Confessions of A Working Girl

So, here it is, Saturday. The first week of classes is over. Valerie and I still get along. And I do have a little homework. But that’s what’s bugging me.

I only have one assaignment that is due Monday. Two that are due Tuesday–but one of those is reading, and that will take all of 30 minutes once I start. Valerie is sitting next to me doing homework, and that makes me worry. Should I have more to do? Or is it just that, I still don’t know how to study, and don’t really count that as homework? If that’s true, I’m probably going to be in trouble a little later in the semester…

I’m so confused. I missed my friends terribly all summer. And yet, today I decided not to see them. I could have met them for dinner, and walked to a local farmer’s market with them, but I was like “Nah, I have a paper to write.” A paper, I might point out, that I don’t know when is due, and is probably not due till tomorrow at least. It is true that I have other homework, but that isn’t due till next week.

So I’m confused with myself. Why does it seem that I get close to people a bit, then start to push them away again? And I generally don’t even realize I’m doing it until it’s done. It’s sort of unconscious then, the pushing people away. It is true that I have to make a little bit of an effort to talk to strangers, but I manage! When I need to, I can interrupt random people and ask them what they thought of convocation.

See, I work for the school paper–which I like to do–and I was supposed to cover convocation. I mean, I did! But I only got two quotes. One from a random girl I asked and one from  Vivien. I may be able to get one from my friend (one of the ones I pushed away slightly today) because she went to convocation.

Listening to the music outside, I sorta wish that I had gone with my friends. But I can’t quite convince myself to call them. Or to go down and listen to the music. One semester of psychology makes me diagnose myself as “being afraid of rejection”. But if that’s so and I know it, shouldn’t that mean that I’d work harder at it? Or…

I hate being emotional. I sit here, doubting myself, and it’s almost getting to where I can’t stand it. I know, I know, it should be easy to fix. After all, they’re my emotions right? I should be able to do something about them. But what no one seems to understand, is that I really do try to. But somehow…the emotions all twist up and then I’m lost in them, not having a clue as to what I actually feel–and of course, no idea how to deal with them.

It brings to mind the time a few years ago when I went to see a psychologist. She was not a very good one, in my opinion. Maybe what she did worked for other people, but not for me. I mean, first of all, I felt like I couldn’t tell her anything! I’ve written more in this online journal here than I’d ever told her. And, I still have a bunch of my stuffed animals from when I was little. And she was just like “Throw them out. You’re too old for that kind of stuff.”o.O My parents weren’t very happy with that either.

But anyways, what I was reminded of was that every time I came in, she’d ask me what I was feeling. And I had to look at the chart on the wall and pinpoint the exact emotions I was feeling. It was really hard, and most of the time, I missed a few. But sometimes, I wouldn’t be feeling anything. I mean, I’d be there, well aware of everything that was happening, but I wasn’t feeling anything. In a way, just like white is the absence of color, what I feel then, what I call the “blank” feeling, is the absence of emotion. The psychologist claimed that there was no such thing as the absence of emotion, that I could not possibly be feeling “blank” or “no emotion.” Considering that she seemed to be wrong about other things, I wonder if she was wrong about that as well? And if she was…why exactly do I sometimes have this “absence of emotion”, and is it in any way actually healthy?

Anyway, my friends from school are “Sai” and “Arra”. They were the ones that I didn’t go with to the farmer’s market today. I met them both last year. Sai I met during the early program that the school offers, and Arra I met at some orientation type activity soon after everyone else came back to campus. I feel bad when I end up pushing them away a little. They’re really nice people.

And they make me laugh. See, I’m a little random when I talk sometimes. So what they do, if we’re at dinner, is to build a “wall”. The wall is basically a line of salt and pepper shakers and napkin holders and plates and cups. But it “separates” me from them.  We laugh about it…especially if Arra or Sai is sitting next to me when the “wall” goes up–’cause then they’re on the ‘wrong’ side!

There’s something about traveling back and forth. The leaving of one place is odd, the middle (the actual traveling) is odd, but once you reach your destination, it takes very little time for you to become comfortable in your new surroundings. After that long drive, and a night at a hotel, I am now back at school.

I got to meet my roommate–her name (in this journal anyway) is “Vivien”. She seems nice, and so far (all of one day. ;P ) we seem to get along. This might just work better than with any of my roommates last year. I hope so, especially since it already seems that the suite will be the same. That is, me (and possibly Vivien) hiding in our room because the suitemates are loud and rambunctious and bring in more of the same type of people. Sheesh.

The way people act sometimes, its as if they have no respect for others. Either that, or they (Like my brother Jin) have a hugely inflated deal of self importance, and that’s why they never consider that other people may be affected by their actions. Maybe it’s just the age (teenagers). Or possibly, I’m reading too much into it. After all, it is our first night…maybe they’ll be quieter once they’re used to living in the dorm.

I love my college. But I’ve decided that the drive to get there, I don’t like so much. My mom and I (in two separate cars) left our house at 11:00 this morning. We didn’t reach the town near the school until about 6:15!

If I look at the stops we made, I suppose it makes sense–after all, it took us about two hours for a lunch break, partially because I’d ended up twenty minutes ahead of my mom.

The Staples near my house was having a “free pc checkup” type thing, so I thought “why not?” My computer had been really slow and stupid lately. So I dropped off the computer. Two days later, I get a phone call saying they checked it—and it had major security risks on it. That didn’t sound good! I use my computer to check my bank balance and credit card balance and stuff.

They said that they could take the security risk stuff off—for $89. I was like O.O Plus, they couldn’t do it by Saturday anyway.  So, I decided to bring the computer with me to school anyway, and see if IT will fix it for less than that–or for free, which, of course, would be even better! I still have my old one too. That I’ll bring in case the other can’t be fixed. Because, much as I’d like a new computer, I really don’t have the $300 or so it would cost.

On a happier note, I go back to school tomorrow! My mom and I are driving up tomorrow, because the dorms open at 10:00 am on Sunday. It’s a 5 hour drive, so there is no possible way that I would be waking up early enough on Sunday to make a 5 hour drive. Therefore, my mom and I go up a day early, and only have a 20-40 minute drive to the school the next morning. Plus, that way I will hopefully be all unpacked by my 8 am class Monday morning.

Oh, and I got a new roommate! So far, I’ve only talked to her on the phone, but she sounds really nice. Maybe she’ll stay longer than the other three roommates did?

I had the “cast party” for the summer play yesterday. I’m always surprised when they give me things–they don’t have to. But it’s sorta nice. I got a couple of giftcards, a couple of candles that smell like ceder (a very good scent, I think) and a tiny mug that says “I (heart) my friend” I was like awww.

Whenever I read a really good book, or watch a really good movie, when its over, I always have to pause for a minute and just think. It usually makes me think about my own life. What have I been doing with my life? Look at what those characters had done! What could I do?

Last night, these thoughts occured after watching that new movie, Julie and Julia. That movie didn’t give me quite the same quiet reflection as others have–but perhaps it was because I was with friends.

I went with my girlscout troop–though since, at this point, all but one of us have graduated high school, we aren’t really an “official” troop any longer. We don’t care. Girlscouts is only what brought us together–its up to us to remain friends. Five of us went. Me, “Paige”, “Holly”. “Wynter” and “Ann”. “Mandy” didn’t come for some reason…Holly said it was because she was busy blowing up water balloons?!

Anyway, so there we were, at the theater.  Paige said that she wants me to get a boyfriend–primarily because she’s sworn off of boys but wants to keep hearing about that kind of stuff. Which reminds me, I need to find her screenname for skype…

And that’s the other thing that happened recently. I actually bought a webcam! A friend in California, “Riko” said that once school starts again, she can’t use msn messanger like we have been. She suggested skype, so I decided to try it. The verdict? Its neat! It’s like making a phone call with video (which, admittadly, will not always be fun) but for free! Or almost free–just the cost of the regular internet anyway.

And so, I get distracted once again. It’ll keep happening too…so on the subject of the movie, let me just say: it is worth seeing. The stories are interesting, and I thought it was interesting the way that the movie moved back and forth between the stories. At points they almost mingle, but not quite. As far as I can tell, these women never actually met in real life. (or in the movie for that matter)

2 Comments » Alexis:

December 21st, 2009 @ 1:21 pm I love how you use code-names for the girls in your troop. And that’s really sweet how you gals are still together….. yall should do something crazy! Like clubbing, that’d be sure to get you a boy and will cause Paige to go back on her no-boy thing….

Alexis:

December 21st, 2009 @ 1:25 pm oh and PS- i want to hear more about them!

It certainly seems it! This summer has gone by so fast. There’s only three weeks left until school starts again! And the play has seemed so rushed this year. Today everyone volunteered what ‘props’ they could bring in. I’m going to buy materials and make the rest. For the three year old who plays the cat, I figured that I’d make a fish with a bell in it. Maybe that will be sufficient to keep her from being distracted. Although I’m not too too worried…she does know her lines.

On the car catagory, Diby is still sitting at the shop–with my school stuff in it, I might add. I really should empty it out…but when I’ve been working so hard recently to clean my room, it seems a shame.

A little over a year ago, I got my very first car for about $3000. I named her Dibynadwy, or Diby for short. (It means ‘reliable, dependable, trustworthy’ in welsh)

Diby was a little red bmw that was a year older than I was. The night we were going to bring her home, I begged my parents until they agreed to let me drive. At that point, I had never driven Diby before, never driven at night before, and still had only my permit.  Still, I insisted. My mom rode with me…I thought I was doing all right. Well, at least until I was three inches from crashing into a huge truck. A few minutes after that, I got pulled over. When the policeman came up to the window, he said something along the lines of, “We’ve had reports that you were driving like you were drunk.” Oops!

My mom leaned over and said “She still has her permit.” The officer was like ‘oh, okay’ then he went back to his car. I learned that it’s kinda hard to pull away from the curb with blue lights flashing in your rearview mirror. And my mom wouldn’t drive with me for a few months.

Diby and I took lots of trips together–for example, the five hour drive to my college. Although the first time I drove to school it took me nine hours…

Because Diby was an old car, things did break. The gearshift had to be replaced at one point, a boot in the engine, the powerstearing, the breaklines, the tires…

And then, a few days ago, I noticed that it was awfully hard to turn. My dad took Diby for a test drive and came back saying that he thought the power steering was bad again. It was bad timing…my dad’s car (which I had long ago named Coche) had just gone into the shop. In the meanwhile, he was driving my nana’s car (which I had named Ranz) , so transportation wasn’t really a problem.

The problem was that it’s going to cost about $1200 to fix Coche.  But to fix Diby would cost even more. Everyone–my dad, the mechanics–say that it’s better to fix just Coche and sell Diby for whatever we can get, even though that’s probably only going to be three or four hundred dollars. (In my opinion, she’s worth at least a thousand, easy!)

Much as I hated to, much as I love Diby, I had to agree. I just can’t afford to keep sinking money into a car that’s going to get more expensive as time goes on. Intellectually, that’s what I think. Emotionally, it’s just like Nooooooooooo!

To get to my grandmother’s house from where I live, it should be about an hour drive. It took me three. I couldn’t believe it! I got lost, found the right highway again, got lost, figured out where I was, then got lost and stayed lost until I called my dad.

Anyway, once I was finally at my grandparent’s we had a lovely weekend.

I got back from my grandparents’ on Tuesday afternoon…Tuesday night I went to Ki’s house. We wanted to watch Pirates of the Carribean 3 since I’d never seen it before. It wasn’t a bad movie; I kind of liked it.

Then, we were about to watch another movie when Ki’s sister who is my age, “Lea” came home. She brought with her her dog and her bosses dog. Both immediatly ran over to jump on me. Why? It always startles me when they jump, so I don’t understand why a lot of the time they come running to me.

Anyway, the second movie Ki and I watched was called Miss Pettigrew lives for a day. That movie was good too. It had Amy Adams in it…I can’t remember any of the other actors.  It was a very interesting movie actually. The story took place in approximatly 1940 or so.

Ki lent me the Princess Tutu anime, so that’s probably what I’ll go watch now. Well, that or Get Smart. Both are good series.

I’m going to be staying at my grandparent’s house this weekend. I can remember, when I was younger, I would get so excited to go to their house. My siblings still do…almost every time my grandparents come over, at least one of my siblings, usually “Dori” or “Tomo”, (the youngest at 7 and 9 years old) ask my grandparents, “Whose turn is it?”

[And just in case anybody’s wondering why all the names I’m choosing are Japanese, it’s because I’m currently trying to teach myself Japanese, so it’s sort of on my mind]

Foolishly, I bought a pet mouse. I named her Artemis. It was foolish because the cost for the mouse, bedding, food, water bottle and cage came to about $70. That was seventy dollars that I don’t really have. Plus, I’m now wondering what to do with her when I go back to school–the dorms only allow fish. I’m going to find that housing agreement I signed and see the exact wording…maybe there’s a loophole for mice. ^_^

I got Mike off my back for a week by telling him (three days ago) that I was going to be at my grandparents until next Thursday. I’m actually going to be back Tuesday or Wednesday, but he doesn’t need to know that, does he? He also doesn’t need to know my cell phone number–I’ve threatened my siblings with retribution should they happen to tell him.

Speaking of annoying people…my brother Jin is perpetually at the top of that list. Like today for example. He stood in the doorway for about 20 minutes going “So, will you? I’d consider it a personal favor. So, would you?” (He was asking if I’d go to Gamestop to buy a game for him if he gave me the  money.) I ended up saying that I would, primarily because I knew that he wouldn’t go away until I agreed. I’d already said ‘no’ about ten times, but he’d ignored that and continued bugging me.

I can’t really think of anything else to add for the moment…except that I’m going to go watch the Mentalist soon.  That show is awesome! Partially because it is reminiscent of Columbo, and partially because Simon Baker is good in that role and has a good supporting cast.