Two weeks ago, on Super Bowl Sunday, I slipped on a patch of ice and wrenched the bejesus out of my lower back. It's mostly better now; still a little stiff when I first get up in the morning, and still giving me some sciatica-like pains down my legs, but so much better than at first. The first couple of days I could hardly walk. Made working really interesting, let me tell you.
A consequence of this is the fact that stairs? Really not my friends. If I really, really, really had to, I could climb the three flights of stairs to my first class every morning. And I can manage to go down them now. So that's progress. But I choose not to aggravate my strained muscles, and so I've been taking the elevator up in the morning.
I never took the elevator before, even though the stairs hurt my knees a little bit; it wasn't necessary. And back in the day, before I stopped hating myself, I would never use an elevator when there were stairs, specifically because I was afraid people would look at me and think, "Well that's why she's such a lardass!" That thought entered my head again as I started using the elevator because of my back; the one time somebody else was on it I felt ashamed. (It's kind of tucked away in a corner of the building, most people probably don't know it's there. I actually didn't originally either.)
Luckily, I was able to nip that in the bud right away. If somebody wants to think I'm fat because I use the elevator, then fuck them. Fuck them with something hard and sandpapery. I'm not going to cause myself more pain just to avoid some ignorant stranger's thoughts about me. I wish it hadn't taken me the first, oh, 23 years of my life to achieve that attitude. But I've also learned that those insidious kinds of thoughts can creep back in to my head--it's not something you're ever just done with, this whole process of accepting yourself and withstanding societal pressures and opinions about being fat.
I'm sitting in the computer lab at school between classes, watching videos on Youtube. I was actually looking for the official music video, but stumbled across this. One of my favorite songs! Also, not like it's news, but goddamn Morten Harket is fine.
I went today to the local Cricket store and bought their broadband Internet. I kind of hate it, to be honest; only because I'm used to the crazy-fast speed of my Comcast cable internet. But I hate paying $70 a month more, and the Cricket thing is only $40, and it's tolerable.
And that's $30 a month I'm saving. I've been thinking about switching for a few weeks, since a friend of mine mentioned it. What pushed me over the edge in to doing it is the simple fact that I want to see a-ha twice! I bought a ticket to a New York show in case the LA shows sold out; but I was able to get tickets to an LA show for me and my cousins. But honestly, I'd still really like to go to the NYC show. It's general admission, standing room, which means dancing and fun. The LA show is seated and I'll have two teenagers in tow! I have frequent flyer miles to get me to one show, but the other I'll have to pay for.
So if I reduce my Internet, that's $30 a month I'll save.
I've put my gym membership on hold (no more late-night swims for me), so that's another $20.
I've thought about putting my Booksfree.com membership on hold too, especially since I've got so much school-related reading to do; that'd be another $20. The automatic payment for this month just went through, but I might do it next month. I just read so much it's hard not to keep it.
As much as I love it, I don't neeeeeed internet on my Blackberry. So that's $30 I've just saved myself by canceling that.
The only other non-essential thing I have is my Dish Network tv. And I really don't want to get rid of that. My weekly episodes of House, Bones, etc. are my entertainment.
I need to really focus on getting up early enough to catch the bus to campus. I've been parking at school a couple of times a week, which ads up quickly. It's just so damn convenient, especially when I'm exhausted (every day) and have three hours between classes where a car nap is quite refreshing!
Okay, so this isn't all in the name of a-ha; it's more general budgeting. But hopefully I can manage the a-ha stuff too.
I've got one out of 3-4 pages done on this; but to be honest, it's so dense and ridiculously complicated that it's very difficult to try to summarize. If you ever look at The Cult of the Saints and think, "hey, that might be interesting!" you're wrong. It's skull-explodingly horrid. And here I sit, banging my head against a wall trying to write about it--without writing in first person, and without saying anything insulting about it, considering this man is my professor's academic hero. Christ.
I need to just write this and not worry about it being perfect. This is really nothing but busywork anyway. I'm off academic probation; I'm not headed for grad school; I don't need to get a perfect score. I just need to get an average grade on this, and not be so hard on myself.
For two of my classes, a significant part of my grade comes from one of two things: three short book reviews or one long research paper. The reviews have to be finished in stages; the first one, for each class, is due this Friday. And I don't feel up to it. It's too intimidating--to critique professional writers, for the professor of an upper-level history class? I'm scared to try. What if I turn it in and it's terrible and my professor, who I'm really starting to like a lot, thinks I'm an idiot?
I've got to stop this. Every time I feel like I'm going to fall on my face with a writing assignment, I do fine. Usually I bash something out the night before, fret that it sucks, and end up getting a great grade. So I need to just shut up, and do it.
I also still need to put together a freelance proposal for Internet marketing for my friend's business. The company did some restructuring and things were on hold for a while, so I wasn't even sure if I should do it; but now things are back on, and I need to get off my butt and do it.
But first, I need to do this paper. Eeek. It doesn't help that what I have to review is the world's most boring book, which is written in such a horrid and confusing style that honestly half the class didn't even understand it.
So my classmate and her friends were going to give my pretty mister a home, as I said a couple of days ago. The next day, she called me and said her roommate had backed out--after she'd bought all the necessary supplies. The day after that, she said she'd take him anyway and her roommates could deal for the month before they move. That afternoon, one of her roommates went and told the landlord about the cat, so the landlord will now be doing random checks--which is particularly stupid seeing as one of them has a puppy they're not supposed to!
So Mister is still here. I had to change his ball-snipping appointment, because I couldn't pick him up that day; so a week from Wednesday he gets neutered, which will hopefully make my life easier. Everybody's getting along better, for the most part; but I can't risk kittens so I'm still having to sequester him a lot.
My classmate still might take him after she moves, if I still have him. For now, though, he's still here, and I'm still getting more attached.
We just had a class discussion on Beowulf in my medieval England class. It's the only version I've actually read, so I don't know it all versions of it have the heavily forced Christian elements jammed in. What's incredibly frustrating about all this is that my classmates are largely incapable of looking beyond the forced Christian metaphors. To me, it's much more interesting to ignore that and are what it shows about Germanic culture. Focusing on the artificial Christian aspects is like forcing the Christian god in to the story of Hercules and focusing on that! Grendel's mother is not a damn metaphor for Eve! Grendel himself is not a stand-in for Cain. It's not a condemnation of pagans, who are "unable" to defend themselves because they don't "know" God. You know why none of those things are true? Because the societies that created the story and passed along the oral tradition were freaking pagans! Some thieving middle ages monks co-opting the story (in a very ham-handed and crude manner) does not retroactively change the roots of the story.
The professor kept trying to get people to talk about the Germanic roots, and how the Christians tried to use it. But people kept raising their hands with crap like, "I think Grendel's mother's lair is a reverse parallel of Eden!" No it's not! It's a damn swamp! Bunch of freaking morons.
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I love the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding. It's so adorable, and I kind of have a little crush on John Corbett. I was unduly excited when I was watching TV one day and heard his voice. I was then embarrassed that I was momentarily excited by an Applebee's commercial.
I got three hours of sleep so I'm totally rambling, but the point of this is that SkippyMom is have a V-Day giveaway! Check out her blog to find out how to win a copy of My Big Fat Greek Wedding and deliciousness to boot.
A classmate is going to adopt my pretty mister. I'm taking him to the vet to get neutered on Friday and she'll pick him up. That way he can recover in a house where he's not being harassed by three other cats and two dogs. I know it'll be better for him to live with her, more space and more love. But I'm going to miss his kitten kisses. :( Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
