(warning: particularly old content) I don't ask for it to make sense 
4/30/00
I don't think I have ever been as disenthusiastic* about any single class that I still enjoyed going to as I am about CSE right now. It's this constant stress hanging over my head that's driving me nuts. I think the class is cool, but I'm not good at it. I think it's interesting, but I overwork Richard, because I'm doing too much in my other classes to give this one the attention it needs. I enjoy it, but it makes me tense, because I get too embarrassed to ask anyone but Richard and occasionally Darrick for help. And even they I can barely stand to have look at my code... I guess somewhere (and not too deeply buried a somewhere, either), I'd rather be a complete burden AND fail than risk a smirk or a disparaging remark. Go figure.
* A new word that I just made up, that has a rather nice ring to it, I think.
4/29/00
Hah! I didn't forget, for all that I have roleplaying completely on the brain!
4/28/00
I feel so much better. It's truly amazing what eight or so hours of sleep can do to help a person. It's also truly amazing how an electron manages to have the ability to be in both lobes of a p-orbital, even though the probability of it ever being at the interface between them is zero. Joys of chemistry.
4/27/00
Amusing things written in scrawled white on black t-shirts :
"Can't sleep, the clowns will get me. Can't sleep, the clowns will get me. Can't sleep, the clowns will..."
"1 + 1 = 10 Think Different UW CSE"
"Chicks dig pale scrawny guys"
I am a child today. A child who childishly resents an unpromised but expected treat being denied; a child who childishly resents others being more important than her; a child who is aware of her childishness and punishes herself for it. I did get all my homework, including some of Monday's quantum chem, done, though. At least I am productive in my childish depression.
4/26/00
Ahhhh Hana Yori Dango. My own personal addiction, to be spread among the unwary. I spoke to my quantum chemistry professor a bit today, about getting a PhD, mostly. He claims that one is capable of getting a degree in theoretical chemistry, never setting foot near a lab. A pipe dream, I suspect, and even if I were able to do it... what would I do then? Teaching postions are pretty rare, according to him, and most theoretical chemists end up in a "computational field." Not that that would be so bad, necessarily. It's simply unknown, and therefore a little bit frightening. I feel spread too thin - not able to decide on anything that I might want to end up doing. That and worrying about money and my other classes and whether or not I could still make any sort of deadline to study in Japan next summer... I keep myself so busy stressing out, one might almost think that it's an intentional, cruel joke on the part of my subconscious. Perhaps it's to balance out that which is happy... I notice lately that I'm not taking as much pleasure in working as I was last quarter. Much of that is due, I believe, to working in the Commons, as well as to the people that I tend to work with. Regardless, I am forced to wonder if some part of me was deriving more pleasure than was necessarily "real" from work, to cope with the fact that for a long while, I didn't have much else to take pleasure in. Now that times are somewhat happier, I wonder if that hypothetical happiness amplifier has been turned off? But that's just a theory, to be stashed along with all other theories, left to gather dust until the scattered thought wanders across my consciousness again.
(heh) I write funny stuff at 2 in the morning.
4/25/00
I didn't go to class today... I woke at the alarm at 8:30 or so, made a sound vaguely resembling "mnuuhhhhh" and decided to go back to sleep. I feel a little bad, but I think it may have been good for me. I think it may be alright for fall. A lot of that may be wishful thinking, but I suppose we can always deal with problems later. Summer still needs thinking about, however.
4/24/00
Stupid crazy moon math, keeping me up until 4 am and I still don't understand why I had to multipy by 4(pi)r. Okay, so I found out later that it wasn't crazy moon math, but I didn't know that at the time at which I was doing my homework. I was in a really pissy mood last night - I think there's few things as frustrating as having to admit that I have no idea how to do whatever it is that I'm supposed to do, and have to resort to crazy moon math "because it turns out right." Today was a good day; I feel like I understood pretty much everything in my classes. It was a welcome change after last week's desperate scrambling for perception admist a sea of stress over midterms. And the "From the Dylan Bunny" egg put a smile on my face that felt very good. (Evil laugh) I think I'm going to take 4 classes (coming in at 16 credits again) again next fall. The saving grace shall be that 2 of them shall be Psych/Phil classes. I can pretend I'm not a science major again for a bit! Well, so long as I discount the molecular spectroscopy class.
4/22/00
I'm tired.
4/21/00
Long drive, and people laid out over the freeway didn't help my mood... I was concentrating hard on it, but that may have been as a stress reliever... who knows. It was disconcerting, but in a good cause. An hour and a half drive back to the same area, for such a reason... ironic. And the "yes, ma'am" makes me smile so much.
4/20/00
Someone is connected to my computer. And I am not happy about this.
4/19/00
Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you... Anyway. Another year, another chemistry test, another reason to be depressed, another reason to be happy. As to which bits will win the battle? A coin toss is about as good a way as any to predict. I spent an hour today stressing, the next hour crying, and a few hours after that alternately napping and sulking, watching Geiss spin pretty patterns onto my screen. The release of tension made me feel better... I think. Small breakdowns, carefully tuned by my subconscious to avoid a complete and utter one. At least I hope that's what I have in mind for myself. I may be very good at knowing my own mind, but I'm also absolutely terrible at it. If I knew so much, understood so well, then why can't I figure out what's wrong and fix it? The possibility that I am fundamentally flawed exists, I suppose, but the day that I accept that is the day that I'll not be able to guilt-trip myself out of permanent actions. So, given that I am not fundamentally flawed, there must therefore be a pattern of switches somewhere that may be thrown to correct me. My inability, for all my insight, to determine where those switches are, much less the order in which they must be tripped, is the proof to myself that my insight is not yet objective enough.
4/18/00
What is wrong lately... lez see. Japanese skit, pchem homework, math midterm yesterday (Monday). CSE quiz and housing situation today. CSE homework and pchem midterm tomorrow (Wednesday). Likely Japanese homework Thursday. Math homework, CSE midterm, and likely Japanese homework on Friday. I do believe that my brain may explode.
Oh no... we can't do that.... who would clean up the mess?
4/17/00
And yet another one.
4/15/00
Tired. What a freaking crappy day. (hehe) I've got a hole in my collarbone.
4/14/00
As Ty pointed out to me, Albert Camus had a very good point when he said "An achievement is a bondage. It obliges one to a higher achievement." Blah. I skipped p-chem this morning, miraculously the first time thus far into the quarter that I have missed class. I really don't think I should have skipped, but I just couldn't stand to haul myself out of my comfortable, warm, cozy bed when the alarm started going off. I caved, I admit it, and I compounded my naughtiness by slipping out of math lecture later in the day. For that matter, I missed the ADP showing tonight, too. But that was worth it to see his smile.
4/13/00
I really really can't stand female CS majors.
Go on, laugh.
I just can't handle them - they make me feel incredibly inadequate. I've had many people tell me I should program (little do they know that I'm terrible at it), and all my friends who seem to think that I'm so smart either are in the major or could be if they wished to. And then there's me. I feel as if I'm on an incredibly lower rung of some sort of imaginary status ladder, and I HATE seeing other girls up above me. They remind me that I feel like I'm wasting what bit of intelligence that I have, that I will never be anything special in a field that I admire a great deal, and generally that they're better than me. Not that I'm defensive about this or anything.
I've been trying, lately, to puzzle through why I appreciate compliments about my looks (shallow thing) more than compliments about my intelligence. I think it breaks down to the guilt trip that I take out of the latter compliments. My looks are something that I can do nothing about - they just are. However, when I am complimented at being intelligent, I am reminded that there are expectations upon me due to that, ranging from doing well in school to picking up some new skill at work quickly. Most of the time I do not feel as if I am living up to the potential that other people point out in me, and I feel guilty.
I especially feel guilty for not studying computer science.
Argh.
4/12/00
So many things thought about today, and none of it is formatting out in my head into clearly describable things. I feel as if my higher processing powers are completely out of whack, at least so far as written communication is concerned. Perhaps I've been doing so much verbally lately that it's throwing my authorial sense off. Today's conversations boiled down to the following... insincerity and being inconsiderate really tick me off. Sigh. I do not look forward to work tomorrow. And if her hair is up in those little pigtail things again, I think I very well might scream.
4/11/00
EEP! I completely thought I wrote something yesterday. Ooopsie. That's the first time I've skipped a couple days in a while, now. I am annoyed, today. I was ignored for two hours today, humming to myself as I hooked up nearly thirty computers. My attempts to converse with my coworkers went in vain, and I am left knowing that Thursday, work is gonna royally suck. I shall be the Queen of the Floor...
4/9/00
For all of being at the IPHell for several hours today, I didn't really get much homework done. Stupid stupid integrals. Perhaps if I stare at them over a cookie later, they'll get evaluated correctly. Perhaps. I hope. Silly homework.
4/8/00
Whoops, forgot yesterday. I was out house-sitting for John again (still haven't met him... heh). I had a wonderful dinner, and spent some quality time with his dog... Got nine hours of sleep, and did homework today. Oh yeah, had another good dinner. I could get used to this. I want to get used to this. I'm terrified of getting used to this. The moment at which I become used to it, I fear, it'll vanish, an empheral cruel trick played on me. So I'll tiptoe for a while, letting it slowly sink in, and we shall see how things proceed... because I do want to get used to it.
4/6/00
I have a phantom on my computer. It's called "Allaire FTP & RDS," and has been sitting there whenever I opened Windows Explorer for some time now. Having gotten annoyed with it not doing anything when I clicked on it, not being able to delete it, or even change the icon (which is currently just an 'unknown file type' one), I just hunted through the registry for what it could be, as well as looking it up online. Apparently it's something to do with Homesite's Cold Fusion Studio? What the fuck? I've never had that on my computer, that I knew of. So anyway, now I'm considering deleting it out of the registry... and seeing what happens. (hehe)
Time to back up the registry!
Yay! It's gone! Purged from my computer completely! I feel so... powerful.
4/5/00
From a conversation with Ty... the English language is a funny beast. "Asking someone out" comes from "asking someone out to walk," usually referring to a leisurely Sunday afternoon sort of thing. We often say that we are "seeing someone," but we aren't seeing them all the time... we often say we are "going out with someone," which implies an impossible state of perpetual progression out... somewhere. "Dating someone" derives from "making a date," as in an appointment. So why is it that while you say "I made a date to see my dentist," or "I made an appointment to see my dentist," you say neither "I am dating my dentist" (at least not usually), or "I am appointing my dentist," (again, at least not usually). Funny obsolete references. Tip and posh (laughing).
4/4/00
I saw a guy yesterday with bright, flaming orange hair. In a samurai topknot. It looked really strange, and even stranger after I saw him on campus four times. Someone's dose of randomness for the day. All in all... an excellent day today. Sleepiness aside, class was interesting, work was difficult but rewarding, I got some homework done, Phantom with Richard was fun, and a very enjoyable evening spent relaxing with Jim and some tea... kick ass. I'm in exactly the mood to... go to bed (heh).
4/3/00
For some inexplicable reason, I'm in a very Led Zeppelin sort of mood this morning. Maybe I'll figure out why as the day progresses...
4/2/00
I am happy tonight.
4/1/00
I should switch over to a new April page, but I hate having only a single entry up at a time, so I think I'll opt to wait a few days. I had a thought... earlier. A single thought... perhaps a slightly deep one. I was staring at my broken desk drawer, thinking... something. I thought to myself, "If I don't write this down now, I'll forget it." And lo, these things did come to pass. I have plenty of stuff I'm thinking about, but very little I currently feel writing down here. Give things a couple of weeks to work themselves out, and perhaps then... I'm not nearly so gutsy as Zach. Sigh... the recurring battle between my desire to have this be a pure stream-of-current-consciousness outlet and the feeling that some things should be kept actually private (what a concept) rears its head once more.