Shine

There's just something about Anna Nalick's voice and lyrics.
Her lyrics tend to mean so much to me just when I need them.
And her voice is just pure meoldic compassion...if that makes any sense. Well, it does to me, and really, that's all that matters.

I hate migraines.
I hate them I hate them I hate them.
Mine are always on the same side now. The same temple.
I had to scurry out of class today (squeezing past a few people in my haste) to run to the washroom and throw up the breakfast I didn't have this morning because I was too nauseous.
My friend Kate said I might want to get a cat-scan.
I think I want to get a cat-scan.
These are getting ridiculous.

I'm at home, and will be going to sleep soon, thereby missing my Women in History class again because of a migraine again and I hate that because I love that class!
But I can't function with this -pound- -sharp- -pound- -wave of nausea- -sharp- -pound- that's plaguing me. I almost fell asleep in my Social History class today, after my run to the washroom. And I'm completely serious here. My eyes were drooping and I kept almost blacking out. I'm amazed I made it home and to my room, hell, how am I still typing coherently?!

I love Dr. Skidmore (in a professional, "she's so beyond awesome" kind of way) and I feel like crap missing her class again, but I don't trust myself, my head, my threshold for nausea.

I only hope she can understand.
I really think I need a cat-scan...these migraines...the intensity of them, the amount of them, the intense nausea (more intense then when I had them in grade 2)...

They're scaring me.

Heath Ledger.
Died today.
He was a 28 year old father of a 2 year old daughter.

I just found out a little bit ago.
My initial reaction was complete disbelief. Then I realized he was 7 years older than me and a father and consequently had a mini breakdown.
I mean, I wan never one of his "extreme" fans, as in following his every move, I'm not like that for any celeb, but he seemed like an actor who was going somewhere with his life.
It's just...odd.
And sad.
And violent.

Not "violent" as in violence was involved, "violent" as in another known figure has died and this world is violently spiraling downward.
Credible celebrities, ex-prime ministers...violence.

I don’t know what to do.

My grandmother comes home sometime Thursday afternoon.
I have class from 9:30am to 2:30pm.
I want to skip the classes. Why? Well, so I can do a final run around the house clean up/ enjoy my last moments of freedom.
So, problem: my “Problems in Mass Society” class (which I’ve been calling “PMS”) is on Thursday. And, apparently, on said Thursday, we’re going to be picking topics/groups/dates for presentations.
My friend Raeanne is in that class, but she hasn’t been to class for the last week and a half because she’s been in Mexico for her brothers wedding/long overdue honeymoon.
She emailed me tonight and told me she’s back in Canada and ready for class, that she’ll most likely be there on Thursday but may not because she caught a bug in Mexico and is sort of still sick.
I’m afraid that, if neither of us are there, we’ll either be forced to join different groups (separate from each other) or will have to go on the first day…which is bad for me, since all of my History profs seem to have combined diabolical minds and decided to make all of my essays etc. due that week or the week that follows.
So…
I might as well go on Thursday.
So I’m going to use this blog as an objective forum to figure out what I have to do tomorrow/ in whatever time I can get on Thursday.

Wednesday:
- catch 11:30 bus, be at school around noon-ish
- spend time before class not psyching myself up, instead prepare self to actually participate in class
- in hours between classes, go one compy while in library and find books for multiple essays
- work on annotated bibliography/topic proposal for Euro. history class, due Monday
- 6:30-9:30pm: Women in History Class
- home around 10-ish (if I catch the 9:30 bus)
- 10-ish, home, eat remaining “foreign” food that grandmother would find offensive, such as snow peas, bean sprouts and Count Chocula cereal with what’s left of the soy milk, for dinner
- put in laundry
- relish in the fact you are doing your own laundry for the last time for another year or so…probably
- while waiting for laundry, watch tv and relish in the last bit of independence you will have for another year…or more (back to the German form of "yelling" the next day because I was up watching tv after 11pm the night before...)
- go to bed, probably really late now

Thursday:
- catch 9:30 bus for 10:30 class
- next class at 1:30
- in said class, make “nice girl eyes” at the girls in front of you and hope to dear god that they’ll let you in their group
- but! if Raeanne is there, be overjoyed
- go home
- if Omster not there, sit in front or back room and mourn your soon-to-be lack of freedom
- swear a lot. out loud.
- when she’s home, go to bed…or something…end of joyous times…no more soy milk or healthy food…back to undistinguishable fried meats, gravy and too much potatoes
- die a little inside

The end.

Well then, that’s my genius plan.
Thanks, blog, for helping me hash that out.
Now, it may be 10:30pm, but my full box of Count Chocula is calling me. Toodles!

I’m not the university type. It’s officially official.

It doesn’t matter how amazing some courses can be, or how euphoric I feel when I’m looking at a manuscript from 1556, it doesn’t matter.
Because when alls said and done, with the crisp pages between numb hands, the smell of old-world knowledge heavy in the air, and the 16^th century ink under tingling fingers, you start to realize that the ink is rubbing off on your sweaty digits and no amount of English rulers or Inquisition Inquisitors can save you now.
And when you get those exams back, and the ink bleeds under running tears, you realize that you have no idea what you’re doing.

You’re going to do a four-year degree. But that will only work if these 57, and 58%’s on exams change because you need at least a high 70 in each class to take the next step.
You’re going to be a librarian…then what? Go to “Library and Information Sciences”, take some classes, probably fail those too, and realize that you’re not right for university.
But then what? What else can you do? Nothing, that’s the answer, nothing.
So you go home from tutorial, blindly stop at the drug store and do what you do best: buy chocolate and an Archie comic.

Now what are you doing, stupid? Oh, you know, increasing your weight with chocolate and skipping class. The class that, just last week, you found out you got 57% on your exam.

Now what?
Well, now you need a hug. A huge, all encompassing hug but there’s no one around to give you one. And you won’t ask for help, oh no. It’s not educational or academic help you need, no, you can sort of understand why you got the marks you did, its emotional help you need right now, but you never ask for it, do you? No, too afraid.

Middle child syndrome? No, there is none. That’s all made up by us middle children. But maybe, just maybe us middle children have created this “syndrome” to such a perfect extreme that we feel the need to live up to it. So you did, didn’t you? You lived up to it and now look where it got you: too afraid to ask for help. Too afraid to tell your own mother how depressed and radical-minded you feel. Too afraid and self-assured in the “middle child syndrome” that if someone does offer help, you get mad, mad because in your middle-child-mind you see their reaching out as some kind of blow you both your ego and your emotional walls and you panic. You panic and get angry.

So now what?

Too scared to ask for help, too scared to act on your emotions, too scared to do anything but sit…and wait for the next round of marks to prove to yourself that you’re not the university type.

Really, it must be said...

...that, even though being a history major means days, nights, weeks, months of reading dull and dreary things about...say...Diefenbaker, every now and then we get thrown an awesome opportunity.
True, this opportunity also means piles of sleepless nights, researching and writing 3 lengthy essays, but it's the sources I'm talking about. The sources!!

I have to write a "historiographical" paper for my European History (16th and 17th century) class. I was going to do something on Cathrine/Kathrine/Catalina of Aragon (because I think she was an amazing woman) but I encountered problems.
See, with this essay, if the person or event was in the 16th century, then we need to find at least one source from the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th century. It's a 5% deduction for every missing century.
But see, most of the 16th century sources I've found on Kathrine are in Spanish. Well, she was a Spanish princess after all.
So I'm thinking of switching to Mary I, and discussing how her Catholic Reformation failed. It'll be fun, I think.

So this leads me back to sources. Oh, lovely sources.
My school's library is pro when it comes to history sources.
There are a few online databases that were subscribed to by Western just for European history students. Such as Early English Books Online (or EEBO), Eighteenth Century Collection Online (or ECCO), Historical Abstracts (Non-North American), and the English Short Title Catalogue Online (or ESTCO).

I was searching in EEBO for any early source on Mary, and came across a gem.
From 1554, it's a compilation of the (and the description is in the awesome english of the time)

"Actes made in the Parliament begon and holden at VVestminster, the v. day of October, in the fyrst yere of the reigne of our most gracious soueraigne lady Mary, by the grace of God, Queene of Englande, Fraunce, and Ireland, defender of the faith, & of the church of England, and of Ireland in earth the supreme head."

It's Mary's Acts. Her Acts! And there's a "The Table", which is basically a table of contents. A talbe of contents including "An Acte agaynst unlawfull and rebellious assembles" etc. Her Acts. Written down. Downloadable in image format. In their words. Thier words spoken in 1556.
To me, to any Mary I fans, this is big. It's her words. Her words, trying to bring together England, Ireland and Scotland (and attempting France) under one woman's shaky hand, trying to pull support amongst those now used to Protestantism into her Catholic hands and holding it up for the world to see that, yes, she is a woman but she can rule.

Unfortunately that didn't last very long (it lasted a whole five years, actually).
Her words...
Wow...
I think I'm sort of in love with EEBO and ECCO right now.
If you'll excuse me, I think it's time I searched some more.

Resolutions 2&3:

2:
I resolve to start trying to (and hopefully succeeding in) believing in myself some more.
This involves speaking up in my seminar-style class and, therefore, upping my 57% grade in it.
This also involves...well, pretty much every aspect of my life...but mostly my grades. ;)


3:
I resolve to try harder in the things I do.
This includes, but is not limited to, stopping believing I fail at something before I even try it.

Resolution 1:

I resolve to get my ass off the couch/chair/ground/cushion of any sort and maybe, perhaps, actually deal with my weight "problem" that's causing me so much personal pain.

New Year

It’s taken me a bit to write up a Happy New Year! entry, but here it is!

Things are speeding up again, so you’ll have to forgive me.
Actually, I have to go to the doctors in about half-an-hour to get my migraine/heartburn prescriptions filled. Hurrah.

My older sister took off to go back to LA today.
At least I didn’t cry again.

My little sister’s in a bitchy mood.
At least I can hide in my room.

I go back to London tomorrow.
At least my grandmother won’t be there.

Oh, I forgot to mention: The Omster’s off in Cuba.
She left yesterday, so parties for two weeks at my place!
Hahaa! No, not at all.
I don’t party.
I sit in the back room, all cozy and warm, eating pineapple and plain Tostitos and switching between drinking peppermint and Earl Grey tea as I watch movies like Pride and Prejudice and all of the Disney Princess movies I’ve borrowed from home (and are now stuffed in my bag) for the project my group is doing in my Social Inequality class about issues of class in Disney movies.

To tell you the utter truth, I wouldn't want to be doing anything else.
I love my teetotaling ways, even if my Italian and wine/beer/spirit loving relatives mock me for it.

Mom’s driving me down tomorrow. She said that, maybe, we could go see a movie at the massive theater there, since I rarely see movies in fancy theaters unless I’m with that annoying “friend” of mine or with my sisters/mother. Like how I saw Enchanted with my mom on New Years Eve. Awesome, guilty pleasure movie, let me tell you.
And, really, the hometown theater is not fancy in the least bit (think 3 screens, and only one of them has surround sound. And I do believe the seats are circa 1940.) So we might see Sweeny Todd, if it’s still there.
We both want to see Atonement, for me it’s mostly because it’s directed by the same genius who did Pride and Prejudice and because I have this borderline obsession with Keira Knightley.
But I don’t think we’ll go to see it. Mostly because I’d rather not go to see a movie both mom and I would sob during…it’s just a touch depressing.

Speaking of depression; I started panicking again last night.
I gave myself a migraine, what with all my semi-hyper-ventilating and my mind running a million miles per hour.
Christmas break is over, that means my third year is almost over, that means I make myself sick.
I have to take a course in the summer (because, as a history major, I have to take American History before fourth year, but it never fit in with my schedule.)
I’m not scared about taking the course. I’m more terrified with how the process works (I’ve never taken a summer course before) and with how my mom said I should live in residence for those few months (or however long it takes. It all depends on the course) and I, once again, don’t know how that process works.
I’m trying to not think about it until the first day back at class. I think I’ll have to sign up for a meeting with an Academic Councilor. I’ve heard the ones at Brescia are more understanding/nice than the ones on Main Campus, so I’ll stick to my little affiliated college.
But, once again, I've never really been to a meeting with one so I don't know how it all works.

Essays.
Essays are looming up again.
And, this term, I have to start participating in that seminar class. I got my participation mark and it’s only a 56% or something, if only because I show up and on the 2 occasions that I was ill, wrote up abstracts for the readings. I have to speak up. Crap.
I think I need to take some kind “improve your self-confidence” kind of thing…or…something. Like I’ve said before, I have no self confidence, so I subconsciously convince myself that I’m wrong before I even put my hand up. And by “subconsciously” I mean I don’t say either out loud or in my head “Okay, Kristen, you FAIL!”, no, it’s more a subconscious thing.

Well, I better start getting ready for the doctor.
I’ve asked my mom to drop me off at the Dollar Store afterwards so I can buy some silly art things to play with in my Life Book (ala-Suzi Blu) and then walk home.
Maybe I’ll stop in the drug store and find some hair dye.
Something to make me feel better about myself. Something…spectacular!

Hahaa, silly me!

Well, I’ll update this soon, with both news and maybe some new years resolutions (if I get around to forming a concrete list. I mean, I have a basic idea of some resolutions, but I don’t know if they can be formalized…what with my muddled mind and all…)

Taa taa! :)