incredibly tired

tonight was my first night of actual, PAID work. yay mee!!!! it's not a regular job (it's only for 3 days) but at least it's a start! i was helping cater and serve on a yacht in Newport for their annual Christmas yacht parade. A FREAKIN' YACHT, PEOPLE. the yacht went around the area and blasted the christmas music and we got to see all the amazing christmas lights in the area. even though there were a few mishaps, it was still an awesome experience. sighh... you can probably already tell these people are makin' bank (uhh, champagne vinaigrette for their salads? hell yeah, someone's making money). don't worry, elaine. you'll get there someday! (talking to myself sometimes makes me feel better).

i have 2 more nights of this, and then i will officially be on winter break. thank god, because i am freakin' tired. the work wasn't even strenuous or anything, it's just that i'm still so exhausted from school that adding on a few more hours in the days following may not have been the brightest idea (i came in at 4 today and left at 11 -___-).

in other news, i finally finished my finals!!! woot WOOT!! also, apparently my art teacher liked my drawings enough to ask me if he could put them in the art showcase until next semester, which is totally fine with me because i probably would have just thrown them all in the trash anyway. eughh.

so that's pretty much what's been going on with me in the past couple of days. monday will be my first official day of winter break, so HOPEFULLY i'll be able to see gracie poo and the gang sometime soon, because i LOVES ALLA YA'LL. <3

decemBURRRR

tomorrow i am officially HALFWAY done with finals. i still have my nutrition final, first aid final, beginning drawing final, and i have to turn in my journals for directed practice. i seriously cannot believe it's december already, even though we're already halfway through it!! tomorrow i plan on buying all the stuff i need to make christmas presents, and hopefully i'll be done with all of that in time for christmas :)

as for my love life, i am totally glad i have james. BUUTTT what's lame is that i just found out i can't see him for 2 weeks, which totally sucks cuz i had our wednesday date all planned out and ready for tomorrow. i even bought a new dress!!! sighhhh. i only really get to be with him once a week, so a 2 week break pretty much blows. on the plus side though, this gives me more time to finish his christmas present. hopefully he'll like it :)

on another good note, i seriously love buying dresses now that i've lost some weight. now all i need is some money to pay for it all... i also really REALLY need some money because i'm really scared my parents are gonna freak out when they see my phone bill; technically i'm not supposed to be talking on the phone at all (except for emergencies) but i've been talking to james for half an hour every night almost. hopefully things won't be too bad *wishful thinking... i need a job, dammmit!!

sighhhh. so far december has been filled with a crapload of crazy emotions, on both ends of the spectrum. hopefully the rest of december will be filled with emotions on the GOOD side of that spectrum, cuz i could really use it right now.

it's going to be a long week :l

last thursday when i came home from work i found out my uncle died in the Philippines. he was my dad's big brother, and my cousins' dad.

i think i'm all cried out on this one... at least until the funeral. yesterday morning i was crying so hard on my way to school that eventually i just turned around and came back home. i told my sister class had been canceled.

it definitely hurts. i grew up with my cousins; they're like brothers and sisters to me (lord knows i talk to them a hell of a lot more than i do my actual brother). i visited them today before they headed off to PI. we talked about the last time we saw him, all our funny memories with him, and what we're going to do for his birthday this year since it's in 2 weeks. it was good to know we could all laugh about things like his horrible sense of fashion (last time i saw him he was wearing a twilight shirt that he bought for $2 from hot topic). my dad and one of my aunts is with him in PI now.

i wasn't sure if i wanted to make a post about this but it's definitely one of the biggest things affecting my life right now. yesterday i didn't even want to go on facebook because most of my news feed was people giving their condolences to my cousins. tonight i was forced to go on FB because my dad wanted me to find pictures of my uncle that we could put in a slideshow for his viewing. i'm not even sure if i can go to school or work next thursday or friday because i'm supposed to help my grandma make food for the viewing after they bring the body back to the states. i'm worried about my grandma and how she's taking this all.

yes, he's in a better place now. by next week he'll be back home and with his family, where he belongs. he was a really good father, brother, and uncle, and a good man all over. i'm really going to miss him.

to grace: i know you're coming back soon, and my intention was to get our tattoos done this saturday, but that might not happen for obvious reasons. hopefully we can arrange something sometime soon.

11:11

i wish i were happy. sometimes i just stare at the time, waiting for 11:11, just so i can make that one wish. i can't even remember how long i've been making this same wish, but it's always been the same: "i wish i were happy... please." sometimes i'll throw in the "please" if i'm feeling extra shitty. i don't even know who i'm asking this from. is it blasphemous to believe wishing something at a certain time of day can make something come true?

i think about my life; is it so sad that i feel i have to wish for some kind of happiness? no, it's really not bad at all. i have a loving, caring family, with whom i spent an awesome thanksgiving. i don't have a paying job, but i'm getting to know the volunteers and residents at work more and more, and i love it. when i started working there i never realized how much i would enjoy it, and now i feel like i can't just leave this place once the internship is over. i only work about 12 hours a week, but i certainly feel as if it has become a second home for me. i even get to spend a couple days a week with a sweet guy. he really is sweet. school's not even that difficult. by some act of God i've been able to maintain a gpa above 3.5 while barely doing any work or studying. 5 classes and an internship shouldn't be so easy. i may not have a lot of money, but i can certainly maintain some sort of life off of what i do have. i realize life's not as tough as i made it out to be. my life, at least.

so maybe it's not necessary for me to make this wish anymore. maybe now i'm just doing it out of habit, a habit i should probably break.

i love you guys :)

a cause for reflection: gender relations

originally i was going to title this entry "sexism" but i think the problem is much bigger than that. honestly, before i left high school, i never really thought about the way men treat women or women treat men. i mean, it wasn't really one of my biggest concerns at the time; i guess i just never noticed the difference before. but now the subject seems to be more and more obvious and increasingly confusing/frustrating for me, as it feels like an entirely new topic for me.

BECAUSE it feels so new and confusing (more often in a negative way), i haven't really formed a strong opinion on the whole subject. just bear with me here: without looking it up, think of YOUR definition of sexism. so when a man defends a woman in an argument BECAUSE she is a woman, is that not sexism? or when a man helps a woman with her load of work because the so-called lady "needs" help, is that not sexism? so if a guy treats me nicely or offers to help me out or anything like that just because i HAPPEN to be of the opposite sex, i never know if i should just accept the help and thank him, or if i should feel slightly offended because he is indirectly thinking of me as weaker.

because there is such a big difference in the ratio of men to women in my field, sometimes i can't help but let a little of the feminism come out. there was a time when i would enjoy the occasional sexual joke, and even partake in the joking; nowadays when i hear a guy tell a sexual joke in the kitchen it suddenly offends me, and even i am surprised at myself. because suddenly there is a BIG difference, and suddenly i realize i am no stranger to sexual harassment, and suddenly when i think of any male i feel slightly disgusted.

but i don't want it to be that way. i want to be able to meet a guy who i CAN'T think of as slightly repulsive. so why the FUCK is it SO HARD to find ANY guy like that when i'm practically surrounded by men/boys every day i go to school?! i mean, WHAT THE HELL?!! C'MON!! i don't want to be the feminist bitch in the kitchen (sooo cliche), but i definitely do NOT want to be thought of as weaker/less competent. if anyone can think of a solution for this, please, do share.

p.s. sorry for the little ranty-poo. obviously things have been getting a little weird for me lately, and when i say lately, i mean within the past year or so :/

backsies!!

so i take it back. the last post i made (earlier today, actually) i said that i couldn't remember the last time i was really happy. but yeah, i take that back :)

perspective

let's start with a little story:
yesterday i was walking into the library at school so i could reserve a study room for today, and this random, middle-aged man came up to me and told me to smile. he politely asked me if i was okay, if i had been done with midterms, things like that. this actually isn't the first time that some random person has come up to me and told me to smile.

my question is: is my happiness that transparent? or unhappiness for that matter?

so transparent, in fact, that a complete stranger can see what's going on? i thought about it for a while, and i came to the conclusion that i haven't really been happy in a long time. i mean, noticeably happy. not about small wins here and there like getting a good grade on a test or getting to school or home without any traffic on the way. i mean like, happy about my life, my situation, about what's going on with me. so as i mull over what i've really been feeling lately, the only conclusion that i have come to is this: all i've been feeling lately is tired. too tired to really stop and be happy or at least complacent about the little wins that i DO get from time to time. i mean, i can recognize when something good happens to me or when i get a brush of luck, but instead of being happy about it, i can't help but just feel a little stoic about it and just brush it off as if it were nothing.

being physically and mentally tired at the same time is VERY exhausting. like today. today i woke up at 5:30am to get to my class that starts at 8:20. between those two times, i go through about an hour and a half or so of rush hour traffic, and once i get to school i have to lug around all of my stuff, which today includes my uniform, my knives, my bag, my notebook, my laptop, and an 8-inch stainless steel frying pan. today i have two classes, one from 8:20-9:25, one from 11:30-4:10, and after that i have to work on a group project which i have no idea how long THAT will last, but i know it will feel like forever since one of my group members is seriously one of the most ANNOYING guys i've ever met. i'm not even going to bother talking about the mentally tired part, mainly because it is just wayyyy too much to type out. i know you know what i mean. and i know that today is FAR from being the longest day of the week for me.

so this is basically what it's going to be like for the rest of the semester for me [insert long sigh here].

back to happiness! i've determined that this is something i SERIOUSLY need to improve on. honestly, i can't even really remember the last time i just felt COMPLACENT about my life. at the moment i've just been accepting and taking everything as it is, which is probably not that good for me. right now i just feel like i need to get everything over with and out of the way.

prescription? probably a little perspective :l

p.s.: don't get me wrong, i know life can be a WHOLE lot worse than it is now. i'm not whining! i just wanted to put how i feel out there on the table.

p.p.s.: i'm using the school's wifi for the first time right now!! and yeah, it's suuper slow.