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As I get older, I find that I am more susceptible to the effects of jet lag. When I was younger this never seemed to bother me. I could adjust quite easily to nine hours time difference, though I will admit that trip to Japan way back when did throw me.
But now I find it harder to adjust. When I went home I had a hard time of it. Waking up far too early, and going to sleep early as well. For at least a week. Now that I'm back, I'm staying up too late, and am groggy in the mornings. And I am never groggy in the mornings.
All I have to say is I better not be groggy tomorrow morning because I am going to go to the gym at 7am so groggy just won't do.
Suddenly I am struck by confusion over the linguistic basis for the word lag. Seriously- it's a strange word, no? God I love the Internet. I'd show you the link, but blogger is being funny.
Four weeks is almost over. I can't believe it. Of course, I knew that would be how it ended. Like it had never happened in the first place. I need a vacation from my vacation. I need time.
To the couple of people who check in here to whom I owe email. I apologize for being absentee. The internet connection I am stealing from someone in this neighborhood is not at all reliable. And since the last exam, I've been trying to actually have a holiday, so my computer time has been minimal, and my online time almost non existent. I promise though, emails owed will be dealt with. But probably this weekend.
Assuming that is, that I survive my flight. For anyone not aware of how that makes me feel, pretty much this is all you need to know.
As for the last exam... well, it didn't go very well, so that also wasn't working in my favor towards relaxing. I mean, overall the exam went fine. Except for one very large error that I discovered with only one and a half minutes left. Which meant there was not enough time to fix it, and I had to leave it. This error was potentially so bad, that it may have been 'fatal'. Of course, I don't know, but it was quite a big mistake. So time will tell with that. Of course, ending on such a disastrous note made me question the previous two exams as well and get fairly depressed about those too. Still have three to five weeks before the results. At any rate, there is nothing I can do about it now. Still, I wasn't best pleased.
In other news, I've been running around catching up with people. Have seen both my New York friends, and took a trip up to Boston and then to the Berkshires to catch up with five other people. That was really great. Still, it was all rushed. There just isn't any time.
In a way, I don't feel like my vacation even really started until last Wednesday. That's not much time, is it? Not if you include a trip which involved three 3.5 hour legs. What I do for my friends..... but it was really really great to see all of them. And it's so nice to see and hear about how everyone is pretty much doing really well with their lives and are on track to where they want to be. And also nice that when we meet up, it feels like it's been almost no time at all. Though I worry this is a symptom of getting old, but I'll try not to think about that too much.
So back in New York and today I took my mother out for an early mother's day present. Here, mother's day isn't until next month. But I'm just missing it. So I took her to lunch at Gordon Ramsay's New York restaurant. It was fantastic. I mean really fantastic. We had a spectacular time. And then we went to the theater. Which was really good as well. So today has been a really good day with my mom, and that's always nice.
Anyway. I'm tired of my stolen internet going in and out, so I think I'm going to go watch some television and do a crossword puzzle. It'll be London before I know it.
Just another placemarker really. Twisted Monk has recently released seven more instructional videos on rope work. I found the first three to be very informative and useful, so while I haven't yet watched the additional seven, I'm sure they are just as good. Sometimes I find video a lot more user-friendly than a book. Or at least I tend to understand things more clearly when you can easily see it exactly for yourself. Especially with complicated string things. Like knitting.... it's exactly the same! *smirk*
Well, I am sick to death of studying for my test tomorrow. Not the least of which reason being that I am not getting it. My five hour test tomorrow consists of two problems. One is one hour, and one is four hours. The one hour problem I feel reasonably okay about, but everyone says that it really uses up all of the time and it can be a push. So I'm not looking forward to it because it is first, and it is clearly going to be stressful. And of course I'm worried that I will not finish in time. My first practice sample took over two hours. The second I did better- it was more like 45. Still, since I keep using the same materials, was I actually getting better or just getting used to the problem and it's quirks? Questionable.
The second problem is more difficult. And I'm fairly frustrated that it's not coming together for me very well. This is the one problem that is highlighting how little architecture I've been doing these past bunch of years, and how I'm not used to doing what I'm being asked to do. My brain is just not clicking in to it. So I'm concerned. I have never felt this unsure going into any of the previous 8 exams.
Of course, most people I know have failed at least one exam. Many people I know have failed more than one exam. And some people I know have failed the same exam more than once. So truthfully.... if I pass the first two that I took last week and the week before, and I fail this one... well... it's hardly the end of the world. I have six months to wait and then I'm eligible to take it again. Of course I wasn't planning on coming back home again this year, so if this is what happens, I will need to reconsider my travel plans for later on. Which would also be unfortunate, but not the end of the world. It's hard to consider though, that I may have to go through this all again.
Still, it's a bit early for that sort of thinking. I have the rest of tonight and tomorrow morning to keep going over it all. Once it's done, it's done- and I'll have done the best I could have at this point. I will deal with the future, when the future arrives.
It's strange to learn all of the sudden that random people are praying for you. Very strange indeed. Having oodles of time to kill and on my own, I dug up some old web browsings and found some interesting new additions. Yes you, I am talking about you.
If you had really wanted to know the answer to your question, you could have asked me here. But you just wanted to feel superior about yourself by making fun of someone not like you. Lady, trust me, you are not better than I am. If you don't understand my lifestyle, that's okay, because it's not yours to live and I have never asked you to. And I am not confused about my choices or my morality. So all that praying out there, don't feel obliged. Anyway, I'm Jewish. So according to you lot, I'm destined for hell anyway. Oh well.
Really. Doesn't life move on? I am not amused at being maligned on someone else's blog because of who I happen to be friends with. Everyone has friends and lives outside of whatever 'incident' seems to mean the entire universe to someone else. I get that you're upset, but it's got nothing to do with me. So why this personal backlash?
I hardly have the most racy blog available. If you really want to read about people who live their lives in the way I occasionally do, I'd be more than happy to provide you with a bevy of links for your reading pleasure.
So if you come here to read about things that I am not ashamed of, nor in need of soul saving for, or because you just admire me so much that you can't seem to stay away, then fine. But if you come here to find fodder... well, you're right. I am smart. Smart enough to make you feel very small if I felt like it. So stop it. Grow up. And if you don't have something nice to say..... or didn't your mother ever teach you any manners?
After all, when have I ever said anything nasty about you and your choices in life?
Now go away.
Well, it was bound to happen.
I think that because I was only in New York for five days. My mother tends to bring out the worst. Hastens the process. Still, my father is no savior. It's just that the process is slower. It hasn't even been two full weeks yet and I can feel that I am losing my grounding on my sense of self. Clinging desperately to the edges as they retreat into the unknown.
Sometimes I consider this is likely how I view death. It must be like this. People say they will miss you, and they want you to return. But their lives go on. Things more present and demanding require their focus. Text and email become less frequent. Of course were I there, the contact would be regular and instantaneous. I wouldn't even feel that I needed it. But now I feel that I need it more than anything- proof that my other life exists. Proof that I have escaped this one.
I'm also very tired of studying and test taking. I need to not be doing this right now, and instead be delving into the pages of my books. The second exam went very much like the first. If I had to take it again, I don't think there would be anything I would do differently. So this is worrisome, because if I get the fail letter, it will only tell me which section I failed, but not why. I'll have to deduce that on my own. I really hope I don't fail. I really hope I pass.
Which of course leads me to think that this is the time that I am really going to finally fail. I'm extremely suspicious of having so much hope and allowing myself to tentatively feel positive. It doesn't help that I've talked to others now here who felt just as positive and secure, and failed. Six to eight weeks. Fucking hell.
I've also had a slight glitch on the relationship front. Actually, it's not a glitch. The relationship front actually has lots of really interesting and positive things going on right now. But yesterday I read this post on IC.... and the floodwater of ugly emotion that spewed forth from me in response to the written words- I could scarcely understand it. I thought I was past these feelings. I was sure I was past these feelings. Why did what this girl have to say bring about such negativity in me? And so this has been occupying my thoughts as well. Questioning myself rigorously about something I thought was okay. On the positive side, my conclusion is that I am actually okay, and there are a couple of understandable reasons that this girl inspires in me such hatred, but that I also need to get over it. I have the information I need. I can pity this girl, but I should not despise her.
Still, I was completely thrown by my disproportionate response.
So two more weeks to go. Which doesn't seem like very much at all. In fact, it will probably fly past faster than I anticipate. Especially with all I am hoping to cram in. Tuesday the exam, then Thursday or Friday I am heading to either the Berkshires or Boston, then Monday or Tuesday I return, then Friday back to London. See? That's nothing.
Soon I will be found.
There is a very good reason that I try to stay as uninvolved as possible with politics. Mainly because I get incredibly pissed off at how overwhelmingly stupid the majority of people behave or think. I don't consider myself uneducated or even ill-informed. My general political abstinence (aside from voting, which I think is important) is a choice, to preserve my own sanity and ensure a better quality of my life. So it is with some regret that I got rather sucked into reading a debate about the proposed UK anti porn legislation and a feminism festival where a couple of women are going to represent the pro-porn/pro-feminist viewpoint, and the shitstorm that ensued.
In particular this one blogger has completely irritated me with her self-righteous twittering. In particular I am incredibly offended that anyone thinks they deserve any credibility at all when they post "If you disagree with me, I will not allow you to comment on this blog." I'm actually less inclined to discuss her other points, and would prefer to focus on this very simple irrational decision. How can anyone think they are anything but a tyrant and evil despot when they refuse to allow any version of a story but their own?
And I suppose what horrifies me about this maniacal dittoheading is that this group of complete psychos is supposed to be representing my interests? I think not. In point of fact, only the most restrictive and conservative and repressed peoples have ever allowed such censorship and lack of free debate or discussion. And these people call themselves feminists? They have more in common with Kim Jong-Il or Adolf Hitler than Mother Earth. As a woman, a Jew, and someone who identifies as sexually submissive (and no I have never been abused or otherwise raped and can happily remember how my first fantasies at a young age always involved such scenarios), I cannot fathom how any group of people who want to promote the rights of others think that the way to do so is by restriction and censorship. Are people so stupid that they have learned nothing from history? These people think they are liberals? They're fascists.
The only thing I will say about the point of contention is that it has nothing to do with feminism. Un-fucking-believable when there are so many real issues about how women are treated in society that such movements can and should actively address.
I recognize that there is no point engaging fanatics in their fanaticism. That these miserable people with no self-direction only find purpose in being accepted by the group by mimicking the alphas. Still, when I read it, it just pisses me off and leaves me with very little hope and too much verification about human nature and the miserable state of it.
Well, here I am. At my dad's house. Spent five days in New York. Had a second night Passover seder. Took my first test. Took a train down to DC. (That's right Herndon Reader, I'm here, I'm so close, you could almost reach out and touch me. *cue "It's a Small World" music track*). Now I'm studying for my next exam which is on Wednesday. Shit, I seriously fucked myself this time around. I need to study like a bandit to have a fighting chance at this. Luckily, it seems I generally work better under pressure, so I guess we'll see. It's all a crap shoot- the dice are gonna fall how the dice are gonna fall.
As for the flight, well, I don't really remember the flight. In fact, the more I take the Xanax, the more I realize that it is providing me with a secure form of temporary amnesia. I know I was on the plane. I remember eating the food. I remember trying to watch a movie or two. Then... I'm not sure I really remember much of anything else. I feel strongly that I woke up frightened at one point and hit the call button when there was some turbulence and asked the flight attendant about it, but I have n specific memory of it either. I don't really remember going through passport control, or getting my luggage. I know these things happened, I just have a very hard time pinpointing any clear specifics. Really freakish. But hey, whatever works.
So later on I'm meeting up with SH who flew in to ostensibly see her parents but also see me. I'm spending the night at hers tonight and then we are going to my step-mother's family for Easter tomorrow. Apparently my step-niece and step-nephew are getting christened but for some reason this is going to involve being dunked in water outdoors. I would like to point out that as I am sitting here on the couch, I'm also looking at a bit of snow floating about. Does this seem like a very good idea? We (SH and I) may skip the church part and head only to dinner. Especially since the church is even further away from dinner which is already in the serious BFE- it's out in Gaithersburg. Fuck that.
So what else is going on? Well, it's not even been seven days yet. I've already been told that I sound 'funny'. My mother asked if I had 'put on weight' since she last saw me and when I got annoyed and said no, her response was that 'Maybe it's just that top you were wearing then.' which is my first date sure thing top that everyone else loves. Ugh. She also annoyed me by trying to describe something about the Global Feminisms exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum but said that she 'wouldn't use the big words' with me when describing art movements. WTF? I suppose that's okay though as SH just called me a bit upset because her dad just screamed at her about the possibility of her moving to London and how he's against it. Everyone's parents has issues.
Anyway. I need to get back to the studying, but wanted to check in. Yes I made it okay, tests underway. One down, two to go. Time flies when you're having fun. Oh. Wait....
I hate that I hate flying. I hate the fear that wells up inside of me. I hate that I feel terrified. I hate that I am frightened. I hate that I feel weak. I hate that I can't stop from thinking that today may be my last day. This may be my last night. This conversation I just had with this person might be their last memory of me. It's a complete and overwhelming sense of dread that I cannot control. And I hate it. I hate that I feel sick. I hate that I feel numb. I hate the rising panic, the desire to flee, to run, to hide. To be anywhere else and anyone else but me. I hate knowing that it's not logical. I hate knowing that there is no basis for all of this intense feeling that I cannot do anything but bear. I hate that I feel this way. I hate that I am afraid. But I am afraid. I hate it.
