I haven’t been sleeping well the past few days.  Between the overbearing thunderstorms, thinking too much, and the weirdest dreams, it’s been a gamble whether I’ll get a full night each day.

More than the other things, though, the dreams have been getting me.  I dreamt a friend from uni drove all the way to my house simply to say ‘hello’, then next thing I knew, I was swimming in the Missouri River.  Only, it wasn’t tainted muddy brown.  It was small and as clear as a swimming pool but with a currently flowing through it.  And as I swam, the current of the river began to get streaks of dark black.  Shit.  Oil spill.  And I was running and swimming and running and trying to get away from the oil, but, well, it completely invaded.

I woke up a bit confused.  For a girl who lives in Missouri, I shouldn’t be quite so worried about this oil spill, but I guess it effects even those who don’t live near the coasts.  Maybe I’m upset that it has taken three months just to contain the oil.  Or maybe it’s that, even though I don’t eat seafood, I can still feel sorry for the seafood economy and the local businesses of the south.  Or maybe it’s just my chagrin at how the government is handling the mess by not allowing reporters to even be 60 feet from the oil.  Yeah, not even sixty feet from oily seagulls or even a hospital that was treating someone who was injured by the oil (some type of allergic reaction).  That upsets me, since it isn’t allowing for freedom of the press.

But that right was taken away a long time ago.

Still, I suppose I’m stressed and that that’s just bubbling in my subconscious, alongside a million other things.  I’m very eager to get back to school, so that may be another thing making me bounce off the walls and have my mind doing flips.  Tell me what you think of the oil spill / disaster.  I could talk for days about it, but I’m interested in hearing what other people have to say.

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Tchaikovsky is a Beast!

I’m fairly certain that, if I was a dream talker, Jess would have heard the following statements from me last night:

• No, I don’t want your Menorah, and get your purse off the table.
• Yeah, but there are like, seven fucking alligators down there, and they can climb trees!
• I think they went underground, but I don’t really know.  Oh, and watch out for that owl over there.
• Updated (because I remembered about it while walking to class): No, don’t straighten your hair; Noah agrees with me that your hair looks better curly.
• Since this is technically a rocket, if I make it start, which way will the fire go?
• Stop checking things out; we are not at Walmart.  And stop putting Snickers in my cart, I’m already buying you a typewriter.
• They just interrupted Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture with Brahms.  That is not fucking happening!
• At the end of the stairs, let’s all do the High School Musical jump so that they’ll be surprised.
• None of the doors have handles.  (Guy in dream): I think they’re playing Handel.

What.  The.  Fuck.

I then had Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’ and Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture stuck in my head at the same time.  And when I checked my computer this morning, I was informed that it was negative eight degrees Fahrenheit.  What?

Today is going to be a crazy day.

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Dreams

It’s when the most studying needs to be done that I get the most philosophical and want to absorb all information not associated with what I’m studying.  It’s why, instead of reading my sensation and perception chapters, I’ve been getting caught in a web of National Geographic, Lord of the Rings fanfiction (shoot me), and debates about cutting films short for American audiences (whaddup, Kingdom of Heaven?).  My mind wanders… a lot.  And thinking is my favourite activity.  It’s not actually beneficial.  Dear God, how am I ever going to keep up in university at this rate?

I’ve been measuring my mood a lot during the past week, and things are looking up.  Up in an odd way, but up all the same.  It’s kind of like the days are passing too quickly yet each hour takes an infinity to pass, but you somewhat enjoy it all the while.  And, should I have not procrastinated so much with studying for my psych exam tomorrow, I would be feeling pretty damn good right now.  But, I’ll settle for this good and stress.  The stress tells me that I need to keep up better next time.  And, with feeling more up than I have in the past two months, I’m thinking I can turn that into a reality.

See, with this depression of sorts, it really distracted me from my course work.  I stopped reading, I stopped studying, and I slid by with a B in all exams during that time.  But, after a few weeks of this behaviour, it’s gotten to the point where I can’t slide by as easily.  It will take a lot of work to get caught back up to where I should be in both of my psych classes and my German class.  Luckily, I’m okay in spirituality and physics.

My psych classes this semester haven’t been holding my attention at all.  In fact, I’d be willing to say that they’re amongst my least favourite of courses so far.  I love psychology, really, but I’m taking two very uninteresting classes.  One is more biological and the other experimental–both of which do not interest me when it comes to psychology.  I’m much more interested in learning about why people do things and learning about the counselling aspects.  After all, I want to be a counsellor, so this kind of makes sense.  Luckily, though, these are the two psych classes that I am least interested in, so getting them out of the way during my freshmen year will open up a lot more space for the next three years for classes that I actually do care.  Whaddup, Romantic Relationships and Child Development?  Those are amongst the classes that I am feasting for, slowly waiting for, anticipating.  Throw in some classes on human personality, and I’m set for life.

I’ve given a little thought lately about what I’ll do with counselling.  Marital and family counselling was my plan, and still is, though I’m also looking at premarital.  From talking to my friends, premarital counselling often exists in church settings, but I don’t think that it’s used enough for other couples who are not interested in the church.  Really, it should be mandatory for people getting married to go through some counselling and work through some differences before they’re married.  I think that it would help keep a lot of relationships together, so I’ve been thinking about adding that in the mix of things that I want to do.  Sounds like a fun plan.  I can’t wait to be a counsellor.

There are a lot of things that I can’t wait for.  Getting this damned exam over with, starting my studio art minor, summer break and sitting by the Missouri with a good book.  I can’t wait for my big city dreams and crappy apartment.  I can’t wait to adopt a kitten and name it something special from a book or something in Arabic (I found the word for ‘morning’ today, and I love it: Sabah).  I even can’t wait to open up my own little office beneath my apartment on some cozy lane.  Yes, they’re all dreams.  And dreams don’t always just come true (I’ve learned that from experience), but they are dreams none the less, and they keep me motivated.

I like dreams.  It’s why I live in a dream world about half of the time I’m awake.  It’s the swish of thoughts and music and plans for the future.  It’s soaking up all this beauty around me and dreaming of how to keep it with me for always.  It’s why I paint and sing songs that I make up.  It’s why I drive for hours past farms and keep myself mystified the entire way, enjoying every dead stalk that I see buried in the snow.  Dreams are feasts and lavish curtains and silk bedding and Indian sundresses.  Dreams are the pictures in your mind that turn into movies after reading books.  Dreams are a source of our being when the physical isn’t enough.  They are power.

Dreams are also giant Ents curb stomping cars outside of your window and having your bed shake so much that your room mate turns into Hulk and saves you, only for you to turn into Alice in Wonderland.  But those are the dreams of night, and Lord knows that mine are too crazy for you all.

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Nerves

When I was six, I remember sitting on the bus next to my then best-friend, Simran, and asking her how we knew what was going on in other people’s minds.  She seemed confused by the question (as any first grader should have been), so I gave her an example.  If you said something true, but your mum told you that you had lied when you had not, how could she prove that you had or had not lied?  If she could not get into your head, what made her claim valid?  I’m sure Simran still did not understand me, so we probably started talking about Spice Girls instead (whaddup, 1997?).  But, even then, I was mystified with the mind and how little we know about it.  It’s why I’d grow so angry when someone said that I had lied when I hadn’t.  One time, I screamed at my mum, “You aren’t in my mind!  You don’t know!”  I was seven.  And it never really occurred to me until recently that children that young shouldn’t be contemplating such strong philosophical and psychological questions.

Sometimes, I think I’m still too young to ponder at the things I do.

– – –

This morning, I woke up before the sun–something I haven’t done in a little while.  As I sat at my desk, reading psychology, I was able to watch the sun rise.  At first, it was a splotch of yellow light on the horizon, breaking the deep darkness that had settled over Kirksville.  Then, stripes of purple and then of pink appeared, with the yellow splotch now a strong, orangey base.  Soon, the entire sky was enveloped in a wash of pink and purple, covering the clouds and glittering off of the eight or so inches of snow.  Beautiful.  It made me happy that I hadn’t slept too much past my snooze alarm.

I had so many weird dreams last night, but I can only access bits and pieces.  Something about a great, glass tower with a mighty telescope on top.  Something about a popular rapper that I made fun of and had no respect for.  Something about a large, green spider that I killed so cautiously with a fly swatter and then buried into the carpet as though it were dirt.  There were so many people, and so much conflict, and I’m still reeling from the impact of what it all means.  Sometimes, my dreams really are tumbles of nothing, and other times they mean cryptic little things about the way I’m feeling.  Something in my mind tells me that this was just a jumble.  A stress jumble.

Last evening, my house was together and sharing a dream dictionary.  Turns out unicorns mean something bad to our Mr Freud.  I think it’s all full of shit.  I don’t buy into a dream interpreter or any other interpreter for that matter who tries to figure me out when not knowing a damned thing about what actually goes on in my mind.  It’s why I like to interpret my own dreams.  It’s why, as much as I love MBTI, I know that it has faults and that everyone is different, even if typed the same.  It’s why I put no store in all of those quizzes that ask “Which Character from [insert show here] Are You?”.  I don’t buy into anything that doesn’t actually know me because, as one of my friends told me, I’m a very cautious person.  Yes.  Yes, I am.

– – –

This past weekend wasn’t the best for me.  I’m still dealing with not knowing the interview results (though I’ll probably know before I can post this blog and will most likely tell you at the end), and I’ve come to realise that I may be depressed.  And not in the sense of the word that I’m just feeling down, but in the actual sense; the sense that means that I’m clinically depressed and should probably be getting some  help for this.  So, I planned out my week and found some free time on Thursday.  Once this slot of free time comes up today, I’m fairly certain that I will march myself over to the university counselling services and sit down with someone.  I don’t really care what happens, but I feel that it’s a big step that I need to take in order to get better.

I ended up looking through my diary to see when I really started getting depressed constantly, and my date landed on 10 December, with trails of unhappiness sinking in at the beginning of November.  I was surprised to see that I was so unhappy in nearly every entry, and it was a little bit frightening to realise that, without that way to keep track of my life, I may not have really realised why I was so upset.  I would have kept blaming it on the nerves of not knowing my SA results, rather than digging to the deeper problem and realising that something was seriously wrong.

So, when I go to UCS today, I’ll tell you how it goes.  I’ll tell you if it helps, and what will be done.  If there’s nothing to say, I won’t say it.  But if there is, expect more on the issue.

– – –

The results for SA were supposed to be email out any time after 23.00 on Wednesday night.  It’s now 7.20 on Thursday morning, and I’m growing more and more excited and nervous.  Last night, as I drifted to sleep, I told myself that it was nothing different from a cast list back in high school.  Stan would promise it to be up on Monday, and you’d end up waiting until Thursday afternoon to see any results.  All the while, your stomach would churn, and you’d feel ridiculously nervous about the entire ordeal.  If you multiplied that reaction by ten, you’d get how I was feeling.  When I think about that email coming through to tell me, well, my chest and stomach and heart tighten until it’s physically painful.  So painful that it causes headaches and puts me to bed, keeping me from studying for a psychology test.  These are serious nerves; I can’t wait until it’s all just over.  Then, I can work on accepting my year to come as it will truly be.

– – –

In Time Updates:

7.35: I’ve probably pressed the refresh button over thirty times since 23.00 last night.  Every five minutes, and I’m checking that email again.  And every five minutes, I’m once again left with no information.

7.42: Still nothing.  I’m reduced to scrounging Facebook and reading psychology texts.

7.51: Time to give up for a while and read even more psych.  Today’s exam is going to kill me.  I’m really sorry if you’re still reading this.

8.03: Again, really sorry if you’re still reading this; nothing has happened.

8.40: And still nothing.  I might as well start studying for my physics lab.

9.00: And still nothing, again.  I might as well just post all of this up and make a second post with the results when they come.  Sorry for making you read this; then again, it was your own doing.

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