So tonight I went with my mom to an end of the year teacher party that one of her fellow staff members had. It was fine and all but then I stumbled on a chair on my way down to sitting on it and allll the teachers saw it and laughed and assumed i was trashed. Yeah I had been drinking but that was not the cause of the fall. So that brought my pride way down, then around 9 (when minutes are free) I eagerly went to the front yard to call my boyfriend, needing an escape from my mother who was slowly getting buzzed and telling me things I really didn't feel like listening to. Welllll he was too busy getting ready to go uptown and told me he had to go, so I didn't get to talk to him. Bring on the tears. I guess it was a combination of me not wanting to be there, my mom annoying me, falling down, and then the icing on the cake that was him telling me he had to go. So I stomped back to the back yard and of course my mom wanted to know what was wrong and I didn't feel like telling her but of course she pursued it, so I went back to the front yard and called him back, telling him he's the one person I wanted to talk to all day and he pushes me away. He pulled the "well what do you want me to do about it?" and the "I'm sorry" followed by a long awkward pause because I wasn't about to say "it's ok" because it wasn't. And of course I was sniffling because I was nearly crying and I said "I just wanted to hear about your day" and he said "just like every other day" (BAD RESPONSE) and I said "well that doesn't mean I don't want to hear about it." The first time I called and he tried to get off the phone I asked why he didn't call me before he left if he knew he'd be leaving around the time I called. A sheepish "I don't know" is all I got for a reply. All I wanted was maybe an apology for having little time to talk but still taking a mere 5 minutes to ask me about my day, tell me about his, and then thank me for the e-mail I sent last night giving him protein alternatives for a person omitting meat from their diet. Sometimes I don't know if making an effort this summer is worth it when it often seems as if I'm the one trying the hardest. I'm sure I'll take that back soon enough but right now I'm rather irritated.

It's gotten much better. I went to visit, we talk daily, I'll make it. I've been working, planting things in the yard, spending some good quality time with the family, and enjoying getting into shape. Sorta in shape. Really that means riding my bike almost every day and trying to eat better. It's a start.

Now I won't say I'm over what I was upset about in my last post, but I'm getting happier. I got to see this today at Cedar Falls in the Hocking Hills area. I start work tomorrow, which will take my mind off things.

I'm alive, I'm well, I should be more thankful for what I have.

Green With Envy

I already can't handle this. 3 of my 5 best friends from school are living at Miami this summer with my in the house I'll be living at (with them) next year, and already I'm miserable. I'm reallllly looking forward to the moments next year when they'll be talking about something that happened over the summer and I won't have a clue what they're talking about and they'll say "oh we thought you were here that weekend". It was hard enough letting them all bond without me when I was in Luxembourg and now it's happening again. It wouldn't be as bad if it were just the three of them but... my boyfriend is living there too which makes it 100 times worse. I completely trust all of them, that's not the problem. It's just all the stuff they're going to do together without me, I feel so left out.

Here's the crappy thing- I don't want to be mad. I don't want to be jealous. I just can't help it that I am.

Even today, 2 and a half days after getting home from school, both one of the friends and my boyfriend called begging me to come back and stay there til I start work on Friday. Yeah sure, I'd love to. But I have plans with my family, It'd be a lot of back and forth, and I really don't feel like paying $3.15 a gallon, especially if I was just there days ago. Of course I want to see them all, but that doesn't seem to come through when I say "I can't, I think I've gotta stay here for a little while."

This is going to be a long summer.

I'm home for the summer, I don't start work til Friday, and... I don't know what to do with myself. I did some unpacking yesterday, but that's no fun, so I doubt I'll be doing any of that today. I ran some errands, but it's only 1:15 and I'm already done. I COULD go over to my mom's school and observe in the 6th grade classrooms but I'm done with school for now and have earned this sloth time. With this rare sloth time, I should be celebrating my one year anniversary with my boyfriend, but he's over 100 miles away and packing up to move in with my friends who are staying at Miami this summer. I don't want to get in his way. But I've got til Friday! I'm debating whether I should try to go see him tomorrow or something... who knows. Til I figure it out, I'm off to enjoy the sunshine and ride my bike.

Thoughts

It's nearly the end of the semester, I have one final to go, and I couldn't be more burnt out. It actually began somewhere near the last half to third of the semester, so it's been a long time coming. I don't know what it was about this semester that wore me out so quickly. I had two classes that I absolutely loved, my English and Geography classes (a good sign since those are my two concentrations), but the others I grew so weary of so quickly. I took a freshman level mythology class that I expected to love since I enjoy that kind of stuff, but the teacher was this dry, bitter woman with such a monotone voice. Ugh. I took a class that was meant for the middle school level but they can't seem to figure out here at Miami just how to adapt literacy courses to the middle grades. Oh wait, it's because we won't be teaching phonics to students. That's for elementary teachers. Yet they still give us instructors that are better suited to teaching elementary preservice teachers. I tutored a student, which was an enjoyable challenge, but got old quick because I had large assignments in the class for which I tutored the student, so my time got stretched pretty thin for that one.

I just want to be home with my cats, going for evening walks with my parents, making jam, and working with some of the coolest people I know. Work at the Culinary Support Center doesn't quite scream "talent and skill". I scoop cookie dough for 2 hours straight.

It's not like me to be apathetic about school, which is a scary thought. I've always maintained my grades with a high standard, I've always tried reallllly hard, studied my butt off. But I think I'm just fired up about actually getting a job and moving past this point in my life. Good thing I'll be student teaching in the fall. Don't get me wrong, though- I love being here, I love learning, I love interesting classes. Maybe I just didn't have enough of those this semester to keep me going. Next year at this time I'll be kicking and screaming, not wanting to be dragged away from this little cow town that I've come to love.

But then I consider how the family dynamic has changed at home. It's been gradual, and natural, but kind of sad because it's irreversible. I'm not the little girl who does no wrong in mommy and daddy's eyes anymore. Yet somehow... I am. And that makes things a little difficult. Lying about there being alcohol at a party in high school is negligible when I consider having to lie about where I sleep when I visit my boyfriend over the summer. They know, they just want the lie so it's easier to face me, easier to push away, easier to envision me as their little innocent girl.

Also, my brother finally moved out. That means I'm going to hear everything about how he lives from how awful it is that he hasn't put curtains up yet to how crazzzy it is that his girlfriend sits in the front yard on a Sunday morning drinking a beer instead of being in church or plain old being at her own apartment. This really jeopardizes anything I do because now I'm under the microscope too. Also, I feel guilty when I go out with my friends instead of staying in with my parents because I haven't seen my dad all day because he's been at work. I don't know how to pull away. I don't know if I want to pull away. I don't always know what I want.

Shouldn't I be going through this quarter-life crisis next year at this time, and not right now?