Disturbia-d

It's a lot of work to even find somewhere to send my short stories. And of all those I do find, it'll be a miracle if they publish one out of a hundred of my submissions. No joke. Terrible odds all around. What was I thinking, wanting to become a writer? I should switch my major to accounting, quick, while I still have a chance to make a real living.

Hah. That was me being melodramatic. Can any of you actually picture me choosing math and money over my stories? It's laughable. =P

But that doesn't mean I can't be disturbed by how every submission is a long shot. And I most certainly am. >_<

And okay, yes, I confess: I was definitely listening to The Cab's cover of Rhianna's "Disturbia" as I write this. Thus the title.

New Prescription!

I got to toss out the nasty pills I was supposed to be taking!! :)

That was a good thing. I'm sure there are other good things (I just finished another fun book, "Lonely Werewolf Girl," which was undeniably entertaining and witty) but there are also still a bunch of bad things. I'm still sick. I'm still in pain. I haven't eaten a proper meal in about four days. If not for a stop at Vons while filling my latest prescription yesterday, I wouldn't have been eating anything the past two. My throat is kind of swollen from the drip at the back of my throat (cold-related, not infection-related), and it makes it hard to swallow the multitude of pills I've been downing several times a day. And I have a final I absolutely, mathematically NEED to get an A on tomorrow afternoon.

I haven't thrown up since yesterday, though. That's another good thing. And Jessica gave me a care package--jelly beans and girl scout cookies, which I unfortunately can't eat, and Supernatural season 1.

That, I will happily eat right up. After I finish studying. :)

Optimism or Bust

I'm sick. Again.

Okay, that's nothing new. I've been dealing with this cold for going on three weeks now, and it's done nothing but get worse. Turns out, though, that I also have a stomach infection. The doc at student health thought it might be apendicitis, and the docs at the ER thought she might be right. So, after having blood drawn twice, an ultrasound, a CT scan, and a fever that had the endurance of the Energizer Bunny, turns out it's not apendicitis.

But hey, at least I can spell apendicitis now.

It's not so bad, I guess. The antibiotics will take care of the infection, Tylonal takes care of most of the pain, and Sudafed takes care of most of my cold symptoms. The only real downside at this point is that the antibiotics make me nauseous, and even that has an upside--I'll probably lose weight before this is over. Not such a terrible outcome, considering it's nearly summer. And I'm getting lots of fun reading done, even though I'm three days away from finals.

Okay, yes, it sucks ass. I'm trying to be optimistic.

Seven Days

...until I get to go home! (Six days until my final, though. Yikes.)

I'm sick again, but that's not really anything new. =P One more fencing class, on Thursday. Makes me a little sad. I'm definitely going to have to join the fencing club next year. :) I fenced today in our class tournament, even though when I showed up and realized I didn't have any more cough drops I thought I might die on the spot. And then I realized that feeling of I'd-kind-of-like-to-die-now-please wasn't just from the lack of cough drops--I took meds this morning that aren't supposed to be taken on an empty stomach. Oops.

I did all right, though. I only lost two rounds. ^_^

Mingling

I'm quite terrible at it. Not only is it hard, but exhausting as well. If I could find the privacy, I would probably start making a pathetic keening noise and curl up into a ball on the floor until either my moment of privacy ended or I felt better.

Chances are that my moment of privacy would end before I felt better. Downside of living in the dorm.

A Bit Too Insane

It is eleven forty-eight PM right now. I'm kind of sad--excepting a twenty minute dash through my room, gathering up materials I'd need for my third class today, I haven't been back to my room since nine-thirty this morning. That's waaayy too long. Is it possible to be homesick when you're only about a hundred yards away?

I'm almost ready to go back, though. I'm in the computer lab, finishing up an essay, because I'd have to trek out here to print it when I finished, anyway. And now I have a good motivator to finish it quickly and get to bed. Bed sounds good.

Another good motivator? The guy in here with me--well, his feet stink. There are no windows. It's stuffy and stinky in here.

Gotta finish, gotta finish, gotta finish...

Beloved Backpack

I just got a good whiff of the inside of my backpack. It smells like a mix of old, sweaty, soccer stuff and chocolate chip cookies.

I hope the cookie I carried in it yesterday doesn't smell like nasty soccer gear. I was really looking forward to eating it.

Uh-oh...

My roommate broke her headband.

I lent her my superglue to fix it.

The first thing I said to her as I handed it over was, “Be careful not to glue your fingers together. It really can happen.”

Her eyes got big and she said, “Really? Whoa.”

I nodded and told her again to be careful. She said, "Okay!" and proceeded to glue her headband back together.

I turned around and went back to chatting with my friend online for a few minutes.

Then I hear my roommate go, “Uh-oh.”

Three guesses as to what happened.

Friday's Adventure

So after my last class on Friday (“Fantasy and the Fantastic”) my friend (codename: Gabi) and I… well, long story short, we ended up writing a story together on the whiteboard in th theater and dance lecture hall. :)

I started the first entry, and every line break denotes a switch in authors. It’s primitive and silly, but pure. There really aren’t words for how pleased I am with how well my afternoon went.

“Once upon a time

in a land not really all that far away,

there were two girls who sat in class after it had ended because they were too lazy to stand up.

The sloth of one of the quirky students derived from the physical and mental exhaustion of a four and a half hour chem lab the night previous.

The other girl, the one who stayed up until 4 AM because she couldn’t face going to bed, sympathized greatly because all forms of science and math (though mostly math) made her break out in hives.

The first, whose code name was Gabi (a name that suited her personality quite excellently), groaned and started sleepily tapping her fingers one-by-one on the other’s fingernails, “I don’t want to go back and do laundry… or homework… or anything else even slightly resembling responsible college student behavior.”

“Well,” said the other (codename: Sarah), “I don’t want to go to work.” This exchange occurred several more times, until one of them said, “We should go lie outside in the sun.” And the other said, “But we’d have to get up.” They thought about lying on the stage in front of them, but it looked awfully dirty.

Then, Sarah made a most perceptive and admirably sympathetic point: “but the stage does seem rather empty and lonely. I feel like we should be doing something on it! I mean, think of all that time it spends in here… bare… devoid of love and attention. And then, when the lights finally illuminate its shiny, excitedly anticipating face, people just end up using and abusing it for their own selfish purposes!”

Gabi took this point under consideration for a moment, then nodded decisively and said, “We could draw on the chalkboard.” Sarah grinned. “I’ll draw on the whiteboard, and you draw on the chalkboard.” It was quickly agreed upon, and in her excitement Gabi forewent the stairs and leapt up onto the stage. Sarah found the projector buttons and raised it up.

While Gabi was becoming unreasonably fascinated with the magic projector-moving buttons and bounding around waving her piece of chalk wildly contemplating the subject of her work of art, Sarah was putting her own burst of energy into a touching message of love for her companion (complete with a picture of a beautiful azure daisy!).

So intent on her lovely message and daisy was she that by the time she looked up, she realized with aw that Gabi was an amazing artist, and was in the process of crafting a fantastic creature that surrounded her own sweet message. Sarah was finished long before Gabi, so she decided to craft her own fantastic creature: George.

George’s final form was brought to fruition as Gabi put the finishing touches on her dragon. After gratuitous amounts of giggly contemplation of the funny, but still adorable little subsurface critter (as well as a not-altogether warranted equivalence of George to Sarah’s self-portrait by her own mother) George was officially named and titled ‘George the Gremlin.’

After spending a suitable amount of time admiring both the dragon and the gremlin, the two girls got to explore a bit. Gabi found a cord attached to the podium that looked like one could plug an ipod into it. With a rambunctious exclamation, Sarah leapt off the stage and snatched up her ipod, then ran back over to the podium.

All gleeful dreams of afternoon parties with music, munchies, and innocent expression of creativity burst like so many sticky bubbles that you think you’ve grasped, when in fact you have simply covered your hands in goo, as after much fiddling and fruitless attempts to hit play and hear the slightest whisper of a sound, Sarah and Gabi gave up the production of excellent dance music.

They were not to suffer disappointment for long, but we’ll come back to that part later in our story. The two girls went to the back of the lecture hall to investigate there, but found nothing of any real interest, except for a few frightening pictures of clowns drawn in blue ink at the top of the stairs. At the back of the lecture hall, they got to examine their art at a different perspective. “We need to fill in the empty space,” Gabi decided. Sarah agreed.

After a few moments of consideration, the latter burst out, “Want to write a story?” “Yeah!” came the enthusiastic response. The two girls, driven by that mysterious, immeasurable energy that graces youthful enthusiasm before society has had ample time to cast its shadow on the heart, leapt down the stairs and back onto the stage. As they were beginning their story, Sarah made a discovery of salvation.

“We should write our story,” she said. Gabi looked up from her first entry. “What?” (And, indeed, if Sarah had stopped to think about it, she would have realized there had been a lapse between her idea and her words.) “Here,” Sarah said, and moved toward the whiteboard. “Let me show you what I mean.” And she began to write: “…there were two girls who sat in class after it had ended…”

Exclaiming her sudden understanding of “our story,” Gabi excitedly took up the thread as Sarah made the brilliant discover that her MacBook in her backpack could play music. After a few hours of hard work, excellent tunes and absurd dancing, the two artist-writers stepped back from their work, rereading with pride a tale beginning with words that initiate so many of our life stories:

Once upon a time,

in a land not really all that far away…

Spring