Alter-Ego

Alicia staggered out the front door, lifted an unsteady foot toward the top step, and tumbled down to the ground in an unseemly mess. Too weak to pull herself back up, she propped herself up on her elbows and retched. Waves of nausea spilled over her as she slumped back down again. Remembering something she'd read in some poorly written spy novel years ago, she dug her thumbnails into her gums until she tasted blood.

There. A bit better. She took a deep breath. A few more deep breaths and she'd be able to force this emotional hologram back into the cozy space of real life. She shut her eyes as memories came back - briefly, visiting only in her weakness, soon be buried deep again.

Christmas had started out innocently enough. A lazy winter's day had dawned beautifully in her cozy suburban neighborhood. She'd awakened amind pleasant thoughts and voices, and tiptoed downstairs. The Others had started to appear later. Others - who were they, really? She thought she'd understood what she was getting herself into with this mission. It was supposed to be something comfortable, a bit of a reward for the challenging ones of years past and of the most recent, more serious missions. This was supposed to be normal practice - practice for real life, or whatever it was that awaited her when her service time was up. They hadn't warned her that this one was going to be worse than the others!

The woman - what was her name - another retch - Anne! God, she wasn't a woman. Nevermind what the programmers thought or tried to imagine they thought, this wasn't a prime example of normal human behavior. They'd overdosed Anne on self-pity and cynicism, resulting in some odd transposition of a spiteful fourteen year old personality into a middle aged body. Fucked if that was normal, Alicia reflected. Anne had that frightening, demonic, quality that arose when an Other either had a serious, real, psychological breakdown - or when the imbeciles they had down in R2N084 seriously slacked off on the robustness checks.

Never mind the cause. For now. Eventually, it would have to be examined, analyzed, documented. The difference between flipped bits and a bipolar Other was as much as the difference between a 2 minute mindFix and a 5 year stay in the rehab suite, unless she was able to do most of the damage control now, herself. Alicia couldn't afford the time in the rehab suite - monetarily or in terms of the impact on this supposed career she was forcing out of herself.

Anyway. Christmas. Damned, bloody, godforsaken Christmas. Alicia had stretched out on the sofa and allowed her e-pill to take effect. The e-pills were another supposedly genius invention by the Regulators to try and eliminate all of the false results that cropped up when agents couldn't snap out of agent mentality well enough for the "real world" simulations. She hadn't been thrilled at the prospect of taking it, but she'd been promised that the rewards would be both lasting and genuine if she just gave herself the chance to experience things from a "real" state of mind. Fucked if she'd ever do that again - agents were trained for a good reason.

Anne had been in a pretty good mood as the day started. Something was wrong with the Environment settings, though, and the two Others in the house hadn't interacted correctly. One of them kept forgetting that it was Christmas, and the other one kept forgetting that it wasn't the morning after a hard night of drinking - or whatever else causes a person to sleep until 1430 without having pulled an all-nighter or something similarly heinous the previous night. Most Others probably could have dealt with the funny Environment settings, but Anne's bugs were unusually adept at exploiting those particular vulnerabilities. She sat at the kitchen table, with her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed into little darts of hatred, working one of those mindless puzzles in the daily newspaper. Alicia, fully under the influence of her e-pill, offered a few cheery remarks only to be met with withering retorts. Confused and slightly dizzy, she'd returned to her post on the sofa.

Eventually, the Environment settings restored themselves and the characters acted like the family they were trying to represent. Anne turned to Luke, the Other that had slept in, and made some trite remark regarding her excitement about the impending holiday ritual. Alicia decided to increase her participation percentage for the simulation, and maybe get some better grip of the situation and the Others, by handing out the packages stored underneath the Evergreen tree temporarily residing inside the family's living room. It was when they were unwrapping the presents that things started to fall apart.

Alicia hadn't been warned that the e-pill made the user completely vulnerable to all of the emotions of an untrained human, and so she was unprepared for the magnitude of the depression that hit her when she realized the Others' - especially Anne's - utter lack of human regard for the holiday, even though this whole Simulation was supposed to stitch together something desired and created by the Others. It wasn't disregard. It was something bordering on hatred? No - there clearly wasn't enough love for the hatred to be there. Spite maybe?

Surreptitiously Alicia fingered the hidden "explain" button on her emergency controller for the Simulation. A hologram of Anne popped up, wandering around the supermarket with a shopping cart and talking to herself.

"FUCK IT!" She snapped to herself in a self-righteous tizzy. "They don't deserve anything - I'm too tired to do anything. I've given my fucking life - and - I just won't do it anymore." With one last bitter sigh and the dramatic gestures more suited to one living inside one of those awful Soap Opera worlds on the Fix, Anne swept a few boxes of fruit snacks into the shopping cart and headed for the checkout. Alicia checked Anne's status meters in the holographic projection and realized that her "Connection" fuse was completely blown out.

Great. This was an Other with a serious grudge who'd - either intentionally or not - completely disconnected herself from the EmotionWeb connecting herself to all of the Others. In other words - she just didn't realize what the implications of her emotions actually were and instead was locked in some sort of terrible feedback cycle, eating her own emotions and interpreting those as being the ones shared and expressed by everyone else. She was becoming jaded on resentment and negavtivity.

Catching her breath, Alicia looked up. She tried to remember the protocol, to force herself back into agent mode, to find the mental breadth and width of the problem space, but under control of the e-pill it was all but possible. This was Christmas, for fuck's sake. A time for love, enjoyment, for practicing the "good" skills, for experiencing thoughtfulness and for tasting some of that oft-fabled "magic" that the programmers liked to joke on about. It was Christmas, not another empty day on the holodeck. Right? The pill was strong. Alicia had to struggle to remember if this was another Simulation or if she'd been deposited back into actual Real Life for this assignment. She was human, natural - worst of all, vulnerable. She had to get a grip, even as the room started to acquire that uncomfortable, grimy sheen of an overplayed Sim. She had to let this be real. Be Real. The magic had gone, living a bland, slightly metallic taste in her mouth, but maybe the day could still be salvaged a bit.

An hour or two later, more Others showed up. Alicia was as prepared as she could have been - the e-pill was finally starting to wear off and she was regaining a few vestiges of sensibility. Weary as she was of approaching Others as an agent, she was beginning to slip back into her old self.

At least, she had been. Nobody had warned her that an increased number of Others would intensify the effects of the e-pill. Nobody had warned her that after an evening of catching a glimmer here and there of the insects residing inside Anne's rotten, hollow, body that it would only take a moment for that *other* Other to crack Alicia herself wide open with a renegade shot. Betrayal, distrust, and - that old friend - resentment all came flooding forth from Anne's proxy directed toward Alicia. The meter on the controller hadn't registered the full magnitde of the apathy and bland cruelty - and of course, the proxy hadn't been able to recognize the EmotionWeb disconnect, and fuck - fuck, she'd subscribed to Anne's reality herself, and - time to fall apart - ?

In an instant, the Simulation wavered and faded - no, those were tears. Damnit...was this the Simulation? So hard to remember again. Alicia wasn't convinced that the Others were Others - they seemed all of a sudden so real, even with the obvious discontinuties and - the pill - someone programmed the Others to make sure she'd get another pill as the first was wearing off - what bloody fucking sort of - oh, shit on it all. Alicia pulled herself through the soupy layers of perception and forced herself to find her way upstairs to get the e-pill remedy. She made it outside, and then swallowed, bracing herself for the impending weakness and nausea...

Another deep breath. The world was okay again. Not magical, not glimmering, not radiant, not wonderful - but okay. Her strength was returning in leaps and bounds. "I should have seen this coming," Alicia told herself ruefully. They wouldn't have put her through all those other Simulations just to give her this year off. She'd be okay - this was what they trained her for. The e-pills had probably been a part of their bloody game, trying to see if she was still as vulerable and gullible as she'd been before. It hadn't been fun, but she wasn't nearly as shaken or upset as she'd been the first time, before they'd given her any Training.

She'd figure it out some day. Some day - some day, she wouldn't be an agent confined to silly simulations and games. When she finally learned whatever it was that They were trying to show her - or maybe just when she had enough credits saved to buy herself passage away from here and into the Real Thing. Maybe then she'd find the magic - maybe then she'd have a reason to spend Christmas somewhere real.

Ranting about Politics

I'm guessing by now that most people have read about the Barak Obama Thing wherein he made fun of some college reporter at one of his events, and the reporter wrote a flaming article about it, and then he called the reporter to apologize.

Because of doing this, he's suddenly the "good guy", the "decent man", the one who "speaks the language of the younger generation and honestly wants to reach out to them", who will let NPR listen in on his phone calls out of the kindness of his heart just to indulge them and their audience.

I suppose it's probably par for the course, but I'm really irritated by the amount of headfirst feel-goodness that's coming from this - not because Obama did something decent, but because of the utter hypocrisy in people's responses to it.

Imagine that it hadn't been Obama, but some Republican instead. Then, instead of lauding him (or her) for doing such a great deed by reaching out to the youngsters, there would be accusations of "exploiting" the situation for personal political gain, accusations that the person was just using the publicity generated as free campaign capital. Letting NPR or some other media outlet listen in would have only emphasized that argument - instead of a pure act, it would have been seen as a slimy political maneuver. (And honestly - how pure are the intentions of a guy who can't simply call and apologize to someone without making sure that the rest of the world knows he's doing it?)

I thought this generation was supposed to be more savvy, more intellectual, more able to look at the "deep, underlying" aspects of a situation and make well informed decisions instead of being swept along by superficial acts and attitudes.

Blah. This upsets me as much as when people vote for one particular party just because of a strong, overly emotional obsession with a single issue (and in many cases, an issue that the candidate or party won't be able to fix by itself) and don't take into account any of the issues that will more likely be affected by that candidate.

Fun In DC

Kathryn and I took the metro into DC this morning, and spent the day downtown. It was good fun.

We went to the Air & Space Museum first. Even though I go there...fairly frequently... I still found some things I really hadn't noticed before to look at. I liked looking at all the Cold War stuff, things that had a lot more relevance to me after taking that Cold War class last semester than they did before. We took the "free guided tour" given by a really sweet old man who was full of stories about some of the planes. He talked a lot about the early space program, too, which was cool.

After that we walked over to Union Station to eat and look at the model train. Union Station is one of my favorite places in DC - it's so elegant and grand...makes you feel like you're in some sort of romantic novel or movie just to walk around inside. Also on the walk over we were crossing a street and I caught this trucker checking one of us out and then when he saw me noticing, he revved his engine at us as we walked in front of the truck. Then when the light changed and he came around the corner, he honked and waved. It was silly and made us act like giggly high schoolers for a second.

After Union Station we went to the "In the Beginning: Bibles from 1000 and Before" exhibit at the Freer Gallery. Apparently the guy who established the Freer Gallery was also a collector of early Biblical texts, and this is the first time that some of them had ever been on display. There were some there that were dated to be from 75 or 100 CE at the latest. It was really incredible to be able to actually see artifacts that have lasted from when Christianity was just beginning...in some ways it made the faith seem a bit more tangible and less like some fantasy that was grown from legend and twisted into shape over centuries and centuries.

Finally, as dusk was approaching, we walked to the World War II memorial. We walked around the whole thing while the sun was setting - I know how sappy I tend to be, so I don't think we could have chosen a better time to see it than amidst the roar of the water in the fountains combined with the echo of the winds through the colums as the shadows grew longer and then faded into blackness...it was truly awe inspiring.

After the memorial, we walked over to the Ellipse and saw the National Christmas Tree. It was pretty neat. By then we were both rather tired and there was a plethora of screaming children, so we finished up and headed back to the Metro station. Kathryn indulged me while I stopped at the Tivoli's in Rosslyn to bring back some cookies for the family. Tivoli's is great. I practically grew up on those cookies. Good times.

Hopefully in the next few days I'll post some of the DC pictures - if not here, then on Facebook. Maybe both places. We shall see.

The End of An Era

Last Friday, Fisher DeBerry announced that he would step down as the head coach for the Air Force Falcons. (http://goairforcefalcons.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/121506aaa.html)

He was head coach for 23 seasons - longer than I've been alive. I literally grew up watching him lead the team through a number of seasons; some mediocre and some outstanding.

Air Force Football was a - I won't say integral - but perhaps... consistent? part of my life growing up. One of my first winter hats wasn't really a hat; it was a piece of cloth fashioned in the shape of a Falcon Football helmet (complete with chin strap...)

When we lived in Colorado, we went to a lot of games. I remember cowering against the bleachers during the fly-bys, trying to find a compromise between hiding from that awfully loud noise and still keeping my eyes on the magnificent ships above - and closing my eyes at the last second when the planes would appear to be WAY TOO CLOSE. I remember a friend of my parents' walking me around the bleachers when I got too tired and cranky to watch the games, and helping me fish out blue and white pom-poms carelessly tossed aside by the fans. My brother and I built up quite the collection of blue and white pom-poms over the years.

The first practical joke I ever played involved a whoopee cushion, a Falcons game on TV, and yelling for Dad to come quick because Air Force was about to get a first down. (I didn't even know what a first down was at that point, but I learned soon after.)

Living in other places, Falcon football seemed like a way to tie some commonality into the vastly different places we'd live. If we were living close to Dad's USAFA buddies or other friends from work, there would usually be a game or two during the season that they'd come over and watch. Same group, same TV, same coach tossing his baseball cap on the ground in frustration and pacing back and forth in his characteristic stalking motion, same jokes, same stories, same food - different location, different job, different climate. There's something incredible about having essentially the same community regardless of physical location.

Living in DC and Ohio meant some trips to Annapolis or West Point for the game against whichever of the other service academies had a home game against Air Force that year. I remember finally getting over my fear of loud explosions at West Point watching Army and Air Force play what actually ended up being a pretty pathetic game on Army's part. (When was the last time Army actually won the Commander-In-Chief's trophy? Anyone?)

I remember going to the Navy game at FedEx field 3 weeks after 9/11. Talk about an emotional game. (Air Force won.)

In an odd happening of fate, the first time in years that I witnessed Air Force losing to Navy was on a weekend in early October during senior year of high school. We drove to DC for the game, staying with some friends who were living on Ft. Meade at the time. When we got back from the weekend on Sunday night, my letter of joy from the DoD-MERB was waiting for me. The only other thing I remember from that night was biting some poor kid's head off online when he asked me for some help on calc homework.

Needless to say, after that weekend I didn't quite feel the same affinity for Fisher or his Falcons. Air Force still hasn't beaten Navy again. I tease Dad about it every October.

I mean - DeBerry is just a man. Just an ex-coach for a team that I don't even follow that much anymore, or cheer for more than sporadically. But it's a name I grew up hearing, yet another figure of things from the past and hopes for the future that never really came to fruition. It's a symbol from Christmas break of years ago and the bowl season, of crisp fall days doing homework with College Gameday in the background, maybe of being young and of thinking that things aren't ever actually going to change that much.

The team's recent struggles (putting it mildly) aside, it seems only natural that he'd step down now. Not a day has gone by recently that I haven't felt - acutely - how much closer I'm inching to being out in that world by myself, trying to make something interesting of my life doing something halfway relevant for the world. It's pretty usual for college kids to feel like this, and I know I've written about it so many times that by now it's passe and worn out.

But. I don't know. It's hard not to worry about it. Thinking back - growing up was a lot of fun. I can't really complain about my childhood - so many experiences, so much laughter, surrounded by so many good friends of the family. I panic a bit thinking about what I'm in the process for carving out for myself. Where will my friends be? Will I ever find a man who actually wants to live the sort of life that I crave, achieve the sorts of things that I see possible (both in terms of family and career)? Is my family going to be able to carry on in the same spirit of adventure that I experienced growing up? I want to live in Colorado again. I want to live in the Southwest again. I want to live places that I've never been, I want to live overseas. I want my kids to have the same sense of identity, of community, of broad experience that I had growing up. The world is too big, and yet also too small not to at least try to experience as much of it as possible.

There was a lot of tension between Tom M. and myself after we were engaged. He fell in love with my spontaneity, my sense of adventure, my willingness to take on the world. And then for some reason he didn't understand why it upset me so terribly when he talked about wanting to settle down in a comfy neighborhood in whatever bland town somewhere near his buddies from work, and just not moving for 25 or 30 years. He couldn't understand why I wasn't comfortable with carving out a mellow, low-key, comfortable existence. I mean - I want comfort, but only comfort in the sense of stability - the sort of stability that I grew up with. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't want my sense of adventure to retire with the old Coach. I want to keep pressing on, as much as I can, toward whatever I can. I'm afraid of things being out of my hands to the point where that won't be a choice I get to make. Blerg.

Shaking off the Night

Men See You As: Not a Challenge

When you're in love, you lay it all out on the line And while men do appreciate your honesty... Do you ever wonder if you're being a little too available? Pull back a little! He'll be wanting you even more.

Are You a Challenge?

--------

Thursday I plowed my way through a book Christina got me called "The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing." It was basically a novel that gave snapshots of this girl's life as she grew up and had various types of experiences with various men, always landing with a guy who fulfilled some of her needs but wasn't exactly for her in the end. In the final couple of chapters, she buys one of those "Rules of Dating" books ("Never accept a date less than three days in advance", "Never dance with a guy more than once at a party", etc.) because she's so desperate to meet "the one" and have him actually be interested in her. Of course, the author chooses for the self-righteous ending and has the main character nearly destroy the one man who is perfect for her, and who does love her "the right way" because she's busy playing by the rules of "the game"* in a desperate attempt to "keep him interested." Point being, supposedly, that when the right one comes along the "rules" aren't supposed to matter or apply, or even help in the end.

How true is that, though? Is the book (written by a female) simply looking to placate the zillions of women (myself included) who just aren't in the least bit comfortable trying to manipulate someone just for his affections? Does it maybe actually truly hurt things to be too open, too frank, "too available"? Maybe people are just messy equations of chemicals and physiology. If so, that would support the argument that manipulation is actually necessary, or at least helps quite a bit in keeping a man interested. Another book I'm reading has some psychological undertones, and it talks about the psychology of seduction.

One of the most important aspects of seduction is the aura of mystery. This experience with the unknown is intended to create an excitement that causes the release of phenylethylamine. Phenylethylamine apparently is the culprit for causing that wonderful "emotional" rush of feeling "euphoric, energetic, and optimistic" during sexual interactions. One can argue a good point about monogamy and waiting for marriage to have sex simply from the perspective of wanting this rush to be as good as it can be with the person that you're going to live with forever (a nice thing to want, given that it's going to be forever), and so accomplishing this by simply leaving everything as a big mystery until marriage. I get sidetracked though; that's not the point.

The point is that if so much of human experience can be boiled down to "feelings" that really come from hormones, and that those hormones need certain stimuli for release - isn't that a really good argument for engaging in the sort of coquettish, manipulative, behavior that I tend to abohor (not to mention, completely fail at?) I've shifted away from the seduction and back into the more "emotional" realm, but really - isn't that how most people characterize falling in love - that heady, dizzy, feeling that comes from finally getting close to someone you've wanted for awhile and haven't ever known that you could have?

And - girls, let's be honest. How many times have we turned down dates from guys that seem just too open, too "there?" How many times has a previously "boring, available" guy seemed much more attractive after he's suddenly not single anymore?

Before I give the impression that I've given up on "real love" - let me say two things. First, while the experience of "falling in love" (the chemicals, maybe) maybe does rely on those hormones getting released, that's still not to say that maniuplation is necessary. (Note that it DOES say, however, that manipulation technically is sufficient.) I would contend that it's probably much more satisfactory to let things happen naturally, and given the wide variety of personalities out there, there probably is someone who is capable of having their happy hormones stimulated by someone who tends to be less distant and mysterious than others. It just takes some looking.

Second...it's important to realize that the behaviors which might be conducive to "falling in love" (especially taking the manipulative road) aren't really conducive to a long term relationship, especially having a family. I mean, in some ways, sure - in terms of sex, mostly, though. In the long run, though, I would think that most people would want an open, honest, reliable, trustworthy mate - especially if they have children. I think where most people get hung up is the "spark" - that hormonal rush. And that's where most girls will completely discount an otherwise fabulous (haha, okay maybe not fabulous ;-) ) guy - how many times have we all heard the phrase "He's perfect, but my stomach just doesn't do flip flops when I see him?"

For what it's worth, I've had a couple relationships that bypassed the "dizzy, falling in love" feeling. In the long run, it didn't actually seem to make any sort of negative difference - I always still ended up with a guy that I was close to, could trust, was comfortable around, and could have fun with. (Not to say that there wasn't any physical enjoyment. I think that the "falling in love" feeling is completely separate from the way it feels to kiss, hold, and caress someone you really care about. It's different for me, at least, although I think that some people who haven't experienced a healthy relationship might not agree.) Regardless of the fact that those relationships obviously still ended - at least they ended for pretty substantive reasons - personality conflicts, values conflicts, etc. - and not just because we "fell out of love." I was able to feel like I really learned from all of the relationships, and walked away from them with a better sense of who I am and what I need in a long term partner.

Uh, where was I going...oh yeah! The only real conundrum here is - what to do if you're the "perfect guy" or "perfect girl" who's getting rejected _solely_ on the grounds of being "too available?" I know a lot of people in this position. It's dangerous territory. On one hand, probably anyone worth your time is going to appreciate you how you are. On the other hand, millions of years of evolution and a deeply engraved physiological blueprint are likely going to tip the scales slightly in favor of the more mysterious types. It's a compelling argument for perhaps tweaking a couple behaviors - at least until they're head over heels for you, at which point you're somewhat free to at least be your loving, caring, and hopefully open, self. I guess it's a matter of deciding if the other person is really worth the effort it takes to make their happy hormones come out and play, just to win you the chance to show them how great you really are.

Be careful when playing with fire, though.



* I just lost The Game, speaking of such things. Damnit.

Tightrope Walking

I drove home from CMU today. It was a good drive...really peaceful and relaxing.
I had awhile to think, as usual.

I think about people a lot. People and how people try to relate to people.

I don't understand the point of lying to someone you've just met. Someone who hasn't yet made any judgments or value statements about you...and yet you're still playing the game of trying to do and say what they want to hear. What's the point of that? Isn't it better to be honest before things get to the point where someone could get hurt? Or even - isn't it better to give the other person a chance to accept you as you are? It just seems like making so many assumptions about other people leads to really pointlessly difficult situations in the end.

At the same time, I know people deserve a lot of slack. If someone's trying to do better than they did before, maybe it's reasonable for them to state something that's an ideal moreso than a reality in the hopes that it'll become a reality. Maybe someone doesn't want to drag something painful around with them if they don't have to, or maybe they were hurt in the past by telling the truth, or being too honest about what they want or are doing. It's not really my place to judge, it's just...when you know so many different people who are playing different roles in discrete (but analogous) situations, it just...yeah. In some ways it seems like a minor miracle that people are able to get anywhere with each other at all, given that there seem to be first so many shades of behavior as opposed to word, and then - so many shades of motivation and rationale for aforementioned behavior. I guess that's what getting to know someone is about, but regardless of how long you know someone - you can't ever know what you don't know. (Ha.)

How much should rationale matter, anyway? Does that make things needlessly complicated, or give too much of an easy excuse to people who don't actually deserve it? I don't think so, but where can one make the distinction in order to stop short of self-delusion?

Just. Happy.

Finals are over! Yay!

Let me see...Tuesday was a really long day. I hardly slept and then I had 6 hours of exams spread over 12 hours. The last one was Signals & Systems, which ended up being a pretty decent test. When I first sat down I was really nervous and went completely blank...I started working through it though, and felt really good about it by the time it was over. Not the same story with my CS test from Monday...yeah. That was a bad, bad, experience in spite of the fact that the CS department gives us chocolate halfway through. Blergh. It was awful. I wasted time studying important things from the class only to show up and have lots of...hard..."not so much stressed" things from class on the test. Blah. At any rate, everything was done quickly, so I'm not complaining too much.

Yesterday was a great day. I slept in (which for me is to about 9am) and then just...killed time...for awhile. I ran to campus really quickly (and forgot half the things I needed to do there) but had a good meeting with the staff advisor for one of the groups I'm involved with. I can't get over how wonderful all of CMU's...people...are. We were trying to come up with a speaker for our spring dinner and I get to send some e-mails to corporations begging. She also gave me some really good leadership advice, and we talked about some other stuff. It's funny how much different I feel about CMU this year after actually spending more time on campus and around people in the department compared to freshman and sophomore year. It's really starting to feel like I have a place here, and I'm not just another anonymous posing face. I mean, it took me forever to feel like I even deserved to be at CMU, much less be someone that had any kind of familiarity with the place and the department...

Along those lines, Laura and I are rooming together again next year. Yesterday it hit me that next year is going to be the 4th year I've been here, and the thought of staying with some random person and not being in a comfortable place filled with people I know and like just seemed...depressing. Which probably sounds like a somewhat obvious statement to most people (makes sense to want to be around friends) but I take so long to warm up and open up to people that for me to actually have strong feelings about it kind of surprised me. In a good way. I have the best friends in the world. Seriously. *Insert Hallmark sappy sh*t here.*

I also went book shopping yesterday - partly for myself, partly to have Chirstmas with the roomies + another friend. I picked up the new Thomas Harris book (I've got this odd fascination with the Hannibal series, what can I say...) and couple other more serious books. Then I got books from Laura and Chrstina! I'm so excited to have things to READ over break. It's going to be the first Christmas break in college ever that I'm not spending almost completely with someone else (the way I did with Charles and then Tom)...and I am really looking forward to having the time to myself to read, and sleep, and write, and think, and spend time with my family. Katie also got me this 3-D puzzle thing that's a sphere. It's going to be a lot of fun to build. I might see if my Mom wants to do it with me.

Break is going to completely rock. I'm looking forward to seeing so many people, and just enjoying life for awhile. Really, I haven't had this much freedom since ....ever....because before college there was always Charles, and then summers I've had work, and last year there was Tom...so....yeah. Wow. I don't think anything could put me in a bad mood right now.

Always Something There To Remind Me

Hmm. Finals week. More like finals day-and-a-half, but I'm not complaining.

It's been an interesting weekend. I got a lot of studying done, and still feel like I might be somewhat challenged on the 212 final. I guess it's supposed to be like that for everyone, though.

I decided to stick around in Pittsburgh for a few days after my finals. I really need the time to just decompress and think a lot, and get some sleep, and here seems like a good place to do it. There's a lot to think about. A lot of people to think about. I'm not going to sleep well until I get some things sorted out, or at least on their way to being sorted out.

Life is so tricky sometimes.

I was hanging out with a friend of mine last night, and we were sitting around talking while one of my playlists ran in the background. Whenever a song came on that he hadn't heard, he'd stop and listen to it. I gave him a hard time about it, but really...it was cool. I think it says a lot about a person. Then again, I'm probably biased when it comes to music and someone paying attention to my own playlist. Ha.

This is not good. I keep typing things, reconsidering, and deleting. I should be more focused than this if I'm going to go face down a CS final in 3.5 hours.

Lab-tastic

Tonight was my last lab for the school year. Oh man, was it a bitch. Laura and I got there at 4:30, started seriously working around 5, and finished up around 8:45 or so. It didn't seem like it should have needed to take so long, but there were just a lot of dumb MATLAB details to work out...like how to scale the x axis on a fft plot, and figuring out the frequency spectrum of a set of filters they gave, and dealing with the fact that MATLAB just quit doing the whole sound thing every few runs. Blah. We got through it, though, and as usual Laura put up with a fair amount of my pulling semi-plausible explanations for things that were totally wrong out of my butt and trying to work with them until a TA cleared things up for us. Heh.

It's going to be nice not having a lab next semester. I don't know why, but I always dread these days when I know that after class I have to stay around for another 3 hours and mess around with stuff. I think that even if it were extra homework I'd be happier...I just hate the general feel of labs.

In other news. I think I'm going to save all my blogs and give them to my future daughter, if I ever have one, to read if she wants. On one hand it'll be kinda strange, like letting her read my diary. On the other hand...well, hell. Let's hope I'm not putting anything out here for that I wouldn't want my own flesh and blood to see. I wonder how much my own perspectives on life are going to change between now and then...

That time of the semester again...

Last night I had a conversation with my roommates that brough up some interesting thoughts...I just typed out the story that I told them, but it's irrelevant to what I'm actually wanting to get at here.

Fuck it, I don't even know what I'm trying to get at besides the fact that I ended up thinking about a lot of things that were perfectly fine just buried in the past, but that I ended up just upsetting myself over again and questioning a lot of things about myself (not their fault; I chose to talk...and of course it's normal to question one's self...)

I have one week of classes left, and one "week" of finals. This week has a lab, a problem set, and a quiz in one class. Two finals in other classes (both on the same day), meetings that I don't exactly have time for, and a project in another class.

All 3 of my "real" finals occur within 24 hours on Monday and Tuesday of finals week. It's true that I can get one of those changed since I have so many, but it's also true that the professor who teaches the one final I would choose to change only gives the option of taking it SOONER, and given my upcoming week....no. I don't have time to study for *anything* this week, much less my hardest class...

No matter where I go to study, people are...distracting. I wish I could just get away from EVERYTHING and everyone for a few days and concentrate on work. I'm getting into that nasty "no sleep => overly emotional => hard to think => work takes more time => hard to sleep => overly emotional => making things more difficult for myself => hard to think => no sleep" sort of cycle, and it sucks. I don't even have anything new or insightful to say about any of the emotional items, because most of them aren't even relevant to my life right now and aren't really the sorts of things that beg for much discussion...they're just *there*. Sometimes I hate being a girl!

I need a hug. :-P