Hobbits

Still in Middle Earth. Be back in...six months.

WG

There is Reason

There is no reason for me to have cried myself to sleep.
There is no reason for me to have nightmares every night.
There is no reason for me to be restless and lonely.
There is every reason for me to be excited.

With Christmas three days away and my departure another ten days after that, I should be happy and lively and full of good cheer. I shouldn't be lonely and frightened and sad.

I told my boyfriend last night that I felt small and scared and sad - the big question is, why?

Not sick, not starving, not alone. Not deprived of food and heat and amusement.
I guess it isn't unusual to be struggling to keep a good mood on when the ones you love are far away. For me, I miss my boyfriend and my best friends a lot right now. I am also missing distractions, like school and stress and sleep.

When you're sick, going to the doctor is soothing (at least for me). When you're well, going to the doctor is irritating and stressful (at least in this house). I have been to the doctor too many times in the last two weeks. I canceled my last appointment out of aggravation. Being calm for them, pleasant for them, cheerful and willing and easy-going is a drain. I didn't realize how much of a drain it was until I hit my low mood yesterday...for no good reason.

Maybe I don't need a 'good' reason to be sad. Maybe I just need to let myself feel the sad, acknowledge it, but not let it take over me. I struggle not to judge myself, even when I can't find another way to cope with the things I feel, say or do. It was very difficult for me to ask my boyfriend to call me because I was lonely. I had a need - a valid need, my therapist would say - and I had to fight myself at every turn just to send him a text. I had to swallow several apologies for being 'demanding.'

Does anyone else feel this way before the holidays? I remember being a child, maybe seven or eight, and deciding that I wasn't going to allow myself to get excited about the holidays because of the disappointment afterwards.

I only just rescinded that order two years ago.
I'm in a bit of a funky mood today, Reader, and I can't offer a reason for it except the rambling thoughts above. Maybe you'll see something in them that strikes a chord with you. Maybe you'll look at one of you relatives and go "Oh, I see now."

Or maybe you'll think I'm whining. I wouldn't want to give that impression, but it could be true. Words are words, after all. They don't come with tone pre-packaged.

Have a safe, happy, cozy holiday - whatever you celebrate.
WolfGrrl

The Countdown

It's that time of year, folks. (Yeah, it's the holiday season, but it's also the countdown until study abroad). I know I've been posting a lot about my imminent departure, so if you're bored just skip this post.

Today is the 18th of December, where we wish a very happy birthday to my saintly mother and buy our Christmas tree. Then in another week it's New Years', and I count down four days more until I leave the country.

To sum up: I'm in the US for another eighteen days.

My days have been a bit slow since school finished, but things will zoom by faster than I can keep track. My eighteen days are full of friendly visits, doctor's appointments, packing, tracking, and counting.

It's difficult to imagine leaving my friends for a semester and not being there for the crises, the tears, the laughter and the inside-jokes. It's difficult to imagine leaving them at all, actually. I love them; I'll miss them. But I'll see them in six months. WOW!

To those I didn't get to say goodbye to: I love you guys. I'll post pictures (here and on Facebook) and write letters and Skype. (Oh Skype, the current bane of my existence.)

Today is day eighteen.
WolfGrrl

Dickensian

Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires, a touch that never hurts. 

Charles Dickens

Where Finals Go

What I should be doing right now is studying. Instead, I am trolling through the online syllabi for my current classes to figure out my approximate final grades. Needless to say, I severely underestimated my ability this semester. Even if I should bomb the finals (and I refuse to let that happen, because what happened to my GPA in that scenario made me saaaaaad) I will emerge with decent enough grades.

I have already been told by my advisor that all hopes of a 4.0 flew away my second semester. That's all right. My therapist pointed out that, hey, does it really matter what your GPA is in the real world? Obviously, one would like to have a good record for future employers, but it's entirely unnecessary to spend your entire life slaving away at school. There are so many good things that I've done this year that aren't school related; so many relationships I've grown or nurtured. I have made great strides in my personal epiphanies. I am healthy, mentally and physically. I am going abroad (OMG, OMG, OMG).

So, I say "whatever" to my academics at the moment. I will study for my finals; I will take them as seriously as I always do. I will bemoan stupid mistakes and gloat over easy triumphs. And then I will forget it all, and focus on what lies ahead. Even if what lies ahead are the rather dismal chores of vacuuming the corners of my room and compiling lists of what to do before I leave.

It's a good day. I must not be 'doing' finals' week correctly if I can find happiness and amusement where my peers find despair and gallows humor.

Meh. It's a good day (for me). Here's my secret: Blow it off when you feel despair. At that point, there's nothing you can do anyway.

Cheers!
WolfGrrl

The Boy Thing

I don't know if this is characteristic of boys, or just my boy, but he doesn't use adjectives.
Really. I am 'pretty.' He is 'doing good.' The weather is 'nice.' For someone who thrives on description it is the one thing I would change about him.

Thus, my never-ending refrain is: ADJECTIVES PLEASE OMG!!!

WolfGrrl

Twenty-Five Days

Oh dear God, I have twenty-five days before I leave the country. Twenty-five days to get my head wrapped around the fact that I will be living overseas for six months. On my own. Overseas. Did I mention that I'll be on my own?

Oh, dear God.

I'm watching the Chronicles of Narnia and lusting after the beautiful landscape and the wonderful people of New Zealand. Whatever niggling urge had me clicking on the link, back in March, that said 'University of Otago, New Zealand' is a blessed urge.

In twenty-five days (and some number of hours) I will be flying out from Charlotte across the country - on my own - and then flying over the Pacific - on my own. No safety net, no backups, no one there to calm me down when I can't remember my gate and flip out. (OK, so my parents will be standing by the phone, or in my mother's case, hovering, but still. I have the on the ground illusion of independence.)

Do you have any idea how phenomenal and terrifying this is? I'm a girl who went to school ten minutes from my parents' house; who has flown by herself ONCE, and that only a year and a bit ago. I have no doubts (I cannot doubt) that I'll be fine once I get going. It's just that waiting and counting down the days might kill me first.

I know that once I'm there I'll be homesick and tired and lonely (especially after my boyfriend leaves and I have to go to school in a new country, alone). I fully expect this experience to drive my personal growth through the roof. I can't wait to hike, swim, run, fly, dance, laugh, cry, sneeze, and hopefully not freeze on another continent. ANOTHER CONTINENT. I hyperventilate just thinking about it.

Plane tickets around the world are not cheap, people. I can't screw this up. My safety net takes a minimum of seventy two hours to reach me, not counting delays and domestic flight times. Obviously, I have my darling love and his family, but should I lose a limb shark tubing, or fall off a cliff or get concussed and lose my memory, I'll want my family with me. Walking your fingers from the East Coast of the United States to the little green islands of New Zealand takes some time. Flying takes more time.

I guess that's why my study abroad contract has that little clause stipulating 'repatriation of remains.' Yucky, but necessary.

Whatever. I will be bold, I will be daring. I will rock this six month adventure and come back wanting to go again, and again, and again.

And the best part of it all?
I can go. Again and again and again.

Because I can do everything I want to, damn it. (Pardon my French.)
WolfGrrl

Meeeeeeeerrrrrr

I hate being sick. If it's not sinus headaches and a sore throat, it's a random rash that resembles measles and scarlet fever.

The only benefit in all of this is that if I'm going to be sick, better get on with it before I go overseas.
Still, this is not motivating me to study for my exam this evening. Not at all...

WolfGrrl

Have a Go, Please

A room isn't a room until it has shoes in awkward places and dust in the corners. It hasn't been lived in until there are marks on the walls and tear-stains on the bed linens.

This room has been lived in. It is lived in. So why do I feel this frustrating, gnawing, consuming need to break free of it? Why do I want to both retreat into the protection of my home and cast it away? Maybe I should blame it on sickness, on being weeks away from the biggest decision in my life so far. On missing my boyfriend. On stress. On anxiety. On loneliness.

I can't tell anymore right now what I feel. Except restless; I'm definitely feeling restless. I feel like chewing my blankets into gooey pulp and then smashing my face against the wall a time or ten. However, as my mother in her wisdom reminds me time after time, this too shall pass.

Until then, watch me try to cheer myself up:

 

WolfGrrl

Universal Management

I really wonder if there's an elf somewhere that listens to my complaints and coordinates responses from the Universe. As I was watching TV the other day, I was bombarded by ads informing me that the iPhone is now available from my no-contract cell provider...something I believed would never happen. Needless to say, it brought back my Apple addiction with a vengeance. I am now disgusted with myself.

My Apple addiction is the result of purchasing a Macbook a few months ago, and loving the sleek design and intuitive movements. I dare not praise it too much, as all the men in my life disparage Apple (for the same reasons, hah).

Aside from the Apple Issue, I do legitimately think that this elf listens to my complaints, or at least passes them on to the appropriate department in Management. In the past year, I've noticed that when I finally spend some time bitching (pardon the language, but there's really no other way to describe it) about something, that something is immediately solved, or I am given new information about it.

For example, when I wondered if the Study Abroad office at my overseas university had lost my application, I received an email congratulating me on my acceptance. When I complained that I wouldn't know about my overseas housing until I arrived, I received an email from the director of housing offering me a place. When I feared that my Visa application had been incorrectly filled out, a day later I received the Visa. Doesn't this sound like the intervention of Universal Management to you? I always knew that cursing a computer gets it to boot up faster (at least with Windows it does), but this seems counterintuitive. We are taught as children that hard work and faith, not whining, produce results.

Yeah, that's not what my experience is telling me. So I guess I'm still a child. A very whiny, but highly gratified child.

Mwahahaha.
WolfGrrl

This Has Been an Update

Waiting for my last class of the day to start strikes me as a fitting time to write a blog post. Readers, it is almost the end of the semester and I couldn't feel better...well, maybe I could if my headache would go away. Ugh. But, aside from that (and the weird looks I've been getting all day - more on that in a second) this has been a pretty nice day.

For those of you who can't read (or don't own a calendar), today is the third of December and where I am the weather is a sunny 72 degrees Fahrenheit. In December. I am wearing fleece lined boots and sweatpants, and getting judgmental looks from my running-short sporting peers. It's winter, people! Uggs and sweatpants are now socially acceptable! Sigh.

Still, given how much rain depresses me, I shouldn't complain about the sun. In other news, I have begun the process of moving back into my room at home (hrmmm), a two-week, labor intensive endeavour that is the bane of any student's existence twice yearly. Still, it hasn't been too ghastly; one benefit of being a third year is that I've done this five times already. Packing is one of those skills that improves with practice.

It looks like class is starting, Reader, so I'd better get into my notes and start thinking...critically. Oh joy. It looks as though they will finally return our mid-semester exams to us. (The last day of classes is this Wednesday.)

I know what you're thinking: if they can return things so late, why can't I turn them in so late?

Me too, Reader, me too.
WolfGrrl