It is absolutely wonderful to have time to contemplate on life's mysteries again, to think about the future and try to forget about the past. It has done me so much good to move out of my mom's house (even though I'll be moving back there in May). Here I am a new person, and I can be as mysterious as I like.
I see my future stretching out in front of me and full of possibilities. I feel like a little girl trying on mom's clothes as I look at the things I could do. But those things aren't far off, not even in the future- my adult life has already begun whether I want to believe it or not.
Before I saw my grades for this semester I made a secret plan: if I failed two of my classes I would drop out of school. I would take a year off and find a job and spend a lot of time at home, and this would not be the worst thing in the world that could happen. For better of for worse, I passed everything. Now I dream about what I'm going to do after I graduate. I could spend some time traveling. I could take a job in a faraway place- I've always wanted to live in California. ISPs and Silicon Valley beckon. Boring old me, after I graduate I'll probably go to grad school here at home, and take the first job I get, and turn into the "tech guy" at some local company.
I know that I can't live at home forever, and my savings are going to run out eventually so I will have to earn some money. But I hate the idea of being locked into a job, serving a "sentence" so I can retire with some money, playing politics so I can get ahead, or not playing and becoming bored to death with a job I hate. I could train myself to be a "corporate" type, but do I want to sell my soul? I think I'll die the day I turn into a yuppie, the day that I trade in my independence to report to an office 9 to 5 Monday through Friday.

I got some wonderful presents for Christmas, including a DVD/VCR which I know I will thoroughly enjoy. Of course, there are other things that are not so wonderful, but I've already expressed my mixed feelings about this time of year.
My mom doesn't seem very happy lately. It is hard to know what she feels sometimes- she is very private about certain things. My sister joked that since she and I have both left, the dog has taken our places. It was just a joke, but she really adores that dog. It seems to me that she is kind of lonely, and we, her children, don't treat her like we should sometimes. She gives and gives to us, and we don't often give back. I wish there were something I could do to make her happy. I try, but sometimes it just isn't enough.
I have eighteen days of Christmas break left and I intend to thorougly enjoy them.

Well, today is Christmas Eve. I went to the Christmas Eve candlelight service at our church with my family. I feel guilty for being so shallow as of late.
It snowed today. It was so strange to see all the desert plants covered in snow. I had to wipe off inches of snow off my car. I felt like making a snowman or something, but I didn't because I felt weird doing it alone.
Merry Christmas everyone out there, all you pathetic souls. If you're reading this I have some advice for you: Turn off your computer and go to bed.

It started snowing this afternoon! I was actually frightened when I realized I was driving down I-10 into a black wall of clouds. By the time I slowly drove off the freeway it was raining hard. Then the pouding of the rain gave way to the softness of the snow and I had large flakes of snow stuck to my windshield.

I don't really know how my desire to have a goldfish to brighten up my apartment turned into $140 of a complete aquarium and my only Christmas present from my dad this year. What the heck was I thinking? Yesterday I dragged it up to my room through the cold, nearly snowy weather and plopped it on my dresser and hit my head on the door while I fumbled for the keys and wished there was someone to help me carry it up or hold the door open for me. Then I started sobbing uncontrollably.

I am getting sad again. The weather is gloomy and I'm totally bored. "The holidays" are usually depressing for me. As I've said before, I detest the materialism of it all.
I obsess over finding the perfect present for each of the six people on my Christmas list. And since this is always impossible, I fret over the fact that what I got is somehow not perfect.
I hate dealing with money. I hate budgeting out Christmas presents, and even having people buy stuff for me. Having money and spending it on non-essentials makes me feel guilty when I know that there are so many poor people out there. I feel guilty that my parents buy expensive stuff for me and I can't afford to get nice things for them.
My family is not extremely dysfunctional as far as families go, but we are not the type of family that hugs a lot, and I don't count my sisters or even my parents as good friends, people whom I trust completely. I trust my mom more than anyone in the world, and yet there are certain things that I don't feel comfortable telling her. Spending time with my family just reminds me of old skeletons in the closet, the things I've tried to forget about my mom and dad. It also reminds me of how sad and pathetic my non-holiday life is, the me who spends all her time holed up in her apartment, me the reclusive food addict. I realize how little I really know about the people in my life and how little they know me.
I inevitably eat more junk food, eating out at restaurants ( paid for by my parents, of course), and eat a bunch of cookies and chocolates.
I feel less spiritual and more greedy than I think I should on this "religious" holiday.

I got an extra half-hour of work today, then I went home and watched half an hour of TV, read a couple pages of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe, then fell asleep. For two hours. What is wrong with me?
Work has been really, really slow. It makes me insane when I feel unnecessary.
I'm getting into that stupid way of thinking, you know, putting things off when it comes to that future change. Maybe some New Year's resolutions are in order. More later.

Today I spent the afternoon in the public library. I found out my "color" (green) when it comes to career choices. Then I read a book about how men are from Mars and women are from Venus. A very enjoyable afternoon, basically.

I'm confused about a lot of stuff. It really is a myth that you can get anywhere without working extremely hard to get it. I am not satisfied with anything. I feel so unsophisticated now, and I used to pride myself on my sophistication.
I don't fit well into this life. I have "delusions of grandeur." I'm so expendable at my job. I try to content myself with this stupid job, but the problem is that when I'm there I wish that I could be indispensable and that my work was really valued, but that is not the case.
For a while I tried to convince myself that a career in computer science was what I really wanted but the truth is I don't think I've ever really wanted it.
Maybe my problem is just confidence. As U2 would say I'm stuck in a moment and i can't get out of it. I always wanted to be exceptional, but now I've lowered my expectations. I guess everyone eventually discovers that all of their dreams aren't going to come true. The truth: I'm just an average student, I'm 20 years old and I have yet to do anything great.
When I was 12 years old I entered this spelling bee and won my way up to the national competition. Don't ask me how this happened. It basically happened by accident.
I believed the rest of my life would take this same pattern: that everyone would immediately recognize my natural talent and hand me a reward, without my having to work very hard to attain the reward. This worked for me up through about senior year of high school.
That year I realized something: maybe I was not as good of a student as I thought. I struggled to get A's in AP English and Pre-Calculus, where before I had earned them with hardly any effort at all. I started applying to colleges with the idea that I would be able to earn a nice scholarship to a prestigious university. I always figured that I would go somewhere excellent and far, like Harvard or Stanford, or to a nice liberal arts college.
Problems appeared. I was dismayed when I realized I had very few extracurricular activities to put on my application. My grades were good, but how could I compete with all those student council presidents and Academic Decathletes? Forget Harvard- I finally decided it would be great if I could go to UT-Austin.
Looking back, I think I should have just gone for it. I was accepted to UT (automatically, in fact, because I was in the top ten percent of my class), and I received a $3,000-a-year scholarship. I visited the university and I felt pretty comfortable there. A lot of my classmates were going there. I had family about three hours away.
So what was holding me back? Fear, mostly, but other things, too:
- the snobbery of it all- Mom's advice- "Just get the piece of paper." All the snobs from Franklin High were going there. They were exactly the people I wanted to escape.
- financial concerns- I had the scholarship, but what about room and board, travel expenses, books, etc.?
- I had never lived by myself before, and here I would be in a strange city among strange people, living in a huge dorm.
So I got cold feet. Not that those aren't valid concerns, but years later I feel like I pitched the culmination of my high school achievement in the trash can. I ended up at the local university and continued living at home. It's not so much that I'm extremely dissatisfied with what happened in my life after that or that I think all the awful things that have happened since then could have been avoided. It's more that I went against what I wanted to do in my heart, and made a decision based on what I thought was practical. A head vs. heart decision, and I went with the head.

I got most of my Christmas shopping done this morning. I still haven't decided what to get my sister- she is so picky. I should just ask her what she wants, but she always says 'I don't know' or 'whatever'. If she doesn't say what she wants, I'll probably get her a gift certificate.
I am feeling really really lonely. I like solitude, but last night it was just too much. I'm going into sensory overload. I put on the TV to fear factor, then switched it to back-to-back sleepless in seattle and when harry met sally. During the commercials i read chapters from lobster chronicles.

Last night I went to a church play with my sister. I jokingly told her that I could be her convert. It was surprisingly well-acted for this kind of low-budget play. It took place in a bar, which was a little weird. This lady played the lounge singer, and she sang so well. She even started crying at the end.
The play ended at 8:30 and I was already conking out, so I went home to my apartment and let my sister get a ride with friends.
I think about half of the residents of the student apartments are gone now, including my roommate. True solitude at last.

Apologies, this is not going to make much sense. I got up thought about exercising but worked on my short story instead i don't have any original thoughts, i just changed what they told me to change, i went to put it in his mailbox but i went to the wrong floor and thought oh s--- this is my dad's girlfriend's office i wonder what she looks like does she look like my mom she's probably a lot smarter than my mom but anyway i found his office and he wasn't there so i figured i'd give it to him tomorrow at office hours because i didn't want it to get misplaced and get a bad grade that fear outweighed my fear of talking to him i always fear talking to professors i fear that they'll tell me my work is garbage which i feel it is sometimes and that i don't do perfect work i don't even try i just do enough to get a halfway decent grade and not much beyond that so i left after having spent about ten or fifteen minutes prowling around the philosophy building or worrell hall or whatever it's called then i went back to my apartment disappointed that i was such a coward because i didn't put it in the mailbox that he shared with cline i'll take what i get then i watched a makeover story and a dating story the makeover was ok it was two people getting haircuts but the dating story people were just too perfect for me to relate to then off to work i got blue coconut syrup on my shirt and just stood around and signed up for dr pepper games and asked for popcorn chicken sauce selections and made shakes saw the cook in the parking lot i think he sploshed grease all over my car but it will wash off then home to baked potato tuna and green beans which i used to think was gross but now eat for every meal headline news with kangaroos then decided the hell with it i'll just leave the story in the mailbox so i did then off to the library with my book selections some of which were in the catalog and which i diligently searched for but i found not one book that i really wanted to read and was available i was disappointed because i wanted a book to read one that would make me cry and forget about my weird lonely life or to try something new or talk about with people one day or make me smarter and more informed and philosophical then back to my apartment it was starting to get cold i bought a reese stick because hersheys almonds were sold out then saw chrissy and her bf as i was walking down the block i didn't know if it was her then i did and they were holding hands and i felt kind of sad and a little jealous and i thought about how thin she must have been and what they must have done to her at that place and if she still does it and what she thinks of the fat me then i took off my backpack and put on a jacket and locked up and went to my car for survivor night at mom's and who do i see but chris from cs getting into his car which i now recognize i wonder what he's doing here i wonder if it's legal he drove off and i thought about following him to see where he lives but i was too late anyway and that was stupid and he's really wild and i'm really clean and i like him anyway and i wish i was thin and pretty so he would like me then again would i really like that no not really then off to mom's the dog jumped when she saw me and licked me and that was nice then sick in the bathroom and eating dinner listening to seinfeld about contraceptives so stupid and degrading and then we bought a pie with chocolate and red and green sprinkles it was good then survivor ted went down surprising then csi wasn't following intensely then er which was good that actor is so handsome i really love him and i saw this actress who reminded me of this girl i am kind of friends with who is nice i don't know why i like her so much sleepy drive home i have to buy presents i think i need therapy or want it or both or that it would help parked on the line then up to apt. hoping roommate and bf would not be there i won't be happy unless i can write no tp sad and lonely i got a 720 on verbal sat's which i am proud of even though i don't admit it but won't do me much good anyway i'm tired i should go to sleep so i won't get up late but who cares anyway my teeth are rotten i want life to be exciting but i don't know

I'm a free woman. I think I will pass the automata final which I took this morning and therefore pass the class.
It's kind of a letdown. I've been operating on "urgent mode" for the past three weeks. Now I'm back to "gee, what-should-I-do-today?" mode. I have to polish up my short story. And Christmas shopping. And work. But other than that, I can do whatever I want. It seems like this should be great. But in reality, it makes me very antsy. This is how I got into trouble before- obsessing over minute details out of boredom, and thinking of free time as a luxury I'm not worthy of having. I guess the best thing for me to do is to get out of the house. I've been cooped up in here for so long.
I'll worry about that later, though. For now, my work is done, I've got $77 in my pocket, and I'm feeling good.

It's so incredibly nice to not have any more programming projects hanging over my head. Honest-to-God, I don't know how I made any of those things work. Not like they were exceptional, but I got them to work. Computers are kind of like magic sometimes, like waving a magic wand and hoping that something will happen. Add something, delete something, compile it, run it, and boom it works. Or not. There's nothing like the feeling of running the program and it doing exactly what you expect it to do. This morning, when I was still half-asleep, I dragged myself over to the computer and I felt like I was a kid again. How does it do all that stuff? I'm amazed that I can make a computer act as something more than a large calculator.

Today I sat right next to creepy CS guy in the computer lab. There's this blond guy who's a CS major that I bump into regularly. He's got the true loner personality. I have rarely seen him talk. But I do see him with clockwork regularity before my 4:30 class. And I know he hangs out in the library sometimes before graphics class. He's always alone, though. I'm guessing by choice.
I know I shouldn't say that, being very much a loner myself. Do people think that about me? -- There's that creepy CS girl. Why is she always alone? -- I hope not. I'm thinking they feel sorry for me more than anything else.

My computer program worked when I demo'ed it for the TA. Thank God.
The worst feeling in the world is the feeling that you've been lied to.

Yesterday night I totally lost it. I am supposedly trying to be independent, and not be such a crybaby. So there I go crying to my parents about how hard my miserable little life is. I hate to make them worry about me. I've played this game before, and it gets me nowhere.
The work. It is all-consuming. If I'm not in front of a computer, I probably should be. I ran out of clean laundry yesterday. I haven't done dishes in a couple of days.

Today is D-Day, and I have survived, relatively unscathed, just a little tired. Today is the pivot on which my fragile GPA is hinged. Two tests. One project. Failure is not an option.
People weren't meant to work 24 hours a day. But in these past three days, I've learned that it's possible to come close.