The Tea Tree

Apparently I'm posting a lot today; apologies. I just really need to get a rant off of my chest.

( TW for end-of-earth apocalypse, sociopathic assholes )

So I think I'm just going to hide his posts, possibly unfriend him altogether. I don't have time for this kind of nonsense.

Tschuess.

So I'm reading old posts on my LJ, to try and get a sense of what I was like back in high school. This was inspired by recently visiting my high school, in order to get Girl Scout cookies from my AP Government teacher. I felt shy, quiet, and disconnected from the high school world -- like it was ages ago, like I didn't know about it or what to say.

I've felt that way about a lot of things, lately.

Reading the old entries is fascinating. The thing is, though I whined and bitched and fretted a lot, I was a very insightful high school senior. Though I denied my anxiety, it is plain as day, as are my desperate attempts to reason through it. But also clear are other things. Acknowledgements that I won't get anywhere if I don't push myself a bit. Acknowledgement that parents will be parents.

I feel like I may have lost that, somehow. That I have somehow matured backwards, skidding on that scale. I'm not sure it's possible for someone to do that. I'm not sure if it's just the depression talking.

It's talked a lot lately.

My AP Government teacher seemed very excited to see me, and seemed to be keeping track of my life nearly better than I could. I saw two other teachers, my AP Calculus and AP Stats teachers; I would have liked to see more but I could not find them, and felt weird peaking into rooms. But both of the others, upon hearing I graduate in May, were shocked that time had flown by. My AP Government teacher just said "I know."

So do I, my friend.

All of them asked of my plans. I told them all how I'm getting a graduate degree at Cornell. My AP Government teacher commented that it made sense that I would stay at Cornell, because "You are already at the top. Why go elsewhere?"

She has a point. A new perspective perhaps. I am stuck in the perspective of "never good enough". I have a 2.725 GPA. That's a B-, more or less even. My grades poorly reflect that, being mostly C's balanced out by the random A's. It's below a 3.0, and I cannot convince myself that that is somehow a good thing. So many places want a 3.0GPA or above. They do not seem to care if I come from Cornell or not.

That and I don't have research experience, just experience working at a dining hall and pushing my way through courses. Right now I am taking a mere 10 credits, three courses and a seminar. I feel inferior. Not good enough. Not smart enough.

Hence the different perspective. It's hard to think I'm at the top. I feel like I'm at the bottom. What I have to remind myself of -- think of, perhaps regularly -- is that I'm at the bottom of the top.

In the grand scheme of things, that may not be so awful.

I still don't have a graduate advisor. I still fear I won't be able to pay for my apartment. I still fear that other shoe dropping, falling.

But sometimes I need that bit of different perspective, even if it comes from not knowing all of the details. Or does it? I do not know. I found I did not speak much. I didn't know what to say, anymore.

The facts are odd to sift through, anyway. I finished my undergraduate degree a semester early. Technically everything I'm taking now is supposed to be for grad. I was told how to find an advisor. Eventually I should get one. But I freeze and become certain it won't happen.

I feel like I missed a bit of everything, everywhere, and now it's coming back to bite me. But is it really? I don't know. It could be the anxiety, or it could be truth. I suspect it's a mix of both.

Maybe it's that everyone seems so excited and proud of me, and I cannot match their feelings.

Maybe it's that never-ending doubt -- almost a certainty I'll fail.

Always thought that way, always will? I suppose that's what the book my therapist told me to read is for.

It feels weird thinking I may be able to handle life less now than I did in high school. I know that's not true, of course. Back then I just bottled everything up, hence why I had such extensive LJ posts in the first place. At least now I try to interact to people. I just don't know if I do it right. *chuckle*

I'm really tempted to set my status to something about the depression, to see what people say. It's been around for, what, five months now? Stupid stuff, doesn't want to leave. I really will have to talk to my psychiatrist about these meds.

But anyway. It was nice to see some teachers again, if only for the encouragement ((refreshment; um, what?)) and to relive the memories. My AP Government teacher even mentioned something about seeing my graduation on FB or something, which kind of surprised me. I guess I just assumed no one would care anymore.

Oh well.

Also, can I say it's just really weird to think one of my teachers (AP Government teacher, of course) was one of the first to really point out how weird/problematic my eating habits are? Go, go observant teachers. I still wonder if my AP English teacher noticed the depression.

In other news, AG is a pain in the ass. I'm trying to write the novel. I really am. But I just can't get into it. I keep getting stuck at the end of scenes, interestingly enough. Not sure what's up; I will keep trying. This will be one of my few chances to write the novel in a while, so I must take advantage of it.

But instead I'm playing League of Legends. I have this sort of love/hate/fear relationship with LoL. I find it fun. But it scares me because it involves other people and I'm sort of terrible at it and I don't feel like I'll ever be good at it. I still played three games in a row, but I felt inadequate in almost all of them. Granted, I was doing better than this one other guy, so I'm not a total noob. Just 95% of one. *laugh*

Also the CT weather hates me. Every time I plan something with my cousin Marie, the weather always turns disastrous. It doesn't like us getting together and planning nefarious deeds, of course.

And my mother and I have been mostly getting along despite a message she sent me where she basically went "You told me you didn't care about Dragon Day. You could have not invited me. My feelings are hurt." No, that does not make any more sense in context. And no, she has not brought it up since. Spill out the hurt, then leave the victim upset. Family strategy.

Also apparently the psychiatrist at her job is Mr. Hitler because he was yelling at them for stuff and my mother just doesn't like him. I feel like Mr. Hitler wasn't a Muslim, nor a psychiatrist, nor from Pakistan.

I also went to the dentist today. I guess my body got sick of the pain -- she had the suction/air thing rested on my lip while my mouth was wide open, and for some reason it HURT like hell. Kept clenching my fists, twitching, etc. to try and ignore it. I guess it didn't work because she went to do something -- I think open my mouth further -- and I just spontaneously pushed her hand away. I instantly apologized and she didn't seem too surprised/annoyed, but still, way to go feral on the dentist, self.

Of course at one point she went "Oh, I see this [wisdom tooth] is still healing" and then POKED THE HEALING AREA WITH THE DENTAL HOOK a few times, which stung like hell and left me even more sore. This being the same side she was placing the suction tube on. So maybe my instincts knew what they were doing when they tried to push her away. Leave my poor healing surgical wound alone. D:

Oh life.

To end this entry before I lose interest and never post it: one of the best weird dreams ever.

First it started off strange. One of my freshman coworkers and I were driving around in my Prius in the pedestrian streets of a Chinatown. We came upon these large red Chinese/"Oriental" designed arches. We drove through them, and parked the car, and got some tea and sat on rugs and decided to eat there. The owner looked like he wanted to object to us bringing the car through the gate of his restaurant, but hey.

Then I think I must have woken up, likely due to a text from K who hadn't slept enough. Then I fell back to sleep, and into the silliest dream ever.

I had been kidnapped by supervillians. I was desperate for a way to escape. Finally, I got free, and was running across this sunny, sandy land, frantic, certain they'd catch me...

And that's when I started kayaking down aqueducts. Without the kayak. Or the oar. I was sitting, legs straight out in front of me, wearing I'm pretty sure nothing but a white towel, and making the motions of kayaking. I moved forward like I actually WAS in a boat. The water was crystal clear and somewhat bluish, though not as blue as the sky, with its puffy white clouds. I passed by some kids who were also kayaking without kayaks, and we waved at each other.

Eventually I found a sign on sandstone sewer-like walls that had an arrow with the word "Olin Library". Excellent! I fake-kayaked to the end of the aqueduct, then got out of the water and hustled up a sandstone staircase, out of the mysterious sewer tunnel that the aqueduct emptied into, and out into sunlight. Yes, sunlight, in Ithaca.

I found Neil, who gave me a very brief hug before declaring "Sorry, I don't like hugs" and walking off. To another group of people. One guy whom he hugged. I was hurt and a little miffed. After all, I had just gotten back from being kidnapped. How dare he!

Of course it wasn't long before the supervillians were back and a bunch of us were facing off. One of the supervillians, who is actually someone who comes to the LARP sessions, tried to cast tear gas on me. Yes, cast. I protested, saying that he couldn't cast it. Why? Magic didn't work that way. As I lectured, you see, you need to use the elements, and tear gas isn't an element. Well, okay, I suppose an Earth Mage could morph the earth into gold and then shatter that to make tear gas, so you know what, do that. But no you don't have to make the gestures. They aren't necessary, you can just do it.

In the background, one of the real-life storytellers for our LARP slammed his head into a conveniently-located table.

And shortly after that, I woke up. It wasn't until I was in the shower that it started to filter back and I asked "Wait, what?"

I have the best weird dreams. I do love the logic of turning gold into tear gas. I didn't know it worked that way!

Also poor Neil, my subconscious makes him act like a huge ass in my dreams, without fail, every time.

Speaking of Neil, my mother has twice mentioned this break that maybe I will "rekindle my romance" with Neil. UH HOW ABOUT "WE'RE JUST FRIENDS" MOM AND IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS KTHXBAI.

So yeah. My life is still strange. I'm still strange. Some things never change.

Now to see if I can something out of this poor novel.

Tschuess.

So I don't think I can really refer to Stan as my "online friend" anymore as for the first time today we got to see each other *gasp* face-to-face!

I happened to mention how my family and I were going to be in Burlington and then Stan's mother asked if she was going to meet me; apparently, Burlington is relatively close to where Stan's family lives, at least in the grand scheme of things. So long silly story short we chose to meet at Burlington's big Barnes & Noble with a sadly disappointing SF/F section. I bought Good Omens anyway.

So we ended up like chatterboxes and of course now I am musing over the entire thing and having my "My goodness, what I did wrong!" moments but that's kind of tricky since the most I did wrong that I can blame myself for is talk too much. Which I do all of the time. Hm.

Tadhg got mentioned enough times out loud that the proper pronunciation of his name has at least stuck. Uroua's may take a while, though. Thank goodness they are not my character.

Also I really need to develop Welen's education system, but more than that I need to write, to keep my mind sharp and my prose where it should be. I feel like I may dabble a bit outside of the fantasy realm because writing stories where I must be realistic is a challenge for me, like writing from a demon's point of view or something.

Instead I just wrote the first meeting and understanding between a vampire and a human, which is oddly adorable since apparently vampires clap when excited or understood. And chirp and whistle. I didn't want them to act like dogs, ha.

In fact I need other noises for them to make, but the thing is, vampires are pretty quiet. They communicate almost entirely through telepathy amongst themselves, making the noises necessary only for those who do not have telepathy or as extras from evolution. So I may give them other calls, like screeches, chortles, stuff like that that you may expect from a monkey or lemur. Basically I need to research lemur vocals.

Okay, so apparently lemurs do chirp and shriek. Go figure. I R AWESOME.

The story is here for those who want to read it. It's not quite done but at least it has a solid base to it thus far. And a carbon copy of Nur though this vampire is actually male and this happens long before Nur is born, but hey. Eventually I'll figure out more hair and eye colours for the vampires. I'm thinking green eyes. And brown fur. And I bet some of them would dye their hair crazy colours.

So anyway, for the past three or four days all I have done is read Wikipedia articles, and I can't really term it a waste of time because I've learned so much only partially-accurate information about World War II and Finland and Poland and military food rations. And it all started because my cousin was quoting Anne Frank and I thought "Okay I know she's famous for her diary and her death was tragic but who was this person?" and yeah, that ended my chances of free time.

What I should have been doing is checking up on my garden, but before I left for vacation it seemed to be doing very well on its own. I've been trying to let the corn compete on its own and weed out the ones that don't make it, but the corn has confused me by having three of the stalks, literally growing right next each other with no room, grow equally healthy despite the lack of room. *scratches head* One of them even had an ear. I don't get it. The spinach, meanwhile, seems to attract bugs and doesn't even look like spinach to me.

I'll see how it's doing once I get home and see if the peppers or squash have done anything. If so, I'll have amazing home-grown produce! How's that for green living. *preens*

But anyway, so at work I have been unconsciously trying a new way of thinking. Basically when I first worked at the amusement park I hated it, and it would stress me out, and on my last day I started crying, and all that good stuff. So this year, not realizing I was doing it at first, I decided to try and not let it get to me. Whatever happened at work would be brushed off my back as I got through the front door of my house.

In fact, work was an escape because things were rough at home, so I would go to work seeing to get rid of stress rather than wanting any. So anything that happens -- cranky customers, rough lines, rides being dumb, anything -- I have tried not to let get to me.

Surprisingly, it's worked fairly well. Even when I went worked in the bathroom one Quarter Night upon the request of my boss, even on Fourth of July when I had to stay until midnight running the Yo-Yo, even on Jamaican Day when weed smoke flooded the Carousel... Most of it has not bothered me, and has left me only a little fatigued when going to or from work.

That is, until a man puked on my ride. Not a little kid. A middle-aged man, who puked all over the seat and the wooden platform, informed me "I threw up", then told me "I lost my teeth." He found them, told me he did, and walked over.

Because I'm OCD I spent thirty minutes cleaning it up, still wasn't done, and my breaker finished it up in no time while I lamented the bathroom being out of soap, threw out my "soggy from the heat" attempt at a tomato mozzarella sandwich, and ate some mac&cheese.

Luckily on the way home "Schaedenfreude" started playing so I felt a little better, but still grateful for a few days off. Get to miss Quarter Night too, and do breaks on Saturday, which isn't a huge problem except for the whole "at the amusement park all day" thing.

Oh well. At least I get a paycheck this week, since I'll have no money left by the end of this vacation. Woe.

In other news, my mother is disappointed in Burlington. Maybe she won't take this out on us. We shall see.

Tschuess.

I want to slam my head against a wall because of this lovely article. Basically, pregnant women are given a drug, not even tested for this particular use, to "cure" babies of having ambiguous genitals.

The drug has not been tested for this use, yet "the possible benefits are clear: the treatment can spare young girls the potential psychosocial problems associated with having ambiguous genitalia as well as the ordeal of surgery to correct deformities later."

Excuse me, that's a benefit? But it gets worse.

"Research has also suggested that affected women who were treated with dex in the womb show more typical gender behavior than other women with CAH; the latter group tends to behave more tomboyishly and express little interest in having children. New told the Wall Street Journal in 2009 that the treatment further spares parents the "terrifying prospect" of not knowing whether their newborn is a boy or a girl."

Whoa whoa whoa. What are we treating her -- a disorder, or society's gender issues? Since when it is terrifying to not know what sex your newborn is? People have done that for years. Luckily, the article then goes on to say that doctors are not sure that anything is actually being treated.

I'd say.

"Other doctors and researchers have criticized New for introducing gender behavior into the medical prognosis — in two recent presentations on CAH at medical conferences, New offered medical outcome data on prenatal dex alongside data on typical gender behavior. "Maybe this gives clinicians the idea that the treatment goal is normalizing behavior. To say you want a girl to be less masculine is not a reasonable goal of clinical care," says David E. Sandberg, a University of Michigan pediatric psychologist who treats and conducts research on children with CAH."

Yes, I agree.

Best of all?

"Perhaps most controversially, prenatal dex must be given as soon as a woman learns she is pregnant, which is usually several weeks before genetic tests can determine if the fetus is in fact a female affected with CAH — the chance of which is 1 in 8 for parents who already have an affected child or know they are carriers of the genetic disorder."

Well that's great. We don't even know if the fetus is a girl and we're shoving it full of steroids. Great to know. Real great medical practice there.

This gender bullshit is already on my mind because apparently a Cornell Medical doctor is doing surgery to alter the clitoris of young girls to "treat" a disorder.

Normally I'm pretty neutral about this stuff. I don't find a gender issue in every little thing Americans do. But I do find issues with supposed "medical" treatment that is ultimately just parents trying to feel good about having daughters that are more "acceptable". And note, it is always girls going through this shit. Because apparently, a large clitoris or tomboy behavior is "wrong".

Um, pardon me?

The Cornell Medical doctor is doing hordes of unethical nonsense I won't get into, because wailing about him is not my point.

I'm wailing about a system that thinks that "gender issues" is something that the medical field should be concerned about.

It's not.

Children's genitalia shouldn't be messed with for the comfort of normality and yes I am including circumcision in this. If it's not medically required -- and circumcision is NOT -- it should not be performed. End of story. If an adult willingly wants to go through that kind of thing, well fine, I won't stop you, but forcing children and nonconsenting adults through it is screwed up.

And the drugs to help with gender behavior?

Sorry, what? Gender is not biological or medical. Therefore, nothing should be done to influence it medically or biologically. I'm of the opinion that gender shouldn't be shoved on people through society either but hey, one thing at a time.

And the FGM performed for studies by Cornell? Is pretty much another damn gender swipe, because in America, we want women with clean, tidy genitalia to the point that we cut and shave them apart until it looks like a freakin' five-year-old's. Then we turn to the boys and cut them and inflate them because we want clean, MASSIVE men.

What the fuck, America? What the fuck? Personally, shaven pubic areas freak me out. It makes my skin crawl. I threw a pretty decent fit when my then-boyfriend got grossed out because I had hair down there, oh noez. It's supposed to be there, okay, and for pretty decent reasons (unlike leg hair, which is stupid. I don't like really hairy-legged men either so it's not a gender thing.), so I medically don't see any reason to get rid of it, though I may trim it a bit for hygienic purposes.

But this wasn't supposed to be about my private grooming life, so hey! Medical "cures" to ultimately gender-centric issues. Bad.

Real entry possibly after this one, just had to get this out there. I'm a biological engineering major with an interest in biomedical practices, so shit like this really gets me going because it's a) medically unnecessary and b) biologically unfounded.