I just spent two hours practicing my keytar and I'm getting pretty amazing at playing the Final Countdown.  Just saying.

Does it get any better than watching your husband (who could be a male model) working out in the nude.  He always puts on Old Spice before he does so and it drives me nuts (in a fantastic way).  Forget that nasty Axe shit.  Old Spice smells like having sex for six hours straight.  It's really hard not to constantly distract him by grabbing his perfectly sculpted little butt.  He says he works out in the nude so he doesn't get his clothing dirty but I know it's because he knows how much I enjoy it.  The man has like 50 pairs of underpants for fuck's sake.

One of my homework assignments got pushed back and I've already got a really good start on it.  When I heard I raised my hands into the air and thanked the sky for its kindly blessing because it meant tonight I could just laze around and play my keytar, which I did, profusely.  In addition my stupid lab class that runs from 7 - 9 PM got out almost an hour early so I had even more time to do whatever I wanted with the evening.  And on top of that I don't have to get up at 8 AM tomorrow because Tuesdays and Thursdays my classes start later and now I'm done with all my early meetings with professors.  This is probably one of the best Mondays I've ever had.

I've grown strange in my eating habits as of late.  It's become inconvenient to devote my time to three separate meals throughout the day so I've taken to eating one giant meal and then using it to fuel the rest of the day.  I don't think it's particularly healthy, but who has the time or the inclination to wake up and cook breakfast or stop reading yaoi manga to make dinner?  Mike and I share one meal a day and that is generally when I eat.  After that I just tough it out because I honestly don't have time (or I'm masterbating) sometimes to just drop what I'm doing and make a meal for myself.  I'm going to try not to do this anymore (the single meal thing, not the masterbating) since I'll have more time after the lab class is over, but I'm not making any promises.  I'm monitoring my weight very carefully because I know that going from three meals to one can turn into going from one meal to zero and then to anorexia.  I weigh 118 pounds and I'd prefer not to get any lower than about 110, so I'll be careful.

I haven't been playing any DDR recently which makes me very sad.  Next week.  I promise myself I'll play next week.  Same thing for aikido.  I promise I'll go next week.  There, I pinky promised myself.  Now I have to do it.

Good night, internets.

I'm a fool.  Reading yaoi manga while on my period is self inflicted torture.

Why does he have to look and act so much like all my favorite characters?  Perhaps that's why they are my favorite characters.  I'm quite possibly the luckiest human in the entire world.

This will seem kind of lame after I explain why, but I'm having a fantastic weekend.

Friday night I came home and cleaned the entire apartment, something I had been wanting to do for over a week but had been too busy because of meetings and homework.  I feel really satisfied now that I know everything is nice and clean and I did it before my husband got home so it was a nice surprise for him as well.  When he got home from work on Friday he wanted candy so we went and bought him some along with some other groceries and another copy of Aion so we could play together.  I had asked him what he wanted to do with the evening, giving him three options:  1) laser tag with the other graduate students, 2) board games with some of our local friends or 3) stay home with me and play video games.  Of course he sweetly answered that he really just wanted to spend some time with me so we played Aion for the rest of the evening.  It was fantastic and I miss him so much during the week that it was just what I needed to lift my spirits.

Today I woke up determined to get a head start on my homework and I blazed through it in an unexplained twist of fate.  I got a good portion of both assignments done and it really gave me a boost of confidence.  Mike woke up and started playing Resident Evil 5 while I was still working and once I was finished we ate a bit of lunch and then played Aion a while longer.  Unfortunately my computer has a graphics card that can barely handle the game so it gets quite warm after a couple hours of play so we had to quit and eat some dinner.  It's been so nice just sitting around with him and being able to enjoy his company without any obligations weighing on my mind.  He really deserves that during the week, too, but it's so difficult sometimes.  I'm sure it will get easier as I get into the groove of things, but it's hard to keep telling myself that without getting discouraged.

Anyway, tomorrow I'll try and get a bit more of my homework done and also do the laundry.  After cleaning the apartment, getting groceries and doing the laundry, I won't have any more responsibilities from home to worry about during class next week and that is absolutely fabulous.  I'm really excited that I've been very productive this weekend and yet I've also had a lot of "just for fun" time.  It's wonderful.  I even snatched a few moments to read some yaoi manga which I haven't done in months!  Wonderful indeed.

I'm still deciding if I'm going to go clubbing tonight, but I'm having a really nice time with my husband and I don't really just want to rush off and leave him lonely when I get so few chances to be with him anyway.  I'll save it for another time when I didn't have such a busy week I think.

Happy trails, internets.

I hate my period.  I hate everyone's period.  Menstruation always feels like a punishment for existing as a female human being.  I know it's natural and I know I shouldn't complain about it, but it makes everything so much harder for me.  Even on birth control my cramps are so severe that they impede my ability to even have a conversation.  Also I've never been one of those girls to have the two or three day periods, so I'm stuck for like eight or even nine days bleeding out of my vagina.  It's horrible.  That's why I'm on the kind of birth control where you only have four a year.  Ugh, I just hate periods sooo much.

I have an exam today.  I'll be glad when it's over.  I can remember in high school when I would look forward to exams because they meant no new busywork to complete.  I loved them because I would go home with no homework and I would play video games nonstop from the time I got home until the time I went to bed.  Then came undergrad.  I was indifferent about tests at this point because they had become difficult enough that I had to study.  Studying properly is kind of like homework.  Still, after they were over I had free time to frolic and had I met people that I actually liked and wanted to hang out.  Now...I'm just afraid of them.  Most courses only have a midterm and a final.  I won't know what they are like until I have already had one and at that point if I fail the midterm I only have the final to make it up.  The course content is a lot more in depth and the subject matter is sometimes over my head, so studying isn't a guaranteed way to even pass exams now.  And I have no free time anyway, so studying for five hours last night resulted in me not getting to do anything fun at all before bed.

We bought Aion and it seems amazing.  I think I'll get a copy for myself today since it's the weekend and I plan on actually enjoying myself with at least a tiny silver of my time.  I also want to go to the gay bar in town and try to pick up chicks with my new haircut.  I'm scared to go alone but I think that will make me more approachable so I'll probably do it.  This isn't like the times in undergrad where I said I would and then chickened out.  I'm running out of time and I know it.  Soon I'll be in my thirties and I'll have children and fanciful thoughts of mutual girlfriends will decompose into dust and be blown away in the wind.  If I'm going to do it, I've got to do it now before everyone my age has too much baggage to be in a healthy relationship.

Last night I had this really amazing dream.  Basically, a caveman from another dimension was going to my old high school and got onto the football team (even though we didn't have one) because he was the size of a gorilla, but that wasn't the point of the dream.  That just explains why he was constantly wearing a football helmet.  Being a caveman he was unconcerned with pretty much anything but eating food and having sex, so he ended up trying to seduce all the women he met at the high school.  It was only my high school in a very slight kind of "emotional" way in that I felt like I had been there before, so I didn't know any of the people in my dream.  The main girl in the dream was a cheerleader, not the leader of the squad, but one of the pretty good ones, not like the stereotypical goth girl who got onto the squad but is shunned by the other members.

Anyway, the dream basically went along with the caveman ferociously hitting on the cheerleader and her subsequently falling in love with him after she realizes he's just the guy she's always wanted, but it was really sweet.  I remember in the dream that everything seemed really stereotypical of some teen drama except for the interactions between the caveman and the cheerleader.  It was like the whole world in the dream was black and white and they were in color.  Honestly it reminded me of meeting my husband.  The dream ended in a party gone wrong where some of the cheerleader's friends had be raped and the caveman (who by this time had developed this elaborate moral compass despite his outwardly unintelligent manner) figured out who had done it, beat the hell out of them and then carried all the girls that had been raped to the hospital on his giant shoulders.  Of course this was supremely impressive to the cheerleader and they end up having amazing wild sex right before I woke up, but that's not surprising.  It is my dream we're talking about and all my dreams involve sex at one point or another...expect for that one about the half Ronald McDonald/half Beetlejuice guy that led me through the slums of Midgar, but I think I'm quite thankful for that.

------------------------------------------------

The willingness to help and kindness of the other students in my first year class kind of astounds me.  Where previously in my undergrad everyone who discovered the right answer only shared it with a select group of people and subsequently turned it in so no one else could see it, here everyone who finds the right answer exclaims it to the heavens and then then offers to explain it to anyone who needs the information.  It's really nice.  It makes me feel very welcome and safe, but it doesn't erase that feeling that I'm completely stupid and can't do any of the work by myself.  I feel ill prepared by my undergrad.  I feel like vital information was kept from me or removed from the curriculum for no apparent reason because everyone else seems to know things that I've never even heard of.  I'm definitely struggling with a lot of concepts in my Heat and Mass Transfer course and it's very embarrassing to me.  I know that as time passes I will get better, but right now I just feel like I'm so behind that I'll never catch up.  Maybe one day I won't be confused anymore, but by that time everyone else will have completely moved on to something much more complicated.  If that's the case, how can I hope to provide any useful information to the field of research, much less become an independent researcher when I can't even do my own homework without help?  Maybe I'm a fool for going to graduate school.  However, it's too late now. I'm already here and I'm going to do this, no matter what it takes.

--------------------------------------------------

What would1000 pieces of paper look like if I threw them all over the floor in my apartment?

I wrote myself notes on my hand and this is what they say:

   caveman
  football
      dream

math homework
     due Wed.

I just thought it was a funny thing to read if you weren't thinking out of my brain.  Maybe I'm wrong.

I really need a woman, I think.  But at the same time I don't have any time for a woman.  I'll figure it out.  I got to daydream today unexpectedly and it was nice.

And finally, after nearly 12 hours of traipsing around a gnat infested campus accomplishing nothing in particular, I'm back home.  I'm really relieved to at long last take a shower and wash all the dead bug nuggets off of my neck and arms.  Disgusting.  My parents think it might be a signal of  the coming apocalypse centered on UIUC.  On my way to the last class of the day after avoiding getting any in my bodily orifices, two suddenly in seeming perfect unison fly directly into my eyes.  I hurried to the building and immediately to the bathroom only to see that one of them was dead and stuck in the lower lid of my left eye.  I flushed my eyes with water while screaming like a complete fool until finally its little nasty body was washed away down the drain.  Oh my god please just bring the temperature down to about 40 degrees and kill all these little mother fuckers.

Anyway, I'm not going to talk any more about the overwhelming amount of either neutral or shitty stuff that happened today and instead focus on the enjoyable things because it's far healthier.

1.  We gained another (might I add hardworking) member for a group in one of my classes.  She's a fun person and also very motivated, so I'm sure that will make future work easier, especially since our next task is to produce a well thought out paper.

2.  I attended a group meeting for one of my prospective research advisers and found it completely innocuous.  I could certainly stand presenting my work in that kind of environment and am happy that I was not somehow disappointed.

3.  Another prospective group had a friendly lunch today and I went along to see them in a nonprofessional environment.  They were all really enjoyable to talk to and I found the group dynamic to be just want I am looking for in a future group.  The professor is a vegetarian, so we went to this little hole in the wall place and it was fantastic and right next to the buildings in which I have most of my classes.  Even if I don't join her group I'll have to ask her more about being a vegetarian since I'm considering it myself.

4.  I got on the scale this evening and was greeted with a pleasant surprise.  Today I ate a falafel sandwich in a pita with a quinoa tabbouleh, a small assorted vegetable salad with almonds, one of those little cheese rounds in wax, and four Oreos and the scale suggests the results of a single day of healthy eating are a weight loss of three pounds.  I can believe that what with the horrible stress eating I've been undertaking recently.  Yesterday I massively overate just because I felt crappy and today I didn't allow myself to do that because it's pretty scary in general.

I'm looking forward to Thursday because on Thursdays I get to daydream.

I'm feeling a fair amount awful today.  It's not because of anything in particular, but instead a combination of a lot of little stupid things, which I will list in no particular order since I probably should have done so yesterday.

1.  Being told that I don't "pique interest" with my romantic advances by someone I admired.
2.  Getting my hair cut too short for my own enjoyment and then mentally forcing myself to wear girl clothing even though it is less comfortable.
3.  Finding it almost impossible to lose the last few pounds I've been wanting to lose for years.
4.  Gnats!  Everywhere!
5.  Being told to wear glasses by my husband because it freaks him out to look at me.
6.  Not being able to complete a large homework assignment because I just don't understand it.
7.  Getting a crappy score on a homework assignment on which I thought I did fantastic and having a test over it on Friday.
8.  Worrying about choosing a professor as a research adviser.
9.  Missing all my friends from undergrad.
10.  Feeling stupid compared to others.
11.  Not having enough time to work out or laze around.
12.  Not spending enough time with my husband lately.

It's nothing big, as you can see.  I just need to get out of this funk I'm in.  I just need a couple semi-amazing things to happen and I'm sure it will get my mind off of all the little unimportant crappy things.

I think one of the major problems is that I don't have a lot of time right now because of all the meetings and a laboratory class that runs from 7 - 9 PM on Mondays and Wednesdays.  These things will be over after next week and that will free up my evenings again for homework so I don't have to do it on the weekends.  Then I can use my weekends to spend more time with my husband as well as working out and just chilling.  Heck, I might even find time to seduce the ladies if I'm lucky.  Once I get back to my normal groove of working out and not eating on the run I'm sure it will be easier to loose the weight as well.  I mean, honestly it's only like seven or eight pounds that I want to lose so it shouldn't be that hard.

I'm just going to try and look on the bright side for the next couple of weeks until I get to a point where I have time again.  I try not to wish away my life, but sometimes I just can't help it.

I think there must be something innately programmed into anyone with a female body that cannot allow satisfaction with one's weight.  I look in the mirror and I only weigh 122 pounds, yet I can't stop thinking how disgusting and fat my stomach and hips are.  Perhaps it's some kind of neurotic desire to look anorexic without actually being unhealthy.  I'm really not sure.  My husband walked up to me while I was looking in the mirror and said, "Everyone looks like a fatty when they do that!" because I was pooching out my stomach as far as I could, but when he does it he doesn't look fat.  In fact he normally looks like he has no internal organs and when he pushes his tummy out he just looks like his organs suddenly came in.

Regardless, I spent the day doing homework that I had been putting off throughout the week.  Normally I don't put off homework, but due to recent events and the evolution of a lot of negative feelings I felt it necessary to give myself a little wanton free time.  Admittedly I used that free time to sneak around on people's online profiles considering if anyone could be worthy of being my next object of affection, but it was time well spent and it put me in a better mood at the very least.  I also did a lot of soul searching about graduate school and how to rank professors in my final selection paperwork for my research adviser.  It's been quite stressful knowing that the choice will basically determine whether the next four to six years are bearable or absolute hell on earth.  I'll be so glad when October 5th has come and gone and I know who I'll be working under during my stay here.

This entry is so much less than I intended it to be, but I'm just not in a particularly amazing mood and I don't want to blather on when I'll truncate everything because all I really want to do is loath around on the futon feeling sorry for myself.

Good night internets.

I had such a fantastic day today.

Farmer's markets can't be explained to people who don't already enjoy them.  You have to have something inside you already to enjoy them once you've been to one.  Maybe it's my upbringing, what with the farm and the florist and all that business, but I really appreciate when people gather to sell things they've made themselves.  You don't get the same satisfaction from anything else really, and I enjoy that.  I was invited by my best friend here thus far and she brought another first year and we wandered around this magical wonderland of friendly people selling naturally grown and hand made things.  I bought some organic coconut macaroons and we all got some home made ice cream from a local dairy farmer.  It was so nice and I really enjoyed it.  It happens every Saturday until mid November and I think I'll be going there instead of buying fruits and vegetables at the grocery store next time.

Afterward I made a quick stop in at the novice DDR tournament that was going on, but quickly left when I realized that I had parked somewhere that wasn't free on Saturdays.  Even though I had been parked for over an hour I didn't have a ticket, so it must have been my lucky day!  I looked around on the ground in case it blew around somewhere but I didn't see one.  Then I called Mike and he was up by that time so I decided to go home instead of reparking across campus.

We had coupons for haircuts and since weekends are the only times he has off we decided to go get our hair cut together.  Mine was getting in my eyes so I wanted it a little shorter and he wanted a bit off as well.  Unfortunately for me I'm not very firm when it comes to what I want done with my hair and I'm also horrible at estimating distances...so when I said I wanted it an inch long and she said the longest buzz cut was that length I told her to go right ahead with a smile on my face.  After that moment the smile was no longer sincere and I only kept it up so she didn't feel bad about destroying everything I liked about my current look.  I still left a nice tip because she had done exactly what I had told her to do, but after we left the store he informed me that it was way too short and he hated it.  I was of the same opinion and I felt simply awful.

We went out to lunch and I couldn't help but feel super awkward because I was wearing a t-shirt and boy shorts and I felt like everyone was looking at me and wondering what a boy was doing with such giant boobs.  I couldn't wait to get back to the apartment and take a shower and put on some of my girly glasses so I wouldn't look as much like a boy.  Even though my personality is much more like a guy I always worry that if my appearance gets too masculine that he'll stop being attracted to me, so in some ways I wanted to be excited about my hair, but in others I was afraid that I'd done something horrible.  However, as he usually does, he knew exactly what to say.

"It'll grow back."

*Sex Discussion Warning:  I'm about to talk about sex in detail.  Don't read if you can't deal with it.*

He hugged me and we headed back to the apartment where we both promptly took a shower to get all the cut hair off.  Showers and being naked together have gotten to be more of a given than something exciting and I've come to accept it.  I often long for the days when we were first going out and we would turn a simple shower into a steamy hour of soap covered sex...but today, the day when I thought I would be least attractive to him, he suddenly began rubbing his body against mine and asking me to wash him.  As I started lathering the bath scrubby I felt something poke me in the butt cheek and then slip quickly between my legs.  I turned around and pulled him against me and began washing him slowly.  After I was done he instantly rinsed himself, dried off and ran into the bedroom making his cute little pretend frightened noises which always mean I should follow him.  I hurried to finish my shower and ran in after him.

We had sex for nearly an hour which included him touching my hair and kissing me more than he ever has before.  After we had finished we sat around together for a while and right when I was about to leave again for an all girl first year party he ran into the bedroom again.  We had sex again and it was just as good as the first time.  I couldn't believe it.  Not only have we not had sex twice in one day for a really long time, but he was more passionate than he has EVER been before.   I've often wondered if he has some deep hidden enjoyment of my intrensic masculinity and perhaps having it manifest in a physical form via my hair awakened some part of him which had been sleeping prior to today.  Maybe he was lying when he said it was too short.  You know, the last time we had sex twice in one day was probably the first time I ever cut my hair really short accidentally.  And maybe he doesn't even realize it.  Maybe it's something subconscious that he isn't aware of, but I think in this case two data points is enough to draw a clear conclusion.

*End Sex Discussion Warning*

After being completely fulfilled and validated by my consistently wonderful and often surprising husband, I left to enjoy an evening with what I will term "the girls" at this point, because I've never had a group of friends like this.  For some reason my first year class is full of people who are extremely compatible with one another.  Perhaps it's because we are all chemical engineers at nearly the same point in our lives, but we all just kind of click.  So anyway the girls had planned an evening of wine, dinner and dessert while chit chatting about girly things.  Normally I wouldn't have been the least bit interested, but for some reason I can actually stand all of them and the idea didn't sound at all horrible, annoying or boring like it generally would have for me.  One of the girls offered her apartment as the venue and a couple of them went shopping beforehand to gather the ingredients for the meal.  When I arrived they were preparing salads full of goat cheese and candied walnuts with raspberry dressing, shrimp cocktail, pork roast, mashed potatoes and more!  I was amazed.  As time passed more and more girls arrived until almost every girl from the class was huddled around the coffee table chatting about life and salads and random silly things.  One girl brought a cake she had decorated herself after taking a cake decorating class downtown.  Another couple girls had decorated some brownies and brought them as well as some ice cream.  The spread was like that which I would expect at a family gathering and it was simply wonderful.  We all sat about talking about everything from classes to marriage and it was so fun.  Not only that but everyone was really sweet about my hair and commented with things like I was one of the only people who could pull it off and that it looks cute and not boyish because of my face and I just felt so accepted and happy.  I didn't want to leave at the end of the night, but at least I made myself useful and drove four ladies who had walked for over 30 minutes to get there.  They definitely walked over 15 blocks and I just couldn't let them retrace their steps, especially in the dark at 11 at night.  Everyone said goodbye and we all thanked our hosts profusely for the event and it was almost surreal because I never expected to feel so happy after hanging out with a bunch of girls without having a crush on any of them.

And now I'm home, home with my perfect husband and the realization that the negativity of one girl who turned me down doesn't somehow negate all the rest of the amazing people in my life.

Sleep tight internets.

My head hurts so much and I didn't do anything of real importance this evening except getting the groceries.  At least we ate sushi.

My notebooks for class lay strewn about the living room futon unopened and abandoned.  I lied to them, speaking softly that I would get my homework done tonight as I headed off for dinner...but look at me now.  I've done nothing but read backwards in my journal until my own words made me uncomfortable and I had to stop.  Then I mindlessly wasted time on facebook.  I don't know what I expect when I refresh my homepage ever five seconds, but I do it anyway.  I can almost hear my notebooks gently sobbing to one another as I sit here stalwartly ignoring them.  But I needed a break.  I needed a break from thinking and talking and writing with a pencil and really doing anything but sitting here typing about myself.  I really needed to get back to blogging I think.  It was just time for some reason.

Anyway, I love those gummy snacks that are shaped like the characters in Scooby Doo.  We call them Scooby Snacks.  I saw a five year old eating some at a friend's house and I couldn't help but laugh to myself that I had lived four times as long as she had but still delighted in the same things she did.  Please shoot me right in the brain if I ever lose my enjoyment of simple things because at that point I'll be dead inside anyway.

I feel like I should "get to work" somehow on finding another woman to endlessly think about as entertainment in boring classes, but I don't know how to proceed.  At this point, I'm not in the dorms anymore.  I'm not good enough friends with anyone here to start courting them.  I haven't particularly met anyone who strikes my fancy here except an attractive young lady who I happen to be tutoring, but one shouldn't mix business with pleasure.  I'm starting to wonder if I'm getting too old, but as I type that I know it's not the case.  I mean, facebook quizzes tell me I'm only 15, so maybe my problem is actually that I'm too immature for things as complicated and fragile as relationships.  Oh wait, I'm married.  Nevermind.  I just don't know.

I think the main problem is that I've never heard of anyone successfully having a mutual girlfriend within a marital relationship except porn stars, and I'm no porn star...though I suppose I could have been.  That wouldn't have been too bad a job when I think about it.  Then again, I don't think you get into porn with stretch marks on your natural 36Bs.  Pretty sure you gotta have silicon and > DDs.  Also a gaping vagina.  But I digress.  I don't know what I'm talking about anymore.

Goodnight, internets.