Summer days and vague threats aimed at my car

Summer break started almost a week ago, and I've been the queen of the un-motivated since then. Part of it is that I tend to have bouts of insomnia due to stress, which has left me in bed until 11 or later. I was up and at 'em by 9:30 at the latest this quarter, every single day, so I guess I'm making up for lost time?

I've been trying to figure out what I'm going to do this summer, what things I'm going to do to fill the hours that I'm not at work or doing anything else that would amount to much of anything. I'm hoping to learn to sew, to volunteer and to read all of the books that I've had to set aside and give up on this past year. But right now, I just want to cocoon myself in bed and dream all the hours away, because I'm just special that way. 

By the end of this week, the biggest thing I'll have managed will be helping my dad replace my spark plugs and wires, because my car has decided that it needs me to hate it a little bit. 

As you might remember, I had to replace the head gasket in March after finding out that it was slowly falling apart and would likely EXPLODE and DESTROY THE EARTH if I didn't get it replaced. Okay, my mechanic didn't use those words exactly, but the implied outcome was that I'd be all dead and corpseified, a look that I imagine wasn't THAT popular on the Spring runways.

Then, at the very end of April, I performed the Worst Parking Job Ever and destroyed my front right tire. Because life isn't fun unless the Wal-Mart employees are marveling at your exploded tire and asking your dad where the car is and whether this is something his kid manages to do regularly. Teach me to run late for work.

Oh! And in May, wonderful, glorious, I hated it so much that I contemplated moving to another country where they use a different calendar system May, I guess something in the undercarriage needed welded back into place. I'm not clear on what it was, exactly, because I wasn't home much that week for various reasons, and Dad went ahead and got it fixed because it sounded really, really bad. I know it rattled.

So, we come in on June, and I'm in the post-finals haze, wondering how, exactly, I got through the past 11 weeks, when my car refuses to climb a hill or start on the first try. Or  the second. Or the third. THEN it'd start and I'd give it a firm lecture on behavior and how if it doesn't clean up its act, I'm going to... and then I'd run out of steam because nothing I could say was quite threatening enough. "I'm going to sell you to the scrap man" only works if you have the cash to buy the next car.

After a few days of The Car Acting Stupid, Act IV, it all magically cleared up. Well, except for the hills thing, it's still having some issues with those. Dad has declared that it must be a plugs/wires issue, given that it cleared up once it dried out (we had the rain of cats and dogs last week). So, I went to the auto shop yesterday and bought all the nifty things that I need to make my car run like an effing normal car. I made the error of wearing girly clothes (wedges and one of those elastic top dresses), and clearly didn't know much about my car, so the guy who worked there gently asked if my dad was going to put them in for me.

Maybe I should learn the ins-and-outs of my car this summer. 

Accidentally scarce

My new year started with a bladder infection, one that I wasn't able to get diagnosed and treated until the Monday after New Years. The Monday after New Years was also the first day of classes of winter quarter.

I think I deserve a medal for not dying from the pain those first few days. I also deserve a medal for not snapping and running through the streets screaming after my eighty-seventh visit to the bathroom in an hour. My doctor prescribed Cipro, probably because, by the time I got to the doctor, I'd had the infection long enough that there was a chance the damn infection had spread. I ended up saying 'Hello, kidneys, please note that I thanked you for nineteen years of hard work by sending an infection your way!' You know, basically. 

Anyway, since then I have been busy working, going to class or studying. I've not had a lot of time to blog. I started the first week having to play catch-up and I'm just now getting to a point where I am not tearing my hair out trying to concentrate on the task at hand, because my brain is busy thinking about all the other things I need to do.

Hopefully there will be more posts over the next few weeks. 

You were an engine driver, I was a deep sea diver

One thing I had magically forgotten during my ten week 'vacation' from school was how hard school actually is.

I should have remembered when I found my notes from spring quarter and DID NOT REMEMBER those days. At all. I knew I had gone to class because I had all of my notes and papers in the notebook in my hands, but I didn't remember the lecture or if I had contributed anything thoughtful to the class that day. I was waking up by no later then 7 am every single week day, working eight hours and going to class eighteen hours and foregoing a social life for that education thing.

I am trying to keep everything balanced. It helps that I am on campus now, as much as I miss home. It's easier to go out and have a life when the life is a five minute walk from where you sleep and study.

This week started with plans to do EVERYTHING and has slowly narrowed to a few select things. I actually went to the formal sorority rush last night, only to drop out two hours later. I was going to miss every event they were holding this weekend and I could only imagine what the rest of the quarter was going to be like. OU, being on a quarter schedule, has tests soon after classes start; there was no way I could cram for my tests AND be a pledge AND work AND do all the other things I have to do, including sleep. Sleeping is so very important to my sanity, next to eating three meals a day and getting to read something non-school assigned at least once a day. If you ever want to know what I am like when I am drunk, just keep from sleeping. Once I hit about hour 22 of being awake, I will be just as insane and likely to fall over as anyone who is drunk. I've experienced this in the past and can only imagine how much more FUN it will be considering one of my jobs at work is calling people and leaving messages. 

If you ever order books from where I work and get a message where the caller says 'we are open until...' and then recites a phone number, then says 'you can reach us at 7 pm if you have any questions,' that is me. 

Just wait 'til I get a little further in Chinese.