Things that are good:

According to the dude who plays J.D. -- Zach Braff -- on scrubs, there will be an 18 episode 8th season. http://www.zachbraff.com/ <-- That is his blog. He talks about it in the latest post.

My finals are done.


Things that are bad: Another tornado watch/warning thingie in effect! This is Virginia, weather. We had our first tornado in yeaaaarss just like, a week ago. Richmond, though, is only supposed to get thunderstorms.

I am back from the ER. Foot was sprained - -not broken. It still hurts. But, now I have a bandage, and an orthopedic shoe, and, crutches. Plus, mom will help me get to classes tomorrow, the last day of them before finals.

I have a Latin final tomorrow I'm kinda terrified about. But, if it goes wrong I'll just retake the stupid class. Yes.

This morning, I was going to get some water after finishing eating some pizza. I need more alll-uu-miin--iiii-um I sang to myself as I cavorted across my apartment.

Then my ankle gave way beneath me.

Now, this is certainly not the first time this has happened to me. Not the tenth, or the fiftieth either. It's happened before. It sucks. But, the worst I've gotten in it from the past were some cuts.

I hit the floor. Hard. Cursed loudly. Listening to the frightened birds flutter around me.

My foot hurt. My elbow hurt. my boob hurt. I examined my elbow for damage -- none -- boob for damage -- none -- and lastly glanced at my foot. It looked fine.

My elbow and boob stopped hurting fairly promptly. My foot still hurt. It wasn't bad though. Nothing I couldn't handle. I've hurt it worse before. I got on, played some WoW, and after an hour my foot still hurt.

I went and took an hour long bath. My foot still hurt. A little worse even.

I limp out of the bath and call my mother. Who says, go to class, then go the the ER. Right I say.

The foot gets worse.

I have to go out to pick up a package anyway (more BPAL eheh...) so I deciede to see if I can go to the ER then. There's a half hour ordeal where I drive around, tears of frustration streaming down my face as it becomes more apparent that parking for the ER is going to be a job and a half. There's no free parking that is close enough for me to walk in my current state. The pay parking requires cash, which I wasn't carrying any of. I call mom. She explains that she can't come up because Abby needs to be taken to her classes and whatnot. I explain that right now I cannot deal with what it would take to get to the emergency room. There is much crying. I finally decide to just catch a bus from school to the med school after class.

I get home. Fully intending to go to class. It takes me 15-20 minutes to limp the walk from my car to my apartment. I am crying the entire way in pain at this point. There's rain drizzling down, and I'm limping in these horrible, shuffling steps, crying and whispering how I would kill for some crutches... Near the end, I was ready to drop on my knees and crawl.

But, I could still force myself to walk on the foot.

I got home, and laid down for thirty minutes, calling The Boy and talking to him -- due to distance, he couldn't offer any more than emotional support then. I got hungry, and decided to limp the 6 feet to my kitchen...

Note that at this point I still fully intended to go to class.

Right up until I touched my foot to the ground and it became readily apparent that I'd hit my pain threshold. It got worse. Crawling to get food was agony, every time I jarred my foot pain just screaming from it.

I called mom, and explain that I cannot walk now, and, she makes the arrangements to come up. Evidently Ab will be skipping her classes.

And The Wait began.

I am still in The Wait. I have no idea if my foot is broken or not. All I know, is I'm in way too much pain to walk. I fear I might have fractured my foot, and then fucked it up more by walking on it.

One thing that is really annoying is when the rest of your body is good to walk, but, your foot can't handle it. Legs? Sound! Ankle? Ready! Right foot? Just point it in the right direction.

But the second pressure is applied my left foot *screams*. I cannot stand on it. I really have always assumed that pain was just a mind over matter deal. But, in this case, it isn't. The pain is too intense to put weight on it. Reflexes jerk, tears stream, my voice screams of its own accord.

I feel like such a pussy for letting my pain get the best of me. But, I've hit my limit. And, god I wish I'd done this to my elbow instead. At least then I could walk (though... not drive... but I could still get to a bus to see help).

Two to three more hours before mom gets here. I've put on shoes and socks now, so that as my foot swells more the shoe will already be on. I can feel it pushing against the sides of my shoe. It hurts.

Wish me luck guys.

A PSA:

Life. Is. Not. Fair.

I'm not complaining. I just feel the need to scream it, because I just had to read an article for class, by on Michael Levy, who makes an argument on how wealth should not be inherited. It's a good argument, but...

...As much as we like to deny it human being are complex animals. Evolution, being evolution, has programmed us to care more about the propogation of our family line as opposed to anyone else's. Simply put, the majority of people are psychotic about their children, because, as a species, that is what we are supposed to do.

I say family line as opposed to genes, because we have progressed beyond the point where offspring need to be genetically related to us to gain our psychotic love. Simply being raised by us is enough for inclusion into a family line. We have expanded the idea of what constitutes 'our' child beyond simple consanguinity. There is a metaphysical aspect to it.

But.

But.

We still draw distinctions between our children and relatives and that of others. It is part of what we are as an animal. As much as anyone tries to deny it, this is a competition, and we want those carrying out genes, our ideals, our love, our family name, our family history, and any other things which constitute a bit of us to survive over those who don't.

Is this selfish? Yup.

Life. Is. Not. Fair.

Life is a struggle with killing, and bleeding, and fighting. The ideal of nature living in perfect harmony is frankly complete bullshit. Everything is fighting to survive. It. Is. Not. Fair. Species were going extinct long before humans appeared. How many have died so that others might survive?

The fact that we can identify that it is not fair means be can start trying to make things more fair. However, complete fairness among human beings, at this stage in our evolution, is idiotic. As a species we'd need to change to accommodate the idea that the 'hive' is more important than the individual. Several societies are heading in this direction, but, even in them, the concept of something so utterly individualistic as family exists. For complete fairness, we need to be able to truly identify other human beings as brothers and sisters not just in name but, as we actually identify our kin now. The concept of kin needs to become irrelevant, because all human beings are considered kin, so, that distinction no longer needs to be made.

Inheritance is a form of us giving privilege that will be given to those one considers kin. It is not fair. And, at this stage, trying to change that is a task that would fail, because we are not ready to give up the concept of kin, I think. Therefore, we need to accept this and move on to spending our effort going up against social inequalities that can be more readily changed. In 300, 400 years I think Levy's idea need to be revisited, but, they are, right now, not realistic.

Yes yes, I know I got the oils a long while back. Don't judge me.

( Anyway. On to the reviews. )

Tags: bpal, miskatonic university, the lion, undertow

So. I woke up on Friday and prepared to leave to pick up Ellen so we could crash in Roanoke. We were going to attend Technicon.Yes, I woke up at 2. Anyway.

I go out to my parking lot.

My car has been towed. Accidentally. You see, many moons ago my mother tore the decal which allows me to not be towed away from where I PAY TO PARK. We taped it back up, but, the tape dried out and two days before it had broken like, in the middle of the night after I had made a food run (It should be noted, that, the same night it tore there was a murder a block or two from campus of a student. This is the kind of Friendly Environment I live in. I did not know about the murder yet, but, anyone in Richmond with half a brain wants to minimize the amount of time spent out of doors after 10 PM and until about 7 AM).

I set my decal on the seat. Figuring that even if they came to tow the car in the middle of the night, they'd have to shine a flashlight in to see if it was on the rearview mirror, and, seeing it not would note it RIGHT THERE ON THE BLACK SEAT. IT'S BRIGHT PINK and HUGE.

At this point in time, I had no idea that the towing company had it in their *contract* with my land lords that the decal must be On The Rearview Mirror And Nowhere Else Or Yea It Is A Legit Tow. I stood in the parking lot, suitcase in hand, panic setting in. There is a tiny little car repair shop in the middle of this parking lot and the guy who owns it owns the half of the parking lot that my landlords well... don't. The guy who runs the repair shop, a sweet little old black man, comes out, seeing me standing there and I ask him if my car had been towed. He hadn't seen it, but, well, it took about 30 seconds to figure out if it had. He took pity on me, as a few months back he'd accidentally crossed the invisible line between the "Two" parking lots a bit when he left his own car there, and, even though it was partially on *his own property* they towed him.

So, he took me into his shop and he and his wife looked around until they found the number for the towing company. I called them, and, they were complete assholes to me. Since I had NO WAY to get even *TO MY CAR* for about a week (Parents had way too many obligations to come up and help me. And the place where the towing company was was a Good Walk from any bus stoop I started, to my personal horror, to cry. As I hung up the old man's wife asked him "You gonna take her there?" and he responded "Yep". I was astonished at the kindness of strangers, and, asked his name. It was Joe. And lo, Joe took me to the towing place.

There I was fed line of bullshit after line of bullshit. Why didn't they recognise my goddamn car? I've been LIVING THERE A YEAR. My car has BUMPERSTICKERS. They should have my fucking licence number by this point! Oh, well, they change their drivers like all the time and can't be sure if the driver will remember a car. (Note, that when I called the car was so distinctive the person knew they had it the moment I described it. No looking up on the computer. No going out into the lot to see it). They sticker was RIGHT THERE ON THE SEAT. They informed me that it was night time so the driver couldn't see it. Plus, you know, the contract that I've never seen says this and this.

I'm 99% sure they knew it was the car of someone who lived there, and towed it anyway. 'Coss towing cars and then holding them until they're paid is their JOB so they're going to do it at *every opportunity*.

The greatest amount of sympathy I got was, after I paid the 125$ to get my car pack knowing I was having a Fast One pulled on me, was the lady there telling me to lie to my land lord to see if I could get any reimbursement for this whole thing. After she did this I asked her for a new decal-sticker-hangy-thingie (that I don't know what to call it) and she said "No, I can't give you one. I'm the only one here today and they're locked away where I can't them. Go ask your landlord"

This struck me as another line of bullshit, perhaps trying to set me up so that I'd be at risk to be TOWED AGAIN that night. 6PM on a Friday at this point. It was the weekend. I COULDN'T CALL MY LANDLORD they were CLOSED, and would be so until Monday.

Since I was still going to go out of town (Though, running a couple of hours behind schedule thanks to this whole pile of shit) I didn't fight over it though. I got my car, got the torn decal, and drove off.

Ellen and her folks were livid when I explained what happened. My parents were both furious on my behalf, my father to the point where he agreed to help me try and get all of the money back. So yeah, I'm gonna have to go on the warpath when I get home. Because the situation comes down to: A: I'm a paying customer there. B: No one told me that the towing company had such stringent rules and would tow me should I ever slip up on one rules (Which I was not aware of!). C: The towing company was very rude to me and *told me to lie* to the company which they have a contract with. And which I actually have had good experiences with.

Technicon was awesome. Ursula Vernon was awesome. George R.R. Martin was awesome. We didn't get to stay the whole day because I was Big Heap Sleepy by about 7 PM and I was the only one who could do the hour drive home (because El hasn't gotten her license yet, though she be 18, and Abby has another 9ish months before she will be allowed a license. It was a blast, and, almost made up for the shit from the towning company.

Right now we're trying to work out how to rig the decal-sticker-hangy-thing to stay up until I get a new one. Which probably won't be until Wednesday. Maybe Monday if school work doesn't eat me.

Dear Diary:

Today was a good day.

-- Got a professor to agree give me a letter of recommendation after the semester is done. Yeah. I did that fast. HOPEFULLY HE WILL COME THROUGH. I have to get ahold of one prof in Roanoke (who wrote me a glowing letter of recommendation for an internship a while back). And then I have to find one more. I have two candidates here. I can DO this. Rar!

-- I was the curve breaker on an exam. It's always nice to know you got the highest score in the class. <3

-- My motivation has just SPIKED like crazy. This is not like what it was when I had to get ready to go to university. This is like I WANTS TO DO THINGS I wants grad school! Part of it, I think, is pure *spite* driving me. I want a PhD for the ever noble reason that I can rub it in the face of everyone who has ever called me stupid, or dissed my education. I was scared earlier this year, of the fact that I'm going to turn 20 this year, and the fact that it's time to set things up for Grad School. And, you know, that fear's still there. But, this fear has turned into a fire. It's time to start flapping my wings, and even if I crash and burn I've gotta try to fly. Now, I can either ignore that fact and pretend it doesn't exist, or I can meet it gung-ho

People have always said that after college they felt like they could do anything. That young adult-hood, being 19-22 comes with this sort of insane confidence. To be honest, I've had no idea what they were talking about until now. I don't feel that way now, I know there is a *very real* possibility of failing. But, it's time for battle. So, I can either cower or hide, or grab my spear and run at those fuckers screaming my head off. And right now? Sound the horn and call the cry. *

Part of me is suspicious of this feeling being mania. But, perhaps this is just what I need. Discipline. Motivation. Fire. I think I might be feeling this because something inside of me has decided that, no, my future is NOT one where I'll be lucky if I avoid being homeless. I'm worth something, and, it might not be much but... It's enough that I can fight. I might not be as smart as other people, or as lucky, or as talented, but I'll be damned if I'm not the most bloody minded person I know. I also feel pretty fierce right now. And, god, if I can just keep this running for like... a year. Just keep some fragment of these feelings for a year then I think that'll be enough.

-- It's 75 degrees out, and ll the professors are ending classes early so we can go and frolic. This frolicking means I have time to study for a Latin test. Woop woop Latin!

-------------
* Did you know that Heather Alexander transitioned genders, and with uh... their... latest album has duets between Heather Alexander(This person's female name, and, who they were pre-gender transition) and Alexander James Adams (Who they are now, as a male)? I did not. I found this while googling for the mp3 for March of Cambreadth to link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_James_Adams -- Check it.

So, I talked with a professor and they were like "You want to be a cultural sociologist. YOU NEED TO GO TO UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL. They's got Uber Sociologists there". So, like, I looked into it and yeah, Chapel Hill is now my first choice... Shortly followed by Duke who is Right Next Door. Backup schools will be Virginia Tech and well, here.

BUT, I mean, 2 of the best sociology schools IN THE COUNTRY are right next to each other. I looked it up, and Duke has a 100% job placement, and Chapel Hill has a 92% job placement, so, they have BECOME MY MECCA. So. Yeah. Hopefully next fall I will be moving to Carolina! *Le excited jibbering!*

BUT TO DO THAT I HAVE A MISSION NOW:

I must get:
3 letters of reccomendation
my GRE done
And, of course, graduate.

Letters of Rec and the GRE must be done by Septemberish. Graduation must be done spring of '09.

For shits and giggles part of me wants to apply to Stanford too. But, I know that that would Be Expensive and also it's in Fucking California, which is kinda a case of 'nuff said.