30 posts tagged “school”
Siddarth and I presented our project on globalization today. He made a Powerpoint last night, spur of the moment, so I basically just stood there and talked statistics for five seconds. We should get a good grade on it, though. It's really nice not having that hanging over my head anymore.
Yesterday I went to Dr. Morgan at Piedmont Psychiatric Associates. She diagnosed me as having unipolar depression with melancholic features and gave me Wellbutrin XL. I talked to my dad about it and he says it's up to me whether I want to get therapy or not; I'm on the fence. I've had therapists in the past and they were fun.. I like talking about myself and having people listen. However, it seems like a waste of time unless they're going to do something about some behavioral problems I have. I'll probably try it out for a while, I mean, it'll be summer. Something to do would be nice. I'm really skeptical about the efficacy of this medication, though. I've tried others before with really no improvement. I got into the state of mind that these depressive episodes were caused by people and things rather than some chemical imbalance. While it's nice to think that some miracle drug can fix it, it really seems too ingrained... or maybe that's me being a pessimist.
It seems like forever since I've posted. This past weekend seemed like an eternity but ephemeral all the same. Ephemeral? I'm starting to sound like Zooey Deschanel. Speaking of her, I really want to see the new M. Night Shyamalan movie The Happening. But that doesn't come out until June 13th so we're going to see The Strangers this weekend instead. The latter is your basic, run-of-the-mill horror movie but with Joanna Newsom's music. Did I mention we're going on Sunday? And that I'll have nothing to do all weekend so my extroverted persona is probably going to go into hibernation? Yeah.
I also made cookies.
And if Chuck would come see me ever during the week I would make fudge brownies. But I guess not.
I don't have to be at Glenn until 12:30 so I'm procrastinating away the extra time for I've been given on things. Tomorrow, I have to present a small talk about globalization and how much it hurts local cultures. I honestly don't care that much.. it seems so simple. Big corporations are bad for little people. But, my partner Siddarth and I decided it would be a better topic than say, Tibet. The people in class aren't going to care about anything we say so we might as well pick something easy. I hate speaking in there, though; it's obnoxious. I'm getting so worked up about a three to five minute speech it just makes me more anxious.
You know, it amazes me on a consistent basis how difficult and complicated people and feelings are. It's also strange that I'm amazed. I mean, come on, shouldn't that be expected? But then you start feeling things and thinking things that gross you out and make you feel guilty and they're not even true. Or, more truthfully, I start feeling and thinking these things and it's just weird. I hate how my brain gets tricked into thinking things that make me feel disgusted. Gross things are gross.
What am I even talking about? Who cares? I could be looking up telephoto lenses right about now.
we are always asked
to understand the other person's
viewpoint
no matter how
out-dated
foolish or
obnoxious.
one is asked
to view
their total error
their life-waste
with
kindliness,
especially if they are
aged.
but age is the total of
our doing.
they have aged
badly
because they have
lived
out of focus,
they have refused to
see.
not their fault?
whose fault?
mine?
I am asked to hide
my viewpoint
from them
for fear of their
fear.
age is no crime
but the shame
of a deliberately
wasted
life
among so many
deliberately
wasted
lives
is.
I'll probably be spending the rest of my day playing Dino Run, instead of researching the impact meat intake has on the environment and trying to memorize Middle English for Mrs. Carpenter. Why couldn't she have given us this assignment when the rest of her classes were learning it, too, so I could feel some sort of accomplishment instead of this dull sense of dread. Megan gave me her phonetic-spelling write up of all lines and it makes it seem less intimidating, but I still don't know how to pronounce some of it. I'm probably getting way too far ahead of myself because this is the second day that we've been trying to learn it and who can memorize something in two days? She hasn't even told us how to say half of it.
What am I even talking about? I had a good time last night with Jimmy and Aaron and Billy and Chuck. We're going to have more good times this weekend, I hope, and I'm really excited about getting dressed up for dinner on Saturday but it seems so far away. At least it's not Monday. But then again it could be Friday. I've been messing with photos on Flickr a lot today, too, outside of my dino running. I want to download the (pirated) version of Photoshop for OS X but I feel slightly guilty editing my photos. I mean, I want them to be honest and tell the whole story. I could easily manipulate them to force them to say exactly what I want them to say, but some of the beauty is in the personal interpretation. That sounds silly, doesn't it? A picture shows what is in a picture and that's what it is, right? Just looking through my photo library (there are seriously tons of things saved on my hard drive) I can remember what a specific photograph said to me at a certain point, but now it means something different. When I randomly explore things on Flickr, I see things from someone else's point of view.. but through my lens. But will editing a picture change that? No. It's still art, open to interpretation and criticism from others. What I'm saying is, personally, my integrity feels slightly challenged if I edit something a present it as the truth. It's different if it's going to be something I offer as fiction, or.. well, it's hard to get into words. Kinda like Addie Bundren, speaking from her coffin and saying words aren't enough. Someone needs to come up with a mental thought-transducer or something.. but that would be scary.
I stayed at Kearstin's house last night, and I think I'm going to stay here for the rest of the weekend. She's been doing my laundry, making my bed, and bought me like $50 worth of food. Believe me, I've been eating it. It's really nice to be actually "living" with someone: I mean, she's not here with me right now, but I'm a lot less alone than I would be at my house.
I've also been relatively sick. I woke up yesterday morning with a sore throat, and I just figured Pepper had slept with me so I took some allergy medication. It didn't help, so I was really miserable by the end of the day. I got a delicious bubblegum flavored shaved ice and Kearstin had some of this stuff laying around from when she was sick. I guess it's just liquid tylenol and decongestant but it works really well. I'm sleeping in her little half-siblings' room, because they don't stay here anymore and they have a really cute bunk bed. In order to conquer my fear of the bottom bunk, I'm sleeping down there.. you know, in case I have a roommate next year who is completely insistent that they get the top bunk. I also really like being enclosed when I sleep (against a wall, stuff like that) so it's really snuggly.
Anyway, Kearstin is going over to her mom's house to babysit her niece this afternoon, and I think Chuck and I are going to hang out and eat more food. It feels so surreal being finished with my last AP exams ever, but it's totally fine with me. Compared to the Government and Politics exams, having the single English Lit exam was really nice, and the essays were like key lime pie. That would make the GoPo exams unappetizing, vanilla ice cream? They were fine going down, but left a bad taste in my mouth and a queasy stomach.
If you haven't noticed, I really like the Flickr/Vox integration. It's super!
Anyway, I'm getting my hair cut again tomorrow. This is occurring because of what happened this morning: I didn't fitter my time away on Feministing like usual and actually spent time doing my hair and it still annoyed me. It was like, "this is it? This is so boring!" So I made an appointment. So fickle!
Since this has just turned into a huge news ticker post, there's going to be a craft fair at the Werehouse / Krankies on Friday and Saturday. Charles and I are planning to go on Saturday morning which will be fun. :) I'm such a sucker for hand-made goods, especially when they are hand-made by other people.
As for the rest of this week, I hope it goes by fast enough. The top 50 seniors banquet thing is this Thursday and even though no one else is excited I am. I never go to thinks like that because my parents never wanted to, but this time Chuck's coming with me which will be super fun even if I can't eat any of the food. Dressing up is fun, too!
ps. Billy! Where are you?
Anyway, right now I'm waiting for Chuck to get on Skype so I can start some double-entry journals for As I Lay Dying. I don't really know why he has to be video chatting with me for me to do it, but it helps. The journals are due on Friday, but I got a pretty craptastic grade on the last set I did (for Lord of the Flies) and that's not happening again so I'm starting early. All my teachers are getting really GO! CRUNCH TIME! now, but I guess that's just because it's really close to the AP exams. Akwete is giving us like four days to learn everything we ever needed to know about Mexico's political structure, and Mrs. Carpenter is giving us like one forty-minute essay per day. Even Dietrich, who is my honors "discrete math" teacher (I put that in quotations because everyone thinks it's called "discrete" because she made it up) got on to some people for sleeping during class while she talked about babies costing $28,000/birth with teachers' and police health insurance.
Speaking of the end of school, I wrote this long letter (okay so it was like two paragraphs) to my shift manager at AC Moore about all the days I'm going to need off in May and June. The top 50 seniors banquet thing.. graduation.. the day after graduation.. stuff like that! Charles and I decided we're hightailing it out of here after graduation and getting a hotel room somewhere and seeing a show. Or something. Maybe get a really nice dinner in Charlotte. Either way, it'll be really fun.
As this picture (taken graciously from the Kernersville Rotary Club's website) shows, student and teacher (as it turns out Walker was) of the month were slightly too tired, slightly too full of biscuits, and mostly embarrassed at Coplin's unique drawl to seem graceful as we were spoken so praisefully about. It was nice, however, to be eating biscuits, grits, coffee, and orange juice while sitting next to my former AP US History teacher and principal at the same time. Strange, but nice.
Anyway, right now, I'm listening to Regina Spektor and hanging out until I have to go to Glenn at 12:30 for my AP Lit quarter exam. I wanted to come home, clean the crap out of my house, and go but I've gotten too caught up in making saline solution for my ears to be motivated. I think I'm just going to start cleaning up a little and then get Charles to help me when he comes over later.
I'm feeling pretty disgusting right now. I missed school yesterday and today because of some disgusting stomach bug that has been killing my body. Sweating all over the place while waking up every two hours to puke is not my idea of fun, not to mention the fact I'm missing two days of class the week before mid-terms. Yesterday was horrible: I seriously slept from 8am until 9pm with little bursts of waking up to puke or move over because of abdominal cramps. I felt a lot better around nine, so I went to bed with the intention of going to school the next morning, but when 6:30am came around and I threw up the three saltine crackers and water I had for dinner, I figured I could miss one more day.
I also had every intention of studying for the information I'm missing, but I really couldn't keep my head raised for long enough to do that. Today it's a must.
Anyway, yeah, I really feel like going back to bed right now but no no no no no I won't!
Anyway, I have to work from noon to 6:30 tomorrow. I'm not dreading it, I'm just.. tired? I don't know; I have conflicting feelings about work. It's pretty fun when I actually get there, but the thought of it makes me never want to go back. I guess it's the fact that it, technically, is never going to stop. I mean, I could always quit (and I plan to eventually!) but.. it's not like school in the sense that, when you finish one day, you can revel in the fact that it's one more day down until it's over. I like working toward a goal. I guess you could say that getting paid is my goal, but it feels like the money isn't worth it but I have no idea how I survived without that weekly check. I have so much more freedom now, and I can actually provide for myself. I even have like $50 in savings and I think I'm going to average putting in $60 a month. That's $720 a year at 4% interest for at least four years until I'm out of college.. and I'm practically doing nothing to get it. I can still buy whatever I want (okay within reason) whenever I want and I love the people I work with. I'm just stressed out.
In other news, I've spent my entire day (except for a delicious veggie burger for lunch with Charles) working on Death of a Salesman assignments for English. I'm almost done, which is amazing, considering this isn't a Sunday night before it's due. It really seems like this half of the school year is dragging on forever. Everyone says, "it's going by so fast!" but I wish it would just go by faster for me. I want to get on with the rest of my life, please please please! But isn't that the summation of all my other Vox posts? I'm tempted to change my calendar to April already.
