Reflections on meeting Nancy, my dad's girlfriend: She is nothing like my mother. She's very pretty, but not like my mother is. She's pale with red hair and blue eyes, and she dresses in colorful clothes. My mother prefers black or navy blue. She's observant and knows all about current events. She speaks in a professor-ish, educated way, the way you would expect a white woman to speak. When I see her around my dad, they seem like they like each other and everything, but he doesn't talk to her the way he used to talk to my mom.
When she got up at dinner to go to the restroom I almost expected my dad to say, so what do you think? But he didn't. I guess I would have said that she's nice but she's not my mom.

I feel like I'm in a pressure cooker. My body's moving but my mind says no. I'm sick of work, so sick of it. I feel like I'm contributing to a lost cause.
Today is the day that I meet the mysterious Nancy. I don't know how I'll react to seeing my dad with a woman who is not my mother. But why go on with this little pretend game? It's stupid.
I want to escape.
I feel like traveling, like taking a long road trip to Arizona or something. I want to drive, and drive, and watch the world go by. My fanciful little vacation. Actually I think I would just like to escape the city. That's not too hard around here- twenty miles on I-10 west, you're in the desert, or 40 miles east, same thing. There are some cool places to hike, but I would be afraid to go by myself. Maybe I'll just spend some time at the park or something :).
I think I'm really losing it. I'm acting weird and I'm impatient and overemotional. It's Friday and all I can think about is how I'm going to work until dinner then I'm going to come home and do more schoolwork. And how I'm going to manage to work through the weekend. The apartment is really filthy. I haven't swept or mopped in 3 weeks and the shower is really gross. So is it cleanliness or finishing the assignment that's really more important?
My head is totally empty. If I were reading this I'd stop right now because this is drivel. I know nothing about the world at this point in time. I have no intelligent opinions about anything that might concern you. I care about one thing, that is myself. I do the things that will make me survive until tomorrow. I am a pathetic loser but it doesn't even matter because no one cares about me anyway. Oh how I wish I could be in bed but I will not sleep because I will not wake up.

I feel really terrible. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. I'm scraping bottom as far as energy is concerned.
I went running a few days ago and I think I strained a muscle. I limp around and now I'm even slower than I was before. It feels like I bruised my foot where my toes are. That sucks.
Worse than that is the amount of work I have to do. I have one assignment that consists of about 12 essay questions. What's more, I've had two tests in less than 24 hours and a hard quiz coming up Tuesday. Plus my group project, which is sinking fast. I know I'm acting like a jerk to my group members. I guess all this stress just depresses me and I act serious all the time.

I went four days without pigging out on food. Four days before the temptation became too great and I had to have this little bag of garlic-butter croutons, and it went downhill from there. This morning I was overjoyed when my jeans still fit.
I question myself all the time. As soon as I have a moment to think, self-consciousness jolts me awake and I realize that I am an idiot.
Last night I looked back at some of the most hurtful moments of my life, when I've felt left out and alone, when I've been hurt by someone I trusted, when I've been confused and overwhelmed, and over and over again I see this girl who is so, so sensitive, who lacks self-esteem, who has always felt rejected by the world. I'm still that little girl sitting by herself in the corner of the classroom. I'm still the little girl who watches the other kids play and wishes that she could join in. I'm still that girl who is so frustrated because no matter how hard she's tried, she can't make a perfect drawing.
And this, finally, is what I want to change about myself. It's not changing how I do things, like having better social skills or drawing skills, or changing how I look. I've done those things before, and I've learned new skills and tried new things, but they are not an end in themselves. My conclusion: I have to become a whole new person. It's not the trim that's wrong, it's the rotten foundation (my fragile self-esteem) that threatens to collapse at any given moment.

My tragic life, oh how tragic it is. I watched some of the Grammys last night, but I turned it off at 10 because I felt tired. I got kind of tired of seeing Norah Jones go up to the stage. I guess I am disillusioned with the whole music industry. First of all, there's all that stuff with Kazaa. I'm all for Kazaa- or at least I think that "radio music" should be free to download. It's not as if no one buys CDs anymore, anyway. So the recording industry is suing Kazaa basically because of greed.
Second, I think that mainstream radio is just that. It is so boring, it is controlled by a select few, and marketed to slick perfection. Radio stations are franchises which always play it safe- they never include local bands in their playlists, or play anything really new or different.
Third, for every person or group that does make it in "the industry", there are a lot of bands with equal talent which never do. A lot of it is based on how good you'll look on MTV and how many teenage girls will buy your records.
So there's my rant on the music industry. I'll stop because by now I'm sounding cranky and annoyed, which I am.

I asked my dad to introduce me to his girlfriend, so I'm going to meet her Friday night. Ohhh, no, what did I do? I don't think she's some young blond that my 50-year-old father chased after. I get the impression that she's middle-aged and not extremely beautiful. I mean, she's an English professor, not a model. I don't know what I'll say- so you've been living with my dad? I don't know if I will be able to keep myself from comparing her to my mom.
I guess I feel so strange when I go out to lunch with my dad now that my sister works. It is so boring- we talk about the same stuff over and over again. It's like there's a list of "approved topics" that we can discuss. Or there's a long list of taboo topics, including but not limited to: politics, world events, religion, girlfriends/boyfriends, my mom, my dad's personal life, memories, emotions we feel towards each other, advice, anything too personal, really. I just don't know what to say this man whom I barely know.
I wish I could turn off this stupid internal dialog that goes on inside my head 24-7. I think that's why I write so much: all that crap that goes on in my mind has to come out sometime. For other people, they are constantly talking. Or I've heard that composers hear music in their head, so they have to write it down. But me, I'm a compulsive writer. I guess there are worse things that I could be.

Today I had a moment that gave me warm fuzzies all over. Maybe it just shows how starved for affection I am. No, I think it was a genuine moment. He sat right next to me in the lab and just starting talking, and after a few minutes he started talking about how he thought of something while he was in the shower and I was near drooling at that point. A guy with manners. In the shower. Sitting a foot away from me. Who actually seems to want to talk to me. All right, I think I'm getting overexcited.

While Mom and I were watching Survivor, my sister comes in with the phone. "Mom, it's Ji-im," she says teasingly. Even though it was the most exciting part of Survivor, the part where someone gets voted off, she goes off anyway. Meanwhile, I'm dying to know who Jim is. So I ask, and my sister says Mom joined a dating service. I think this is surprising, but I'm not against it. Here's the bizarre part: my dad joined the same dating service two years ago and he met his current girlfriend through it. And they told my mom! And she told my sister, who didn't know my dad was living with this woman.
So what's the strangest part here? That my divorced parents joined the same dating service? That my dad has been dating this woman for two years and we see him every single weekend, and my sister doesn't even know who she is, and my dad has mentioned her to me exactly once? That Jim, who boasts in his ad that he has a blue Corvette and a $300,000 house, wants to date my mom?

Team meeting got cancelled today. Can't say I'm disappointed. I wouldn't want to miss Survivor, you know.
My lab partner for physics got his bottom two front teeth knocked out. He said he was working on his car and he hit them with a ratchet. He showed me his teeth and they were missing the top part. It hurt just to look at them!
I have 24 hours to become an expert on use cases. This project is cool, but it's also hard to imagine how I'm going to do all this considering that I have no experience. Only one of our group members has much experience with the work we're doing.
I went to counseling on Wednesday. I think my therapist thinks that I don't really have a problem. Maybe she's right. I don't have some paralyzing phobia. I guess I just need to stop being lazy and grow up and force myself to face my fears.

God, I feel embarassed now. I keep running off my mouth at my group meetings. Think before you speak. Think before you speak.

I miraculously finished my assignment, one day late. I say miraculous because I am not very good at assembler programming, and to redo all the work I lost yesterday took hours today. It was a miracle that I even remembered what I did!
My throat is sore, my bedroom is a mess, my car is breaking down, I'm busting out of my jeans, but what else is new. I didn't really eat anything until 7 pm. Around six, I caught a glimpse of today's sunset through the window of the CS building and for a brief moment I wished I could just forget about my software team meeting and go outside and watch the sun set for an hour.

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I went to lunch with my grandparents yesterday. The main thing I noticed is how badly my grandpa is losing his memory. My dad called him while my grandma was at church and he didn't remember it at all. When we were at the restaurant, he forgot what he had ordered.
Granny argues with him about how he should take some medicine for this, but Grandpa is stubborn as a mule. He doesn't want to because it "upsets his stomach" and he's "already lived his life" and he already takes too many medicines. I think he just doesn't want to accept the fact that he has a problem. He thinks that his memory is just used up because he's old and has worked a long time.
I am scared about this. My other grandma has something like this, and it's strange and sad. She can't remember any details about my life, like she knows I'm in school, but every time she talks to me she asks me what year I'm in. She asks about my sister, and we always have to remind her that she's in college and that she doesn't live here anymore. I think my grandpa is probably at this point, too, but I don't know because I don't talk to him very much.
I remember when my mom used to ask my grandma to baby-sit for us. Now my aunt baby-sits her. She used to travel all over the place. Now she rarely leaves her house.
Is this how we're all going to end up? Is this how my parents are going to end up? This is really sad. If I were old, I would want to do everything possible to keep my memory intact. I think it's crazy that someone has these pills but won't take them. Even if they didn't work that well, I would take them anyway.

I am so angry right now I could scream. I think I will scream. AHHHHHHHHAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I stayed up past midnight yesterday working on my Comp Arch assignment. It was due yesterday, with today being the grace period. I nearly finished around 4, so I headed to the lab to send it off. When I got to the lab, the files that I had supposedly saved on my disk were all erased. Every last one of them, even the ones I downloaded from the Internet. Now all I have are some Scheme programs I wrote two years ago! I am an idiot. Lessons to be got from this awful experience: 1) start doing the assignment earlier, 2) don't overcommit yourself, 3) always, always, always have a backup copy. Maybe if I hadn't spent all afternoon with my grandparents this would not have happened, or if I hadn't spent all day yesterday volunteering for the expo and then all night hanging out with my mom. Even if I had all the files, the assignment was still kind of a mess as of 5 pm this afternoon. I should get organized. I have paper coming out of my ears, I don't even have good disks, which is why I'm using 2-year-old busted up floppies, and I wasted a whole bunch of time this week on crap. Why do I always do this to myself? This happens to me quite frequently: I wait to the absolute last minute to do things. Why can't I be one of those organized people? I have no chance of finishing this before 8, so I'm just going to wait a few hours and see if I can possibly bring myself to spend yet more hours programming stupid assembler language. Right now my brain is toasted and I'm really angry at myself for being such a flake. Why can't I ever do anything exceptionally well? I always end up turning in a shabby final product. Like this one will be a day late no matter how good it is, and trust me it won't be perfect. I am disappointed- I thought I was finally getting to be somewhat good at assembler, and now this crap happens to me so it is worth nothing. I'm going to spend all night figuring out problems I knew the answer to just a few hours ago. I can't stand this.

I read an article in Time magazine about the discovery of the DNA double helix structure before I went to bed yesterday, and it was surprising to me that Watson and Crick weren't the smartest scientists, or the most experienced, or the ones with the best equipment. They were just more resilient, more persistent, and luckier than the others. And they got help from other people, a lot of it.
Not that I'm some brilliant scientist, far from it, but I think that goes for anything you do. Genius is one percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration. And one person can't do it all, despite my frequent attempts to prove otherwise.

I can't believe I fell asleep. I was supposed to go to the computer lab this afternoon and finish up my assignment. Instead I came back to my room after class and fell asleep for almost two hours. I finished up some stuff after I woke up, but I'm still kind of disappointed in my lack of wakefulness. I'm not going to get too down on myself for it because I know that I will make it up sometime by staying up really late one night, or getting up early some morning. Still, I feel like I may be sleeping my life away.
Sometimes I feel guilty for not having this totally packed schedule. This girl in my SE group is taking either the same or more hours than I am, plus she's a TA, and she works her butt off on our stuff. But mostly I don't care. I like setting my own schedule- I can take the abovementioned nap if I need to, or just take time to chill out or pray or write. Yes, it is the good life, and I don't know how long it will last.

More of the same old stuff today. I went to Whataburger for dinner. After about 6:00 I don't feel like doing much of anything, especially cooking, which means I'll have to wash dishes.
I felt really bad today because I was really rude to this girl. My physics professor always insists on us working on the computer sim labs in partners and he paired us up and I knew I was being kind of rude. But this girl was really nice, she even introduced herself to me, and she was really into the lab, too. She read all the stuff while I mostly tuned it out, and she got all the answers right and I kind of got left behind. I don't know why I do this all the time- I prejudge people based on the way they look. I assumed that oh, she must be dumb, or she must be a snob, just because of how she looked. Something to work on.
I signed up for some volunteer work on Saturday. Unfortunately, I have to be there at 8:30 AM. I was hoping to be able to sleep late :(. Oh well, maybe I can finally have something to put on my resume. That's all from my boring, boring life for now. I hope your life is more exciting than mine.

So I went to my first counseling session today. The therapist was very nice. She looked a little bit like my grandma, and she said I looked 'scholarly.' Why- because I wear glasses and I don't wear makeup? Or because of the way I talk? All of that, I guess. Then she gave me a list of books to buy. I think she has a whole catalog of self-help books, from ADD to Schizophrenia. I don't know if I'm going to buy any of them, but I did make another appointment for next week.
I stayed in bed until 7:15 today. I've got to get up earlier. I have too much to do now. Maybe I'd feel better if I got some exercise in the morning. I haven't gotten much done today, even though I don't have classes in the afternoon or evening. The list of tasks seems endless: write a circuit simulation program, write two assembler programs. Write two use cases. Finish database homework. Research a report. Do volunteer work. The list goes on and on, but I like the fact that most of my work can be done on my home computer ( not the volunteer work, unfortunately). One of my professors was talking about how doing homework is so much easier now because we have the world wide web available. He's right. I don't give it much thought, but anything you don't understand or want to know more about, you can just type it in and there it is. Before the web I guess you would just spend a lot of time in the library. Using the card catalog! Now the library uses those cards as scratch paper. That's progress.

I am damn tired. I spent hours working on the group report, and barely had time to squeeze in my homework for other classes. I have this weird headache, the kind you get when you stay up all night even though I didn't even stay up all night.
In other news, I'm going to see a counselor tomorrow. I don't know what to expect. Maybe it will help, maybe not. I guess I've never really given therapy a shot when it comes to my social phobia. Something has to change. I don't want to just stay home all the time sleeping, watching the tube, and eating everything in sight. I'm going to get fatter. Yuck. I think that has a lot to do with these things. It's a vicious cycle- I don't go out because I feel self-conscious, so I stay home. Then I am at home and I feel depressed because I feel really lonely. So I eat because I'm bored and depressed. Then I get fatter, so I don't want to go out even more.
I want to change. So I will.
It is an ongoing quest for unconditional love. I feel that from God now, at last, I feel it from my parents, but I have never felt it from friends. So that's why I'm going to see this counselor.

This is why I hate working on group projects: We met on Thursday and Friday to start on the second report. (The report is due Monday at 5 pm.) We divided all the work up and were supposed to e-mail each other our parts to be put together on Sunday afternoon. I did my part and e-mailed it Saturday night (because I'm a loser and have no life). Another group member e-mailed me his part and it was OK but I think it needs to be rewritten. So I have my one part and this other guy's one part which needs a lot of work. Two members of our group are apparently taking a long time to finish. I don't know what they're doing at all; no one has said anything or written any e-mails to say what's going on; we have less than 24 hours to put everything together and make things *perfect*; and I am getting stressed.
At church this morning I felt so peaceful. I don't think that just because you're a Christian all your problems go away (see above). It puts things into perspective. It is by the grace of God that I take my next breath. Without love I am nothing, I am a shell of a person. The two greatest commandments: Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love others as yourself.

I went to the grocery store this morning and everything was out of date. The produce was really bad- limp broccoli, gross tomatoes, out-of-date tortillas. I bought two bags of sugary cereal buy-one-get-one-free. I don't think I'll be going back there any time soon.
When I got home I cleaned up my apartment like usual. I didn't feel like it at all but I just did it anyway.
The weather is cold and wet and it depresses me. I'm doing my project but I don't really feel like doing that either. It's hard for me to work on a team because I'm used to doing everything myself. Sometimes I just want to do things myself so I know they'll get done and they won't take forever. Plus the more I get into what we are actually going to have to build the more I realize that I know nothing. I don't know how to do any of this!
I don't like how I've been acting lately. I watch too much TV. I do stupid things. I am so cynical sometimes. I don't take anything seriously. I feel like I'm in this hyper state, like I have this extremely short attention span. I'm emotional sometimes, but I think I'm like immune from getting too happy or too sad. I'm not emotionally invested in anything, really, and I make sure of that. I haven't had one of those happy moments in a while. I'm just kind of blah, because I have to be, I guess.

I'm super bummed out. Or maybe I'm just a super bum. I've taken advantage of two free lunches this week, so who says there is no such thing? I've spent this Friday night the way I spend every Friday night: going out to dinner with my dad and then staying with my mom to watch crappy TV. Then I go home to my apartment and sit alone at my computer writing about how alone I feel.

It's cold and windy. Surprise, surprise, I thought winter was over. I feel like a lazy ass since my apartment is a total mess, I'm doing a minimal part of my group project, I don't have a job, I've watched hours and hours of TV, and I've eaten way too much. And I'm writing on this stupid thing instead of actually doing something!
This blog is utterly boring. I'm thinking about doing something different with it, like making it with more links and more news-oriented instead of with a bunch of drivel. I certainly can't complain that I don't have time to do this, and maybe I owe it to myself and to my readers(?) (even if there is only one of you out there) to try to do something a little more interesting and much less self-absorbed. We'll see how it goes.

I hate days like this. Overcast, cold, windy. A physics test that seemed simple but that I might have failed. Is it always a bad sign when you're the last one to turn it in? Database management. Even the name sounds boring. Didn't do much in that class.
There was some kind of protest today in the Union. I think it was about drug legalization, an issue I haven't made my mind up on entirely. I'm mostly indifferent to it. I think there are other issues which affect us more, like the war in Iraq. No blood for oil. Also environmental issues- look what we're doing to our planet. It's frightening, really.

This thing is so stupid. I use it to air out my feelings but it doesn't help sometimes. Sometimes I am hopeful and optimistic but other times I can't see an end in sight.
I really don't want to be fat for the rest of my life. Is eating cookies and drinking soda really worth it in the long run? I feel unattractive plus I'm heading toward health problems in the future. Once in a while I'll try to eat healthy and exercise in an effort to lose weight but there has not been the commitment I once had. I honestly believe that one day I will be ready to do this. It sounds like procrastination, but I really do believe that. I've done it before.
I will go a day or two eating the minimum and exercising at least 30 minutes, then I will go back to buying a box of cookies and a pint of Ben and Jerry's, or order a huge plate of food for lunch, or eating everything in the cupboard.
There is only one thing that is effective for me, or anyone, barring drastic chemical or surgical means, to lose weight, and that thing is discipline. It's passing up that pizza, those candy bars, that soda, and eating good, healthy food. It's getting up every morning to exercise.
I think after a point of doing it I get freaked out because I feel like I'm starving myself. Like today I went jogging and I was so hungry for lunch and all I had was this little sandwich, a few chips and half a can of Coke. I was like, am I eating enough? I felt full enough, but I was still afraid. One day isn't going to make you malnourished, but still, there is a sensible diet and then there's a freakishly controlled diet. So you see, this is why I don't feel like I'm ready to start some kind of diet program. And exercise- there's good exercise that will keep you healthy and there's crazy freakish exercise that will hurt you in the long run. I have visions of how I was, like when I was like a pile of bones and I was still jogging like crazy, or when I didn't eat any protein at all, no dairy, no fruit, no fat, no sugar. That scares me. So I go back to double stuff oreos and dr pepper. But now I think that is more like binge eating than anything else. I eat very little then eat a lot. It's better to be more stable, like eating the same amount every day, and staying at the same average weight. Right now I'm going up in weight little by little, though I'm still wearing the same pant size I did two months ago.
I don't think it's a good thing to look at food as an enemy, or to classify certain foods as bad. There are people starving in the world right now. It's ridiculous to starve yourself when there's food all around you. When I starved myself, when I finally came around, I was just like, you know, if you're hungry, just eat. If you want to eat this, why don't you? Don't be like, I can't eat this, or I won't eat this, it's just food. Granted, there are certain foods with more nutritional value than others, but don't deny yourself a full life. What kind of life is it if all you eat is rice and beans, dry salad, and dry potatoes? I guess by reading this blog you can probably tell that food is very important to me. It is. The experience that I had just makes food all the more enjoyable. Eating tends to bring out the emotions, the memories of that time. There is something so liberating about thinking that I live in the 21st century and have pretty much unlimited food choices. I am happier now that I enjoy eating. I have seen pictures of people who are starving. They don't look happy. They look sick, they look sad. Extremely fat people are often unhappy also, but not like starving people. Starvation does crazy things to your body and your brain. Starvation = death. Maybe the best thing I could do is forget about food and get caught up in something else. Most of the time it doesn't work because I think that humans are programmed to constantly think about food, as a survival instinct. I remember I used to beat myself up for thinking about food, like it was a sign of weakness, but I was wrong to do that. I wouldn't eat until I was ravenously hungry, then of course I would limit my portion sizes to something ridiculously small. I was a horrible control freak.
Eating as much as you want is fun. Starvation is not fun. Discipline is not fun. I guess being fat is not fun, either. *Sigh* and the struggle continues.

I went jogging this morning and it made me feel better. It's strange how that one thing can make so much difference in how I feel, to take my mind off of things, and to relieve my guilt about being a couch potato.
My arch. professor said this morning that only one person in the class turned in the assignment on time. I thought I was going to be in the minority when I turned in my assignment during the "grace period". I guess we're all in the same boat.
My life is boring at the moment. Still no adequate solution for the whole summer school issue, though it would be great if I could graduate on time. We're talking one class here that will make the difference.
I wonder what I could be doing to be more productive. I don't really want to get a job. I don't need the money. I guess I could volunteer for something, but it seems pointless to just do something just to do it, just to say I'm not sitting around doing nothing, and that I'm helping people, but how much am I really helping them? Or just volunteer for the experience? I guess the point is that I don't want to work :). I'm having fun just being a full-time student, which basically means working your ass off at some points, but otherwise having it easy. I went to class in the morning, but took most of the afternoon off. I took a two-hour nap. I watched Oprah. I'm not into pushing myself too hard, but am I not pushing hard enough? When I get a job, my resume is going to look pretty skimpy. My major is CS, but my minor is in Felicity trivia.
I don't have that motivation to produce things. Even though I've heard all this crap about how the job market is tight, I honestly don't think I'll have a hard time finding a job and that I need to pad my resume with all this "experience". Or maybe it will be hard, but I don't really care right now.

I blame my completely sour attitude on PMS. Somehow I feel more justified in being in a depressed mood when I have something to blame it on. Last night I felt terrible. I was in a state of panic over my assignment. I don't feel like I did a very good job, but I had to turn in something. Then I went to McDonald's for dinner and sat alone at a table with my flatbread sandwich reading the paper. I watched some TV, but nothing good was on. (Is there ever really anything "good" on TV?)
But then something strange happened. The Beach Boys? Spiritual? I took a shower, braided my wet hair and fell asleep. The night before I was up at 4:00 because of my roommate's friends. 4 am and there I was not even tired, kind of keyed up because of all the sugar and caffeine in my system, typing up my program. I typed for an hour and went back to bed. How did I do that? Why did I do that?

I've been going through some serious Internet withdrawal symptoms for the past few days. My Internet connection hasn't been working since Thursday night, which is coincidentally the exact same time I needed it so I could submit my homework assignment. I had another assignment on Friday which I needed to submit online. This sucks.
I put in a full day of work on Friday, something I haven't done in a long time. It's strange how school is starting to feel like a real job.
The CS department is not offering any classes this summer. This is a big problem for my graduation plans. My options: take some kind of independent study in summer school with special approval, which would likely only count as one elective, then take fifteen hours in the fall and graduate in December. Or just take some non-CS elective in summer school or Maymester, take twelve hours in the fall, then take six hours of electives in the spring and graduate in May. I knew something like this would happen. I don't know who to blame: the stupid state of Texas with their budget deficit, the university for not getting enough funding, or the CS department that cares so little about the students. Whoever is to blame, it is not fair.