Handwriting is civilization's casual encephalogram -Lance Morrow-
i think i wrote a week or so ago about my nightmare of an essay test. and i'm pretty sure i've said before that i love my laptop because i can sit in class and type my notes instead of laboriously writing them. well, i was sure i didn't do well on my essay test for two reasons: first, i pretty much bullet pointed everything because i didn't want to be bothered with writing whole sentences. secondly, i wrote in pencil which made what i did write very illegible because after about two minutes my hand started to hurt from me gripping the pencil so hard in concentration. i wish all tests could be taken on my laptop. i type fast and tend to think better when i have the soft *click, click* of keys as i'm typing.
i actually changed my pen grip lately, and switched up the handwriting style that i've been using since i started school a year ago. i was going with the small, all caps method, which took me a bit to get used to, but i liked how nice and even all my notes looked. sure, it was slow as hell, but i didn't mind. it got the job done. well, i started this semester doing the same thing and about two weeks in decided... i'm sick of all caps. the thing is, i'd been doing it for so long that it wasn't as nice and even as it used to be... in fact, i was getting kind of sloppy. since i take most class notes on my laptop, i really only was writing for one or two classes or making miscellaneous notes. so one day, on a whim, i started writing in my perfect, measured cursive. it looked so nice, i decided to keep doing it. in fact, i even adopted a new grip to keep it more controlled... started resting my pen on my middle finger instead of my ring finger. i've been resting my pen on my ring finger so long that my nail is actually flat on one side. needless to say, 30 minutes into an hour and 15 minute class, my middle finger starts to hurt. but as i said, it just looks so nice! so i'm keeping it, at least for the rest of this semester. who knows, maybe next semester i'll go all digital.
problem with all digital is that in most of my classes you can count the number of laptops on one hand... so i keep getting looks during class as my fingers are *click clicking* away. and then whenever i get distracted and start typing when everyone else is clearly zoning out, it is also very clear that i'm doing something not-class-related. having a laptop there in front of you all day is just such a BIG distraction. besides, i'm not an auditory learner... at all. as smart as i may be, and as good as my memory can be when it comes to tests, you can give me a list of things to do and 30 seconds later i'll have forgotten it (i think this is probably why i'm such a neurotic list taker). i have decided to attribute this short-term memory loss to two things. 1) i'm usually thinking of five other things when i'm being told what to do so i get it confused with the conversations i've already got running in my head and 2) i've got so much other information already in my head that it takes me a minute to make room for new stuff (so i usually forget stuff within that first minute)... now, if i write something down or actually take the time to say it out loud (such as explaining to someone else) then i've got it. you'd prolly laugh if you saw me studying... i sit with my headphones on and talk to myself a lot.
i'm completely off subject... i missed class where we got our essay test back, so i followed the teacher to his office today to get mine back. he handed it to me and i glanced around for a red grade, then flipped through it. then something caught my attention on the front page and my heart skipped a beat... i pointed to it and asked him "is that my grade??" he'd written in very small numbers in the middle of all the crap on the page... 100. first thing out of my mouth next was "holy shit". a bit embarrassing, but he laughed and told me to go home and frame it. yeah right, like i'm gonna frame it...
i hung it up on my fridge instead :o)
*blog*
posted by megs at 04:14
10.24.2006
And I know that you hope for longer good-byes Embracing for forever and falling in your eyes
so i took my first official road trip to savannah this weekend. i packed up friday night and just hit the road. it took me all of four hours to get there, but it was totally worth it. we went out saturday night and partied on river street, just the two of us. it was kind of weird... i haven't felt so much like i was on a date in a long time. i only mean this in the sense that it was just us, and no one else... and we talked, and we laughed, and i had so much fun i really didn't want to get up and leave on sunday. luckily for me (but unluckily for the boys) something happened with their sewage system that caused a backup, a mess in their downstairs bathroom and gave me a good reason for me to say my goodbyes. the trip was short and really kind of pointless considering he'd be here next in three days anyways... but sometimes i guess it's the pointless things that are the most fun.
so now that i have spent a weekend relaxing i have returned to a world where i am in full panic mode over school. the semester is 2/3 over and i'm suddenly realizing that having six classes with tests, quizzes and papers to write was a pretty big nightmare... and now on top of it i have to worry about doing six group assignments. i have a hard enough time keeping all my classes straight, especially what is due when and which marketing class is which, but now i have to deal with remembering all the people in all of my groups. this is only made more difficult by the fact that a lot of the same people are in a number of my classes, so i keep forgetting which people are in my group in which class... it's a bit akward. the fact that i can't remember their names really makes me look dumb too... but i try, i really do. i'm just no good at it.
and speaking of saturday night, the tech game was a real downer. we made special effort to bar hop to places that had televisions only to watch it go downhill all night. i'm looking forward to this weekend though... we've got tickets for the homecoming game so that should be a lot of fun. i haven't seen any of the kids in a few weeks now so it'll be good to get back on the radar. i, of course, have this fear that i'm going to be forgotten now that it is just me here... silly, i know, but i can't help it sometimes.
i think when i move to savannah i'm going to get a scooter to ride around on... or a moped... whatever they are called... i'll ride around and go "vroom-vroom" and make screeching sounds when i turn corners...
i'll be the sped on a moped.
*blog*
posted by megs at 00:53
10.20.2006
sometimes i sit here thinking, look around for awhile and wonder...
is it really worth it? any of this...
the thing is, i've been thinking a lot the last two days. thinking about my last post, and my family... i was going to write about it tonite, but i got sidetracked by something.
what the hell has been wrong with my tag board lately? it keeps asking for some sort of damn password. well, noone used the stupid thing anyway, so i removed it... one less thing for people not to read on this website. i put up my horoscope instead, and it is supposed to update everyday. it took me a long time to do that because i had a hard time finding one i liked, and because, when it comes to this blog, i hate to change things in fear i'll fuck it all up. if i had to start this from scratch again... well, it would be like losing part of myself i guess.
and now... now i'm exhausted. what a week. and tomorrow i have to get up early, to go to work early, to watch granny do her PT and OT and make sure they aren't short-changing her, so i can get off early, go to ikea, pack my shit and head to savannah for two days...
perspective... i wanted to talk about my family and perspective. and anger. and selfishness.
but like i said, i'm too tired tonite.
*blog*
posted by megs at 01:36
10.16.2006
There is no salvation in becoming adapted to a world which is crazy. -Henry Miller-
with huey and dylan gone, my life lately has largely revolved around my family. anyone knowing our family history would agree that we are as dysfunctional as any other happy american family with a healthy handful of neuroses thrown in for good measure. while i've sometimes been desicribed as the "normal" one in my family, i usually just shrug this off... i think i can be plenty weird myself, but what people don't know won't hurt them, right?
well, this weekend my family came very close to driving me over the edge into their crazy little worlds. it was a big moving weekend for my mom... we rented a moving truck on sunday and i'd spent most of the day friday lugging furniture from two bedrooms in the old house, down the hall and into the living room for two reasons: to facilitate its loading once the truck arrived and to give my mom two full rooms as staging points for the removal of the 27 years of crap that has accumulated in her own bedroom.
when i say crap, i'm not kidding. unfortunately, i arrived on sunday to find that she had packed two boxes completely and was still in the process of filling a third with shoes and purses. very frustrated, i got the boys started with the stuff in the living room i'd already done and went to help her. thirty minutes later, after they had completely cleared out the living room, i was still standing in my mom's room arguing over whether or not a calorie guide published in 1967 was really worth keeping. on top of that, everything i threw into the trash bag she would pull back out to look over again. the woman has JARS of buttons tucked into drawers all over her room... i don't remember the last time i saw her sew on a button. and it isn't like she collects them... she just hates to throw them away.
anyway, the boys were ready to move on to her furniture so drastic measures had to be taken. i shooed her out of the room, grabbed a few boxes and literally began to arm-sweep items off of her dresser into the box. the amount of dust on everything was ridiculous... it literally came off in clumps like when you clean the lint trap on your dryer... except this was dust, not clothing lint. blech. they joked about getting me one of those dust masks you see carpenters wearing as i slowly became enveloped in the cloud of dust.
after that, it came down to clearing a path to the other furniture items in the room. yes, i mean clear a path literally... she has stuff stacked at least knee deep all over the room. cereal... 27 years worth of stuff just stacked up everywhere. we started by trying to gingerly shift things and keep it organized (as if it was organized to start with) but frustration set in after a turned ankle or two from trying to leap over it all so we just began shoveling it around. after a lot of digging and dusting and tugging and pulling (and probably a few broken things hidden under the piles of stuff we stepped on) we managed to get it all out. here is what the room looked like after the furniture was out and i had already dragged four boxes of stuff out of there...
it's actually quite a scary picture when you realize that those small bits of blue carpet poking out are where the furniture was and that all this other stuff on the floor was just stacked around it... madness...
after unloading all the stuff at the new house we finally headed home at about 8 o'clock. the only things left in the truck, besides our dolly, were the washer and dryer which had been left in the powder springs house by the old owners and which my mom replaced with her fancier newer ones.
now see if you can follow me here, because this is where it gets tricky. the washer/dryer from the old house goes to the new house, where the plug from the old house dryer goes onto the new house dryer and vice versa, then the new house w/d are brought to the old house for a week or so until angel brings her apt w/d to the old house (where the new house washer and dryer are) and trades them out, taking the new house w/d from the old house to her apt and leaving the apt w/d in the old house because she called dibs on the new house w/d which are newer than the apt w/d. *whew*
problem is, angel didn't come help out yesterday with the move at all. she had aids walk. so now the boys think they are entitled to the new house w/d instead of having to take angel's older, more used apt w/d. what doesn't help matters is that they swear up and down that they expressed this to my mom as she was on her way to pick up dinner and that she agreed... she, of course, doesn't remember having this conversation at all. so who's right? should angel get to keep her dibs call? or should the boys get the better set for making the extra effort? apparently this issue resulted in a terrific screaming match after i left my mom's house last night and then my phone literally EXPLODED with calls as everyone wanted me to persuade someone else to change their mind. i personally don't see what the big deal is... but then again, it isn't really my problem.
i spent about two hours last night twisting my brain this way and that, bouncing from one call on hold to another before i finally gave up and just stopped answering. i just can't get that worked up over this and don't understand how everyone else can. i swear, they are all completely crazy...
anyway, here are some of the other pics i took yesterday on my camera phone. this first one is colin messin around in what i affectionaly began to call the "dirty room" by the end of the day (my mom's room). we couldn't decide if it was a Where's Waldo kind of shot (it's hard to see colin in his camo amidst all the crap) or if it looks like he's actually being swallowed into it all.
and here are the boys with the very full, very pain in the ass to pack moving truck... we done good :o)
*blog*
posted by megs at 11:51
10.11.2006
Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward. --Kurt Vonnegut--
yesterday was the longest day i've had in a long, long time...
it didn't help that it was really two days with only two hours of shut eye in between. i had midterms yesterday... in fact, i had more midterms today... yesterday was the worst because there were two. in advertising and promotion i had a 100 question multiple choice test and then in business to business marketing i had an essay test. blech...
the thing is, i never even really meant to fall asleep tuesday night. i fell asleep studying and only woke up wednesday morning because my mom happened to call at 7:20 in the morning and wake me up... i'd hate to think what would have happened if she hadn't. since my first midterm started at 8, i had to pull it together and haul ass to school. i was still 15 minutes late... oddly enough though, i still finished first. i was really worried about this until i checked my grade later... i actually got a 93!
but the essay test... my god. i'm not even sure how i used to do these in highschool. i had two huge cups of coffee in the middle of the day because i could feel myself crashing so i was feeling a little jittery when i headed to the test. the hall was empty and i thought i was really early for class, so i walked past the room and glanced in to see if the previous class was done and my class was in there... i was actually late. i did an akward stop and spin to get in the room and i looked like an idiot who forgot where her class was. the teacher was passing out the test so i pulled out a pencil and got to work. unfortunately, my hands were literally shaking so my handwriting was terrible... i kept just skipping letters in words and occassionally leaving out the whole word. i was one of the last ones done and my hand was KILLING me when i got up to leave. i have no idea how i did but basically i'm just glad it's over.
i spent the next hour giving myself a hand massage trying to restore blood flow... luckily i'm good at these so i was able to save all my fingers. exhaustion set in around 5 so i skipped my last class of the day, came home and just crashed. i slept through a huge thunderstorm, face down with the blankets over my head (i thought that was weird but figured out later that it was probably just a sleep response to annoying, bright lightening). after a number of hours i woke up just long enough to eat a little dinner and watch lost. goooood stuff...
i was supposed to go to savannah this weekend to visit huey... and now i'm not. he's behind at work, and has a lot to do this weekend... and i have two papers due next week that i need to work on. so now i'm wondering... is this the first and last time this will happen?? or will putting off plans be our MO for the next year??
there i go, saying whatever i want again... i know it's not true, but sometimes i can't help but wonder. in fact, sometimes i can't help but think way too damn much...
*blog*
posted by megs at 20:03
10.09.2006
it's like asking a vegetarian why people eat meat...
why do people get married? what's the benefit of it? i am a 27 year old woman who has been in a relationship for almost 8 years. i have actively put off marriage while i watched all of my friends meet people, fall in love and tie the knot. of course i've always assumed that some day i'll get married, but not today... or tomorrow. or prolly anytime in the near future. i know that marriage isn't a means to an end... people can live together and have healthy, committed relationships without having to ever do it. i know that it is important to some people because it signifies making a lasting commitment, despite the fact that divorce rates are still pretty high and usually pretty easy to get. so many people treat it as a logical next step... you date for a certain period of time so it's just natural to do it, to take things to the next level. but does it change anything? does it fundamentally alter your relationship? i don't believe that it does or that it should...
i know that some people say that they don't want to get married because they are afraid of commitment... i even used to think that about myself. it's only been lately that i realized that i wasn't afraid of commitment; why would we be in a such a long relationship and living together if i were? i think i was just afraid of admitting that i might need someone so much. it is scary to think that so much of my happiness might depend on someone loving me and being with me because there are so many things we can't control in life. it's taken me a long time to find the right balance betwen my need for self-sufficiency and my dependence on another person...
i have to admit, some people just aren't the marrying type... but i think other people try to put themselves in that category because they are afraid that it's not happening for them. to them, marriage is just sour grapes... they call it a pointless ceremony, say that it's only important on paper. maybe they are right, and maybe they are wrong... things happen, changing our minds everyday.
so what is the point of all this rambling? that this isn't the kind of subject you can debate... there is no one answer. but i think the fact that you are asking someone else about it instead of just making up your mind one way or the other means you still have a long way to go before you really know what is right for you. just let it go...
*blog*
posted by megs at 18:53
10.08.2006
I gotta get away, and find something to do cause everything I hear, everything I see, reminds me of you.
it's funny how the harder you try not to think of something, the more it is thrust to the forefront of your mind. i'm sorry, did i say something... i meant someone. there are whole hours where i sit and make a list in my mind of all the things i can do to keep busy so that i don't have to think of... but there i go again.
anyway, what's worse? to dwell on it (you) and feel miserable? to push it (you) out of my mind and feel guilty? i feel like there is an obligation to go on like everything is the same, like everything is normal. i'm doing all the same things, going out with my same friends, enjoying the same distractions, sleeping in my same bed... it's a delusional daydream i try to embrace but the whole time i have this nagging voice in the back of my head pointing out the more i try to keep everything the same the clearer it becomes that it isn't. what do i worry about? what am i scared of? that things will become so normal that it will be hard to go back to how they were? that we'll change too much? that i will not ever get used to it and get angry and bitter about not being happy? that there are so many things that could go wrong while only one way for things to go right? people are getting married, having babies and getting engaged all around me... and my boyfriend leaves. i let him leave actually. i encouraged it. but really, what else could i have done? what if i'd refused... what if i'd asked him to stay and he'd said no? what if i'd asked him to stay and he'd said yes, but then hated me for it? the whole thing makes me feel off balance... i hate being off balance.
did you know that wikipedia has an entry for long distance relationship, or LDR as people like to call it... i thought that was weird.
i want to be strawberry shortcake for halloween.
*blog*
posted by megs at 22:14
10.05.2006
stop me if you've already heard this one...
so huey has accused me of being a story reteller. he says i tell the same story over and over and that people are just too polite to tell me they've already heard it... i, of course, think he's crazy. i think the problem is that he is always around when i tell stories so he ends up hearing the same story six times. i have also been accused of embellishing my stories... sure, sometimes i make things funnier than they are, but honestly... who doesn't like to laugh? i wouldn't really equate this to outright lying, but huey seems to think i'm committing some sort of crime. i, for one, am all for a little humor...
my grandmother, on the other hand, is perfect fodder for this stuff because she is so damn funny that i don't have to embellish. she just says the funniest things all the time! today she had me cracking up for about half an hour because the nurse who was helping in and out of her bed (in what can only be described as a motorized crane with a sling that had my grandmother looking like a stork delivery) was really pissing my grandmother off, mostly because she had a strong accent of some sort so my grandmother couldn't understand what she was saying anyway. she kept asking the woman if she was new... and then because she has alzheimers she'd ask her five minutes later if she was a registered nurse or just a temp. in fact, i think she found about five ways of insulting the woman's abilities in the half hour it took to sling granny from her wheelchair to her bed. i just sat in the chair in the corner typing away on my phone and trying not to laugh as the nurse got obviously perturbed. after the woman left the room my grandmother said "how can she be a nurse? she doesn't even speak english." ah, granny...
so things were doing better today but huey is still having a rough time of it. things aren't coming together like he thought and i have the comfort and reliability of a town i know and a home i love to fall back on... he's just kind of blundering around right now and it's putting a lot of stress on him. hopefully i'll be able to get myself down there in a few weeks to really 'experience' savannah because the last trip was all about getting huey moved in. i'll be drivin myself this time, which will suck, but it's only 3.5 hours if you kinda push the speed limit so i don't think it'll be too bad. i downloaded some of huey's audibooks before he left so i should be set...
in other news, we have another engagement... peters and mia!! and the brady's will be welcoming their baby girl into the world soon so lots of exciting things going on for our friends... it makes me smile.
*blog*
posted by megs at 23:01
10.04.2006
i hate murphy's law...
things just keep going wrong and seem to go from bad to worse. i wish life had more poka-yoke's built in. this week sucks! huey's having a hard time in savannah because the dog has ripped out of her crate twice now, dug up the carpet in huey's brand new house, and is still acting like a crack head five days after she got down to savannah. he's stressed about that, getting settled in savannah, and getitng caught up at work. he can't sleep, i can't sleep, we are oversleeping in the morning. he is late for work, i'm missing classes... it's just a mess. i hate to be a pessimist, but all i see are things which can go wrong ahead of me...
i'm thinking of setting a day in my mind and making that the day where things stop being weird, where life goes back to normal and where i become totally adjusted to my new "situation". it's a mind over matter problem i believe, and i hate to think it's only me making everything hard for myself.
on a happier note, i am not flunking out of school even though i am taking six classes. at least not yet... i've gotten the following grades on quizzes/tests so far... 83, 100, 91, 105, 98... not so bad really. i'm actually kind of proud of myself. what is interesting is that we were discussing in my consumer behavior class (which is basically a consumer psychology class) a case study where they took females at a college and split them into two similar groups. one group they showed commercials and images that empowered women while the other group they showed commercials and images that supported the stereotype that women are worse at math and science. after that, they were both given a basic math skills test. the group that had the empowering messages scored 18% better than the group that was mentally beat down before the test...
what does this tell me? that while i do study a pretty decent amount and work hard to learn all the concepts for my classes, that part of my brain that is arrogant enough to go into a test thinking "you'll do well because you always do" is probably helping to boost my grades by a pretty good bit. so i'm going to embrace that, but not in a big-headed, snobbish kind of way... in a "i know i can do this and can be good at it" kind of way. positive thinking, right?
season premier of lost tonite... i'm so excited i could pee my pants... on the other hand, watching gilmore girls week after week (my favorite show) is going to make me a mess... both new episodes have got me crying... damn writers getting me all emotionally invested and shit... they think they are soooo clever.
*blog*
posted by megs at 14:56
10.01.2006
suxors...
i went to savannah and did what i had gone to do... set up the huey in his new place. i was gone out of my house less than 48 hrs... when i got home from the airport and walked into my dark house, it hit me... huey's gone... for real... my dylan's gone... for real... i carried my suitcase upstairs and looked at the spot on the floor where puppy's bed normally is. then i put away my clothes in the closet and stood at stared at the half that's now empty... i've had this knot in my throat since i walked into the savannah airport that has grown from a grape to a tennis ball and i'm wondering what happens when it hits softball proportions...
needless to say, today is not one of my favorite days...
