Stand Up

Gill. 26. American. Filipina. College student. INTJ. Raconteur. Photographer. Fangirl. Gamer. Aurally fixated. Criminally mad at the world.

Happy Hour

Parachute

Rain on Me

Emotional bubble has burst
February 24th, 2010 Comments Off

  
Mood: awakeawake  Music: Swan Lake - John Hollingsworth & London Symphony Orchestra  Reading: The Edible Woman

I hate Ranty McRantFace blogs like my previous. I do feel better though. I love raging against the machine in my blogs. Because once it’s on paper (so to speak), it’s out of me. I don’t think blogging diminishes those feelings because they’re real and true. I was angry. Still am. I’m patiently impatient about the state of things in my life right now. The pain aches and it’ll never go away until I find my passion. But there is a time for everything. I wish it was sooner, that’s all.

I think I need a spiritual/emotional retreat of some sort. I’d love to get away for a day trip to Red Rock. THe priest at Christ the King recommended it when we went to Ash Wednesday mass this year. We’ve been having really nice weather. I could pack some lunch, take my car and Nikon out, and unwind. Journal what I see, feel. Connect with God. Commune with nature and all that. Get away from this city’s burdens. Y’know, I put some unpaid time off in this week. I’ll be taking Sundays off in March. Maybe I’ll plan one of those days to escape. Probably after midterms though. I need to focus on that.

So where did all this clarity comes from? Remember when I was freaking out about my catalog changing? Well, it’s official, and the load has been lifted off my shoulders. I got word today from my advisor that I can walk across the stage. FINALLY. A culmination of blood, sweat, tears and headdesking… all for the formality of the walk. And having my family and friends there will be epic.

The only caveat is that I have to try and sign up for French 212 again. There’s no way to get around it. Damn damn damn. I’m worried now because the job I have now is inflexible about schedule changes. Once you have a set schedule, that’s it. They offer no leeway whatsoever to accommodate something like school. So it looks like I’ll be looking for another job on top of everything else. I don’t want to leave, but if I have to, I will. My education is important to me. Even if it’s just this one class, I’ll leave.

Maybe I can take the class online somewhere? That might be easier.

However, I really should try and get some sleep. But I needed to get this out. :)

?: “What foreign languages do you speak?

I go up, I come down and I’m emptier inside
February 22nd, 2010 1 comment

  
Mood: frustratedfrustrated  Music: There's Gotta Be (More To Life) - Stacie Orrico  Reading: Lysistrata, The Edible Woman

Here I go again, with my funks. Blah blah blah. I fucking hate my life.

Working FT is nice because it keeps my bank account in order. Finances are one less thing I have to worry about. But having the job takes away from other things I could be doing, i.e. homework. When I get home from a hard day at work, the last thing I want to do is study. So what do I do? I go to sleep after I eat dinner, because I’m too exhausted to do anything else.

I even tried to change it up a month ago. I put little notes in my iPhone’s calendar with an alarm to wake up and exercise and/or study, but when the alarm goes off, I ignore it. It’s so easy to ignore when it’s on my phone though. I never get a good night’s rest, so ignoring alarms is so easy for me, lol. It’s like I stay awake and while away the hours until I can go back to sleep and forget everything.

The only alarm I really pay attention to is my main one, because that’s the one that tells me to wake up otherwise I’ll be late. I don’t believe in snooze buttons. When I wake up, I wake up, that’s it. That’s why I set my alarm for the last possible minute I can be asleep. Which is ridiculous because I wake up an hour or so before I need to wake up. I have to will myself to stay asleep because I “have a few minutes” before the alarm truly goes off. I have conversations with myself, saying “be quiet, stay asleep.”

Last week, I turned in homework late for my online class, when I swore to myself I would stick with it. It’s one of those classes where everything is crammed into half a term so it’s imperative that you do the work on time because there’s no other way to make up the points. I also turned in half a reading response for that class this week too. I haven’t been keeping up with my reading in my brick & mortar classes either. Again, too exhausted to do it. Luckily for those classes, I don’t really have any formal weekly assignments. We have reading responses but they can be due anytime during the semester.

But it’s getting to be the midterm and I’m so behind in everything! Ughhh.

I really hate the daily grind. That’s all I’m trying to say. I don’t want a 9-5 job. I want to travel. I want to live by my wits. By my pen. By my camera. I don’t want to be tied down by responsibilities anymore. I don’t want to end up like everyone around me. They’re all zombies who work too hard to keep food on the table, clothes on their backs, and a roof over their heads. I mean, hell, “you can’t take it with you.” But I don’t even care about material things like that.

I don’t want to drown my sorrows in drink or drugs, like typical twentysomethings. That sort of life has never appealed to me. I want to see, I want to drown in the emotion, I want to get lost for a few days, get out of my element, and not feel like I have to check in with anybody.

I want to experience, quite simply, to live.

I’m glad I’ve never felt pressured to be anything I didn’t want to be. I was strongly encouraged to do things. But if it didn’t suit me, I’d walk away, wash my hands of it, and move on. I’ve coasted through life thus far, and now I’m 26 years old. I’m too young to feel this way.

Everyone has a passion right? Well, I don’t. I’ve never felt passionate about anything in my life.

Maybe I’m lonely. Then again, I’m never truly alone, which sucks. I can’t even eat a meal by myself without noise. At work, our dining room is so damn loud with everyone coming and going that I have to drown everything out with a movie or music on my iPhone. I can’t eat a meal at home, because then my dad will open his big, fat mouth with irrelevant banter that I really don’t want to hear, or my niece will come down and bother me while I’m preparing my plate of food. I know someday I’ll miss all of this, but right now? I could care less, lol. That’s why I eat my room so much, the “cave” they call it. I don’t care. I want to be left alone.

I do wish I had a man in my life. I don’t think I’d be a very good girlfriend. I’m too smart for my own good, which is a good thing. I don’t want to be with someone who wasn’t intellectually stimulating. I’m definitely not going to “act stupid” to land a good man. Nor am I going to whore myself out.

I’d be a good wife though. If that’s one thing my parents taught me, it was to take care of everyone else. If anything, I’m very good at that. /sarcasm But that was what was expected. You’re the girl, you have no life, you babysit. And by default, because you babysit, you won’t ever have a life of your own again. We don’t need to bother your little brother with all this babysitting other people’s kids stuff. “You have to help out the family.” What about ME? What I wanted to be a part of?? What about my lost adolescence?????

And now I can’t ever leave. I’m going to live here forever, blending in with the furniture, the walls, choked to death by my own self-imposed apathy.

I don’t want to be like this. But when I throw feelers out there that I’d like to make it on my own, they guilt me into staying. Maybe I am selfish, but I’ve been watching out for everyone else my entire life, being a scapegoat, a sounding board for everyone in my real life.

Then again, failure is never an option. I will never fail if I never attempt something new or scary. So I can’t blame anyone but myself for not trying to make a go of things.

I don’t feel like I’m getting anywhere in my life though. My heart and my brain know this. It’s just breathe in, breathe out, as the days fall over the calendar. I’m waiting for things to fall into place, but I’m tired of waiting.

This life that you think I lead when you read this blog, on Twitter, or Facebook, is not even 50% of who I am. So don’t get confused.

?: “If you could change one thing about your life right now, what would it be? Be honest, don’t tell me ‘I wouldn’t change anything’, because EVERYONE wants to change something.

That dog is a monster
February 9th, 2010 2 comments

  
Mood: sleepysleepy  Music: Stars - Kylie Minogue  Reading: Stuff for school

My sister’s dog Coco barks at everything. He’s a Min Pin and a handful and a half! So every time he starts barking, I sing “Monster” about him, changing the lyrics to fit him. Instead of “he ate my heart,” I usually make something up “he barks too much” or “he needs to be fed” to the beat of the song. We do that a lot in my family, sing a song and freestyle some new lyrics. One time we went walking on the Strip with the brothers and “In the Club” by 50 Cent was hot. We were jamming out to it on the way there, and for some reason, my little brother started freestyling over the beat about how we were hanging out since we hardly get together like that. We’re crazy like that, lol.

I also decided I know what I’m gonna get tattooed on my back… finally. It’s a couple of lines from “Hymn of Beauty” by Charles Baudelaire:

De Satan ou de Dieu, qu’importe?
Ange or Sirène, qu’importe?

Translated it means “Devil or God, who cares? Angel or siren, who cares?” The whole poem is so cool. I read it in World Lit II this semester. When I read the poem, all I could think about is how it would look on my body. Of course, my first tat would be of words, even if they’re in a foreign language that I have a love/hate relationship with. lol.

Need to decide on the typeface now. Nothing too masculine but nothing too feminine. I will probably include a cherry blossom, or a treble clef or something in there.

Speaking of school, this morning, when I came back from break in my Women & Lit class, my prof/advisor flagged me down and proceeded to freak me out. At first, I was like, “oh no…” but then she told me that she had messed up with my degree audit.

I took it all in stride. I’m pretty easygoing. It’s very hard to get me riled up about things. I think that’s my water nature. I think she was kinda shocked that I wasn’t ranting and raging against the machine, lol. But everything has a solution. You have to be patient and find it.

Turns out the 2009 catalog I switched to is requiring 3 more classes to sort of replace the lack of foreign language requirement that was in previous catalogs. I took French up until the 3rd year in Modesto, so that tells you how long ago I took it! Of course, they don’t offer French at my school. Never have, don’t think they will, especially with the way the budget is looking. :( However, if I switch back to the 2006 catalog, all the classes I’m taking right now will count, and then all I’ll have to worry about is taking French 4.

Right now, the logical thing is to switch back to the 2006 catalog and do battle with the registrar and the department heads to either a) replace French 4 with an equivalent English class at my school, or b) take French 4 at CSN and be done with it.

I am hoping for A.

Every time I sign up for French 4, I can’t fit it into my schedule or they cancel the class. My advisor said it was probably because of budget cuts that they canceled my last one. Hopefully that will be enough of a push to let the powers that be let me go with option A. The budget shortfall is weighing so heavily on our minds. Jobs, classes, livelihoods, and even if they’re going to keep my school open are on the line. So I hope that will be enough of a sob story to let me to do it, which is a terrible way to put it. I mean, everyone else who uses the 2006 catalog has pretty much graduated. I don’t want to manipulate my way out of taking a class but who’s to say we’ll even be a school next fall? :( ((((((

I don’t mind B, I just don’t care for that as an option lol.

And truthfully, I just want the formality of walking across the stage. My friends and family are coming down to visit that weekend, and I want them to be there for that. My sister did that: walked but didn’t get her physical degree until almost a year later. And shoot, it’s only 1 class. Right? Well, hopefully they see it our way lol.

I had a random dream last night. I think it might do well as a short story. A girl goes back in time to rescue her best friend. Yeah, that’s vague but it was really good in my dream. And you know how I dream like I’m watching a movie. :)

?: “What’s your favorite poem?

The tide is high but I’m holding on
February 2nd, 2010 2 comments

  
Mood: indescribableindescribable  Music: The Tide is High - Billie Piper  Reading: Stuff for school, Game Informer

I have a LOT to say so I think I’ll put everything behind a cut. Be prepared, this is sort of a cathartic entry. So much has happened in the last few days.

Some good, some bad, all me. ;)
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Futurama: Fry & Leela