At the university I am attending, pregnancy tests are available for free at the student health center.  As I was walking up to the counter, a frustrated looking girl with a beautiful face (aside from it being scrunched into an awkward frown) and an hourglass figure in normal sorority girl garb pushed past me while stuffing a medium sized brown paper bag stapled shut into her gigantic expensive purse.  I sighed and thought to myself, "She looks rape-able," because that's what I always think about sorority girls in those skin tight leggings with their underwear lines along their apple shaped asses clearly visible as they walk away from you.  I arrived at the counter and cheerfully expressed interest in a free pregnancy test.  The woman gave me an eyebrow raise and then smiled in a nervous way and handed me...a medium sized brown paper bag stapled shut.  I turned it over in my hands for a moment and then asked her how many I could get in a year.  Again, the woman smiled nervously and responded that I could only get them twice a semester and that perhaps I should think about alternative methods of birth control if I planned on needing to know so often.  At this moment I looked her straight in the eye and said that I was trying to get pregnant and that she probably shouldn't jump to conclusions about people so easily.

With that I walked away, but as I thought about the situation, the girl walking away from the counter, the woman behind the counter, the bag to conceal the pregnancy test, all of it was so negative and depressing.  Something I jokingly say to myself could have easily been true.  That girl could have gone to a party, gotten super drunk and then been raped by a douchey piece of shit just because he could.  Or her boyfriend could have asked for sex and told her something stupid like, "You can't get pregnant if I pull out," and now she had missed a period.  Or she could have been behaving almost responsibly, using a condom which broke or perhaps missing a couple birth control pills and just worrying about the situation.  Regardless, it was all negative.  And the rude woman behind the counter certainly didn't help any.  Her insincere smile and thoughtless comments were pretty uncalled for.  And the bag, the pathetic attempt at disguising the little object, really only served as a reminder that she, this random girl who's life could be in so many places, should be embarrassed and regretful about her current situation.  It made me angrier and angrier as I thought about it more.  Why should someone be persecuted more than they have already persecuted themselves for whatever mistakes, controllable or uncontrollable, that they had made?  But, I couldn't really think of anything I could do about it...  I was so frustrated because something that should have been exciting and greeted with a joyful, smiling desk attendant asking me what I was thinking of naming the child and if I wanted a boy or girl and blah blah blah had instead been turned into something depressing.  It just sucked the joy out of me.  I still don't really know what I would suggest to improve the situation.  There is such a stigma for a girl younger than 30 to be seeking or purchasing a pregnancy test that one person's frustration with it probably doesn't matter all that much.  *sigh*
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Dear women over the age of 35 on craigslist:

I understand that you are all worried about your safety and you live alone and blah blah blah, but when I don't respond to your stupid e-mail asking me to put my credit card information into some weird ass verification website, this does NOT indicate that I am a weird stalker who wants to kill you and eat any children you might have while having sex with your corpse.  Please don't flag my entry because I deleted your e-mail instead of responding to it and therefore must not be willing to verify my identity because I lied about it, and don't tell me that you flagged it because I would really rather you just did it and I didn't know why instead of being given a really dumb reason that angers me.

Look, I'm a 23-year-old girl.  You could just as easily be a 45-year-old serial killer or some kind of phishing bot (because all the responses I ever get from late 30's women have the exact same basic formula) hoping that I will give you my information through whatever website you send me so that you can steal my identity or something, not that you would get much money.  I mean, every response is something like:

Hi

I was browsing cg and saw your ad.  I am a [insert descriptive words matching ad request] 3X-year-old woman.  I like [some stuff] and [some other stuff].  I am looking for [a deep connection/just some fun/a serious relationship/whatever] and thought I would reply.

I live alone and for my safety I want you to verify your identity.  Enter your credit card information and you can see my phone number.  Here is the website:

[insert link made up of random letters]

Hope to hear from you soon!
[generic woman name]

To say that I could be a stalker or a spammer or something is basically the pot calling the kettle black!  Everyone on the internet could be one of those things!  So don't flag my ad just because I don't respond to you!  Sheesh!  Weirdos!

Sincerely,
Katie

I can't sleep anymore.  I've become some type of insomniac in that I lay down to sleep and can't seem to keep my mind from having conversations with me.  I lay awake talking to myself about all kinds of things, imagining situations, pretending things happen, talking over the situations of the day and how they could have gone differently, and all the while squeezing my eyes shut hoping that eventually my internal conversations will instead translate into dreams.

I was physically in bed by about 3:30 AM this morning, but because my mind was stuck on analyzing Final Fantasy 8 and what I need to do to get ready for the oral qualifier in April I didn't actually fall asleep until around 8:30 AM.  And I woke up about an hour and a half ago. 

Something I can say for myself is that I am usually a "normal" sleeper.  I go to bed and fall asleep in about half an hour.  I sleep for approximately eight hours.  I wake up groggy, but become energetic within an hour or two of awakening.  However, while studying for the qualifying exam I had no schedule.  Nothing was happening.  I would wake up, start studying, continue studying, eat something, study a little more and then go to bed when I couldn't study anymore.  By the end of the break, with no real commitments at any normal hours I was at the point where I was going to bed at 6 AM and waking up at 4 PM.  Then, in the last few days, I've been trying desperately to get back to sleeping on a schedule compatible with the real world, especially since I've been feeling pretty ill on awakening and don't particularly like it.  Unfortunately, probably based on the immediate sleep cycle change from 6 AM to 4 PM over to 2 AM to 10 AM, I now can't sleep at all.

I hope I don't start a Fight Club.  Oh, I'm not supposed to talk about that.

Let me preface this entry by saying that I'm very sorry for the extreme delay in posting all these things.  All I can say in my defense is that I can be a pretty lazy bastard sometimes.  The following concepts will be listed in order of importance from least to greatest and not in chronological order because it's easier for me, what with so much stuff to post about.
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Everything in my life, working toward my PhD, trying to learn Mandarin and how to play the keytar, working hard to maintain my health and physical fitness, everything, has basically been to keep me busy until I felt I was ready to have children.  And now I am.  I'm no longer on birth control and at this very moment I could be pregnant.  It's strange to say, but having sex for the biological purpose of procreation is so much more satisfying than having sex for fun and pleasure.  There is no worrying about whether or not one is pregnant, because one wants to be pregnant.  There is no regret, because one intentionally engages in the act with a set purpose that cannot be achieved in any other fashion.  It's really liberating, honestly.  It's probably the most satisfying experience I've ever had.

But pregnancy brings about many other concerns.  Am I eating right?  Am I healthy enough?  How hard and how much can I work out and not risk a miscarriage?  Will my baby be healthy?  Will working in a biological laboratory effect my unborn baby adversely?  If the fetus is diagnosed with a physical or mental ailment will I be able to abort?  Will I have a natural birth or will they have to operate?  Will my stomach bounce back or will I be left with huge stretch marks?  Will my vagina become a gaping chasm that echos if you talk into it?  All these things, even the more trivial ones, are concerns of mine.  And I was experiencing pain in my right ovary a few days ago.  I spent nearly 6 hours straight crying and sobbing and blowing my nose and then crying even harder because I thought I might have ovarian cancer and they might have to remove all my reproductive organs.  Being able to birth children and survive to raise them is not something I take lightly.  Thankfully, when I went to the doctor it turned out that everything is completely normal except that I have an inverted uterus (probably the reason I like doggy style best) and the pain was probably cause by me ovulating for the first time in a little over 4 years.  And as for birth defects, working in a biological lab is actually much safer than working in a lab where heavy metals are used.  I mean, the same things that destroy biological experiments are the things that I have to avoid, so the lab is actually pretty safe save for a few key situations that I can avoid with proper protective equipment.  Plus, I have married a man with my same views on raising a mentally impaired child, that being that we would rather abort and save our energy for a child with at least average mental capacity.  I can deal with almost any physical ailment, but to have a child who can't understand the world around them, or who cannot interact with other humans...it would destroy me considering I value intelligence and understanding above everything other than furthering my genetic material into the next generation.  I honestly don't think I am a strong enough person to love a child like that.

Anyway, let's not talk about that anymore.  My ovaries are normal and functioning and I will leave it at that.  My husband and I have been mulling over what we will name a child and it's proving more difficult that I originally thought it would be.  I think the problem is that every time we both agree on a name, there is always "that one guy that one time" or "that stupid bitch in high school" who shares the name and who ruins it for us.  We've settled on only two names:  Faye Anna for a girl and David Michael for a boy.  Hopefully I don't happen to have twins of the same sex because we would be fucked for the second name.  Or triplets!  Fuck.

One thing that's kind of sad about being pregnant is that I've already been told I can no longer breakdance or play DDR.  There's no way around it.  The two activities are just too dangerous and shock involved for a pregnant woman to engage in them.  A small price to pay, but a price nonetheless.
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I passed the qualifying exam!  I am now a PhD candidate!  Now if I flunk out I can say that I was a PhD student at least for a little while.  And I've started my research.  I was actually sitting at my little desk today, shuffling papers and pretending to read things while I was, in fact, eavesdropping on other people's conversations.  I really like the common office space for my group because there is always someone around to talk to and make you feel less lonely and isolated as you stare down at complicated diagrams of DNA structures and protein functions.  Most people are very friendly and those who aren't are just shy, not rude.  It's nice.  I guess it's something I've always dreamed of and never fully realized how much I wanted it until I had it.  I'm a PhD student!!  I'm a PhD student!  I have laboratory space and I know where to order petri dishes and I have a lab coat and people greet me as an equal.  I think that is the best part.  People in graduate school really listen to you.  I think perhaps it's because all the students already knows that everyone around, including themselves, is basically part of the cream of the crop in terms of intelligence.  Maybe PhD students aren't the highest paid people and maybe they aren't on the same level in terms of leadership as, say, the CEO of a major company, but everyone knows something and everyone is willing to share it with you if you are willing to listen.  It's almost this mutual unspoken agreement that if you have something to say then I have the time to listen to it.  It's kind of a hard thing to convey without someone actually experiencing it because it's more than that.  It's just...I don't know...like the force, it's all around you and you can tap into it if you have the right receptors inside you.  But it's gentler than the force.  It's for communication, not physical violence.  It's like the ABC Family version of the force.  Now I'm definitely just rambling.
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I put an ad out on craigslist and actually got a legitimate response for the first time ever.  Two of the three responses were from women in their late 30s who couldn't possibly have anything in common with me other than that they would like to touch a hawt young female body.  The legitimate one was a very attractive 22-year-old Asian veterinary student.  We met for lunch and I enjoyed the encounter, but I could tell that she wasn't really interested in what I was.  Not only did she mention that she thought married women dating was weird (without knowing I was married), but there was just this general feeling of restlessness with her.  I don't think she is really looking for a serious relationship right now and being faced with the option of being tied down to one person must have hit her while we were talking.  I of course told her after the meal that I was married in an e-mail because I didn't want to hide it from her, nor did I want her to get uncomfortable in a restaurant.  She responded with the exact thing I had gotten from the encounter; that she wasn't even really sure what she was looking for or if she would even recognize it.  I told her she should just focus on having fun for now and not worry about it.  Without a doubt I was disappointed, but at least she was my age and attractive, unlike a lot of the women who seem to prowl about on craigslist.  I see this as a positive sign and I'll have to put up another ad soon, this time with age requirements and the inclusion of my marital status to avoid any future confusion.  I told my husband that once we get into our 30s we will have the pick of the fucking litter.  He responded by saying that regardless of generation, single 30ish women are insane and that's why they are single.  He has a point.
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I hate L4D2, not because of the game itself, the controls, the graphics or anything like that, but because of my husband's reactions to playing it and desire to turn the volume way, way up.  Now, I'm not saying I hate the noises games make.  I personally require noise while playing a game for it to really be fun.  My mom used to say about Final Fantasy games when I played them back in high school, "Can't you just turn off the sound?  You read everything anyway!"  Well, sure you do, but the game designers put the noises in for a reason and that reason is to engage you, to immerse you.  If I can hear my mom shouting for me to wash the dishes, well, I'm not really immersed, am I?  But, and this is an important and specific but, 1) I am afraid of zombies, 2) I hate unnecessarily (not all) loud noises, and 3) there is one fucking gun in that game that makes a sound that, to my ears, is like some kind of fingernails being shot at a chalkboard.  I think it is the "silenced" machine gun with something zip tied to it.  I can't remember the name.  Anyway, if the sound is playing I'm probably annoyed, and he plays it late at night when I'm about to go to bed.  Since I'm both a small child inside and afraid of zombies, I end up having horrible nightmares about everyone I've ever loved being killed in horrible ways during the zombie apocalypse. 

So, sometimes I can convince him to listen to the game with his headphones on, but then come his reactions to the game.  When he plays with other people, 9 out of every 10 of them is a COMPLETE FUCKING ASSHOLE!  FUCK WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!  YOU FUCKING SUCK AS THE CHARGER!!  ARE YOU KIDDING ME??!!  ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??!!!  HOW COULD YOU MISS THAT SMOKE?!  Okay save me, save me, SAVE ME!  SAVE ME!!  OH, NOW I'M DEAD YOU FUCKING IDIOTS!  YOU SUCK AT THIS GAME!!!  OH KICK ME?  I'M GOING TO QUIT!  HAHA TOO FUCKING BAD!  So, really, the problem is not solved when the headphones are on, and in fact it's more frightening because he isn't shouting the entire time he's playing, but in intervals that last a few minutes intermixed between dead silence, so not only is it emotionally taxing to hear my husband so angry, but it scares me each time he starts on one of his rants.

In summary, people like my husband should not play L4D2 or really any competitive FPS game.  That doesn't make the game bad, or even him bad.  It's just not a compatible pairing.  Thankfully, recently, I told him how much I hate when he plays it and he sheepishly apologized and hasn't played since, admitting that the game frustrates him so much that it isn't really fun anymore.  Thank fucking God.
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My research professor is the cutest fucking thing ever!  I swear he could be Clinton Kelley's body double.  He's always so well dressed and he's got this little nervous cuteness about him, like a puppy that hasn't really gotten used to you yet, but let's you pet it anyway just because it is too nervous even to run away.  I'm glad he's gay because it makes me feel better about being attracted to him.  I think I would be pretty uncomfortable if he was straight and I was constantly checking him out.  Last week he came to class in these perfectly tailored tweed slacks with a white button down shirt and a black sweater vest and everything fit him so well that he could have been a manikin in a classy men's clothing store.  A classmate and I looked at each other and discussed how cute he was and I felt like I was in middle school ogling a boy as he walked down the hall.  And after we were done talk at almost exactly the same time we both said, "...but I would never say that to him because it would be totally inappropriate."  At least we are both on the same page.
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There, I think that mostly covers it.  I'll try and get back to updating more frequently. <3

1:30 PM.  Am I ready?  I fucking hope so after so many hours of preparation.

Mass and Energy Balance - Complete - 13 hours
Principles of Chemical Engineering - Complete - 18 hours
Thermodynamics - Complete - 15 hours
Chemical Reaction Engineering and Technology - Complete - 8 hours
Process Control - Complete - 5 hours
Process Design - Limited Coverage - 1 hour
"Transport Phenomena" by Bird, Stewart and Lightfoot - Complete - 27 hours
Applied Mathematics - Complete - 2 hours
Chemical Kinetics and Catalysis - Complete - 3 hours
Microchemical Systems - Limited Coverage - 1 hour
Heat and Mass Transfer - Complete - 10 hours
Semiconductor Materials Processing - Limited Coverage - 1 hour

Today's a palindrome so I felt obligated to post for future reference.  I'm not going to make a long post, just logging my progress.  I promise I'll get back to posting when I'm not studying 12-16 hours per day for the most epic exam of my life.

Mass and Energy Balance - Complete - 13 hours
Principles of Chemical Engineering - Complete - 18 hours
Thermodynamics - Complete - 15 hours
Chemical Reaction Engineering and Technology
Process Control
Process Design - Scrapped because there is too much information to cover.
"Transport Phenomena" by Bird, Stewart and Lightfoot - Complete - 27 hours
Applied Mathematics
Chemical Kinetics and Catalysis
Microchemical Systems
Heat and Mass Transfer - Incomplete - 4 hours
Semiconductor Materials Processing

The qualifying exam...  Pros:  If I pass I'm worry free for a while and it's only a little over two weeks away so it will be over soon.  Cons:  I basically have to relearn everything I've ever known about chemical engineering in the next two and a half weeks.  Here I go:

Mass and Energy Balance - Complete - 13 hours
Principles of Chemical Engineering
Thermodynamics
Chemical Reaction Engineering and Technology
Process Control
Process Design
"Transport Phenomena" by Bird, Stewart and Lightfoot
Applied Mathematics
Chemical Kinetics and Catalysis
Microchemical Systems
Heat and Mass Transfer
Semiconductor Materials Processing

I've been quiet lately.  I've been waiting and wondering how things would change after I took my last pill.  In the past whenever I've felt depressed I've always said, "After [insert stressful situation here] is over, I'll feel better.  This sadness is just a product of me worrying," and I've always been wrong.  I've always been left waiting and wondering, waiting and wondering, hoping that control over my emotional state would eventually return to the realm of predictable situations instead of wild flights of reasonless depression and self loathing.  I've been hoping that my joyful obsession with myself and how awesome I am would eventually return, because being extremely narcissistic was always good for my self esteem back in high school.  Being able to say to myself, "It's okay that [insert stressful situation here] happened because you are awesome and you know it," was always such a welcome relief and I've really been missing out on it lately.

I never expected birth control to make any difference.  I always used it as an excuse inside my head, telling myself that those extra hormones were the problem and not my life.  I never really believed it, but it helped me get through rough times by giving me the ability to blame something other than myself for my problems.  I never expected to be truly happy ever again, after nearly four years of trying to figure out how to bring back those wonderful feelings.  I never expected to be right.

It's been two weeks since I've been off the birth control.  It's been a five days since the last day of my period.  I haven't wished for death since Wednesday, even though all my finals were on Thursday and Friday.  Another strange thing is that I've had vivid dreams the last few nights, dreams like I used to have before I got on birth control, dreams that I actually wanted to write down because they could have been made into feature length movies.  Additionally, I was actually EXCITED for sex instead of just having it because I knew I used to be excited about it.  I don't feel destroyed when I look at the scale and it says 120 pounds.  I wouldn't say I feel exactly like I did freshman year of undergrad, but I could see myself getting there in a few more weeks.  And after having soooo many people tell me that I was just depressed from the stress of college EVEN THOUGH I WAS HAPPIER THAN I HAD EVER BEEN IN MY LIFE just before getting on birth control, it feels really good to be given back the faith in my own knowledge of my body and life.  Thinking back on it, OF COURSE it must have been at least partially related to birth control!  All those extra hormones basically making my body think I was pregnant for the past four years?  How could that not affect me emotionally?  Fuck doctors and psychologists that don't fucking listen when you tell them what's wrong.  If I'd known it was as simple as using a condom instead I would have instantly stopped taking the birth control.  INSTANTLY.

Speaking of which, using condoms again makes me feel really silly, but it's also kind of exciting.  It brings back memories of our first experiences together when we were first dating.  It's a wonderful feeling, even if I do relate condoms to being young and inexperienced.  It brings a strange anticipation into foreplay where we have to control ourselves until the condom is on.  It's really kind of fun actually.  Maybe that's just the old me coming back to the forefront of my personality.  Regardless, good times.

My personality, my thoughts, my feelings, they are all slowly draining away from me.  Perhaps they are more like sand slipping through my fingers as I try desperately not to let any more escape my fragile grip.  Everything seems so muted and lackluster.  The world is slowly losing its color and vibrancy and I'm frightened.  It's been so long since I actually felt like myself and I'm wondering if perhaps the problem is that I'm not myself anymore, but instead have evolved into someone else while I wasn't paying attention.  Nothing really holds my interest, not even keeping this blog up to date.  Practicing the keytar, breakdancing, aikido, all these things were designed to bring be back into the beautiful world I remember, but they just end up being needless burdens that I can feel bad about not having enough time for later.  Am I becoming a shadow of a real person, nothing more than an empty shell with all the physical functionality of a human being but none of the mental creativity that I used to possess?

Every day for three and a half years I've felt this way, with slight dips up and down, but never any real improvement.  I think perhaps the only thing that really kept me from killing myself a long time ago was fear.  I'm afraid of death, but at the same time I think about it a lot.  I imagine how the people that know me would be effected and their pain would be so much greater than my own that I can't bring myself to end my own life.  I don't talk about this with anyone ever other than mentions of it on my blog, probably because I feel so foolish.  How could anyone understand this horrible, creeping feeling deep within my chest when my life is so seemingly perfect?  I tell myself that.  I repeat it over and over. 

"You are loved.   You are healthy.  You have enough money to live. You are intelligent.  You got into graduate school.  You aren't horribly ugly.  Your life is well planned.  You are safe and warm and you should be happy.  You should be happy.  You should be happy.  You should be happy.  You should be happy."

But I'm not happy.  I haven't been happy.  If one could perhaps imagine my satisfaction with life as a large sphere, only a very small portion of the center would be filled up by the caring of others, with the rest of the sphere containing a blend of passive disappointment and loathing of myself.  It's funny, when I was in middle school and everyone thought I was a fat weirdo...I was ironically a lot happier.  I would say only the outer layer of the sphere was corroded by sadness at that point while the inside was made up of my enjoyment for life and egotistically love of my own personality.  Slowly, as time passed and more things that SHOULD have made me happier came into my life, the positive part of the sphere grew smaller and smaller until now, when I'm basically dangling from a tiny thread above a giant pit of utter despair. 

What has happened?  Why do I feel this way?  I mask it daily, smiling and laughing and spending time with others when really all I want to do is sit in a corner all alone and die.  I don't think I've ever said this.  Maybe I'm not as completely honest as I always boast to be, but things are painful to talk about.  When your life is undercut by a constant hatred for yourself, why would you talk about it?  Who would even want to talk about it with you?  I always thought that one experienced identity crisis problems as a teenager, defining one's personality and sense of self, and by the time one got to college all that should be done with and one would be basically a version of their "final" self, if that makes any sense.  Well, not me.  I'm losing myself, little by little, and I don't know how to stop it.  I'm so afraid that eventually there will be nothing left and I'll lose all sense of who I am and who I want to be.

I don't know what to do.  I should be happy.  I should be happy.  I should be happy.

I woke up this morning to the thought, "I have to get up and cover the storage room window with cardboard or it's going to bleach out our Halloween costumes."  Now I can't get back to sleep.  I can't remember what I was dreaming about but it must have been fucking boring.

Yesterday we were sitting on the futon just after he woke up and he said he had a dream.  He had two buttons on his neck that you could press and his head would come off.  His body could move without his head and he could breath and talk and blink without his body.  However, when he tried to put his head back on something was wrong.  It wasn't fitting correctly onto his neck and he was having trouble breathing so he had to take it back off again.  Immediately after some scientists came and took him away into a dark room and he woke up.

I didn't really think about it until just now but his dream really strikes a cord with me.  When I hate myself like this I kind of just want to make entries about him.

He's getting more attractive every day.  His face is slowly aging in such a way that he reminds me of Harrison Ford in Star Wars.  I would strip and beg for the Harrison Ford in Star Wars.  And his body is so perfectly sculpted.  Whenever I read manga and angels are drawn with nothing but a few rags hanging from their pelvises, that's what he looks like.  Each night when he stands in the doorway of our bedroom and all the lights are off except for the bathroom so he can take a shower, his shadowy profile is the most wonderful thing I could imagine.  His shoulders are so broad and his hips don't lie and I couldn't think of a better image to go to sleep with.

Yesterday night he was working out naked in the living room and I couldn't tear my eyes away.  I can never tear my eyes away when his body is on display like that.  I love watching him do sit ups and work out his toned back muscles, but the most enjoyable sight is when he does leg lifts and I can see all his naughtiest parts at the same time.  For me, the only thing that trumps a man's genitals is a fabulous set of luscious breasts.  And of course we had sex.  I played with him too much before we actually started so I only came once before he came instead of four or five times, but I think that's more fair in the long run. He could tell I wanted more and kept it up even after he was finished.  I made him stop (reluctantly) so his cum wouldn't make a mess all over the bed and I went to take a shower.  I guess my foreplay was really exceptional because he was still hard and I let him come on me (again?!) while I was lathering myself with soap.  It was fantastic.

And I look at what I have written and I wonder what my problem is, but it has nothing to do with him.  The intimate relationship part of my life is perfect and I am without complaints or unfilled desires (except for a beautiful woman) in that respect.  I'm just so fucking afraid of the future.  I feel like all my decisions are so serious now that if I mess even a single one up I will have ruined my life.  But at the same time, can one ruin one's life if one is already on track for a Masters in Chemical Engineering even if one fails horribly come the qualifying exam in January?  I don't know, and I certainly don't intend to test the waters of ruination.  I'm just worried I won't have a choice in the matter.  I'm so afraid.

I grow increasingly frustrated with each passing minute.  I've been thinking a lot about the past, actually far too much about the past.  Hearing gun fire constantly for 75% of the time I've been awake the past two days certainly hasn't been helping either.  Left 4 Dead 2 is a lot more fun with the sound at a barely audible level.

I have so little free time.  I keep telling myself that it will get better and eventually I will have the time to pursue all my retardedly varied interests, but I just don't see it happening.  And even if it does, will I really be happy?  I remember having all the free time in the world in high school.  I spent entire 24 hour periods just playing video games, but I certainly wasn't happy.  I was lonely and fat.  I had the free time I wanted, but that still didn't make me happy.  And now I'm certainly not lonely and only 10 pounds fat, but I have no free time.  I don't particularly like thinking of my life as a series of variables and trying to change them independently to figure out what works...but I guess that's kind of the point I'm trying to make.  I've tried either/or, but I'd really like to try both.

Perhaps I'm suffering from lingering burn out on course work from senior year as an undergraduate.  The homework was long, hard and extremely mind numbing.  Not so surprisingly, homework doesn't change that much in graduate school.  I should qualify that by saying that hard becomes unnecessarily hard.  I get so frustrated by the long hours I spend working toward the wrong solution or using the wrong approach that I've almost lost sight of any "light at the end of the tunnel" that I might have previously found solace in.

And that brings me back to thinking about the past.  Did I make a mistake?  Instead of focusing on research and getting my PhD, should I instead have been working toward an industrial "turn this nob to here and make sure this dial never goes past this mark" job?  Something that I could have left behind when I went home each evening?  Now I'm on track to becoming a professor.  From my experience thus far, research professors at this university have no free time.  One actually commented that he wished he had more time with his children because he almost never left his office and when he did he was traveling.  That sounds like the shittiest thing I could possibly think of.  We're considering children of our own once we purchase our first real house and have the space for such things and I don't want to be the mom who is never home with her house husband raising the children that barely remember her voice sometimes.  That would be horrible.

I guess I'm just jittery about the future.  For the first time in my life everything seems out of focus.  I don't know where I'm going and I don't know what I need to do to get there.  I can't see my path.  My lack of motivation clouds all the positive aspects of my life and causes me to focus on my slowly developing negativity.  I couldn't decide how to end this entry, so my husband suggested I end it by hugging him.  I did and it made me feel fantastic.  Everyone should have someone like him in their life because it's amazing.