Tryptofantastic

After my usual glut of holiday food (only two Thanksgiving dinners this year, thank goodness) and family, i'm feeling worn out and exhausted. Not to mention the fact that I came down with a cold practically as soon as I got here and have felt progressively worse every day. Thankfully, today was a bit better since i've stopped sneezing every 3 seconds.

As much as I enjoy being home, I am once again REALLY ready to go back to Chapel Hill, despite my conflictual relationship with it currently. I just feel stifled here in the mess of my mom's house...I need some autonomy. And cleanliness. And a bed frame, which I currently don't have here because it is still leaning up against a wall in the dining room waiting to be carried upstairs and put back together. Ack.

To further the weekend awkwardness that begun with my mom asking my stepmom if she wanted to join us for a movie and continued at my dad's on Friday, as we ate dinner and then all started at each other for what seemed like 2 years but was probably about 2-3 hours, a client tried to friend me on facebook. Clearly, this is not appropriate, and now I feel like I have to bring up boundaries because I don't want him to get a friending complex. I am really not cut out for direct practice. Really.

I DID go see Australia, which was as good as Twilight was ridiculously awful. Great setting, costumes (my favorite, of course) and music. I was feeling iffy, since Baz Lurhmann movies can either be good (Moulin Rouge) or kitschy (Romeo + Juliet)..thankfully this one was good, but on a MUCH larger scale than Moulin Rouge, not to mention longer (3 hours!!). When I went the theater was packed with elderly people, and I have to say the best part of the movie was when Hugh Jackman emerged in a white smoking jacket and a collective "mmm" went up from the elderly ladies.

Crikey.

After a bit of a break, it's back to the grindstone tomorrow, since I have 2 exams coming up this week. Blech. At least i'm done after that....

Let the holidays begin!

The Christian holiday, that is...I'm not sure the Jewish ones ever end, to be honest. Thanksgiving is kind of areligious.

I had another busy but good weekend...Friday I went to dinner and then to the CHiPs improv show with some SW girls...on leaving dinner we saw a huge crowd of people marching down Franklin (blocking an entire lane of traffic, which, I imagine, was not making the bus full of people stuck behind them very happy). They were wearing skull masks, weird clothes, and wheeling a coffin that said "capitalism" on the side. This only contributes to my notion that it is really time to get out of Chapel Hill. At least CHiPs was hilarious as always, and my fellow JFS intern was there, so we had some good laughs about things that happened this week (for example, when Debbie, one of the social workers, said about her couch, "This thing sure gets a lot of action!". hahaha).

Saturday I did some Christmas shopping, which mostly consisted of going to Barnes & Nobles to look for children's books for my niece (SO MUCH FUN!! I got "Goodnight Moon", "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom", "Guess How Much I Love You", and a Sandra Boynton book called "Horns to toes") and Southern Season, which is always a good outing, even if I go just to browse the teas.

Then I went to see Twilight, which, i' m sad to say, was even more ridiculous than the books (which I honestly wasn't sure was possible). It was PACKED with tweens, and the movie mostly consisted of close-ups of Edward and Bella's faces, breathing hard and looking anxious. It was essentially two hours of middle school style awkward. Here's some choice lines:

"Hang on, you little spider monkey"

"Bella, you're my own personal form of heroin"

Good grief.

Today was also my next-to-last day with Joe, which went fine except for when I burned my finger baking cookies since his well-loved favorite pot-holder was a little TOO well-loved, and had a hole in it. And when he washed his hands, and then dried them. On the dog. I can't make this stuff up.

School-wise: 2 weeks left of class! I've turned in one paper, finished another, and am about halfway through the last 2 (one of them is a group paper, and i'm just waiting for one group member to give me his part..I understand why he hasn't yet, but it still kind of ticks me off. The control freak is always there, it's just dormant sometimes.) Then I have my online class (blahhhh) and a bunch of work for my internship. Followed by work for the Arc. And more work for my internship. So yeah, I'm getting a break...*sigh*. At least there's no class...

A Weekend of Eating

It was Brian's birthday weekend...and essentially all I did was eat and cook.

Friday night I went to dinner with some SW girls, then to the James Bond movie (Brian ended up going with some Doggett people), and then to Yogurt Pump. It was nice to feel part of a group, since I haven't really had that in a long time, and we ended up staying out past 11 just talking. James Bond was only so-so, I thought, but at least QUANTUM was a lot more believable than SPECTRE, and Mr. Green was a lot more chilling and realistic than Goldfinger ever was. Plus this was the first movie I've seen since August, so it was kind of nice.

Saturday Brian and I went to the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit (and I didn't get lost! Mainly b/c he knew where he was going and directed me. Apparently the directions I had printed off google maps were completely screwy).  It was good, but realllly crowded (there were even 2 other people from New Bern there!), and most of the exhibit was just background info, and then you got let into this climate-controlled, dark room a few people at a time to see these tiny fragments the size of my hand. But, he enjoyed it, which was the point. Then we had lunch at 518 West (I had artichoke dip and calamari, yum). Then we came back here, and both of us ended up crashing for almost 2 hours; after that, I got up and made quiche lorraine and Tollhouse pie for dinner.  This morning I made pancakes, and then we went to an early dinner at Olive Garden with his family, after mass. And now I'm making pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. Whew.

I DID call and cancel with Joe today, which I feel awful about, since that's the 2nd time I've done that this semester (the first time, though, was because I was having a nervous breakdown). But I wanted to see his family, and I felt like, in this situation, his birthday was more important. But it just contributed to my "I feel like the scum of the earth" complex. Blah.

School-wise, things are really winding down. We have 3 weeks left! I finish a class totally this week, and I've mostly finished one paper and started on the other 2.  Studying hasn't really started tho, but my class has at least started assembling a study guide for direct practice. Despite all my whinging, it has gone by pretty fast...

An Ending and Some Excitement

As I only have 2 Sundays left working with Joe, I almost feel like it's the end of a part of my life. Not that I won't continue working with people with developmental disabilities, since I'm pretty much committed to that now...but I'm struggling with my decision to leave, even though I know it's the right one--I will miss working with him. Today for example, we went to the planetarium for their new show on NASA, which was pretty fun.  If you feel moved to see it, there is a pretty hilarious shot of one of the Apollo 16 astronauts trying to jump up and down on the moon and falling over...

HOWEVER, even though we had a good time today, I got home exhausted and am going to end up having to get up super early in the morning to work more on my paper/presentation (which is tomorrow...at least it will be over).  

I'm getting pretty psyched about Brian's birthday next weekend--I have all sorts of stuff planned. For example, we're going to see the Dead Sea Scrolls (should that be capitalized? Clearly Dead Sea should be, as it is a proper noun, but i'm not sure about S/scrolls...anyway) at the Natural Science museum, as I promised him we would do back in the summer when I found out they were there. Then we're going to his favorite restaurant, 518 West, for lunch (as I recall, we went to its Chapel Hill equivalent, 411 West, for his 21st birthday and I bought him his first glass of legal wine...ah, good times).  Then, i'm cooking dinner (quiche lorraine and Tollhouse pie, his choice) and we're going to see the new Bond movie, as we both love Bond and have gone to see all the movies together that have come out since we started dating (I think that's only 3...although we have watched a couple more on DVD, one which we accidentally watched twice because we weren't actually watching the first time, if you get my gist. And can I just say, Die Another Day is not only the dumbest Bond movie ever, but the dumbest movie ever, period. Halle Berry sucks as a Bond girl, and Madonna needs to get over the fact that she is not really British). I'm hoping it's good, as I was a bit disappointed in Casino Royale...I get that they're trying to start from the beginning of Bond, but why is Judi Dench still M? And where are Q and Moneypenny???

I hope we don't get lost in downtown Raleigh, as I am prone to do, and miss some of that--i'm also planning on cooking breakfast Sunday morning, and then going to Mass with him before work, so I can yell "It's Brian's 24th birthday today!!!" when they ask for announcements.  I'm pretty much more excited about it than my birthday. Especially since I get to go see a movie in the theater for the first time since August..it's about time. 

Guilt and Abandonment

I am the scum of the earth. Ok, this isn't really true...but I sure feel like it, after I had to tell Joe's parents I would be leaving at the end of November. This is really one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, which I'm sure sounds hokey, but it's true.

I would be excited about getting to November, if this month didn't look harder than last. I have 3 major papers and a presentation before Thanksgiving (ie, in the next 3 1/2 weeks), and i've only started researching one of them. I'm pretty sure the 4-clients-every-Thursday thing will continue at JFS, which means I'll be getting home after a 9-10 hour day feeling beaten up.  Plus I'll be working my full hours there, and still working with Joe on Sundays (as the guilt hovers over me, I'm sure).  BUT, I feel like the decision to leave was the right one--working/going to class 40 hours during the week and doing the same type of work on Sundays is too much, and I'm pretty sure I'd burnout reallllly soon. That doesn't make me feel better though...

I've also abandoned, at least for now, my plan to move to Raleigh and get married early. For one, I realized that a lot of my urge to leave CH hinged on the election and how utterly sick I am of having to deal with the Obamaites. But I'm not sure that would be any better in Raleigh, for all State's conservative reputation. Also, I just don't want to have to move again, and find a library, grocery store, and gym all over again, not to mention figure out where I was most of the time. As most of you know, I am not too good with the directions.  I think I was just feeling lonely and was a bit overly optimistic when I was scheming....

On the bright side, if there is one, a new sign just went up across the street from my apartment complex: Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities. HMM. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to walk to work next year...

PS--In line with "guilt and abandonment" theme of this post, this past Thursday was the 10-year anniversary of my parents telling me they were getting a divorce, and the subsequent downward spiral I still sometimes wonder if I've pulled myself out of....