Day Seventy-Eight: It's A Long Way to the Top If You Want...an Orange?

7:30 AM and so begins the week from hell. Granted, since I've started here at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, there have been many many hellacious weeks and I'm SURE there are entirely too many more to come. Since graduating into upper division I've felt that certain heavy weight upon my shoulders that other upper division students that have come before me have described. There is a massive difference between junior division and upper division at university. And little by little it is killing me. I do not look forward to learning how medical school will turn out for me. I would like to keep positive by imagining that everyone just SAYS it's very difficult and it ends up being...SURPRISE! A total blow off everyday. Medical school SEEMS like one of those things that people would make sound really difficult just to deter the entire population from applying to medical school. But I won't be deterred.

So far today, I have woken up 30 minutes early, something that you never ever ask an upper division psychology major to do. We need our sleep since we are the ONLY major here at the university that actually pulls our weight. I like to laugh at the art majors on campus carrying around their larger than life portfolios in their indie rock fashions and their brightly colored hair. Ha! I laugh at you! You sit in a studio 24/7 and draw! I wish I could do that all day long. Make arts and crafts and have sex with all my teachers and smoke weed. That would be amazing. But I can't. Because you see children, I actually use my brain on a daily basis. At 10:00 in the morning I'm speaking French, by 12:00 I've completed another chapter in Statistics AND taught it to my tutoring students as well. 1:00 I'm in biology lecture which is two hours long. And that's only Monday, Wednesday, Friday. On Tuesday and Thursday I have defended my sanity and my hypotheses, and put up with the ramblings of a completely mad psychology professor in Adolescent Psych by lunchtime. Thursday specifically I get up at 6:00 AM to go down to the biology lab and spend hours researching and writing up lab reports. And they ask me why I don't have a social life? Please. If any of you are youngins, and have not yet had the pleasures of attending university...please be forewarned that when you walk into university with a major like psychology or philosophy, English or history...you are inherently handing over your social life to the greater education system. "Here you go university! Here is everything that ever made me happy in exchange for unrelenting torture. You may have ALL of my money and sanity for the next four years and possibly some time after that if I'm enough of a lunatic by the time you're finished with me!"

This morning in particular I sacrificed my 30 minutes to meet with my bio lab instructor. Ted is one of those guys that has been annoying, irresponsible, poor at managing time and an overall out of left field kind of biology instructor. A girl that I have become quite chummy with in recent days, Carolyn, and I have concluded that Ted is somewhere between the ages of 25 and 30. And is only a graduate student himself. And thus has no REAL authority over us. But he's one of those guys you can't hate. He's very cute, by physical standpoints and he's awkward. Which to me is really cute as well. I love awkwardness. It induces "huggles" within me. So I literally could not hate him when he failed to show up for our meeting this morning. I was perturbed, yes, that I was gipped out of 30 minutes of sleep...again....a crime punishable by death if you do it to an upper division psychology major. But Ted gets waived of his crime I think. Now I have even MORE leverage to get him to let me turn those lab reports in late because my father was sick in the hospital.

So I scampered off to French class to observe the other students' presentations. This presentation that I must preform on Wednesday is the bane of my existence right now. Any opportunity I can take to NOT make a complete ass out of myself in front of a large group of people in a foreign language I am going to take. And since one of the people in my group is a difficult little shit it's almost impossible to produce a good product. I am doing my part. The other girl in my group is trying her best but she works two jobs and makes it impossible for us to meet and practice. The other member of our group, a boy named Chris, has decided to be MIA for the rest of the class apparently and so now our script has to be completely revised to cut out the 3rd person. I swear to God if he decides to show up on Wednesday morning I am going to skin him alive. I take academics way too seriously unfortunately for him. And Stephanie and I are just going to do the entire presentation by ourselves and then beat him up after class. Seriously man, if 3 desperate emails isn't enough to provoke you to care about this presentation then you deserve a bloody nose. Note to readers: I really don't beat people up. I am very level-headed and composed in real life. In my mind I like to punch people in the face. It helps me deal with the flaming assholes I seem to run into everywhere I go. From what I can see the presentation shouldn't be THAT difficult but it's still something I don't really want to do. It's like getting immunizations. You don't really WANT to be held down by total strangers and jabbed with a sharp object...BUT you have to do it. Yes. That is a very good analogy. I definitely can liken this presentation to being jabbed with pointy metal object against your own free will. Love it.

So somewhere between French class and Statistics I get an email from Ted apologizing for not making our meeting and if I could meet him tomorrow before 11:00. I just had to put my foot down. Tuesday is my ONLY happy day out of the entire week. I can go to bed at 2:00 AM on Monday nights and still get plenty enough rest for Tuesday because class doesn't start until 12:30. All right, I know if I really wanted to I could probably get my ass out of bed and go to see him before 11. But here's the thing. I have SO much work to do tonight. And I was planning on using this wonderful 2:00 AM bedtime to finish all that work that I need to do. So no. I will admit. I totally lied to him about not being able to make it. But then I realized, fuck it, I don't really NEED to meet with him I could just tell him in the email what I want. Now...I understand that face to face interaction is key for these kinds of things. Begging on due dates for assignments. But I'm sorry that my life just doesn't fit perfectly into his schedule.

Between French and Statistics I remembered that I forgot my snack. This "snack" is absolutely vital to my overall productivity for the day. Since the school year started I am 30 lbs lighter. But believe me that weight didn't come off because I'm magic. That weight came off through hard work and determination. Eating healthier. Eating less. Eating at the appropriate times. Exercising. It was excruciating. However. Now this new eating plan has become my lifestyle. And I stick to it. Depending on what my schedule is for that day, I will usually have breakfast in the morning before I go to class. Then between classes I will have my snack. Then I will either go home for lunch or bring my lunch with me to campus. Then I start making dinner around 6:00 and have that anywhere from 7:00 to 9:00 at night. So you see the importance of the snack. It is the small little "help me up" between breakfast and lunch. That extra power booster that keeps my brain from wandering off into LooneyLand. I vacation there quite frequently. Just not during school. I also strategically plan out my meals for the week on a chart that hangs on my refrigerator. Yes, my friends DO make fun of me. They think I'm completely anal retentive and off my rocker but....at least I'VE achieved results. This "chart" format has helped me immensely. It has helped me pick the right foods and has alleviated the sudden panic that you get when you're on a diet and you suddenly realize you don't know what to cook for yourself. Being the busy person I am, this meal chart really really helps me to not overeat and to leave the rest of the week for thinking about schoolwork and friends rather than what I'm going to eat. Because let's face it. We all have to eat. And since I cannot just run down to the nearest McDonald's and have a burger (which is completely against my current eating philosophy) I NEED a plan. I usually make this chart on Sunday night so that the rest of the week is planned out.

Well I had planned to eat an orange today for snack. Oranges are good by the way. I usually pick fruits for my snacks because it has enough "roughage" to hold me over until lunch. Roughage is a word my doctor uses to describe the way that fruits and vegetables fill you up lol. I love her. So when I realized that I forgot my orange in the refrigerator, I had a mini panic attack. My thought-process was literally "Oh no...I don't want to go to LooneyLand!" So I remembered that the Food Court sold apples and oranges in their "Healthy Foods" section. This is a cooler filled with questionable vegetables and fruits and premade salads and sandwiches. Said cooler is surrounded by many other vendors selling fried chicken, greasy pizza, french fries, breadsticks, pasta bowls with rich sauce, and chicken wings. This is why I typically avoid the Food Court at all costs. I knew I had to be quick...otherwise....Evil Overeating Katie was going to come out and I would totally spend my money on a chicken sandwich. No. No Katie. Orange. Orange and juice. Stick with the program. Well I ended up spending about ehhh...30 more minutes in the Food Court than I wanted to. I made for the cooler and clung to it like a shining safe beacon in a room full of sword-toting ninjas. I chose my orange wisely, picked out a pineapple juice and adopted the nearest line. Let me just make a few comments on how my university's food court is set up.

Small vending room with a Chick-Fil-A, a Pizza Hut, Health Food Cooler and a Sushi Bar. Also includes, coffee maker, slushie machine (that is always broken) and a fountain drink machine. Running through this room are three check-out lines. There used to be two. One for cash and one for card. Well all of a sudden they decided to mix it up on us. They added a NEW line completely out of left field. We don't really know what this line is for. It's supposed to be for "alleviating traffic in the food court at rush hour". Yes but....that would be wonderful if the rules of the lines were clear! If there was ONE specific line for cash and ONE specific line for Card and then the third line be like...overflow and accept any kind of payment....well then sure! But no. They change the lines everyday with what kind of payment they accept. And there are NO SIGNS indicating which line is which. It's like a complete wonderful guessing game. And the lines are monstrous! Like out the door monstrous. So God forbid you get in line somewhere and it's the WRONG LINE. The other day, I picked a line and sat in it for 25 minutes. I get up there and the guy is like "This is a no cash line". THANK GOD I happened to have a little money left on my card because if not I would have had to GET OUT OF LINE and go start at the end somewhere else. So today I was determined to get in the right line. I got in the overflow line and asked the girl in front of me if she knew if this was cash or card. She looked at me like I had just asked her if I could keep her first born child and proceeded to ask everyone in the line what kind of line this was. Which started a panic amongst the rest of the students like "omg are we in the wrong line?" I swear to GOD some people act like LIVESTOCK. So I stood on my tip toes and saw that some people were paying with card in the overflow line and looked over at the other line and saw that some people were paying with cash. I quickly slid over to the other line completely taking out two really awkward guys trying to get in line. I felt like saying "Look. All I want is a fucking orange. I've been in line for 20 minutes already. Let me just get my fruit and go on my way! This is a very serious situation. If I don't get this orange I am going to go to Looneyland and you DO NOT want that to happen" And you know..this is the BEST part. The CASH ONLY line that I got into today was the EXACT SAME LINE that told me they only accept card last week. I think..they just like to fuck with us. I think that's the purpose of the food court's life. To make us late for class and flustered.

I ate my orange in not so complete peace in the study hall in the math building. Every time I sit in that study hall there are the same people in there. Three math majors that stare at me like they want to have vigorous sex with me the entire time. They just stare. YES. I am a woman. And YES. I have large breasts. It's not my fault. Leave me alone! There's the awkward Chinese math tutor that also looks at my breasts but is less blatant about it. And then there's my friend Kelly..who is a boy...who always sits NEAR me but never like...next to me because I'm a girl and he's afraid I might rip off my clothes any second and try to seduce him. All of these people seem to be related to my breasts. So when I sit in math study hall I feel naked. I've gotten used to this.

I didn't do as well on my Statistics test as I thought. My Stat professor made this very clear to me by saying "wha happen?" in his Chinese accent. Look man...I got a B! That's not bad! Just because I didn't get an A doesn't mean that I'm completely fucked in your class. Don't go pulling a "my father" on me. My dad used to do that shit all the time. Like getting a B is a bad mark. I missed 16 points because I didn't input something into the calculator correctly. My process was completely right, I just didn't put the numbers in correctly. And so I felt like retorting to him..."Wha happen? Why you take seesteen point off mah ezam fo dat?" But I refrained. I would like to keep all of my limbs intact for today.

I think new friends are such confusing things. I don't ever remember being this confused with my now old friends when we first started out. I don't know what it is but I'm having so much trouble with new friends. At school I have a few new friends. Britney, Britney, Carolyn, Stephanie, Britni, Theresa, Crystal. It's weird. Because I think that given the opportunity we get along really well. And when we're in class they make conversation with me and it's not as if it's just back and forth silly banter. I mean...they TELL me things and they give me their opinions on things and we joke so much that our sides split and I'm thinking "these people are my friends". And then you'll come to class one week and they won't talk to you. It's like "nevermind I don't want to be your friend." And so you go that week thinking, "Ok I guess we're not friends anymore. How sad". And THEN the next week you come to class and they're all up on you again like nothing ever happened. Like they didn't just ignore you for a whole week. This is behavior that I have been witnessing in A LOT of people lately. Not just my friends in real life either. I guess that's just not me. I don't tell people that they mean something to me and then blow them off. I guess friendship whether it be physical or virtual MEANS a lot to me. I was never that kid with A LOT of friends. Friends came few and far between for me and so they were never disposable. I never thought of "Oh I just lost ONE friend it's no big deal, I have 80 more". Even if I DID have 80 friends it wouldn't be "no big deal" for me to lose one. And when I DO lose a friend it's like losing a piece of me. I don't know if I'm in the wrong here. Because today one of these previously listed friends came and plopped herself down RIGHT next to me in biology lecture and talked to me the entire time. I was shocked. This person and I haven't spoken for weeks. Why the hell would she want to be buds now? I don't get it. This does not compute. I don't know if I have an issue with comfort level or not. Like...if I'm just assuming these people really want to be my friend but they really don't. I'm a pretty logical person. Pretty sane as much as I act insane. I can tell you right now that their behavior does not elicit the "They don't want to be friends" response. So I'm wondering if these people are just shallow assholes? Well. Not all of them. Because not all of them have done this before. Some of them have used me in the past but I don't think it was intentional. But that's been a thing that people have been saying to me my whole life. It seems like ALMOST EVERY person that I get close to ends up being an ass. And when I tell people, "Oh so and so did this to me", people always say, "Don't worry, Katie they're just asses." So....if I'm correct.....98% of the people I've met in my life have been asses? Is that the statistic? Well....call me optimistic but that doesn't sound right. I'm starting to think there's something wrong with me.

I get attached to people really easily. I love people. As bitter and obnoxiously cynical as I am, I do love people. I can pretty much find something desirable about everyone. And I work really hard to make others happy. Because that makes ME happy when other people are happy. I love doing things for people. I love random acts of kindness. I love making people's day. And maybe that kindness can either come off as fake or overwhelming. I don't mean to be that way. It's just who I am. I know I've mentioned this before but I'll say it again. The fonder I am of someone the more they shy away from me. It breaks my heart really bad and makes me cry and overeat. And for some reason the more I dislike someone the more they LIKE me and want to rub up against me all the time and want to be near me all the time and want to talk to me all the time. It's like....LEAVE ME ALONE. YOU ARE NOT A VERY NICE PERSON AND YOU SAY MEAN THINGS ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE AND YOU SMELL AND YOU'RE LAZY AND I DO NOT LIKE YOUR COMPANY. HUMPH!

*sighs* It's getting late. And I have much to do. This is how my day has ended. I made homemade from scratch vegetable/chicken soup when I got home because it's getting cold outside and cold weather provokes me to act like my grandmother apparently. It's delicious. Spicy. But delicious. Now I will spend the remainder of the evening writing papers, blogs, scripts, and novels. Lots and lots of writing.

Au revoir children.

End Day 78