I just remembered what today is. What is the purpose of celebrating or recognizing anniversaries? I didn't even remember until the end of the day, and then it is suddenly a bad day? That had nothing to do with most of the day. Sure I was sick, but just because of the date that was assigned pretty much randomly, it's supposed to signify something? Why should today be the day to remember and contemplate and all that stuff, shouldn't that be every day? But I haven't even thought about it in a while. I think. Sometimes I think about it, but not on an everyday basis. 'Tis a strang custom, just because it's been another 365 days doesn't mean very much in the grand scheme of things. But it still depressed me when I remembered.

Had a strange little fantasy when I did. One that I've never had before. That she came and found me today, because it was the anniversary and she tells me how good I am doing and how much I have grown up. She just ran off for some unspecified reason. At first, of course, I don't believe that it's her. I don't think I actually remember what she looks like from my memories, only from pictures. But it is her, maybe there is some picture of her that is irrefutably from less than 12 years ago. Then I have to get all mad and storm off, but eventually we would become close again. Unless I decided to punish her and never speak to her or have anything to do with her again. I wouldn't tell anybody else because I wouldn't want to hurt them, of course. And then I hear about her real death and I am sad that we never had time to get to know each other again. Of course, if that did happen, I'd have to be all pissed off, but it's a clinging thing I guess. I've never had that particular thought before, I hope I don't have it much either, it's just a depressing hope that would probably be worse that reality if it were true. I think I've been watching too many soap operas. This is the most reaching that I've done in a while, I wonder if it means that I'm doing worse than I've done in a while.

Last Will and Testiment:

I, being of sound mind, but not body, hereby bequeath everything to anybody who wants it.

(Maybe Sam should get the chocolate, but make sure she doesn't try to poke my eyes out with a fork!)

What is the Labor Movement? When was it? Where was it? Who cares? Apparently Ken. This should be a fun presentation since we have no idea what we are talking about. Maybe we'll just focus our time on Dos Passos. Who knows? Whatever it is, it will be a fly-by-night kind of ordeal.

I am sick. I hate being sick, but I can't "stay home from school" because 1)I live at school and 2)I can't even miss one class, I don't understand how people survive that. The only reason I pass my tests is because I can associate the things I read and what the teacher said. That couldn't happen if I wasn't in class every day.

I hate projects. I hate presentations. Why am I always the one that is doing the emailing? I want other peoplet to take the initiative and set a time. I never know when is good, but I do seem to know when is bad for everyone.

But I put it on myself. I sort of steal the lead and then everyone looks to me for the emails. It's my own fault, DARN ME!!

Want to sleep, but until I actually fall asleep, it's painful!

What does it feel like to have streep throat? How do I know if I have it? Do I really want to go to the nurse to have her charge me millions of dollars? I only have two oral presentations in two days, plus one next week. Hopefully I can talk, haven't done it yet today. Should I swim?

What are the words that people use to desribe me? If someone can't remember who I am, what does the other person say to remind them?

Where does all the time go? Am I tired because I sleep too much? I wish I could take naps, they are so nice.

Thanksgiving is coming up, probably have to do some homework, have to get started on that right away.

I hope I can talk.

What am I thinking about? I don't know, it's too tiring to think about anything. Right now I'm just reacting to things that happen to me, it's really bad. Yesterday I got in a bad mood just because I didn't have a pencil in Japanese class. Now admittedly, it's nice to have a pencil so you can erase, but it's not really something to get moody about. I some ways I'm better in that class, I'm not miserable anymore, but over all I don't think I'm doing any better in any of my classes. The scary thing is that I am starting to enjoy them more, I think. It's really hard to tell with me.

I really do have to start working on projects, that didn't get done last night. I just messed around during the presentation meeting. I guess I need to email the group to set a date, I wish they would do it, I hate setting times. I probably also need to go to the library to pick up some of those books. Is there a book limit from the library? Maybe I can go after AmEx today...but I'll probably want to take a nap. Ahhhh, I don't want to go to music class!! We never get anything done and I just get driven up the wall!! If it wasn't for that class, I could go to the library and take a nap. But I've skipped for the past two weeks. I wonder if they've gotten any better? Or if they've played at all. Just thinking about it frustrates me!

Monday again. I feel like I'm stuck in some time loop that never ends. Maybe shaking things up with Thanksgiving and Christmas will help. Hopefully that will be fun. I should really start on some of my presentations and stuff. Must go to the library! Sociology is coming up fast!! And I'm sure AmEx is too. I hope we can do a good project. We really need to get started on it. Group projects are like that, you can help each other procrastinate. Plus another presentation on Thursday, but that procrastination is not our fault, I wonder if we will get the material soon. Last week was a do nothing week, I suppose this one should be different, especially because I got nothing done this weekend! I have a presentation to get ready at 9, a newspaper folding session to skip as well at 9, but from dinner till 9 I'm good, I think, maybe I can do something in there, just don't die because homework is the only thing you're doing. Quite possible. No, won't die. Will be industrious when I work, and take breaks so I don't get droopy eyed.

Do I really feel the things that I write about? Sometimes I think that when I start writing I get mellow-dramatic and what I finish with sounds a lot worse than it is. But then, that could be another escape mechanism, another way for me not to admit to myself what I am feeling. I must be at least partially feeling what I writing, I think. Or else where would I come up with the beginning? But I have written things that come out completely different than I intended. So which is the "real" me, the one that I intended or the one that came out? I would tend to think the one that came out and pushed aside the one I intended. The one I wanted to write was what I wanted to be, the way I wanted to feel. If that is so, I'm scared, 'cause I've had some that turned out really pessimistic. But part of me is the most optimistic person that I know. Even to the point of naivete in some situations. My problems are what I make them. Maybe writing for me just makes them worse. Maybe I shouldn't do it...........................?

FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Changed the doohicky a bit, can you tell?? So proud, gonna learn this stuff eventally! Gonna go to the dentist first. Had a scary dream that we went and they were really scary. There was a big round secretary post in the middle and it was really hard to get their attention to get in to see a doctor. And I asked one whether they would take my insurance, because I think everyone else there didn't, and when she saw that I have Aetena, or whatever it's called, she flipped out and called me a rich girl like I was slumming it or something. It was scary. Does this mean that I am scared to go to the dentist, it's been...a really long time. So long in fact, that all I really remember well is the cabinent where they kept all the stickers. Maybe a little candy too, but I mostly remember the stickers.

I wonder if we're going to play today.

Well, gotta go see.

Morbid thoughts on the brain today, probably not a good sign. Would people miss me if I died in some horrific accident? Not a good sign at all. Maybe I shouldn't be able to hide in my room all day.

Gender issues. Basically, boys are dumb, that's what I got out of the chapter. Especially the hair guy, how much dumber can you get, he obviously has no idea about anything. Reading about that stuff is interesting but depressing. I like to read about it in other cultures, I can make judgements or whatever on them, but when it's about my own culture, it's just scary because I can't make judgements because I'm part of the system. Do I giggle? Do I laugh? We seem to think that around girls we laugh but around boys we giggle, which is so depressing because it's not a planned thing. It's so much a part of us that we don't even realize we're doing it. Did Scarlet O'Hara realize the way she was treating boys all the time? Maybe she didn't. We don't seem to, though we are nowhere on the level with her. Darn! Should have been taking notes! Why do all the movies show us that boys are weak and manipulatable? Or maybe it is showing that women are connivers. But it wouldn't be so easy for women to be conniving if the boys weren't so weak. I wonder if that works in the real world.

I could definitely be evil!

Quick, quick...yesterday was sort of a nice change of pace, I got off campus, there were people there that I didn't know, though not many 'cause there were billions of Soka people, and I wasn't doing homework. So it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. I can only say this because I got done a lot earlier than was said and was allowed to leave. I feel kinda bad for the people who had to stay, but apparently I didn't feel bad enough to stay. The woman who was in charge of us asked the person who was in charge of them if they needed us, and they must have said no, because I'm sure they would have held on to us if they needed us.

It was like the movie that shows all about industry and alienation of the workers. We were like the people doing the same thing over and over again in the noisy, crowded factory. At least they got to sit down. Poor Ann, she's so short that she had to work to get her arms up to the table and so they hurt now. The tables were pretty much the right height for me to just hang them there and sift stuff. I never really thought about all the work that goes behind the scenes, I just figured they were all run through a machine, I didn't think they would have to be sorted first, and then these people do this and so forth and so on. Wow, what did they do when they had to count every ballot by hand, and for all the different categories too! Wow, that must have been even worse and there would definitely not be next day results!!

Must run to be advised!

It's weird, normally I like to go to class and I would just rather not do the homework, but lately, I feel like I would just rather do the reading or the writing or whatever and not go to class. Does that mean I'm enjoying learning more, or just that I'm lazy and I don't want to leave this room? Maybe a little of both. I need to get invloved in something, like I have said a million-and-one times. And I think it needs to be something off campus, which makes it all the harder. Doesn't seem to be able to be SGI, that would just kill me, not make me want to branch out or whatever the purpose of the exercise would be. Maybe it would be good to get out there though, to try to change things...but it's not the physical stuff that's going on, mostly, it's the whole atmosphere of non-learning.

Maybe I'll just go to sleep and wake up in 50 years.

It's weird, I don't feel like I exist on weekends. Now that it's Monday, I can feel like a regular person again. I have no motivation on the weekends, maybe it's when I have no plans that I feel like I don't exist. Therefore, we are what we do? Okay, weird.

I hate people who hate biasness but are just as bias themselves! Can we say "everyone on this campus"!?!?! We pick and choose what we want to believe, whatever paints the picture the way we want to see it. So far, we have two editorials that I know of about articles in the newspaper. Both bring up excellent points as to where the student writer went wrong, both were written by staff or faculty. Students didn't even question the articles because they agreed with the basic sentiments behind them. I admit that I didn't argue either (in my defense, I don't know if I read them). How could those articles have been allowed to go to print with such obvious bias? I have heard it said that it was a good newspaper because it generated so much out-cry, but that's not the type of uproar we need. All the comments we about mistakes that the paper made, not newfound information that made everyone, students, staff, and faculty, think about things. They thought about things alright, how the writers mishandled the information they got. I am associated with the newspaper; I don't want to be associated with this type of paper.

Yesterday...what did I do yesterday? I found out that I am useless when if comes to soliciting quotes from people I don't know, though apparently I'm pretty good at it with people that I do know as evidenced by last year, not this year. I found out that I belong to a cult. All in a days work. I can't believe the organization down here, it's so "California." I don't think I can handle it, and then when I go back to Seattle, there are new people and it's a little different. So in a way, I don't belong in either place. Being an SUA student, especially first class, just makes it all the more difficult. But sometimes I like the recognition, but I still don't want to be treated differently because of it. Wait, sometimes I do, but only when I don't get it. Am I just making this problem for myself? Well duh, but... My practice is suffering sooo much, but I don't want to talk to any of the leaders down here about it. I don't know if I can talk to SGI leaders at all because I'm being so critical of the SGI and all they will tell me is that I don't understand or I'm deluding myself or something like that. Maybe not, but going to the leaders of the organization that you have problems with seems inherently silly to me. Unless I have specific suggestions I guess. When I talked to a couple people in Seattle, they seemed willing to listen, but I wasn't so willing to talk openly. I don't want to be a whiner and I want to have everything objective, not all from my own distorted lens. I know everything is from my distorted lens, but I want it to be as undistorted as possible, yeah right. Must be objective, and not get angry when people tell me I'm not being objective, but how do they know? I'm the only one that knows.

Wow, I barely knew it was Halloween. When I was a kid, it was a big countdown and then the day of was really exciting. Yesterday I had to remind people it was Halloween. It really is a Soka bubble, and I think I have created my own as well; I don't really include the freshmen in my bubble... I think I forget that a lot of them exist, though there are some that pretty much fall into the First Class category.

I'M DONE WITH MY MIDTERMS! I think.

I don't feel accepted...maybe. I think I'm making my own bubble because I feel outside of other peoples' bubbles or the big one that pervades this place. I didn't feel like that last year, what changed, beside adding another 87 students?? Even some people from last year seem more distant. Everyone is busier this year, including myself, even though I'm barely doing any clubs at all. I'm more distant, I only communicate with people on the most superficial level.

My haunted house would include:

A woman in a room breaks a nail, blames the observers, and rushes them with some instrument of distruction.

A couple in the corner making out, you think, but the woman is really dead and the man has blood in his mouth

Screaming coming from an open door, an bloodied man comes to the door, looks around and closes it

Someone looking like a "customer" being chased by a monster. Possibly a shill in the group, gets chased and "killed"

A confused dead person/ghost looking for help from the observer, randomly wandering the hall??

Stick them in a coffin, a small, dark, confined room

A child in a room playing with dolls and taking them apart

A man dancing with a dead woman

A doll maker making live people dolls, à la Jeepers Creepers. i.e. sewing on a person

Person in the middle of a massacre asking "What have I done?" Wants help from observer, is bloody

A person butchering a live person screaming for help

A teacher teaching to a class of students that he has killed

The inevitable dead Prom Queen

An old-fashioned room with a record playing, with scary pitcures on the walls, but nobody in it

A normal looking man passes group and takes his place in a scene above (or below?) Screaming butcheree or sewed person?

I'm much more into the psychological scare than just the boo scare, of course, those are important to. Hmmm, shall we say morbid thoughts on the brain??

Being busy gives me something to focus on. As long as I have something that I can put myself into, I'm fine. But is that running away, or avoiding the issue. Are they really issues, excuse me Gail troubles if I can forget them so easily. All I need to do is have my mind taken somewhere else. If they were that troubling, wouldn't they consume my mind? Oh, and I do have a mind that gets consumed!! And then there are the times that I'm thinking about this stuff and it gets worse. So then, why do I think about it? Wouldn't it just be smarter not to? Maybe it could fester, but sometimes I think I am really not think about my problems, not even in the back of my mind. Shouldn't you be able to tell? I would be so much easier if we could just forget about it and put our minds of something else and it would go away. Hey, I wish that worked with homework as well.

Hmmm, I wonder if I'm going to be cold today?? It is such a good thing that Buffy is a rerun tonight!! I think I can get a good chunk of the dum dum dum duuummm midterm done if I really work at it, I just have to decipher my notes! Ahhhh. But I do think that was a good way to do it, instead of just jumping in headfirst...maybe I can use that in the future too. I just have to remember not to completely fall apart after this week. If I do no work on the other stuff, will have more weeks like this one and last. And that would suck, especially because finals would be there too. Ohh, the thought just makes me want to go to bed and not come out for a really long time!! Don't forget to print out the Sociology Proposal and to send it to the partners. That would suck to forget that!! Wow, that seems to be my word of the blog.

Me status? I haven't had a chance to think about myself because I have so much work, but don't worry, I'll be just as screwed up come Monday. I really really liked Whitman. Maybe I should write a Song of Myself, ehh, but it would probably be almost like his. Hmmmm, maybe, I can see lines and lines of cafeteria observation, hehe.

I'm so scared to use my computer! The screen is all funked up and I hope it doesn't get worse. But I think it is, now the blue shows up as purple. I just don't think that's normal. I thought last week was hectic, but this week should be fun!! But I may be blowing things out of proportion. I have a bunch of notes for AmEx. I am just worried that I don't have enough for his essays. Other than that, there is really nothing new to complain about, and that's not really new. If I had more time, I might write something, but I just don't. I read some Whitman last night for AmEx on Thursday and I really liked it!! It was so much fun, he just talked about random things, and about people. He asked really seemingly dumb questions that were very deep. The poem is life, random, inconsequential and deep all at the same time. He just is, was, and it doesn't matter what anyone else does or thinks, he is still him and I am still me. Well, doesn't it seem like I have the beginnings of a response paper here.

I must not shut down. I think I had been doing so well too! When I get frustrated or I don't know what is going on, I just shut down. That doesn't help anyone, especially myself. I think I eventually run out of patience with people or the whole situation. Last night was so frustrating because the person running the show had no idea how to do what she wanted, just that it was what she wanted. Grrr So then it was left up to other people to decide how to do it, but if they didn't do it right...well then. So then she was all harried because we kept having to go to her for help on what to do, because only she knew. She complains that she is so busy, but the only reason she is is because she has to do everything herself. The problem is that I can see myself doing the exact same thing. I have to micro-manage every little detail because someone else might do it wrong. I've never run anything like last night before, but I can see myself acting the same way as her. scary Must not shut down when frustrated!

I think the way I'm feeling is the same as when you walk into a room and then you forget why you are there. I seem to have no purpose at of right now. All I do is homework, or not, sleep, and eat. There is nothing special that I am doing. I also have a really short attention span when it comes to finding purposes. Like this geek stuff, I like to think that I just got really busy, and I did, but I am not thinking about it 24 hours a day anymore. I think it got really hard. Hopefully when the next week is over and I have some time to breath, I can focus on that again. I fear trying something too hard because I might not be good at it. I tell myself that I can never be very good and so I don't try. Either that, or I tell myself that it is easy and that I would be good at it, but I don't want to prove myself wrong. Must study.