Alright, so panic has subsided and life is looking up.

Pasadena is still not my favorite place but I haven't been attacked again, so I've been able to relax a bit. I've also started getting to know/make friends with my classmates which helps immeasurably. One of them is a semi-bodybuilder who lives pretty close to me and he offered to come out with his .45 if ever I needed it. I felt much better after that. ^o^

Classwise, life is intense but good. I go from about 8am to 4 or 6pm in class everyday, in the same room with the same people. The exams are frequent, rapid fire one after another, and difficult. On Tues, Thurs, and Friday, I have two hour cadaver labs. The cadaver labs are simultaneously the most amazing and the most repulsive experience. Seeing the human body inside out, finding how all the finest and fragile nerves trail along and drive the biggest and most powerful muscles, all molded into one gloriously dynamic being...its truly worthy of awe. The problem is the choking reek of formaldehyde, the fact that I have to cut up a woman who was surely someone's dear grandma, and that the many, many pounds of fat and other ick tissues have to be dug through to GET to all that glorious muscle and nerves. But no one in the class has thrown up yet from it and dammit, I refuse to be the first. So focusing on the awe and shoving Vicks up my nostrils is the game plan.

I'm also really glad I came back to Texas. I miss Beloit and my good friends from there intensely, but I'm where I need to be. I've made a couple weekend trips back home to Austin already, and its good to be able to see my family more. Especially my sister Tara. Her husband Sam is still battling cancer and they're coping with it as best they can but it weighed heavy on me Senior year that I wasn't there for her. Now, I can at least make weekend trips to see her and help her out in whatever ways that I can. It helps her a little, esp with Megan being permanently far away up North.

So, life is full of the work and the worry and the travel and the stress. But its also full of purpose and hope and growing and learning and becoming.

So, as long as I don't flunk and nothing debilitating occurs, life is really very peachy. ;D

Ha, so remember what I said in the last post? Strike that.

I've moved to Houston, or more accurately, Pasadena. Pasadena is about half an hour south of Houston and it is, to put it nicely, a barrio. Oh, it does have the semi-tropical thing going on...palm trees, bright flowers, beaches in easy drive....but it also has the run-down, dirty buildings and a crime rate that I, as the sheltered white girl I am, am not comfortable with while living alone. In fact, I've already had my rude awakening. On the day I moved in, I stopped to use a gas station restroom as I drove down. I was by myself, and the restroom was one of those separate buildings behind the gas station. As I came out, some dirty man grabbed me and and tried to drag me to his truck while saying filthy things to me. I fought him and thank god I work out. He wasn't expecting the little blonde girl to be strong, so I was able to throw him off and run. I got away with no worse damage than being emotionally shaken.

Needless to say, however, I have not been able to feel safe since. I almost cried when my parents left to go back to Austin. Suddenly, I would have gladly listened to them fight for the rest of my life, than have them leave me alone in this fetid city. I've had drunk guys at college get out of hand before, but there were always friends or campus security to call on for help. Here, I'm alone. Single young white female, alone. And no matter how often I lift weights, I still am smaller and have less muscle mass than the average adult male. That criminal would have had me, but that I surprised him. I won't always be so lucky.

I walk around with my box cutting knife in my purse and have only left my apartment for a few quick trips to the grocery store during the daylight hours. I was supposed to meet with Brian, my email buddy from Houston (long story short: got in touch with him when I was searching for an apt and he was subletting, we stayed in touch even when the apt didn't work out) and even though we've been back and forth for two months and he seems completely normal...I'm too afraid now.

I really hope that once school starts next week, I will find some good and trustworthy friends among my classmates. With a group of friends to go shopping and etc with I will feel far more comfortable than I do now, when I have to power walk through the parking lot and hope none of the sweaty, idle men on the Wal Mart benches are about to grab me, rape, and murder me.

Sometimes, I really wish I was male, 6'5", and a couple hundred pounds of skull-crushing muscle power. For now, I will have to try and get by being a 5'7" blonde girl with super-paranoia and about 3-4 sharp knives secreted about her person.

Lord, let that be enough. Lord, let me make reliable friends here fast.

After 22 years of it, you'd think the perpetual sound of my parent's fighting would cease to affect me. Why does it still make me feel sick?

This move cannot come soon enough.

If you are on my friends list, I want to know 36 things about you.
I don't care if we never talk, or if we already know everything about each other.
Short and sweet is fine... you're on my list, so I want to know you better!
Comment here and repost a blank one on your own journal.
AND INCLUDE A PIC OF YOURSELF AT THE END if you'll please indulge me

01) Are you currently in a serious relationship?
02) What was your dream growing up?
03) What talent do you wish you had?
04) If I bought you a drink what would it be?
05) Favorite vegetable?
06) What was the last book you read?
07) What zodiac sign are you?
08) Any Tattoos and/or Piercings? Explain where.
09) Worst Habit?
10) If you saw me walking down the street would you offer me a ride?
11) What is your favorite sport?
12) Do you have a Pessimistic or Optimistic attitude?
13) What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me?
14) Worst thing to ever happen to you?
15) Tell me one weird fact about you.
16) Do you have any pets?
17) What if I showed up at your house unexpectedly?
18) What was your first impression of me?
19) Do you think clowns are cute or scary?
20) If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be?
21) Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?
22) What color eyes do you have?
23) Ever been arrested?
24) Bottle or can soda?
25) If you won $10,000 today, what would you do with it?
26) Favorite band to listen to when you're mad?
27) What's your favorite place to hang out at?
28) Do you believe in ghosts?
29) Favorite thing to do in your spare time?
30) Do you swear a lot?
31) Biggest pet peeve?
32) In one word, how would you describe yourself?
33) Do you believe/appreciate romance?
34) Favourite and least favourite food?
35) Do you believe in God?
36) Will you repost this so I can fill it out and do the same for you?

I'm at work. But its a Sunday and Sunday is always slow, so I'm taking an internet break. ^_^

Good news of the day, I have an apartment! ( http://www.venterraliving.com//sandstone/about ) Yay! I'm not actually moving until closer to the end of August but I'm still glad to FINALLY have settled on a place. And I'm really enjoying the domestic preparations...like furniture shopping. Esp. since people keep giving me stuff for free. So far, I've gotten a futon and a pot/pan set at no greater cost than my labor to move the stuff. Let's hope the trend continues.

Speaking of people being friendly...how can you deliver the "let's just be friends" speech without being a hurtful cliche? Its probably not going to be a huge deal, esp since I've already told him A) I'm moving in a month and B) I'm enjoying being single at the moment, but its still awkward and I hate making friends unhappy.

And does anyone have tips for inexpensive living in the city? I'm trying to think of things I can do to live cheaply when I'm well and truely on my own...like washing my dishes by hand and never resorting to the dishwasher, to keep the water bill down. I could esp. use tips on groceries/food prep stuff....cheap/healthy foods and recipes, etc. Any ideas?

So, its been over a year. I could say I've been busy, which I have been, but really I just didn't want to see my last post and have to think about that break-up. Its taken me the better part of the last year to get past it, particularly since I still had to interact with the ex during Senior year. THAT was bad news bears, suffice to say. Senior year was rough.

Its over now, though. I lived through all the final agonies and ecstasies of college life and managed to still make it out not only alive but with honors. Yay, me.

I'm now back home in Austin, TX. I'm working and trying to iron out the details of going to grad school for a doctorate in chiropractic medicine in Houston in the fall. And despite that I'm "returning" to Texas, Houston is so very different from Austin it doesn't feel like a homecoming at all. The semi-tropical coastal sprawl is nothing like my small, funky Austin or my tiny Wisconsin college.

I'm excited about it, though. All those questions I left hanging in my last post, I never got to answer. The year was hard enough just to survive (sometimes literally, I had a rather nasty car wreck in January), that I never got to make that re-evaluation of my self and beliefs that I needed to after that jarring break up. But now, in such an alien place facing an entirely new lifestyle, I think I can get back to that. I still want to be an alternative doctor, I still want to help people in the most hands-on way that I can. So, my fundamental beliefs in the importance of steadfastness and service are still intact. If that is intact, my capacity and desire to love must still be intact also. And that is more than enough to rebuild with.

Its not going to be easy by any means, but this is a new start that has been a year overdue. I pray that I will have the wisdom, fortitude, and patience to make something wonderful out of it, no matter what gets thrown my way. I pray that, in time, I may grow enough in these virtues to inspire them in others. I pray that all my friends out there are growing in the same, facing each new challenge and chapter with resolve and hope.

Everyone, I'm still trying to follow your posts, texts, calls and other various trappings. You're all in my thoughts and, as I make my new journey, please continue to tell me about yours!

I hate summers. Have I mentioned that? I don't post much during the school year because I'm too busy being happy and with friends and such. But bad things always seem to come in the summers, at least the ones I'm home.

I'm making the best I can of things but there's alot wrong right now. Primarily, Drew's sudden and unexpected rejection. Over the phone. Before he left for Europe. Because he "doesn't love me and never has", he suddenly realized. He's "had doubts for a long time" but he never shared that with me. He just told me over and over how much he was in love with me. So, I don't understand at all but I'm using every resource I have to be calm, rational, and strong about this. I am not missing work. I am not letting my emotions get the best of me during the day. But the nights are hard, when I'm totally alone and have no work to do. I don't sleep much.

It doesn't help that Drew inspired alot of my faith in love, sincerity, and integrity. These things were so important to him, and I believed in them too. I felt like, with him, I could just let all my love flow out, unguarded, honest as the very first Dawn. But the fact that he essentially has been living a lie, lying to me, for a year about his love for me, fundamentally shakes my faith in these things. I don't want to give up on these ideals, but I'm really struggling to sort out the things I came to trust in during my time with him.

Thank every god, anywhere, whatever, for my friends. They are trying very hard to help me through this, though there's only so much they can do when thousands of miles away. I wish, so much, I had them with me. But knowing that at least they care about me, even if my lover of over a year does not, is the only thing keeping me hanging on. Thank you, all of you that have sent me any messages to ask if I'm okay. It means more than you can possibly know to me.

That's all I've got right now. Please, send your good thoughts to me. I can use all I can get. And thank you again, all of you who are proving true for me now. I can never repay it as highly as you all deserve.

Hm. Been a long time. I guess I kinda forgot I had a Livejournal.

In a nutshell:

Summer ended. Went on the roadtrip with Drew. Awesomeness.
Came back to Beloit. Taking Chemistry, Animal Behavior, Theory and Tech of Archaeology, and Anthro Senior Sem (in case I actually do go abroad next fall).

Senior Sem is probably the easiest class I have, intro Chem the hardest. Wierd, neh?

Socially, Drew and I are doing well. Anna is back and I'm loving married life with her. Kels and a bunch of others have been eaten by Genetics and I don't see them anymore. But I still love them from afar. ;p

I also have recently witnessed Anna hooking up with a phi psi boy. Last night, she and her boy and I and my boy all got together to watch a movie and have a cuddle orgy. <3 <3 <3

I also, about 20 min ago, got totally ass-raped by a chem quiz. sigh.
well, hopefully I can have another cuddle orgy and everything will be okay.
The only chem I need is the chemicals between us, chemicals, chemicals between us, baaaby.

haha. okay. bye now.

While at dinner tonight, picked up a random book from a pile next my chair. Forgot my friends in reading it. Took it home. Reading it inspired an image in my mind. This is the image I saw:

" A single candle burns. There is nothing but darkness beyond the candle. No sense of limitation. No walls to give border to the dark. The dark is everywhere. It has mass...though there is not a sense of weight. It does not press in. It simply is, a prescence. It is mass that can be moved through, moved in, stolid and fluid and everywhere. But, the candle. The light from the candle flickers. The light is a point without mass...it flutters in its own instability. Flickers as it reaches out for the dark's stolidness.
There is something at the border.
There is something at the border of light and dark.
A woman.
That she is a woman is certain. But her hair is as short as the lick of flame and as long as the boundless dark. It is all one length. It is as white as the center of the flame, as red as its tip, as black as the darkness. It is all one color. She wears a long white gown. Her eyes are at the center of the flame, and it battles over her skin with the dark. She does not notice.
Suddenly, her eyes stare up, though her face has not moved. She might be smiling, lips curved over the straight line of her body.
Whispers in the massed dark, she whispers.
"Look...what I can do."
And her body is not a straight line, not only. A curve over it, a rounding over the straight flame. The dark is present. Her rounding becomes more and the dark is fuller. The light flickers. The rounding expands, expands, something in it. Everything in it, suddenly. Suddenly, the light and dark are held together in a moment that holds all changes, all possibilities, all actions and words and movements...held in a single unmoving rounding.
It will slip from her, it will slip from her.
The moment in which it slips is also held in the rounding; as are the moments both before and after. They are all the same.
You are there in the rounding, the meeting of mass and uncertainty. You are in it. You are somewhere that is the same everywhere. Can you grasp it? No. You are it. You are a rounding within the rounding.
Grasp for nothing, and feel the circles slide. "

The book was Art & Physics by Leonard Shlain. The part I read was on the nature of time. It stated, in part, that "Time slows as it approaches the speed of light. The present moment expands from a narrow sliver until it encompasses both the past and the future. At lightspeed, time ceases to change because it contains all change."

Does what I wrote make more sense now? Or less? I can't be sure.

It has, again, been awhile. Sorry.

Its summer. The semester ended well, I did better in my stats and osteology than I hoped for (a B in both, not my usual A but whatev).

I went home the 10th of May. On the 19th of May my sister Tara (the very oldest Brandenburg girl) got married. It was a Renaissance themed wedding. I was the Maid of Honor. I sang a duet with the Best Man during the ceremony and was so emotional I had to work to keep my voice from cracking. It was a very beautiful wedding and I like my new brother-in-law.

I came back to campus a week after her wedding. I'd given Tara my car as a wedding present, b/c I knew I had the option of coming back to campus to work for the summer but Tara needed the car to start working to help support herself and her new hubby. I miss my Maureen Ghetto Supahfly but oh well.

I'm living in the Spanish house and working as the office assistant at FACS. It is very, very boring. They never really give me anything to do but don't really want me to look like I'm not working. Oh, well. Its a job. Shrug.

My other sister recently got married. Megan is now Mrs. Shultze. Or something like that, I'm actually not sure of the spelling. But again, I like my new brother-in-law and as long as he's good to my sister, and does whatever she wants, and treats her like a pretty, pretty Princess, I won't kill him. ^-^

So strange, though...in one summer I've lost both my sisters. Not lost them like death but given them away. Offically. Once there were 3 Brandenburg Sisters. Now I'm the only one.

And even that may be subject to change. Not anytime soon but I am starting to think that my long-held tirade against marriage/children may not be as cherised an ideal as once it was.

This is of course Drew's fault. Ever since I went to his family reunion in June and helped him play with/look after his pre-pubescent cousins, I've been seeing it differently. It was...nice. It was A Family. It was something I Could Do. Some Day.

Speaking of some days, I'm thinking of becoming a Chiropractor. If I take some Chemistry and a physics, the work is right up my alley. As a physical anthropology major, my focus is understanding the structure/movement/biology of the human body. As a chiropractor, I'd just being using that knowledge to make people's owwies go away. I could do that. Besides, my only other option is grad school where I would likely become a Primatologist. And spend my life having monkeys throw poo at me. Which I'm not sure I like so much as being a Doctor of Chiropractic.

Besides, I want to GO HOME. I'm a rising junior and have barely been home at all these past two years. And I miss it. In my heart, I am a simple Southern girl and all I want is the sunshine and the bluebonnets and the humble courtesy of the South. Of Texas.
And if I become a Chiropractor, I can go to school in Dallas and then set up/join a practice somewhere in Austin. Oh, home.

My only problem with this is A) paying for it and B) what will happen with Drew and I if I go home. I know this last is maybe a little far in the future but still. I've been told that Chiro school, as a type of Med school, doesn't leave time for a boyfriend. On the other hand, he is very patient. And every time he comes out here to Beloit to visit me (every two weeks or so) or just when he calls me (every night), all I can think is: "holycrapilovehim". So maybe it could work. Maybe. We'll see.

For now, I'm just counting down to August 10th. My last day of work. And the day that Drew and I are going to road trip! We're going to Indiana to see his family and celebrate his 21st bday (the 13th) and then we're driving down to TEXAS so he can meet my folks. OMG. Boyfriend and Home at the same time?!! Heart attack of massive joy.

So that's my life so far this summer.

So its been awhile. And this is probably going to be a bit stream of consciousness/meandering entry but just to say...

I'm 20 now. As of last Saturday.
Its very strange.

Last time, I spoke of vaciliating weather and academic frustration. The weather is still vaciliating (its SPRING, stop being in the thirties, just stay 60s and up!) but the academics are better. Not as stressed about it now, I've worked more on papers/studying to do what I can. Stats, I've just accepted my fate. OOh, and my new Viola teacher is a lovely young U of Wisconsin grad student by the name of Amber Dolphin. Yup, Amber Dolphin. But she's sane and patient and I'm very grateful for her.

Wanted to go to Chile for Archaeological fieldschool. Didn't have the funds. Thinking of not doing the Scotland study abroad next spring so that I can save up and do field school next summer instead. Wondering if that would actually work, though, and if I would regret not studying abroad later in life. But if it would work, I think I would rather do fieldschool....
Now I'm just hoping that I'll be hired for the on-campus summer job. It pays well and has free room, I wouldn't have to go home, I would be closer to my boyfriend (who has also applied). Home...I miss it...I dreamt of it a few nights ago. No specific plotline. Just sense-memories: sunset and the burning streets a river of light like molten gold..tracing fingers gently over the tips of the fierce cactus to find its fragile flower among the thorns....sitting with eyes closed and letting the intense heat sink into me, press against my eyelids and skin to sink down into my bones and be one with me; heat and light like the blood of the sun, melting into me to make me a Daughter of the Sun.

But still I don't want to return this summer. My eldest sister is getting married and will have no time for me. And with her gone, I will be the only one of us three sisters
still at home. And I seriously fear what I will do if trapped between my parents for an entire summer with no recourse....the impotent anger trapped between them, it may drive me mad.

And I so fear that I will inherit their fate. Drew and I had our first fight last night. The details don't matter, suffice to say that he made a choice that upset me but, as my mother's daughter, I reacted by internalizing; I was chilly, passive agressive, stormed off. I walked for years to get across the street, collapsed into the arms of the old birch tree next my house. I wept and the tears froze bright and hard as stars on my cheek. I felt betrayed, rejected, though what he'd done didn't warrent the level of anger and despair I felt. And I thought, Why do I feel this? And I thought, my massive fear of abandonment and being let down.

This is not his fault.
I can't stay here, weeping against the frozen wood that does not hear me.
In this, I WILL NOT be my mother's daughter.

So I went back. I called him out, I said what my poor, lost, prideful mother taught me to say simply by virtue of refusing to say it herself. I said

I'm sorry.

How profound such a simple sentance. Leaning on the tree, my heart was ice and steel. My lungs twisted tight and I had not breathed. But then, those two words. I'm sorry. And my heart was flesh, and the air flowed into me, my blood through me and I lived again.
And then he held me and said the same,

I'm sorry,

and I remembered then what the preacher had told me all my life, but had never learned himself.

Faith and humility are the greatest strengths you will ever have.
No love survives, no heart moves, when anger and pride stiffen the soul to cold immobility.

I have been 20 for one week. But in one night, I learned something the past 19.99 years never really showed me. I thank you, Drew, for showing me that.

But you had still better not piss me off again. ;p


love, hugs, and laughter for everyone
-erin

So it snowed over Spring Break.
I spent the first half of it bumming around and doing homework. Then Drew came back from visiting his parents and I spent the second half of Break bumming around and NOT doing homework.

I've been trying to get back into the flow of things but I still feel like I'm just ramming my head against a brick wall, academically. No matter how long I study, or hours I log with the tutor, my Statistics scores are not improving. As for Osteology, I'm spending more time in the lab and it helps but it remains to be seen how much.

It is also now over half way through the semester and I've had ONE viola lesson. Oh, how fucked up the Music Department at Beloit...we seemed to be cursed: all crazed, meglomaniac string instructors within a seven continent radius are magnetically attracted to us. I'm praying to any gods that will hear me that the latest New Professor I'm meeting with tomorrow will NOT be clinically insane. It'd be a pleasant change.

Speaking of pleasant changes, it was 70 degrees and sunny yesterday. Bliss unbearable!
I was so speechlessly, ecstatically happy just running around in the sunshine and the warmth. Drew was laughing at me, but it was so wonderful I actually didn't mind.

And now its 30 again and snowing.
And Drew has a bunch of meetings so I can't see him tonight and I've been studying stats for two hours without a single damn break through.

So I'm a little dazed...the sudden, intense joy and then the inexplicable return to dreary.

I just wonder why the snow must always come to cover my Sun...my warmth be smothered in ice.

P.S. I think I really need to smack Dan into making some sense in Stats and also invest in sunlamps...as my dependance on sunlight for happiness is appearently even more pathetic than I guessed.

I got snowed in and can't go home at all for Spring Break. Wah! Now I'm stuck in a growing snowstorm, with the knowledge that its about 77 degrees and sunny back home.

On the other hand, after consoling me my loss, Doberman got that answer he was waiting for. Rage, Storm, rage...his fire has kept me warm.

We'll see how it goes. I am wary still of getting burned, but at this moment I feel only warmth.

Which is not good, since I'm an Anthropology major.

I just got back my statistics quiz, which I failed even more miserably than I thought. And I spent so much time studying, and knew all the formulas...the problem was just that I couldn't understand, from Dan Shea's wording, which formula I was supposed to use when. I asked him after class if I could start coming in to work with him on it, since obviously just going to a Stats tutor isn't helping. He was reluctant but agreed to meet with me at least once a week, starting after break.

This almost exact same situation occured when I got back my Osteology exam. Knew the material...but couldn't tell when to apply what. And the prof cornered me before I could her.

And I get so weary of trying to understand. Of having to have a decision, be right, make the choice, snap bang bang, just like that. Yes or no. Wrong or right. Its the type of black-and-white worldview my parents consistently fail to get me to accept.
I understand the necessity of such decisions, but it tires me nonetheless.

Like Doberman. I don't know what to tell him. He switches from being very intense, sometimes frightening, to a vague prescence. I'm supposed to see him tonight, and I know I will have to give him an answer soon...but I can't make a decision. I don't know what to think...Theorectically, I know the formula for these situations. He advances and either I yield or I repel.
But somewhere in between these choices is a calculation I can't remember, and I'm stuck, hesitating. He was my friend. Just that. No longer now, not quite. Can't go back, not now, can't forget what he said. Don't know what to say, remembering how I ran away but how I returned. What did I return to? The friend. But if I stay, the friend will become something else. Something more. Do I want that? Try to picture it and SYSTEM ERROR, SHUT DOWN, REBOOT REBOOT REBOOT. The bright electonic flash across the vision blinds me with yearning and fear.
I want to believe him. I want to believe that, against all the bounds of my experience, that I would be happy with this. But I mistrust the wish, how my scars tingle, remembering when they were flesh and blood heated them. There is no blood in scars, and if I take any more scars...how can there be blood enough to keep me alive?
The wires burn, the memory of those blue electric bonds searing through.

But am I not a Child of the Desert, exiled here in a land of ice? Was I not raised under the kiss of the sun? Why then should I fear this heat? Why should I not welcome such a fire in the midst of this winter-locked land? The switches click, the calculations add add add SYSTEM ERROR, SHUT DOWN, REBOOT REBOOT REBOOT.
Begin again.

I just want to say how much I love sunlight.
This morning was iron grey and I was stressed about my osteology exam and not really lovin' life. But Fate loved ME today, and when I came out from the exam the sun was the brighest and warmest it has been for a solid eight months. Not lying.
I was suddenly filled with such inexplicable joy; the whole day I've been wandering about campus with a dopey smile and couldn't stop singing to myself. And everywhere the heaps of snow are melting and leaking away to lurk while grass, actual green grass, is pushing up and waving happily in a breeze that no longer burns but tickles and teases and laughs and runs about a world so suddenly bright, so suddenly warm.
And this is just a prelude, I know. Merely the forerunners, the trumpeters tuning up to proclaim the return of Spring (oh, never a more majestic King than this!).

I am so excited. I am beyond words to explain how breathless the prospect of Spring makes me. I am a Child of the Desert lost too long in that utter wasteland termed "Winter". Spring is coming, the Sun returns to warm the earth, and my heart suddenly forgets its sorrow and regrets. How cliche. How true. How happy I am now my fingers aren't turning blue!

Oh, Mother Sun, oh Sister Spring, how I've missed you!

Sometimes I wonder.
Last night I was in tears over all the crazy shit that's going on with me. Now, I feel really bouncy and happy and have been dancing around my room singing along to my itunes. Yesterday went the same way (good day, bad night). Maybe its Seasonal Affective and I'm only getting so worked up at night because my beloved sun is gone (what paltry amount of sun Wisconsin does get).

Well, I did have a good day so far and I guess I'll just try and hold on to that tonight. When I'm hanging about as the third wheel to all the new couples that hooked up on v-day, I'll just remind myself: Almost everything in Statistics today made perfect sense! That's never happened! Who needs friends or normality when you have that!

Or I'll just hole up in the library and research the reproductive habits of the common marmoset. Ever since the bio dept FINALLY put my pic up on the majors/minors board, I've felt vaguely guilty for not getting more into my paper. Whenever I walk by, I can feel my own eyes staring out at me accusingly for neglecting the marmosets. 0_o

Really, I just need to re-adhere to my life philosopy:

"There is niether happiness nor unhappiness in this world; there is only the comparison of one state with another. Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss. It is necessary to have wished for death...in order to know how good it is to live."

--Alexandre Dumas

I have always found this to be true, and just need to remember that, however lost or lonely this season may have me feeling, I'll be the better for the expirence later on.
After all, I've lived through FAR worse than being the third wheel.

So, not bipolar, maybe. Maybe just a little off track. As Mama once told me, "Dahlin', you got to make yah own joy. Can't nobody do it for ya."

So I'm going to go to the gym. And then do some work. And hang around. And do what Mama said.

Hope y'all do too. ^_^

So this has been a bad week. But this post is not to rant. I just want to look at it for a moment.

So, basically, the week was bad because of little things that piled up-- late to class one day, ripped my new jeans, got turned down for three campus jobs, spent three days studying for a stats quiz that I not long along BOMBED and the weather is hovering around 0 degrees (and i HATE! the cold). Etc. Etc.

And its not just me. Alot of people I've talked to have had alot of bad things piling up on them this week. Not saying its anything cosmic, but a coincidence.

So. What does one do about such things?
One of my friends said she was just "trying to keep busy". This is good, but I sometimes fear that route leads to the reclusive work-aholic. Not saying my friend is this, but that it can easily happen. But alot of my other friends have mentioned an intention to get trashed.

Hmmm. Middle ground, anyone?

It seems to me the key in both routes is distraction from the source of pain (through work, intoxication, etc). But I wonder to what extent this helps? Certainly it isn't good to brood, but where is the difference between stewing and facing it?

So, a healthy method to balance running away and stewing....This is what we all of us having a bad week should seek. But what can I tell my friends? What is this method?

I don't think I can tell it to anyone. I suspect the method will be different for everyone.

For me, its being physical. Forcing my body to lift the wieght, run the mile, pushes me through pain. Literally-- the intial pain of the workout fades as my muscles warm and somewhere in the middle of the run, the pain climaxes and breaks and suddenly there's no pain, no boundaries to my flying feet, and I'm free in that moment. The peace from that moment stays with me throughout the day; it runs in the blood that coursed through that emancipation. Running is a physical and psychological way to face my pain and push myself past it.

I recommend it, but know its not the same for everyone.
So, instead I recommend only that everyone seek for something that will do this for them. I have known too many people who coped in ways that only created more problems for them (i.e. the work and the alcohol, among other things). I have been one of them. And it gives no real joy, brings no true peace. A coping mechanism should be something that strenghtens and gives an effect that lasts beyond the moment it is undertaken.

So, find a way, ya'll. Run it off, shake it off. Be healthy and happy this weekend. I'm going to try to do the same.

So I just finished my study abroad application. After an entire fucking WEEK of running around trying to get it sorted out (of course, this was largely due to my own imcompetence at organization-- it should really only have taken one or two days but anyway). And I had a 9 to 4 day today and I SHOULD be studying for my statistics quiz on Friday, but instead I think I'm going to veg and watch Little Miss Sunshine instead. Hey, I only have one class tomorrow, I can study stats then, right? (shut up, conscience!)
And I'm comfortable enough with basic human paleobiological history and modern reproductive laws to make it through my S&M quiz thurs without too much worry (and as long as I don't have to dissect ANOTHER damn mink S&M is shaping up to be a really cool class, to my delight).

And it was Kelsey's 20th birthday today. We're going to party Saturday, so she was cool with not doing much now. I'm excited. When ex-roomies get together madness always ensues. Esp. when your ex-roomie occasionally lusts after your "perfect hourglass, oh baby" (-Kelsey). ;p I just have to get through this week....

At least I have Cake. And like the man says, as I know to be true deep down in my heart, I am an Opera Singer.

So its been a week now that I've been back in Beloit. Its been a good week and hopefully this semester won't be as dismal as I'd anticipated. Classes still require more lab time than I'd like but hopefully I'll manage. Friday and Saturday were a little too alcohol-filled for my own good. Damn, I miss all that skin that used to be on my left shoulder. Owie oww ow.
But I've learned my lesson. Again. Three weeks with my parents, as depressing and full of passive aggression as it is, should not translate into acts of rebellion that they will never hear about anyway. I don't know what everyone else at that party was thinking, but this was much of my own reasoning. I hope the cookies I baked for Phi Psi were enough to atone (though I probably didn't do anything much worse than what the REST of the party was doing o_0). Thanks again to Jake for the use of his bed.

And now a return to your regularly scheduled, relatively responsible and happy Erin. ^_^

I've got one last week to avoid contemplating how much I feel next semester is going to suck. It might not, but I feel it will. Of course, this sentiment might be influenced by the sudden acceptance of the fact that half my friends will be abroad. I almost didn't believe it, in that way you try to reject anything you really don't want to believe, but suddenly its real to me. Just as helping my sister with her wedding plans over break has made me truly, unavoidably aware that she's leaving me for that boy of hers. As Mama would say in Southern, Cuss fire! (pronounced CUH-s Fuh-rr; translation: unspeakable frustration which burns like all Hell's curses scorching you with searing pain down to the depths of your soul)
And I'm not good at letting go. I'm wonderful at the whole stead-fast, I-will-stay-by-your-side-and-fight-to-the-death-for-you-O-beloved-friend but, conversely, not so good at accepting endings. How inconcievable, that those who mean so much, who have always been there, will just be...gone. The spaced they filled, empty.
My sister told me last night that I will "learn to live around the absence". And she's right. I will, because I have to. But what quality of life can I achieve? Yes, I still have friends who remain. But, without all those who've gone, those who've stayed will be seeing alot more of me. How will they react to that? I don't want to smother them, but they'll be my only companionship in this black time of dearth.
Yet another issue of balance and moderation, I suppose. Gotdammit. (pronounced Guht-DAAM-it; translation: I curse and defy you Fate, with all that I am, to the core of my being) We Southerners are not good at such things! We can trumpet how the 'South will rise again' but we can't even bear to utter one simple "Goodbye".
But I will try.
Against my nature, I will try.
I ask Fortune only one favor, that those who remain to me will be kind in this, my time of tribulation.
Gotdammit.