Becoming a Queen

I had my last NLP session on Wednesday, and ... it was pretty intense. I've had some hard sessions through my series, but this one was just ... wow. I'm not going to go very much into what happened, since it's pretty personal and all, but I feel like a lot is going to change as a result of this session. I'm really happy about it. This combined with the Ambien that's really been helping me sleep better .... I feel like a real person.

I've realized that I need to practice being the sort of person I want to be. Less "Fake it 'til you make it" and more just taking time out to consciously act the way that I eventually want to be all the time. I've been trying, every day, to take ten or so minutes every day to actively practice being the person I want to be. I think it's helped me.

Which is what the symbol over on the side (which I generally call a "Crowned Pawn" or a "Queened Pawn") represents. I've never been much of a chess player - in fact I think I barely learned most of the rules a couple months ago. I'm not really much at strategy games in general, honestly. But I know that the pawn pieces can only move forward, and when a pawn gets to the other end without being taken out by another piece it can become any other piece. A pawn, the simplest piece on the board, can become a queen, the most powerful piece in the game.

I've kind of taken this as a philosophy for my own life. I don't really have other pieces opposing me that can take me out - I know I can surpass most, if not all, the challenges life throws at me. All I, as a pawn, need to concentrate on is moving forward, one square at a time. And eventually I will be the person I want to be - a Queen.

I've been considering getting the Queened Pawn tattooed on the inside of my wrist as a reminder of all of this. I don't know if I will or not - to be honest I cringe and flinch away when I even hear a tattoo gun on TV or in movies or whatever. So, I don't know how I would be able to sit still through an hour (or more) of the pain and that buzzing sound.

In other news: I have to go to a physical therapist for my ankle, knee, and shoulder. I went to the doctor and the problem seems to be a musculature one somehow. Hopefully a PT will be able to help.

Penguicon 2010

Last night Tene and I got home from Penguicon 2010 at ... sometime around eleven. I'm going to do posts about the panels I went to (and I'm actually going to do them this year!), but I figured I would give an overview of how the con went for us, well, me.

Because we waited far too long to get plane tickets, we ended up missing all of Friday. I don't know what we missed - because I didn't want to feel bad about missing things, so I completely skipped over the Friday panels.

After two uneventful flights (first from San Jose to Phoenix, AZ then from Phoenix to Detroit), and talking to the rental car agency, we got to the hotel at ungodly early 2:00 in the morning, and promptly crashed into bed. Tene and I shared one bed, while Bancus and rlpowell shared the other (rlpowell is the one who funded our hotel room, yay!). Saturday morning we woke up around nine, left the room around ten thirty, and had breakfast.

I spent most of my morning hanging out with the Lojban people - Bancus, rlpowell, Tene, Matt, Neptunepink, djanatyn, Hugglesworth ... and some people I don't know the names of - and admiring the pretty costumes of other con attendants. I wandered the Dealer room/Artists alley and found some things I was interested in, but wanted to give myself a chance to think about before buying (this ended up being a good thing, and saved me a good $150 on a bodice I might have never worn).

My first panel was at one, and then I was in panels until four - when I got a half-hour break - and then I had one more at five.

At six I wandered back to the room where all the Lojban attendees were chatting, and it was decided that it was up to me and one other person to decide what we were all going to eat for dinner. I was informed this was because we happened to be the most picky eaters out of the group - I found this to be an understatement. The other person, who I'll refer to as "P,"  was so much pickier than me it was scary. I know I'm a picky eater. I've been working very hard to change this aspect about myself. And, most of the nearby restaurants were places that I would have been alright eating at. P was .... a lot pickier.

We ended up deciding (I ended up dictating, really. P ... kinda freaks me out. A lot. I don't like being around him) on a nearby Indian restaurant that offered takeout, and Tene, Bancus, and I loaded up in the car and headed out.

Unfortunately I was very disappointed with Priya's (the restaurant). Worst mango lassi I've ever had (which brings my total of mango lassi's from different restaurants to 3), tiny tiny portions, and ... I don't know, it just seemed to be low quality - especially for the price we were charged. Bancus footed the bill, and I worry that he was essentially ripped off :(.

After eating (I didn't eat much, which is becoming disturbingly normal) I went to one more panel - which I kind of regret wasting my time on. Then it was ten at night and I was tired and Tene and I decided to go up to go to sleep. This ended up turning into a sleep over - as rlpowell, Bancus, and I stayed up late into the night chatting about all sorts of things, and Tene played Disgeae on my PSP and contributed every now and then. It was really fun and I enjoyed it. We finally went to sleep at, like, three in the morning.

Sunday I didn't go to any panels, although I wanted to, but I did get to go shopping! I bought some nice steampunk goggles (pictures to come soon), debated over the bodice I had tried on the day before (decided against it - pure leather, which means it wouldn't breathe well, and I wasn't sure where I would wear it - I don't really go to RenFests, and it wasn't quite steampunk enough to match my outfit), bought a medium-sized bottle with a leather holster (Tene and I have plans for this), and got some nice, padded leather cuffs. A very lucrative trip.

Shortly afterwards we got back into the rental car and took rlpowell to the airport, then drove around (I slept in the backseat) for a few hours before going to the airport ourselves. We almost missed our flight to Phoenix (we were there early, but the flight was leaving early. We didn't realize how close we had cut it until we heard my last name on the intercom, followed by Tene's and Bancus'), and were very lucky we didn't.

One other thing that happened to me happened on Saturday that had me giddy for much of the day following. I have been a fan of Cherie Priest since I first learned of her at Penguicon in 2008. After sitting in on one of her panels I got up the courage to request she sign my copy of Boneshaker, and I ended up asking her if it would be alright if I emailed her and asked her some questions about writing and the business and everything. She was very friendly and told me: "Yeah, of course!"

While I haven't gone through with it yet, I'm definitely going to. I hope to become friends with her over email - because she is so awesome, and it would be great to have some connection to the writing world. But mostly because she is awesome and I think she would be a great person to be friends with/close to.

So much happened, though, this post really doesn't do it justice. I learned so much at the panels I went to, even though I didn't really go to many. I'm just so excited to share everything I learned.

The last awesome thing about this weekend: I had confidence in myself and my self-esteem was at a ... well good level! I felt confident and sexy and pretty and I didn't have any of that self-hate and self-doubt that has plagued me for years. The best part? It hasn't left me yet! I still feel great. I'm trying my hardest to keep this feeling working - and I think I've realized that it is (a least partially) a choice to be happy or not. I mean, I've been acting like my depression and my emotions are something that are being done to me, something outside of my control And to some extent that's true: I have a chemical imbalance in my brain, I cannot control the fact that something related to my serotonin levels is messed up. But I can control how I react to it. Right now, it's easy, and I'm scared of it becoming a lot harder. But I hope that I'm on the right path to finally feeling like a normal person.

Changes to Be Made

As I mentioned before, I'm now in California with Tene. It's been an exciting two weeks.

We now have an apartment, and on Saturday we finally got everything moved into said apartment. Now I'm just trying to go through boxes and unpack all of the things we own.

I've been having bad dreams lately - they seem to be caused by the combination of stress from the Major Lifestyle Change of moving from Utah to California and the anxiety of the same. I seem to be clenching my teeth as a result, though, which is less than ideal and makes me unhappy. I've been waking up with headaches.

On a different side of things, I've been a little disappointed in my own reaction to the move. I had apparently been thinking - more strongly than just idle daydreams - that simply moving out of Utah would be enough to bump me out of the rut I've been living in for the last .... five? six years? It wasn't. I'm still the same girl I was in Utah, I'm just not wearing winter-clothes anymore. I don't like who I am, and I don't know how to change who that person is into someone I would like.

I have a severe case of akrasia - failure of will - when it comes to motivation. It's hard for me to get the energy to do anything that might be mildly unpleasant (pretty much anything I don't want to do ... and even some things I do want to do). So instead of actually doing anything I just watch stuff on hulu.com and youtube. I just don't care. I feel fine watching things, and when I do feel guilty ... it's not a very strong feeling.

I'm considering doing a complete overhaul of myself, of my personality. First I'm thinking of doing something similar to what Alicorn talked about over at Less Wrong - basically actively rewriting my emotional states, rather than just passively feeling and acting as though my emotional states are something that are out of  my control that I cannot control. Hopefully this will help with my depression as well as with my motivation. I'm also looking into some mindhacks to help me with my motivational issues (the link is another post at Less Wrong, this one about Pain Motivation vs Gain Motivation - I am very much "pain motivated"). I know the person I want to be, and I have some ideas of how to become that person ... I just need to actually enact them.

Another thing I'm considering is possibly taking on a new name - or doing something that is tangible or obvious to say, to show that I'm a different person than I was. That I'm going to become a different person.

I'm not certain if that makes sense, but it's just something I'm thinking about now.

Anxiety, Part 2

Part One: Earthquakes

After I got over my earthquake fear (which, I didn't mention before, led me to asking my seventh grade History teacher to let me leave the class and go to the library to study, or something like that, if we were going to continue discussing earthquakes in general - and the Big One in particular) I didn't really have any new "thing" to be anxious over (that I can remember). Perhaps the social anxiety of having few friends in middle school (my original clique had kicked me out sometime halfway through seventh grade) and being a veritable loner was enough to keep my stress levels busy.

Then I got into High School. My Sophomore Year I started Drivers Ed, which I was not looking forward to. Oh heaven's, was Driver's Ed not my favorite class.

When I was little - four or five - I was almost hit by a car in a parking lot. This memory has stuck with me through the years, simply because it was so frightening. Naturally, this was the first - and only - thing in my head when I got behind the wheel of a car for the first time.

I'm going to kill someone with this thing.

I could think of nothing else. My first time driving on real roads I got yelled at a lot by my instructor.

I'm still amazed I passed my driver's test, nervous as I was.

Another academic anxiety I had was related to maths and science, which Tene can likely attest to. I had a hard time understanding what I realized were basic concepts in the maths and sciences, and I was so anxious to prove to myself - and in a somewhat larger degree, to my parents - that I wasn't stupid, that I would often start crying while doing my maths homework. I don't recall if I had similar emotional reactions to my science homework, but if it involved mathematics I wouldn't be surprised. My stepfather and mother would make fun of me for this constant emotional outburst - which didn't help my self esteem or my anxiety about the issue much.

I would also have trouble sleeping before a test in nearly every subject.

Anxiety, Part 1

Nothing much is happening in my life currently. Tene has had 3 interviews with the New Company, and we'll find out next week if they want to fly him out to California to interview him in-person. It looks hopeful.

I've been looking at apartments, but have yet to act on any of them. I hope to begin my emailing campaign sometime today. Otherwise I've been working on cleaning up the apartment to try to get it available for someone else to move in to. Speaking of which: Does anyone want to move into our apartment for 2 months?

I've also switched medication again. I'm now on Cymbalta, which is not an SSRI, but something else (I'm unsure exactly what it is, but I know it helps with the reuptake of dopamine rather than serotonin, so maybe it will help me?). I've been taking it for two days, and it reaches saturation around day 3 or 4. Celexa takes about a week to fully leave the system. So, I guess I'll find out the effects of Cymbalta in ... five days? Here's hoping it works.

Otherwise, my life is quite boring.

I wanted to talk about my anxiety - it's been a little worse lately, and I've wanted to write about what I go through, in the hopes that my friends and family who read this may understand a bit better what I go through when my anxiety gets bad.

I'm going to be writing this in parts, otherwise it will end up being one single huge post.

First off: I've always had problems with anxiety. Looking back, it was obvious that I had problems. At the time, I figured the fears/worries/etc that I had were normal, and if not normal - at least they weren't too far from the norm. Now I know that my reactions to a lot of things was very very very odd. I sometimes wonder why my Mother never did anything about my anxiety - I don't believe my Dad knew about what I was going through.

The earliest memory I have of disabling anxiety started when I was in or just about to start sixth grade - shortly after August 11, 1999, the day a tornado hit downtown Salt Lake City. My entire life up to that point I had been told and reassured and reminded that: "A tornado couldn't happen here, the mountains and tall buildings would prevent it" and that Utah didn't have many tornados anyway, and they occurred in the desert, salt flats, and more open areas. After the tornado I began having trouble sleeping at night. I became worried that some horrible disaster would occur while I slept (tornado, earthquake, fire, etc) and I would lose my family. I became hyper-aware of any Bad Thing that could possibly ever happen.

Soon my anxiety shifted to solely concern earthquakes.

The Salt Lake Valley sits right next to a fault line (I can't even read that article without anxiety, obviously this is still a problem), which has tendrils that go underneath most of the valley. I believe my Junior High School was  (is) situated on one of these faults. There hasn't been a large quake in a good long while. I believe that we're supposed to have a large quake every ... I think 5000 years, but I could be wrong. Anyway, we're supposedly overdue for The Big One any year now.

This was driven into my head all through Grade School, and some more in Middle School. It never scared me, until the tornado. Suddenly the abstract idea of an earthquake happening became real. And everything I was being taught in class became terrifying.

I had a hard time getting to sleep. Any movement - even slight - of my bed was enough to make my heartrate raise and get my adrenaline going. I became more and more tired as I got less and less sleep. I didn't talk to anyone about this. Even the counselor I saw later that year.

The nightly fear and anxiety continued until February 2001, when a decently large earthquake hit Seattle, Washington, and only one person was killed in it. However, I still have nights where I have trouble falling asleep due to anxiety or fear about Something Bad Happening.

Almost a year and a half of having trouble sleeping, and the only help I ever got for it was a poem my stepdad would tell me - almost every night.

If there's a worry under the sun
There is a remedy or there's none
If there be one, hurry and find it
If there be none, nevermind it

But I couldn't just forget my worries, or ignore them, no matter how much I tried.

What should have been a serious warning sign that something wasn't quite right with my brain was ignored, brushed aside with poems and blessings. Looking back, I honestly feel like I was being ignored, and that I wasn't being taken seriously.

Part Two: Cars and Tests

Cars, Meds, and Other Exciting Adventures.

Near the end of last month, Tene got into a car accident while on his way to work. He'd been driving my car (it got better gas mileage than his), and there was a decent amount of ice on the road. He slid, and ended up hitting the sidewall on the on ramp to the freeway and spinning out. The airbags deployed, and, long story short, the Subaru (Rubiru, as it began to be known to me) that had served me since Senior year of High School - taking me back and forth between Salt Lake and Cedar City - was totaled, and Tene was cited with a "Failure to Maintain Lane."

The front license plate was torn off in the accident.

The good news of all of this is that Tene was completely uninjured in the accident, he was just a little shaken up by it (which I can certainly understand).

So, this all happened on December 29. Rubiru was taken from the accident to a towing yard, and I was unable to get it released until the next day - I so had to pay them some absurd amount of money for towing it and holding it for me. On December 30 I got AAA to tow my car from the towing yard to our mechanic. Then we got to play the waiting game. Because it was a holiday weekend, neither our insurance (State Farm) or the mechanic got around to my car until the next week (I think they finally got to it on January 5 ... ), and they called Tene and I about the fact that my car was totaled shortly thereafter. On January 11 Tene and I finally went and did all the settlement stuff, got our check, and handed the Title over to State Farm. Rubiru was officially no longer mine.

Well, we were thinking of buying Rubiru in the auction, but I didn't get around to looking at their website until today, and I can't find Rubiru on the site (which surprises me, but maybe they aren't going to auction it off until later in the month?). So now my job is simple: Find myself a new car that is affordable with regards to our settlement.

So, what else is new? I'm on a new medication. On Monday, before we went to State Farm, Tene and I went to a new doctor - a Psychiatrist. He was decently friendly, and I liked him. I'm a little wary about some things that were discussed, but we'll see how it turns out. He took me off of my Zoloft, and put me on my new medication - Citalopram, the generic of the medication Celexa. I was also told that I have to start going through what is so eloquently called "Sleep Reduction." It's exactly what it sounds like. I'm not allowed to sleep as much anymore (which is probably good, because I was sleeping a good 12-15 hours per day for a while there). I go to sleep when I go to sleep, and I wake up at 11 to 11:30 - and I can't nap during the day. Until today, that was just fine, but now the lack of sleep is getting to me - all I've wanted to do all day is curl up in bed and sleep. I've been good, though! I haven't given in to temptation. Haven't done anything very productive either ... but I haven't slept!

My current medications: yellow Clonazepam (taken very very rarely), blue Zoloft (off of it now), and the red/pink Celexa

As for the medication itself, I haven't noticed much of a change in my mood - but I am noticing a few side effects (which I'm curious if they're psychosomatic, so I'm trying to not give them much weight at the moment). I'm not sleeping as well (I feel restless, but I had episodes of that on Zoloft as well; I'm waking up in the night and having a hard time getting back to sleep; and I seem to be sleeping a lot lighter than I usually do - and yeah, these aren't helping how I feel about the sleep-reduction thing any), and I've been getting headaches, nausea, and other "I feel sick" type symptoms. Which could be from either starting on Celexa or from stopping the Zoloft as abruptly as I did. I've also been having some general aches and pains. Again: I am wondering if most of this is psychosomatic, and I hope it is, but it might be real, which would suck. Hopefully the side-effects go away soon, and I tolerate this new medication well.

My final "adventure" happened on Jan 8! I had two friends come visit me, who I hadn't seen in quite a while. One was Jekka, who has been on an LDS mission in Japan (I'm so envious of her) for the last year and a half. The other was Zoie, who lives in the exotic land of Tennessee (hey, I live in Salt Lake, anywhere else is "exotic" to me) and I only get to see her once a year - if that! It was fun to have them over. Zoie dressed up in my EGL dress, and looked excellent in it, we talked and caught up, and we watched the first episode of Doctor Who (the new seasons, I still have yet to see anything earlier than 2005). It was good to see them, and I already miss Zoie (who is back in Tennessee). Hopefully I'll be able to see Jekka once I can go to Cedar City and visit my friends there.

2009 Assessment and 2010 Resolutions!

So first, the assessment of the resolutions I made way back last January.

1. I want to be posting in each of my blogs at least once a week
2. I want to do at least one new thing each week
3. I want to be posting on Kyoot! and Storyline at least once per week
4. I want to have new site layouts set up for both Kyoot! and Storyline
5. By the end of the year I want to be cooking regularly and be comfortable with cooking often

So, how did I do? "No" to #1 (although I did improve near the end of the year), a big no "no" to #2. An even larger "no" to #3 and #4 ... and ... another "no" to #5. Five "nos" and no "yesses" ... that doesn't really paint a nice picture of me.

But, in the last year I have improved in ways I didn't list. I brought Criss Cross Asterisk out of the dark, and I'm more public about my beliefs and views on things. I have played around with cooking and baking, and I am more comfortable with it. I'm less crazy than I was this time a year ago - still crazy, but less so. I'm still depressed, and I still have anxiety issues, but ... they aren't as bad as they were, and I have better control over them. I am in a much better place than I was a mere 365 days ago. I am, in general, happy.

So, what are my resolutions for 2010?

• Again: Posting to Criss Cross Asterisk once every 5 days, and to Rats in Pants, Kyoot!, and Truth in Lies once every 7. Storyline should be updated once every two weeks, once I get the site up and running appropriately.
• Kyoot! and Storyline should both have their websites recoded, completely, by the end of the year. Kyoot! should also take a new direction.
• I want to be writing every day. Even if it's just a page, or even just a sentence, I want to write every day.
• I want to settle into a housewife-type routine. I want to be cooking at least two meals a day (or making two meals a day), and I want those to be healthy. I very well might attempt a rotation diet later in the year to find out what exactly has been making me sick. I also want to be keeping my apartment clean and well-organized. I also also want to be a proper little baker - I want to try out cookies and brownies and cakes and cupcakes - all done from scratch. I want such things to be posted to 3 and 20 Blackbirds.
  
• I want to change my wardrobe to cuter, more feminine and airier clothes. This means sundresses and skirts, mostly.
• I, again, want to try something new every week. I have some extra motivation to do so, as well: Another blog, Sprouting Bulb, will detail my adventures in this area, with 2-3 posts per adventure (so, per week).
• Common resolution: I want to get into better shape. I want to try out yoga again, and maybe something like bellydancing or a type of martial art. I'm also considering running. This also includes eating healthy.
• I want to declutter my life. I have so much junk in my life, and so much of it I don't use. I've already started this process - cutting down my number of books by a decently large number (anyone want a whole bunch of fantasy books? I've got some nice hardcover editions of a few of The Wheel of Time books, barely used ... as well as quite a few others. Planning on putting them to good use through Freecycle if possible - but perhaps I'll give my friends the first go at them ...), but I want to do more. I would much rather have a few nice, well made things (say, a Kindle - which I bought, used, with Christmas money, hooray!), than a whole bunch of less-nice, badly made things.
  
• I want to become a better-rounded person. I hope by this time next year, I'm on a medication that helps me. Or that I don't need medication anymore (unlikely, but a girl can dream, right?). I want to be social, and happy, and doing well in the things I want to do.

More than last year, yeah, and I know there's a few others nagging at the back of my head, but it's late and I need sleep. Maybe I'll add to this later? But then again - maybe I won't. Only time will tell.

Hope you all have a great year!

Merry Christmas!

When I was little - five or six - my brother's room was right next to mine, and he had a bunk bed. He always slept in the top bunk, and the lower bunk was usually empty. But on Christmas Eve he would let me into his room, and I would sleep on that bottom bunk. We did this for years, even after he moved downstairs, and the bunk bed was abandoned. Once those days come we would sleep in the living room - on the couch and floor. But, until we got into our mid-teens (his late-teens), we would spend Christmas Eve together.

...

My maternal grandmother always, always had her family Christmas party a week or two before Christmas. At first she and my grandpa would have the party in her home - until the family got too big! Now she has her party at various churches and assembly centers, but some things stay exactly as they were.

She still puts on the Nativity with the little kids - everyone dresses up and you've got Mary and Joseph, the shepherds (one year a big group of my cousins were shepherds, and one of my cousins was a sheep - he donned an old sheepskin my grandparents got from Australia years ago, and baaaaah-ed the entire time), the wise men ... and an entire slew of angels. Most years we even had a Baby Jesus! Grandpa will read the nativity story out of the New Testament, and my one cousin, Shanda, will read the part of the angel. She always got the part growing up (I believe she is the oldest grandkid, but I could be wrong), and now that she's an adult with kids of her own - no one else wants it! So every year she dutifully dons a halo and reads: "Glory to God in the highest!"

The other staple of the Steadman Christmas Party is our talent show. Every year at least one person (this last year we saw 3 talents) gets up in front of the family to share their talents with us. From piano playing to singing, from stories to jokes - we have a very talented family.

...

Every Christmas my maternal grandmother gives out two things to all the families that make up our family - a calendar, and a Christmas book. Everyone also gets a named-and-dated ornament for their tree (I now have 22 of the things ... ). But the books, I think she starts planning the book a year in advance. Some past books have been: The Legend of the Candy Cane, Because I Love You, and The Tale of the Three Trees. She always, being the dramatic one of the family, reads the story to all of us. It's a nice tradition.

...

A tradition that started (for me) after my dad and stepmom married is that of opening a present the night before Christmas. I could, of course, be wrong, and we've always done this, but I don't remember opening presents on Christmas Eve before I was nine or ten. The Christmas Eve present was always the same (although, this year it was changed up a bit) - pajamas. Every year I've been able to expect to have a comfortable pair of pajama bottoms. This year, however, we got slippers. Mine are nice and fuzzy and brown.


...


Something fun my mom did for my brother and I up until a year or two ago was hiding our "big" gift. Christmas Eve she and my stepdad would hide the gift somewhere in the house, and my mom would make up a whole list of clues - the first of which was always in our stocking. The treasure hunt that followed was always fun, and sometimes the clues were hard. I think I got stumped at least once a year over something simple - but when the house has 5 or 6 beds in it (or a large number of chairs ... ) - how am I supposed to know which one the clue is talking about?


...


Christmas has always been special with my family - in lean times and in more extravagant ones. I've always looked forward to Christmas morning, and the time I get to spend with my family - all of my family. Now I'm married, and things are different. Tene and I did exchange gifts this year - but I didn't even get his started (let alone finished). We had a tree, but it was a tiny, cute thing that I got from American Girl ages ago. He and I don't really have any Christmas traditions yet. I hope, though, as time goes on and we grow together that we'll build some strong traditions - not just for Christmas, but for every moment of our lives together.


Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Decisions Decisions

Lately I've been trying to decide what I want for my near- and far-term future. Looking at near-term as within the next year (possibly 2 years), and far-term as 2 to 5 years in the future. I've been having a lot of trouble trying to decide.

Some basic problems I've come up against are that I no longer know what I want to do for my life. I don't think I want to teach anymore (unless I'm teaching college), and I'm pretty much completely certain that I don't want to teach English anymore (unless I can teach creative writing). I don't know what I do want to do, though, just what I don't.

So, here's what I'm debating:
Near-term (from 2010-2011)

• I don't know if I want to continue going to school here in SLC at the Community College. In investigating what I would need to do to get my AS I found out that it's very possible that the schools in San Francisco I would likely apply to wouldn't accept my AS as completion of general education requirements. I was originally planning on completing my AS here because I was afraid of my credits "expiring" (due to some misinformation), which won't happen. So now I don't know what to do.
• If I don't go to school I think I'm going to focus on my cooking and baking, and my writing.
  
• Tene and I were planning on moving to SF after I finished my degree. Now that I might not be finishing my degree here ... should we move sooner? I'm afraid of moving out of UT, and as a side effect away from 95% of my friends.
• I'm trying to decide if I should get a part-time job (regardless of school or not). It would be nice to have some extra income, but I had so much anxiety just with school this semester that I don't know if I would be able to handle a job, even a part-time "monkey-push-the-button" job.
  
• I'm now going to be seeing a psychiatrist for my mood problems. Before we move I would prefer to be on a stable set of medications, if only because I don't want to have to wait even longer to find a psychiatrist (I'm not going to be seeing my new doctor until January ... so ... ).
• I want pets. When and where ever we move next I am so going to make sure that our apartment is pet-friendly. I hope to have three (maybe four!) rats, and possibly a kitty.
• I want to get my digestion problems figured out. I'm debating beginning an Exclusion, or Rotation Diet within the next year.
  
• I want to have our Commitment Ceremony on June 12, our one year anniversary. I mentioned it to my mother, and she pointed out that it might be weird to have this ceremony so long after the "real" wedding. I don't think this is actually too much of a problem. I'm basically going to treat the ceremony as our wedding.

Long-Term (2012-2015)

• I don't know what I want to do with my life. I'm currently debating between some form of Biology (following the lead of friends Jekka and Kayleigh - I am considering Marine Biology), or possibly Physics (with the end goal of teaching college). Another consideration is to get a business degree, or just open a coffee shop, cafe, or clothing boutique (or some other small shop).I'm also considering aspiring to be a housewife - an idea that sounds very nice to me.

That's actually all for now. It's late and I'm having a hard time thinking. So, probably more later!

Thanks

I was going to post this yesterday, but yesterday ended up being a very busy day, being Thanksgiving and all. So instead, I'll post it today - on a day when leaving the house seems like a very bad idea (crazy black Friday shoppers ... ).

I am thankful that by chance I was born into this world and was able to be adopted by a loving family who took great care of me and raised me well.

I am thankful that by chance a certain boy began speaking to me in a high school computer course, thereby changing both of our lives forever.

I am thankful that by chance I have met so many wonderful people, friends, who stand by me and love me - they are part of my family.

I am thankful that by chance I was born into a good middle-class family, and so have always been provided for.

I am thankful that by chance I live in a world that can provide for me more than I need.

I am thankful that by chance I live in a country where I can get an education, rather than being considered little more than a womb. I am also thankful that I have the option of having, or not having, children - and no one else can decide that for me.

I am thankful that by chance I live in a world where I can choose an occupation, or none, for myself. That I live in a world where I can honestly be anything I wish, and that my future is not decided by anyone else.

I am thankful that by chance I live in a country with wonderful healthcare  - and yet I can still complain that I want it to be better.

I am thankful for this world - this beautiful, natural world.

I am thankful for my parents, my stepparents, and my otherparents. I am thankful to my birthmother, for choosing to carry me to term. I am thankful for my brother, halfbrother, stepsiblings, and othersiblings - they are all so supportive of me when I need them to be. I'm thankful for my nephews and nieces. I am thankful for my lover and partner, I hope he will always remain by my side. I am thankful for my friends - Kayleigh, Zoie, Jekka, Teffy and Ima, Jaaku, Marty, Sherry ... and all the others who have touched my life in ways unimaginable.

Exercising

I keep meaning to start up an exercise schedule to whip my skinny butt into decent shape (seriously, I can't carry loads of laundry back and forth between my apartment and the laundry center without running out of breath and getting a stitch in my side. I can barely lift 30lbs without feeling overwhelmed. I'm a weakling), but I keep putting it off because ... well ... there really aren't any good reasons why I put it off, I just do. I'm lazy, mostly, and really really really unmotivated to do much of anything productive with my health - be it eating healthier or exercising or anything else that would be good for me.

So I've started thinking about various exercises that sound interesting to me, after all - where better to start than at the beginning: choosing an exercise of choice.

My options, or the things that sound interesting to me, are as follows:

• Running - Now, I've always hated running. I get a stitch in my side and feel like I'm going to die. I always have - I don't think I've ever run a full mile. Run/walked a full mile, sure, but never run a full mile. But for some reason, running sounds nice to me. Therapeutic somehow, I guess.
• Belly Dancing - Belly dancing has always sounded fun to me. Exotic. I just can't dance. I have no sense of beat anymore, and I'm not exactly what you would call "graceful." Even when I'm really into the music (say, when I was at the VNV show) my movements are jerky, not smooth. It's always been a problem. Also, I feel like I have this little pot-belly in development and it embarrasses me.
• Poi Dancing - Specifically with LED or Fire poi. Unfortunately, poi has the same issue that belly dancing has - I am not graceful, and I can't dance. There is the added problem that I haven't been able to find a studio which teaches poi in Salt Lake yet.
  
• Yoga - I have really enjoyed yoga in the past, and even though I don't believe in the spiritual aspects of it, I still find it refreshing. If I were to take up yoga again I would most likely take courses from Flow Yoga SLC, especially since most of the other yoga places, as far as I can tell, focus heavily on much more intense yoga than I would be comfortable starting out with (like, say, yoga in heated rooms).
• Martial Arts - Specifically kick-boxing (even if it is like the Tae-Bo thing), mixed martial arts (if that's even taught), or jiu-jitsu. My big problem here is I'm very very very much a pacifist, and I don't think I want to hurt other people.
• Free Running/Parkour - Upsides: Low cost, since there are groups that do free running together (like SLCPK), it seems like something I could do given time, and it looks friggin' fun. Downsides: ... I'm scared of breaking something, I can't do any gymnastics or acrobatics (I never even learned how to do a handstand or a cartwheel properly), and, well, I'm not really a good runner.
• Medieval Sword Fighting OR Kendo - I don't know why but both of these sound fun to me. And I don't mean fencing. I mean playing with longswords or katanas. Buuut I've always been a little crazy.

So there's a list of various exercises I've been thinking about. Maybe I'll start running over at the laundry building ... 

I Make Plans

Tene and I were married nearly six months ago (crazy, isn't it?), and we didn't have a large ceremony. I, however, want a bit of a larger ceremony - what I'm going to call a commitment ceremony. We were making plans to have such a ceremony in October, but stress and some points of life got in the way of it. We've finally set on a date for the ceremony, and that date is the anniversary of our wedding: June 12, 2010.

I am the main one making plans for the ceremony, and so far this is as much as I have decided (well, I've decided on colors - white, blue, and orange [blue is Stephen's favorite color, orange is mine, and they are complementary colors]). I plan, however, to update Rats In Pants with any plans I have for this ceremony.

In other news, I now know when I'm going to be finishing up my Associates Degree (Associates of Science)! I should be graduating in two semesters, so the end of summer semester. I'm excited!

Update on Surgery

Well, I went and saw the periodontist again a couple of days ago. My two times daily regime of brushing my gums is doing what it was supposed to, and they think that they'll be able to do the surgery in two weeks. So it is scheduled! I will be temporarily losing my ability to eat solids on February 12, the day before my little sister's wedding. Oh, how lovely I will look in the wedding photos.

On the up side, I do get to have the IV sedation, so I don't have to be conscious for the cutting and the pulling and the grafting. Hooray! Despite this way being slightly more dangerous this way will keep me from panicking halfway through the surgery. Which can only be a good thing. On the down side, I will be unable to bite down on anything with my front teeth for anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks.

Some other things: The surgery will "only" take an hour, and is pretty minor. Also the mouth heals quickly, so I'm looking at worst case scenario with the "couple of weeks" thing (on the other hand, I couldn't eat solid foods comfortably for four days after getting my wisdom teeth removed, so perhaps my mouth doesn't heal as fast as others?).

Here's hoping it goes well.

In other news: I'm starting to work on Kyoot! again, for all those who like my comic. Also, If you look over at my Sister Sites on the side you'll see that I've started yet another blog, although this one doesn't have anything on it yet. Check it out sometime (well, hopefully not soon, but eventually it will have some content): Stitched Sheep. Eventually it will have my adventures in craft-making and cooking.

Life Changes ... A Spot Of Silence

I apologize for my lack of communication lately, I've been busy ... and when I haven't been busy I've been apathetic.

So, a few changes are happening in my life right now! Some of the major ones are exciting to me, and possibly disappointing to some (if not many/most) of my friends and family, while other major ones are terrifying to me. I'll talk about them in the order of exciting-terrifying.

EXCITING!

• I am moving out of my mother's house within the next couple of months (hopefully I'll be moved out within 6 weeks). Currently everything rests on me getting health and dental insurance. I'm applying for it shortly, and will move once I have confirmation that I have received the insurance.
• I am moving in with my boyfriend, Tene. This is where people will probably be disappointed in me (heaven knows my parents are). I understand concerns, but I'm happy with my decision, and I haven't made this decision lightly.

IN THE MIDDLE!

• Once I have insurance set up and everything, I'm likely going to start looking for a new psychiatrist. Although I feel that I have conclusively proved that I do not have bipolar (I've been off of medication for it for months with no adverse effects in the manic range), I feel that I should look back in to being placed on medication for depression. It sucks, I hates it, but hopefully I can learn to manage this somehow - be it with, or without, medication.

TERRIFYING!

• Before I moved out I wanted to have a clean bill of health (or have a moderate idea of anything that could potentially be a problem). As a result I went to my regular doctor and dentist, and in both cases was sent to specialists.
• First was the plastic-surgeon who deals specifically with the eye region. I was sent to him by my regular doctor after these little bumps formed by my eye, and didn't go away. The eye-bumps hurt a little, especially if I mess with them (imagine that!), and while they aren't obscuring my vision or anything, are a little annoying. The eye-doctor looked at them, measured them, and prodded them only to come to the conclusion "I don't know what these are! But they don't seem to be dangerous!" He sent me home without doing much, and told me to go back in 6 months (or so) if they don't go away or get worse.
• Second was the dentist who deals specifically with the gums. I was sent to him by my regular dentist (who is a pediatric dentist. I like that I watch Rattatouie when I see my dentist ... ) after he noticed some recession of my gum line. The gum-dentist looked at my gums, listed out some numbers that I don't understand, and then told me that he had to do surgery. This will be done in the next few weeks and I'm scared for it.

Well ... that's the sum of my life at this point. I hope everything goes well, and I'll try to keep ya'll updated!

2009 Resolutions

Well, I usually don't do New Year Resolutions, because I never follow through with them ... or I lose them, and can't see how I did. I think that this will be the best place to write them down.

So, here it goes!

• I want to be posting in each of my blogs at least once a week*
• I want to do at least one new thing each week*
• I want to be posting on Kyoot! and Storyline at least once per week**
• I want to have new site layouts set up for both Kyoot! and Storyline
• By the end of the year I want to be cooking regularly and be comfortable with cooking often

That's all for now. There are more, so I'll likely be adding to this in the near future.

*I'm still deciding whether this is going to be a Gregorian Week, or a Discordian Week
**Definitely going to be a Gregorian Week