I'm out for Christmas, probably back in about a week.  Enjoy yourselves and happy holidays!

I made an awful pig of myself this week.  Normally I go to my Weight Watchers meeting Saturday mornings, but today I couldn't bring myself to go and get weighed.  I know I did poorly.  I don't need the numbers staring back at me to tell me that.  My parents gave us a huge pile of sweets and a large tub of cheese popcorn and I went crazy.  Let me preface this by saying that I hate chocolate normally, but when it is in truffle form I can't help myself.  I ate like 10 or 12 in one day...and that's like 20 points right there.  Plus I kind of just ate whatever I wanted and stopped paying attention to what I should be eating for a week.  Maybe it was because it was finals week but I just didn't even want to think about keeping track of my points.  I just wanted to relax and that's what I did.  Consequently I'll really be working hard this week to eat right. 

I will say that eating a bunch of chocolate and cheese popcorn after eating lots of vegetables and fruits and lean meats makes your stomach turn something fierce and I would prefer never to repeat that.  I like the way healthy foods make me feel and sometimes I forget that and eat 8 or 9 cups of fake powder cheese covered popcorn.

On the upside this week I also went to the gym for a total of 5 hours, going over the 3.5 hours (30 minutes a day) that Weight Watchers suggests.  I ran, lifted weights, played racquetball, and generally had a great time and I guess that sort of makes up for all those truffles that I crammed in my mouth.  Plus I helped someone else have the courage to go to the gym and that would still have been worthwhile regardless of how much food I ate besides.

And!  I bought pants!  Just one pair but it's a start.  They are so cute and tan and I can wear flats with them and they don't drag the ground and they come up to my belly button so my ass doesn't hang out when I sit down and I'm so glad I finally have a pair of pants that I can wear without feeling like I look retarded.  Also, they are 3/4s!!  I don't really think I lost that much weight and I've never been anything smaller than a 7/8 in my life, so I am going to assume that my being a 3/4 is somehow related to some kind of conspiracy to make women feel better about themselves by increasing the amount of fabric used at each size level.  I can't be a legitimate 3/4.  It's impossible.

Yesterday I didn't do anything.

I didn't do anything!

I can't believe it's finally over!  I can't believe I'll never have to relive this awful semester!

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I'm going to start taking birth control in such a way that I only have three periods a year because I hate them more than anything else about being a woman.  Also so I can have sex basically whenever I want instead of three weeks a month.

I remember back in high school I was always the person you came to if you had some kind of complicated problem.  People always sought me out for advice on relationships, friendships, fights, homework, career plans, etc. and it always made me feel really powerful and worthwhile as a human being.  I think everyone chose me because the school was small and I was infamous for finishing geometry tests in 10 minutes and still receiving perfect scores.  For some reason at my tiny rural high school knowledge of mathematics was correlated with understanding the universe and therefore being able to give good advice.

College is so different.  When I got here I honestly felt unprepared for the new world I had thrown myself into.  I had never seen an Indian person face to face before.  I had never heard anyone speaking Chinese.  I had never seen men holding hands who weren't just making a joke about how nasty gay people are.  I felt so ignorant and realized that I really knew nothing about the world around me and all that wisdom I was supposed to have was really a figment of everyone's imagination.  I found myself unable to deal with my own problems because they grew to complicated for mathematical precision to solve them.  Being free to be myself opened up a veritable "can of worms" inside my mind, allowing me to break the hold of the oppressive opinions held by denizens of my former home.  I was allowed to look at girls in a sexual way without feeling dirty or disgusting.  There were other people who felt the same way I did, and what's more, I wasn't the person who knew the most about...well, really anything.  I guess it was rather liberating, in a way, but I grew to miss that feeling of being needed by someone.  I missed it when a girl I barely knew would pull me aside in a hallway and say something like, "I hear you know a lot about relationships..." and I would feel so amazing and brilliant and important when, after talking with her, she tearfully thanked me and smiled happily, relieved that someone was there to talk to her.  I made a lot of strange friends that way, friends who would normally have been too popular/goth/shy/etc. for us to have gotten to know each other.

Then I met my boyfriend and I felt needed again.  Suddenly there was this person who wanted to see me 24/7 and who needed help with his mathematics homework.  We spent every minute we could together, getting to know one another, watching movies together, playing games together, seeing each other naked for the first time, everything.  That's why I love this blog!  I go back to the first entries and they fill me with a wonderful joy because I'm remembering falling in love with my soul mate the way it really was.  I need things in writing sometimes because the human brain twists memories as years go by and you are left unsure of what really happened and what you imagined happening.  Anyway, that first year at college was definitely one of the most amazing years of my life, followed closely by the second year when he and I started the DDR Club.  I can attribute every good friend I have right now to that silly club, because even me working at the V-Gate came about because one of the guys who came to the DDR Club introduced us to playing Legend of the Five Rings down there.  So what if last year and this year haven't been super great?  How can they top my freshman and sophomore years?  I should just be thankful that I have those times to reflect on and remember that without great sadness, there is no great happiness.

I'm really glad I decided to go back through and read my old entries on this blog, too.  I just got to thinking, "Was I always such a horrible jaded bastard the way I am now?  Was I always second guessing every step and worrying constantly about every little thing in my life?"  Of course the answer was a resounding no and the only real difference back then was that I trusted myself and my own thoughts and didn't berate myself every two seconds about something trivial.  I also highlighted the positive things about my life instead of dwelling on the negative ones.  I want to get back to that, because it was an amazing way to live.

Consequently, last night I told my boyfriend I loved him without any alterior motives or thinking to myself if I really meant it.  I do mean it.  There's no reason why I wouldn't.  I just like to make up reasons because if I don't there is no reason for me to complain.  Why have I become so accustom to being dissatisfied?  I'll tell you why, because I started letting only my mind do the thinking instead of listening to my heart chip in its two cents as well.  I stopped analyzing my emotions and trying to understand them before jumping head first into something.  When you go only on cold hard fact life becomes rather hollow and I think that's where I've been for the last couple years.  I've been in the hollowed out shell of my soul, wondering where all the emotion went.  I'm going to get it back.  I'm going to bring back the color and splendor of my soul and I'm not going to let myself languish sadly forever because I trust my brain more than my heart.  Even moreso I'm not going to let that languishing effect the people I love anymore.  I want to be happy for myself of course, but for everyone else, too.

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In other news I had a really nice lunch with my boss and I'm getting better at racquetball, albeit slowly.

I made a livejournal a while ago, in the midst of the worst time of my life and yesterday I decided to make it all private and stop posting on it because I like xanga so much better. Because of this, I had to go back to the beginning and individually change every entry to private because I am not someone who pays for online notebooks. Consequently I read a lot of the early entries again and it made me feel terrible.

I really don't want to think about it every again. I was an awful person. I thought about deleting the entries and I wish I could erase the memories from my mind, but at the same time I think we need all our memories, not matter how painful, because they make us who we are. While it was something I would never want to relive, I still acknowledge that I learned from it and I think that makes me a stronger person in the end...

...but I'm still not strong enough to let go. I still can't let go of what I feel I lost in the whole ordeal. I can't uncurl my fingers from the crumpled scraps of ignorance and innocence that I still fleetingly remember. I can feel myself using the past as a crutch sometimes, weighing the present against it like they are apples and apples. I blame things on my past like it was so horrible, but in reality it is like a white sheet with a tiny wine stain at one of the corners compared to a white sheet covered in blood. How can I pretend that my tactless dealings in love and friendship can have ANY effect on my present when people who have been paralyzed from the neck down or who have had friends and family gunned down on the street continue to function? How can I be so selfish to think that only my tiny little problems matter in this world?

What's more, why do I post them all for anyone to see?

Maybe it's because blogs function the way I wish the real world would. When I pass people as I'm walking I smile at them and look into their eyes, secretly wondering what they are thinking about, where they are headed, what they plan to do with the rest of their day. I analyze their outfits, their purses, their backpacks, their hair, their faces and wonder if they do the same to me. But none of my questions are ever answered. All this happens in a few seconds and then the moment is gone and I may never see that person again. Do they think the same thing about me? Do they secretly regret not pausing to speak with me as I do them? Do they realize that I secretly miss them after they pass out of sight, like I've just made and lost a friend in the same instant? But with a blog we can share, we strangers who pass each other on the information superhighway. We can know what the other is thinking, where they are headed or what they plan to do with the rest of their day. We don't have to miss one another because we can go on discussing and sharing even after we pass each other and are gone from sight. Yet we remain strangers, and that in itself holds a unique pleasure about it.

And that brings us back to my original statement. I think I really shut my livejournal down because too many people I knew in the real world were reading it. I didn't want to post all the things I think about for fear that they would think less of me. I suppose I shouldn't care, but at the same time people can be so cruel without realizing what they are doing that I didn't want to risk being hurt. I felt more restricted then set free when I posted on that journal, having to censor every line, having to make sure I didn't say anything incriminating about my beliefs or feelings or sexual escapades. Here I can say whatever I need to set my mind at ease or get something off my chest or just to rant and rave. Here I am free. Here my posts will always be everything I wanted to say and I like that feeling. I need that feeling. I need my little blog world where strangers stop and talk with me.

Thank you.

I woke up this morning and rolled over to face the alarm clock.  I tossed the fabric that hides its bright display at night and found that I had opened my eyes about two minutes before my alarm was set to go off.  Does anyone else have this happen all the time?  It's not like I get up at the same time every day or anything.  In fact, I often get up at really random times throughout the week, yet somehow I always manage to wake up just before my alarm goes off.

I wonder if I was born with some strange affinity for alarm clocks.  Perhaps my mind is operating in just the right way so as to be synchronized with every alarm clock on the planet.  Or perhaps my absolute hatred of all annoying repetitive noises has trained my brain to avoid them at all costs.  I just find it interesting.

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Going to the gym with that really annoying girl was not that bad at all.  Granted, she was still very annoying and tried to explain to me that because her father is an electrical engineer in the air force global warming isn't happening.  She also suggested that she was going to lose seventy pounds by just exercising and not changing her diet when I suggested she come to a Weight Watchers meeting for free.  However, I let her complete lack of common sense or open mindedness slide because I got a really great workout and hearing her talk about how all the things I am currently doing, like watching what I eat and all that, are stupid and pointless really motivated me to lose the last three or four pounds I need to lose.  I found myself running longer than I normally would have and doing more reps that I usually would have and that is always nice.  We discussed a more routine work out schedule for next semester and I think the three of us might start doing it every Sunday.  I'm hoping that after several weeks of seeing my friend and I work out and talk about eating right, she might pick up a few good health habits without us actually telling her to do so.  Whether she does or doesn't, I'll be getting a really good work out once a week at least.

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I feel like I have redeemed myself. 

Last time there was a research group end of the semester get together I brought my boyfriend and he got nervous and wanted to leave immediately after we finished eating.  Not wanting him to feel awkward, I got up and informed our host that we had to leave for another party, which we did...sort of in like two hours...and then we just left.  It was so awkward and I felt so weird for eating and running that I couldn't look my professor in the eyes for a couple days.

This time, however, I left him at home and went by myself so I wouldn't feel obliged to leave on his behalf.  I stayed until the other guests left and had a very nice time.  Hopefully this time erases the last embarrassing situation and my professor's wife will remember me as the girl who ate two pieces of her cake and thanked her profusely instead of the girl who shuffled off after an abbreviated farewell and didn't even stay for dessert.

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I should elaborate on a couple of things.

1)  I ate so much tonight at my professor's house.  I currently feel absolutely disgusting.  I've found that since I've been going to Weight Watchers meetings I feel so much more guilty about everything I eat and I while it keeps me from eating too much most of the time...it also makes me feel horrible another portion of the time.  What I'm trying to say is that when I got home I thought about throwing up and was then sickened by myself that much more.  That really scares me and I'm not sure how to handle this new mental development.  It seems like my deficiencies multiply daily.  Perfectionism, depression, codependency, bipolar disorder, and now a fleeting smudge of bulimia.  And the worst part is that I know I have problems, yet I can't seem to correct any of them.  I feel helpless and trapped and insane so much of the time.  Of the people I've known throughout my life, I am one of the worst at dealing with other humans in a normal and reasonable manner and even though I desire more than anything to change that part of me, not matter what I do I draw the same awkward card from the deck of social interaction every time.  It's because I can't let go.  I know it is.  I can't let it go and I can't move on and it's crippling me.

2)  If I have more fun at social gatherings when I leave my boyfriend at home...what does that mean?  At that party I was talking about in my most recent non-trivial entry, he had to go home and work on one of his end of semester projects.  After he left, I had way more fun.  If I had to use a numerical value, I would probably say about five times more fun than I had while we were both there.  He's just so shy and sometimes he almost makes fun of me when I'm talking.  It's subtle, but when I say something kind of silly, instead of treating it as a joke the way I meant it, he almost apologizes to the person I was talking to, like he's embarrassed I said anything.  I mean, I can't think of too many other things that can ruin a conversation faster than being interrupted by someone saying, "Oh, she didn't mean that.  She's just kidding.  Don't listen to her."  I've actually had friends approach me after he does something like that and ask me why I put up with it.  I really don't have an answer.  I guess I'm just so used to him crapping on my parade that it's become second nature to just roll with the punches.  Other friends have referred to him as a "friend by proxy" because they would never have become his friend unless he was my boyfriend.  It's gotten to the point that I either want to hang out with him or with other people, but not both at the same time and that can't be the sign of a good relationship.  Why are we getting married again?  Oh right, because I frantically proposed to him because I thought it would make me love him again.  Did it work?  Honestly, I don't know.  I'm such an idiot.

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My mom said on the phone to remember that he loves me with all his heart and everyone can tell.  Does he?  Can they?  I really question that sometimes because I my thoughts are so convoluted.  How can I really figure anything out when I'm struggling with the most basic things, like my own gender?  I want to be a stable, normal person and I know everyone has their flaws and their quirks, but must I be gifted with such an overabundance of them?  Can't I just have a mind that matches my body?  Can't I just be in love with the person I used to call my soul mate without a second thought?  Can't everything just work out?  I guess without great hardship there is no great satisfaction and really my hardships are almost trivial compared to many other peoples', yet I can't shake this funk that I so often slip into.  I can't stop thinking about all the negatives and focus on the positives.  Maybe because I've lost sight of what was positive about my life and I'm so deeply involved in analyzing the negative that I've forgotten how to be satisfied.

Ugh.  Maybe I'll find some pants this week.

Will I live to see the day when one can purchase a fully functional sex robot at Radio Shack?  I hope so.  I really hope so.  I've probably been reading too much yaoi manga and looking at too much hentai, but one can dream.

I just hope something other than Taco Bell wins the restaurant wars.

"Better" is the best way to describe how I feel right now.  I think I've calmed down quite a bit and I've been trying to stay positive instead of focusing on the negative.

Things have just been...well...kind of crappy for the last few weeks.  It wasn't ever really anything big, just lots of little things that together add up to one big terrible mood.  One of the main things was that I had to put up with that horrible racist sexist professor several days a week and it was really starting to grate on my last nerve.  Kind of a last straw moment with him was when he suggested I was going to get a C in his class even though I got a 90% on two of four tests in his class and got in the high seventies on the other two.  What a mother fucker.  Something else was that I've had some friend trouble recently, nothing big, that was just kind of annoying me.  One of my best friends really embarrassed me in public along with a couple of my other close friends and it really frustrated me, but I didn't say anything to him at the time and that frustrated me even more with myself.  Another thing is that the people I asked for letters of recommendation haven't written them yet and the colleges I applied to started asking me why.  It really made me feel like a fool, but at the same time how are you going to force people to do you a favor and expect good results.  On top of that I've been worried lately about my sexual preferences.  I often think, and I know this is too much information for some of you but just deal, that I should have been born a man and that I wish I had a penis and chest hair and if I did I would be the singer in a southern rock band and I would wear gaudy vintage clothing like bell bottoms and shirts with huge collars and leave them unbuttoned at the top so everyone could see my chest hair.  Then I think about the future and wonder if there will ever be a day when I just can't take being a woman anymore and will get a sex change...after getting married and having kids, leading to a divorce and the ruination of the lives of my children.  I know, I think too much.

With all those thoughts in my head, on Wednesday when a to-go order was taking too long and I was going to be late for work, I suddenly couldn't help myself from crying.  I ran out into the car and sobbed for the first time in months.  I felt really good.  I felt a weight lifted off of my heart, like I had been holding that crying inside and it was wrapped around my heart like chains.  After that, things got better.  I finished the last test in the last class I had with that awful professor and I never have to see him in a classroom setting again.  I talked with the other people in the social situation when I was so embarrassed and found that they felt the same way and that I wasn't the only person who was extremely uncomfortable.  I visited all the people I asked to write letters to gently reminded them of my request but also just to catch up and it was really nice finding out that I wasn't forgotten and that they were just busy like everyone else around finals.  My mom called and talked to me for like an hour yesterday and when I told her I cried in a car she asked what about and I explained how I've been feeling about my body.  She talked me through everything and really made me feel better about my thoughts.  I have so many people in my life that care so much about me and it amazes me.  I would say I don't deserve it, but I've been trying to think positive, so I will instead say that I appreciate it more than they could know and want to do everything in my power to support them the same way they support me.

So, like I said, things are better right now.  I know they will continue to get better just like they always do.

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Yesterday night was pretty much amazing.  An old friend that I haven't seen in ages came down from Kansas City and threw a Stepmania party for all the old DDR Club members.  I had so much fun just hanging out and talking with everyone and jump-fighting with Ben and playing Stepmania and watching people play Stepmania that I wish it could happen every day.  It makes me so sad to think that when I go to grad school there is a chance I will never see some of those people again.  At least the internet exists and I can hopefully stay connected even in the tiniest way because of facebook and blogs and whatnot, but it won't be the same.  I won't just be able to go over and watch movies with them whenever I want or play Rock Band with them in this tiny apartment.  I won't be able to go out and eat with them when we're all hungry and not busy.  I will miss everyone so much...

Enough of that.  My best girlfriend also attended the party and we made plans to go shopping for pants some time during finals week.  I still only have two pair that fit and am now down almost 14 pounds.  She was also talking with someone about going to the gym, so we made plans to go on Sunday.  This other person is about 5'0" and weights over 200 pounds and even though she may be one of the most annoying people on the planet, even I can see the benefit of supporting her in her efforts to go to the gym.  She may be annoying, but I'm sure there is someone out there who is annoying in the same way and who would be perfect for her...except that she might be overlooked because of her appearance.  My friend and I agreed to go with her and work out, and you know, honestly, I think she could be almost cute if she lost about 70 pounds, and while that sounds like a lot she'll never get there if she doesn't start somewhere.  Even if she talks about how obsessed she is with Star Trek: The Next Generation or how she is so in love with Data, I won't mind because as long as she is working out and drawing strength from having others to work out with her, I'll be satisfied that it was time well spent.

Another person attended the party and did something I think is absolutely the most rude thing you can possibly do.  He came in and I waved and shouted his name because I hadn't seen him in a while and he didn't even acknowledge me.  He didn't talk to me the whole party.  Then, THEN, when he left he looked at me and said something about how I never call and then says I should call him.  Here's the thing, if someone doesn't call you and you want to hang out with them, you call them or message them or whatever.  If you don't call someone and they want to hang out with you, they call you or message you.  If you don't or they don't, well...you aren't really that great of friends in the first place.  What he should have said was, "I don't really want to hang out with you ever again, but I'm trying to make it sound like I do so you aren't mad at me."  Well, sorry buddy, but you won't be getting a phone call from me because I honestly couldn't care less if I never saw you again.  You are a cheating, selfish, rude jerk with any annoying wife that I only hung out with once I realized these things because you had Rock Band.  Now that I have Rock Band, I see no reason to put myself through the frustration of hanging out with you.  What's more is that this morning I checked my facebook and noticed that he had created an event for a sushi making party thrown for his girlfriend's birthday and that I hadn't been invited.  Uh, so you want me to call you, yet you didn't invite me to a party you are throwing even though I've attended those kinds of parties with you before and it would have been a great way to get back in touch.  Yeah, I totally going to call you.  What an asshat.

Aside from that little nasty spot, everything else about the party was wonderful!  It really made me think about the past, about starting the DDR Club, about friendships made and lost, about all the things that have happened and about how my life has evolved since high school.  When I first started applying to graduate school I thought to myself, "Man, it will be so great to get away from this place after four years of torturing myself!" but when I really look back on my years here at Mizzou...well, I can hardly deny that I had an absolutely amazing time and met so many great people that I will miss so badly when I'm gone that it hurts to think about.  Sure, I fucked some stuff up.  I lost a couple friends, I made some people cry, I caused some people to feel really super awkward about how I look at them, but that stuff is so small compared to all the good things that happened.  I met my soul mate.  I've made what I would call "lifelong" friends who even after years of not seeing one another would still want to hang out and catch up.  I'll get a degree in chemical engineering with a respectable GPA.  I've impressed many professors and made some good contacts.  I've learned a lot about myself and my own mind.  I've tutored an assortment of students, most of which benefited from my efforts.  I've made a difference in the lives of a few children.  I've even learned how to cook.  Honestly, I can't imagine doing anything differently and having it turn out any better than it did.

Gosh I get sappy when I have a lot to say.  I should make posts more often to break up the sappy factor a bit.

Something is making me uneasy.

There is so much going on right now that I couldn't really tell you what exactly is causing this tightness in my chest, but I can say that I've never felt this uneasy before.

Graduate school is coming.  I thought I would be excited, but with each passing day I become more and more worried.  Was it the right choice?  Should I have applied for jobs instead?  Should I have applied for jobs in addition?  What if I pick the wrong school?  Is there a wrong school?  How hard will it be to find a place to live for a reasonable price?  Will I like the town?  Will I make new friends?  Will I find new lovers?  Will my life fall apart?  Will I fall apart?  Will I ever make a difference for the future of this planet or will it all be futile?

I'm so afraid.  I feel something I'll describe as paralysis of the soul.  Whenever I start thinking about my future I just go blank and my chest tightens and I don't know what to do.  I'm beginning to doubt everything, my choice of major, my choice of schools, my choice of fiances, my choice of everything.  When did I become so utterly scattered?  When did my resolve melt away like butter in the sun?  Am I really this helpless?

I can't stop thinking.  I can't stop worrying.  I can't stop myself.  I think this semester needs to end and I need to take a real break, during which I literally do nothing important.