2008-02-07 4:07 p.m.
I'm Alive, I swear.
I apologize profusely.
Life's just been...way busy lately. And kind of crazy, as always, but in some ways crazier.
So let's back up all the way...
Last I posted, I hadn't come home for Christmas break. Had just died my hair red, haha, and was worrying about a whole bunch of stuff, yeah? I think that's it.
So. The trip home started off on the wrong foot when this creepy guy who was like fifty was trying to get me to come over to his car to "help" him "look for something." Not being stupid enough to fall for that favored trick of rapists and murderers, I stayed exactly where I was sitting. The bus driver for the bus that was heading to San Luis Obispo (not my bus, I was heading to a different stop) came over and asked where I was headed, then told me that his bus was the one I needed. It wasn't, but he also didn't like that the creepy dude was bothering me, and knew I could just get my trip to LA rerouted in San Luis. So I hopped the bus, and listened to movie soundtracks all the way home, doodling in my journal about how crazy my existence is. My dad picked me up, and I spent the first weekend at his place, then headed home.
It's weird, because I've never felt such a disconnect before. I was surrounded by people who I love, but I just felt so alone. And I had been itching to go home for weeks at that point...but once I got there, I just felt disappointed. I stayed at my mom's through Christmas, and during that time, I frolicked with the amigas. The best friend and I watched the Lord of the Rings again, but neither of us could stay awake for it. The other best friend took all of us to see Sweeny Todd, PS I Love You, and Enchanted. I laughed my way through the break, running around town with the people I care about most. Got a deck of tarot cards for another best friend, and got a new bag and special reading cloth for my deck. Had Christmas in the church basement, with the gift trade-around. I made a bracelet for my white elephant present, but because it was so small, nobody picked it.
Christmas Eve, I went to church. Don't know why I went, except that I wanted to give a gift to the youth group leaders, since they've been so cool to me all these years. I ended up staying for the service, and a few things happened that I can't explain. The faith I had as a kid is back because of it, though, and I'm back to going to church regularly. It's a strange feeling, since as a child, my mom took us to a Baptist group, and they didn't believe in baptizing kids until they were "old enough to understand"...and they didn't think that 6 was old enough to make that commitment, so I've never been baptized.
Well, that's going to change. I'm going to be baptized the night before Easter. Gotta love the symbolism of that...haha. It's totally surreal to me, though. I never thought I would get to that point of believing enough to want to actually join, be baptized, and participate in the religion, but I have. And there's no way to explain it that doesn't make me seem crazier than I know myself to be. So I'm left with no choice but to believe once more.
So, after Christmas, I went back to my dad's. We visited my cousins, and then he and I went down to visit my grandmother. I stayed with her through New Year's Eve, when I went home and my best friend and I were supposed to spend it together, watching Harry Potter in Spanish and making up our own subtitles for it. What ended up happening is one of my other friends came and "kidnapped" her - basically walked in, told her to change her plans, and told me, basically to just deal with it. It made me angry, but worse, it made me feel like she just didn't care at all about how upset I was, because I wasn't just upset about her dragging the other one off but because of other things in my life, and I had really been looking forward to spending that evening with my best friend. I needed it for my sanity. I mean, I know why my friend felt like she could do that, but it just made me angry that she was trivializing everything.
I got over it relatively quickly. Not a whole lot else happened over break. I came back to school.
At school, I've been buried in work and homework. I've got about four hours of homework a night, and I work about four hours a night, so after my four hours of school, I have eight hours of other stuff to do, not to mention that I spend about an hour just waiting for and taking buses each time I go to work (each direction), and then I have to allow time for eating and sleeping. My life is entirely booked. I haven't had much time just for me since I got back, and any five minutes I can spare is pretty precious.
So I apologize again for not updating...life's just really super busy. I'll make an effort to update on Saturdays, at least, if nothing else.
What else? Well, I've hauled the novel back out and am progressing on it. I hope to have the first draft completed, and a first revision underway, by the time I head to England next year.
Speaking of England, my application is in, and now I'm just waiting to hear back. So keep your fingers crossed for me. I'm staying hopeful that I'll get to go to London, and any good thoughts anyone wants to send my way would be most appreciated.
Well, I'd better get going, I have a work shift in an hour, and need to get some other stuff done first.
Love and hugs to all.
PS - the first video made me laugh my ass off. I love chipmunk songs. But seriously, I like Linkin Park, and the new CD is...well, it's interesting. I've been listening to the song on the second video a lot lately.
