commotiocordis

Sometimes, taking my ADD meds makes things even worse.

They make it so I can only concentrate on one thing at once, somehow, which would be okay if I hadn’t spent 20+ years training myself to live with horrible, horrible ADD by OMG MULTITASKING ALL THE TIME.

Also, Ritalin is kind of a fantastic (if temporary) antidepressant, and one of the side effects of that is this IMMA DO THIS AND FIX THIS AND KNIT A HAT AND STUDY FOR THIS TEST AND PLAY THIS GAME AND ALSO DO THIS THING I’VE BEEN PUTTING OFF AND THAT ONE AND GO TO THE GYM AND SAVE THE WORLD mentality. So I try to multitask like normal on a highly increased number of tasks and nothing gets done.

Basically, I’m normally a 2.2ghz hyperthreading, quad-core processor, and Ritalin turns me into a 4.6ghz single-core processor. Because of the extra speed, you feel like you can open more programs at once, but this is not the case.

I'm benching for the moment the issue that I will probably at some time need to broach in more detail regarding how I've royally fucked my life by somehow cutting my average microbiology test score in half on the last exam, turning my grade from just-a-few-more-points-till-an-A to if-I-drop-a-few-more-points-I'll-have-a-D which in turn will have the drastic effect of there being a very good chance I won't be back in the fall as I'll lose my scholarship.


So I wrote this paper for abnormal psych that's basically a mini case report on a fictional character. I did Olivia Benson, and really wish I'd had more time and more pages (I hit 10 already, LOL, when I think most people were closer to 4, though admittedly I had two pages of cleverly doctored [rather brutally with Paint, as I don't have Photoshop installed on my new hard drive yet] images of Olivia's psychological test results) to delve more into her character. As it was, I ended up missing microbiology (yeah, I know; in my defense, this was prior to seeing my last test score) and being late to psych today (yesterday, I suppose) morning finishing it up because I started out trying to do the episode research and double check every fact I remembered about her background because the paper-writing-fiend in me felt like I needed citations (none of which actually got saved into the final paper because I didn't want to break character, of sorts, as the therapist).

Also taking up more time than I expected to spend on the paper was the fact that I sort of changed where in SVU canon I was setting the fake therapy sessions--I put it vaguely after the "PTSD" episode, saying that she'd really realized there was a problem then and that her passive participation in group wasn't going to cut it and approached Huang for a referral for more intense help. In my big page of notes I'd already done way back in February or so (why I thought that this would take an hour, two at the most), I didn't take into account the "PTSD" epsisode much and put more emphasis on her reticence to open up due to perceiving the evaluating psychologist as a threat to her job (which I mentioned, but only shortly and accompanying the notation that she requested the referral on her own behalf).

But all of it. . . idk, I just feel like I could have explained my analysis of her behavior and reactions and such so much better. Not within the format he gave us, really, but if I'd had more leeway to add in notes from fictional individual sessions or something. The biggest part I felt that I got in there but didn't express/explain very well was the whole issue of how though she can objectively acknowledge that she was a victim of a sex crime, she was sort of cavalier about needing help, not taking the group therapy she was doing prior to "PTSD" seriously because she sees so many attacks that are so much more brutal every day and can dissociate and reflect on her symptoms and what she should be feeling but doesn't let herself actually *feel* them because so much of her identity is as a helper, not a victim.

I was very proud, however, of how many references to her unresolved issues with Alex I managed to work in, LOL. Again, I would have put that in there so many more times had I not been short on time (compounded by the forced delay caused by the asshole who decided it would be a fun April Fools' prank to grease the staircases and pull the fire alarm at 3am) and working from a given outline. I think somehow I lost a paragraph somewhere, though, because I was flipping back through it this afternoon and couldn't find the bit I swore I wrote (maybe just imagined and planned to write but never got around to?) where I explained more explicitly the halving of Olivia's social network (meaning Alex and Elliot) caused by Alex's entry into the WPP and her feelings of rejection due to the fact that not only did Alex abandon her but then not even try to reconnect upon her return to be bureau chief. Still, I got decidedly more explicit with my HoYay references as the paper progressed to the point that at the end, I came out and said in the case outcome bit that "a joint session with ADA Cabot made significant inroads into resolving mutual feelings regarding their relationship". Perceivable as platonic, yes, but in a Xena subtext way more than an SVU HoYay way, if that makes sense to anyone but me.

As it's vaguely like a fic, I'll prolly post it just for fun, but the reason I started typing this post up was to lead into the fact that while doing research for it, Google sent me to a really good (really long--I finished the parts 1-5 block a bit ago and that was 70 pages in itself, and I think it goes to 26 or so) SVU fic called "Conflict of Interest", in which a reference to the statute of limitations for rape sent me back to Google to find out what said limitations were for the different states. I found this chart (PDF) and started reading through it only to be caught up short on Arizona. Rape is a class 2 felony (without modifying circumstances, a first offense punishable by 5 years, OMGWTF). Marital rape? Class 6. First offense punishment is one year. Holy shit. Spousal rapists are required to register as sex offenders, though, which is better than I expected, but still. That's horrid. I wish to move to Arizona just to campaign against this bullshit.

Assume similar indignation for all the other states and their criminally short statutes of limitation/lengths of incarceration/ludicrous determinations that some rapes aren't as bad as others because you know the perp. Shall go back to reading through it now, because though I was really tired right after dinner (meaning when I got back to my room a bit before midnight), the combination of this good fic and the potential for learning, OMGYAY, has popped me pretty darn awake. Plus, Chelsea was snoring.

One last thing. OMG ER FINALE TOMORROW. And I'm really supposed to go to the pre-law fraternity meeting during the first hour of it, but I think not because I'm not missing this. I'm kinda sad because I've been watching it forever and it's the one through which I discovered the miracles of internet fandom, and it's ending, but it is time--I still watched it only really out of the afore-insinuated feelings of loyalty to it; though it always has its moments of really kickassery, it frankly hasn't been that good for a while now, especially when you're comparing it to how good the beginnings were. Still. There might be tears.

News blurbs.

A Young Life Changed Forever by Iraq War

Really? Just one? Total fluff piece. I mean, not fluff like it's a happy subject, but come on. Human interest piece, I suppose, is the phrase.

Thing that annoys me? Top Chef commercial claiming that NY invented the ice cream cone. Uh, bitchplease. That's ours. According to, you know, every Missouri history lesson every MO child has had to sit through for all 13 years of their public schooling career (as confirmed by Wikipedia), in the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, they were out of bowls at the ice cream booth or whatever, and the waffle guy whose booth was next door was like "Oh, let me iron a waffle into a cone shape and let you put your ice cream in there!" Or something. Whatever; it was ours. QED.


In other news, my 6th grade math teacher (the one who sent me out into the hallway for saying that the Rams weren't going to win the Super Bowl--I very nearly cried, because he was serious, and I had to sit out there with the other teachers thinking I was in real trouble for the rest of the period--but otherwise I remember thinking he was cool) got arrested for "innapropriate contact" with a student. I've known about the situation for a while now, as Tyler's friends with the girl in question, but he got arrested during the school day yesterday.

On the one hand, I think it was unfair for the police to take him away at the school. That was unnecessary; they've been investigating since October, they could avoid making a scene in front of a whole bunch of middle schoolers. It's not like he'll ever work in education again whether he's convicted or not, but that's still not something that needed to happen. If they were worried about the safety of a student right then, sure, but for god's sake, since October.

On the other hand, I've got the girl's back. People aren't believing it because he's a popular teacher, and they're bashing her, which is bullshit. If she were some student of his who found out she's failing his class, yeah, I'd be suspicious. She's 16. It's been happening for years (he's the high school track coach, so he's up there enough). There's no immediacy there that I know of, no overt motive apparent, and she had the strength to come forward anyway. People are spreading all kinds of rumors about her reputation re: truthfulness, so idk what's going on there, because there are also comments condemning them as rumors, but whether she's spread attention-seeking info in the past, I'm pretty sure that the police usually wait until, you know, they've got enough evidence to try a case before arresting somebody.

So guess what. Every single member of the "Free Mr. Wilder" Facebook group? You disgust me. Yeah, you may have liked him. Yeah, he was a good track coach and a personable guy. Yeah, the girl in question has a reputation (at least according to a couple of FB posts on that group) for not being the most truthful. But this is the reason that more girls don't come forward when they're being sexually assaulted. I've got a friend who recently also spoke out after being molested, and she's having a bitch of a time of it, frankly. It's hard, and you're not making it any easier by posting messages like "how does this girl live with herself. . . he's the most awesome guy ever" or even the most disgusting "What's the chick's name? We should all go cut her head off with a kite string!!!".

The more rational ones are stepping above it, asking "Is this what he would want us to do?" which I appreciate. Though it sort of makes him sound like Jesus, LOL, the way they're putting it. Still. I leave with this: you don't know. There are two people who know what really was happening, and until he's proven guilty or not, don't discourage people from coming forward by ostracizing those who do.

Still. The girl who posted the kite string comment? You make me sick, and I sure as hell hope somebody takes that to the principal and gets your ass suspended. Has the Megan Meier case just a few miles from where this is going down taught us nothing about the power of internet speech? If you don't care about being a bitch, care that you could get hauled into court and taken for all your parents' money. (Though that's something else about which it seems I'm the only one who cares.)

If anybody feels like doing me a favor, I've got to write a paper on a disease for genetics. Problem is, most of my good choices (I wanted Huntington's, as that one's freaked me the hell out ever since I first heard of it when I was. . . prolly in elementary school) have been taken as I made the mistake of wanting to do some prelim research first to figure out what would be a good candidate to write on and thus letting half the class sign up before me. It's basically a summary of recent genetic research for your chosen disease "or recently discovered human gene" and only 2-4 pages, so not hard at all.

I kind of want to write about homosexuality, because that's a really interesting one to look at the genetic research for. But I'm not crazy about the implied label of disease, you know, especially down here where half the students would probably agree with said label? Opinions?

Anyway, any suggestions of fun ones that aren't on the below list? Anything you've got or know someone who's got that there is -- and this is the biggie -- enough genetic research on to allow me to write a decent paper?

( The list of taken diseases. It's annoying and caps-locked and with several typos because I copy/pasted it from the teacher's list, and he apparently can't figure out how to turn caps-lock off--the entire syllabus is the same way. )

The people at school that do the scheduling are going to kill me. I think this is switch #4 or 5 by now.

The story behind this latest class switching: computer class teacher guy (whose class I was taking the internet section of anyway because I figured that was the easiest way to get this stupid required course out of the way while doing a minimum of busy work for crap that I already know all of) says drop the class and take the exemption test at some point. That's what I had been planning to do anywayEven if I don't pass the test (which I should, judging by what he says is on there), worst case scenario I just sign up for the class again the same internet way next time. New class is another one of those gen eds that I will need that's now open. Idk if they'll let me switch, though, because it'd make a third honors course when they only were letting people have the one. But Marcia (honors lady at school) said that that was only until they knew if they had space, so perhaps will work? Idk.

Dumb health center had me on hold for 15 minutes trying to get an appointment for the amphetomenical goodness so I can actually do this homework stuff. I finally hung up--I bet what they did was left early and just put the phone on hold so they could pretend they were still there, as it was 15 minutes before they closed when I called. And I haven't gotten around to complain about money/food plans yet (how I think they've got me on the wrong one) and won't until at least Friday, as Thursday is my classes-from-dawn-until-dusk day. But I definitely don't want to switch up to the 19 that the scholarship pays for because I've still got like 10 after dinner tonight; schedule-wise, I just don't pass by places during the 2 hour block they've got things open. I totally figured that dining hall was something like a constantly open buffet, but no.

Went to the BiGala GSA type thing meeting this afternoon, which was pretty cool. We were huge. As in, had to leave the original room because we were over fire code with something like 89 people. Nothing really big done the first meeting, naturally, but intros and then one of those "get people to sign your paper in the box whose requirements they can satisfy" things. And the intros were v. enlightening. In that it really was a lesson in how you can't assume anything. You had to stand up and say name, year in school, major, and preferred pronoun. There was only one person that said something other than I would have expected (though some of the intros went before I got there, and I wondered about a couple of them) for pronoun, but he was obviously biologically female and not at all androgenous-looking, IMO; very femme. So that was cool.

The really, really cool thing? The two older women in the back (it's a community-wide thing, not just students, though mostly) got to stand up and introduce themselves and I just about squeed my pants. The one gave her name, introduced the other as her partner and gave her name (neither of which I can remember, sadness), and then "and we're your friendly, local--" and her partner chimed in with her "--lesbian librarians!" I already was planning on making sure I met one of the librarians who I ran into during random Facebook surfing because she shares tons of my TV shows, now there are three that are wicked awesome.

And to end. OMG THE HEAT. Today I biked to the gym before class where there is no air conditioner, worked out for about 40 minutes, went to my gym lab where we walked on the track for a mile (totally was the only one that understood "brisk--it's got to be under 15 minutes to really work"--I beat everybody by a good 1:15 and was the only one under 15 because they are fail.), biked to my genetics course which is 65 people in a freaking tiny room and on the opposite side of campus, biked back to a third side of campus for a 125 person lecture class, biked to first side for remainder of gym time, biked back to fourth (zeroth?) side to the dorm. Heat. Fail.

So, Alexandria needs to learn to stop writing when she's finished with her essay. Idk, I tend to do that a lot on these big tests (just got out of English Language and Composition, but did the same on the Lit test last week); I'll start winding down the essay/that paragraph/whatever, but then either come up with something I've got to get in there or realize that I've got significant amounts of time left and should probably keep going just so I can show off my impressive verbiaging (YES LIKE THAT) some more, and wind back up again. It'd be no problem if I got to use a computer, as I could just cut the wind-down bit and paste it back on again at the end, but when you don't get that option, it ends up sounding a bit strange; you don't want to cross off large bits of writing because that feels like a waste and it does still fit, but it's not what you'd like to have there.

Another reason I want a computer on these things? Writing is messy. My hands are covered in pen. Somehow I managed to get marks (mostly tiny ones, but a couple substantial, looks like I was trying to cross out my own fingerprints type) on 7 out of 10 fingers, plus a large smudge in between two of them that crosses halfway down my palm, LOL. Plus, though I've never actually timed it, I'm pretty sure I type faster by quite a bit.

The biggest reason? Since we've been typing everything since pretty much elementary school, my spelling has become fail, thanks mostly to Word/Word Perfect's auto-correct. At least when you had to go back and change it yourself, you got to see it pulled out at you as wrong and the correction presented. Now, half the time you don't even notice it change. I'm really good at noticing when something doesn't look right, but when it changes it for you, you don't learn how it really is spelled. It's the worst on the easy words where you're just not quite sure about the order of letters or whether there's a silent something in there, because they're the most often autocorrected by the word processing software and you look the stupidest when you get them wrong on an English language essay.

But yes. Now my back and hand hurts from scribbleage. That was tiring. Especially because none of the group of us that didn't take the Lang class really knew what to expect on that. The essay topics were decent; the passage analysis one was easy just because it was straightforward English class stuff, and the two persuasive-y ones were very ACT/SAT-esque: specific topics (and both pretty politicy-related, which let me go to town), provided backup in the form of either the question intro or the documents in the document-based-question one. I liked them a lot more than the stupid minor-character-as-foil prompt on Lit.

The physics homework (really, extra credit, but still; I needed it, and thus it counts as homework) saga last night was not fun, though. Professor had graded our Saturday finals and had the grades up Monday morning, so I expected to be able to find out how many of the stupid busy work assignments (summarizing in one single-spaced page each the chapters of the textbook--for only one point each, fail--seems like the single most pointless assignment in history, no?) I had to do on Monday morning and then I'd have Monday and Tuesday to do them before they were due by 11:55pm Tuesday night. But no. I spent Monday fighting with the professor because he lost my lab calculation sheet and was trying to give me a 40% on one and a 60% on the other, and I was like OHELLNO, SIR. He finally got back to me telling me that he found it, but by now it was Tuesday and I had 10 to get done. I did the first two during the day only to find out that the outline form I was doing them in wasn't acceptable and I had to write it all out prose-style. Gah. After school I had a doctor's appointment, then a picnic for points for my Econ class, so by the time I got home at 5 or so, I still had essentially 10 of these things to go. Did them. For hours. (Got my mum to transform the outline ones into prosyness for me, though, which was nice. I had to go back through and fix bits, since some bits didn't make sense because she didn't know what she was talking about, and one of them was a bit short because she was just adding the barest amount of words possible to un-outline it when it needed flowered up to hit the 1 page mark, but it saved time.) Finally finished right about 11pm, emailed them to him, ran to the gym for an aborted workout (as they close at 12), got home, cooked dinner even though I was already exhausted because I'd gone to bed really late Monday night and got no nap during the day due to all the workage (because doctor's running bloodwork I've got to get stuck for on Saturday or so and I've got to appear semi-healthy on that), ate dinner, then started studying for today's Lang test. Gave up studying, set the alarm for 5:50am so I could do some of it in the morning, work up at 6:30, ate breakfast, ran out the door, got to school, took test. And here I am. Endsaga.

My allergies have been kicking my butt lately. They’ve been bad for a week or two now, but mostly in the headache plus scratchy throat accompanied by the occasional sneezing bout and uncontrollable runny nose kind of way. Which, now that I list it all, sounds like a lot, but still. And then my chest was kinda tickly all last night, like I had to cough. Woke up this morning with full-out massive chest congestiony symptoms. Not the goodish kind where you can actually cough and make yourself feel better by getting something out—it doesn’t feel like I’m actually clogged up at all, I just have the cough tickle and the sort of labored breathing, you know?

Fail, I say. I was afraid this morning that it was because I was getting sick and not just allergies, but as it hasn’t really gotten worse throughout the day, I’m assuming not. Which is good, because I’m tripping down to Columbia (‘bout 2 hours away) on a bus with the fakey!minimed people for another leg (the last one, thankfully) of the program.

Which should be interesting. It’s all day Sunday and Monday morning. Which doesn’t make me happy in itself, because I’m only going because a) it’s free and b) we’re shadowing doctory people on Monday, but the doctoryshadowing is only a few hours. The longest part (the Sunday bits) are almost all going to be me vs. the idiots (I’m sorry that sounds pretentious and snotty and horribly bitchtastic, but they’re so dumb) on some fictional case study they’ve got going on.

That, and the schedule is really weird. Meaning I’m worried about my nutso sleeping and the food stuff. I’m afraid that every meal is going to be shitty and unhealthy and pizza and such (at least one of them is pizza, another is something else in a food court-esque place, etc.) not to mention provided at times where I’m not at all hungry, and I’m going to end up not being able to eat all weekend. I planned on bringing some soup and veggies and other healthy food type things along, since the hotel we’re in has both a microwave and a fridge in every room (it’s freaking swank—we’re talking more than $100 a night standard rates for this place) but it turns out we’re only going to actually get to the hotel for the first time after 9:30pm on Sunday and leave again (presumably not to return) really early on Monday to go do more stuff. Which restricts what I can bring along with me, because that means we’re probably leaving our clothes and stuff on the bus while we do most of the stuff, meaning I’d have to lug whatever food I wanted to bring for the day on Sunday around with me. Along with whatever food they provide that I decide to stash in my bag for later rationing/sharing/saving until I’m hungry—necessary because I’ve been eating my biggest/highest caloric meal around 2am lately because I’m fail like that, and when I screw with my system too drastically I get migraines, which would really manage to ruin the weekend in a lickedysplit type manner.

But yes. Yay for that in a not-so-much-yay type of way. The shadowing will hopefully make up for it, providing I got matched with somebody in the emergency department. If I’m chasing around somebody from the path lab, I’m going to be pissed. Because I have to call my boss today (I’ve been putting it off because I feel bad because I know I’m really leaving him in the lurch) and tell him that sorry, I can’t work on Sunday night because I’m going to be out of town, and since I don’t have anybody who can cover for me . . . sosorry. I want him to just call the coaches of the volleyball teams and ask them if we can cancel Sunday and tack another day on the schedule at the end, because that way I still get paid, but idk if that’ll happen. He’ll prolly either get one of his daughters to sit up there and just keep score (since I’m pretty sure none of them can ref) or try to do it himself. Still. Prefer, I would, the money.

Got free tickets from school to a baseball game for Tuesday evening, which might be nice. I’m not interested in baseball, really, but just going out to the thing is most of the fun. It’s for the Character Council (promoting character education, blah, blah) thing I’ve been sort of taking the lead on this year. Which I’ve been really enjoying, actually. I’ve developed a quite nice relationship with one of the administrators (Mr. S.) that is in charge of the program because of it—he really recognizes both the work I’ve been doing and that I’ve got interest in doing it and has been seeking me out for other leadershippy things, both related and not, which makes me rather proud. Plus, he’s just a pretty awesome guy all around—I was in his office yesterday on a conference call to give feedback on a panel/conference on cyber bullying that I went to back in October through the Council, and afterwards we were talking about everything from school policy on things to his personal history; he reminds me a bit of my dad—managed to turn things around from a poor family where nobody went to college and barely graduating high school (him)/having to drop out of college to work (my dad) to having several degrees and working in education and co-owning a swanktastic French restaurant (this is where my dad diverges, because unfortunately, this is not a possession of ours, LOL) and such. And we (there was another girl in there for the feedbacking too; actually the daughter of my theatre teacher of previous years, point of interest) were talking about religious stereotypes—she’s Southern Baptist, which people hear and go “OMG, conservative”, as with my Catholicism; Mr. S.’s grandparents were Orthodox Jews but were unexpectedly really cool with him marrying a Gentile, etc. And he bought us sodas afterwards, which was the cementer him into the winnage column.

But Character Council leadershippyness continues, as we’ve got some kind of national character award evaluator people coming in week after next and I’ve been fingered to be one of the two smarmy, lead them around type people, which is a big deal because most of their information about us and what we do is thus going to end up coming from me and my choices of places to take them to see “character in action”. Kinda high-pressure when I think about it. Which is why I’ve been choosing not to as of yet.; Mr. S.’s going to take me through a bit of what they want to hear, what it’s going to be like, that kind of thing on Thursday, methinks--after we have the discussion period on Wednesday that we’re going to part-reproduce/part-critique when the guys come the week after. The day the national people are coming is the day of the all-day Special Olympics thing that I’ve done for the past couple of years, though, which makes me sad, because I really like doing that and I’m going to have to miss it. I don’t think I got to do it last year either because of some big test I had that day, so doublesuckage.

Indeed. I’ll be leaving for home in a few minutes, then it’s callage of the volleyball boss, then to Shop N’ Save to return the nectarine that they shafted me on; $1.07 for one piece of fruit, which is frakking outrageous in the first place, but then it was totally worthless because it had been frozen and had that nasty, ex-frozen, mealy texture—no way I wasn’t taking that back. When I went by last night, though, the lady couldn’t give me my money back because it was after the hours that the customer service/cashbox desk was open and policy was to not give any cash back then (why she couldn’t slip me a freaking dollar out of the register, idk) and they didn’t have any new nectarines to swap it with (not that I’d really want to anyway—when one’s frozen, chances are the whole batch has been exposed to the same conditions). Should be a new batch today, she said in between being bitchtastic (it’s always the same lady when I go there after going to the gym, and she’s always got this huffy, exasperated attitude that really pisses me off), so I might just swap the fruit out, but idk if I want to chance having to do the whole thing again if this one’s bad too.

LOL at this being a fail morning. Herein lies a description of morning so far. Beware of rampant tense changing.

I had to leave early today to get to a before-school mock trial practice. Urgh in itself.

But my alarm didn’t wake me up for 6 when I set it. I get up at the normalish time (closer to 6:30), and pretty much need to run out of the house right away.

I stay for a few minutes and make a quick egg sandwich for breakfast. Egg sticks to pan horribly, so the egg is more scrambled than fried simply because I had to butcher it to get it out and onto the bread.

Run out to car. Open door of car. Door swinging open bumps plate with open-faced egg sandwich. Egg sandwich, meet ground. It hit bread-down, so I pick it back up, brush it off a little bit, and eat the bits that don’t look like they are covered in pavement; mainly the biggest chunk of egg still on there (not that big due to aforementioned butchering) and whatever cheese comes up with it, but I made the mistake of trying to eat some of the bread too. It tasted like pavement.

I decide that then today is a good day to run by the gas station and use my free coupon for a breakfast sandwich there, since I only got prolly half a breakfast. But the person in front of me turning out of the neighborhood is an idiot and is trying to make a turn that is impossible when there’s traffic. (I was making the easy turn to the right, he wanted to cross 5 lanes of traffic and go left, through the line of cars for an intersection that the city stupidly put directly to the side of our exit which thus block the way more often than not.) So I wait there for a good several minutes. Finally getting to turn, I pull into the gas station (#1) on the right, intending to turn through there onto the street where the gas station (#2) with the coupon is (the layout of this area is pretty much incomprehensible). But gas station #1 has this flag out that means that their 20oz fountain sodas are only 25 cents, so I blow off gas station #2 and get a soda. Except then said soda doesn’t fit into the cup holder in the car. What is this, I ask. So I have to hold it all the way to school.

Drive is relatively uneventful, but then I have to park. I do this. I go to take the key out. No such luck. I mess with the wheel, turn the car on and off, but I can’t get the ignition to go to off—it’s stuck at the accessory setting. I finally go inside (about 5 minutes after I was supposed to be there, a good 3 of which were spent car-fiddling), and my mock trial coach (who is pregnant and didn’t bring her coat—I felt horrible) comes outside to get it out for me. Turns out that the car was acting up because of the cold and even though it said it was in park, it wasn’t. She puts it in drive and then park again, and pulls out the key. I feel like an idiot along with a horrible person for making this sick (she’s got killer, killer morning sickness—to the point of near hospitalization for such severe dehydration) pregnant woman stand out in the cold for my carfail.

We do mock trial stuff. That’s fine. I go to the library and do my Spanish homework. Also fine. Tis time for Spanish class. I go up to my locker and discover that I do not have my copy of Madame Bovary for English. Annoyance, as I took it out of my bag so I didn’t have to tote the heavy thing to the gym yesterday and it is thus sitting right there on the couch by the door. I mope about this for a few moments, but go into the class. Realize just as we’re about to start that in said moping, I forgot to grab my Spanish binder from my locker. Run out at the bell, run back a good 30 seconds late. Teacher really doesn’t care, but still. We go over said Spanish homework, which I bombed the back verb section of (because I fail at knowing the difference in usage situations between imperfect subjunctive and conditional tenses) and made a fool of myself by answering majorly incorrectly when called on for one of said verbs. Not fun.

And then more classes and more walking to classes, when I’ve managed to royally screw up my left knee (it’s the arthritis mainly, I think, though it’s been behaving like injury in its refusal to go away as it’s gotten progressively worse over the last few days) and thus am in extreme pain upon, you know, every step.

I’ve got to decide what I’m doing after school, because I’m supposed to have volleyball with Dad, but it’s one of the early release days, which means I’d have enough time to get a good amount of sleep in with the extra hour before I start on my massive quantities of homework. Usually I just use the extra hour before everybody comes home for raiding all the junk food in the house that I’d get yelled at for eating (or worse—forced to share), though, not sleeping (since that’s something that I can sort of do when other people are home, though I risk being woken up by yelling/people wanting to ask me stupid questions/etc.) but since Tyler is home because of the whole shit with him and Mum probably too, having had to bring him home, this would not happen. Plus, due to the whole me not having a car thing, I haven’t been to the last few because I couldn’t get there, and their competition is Saturday. And Dad doesn’t have a whistle because mine is in my bag (as I just keep it there so I never forget it for work). So I’m probably going to go. But then, you add in the factor that I have to pass my school on the way to Dad’s anyway, so it’s really not worth it to drive home and then back, as I am not into the buying gasoline thing.

So I’m probably going straight there. Which means I have to hang out in his classroom for a bit, but they’re doing the Constitution still, which means I can bitch about the Patriot Act and DOMA and other such constitutional bastardization. Decision made.

Maybe you heard about this Kirkwood shooting last night.

Yeah. Thanks for waking me up, sirs, as every police truck and news helicopter sped past my house on the way there (as that's the division of the county I'm right on the border of). That was annoying. There comes a point where adding more police there will only cause more of a problem, wouldn't you say? I was joking at one point that it was all probably just a rumor (because the news was all "OMGWTF, but unconfirmed") set by somebody in the next city so they could go rob banks while every cop in Missouri was hanging around down there.

Watched Juno last night. Wasn't overly impressed. It was decent, but I don't think I'd pay to see it again or anything.

Took a shower in the middle of watching Juno (I was watching it at home, obviously). Because I had to go to the bathroom when I was about halfway through, and figured why bother having to go back there twice. And since my bathtub is a failure at draining the water from the shower, I was like "Well, why not just turn it into a bath" because I've been feeling shitty lately and baths are amazing for that kind of thing. And it was uber relaxing and great. Until I fell asleep, LOL. Several times. This didn't stop the relaxage in itself, but I finally had to get out when my head rolled to the side, putting my face partially into the water and I woke myself up by snorting up bathwater. That's my story of the night.

But updates on the last (or second to last? I don't remember) whiny rantage. Jackass teacher who I thought was going to stop me from getting the academic award again? Nope. Got my invitation to the award breakfast today. Which is good, because the t-shirts they're giving out this year are actually pretty cool, though idk if I can get one since they were given out last semester, but I wanted to be able to try. Plus, test for said jackass teacher? Managed to pull out not just an A, but a 100%. Which is win. Plus, big English paper that was due today is now due Monday (hence my being even semi-coherent at this hour--or even typing this at all, as I'd probably be still finishing it). Glands are still painfully swollen, though, which is confusing and not win, nor is sudden and drastic weight gain that I'm blaming on sleeping through the gym hours night before last (because, erm, I actually ate a lot less to make up for said non-gym going, so there's really no excuse). Still. Today should be good.

I am dying for a peanut butter and pickle sandwich right now. But I'm out of skinnybread (meaning the 35 calorie kind) and, well, peanut butter isn't exactly the most diet friendly, LOL.

Not doing more work I put off until the last possible moment. But my only day with two real finals was yesterday, so even though Spanish and economics are probably my two hardest, things shouldn't be bad.