/me does the happy dance...... Ok, done.

Counting the days now, 5 official days of school left, only 3 with any actual work though. When I have a chance from tuesday to thursday, I'm going to commandeer my EAST Lab's projector and DVD laptop and show Cowboy Bebop, subtitled, for everyone's enjoyment.

Graduation is June 2, 2001, at Alltel Arena in Little Rock, Arkansas, in case anyone wants to be given funny looks.

Incidentally, this is my 100th writeup. Plotting the future...

I had my knee surgery today. They took a tiny little bulbous mass of ... something out of the point of my knee. An odd little bulbous mass that killed me every time it hit something and creeped out my friends when they touched it and began to obsess me as soon as it got to be time to wear shorts out again.

It started to grow after I lacerated myself on coral in Puerto Rico, and it was one of my last momentos. I will be so very glad to see it gone, though.

They overmedicated the hell out of me. It must have been a centimeter-incision and they practically knocked me out. I started talking the second the IV hit and didn’t stop for two hours straight. I can barely remember waking up; telling the anesthesiologist he sucked when he stuck me and then apologizing for that every five minutes for the rest of the afternoon; screaming to my surgeon that he rocked from across the recovery room; trying to change the graph of my heart monitor by moving my finger; describing this apricot facial scrub I bought to my mother; and trying to explain a particle detector drift chamber to an RN because they brought up duct tape.

I felt hung over the rest of the day and couldn’t stand up for more than five minutes.

My mother and father came down to help me, and I could scarcely explain to them how thankful I was, though before the fact I found it something of a moot point. I got to talk to them the entire time as my drugs were wearing off (“You were mighty chatty”, my mother puts it mildly...)

My relationship with my father has transformed this year. Maybe he has a little too. Maybe I have. We conversed like reasonable people today. He doesn’t tell me that I’m stupid anymore. I think that I asserted myself and my own choices (to my indescribable terror) for the first time in just this past year: becoming a vegetarian, changing my major and staying an extra year in school ... and that has made all the difference. We’re equals now a little. That or it’s finally reached that point where my mistakes are mine to make, and his approval is a thing to enjoy and to know I have somewhere down below, but not to be sought like a hopeless salvation I’ll never have.

I’m constantly amazed by how much his father’s death last week affected him. I’ve never seen him sentimental before, as today when he pulled from his pocket the lucky silver dollar his father carried every day for fifty years.

I still feel like shit. Man I hope these drugs wear off by tomorrow...

Wow.

It really has been quite a day. I'm not sure words can really describe everything. But I suppose it's worth trying, because it really has been an interesting day.

Around 10am:

Woke up. Found out from my mom that I have to pick up some records from my local eye doctor sometime between 11:30 and 12. This is sort of a pain, as I want to make it over to the park near my school around 12:30 in time for the annual Female Football game. However, 30 minutes seems like plenty of time to get there, so I figure I'll get to the doctor at 12, grab the papers, and make it to the park in plenty of time.
12pm:
As I walk into the eye doctor, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and realize that the T-shirt I've chosen looks pretty crappy, so I decide I can be a few minutes late, and run back to my house after I grab the papers before heading to the park. However, of course, the secretary at the office had not yet been able to take 5 minutes to find and copy the records. However, she certainly had plenty of time for Tetris, which is what she was playing when I came in. Interesting.
12:45pm:
Well, made it to the park, a little bit late but no big deal. Had to park in the parking lot, which was a little bit away from the field. However, it's good that they're getting everyone to park in the parking lot this time, after last year's fiasco. To briefly explain: cops don't like it when a bunch of teenagers decide to park on the field and on both sides of the park's driveway, and they tend to come and scare everyone away, as we found out the hard way last year.

However, that was (mostly) avoided this time, although one policeman did show up at the end, and gave someone a citation for, of all things, driving on the dirt. Apparently he didn't see all of the underage drinking going on. It was a great game to watch, lots of girls fighting, shirts getting ripped off, etc. We all kind of wondered why we had bothered with any other sports when we could have had this every weekend.

4:00pm:
Well, after having stood out in the sun for a couple of hours, it was time to get home to wash up for tonight's festivities. At my school, we have three ceremonies related to graduation: the first is the robing ceremony and academic awards, the second is a baccalaureate mass, and the third and final ceremony is the actual graduation.
6:15pm:
Well, I was a little late for the robing ceremony, but no big deal, as we stood around for about 30 minutes anyway. As we walked into the gym, carrying our robes, I felt very strange. In so many ways, it just doesn't seem right...I can't really be about to graduate, can I? However, it really is happening; my German teacher, who has taught me so much in the past 5 years, robed me. It's a bittersweet feeling; I'm happy to finally be finished with high school, but I can't help but feel a little sad to be leaving.
Afterwards my family went out to a quick dinner, and then I came home. Got to get some rest before the baccalaureate mass tomorrow, and then graduation Sunday. Wow...two days away from graduation...isn't that something

The weekend! Ahhh... so sweet.

These past two weeks have been nutso. I can't believe how many parts have broken, causing multiple pages, phone calls, sleepless nights, and rapid typing. I once thought I would never work harder than I did in grad school, but this week proved me wrong.

However, on the other hand, my boss is still in a good mood, and we are once again collaberating, even though he is still largely clueless. No matter what, I am not going to get as buddy-buddy with him as I did before.

Meanwhile, it is time to see some movies, to drink some beer, to relax.

(oh yeah, and do some laundry, pay some bills, and so on.)

15:08

I'm in Kuhmo, trying to relax after the first week in work. The week was not hard, I was just having hard time trying to get used to the idea that I have a job. =)

My old computer has a new speaker system that has two tiny little speakers and a subwoofer. I first thought the sound quality would suck, but... wow. Amazing sound!

::sigh:: Oh, by the way, My birthday is 28th this month, and not 18th as advertised in the big list. I hope this clears some confusion. =)

I hope I can relax here. I'm... tired. ::sigh::

16:08

In the Exciting Series of "Motivational Superdocs from the Gods Usergroup", Best of the Best of the Best:

The Best of the Best of the Best sure isn't you, WWWWolf

::tucks tail between feet:: Okay, not even close... =(


More to come...

Noded today: Cheese Worm

It's been a busy few days for me, both in RL and in E2.

There's been a shouting at from my ex spouse, an "in the middle of a horrible situation" thingy with my friends, my son going to and coming home from a camp in Ballerat - and hardly bothering to say "Hi" to me on his return and a request for a chat turned down, because I was just to exhausted to cope with it right then and all the guilt that entails.

And there's been some of the best time I've ever spent with my partner.

Somehow, the once nice thing wipes out all the nasty.

I'm still tired, but I no longer feel useless, or used, or stupid, or selfish.

In E2 stuff I've had a couple of very successful w/us, and just now, a most unsuccessful one. I don't mind much though... I didn't write it for you, Mr. Downvoter, nor for you, Mr. Malicious Softlinker :) 

Also today I gave my home node a bit of a seeing to. I've added a few new sections and tried to give it a bit of a spruce up generally. 
It still looks prety crap to me, and I would apreciate any suggestions about making it nicer.

Ooooff. Well, I'm finally up to level 3. Hooray! 10 more delicious and luscious votes.

That means it's time for my first day log. Things are looking up, I suppose. Semester's over, which means I get the next three months to slack off and pretend to do research, i.e., reading J. P. Serre's Corps Locaux every other day or so. And my partner is finally also done for the semester, meaning there's likely to be a lot of Buster Keaton and geology writeups coming soon.

But mostly I just feel tired. Maybe I just need to sleep for a couple days and everything will be better. But wait! There's packing to do!

(This is something I meant to write for May 18, 2001 but I didn't get a chance to. So some of this stuff no longer applies)

It's so pathetically true that only when you truly don't want some "significant other" they all come running. Bastards.

I don't want anyone, at all. Leave me alone I tell them! But no, now they all decide to start liking me. Well not everyone, but a couple of guys, which is a couple more before. I don't want a relationship. I don't even want anything at all.

This is great! No more crying myself to sleep. No more drinking and collapsing on my bedroom floor. I'm free from the wrath of wanting to be with Jesse. Don't get me wrong, I will always love Jesse. He was my first, well...anyway. But I don't need him. I wouldn't mind if he called to "check up on me" like he used to. I wouldn't mind talking to him sometimes. But hey, I'm not going to get all melodramatic, it's only been five days. What about that best friend of his? He doesn't know anything about that. Maybe he'll ask me someday, or maybe he already knows.

I have a wonderful Prom date though, Mike the "cutie with gorgeous blue eyes". I wonder if anything might happen with him Prom night? I don't want to corrupt him. I'm having a majorly fun and fantabulous party at my house because my parents are gone that weekend. I am going to spend all of next weekend with him so I hope that goes well. Not that I want anything to come out of it, I don't want a relationship remember?

I'm really scared now. I was nervous before, but now my emotions are bounding out of my control - they were before, but now it feels - like it might be getting real. It was playtime before, and now it's real. I'm scared of myself, and I'm scared of hurting her. I'm not afraid of being hurt, oddly, because I can see that she is genuine and real and sincere.

I'm afraid I'm masking lust in a delusional sweep of emotions parading as intense "like". Maybe what is really going on is what goes on all the time in new relationships. Maybe what I'm feeling is what everyone else feels - contradicting emotions at the same time. She's new, she's exciting, and she's unknown. And - she's female.

I learned so much more about her last night. She's sociable, friendly, warm. I love her voice, just hearing her talk on the phone makes me wet. I'm absolutely terrified of hurting her, that she will really fall in love with me when all I really want is to sleep with her. And I don't know how I feel.

I want a couple of days to be alone with my feelings. At the same time, I have a burning desire to hear more of her story, learn more of who she is.

She has a spoiled cocker spaniel, and I mean spoiled rotten to the core. He's so beautiful and cute I can see how easy it is to spoil him. He makes my dog look like perfection (in terms of behavior).

She has finished her coursework and has been accepted as a Ph.D. candidate in American Studies, and she has 3 years left out of the five to complete her dissertation and present it. With her divorce and having to go to work full time this past year, she has completely put it down for a year. She has an excellent committee and a really wonderful mentor. I'm glad for her (that she does) and I wish M. had such a good advisor, instead of the mediocre one that he seems to have.

She brought me to tears three times last night; and once on our first date, Friday night. She looked into my heart and told me that I was an artist, and I was going to bring it out, and she would be a model for me in any way I wanted, whenever I wanted her to. And I cried, because she looked into my eyes when she said it, and it just hit the nerve of where I live.

Last night, so many things happened. The fear of what was happening between us surfaced and I told her about it. There are so many feelings now - where before, just a few months ago, they were so compartmentalized, so easy to deal with. Now it's confusing, complicated, contradictory - constantly.

Graduation

Yes, finally, I am through with college!

My day started off boring and slid kinda downhill from there. We were herded into line-like formations about an hour before the actual commencement started. Finally, the lines started moving, but in stops and starts, like there was a bad traffic jam made out of the less intelligent undergrads up ahead. Maybe we DID need marching practice. Oh well.

Finally, several eons later, we were seated, packed in like sardines, and listening to our president's southern twang welcome everyone, blah blah blah... Then the CEO of Lucent, who was our speaker, bored us to tears. Then we handed out honorary doctorates to, imagine this, the CEO of Lucent, two guys I'd never heard of, and the guy the movie "The Insider" was based on. I imagine he's the only one who actually deserved it, the other guys probably greased palms left and right to buy their meaningless, but pretty degrees.

Then, the interminably long line of black robed ex-students began to shuffle forward while the announcer mispronounced the simplest names, adding syllables that didn't belong there. "Joshua Millard" became "Jos-shoe-ahh Mill-aye-ard", for instance. *shakes his head* It was during this amazingly long period of time that my face became quite scorched, and my gown started getting so hot that I was afraid it was going to burst into flames. Which would have been inconvenient, but would have at least made things interesting for everyone else.

When my name was called, I was dazed. I walked up, shook the president's hand, took my maroon bound diploma, and floated offstage, completely unaware of people in the audience clapping or screaming, and waved my diploma in the air as soon as I was offstage. I didn't remember to flip my tassel over until I was in my rickety plastic folding chair again, waiting for the master's degree and doctorates to get their diplomas, then listening to one of our class froth at the mouth during his speech. Finally, the president spoke, the reverend spoke, and we were out of there.

During the recessional, I made a break for the treeline as soon as I was out of the aisles of endless seats. I figured the line was going the wrong way anyways, and my family, happily sitting in the shade, was jumping up and down and waving frantically.

As I sat at dinner with them, I still couldn't believe that I had a diploma. That they'd actually GIVEN me my diploma - the most expensive piece of paper I'd ever bought.

2 days later, I'm still in shock.

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