Is This Real Life?

It's Thursday. That must mean I lived through the last four days. Whoa.

If you had asked me Sunday night whether I expected to live until Thursday, I would have laughed miserably and said no. Or vomited on your shoes.

Sunday night found me in the clutches of a high fever. I went to bed early even though Monday was President's Day and I didn't have work or school to worry about. This worked out pretty well, and I was just starting to feel a little better when Tuesday morning rolled around.

"Golly," I wondered upon awakening (at 3:00 am), "Why is there a fiery serpent in my throat?" I would probably have proceeded to ask the question out loud - to the Russian spy satellites and Big Brother - but I quickly found out that I had almost no voice whatsoever.

You know, when you lose your voice, you get an appreciation for how much you usually talk. Especially if you're me, and your mouth runs marathons for fun, even if there's no one around to listen to you. It was almost spooky how quiet everything was without the golden tones of my jabbering to fill the air. But don't forget, my tonsils were in revolt and it hurt too much to swallow or, you know, breathe so I had more important things on my mind than the spooky silence.

Oh! And I was in SCHOOL, so I had all that to worry about too. I had three big exams I hadn't studied for and two essays I'd barely even thought about writing, and the three-day weekend had done absolutely nothing for my schooling. So I was forced to "improvise."

(Note: "Improvise" is best defined here with an example. Suppose a man has been contracted to knock down a brick wall. He shows up without any tools because, oops, the heavy machinery store was closed by the time he got there and he forgot that his toolbox is at his grandma's house. However, he is determined to finish the job, for he is a man of honor. He decides to "improvise." He takes a few steps back, then runs at the wall and bangs his head into it. Ouch, that hurt. He repeats the process a couple of times. Yeah, this is just going to keep on hurting until it's over. Resigning himself to abject misery and brain damage, he continues to crash his head into the wall until it eventually falls down, berating himself all the while for watching TV when he should have been looking for his toolbox.)

Yeah. So I "improvised" all day long for Tuesday and Wednesday, and all sorts of things went wrong, but even more things miraculously went right. And you know what? I got it all done! Yeah, crazy, I know! I did the research for and wrote a 4-page paper in an hour and twenty minutes, did another paper in about thirty-five minutes, and dragged my way through three hours of vigorous testing. And all of this on a vending machine diet, insufficient sleep, and brain fever. I'd claim superhero-powers, but the truth is that I pray a lot.

And now I find it to be Thursday, and I am dodging no bullets, dangling over no alligator-infested pits, and apparently likely to live for a great many years to come. It's odd, because in the morning every day seems like a giant cactus that's about to fall on my head, and yet by nightfall I am rarely covered in poisonous spines.

College: I'm just always surprised when I've made it through another week.

Felíz Día de San Valentín

Everybody is celebrating Valentine's Day, and I'm no exception. I've never had a real Valentine for this holiday (you know, like a . . . boyfriend or something) but I like watching other people doing especially nice things for each other and I like eating lots of chocolates. Also, I like imagining where my future husband is right now, and how excited he's going to be when he finally finds me. (:

I've been thinking all day about this blog post, but I just haven't come up with anything to say. My brain's been a little busy with memorizing Louisa May Alcott's biography, trying to figure out quantum mechanics, philosophizing about the differences between Emerson and Thoreau, and then trying to do it all over again in Spanish. I'm too worn out to think by the time I get home.

But I've already done LOTS of writing on the subject of Love, so I didn't see why I should have to come up with something new today. I went back through my blog post and found a dozen posts about Love in one form or another, and provided the links below. They are as follows, and in no particular order:

The one where Jimmy kissed me

Addam's Family love quotes

The Void between those who have and those who haven't

Valentine's Day 2009

One Semester of Spanish Spanish Love Song

How to Date a Vampire

Thinking about Love

My very famous short-story "The Voices"

A weird guy from work talks about dating

Rewriting Shakespeare, Writing to Stephenie Meyer

Instant Love

"Zoobie Zombie"

I offer a sympathetic nod to those of you celebrating S.A.D. (Single Awareness Day) and an amused wave to you couples getting all googly-eyed. 

To one and all, crotchety and enamored, HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Alena

This is my friend Alena:

(She's real, I swear! It's just that I'm not on Facebook, so I couldn't snatch any real-life photos of her. I made her draw  this on my laptop here in the HBLL.)

Alena works custodial with me at 4:00 in the morning, so she's pretty cool. Unlike me, she's actually there EARLY every day! (What's up with that?) Also, she's an Amazonian princess with massive biceps, but she doesn't like to talk about that.

Damon the Ditcher - my OLD friend from work - brought us together when he skipped work one day and I took his spot as Alena's partner on bathrooms. We spent the whole time talking about Damon and making fun of his shiny bald head. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

We still make fun of people a lot. To their faces. Out of love, of course. (It's the people we DON'T make fun of who have something to worry about.) Like Jo-nathan, who tells us things he probably shouldn't, because we never let him live 'em down. Or Brian, who is a shout-y mean boss with a cuddly little heart on the inside. Or Thomas the Ballroom Dancer, who is currently suffering a fake-bake tan so that he'll win more dance competitions. We're like family; we make fun of each other to show that we care.

Alena and I study in the library together after work. Actually, if we're together, we're probably not studying. If we want to really get anything done, we have to take a vow of silence and stop distracting each other. But it's still nice to have someone nice sitting by you while you do your homework. Someone to beat off the boys with a crowbar. (We have that problem a lot, naturally.)

We recently discovered a poster in one of the recycling bins at work. A Humanities poster with a VERY attractive man on it. Alena and I loved that man too much to send him off to be reincarnated into a t-shirt or something, so we stole the poster and hung it in our custodial closet where we could see his handsome face every day. It was a really excellent plan, until Brian came in and found four of us girls giggling around the poster and his Fun allergy kicked in. He drew on our beloved's face with a marker and then threw him away! Alena and I are still not speaking to him.

So now you know Alena, and when I tell you about the crazy capers we're getting up to, you'll understand who I'm talking about. Because we have some pretty crazy capers planned for our dearly departed friend Damon. Oh yes....

Procrastination . . .

. . .leads to damnation.

It's the truth, and yet I still do it. I see a big assignment coming and I say, "Ooh, that looks nasty. I better not leave that to the last minute."

Then a few days later I see a reminder about it and I say, "Oh yeah. That nasty assignment. I don't want to do that, but I really should, or I'm going to be totally miserable and do a lousy job last minute."

Then a few days later I'm saying, "Hm. That stupid assignment is all I can think about. Maybe I should just DO it already. ....oh hey! The dog's nails haven't been clipped lately! I'd better get to that first!"

And then I find myself looking that deadline full in the face, and it's grinning maliciously at me with its razor-sharp teeth and I just want to cry because I've barely even started the stupid thing.

(*moans, sighs, and vomits*) I hate college.

How to Get Rid of Company

Watch it. Really. And you have to watch it all the way through to the end, or it won't be as funny.

But I'm seriously considering taking a leaf out of this guy's book. Some people just can't take a hint, and you know what they say:

"People who can't take a hint have to be HIT!"

New Feature

A long time ago - like, a month ago - I made some New Year's Resolutionish things. (It's the last post in December, you can't miss it.) One of the resolutions was actually a prediction, a bet: I guessed that I would watch a dozen of my friends become married people this year.

That may have seemed a little silly at the time, but we only just finished the month of January and I have already had three of my friends become engaged!

O.O

Anyway, it was starting to be difficult for me to keep track in my head all the time, so I figured I'd just make a list right here on my blog. You may have noticed it. It's just over there, on the right side of your screen, above my outdated profile picture.

Yeah, you found it.


I know they're only engaged, and not married, but it's the first step. Once any of them actually tie the knot, I'll make a new list. (P.S. First names only, for confidentiality purposes. Also, in case you're not invited to the wedding and you weren't supposed to know about it.)

Well, that's 1/4 of the people I need already. Only nine more to go.

Hey, Valentine's Day is around the corner . . .