psychotic episode. Guess who can’t think clearly or rationally today and been having migraines from gritting her teeth. Something’s gotta give, and I won’t let it be me.

I refuse to fail at this. Things will work out. I will make them work.

It seems the more social sites I use, the less I post here. I only have so much to say! Some of it fits in less than 140 characters! I am not a terribly interesting person.

Planning for Christmas presents is hard when you don’t have money. I know that I’m going to burst into tears when I start getting presents. I have trouble accepting gifts even when my head is in an okay place, but when I have little money I get into a certain mindset where I’m not allowed to get things. So accepting presents is… hard. I know, boo hoo, people want to give me things, children across the globe would love to be in my shoes - but it’s distressing for me. I want to give gifts, I want to be the one saying “here, I know you’ll like this, I thought about it and it’s perfect for you,” I want to at least reciprocate… I’m not sure I can. I’m trying to save up what little my car and bills don’t eat up. It’s not much. I was thinking of making paper crane ornaments but… that’s so lame. What use are they? They’re not even pretty. They’re just paper on wire.

I have to come up with something. Just… for my own sanity.

Not gonna think about this any more today. It’s too upsetting. I’m going to do homework and clean and write and find my happy place again. I have a whole weekend before me with nothing terribly pressing to do, and I am going to enjoy the heck out of it.

I’ve started randomly bullying Dad into getting up on days when he’s down. It’s actually pretty entertaining, and I think it makes him feel a little better - most days I come in and start bellowing a song, unless he has earplugs in. Then I have to tickle him (or just shake his feet, whatever). Today I decided to keep him on his toes - it’s rainy, icky, and dreary, so I made pumpkin coffee and brought him up some and a blueberry muffin. :3 I tried to sneak it onto his nightstand, but alas, he was technically awake and heard me moving things. I am still amused. :3

Part of my toe is gone! :D Specifically, part of the toenail. I had my podiatry appointment today, and I honestly thought it was just intake, but they were like O HAI HERE’S THE ANESTHETIC and I was like NO WAI. Then an absurdly large volume of anesthetic went in my toe and it LEAKED OUT THE PUNCTURES and I did a lot of staring at the ceiling and eventually they took off part of my toenail! I have no idea how much. I was busy staring at the ceiling. I like this office better than the main clinic, though, they treated me like a human being and listened to me and asked me questions and answered my questions without making me feel stupid. I don’t ask for much, medical profession. Just treat me like I have a brain between my ears instead of a lump of coal. (Once I said the magic words “granular tissue” they realized I was actually vaguely intelligent, and the discussion of what to expect got a little more elaborate than just “oh it’ll heal up fine.” Which amused me.) So I am pain-free like whoa, and she said the local should wear off in like 6 hours and the toe should be relatively painless by then, and in two or three months I go back for the permanent removal. Shortly after Christmas, actually. As long as everything goes well, I should have a real person foot by my birthday.

I’m suddenly realizing all the ways this toe has affected my life. I stand differently because of the toe, I have to buy special shoes because of the toe, I am utterly paranoid about bumping that foot into anything, I have to be careful of it in the shower, I have to clean gunk out daily, I have to be careful when I take off my socks, can’t kick things or catch doors with my foot or… It’s just a lot of little things that add up. Not having to do any of that again, just clipping my nails regularly and carefully, will be… weird. I hope everything goes well. Maybe someday I can wear sandals without shame.

What is this?! I have room to breathe? ABSURD.

I am in a WANT WANT WANT stage right now. I should update my Amazon wishlist. Even though I hate Amazon now. why must I be a total hippie who cares about things like morality and equality and lack of censorship, idk but it sure makes shopping hard hurr durr durr

Done my antibiotics. Toe still looks, well, infected. And scarred. I just know I’m gonna go in there and they’ll be like OKAY SO COME BACK IN A MONTH AND TAKE SOME ANTIBIOTICS and I’ll be like :< BUT I DID and they’ll be like WHAAAAAAAT. And then stupid shit will happen and no one will actually bother to ask me like, what happened to me toe, or listen when I try to tell them anything about the, you know, injury I have been dealing with every day for the last three years. And which they will have been dealing with for… five minutes? yeah. anyway. I am not feeling good about health care bullshit right now.

Ah shit I lied I forgot about my Biostats homework :<

Okay so quick review: School is going well, Chem class annoys the fuck out of me, I have a shitfuckton of homework all the time, and I apparently have a staph infection in my toe and am now on antibiotics which are raining ruination and devastation on my digestive tract. GOOD TIMES.

Today has been quite nice. Brother and I woke up Dad with the song that never ends, Dad and I made terrible french onion soup, we did meal planning and food shopping for the week, everyone pitched in to make dinner, I did bunches of homework, and I blurted out 2085 words of Transformers fanfic that is actually pretty decent. I set out to write one or two hundred words about inflection and tone, and it turned into 2k of the meaning of life if you’re a giant robot. This means I desperately need to edit the beginning, but I think I’m happy with how things develop in it. It’s more an info-dump and teaching moment than a story, but I like it anyway, if only because it helped cement my own ideas on the issues it touches. Yaaaaay writing! :D I’ve been pondering the deeper meaning of being a mechanical organism for a few months now, so it’s utterly fascinating to watch it morph into a real story. AND THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING. I desperately want to write Sunstreaker and Sideswipe the way I’ve always wanted to see them written. They’re terribly sympathetic characters to me.

And now it is time to warm up in the shower and then retreat to my frigid bed. XD Time to use the heating pad as a footwarmer again!

Having the car, so far, is not as bad as anticipating it. Dad got me an ‘03 Mitsubishi Galant. It’s really weird to look at it and think ‘hey, that’s my car.’ Really, really weird. I drove us to the grocery store today, in the rain, without panicking. I guess that’s a good sign. I also really want to go out and do something, but not quite enough to actually drive anywhere. Tomorrow I need to get new shoes, though. Driving in slip-ons is a bad idea.

I named the car Silverbolt. He’s actually really comfortable. We’ll see how I do with highway driving, but I like driving him around quiet streets. He’s almost a foot skinnier than I think he is, which is good. And his nose is right where I expect it to be. Not sure where his butt is yet. Dad said I drive a lot better than the last time he rode with me, but that’s not saying much. :) I need to practice taking corners again. Never have been terribly good at that part. Merging onto the highway will be… fun. Need to remember to use my side mirrors.

It went from searing heat to being so chilly my nose is going numb. I like it. :) Gonna curl up in bed under a quilt with some tea and Transformers Animated. I think my obsession is settling a little - it’s not driving me to distraction anymore, it’s just a fun thing I enjoy. Except for when Megatron talks. I adore his voice, especially when he’s manipulating people. Which is all the time, really.

Classes start the day after tomorrow. I need to buy my books still, and get a bento box and thermos. And a parking pass, ahaha. I’ll do that now.

Having anxiety-related sleep issues that may also be directly related to impending car. Most people look forward to their first car. I am wondering what the hell I was thinking when I turned down the housing offer from school. (I was thinking it would triple the semester’s costs, actually.) My big issue is not wanting to test drive it. I understand the guy trying to sell you the car usually goes with during a test drive. This is a no-no for me. I don’t do passengers. I can’t talk while I drive. I have a hard enough time remembering that steering and forward motion happen at the same time. And Dad’s buying from a dealership, so basically it’s guaranteed to run, which is all I really care about. I think I can handle driving to school, because I’ll be alone (except maybe merging onto the highway, ugh). But test driving is… no. I can’t handle the thought of it. It makes me sick and shaky and I shut down and go into total avoidance mode.

yaaaaaay phobias

I’ve been weirdly social this summer. Not so much in-person social, but I’m really active on Facebook, Twitter, and my other blog. And there was some in-person social stuff too. It’s been a pretty good summer. A lot of scary stuff is going on in the next few weeks, and I’m really anxious about starting school again, but it’ll work out.

For some reason I wanted to blog about how weird it is to have long hair. I had it long a year and a half ago, cut it to get the last of the red dye out, and then just let it grow again. (There were some haircuts in between, actually… My hair grows horribly fast.) I’ve taken to braiding it back or tossing it in a ponytail just to sleep, because nothing hurts more than a neck that’s been held at an odd angle all night because I was lying on my hair funny. Even braided, it’s down to the bottom of my shoulderblades. Weird. I’ll get it cut eventually, because I actually like how I look with reasonably-long hair but after a certain point it just looks silly, but I’ve always wanted to grow it out to waist-length at least once.

Still obsessed with Transformers. Dad has apparently realized I’m in it for the long haul, because he’s started learning about them just to be able to have a conversation with me. Dad is awesome like that. He still knows a surprising number of random things about anime. Of course, it helps that I appealed to his robotics obsession/hobby… :3 It is intensely hilarious to talk to him about Starscream, for some reason. I… don’t really know why!

I think one of my classes is about the geography of Japan. I am vaguely intrigued by this, unlike the stupid History of Music Appreciation 101 or whatever. Also augh Biostatistics, auuuuugh. Auuuuuugh Chemistry. Stupid semester of gen-ed classes. >:( Well, it’ll be over in three months and then I can take fun classes. Just gotta do good with these ones. Which, duh, of course I’ll do good. 3.5 in two different schools so far, I can totally handle this one. …I hope. D: