mon coeur.

I think my heart rate has systematically increased in speed over the last three days.

I attribute it to several factors.

1.) Statistics. Or lack thereof.
2.) Research Design projects. Is this another language?
3.) The Wall. Human Beings in the conceptual and physical.
4.) Je ne parle pas francais.
5.) Camille. It's Niz's fault. I didn't used to think he was cute.
6.) AVH. Where are you now?
7.) PS489. And MW. Fuck?
8.) More pertinant things.
9.) The La has not been ridden yet.
10.) Research Design Project.
11.) What is modernity anyways?
12.) Bad ideas not to read Plato or Aristotle. Or at least the wrong sections of them.
13.) Plague of Death.
14.) Cold weather.
15.) Starbucks Carmel Macchiato.
16.) "The more you take on the thinner your argument is...and I will detect that...because it's my job." -DS
17.) The fav prof finding out I only had one paragraph of my essay written, t-12 hours before it was due.
18.) Office hours.
19.) Eskom.
20.) Sleep. I can't sleep. (see #15)
21.) POWER OUTAGES. FUCKING STATISTICS.
22.) Ref. #21, not literal outages but statistics on them.
23.) I suck at math.
24.) Roan Stallion.
25.) 17 days. Isolation.
26.) Grades. Fear.
27.) Inability to convince myself it will be okay.
28.) Sugar.
29.) Research Design. (or lack thereof)
30.) Acting. Intelligent. Doing it successfully.

I can't stop shaking. (and it's not too much coffee)

AP makes me mentally unstable.

isolation.

Dear Diary,

Remember that one time school used to be fun? Remember that one conversation you had with old Roomie that went something like this...

Old R: hey, what are you doing tomorrow? Want to meet up for lunch?
Little Girl: umm... I'm in the process of starting 3 weeks of hell.
OR: Oh yes, sounds like you'll be in isolation.
LG: Pretty much, yup.


Goodbye world. I hope my books don't eat me.

Can I break it to you?

You're not in college anymore.



Reasons I know that I'm beyond my years in life:

When I babysit, the parents are out way later than I would ever be.
Like try 4am. I didn't think bars were open until that late. What do they do all that time? How do they exist normally on a 9-5 schedule? What do the kids do in the morning?

I'm tired before the kids go to bed.
Try 10pm. Yawns start hitting and the great desire to curl up on the couch with the lights out smacks me like an abusive mother. I have to remind myself that I'm not allowed to be so pathetic, there's not much worse than being made fun of by kids, especially since they'll never forget, "Hey, remember that one time you fell asleep..."

I try to encourage them to eat healthy food.
No wonder Americans are fat. I try to get them to have tea instead of Butter Lovers popcorn (with extra butter) but they just ignore me. At least I try.

Rather than letting myself fall asleep, I stay up and do work.
This wouldn't normally happen except for in this situation (especially since I'm sick). Reading Cicero. Only because I'm approximately 250 pages behind in reading for that class.

I drive the speed limit home.
Even though it's late and probably okay to speed.

3 more weeks...

....feels like an eternity. Perhaps it's the amount of work that looms, or maybe it's the sheer importance of doing the work well in order to finish successfully. I don't think I've fully learned how to work the system, I still believe that I'll never fully have that talent... but I do think it has been possible for me to start tapping into it. Nonetheless, two major things are leaving me shaking in my panties: the evil research design presentation and essay for IR (hack, stats) and the evil term paper for Issues of Crit. Once each of those are finished those two classes will be fini and I'll have 3 others to painfully forge through. I should keep my chin up, we're close.

It's been tough to keep my chin up when my head feels like a giant cotton ball. Last night I tried to sit down to think coherently but my eyes burned and no matter how many Halls I ate I didn't feel any better. But if this is the worst it's going to be I suppose it's not that bad.

Of course, I've been to sick to do schoolwork but I certainly haven't been sick enough to not ride. LRO requires much attention. We've been taking time out of ring work to hack out in the field and down the road... even shifting into extra canter gear. The LRO likes to gallop! (oh yippie!)

Still feeling overwhelmed with the La, not quite sure how to incorporate both into a training program. I think that I'll work with her when I have a somewhat free day... but I have to get a bridle/bit together first, so that slows the process. She's baby baby and makes LRO feel like an old man so the La will need more in-hand ground work. She's more of what I was expecting to find.

I've been anxiously waiting for a phone call from AVH... fretting that he has cold feet, or that something has changed because of too much salt water or sun or too many sunrises/sets. This had been part of my original hesitation for these weeks... why I've felt funny about writing emails left unread for weeks, but still writing them anyways.

I'm ready for vacation again.

Happy Thanksgiving.

When I think of Thanksgiving I don't normally think of turkey. Thanksgiving is one of those American holidays like Columbus Day, we celebrate it because it's a tradition but we don't really remember that it went something like this:

Pilgrims arrive to the 'New Land', Indians (yeah, I'm not being politically correct today because I feel like death) offer them corn:

Pilgrims: No way, we've got guns, we've got ships, we can get our own food!
Indians: Yeah well okay, we were just trying to be nice.

3 months later:
Pilgrims: Hey, remember that corn you offered us? Can we have some of that?

And then we'll just force you to live on the smallest plots of crappiest land and pretend like we're nice for letting you have some.

I'm just picturing the pilgrims arriving to land in their little knickers and fluffy shirts and realizing how damn cold it is here. I mean, this is no Spring Break vacation, this is we're freezing extraneous parts off of our body.

Anyways, I wouldn't expect anything less from an American holiday: overconsumption and football. Oh how our holidays embody who we are!

Nah, Thanksgiving isn't that bad, I mean, you get to give thanks for a lot of things... we have a special day devoted to it. In general, I try to always be thankful because I think of myself as a very blessed person. But I'm not going to list the things I'm thankful for because there are too many.

However, in the immediate past I am very thankful that we had a baby girl! "Ella" (as in "Cinderella") is now safely at The Barn after we had a safe trailer traveling experience (my first time driving the horse trailer for more than 5 minutes). She's adorable, tiny, and leaving me feeling overwhelmed. I'm still trying to figure out how to divide my attention between the La and the Little Red One. I think, no matter what, I will always hold the LRO in a very special place since he was my first baby. Oh well, La is for the kids anyways.

It's Thanksgiving, I feel like crud, and I'm going out to the barn.

It's good to be alive.

I don't like dill.

In fact, I think it's nasty. See, I don't so much mind dill pickles but dill in salad or on my food = yuck.

I had almost-nightmares last night. I've been trying to be cool about the D.Mar surgery thing, trying not to assume the worst, so on so forth... but of course, after having experienced cancer so close to home one can't help but think of the worst. Last night was a terrible sleep, I kept having the same dream over and over, waking up in between. It was MEM coming up to me and telling me that she has cancer and then I would wake up. Horrible. I slept until 9, wandered around the house, still felt exhausted, crawled back into bed and slept until 11:30. I'm most relieved to have heard that the doctor's didn't find anything but they're still waiting for the pathology report. I'm much more at ease but still slightly on edge. Phew.

Horse show that I organized is this weekend. This may potentially be the last year I invest my time into it. I partially wanted to do it so that my students would have a chance to show, so I hope they appreciate it. Indeed.

Scheduled a vet check on Wednesday. adl;skcnew;okrnekmg;krm!!! Of course, she must pass the vet check before she can come home with me but it's still causing my brain to do little flips, because I'm not quite sure that I'm mentally with it. She is an adorable little one though. Trying not to be excited in case she doesn't pass the vet check but alas it's difficult not to think that I may potentially be owning both of the horses I liked. Despite trying not to be excited about her, I've already demanded that her name be changed. I shall forego mentioning it here because I don't want to get it stuck in my head, thus we've taken to calling her "Minnow". I'm not sure how I feel about it but it's definitely much better than her current name. I'm open to suggestion.

Have I mentioned that I love the Little Red One? He is absolutely adorable and one cool horse.

AVH = 1.5 weeks left on the boat.
Me = I can't wait to talk with him again! (and see him soon?)

But in the meantime, I have copious amounts of homework. So much so that I might have nightmares about it tonight. Oy.

We're having a baby.

It's a girl.


(and if she passes the vet check she will be arriving the day after Thanksgiving.)


This is insane.





(seriously, I don't need another horse, I heart Rowan bunches).



But, "when it rains, it pours". C'est la vie.



FUCK french exam tomorrow ;lanv;welknmr;okijt;ioa;iom.

The innocent can never last.

Have not quite paused for a moment to think of anything to write. Nonetheless, the shit is hitting the fan (to put it lightly).

It has boiled down to the week of D.Mar's surgery, which is this Friday. In my own Little Girl way I have found myself silently wishing that she doesn't have cancer, that it's nothing serious, that there's no monster hiding inside, or to move past what life will be like if there's something terrible going on.

I'm stressed about school, I have a short 4 week haul to the grand finale and I cross my fingers that with everything in a whirlwind around me I will pull out with acceptable, passing grades. I don't mind school (as much as I complain about it) but I have also taken on other seemingly more important responsibilities. I suppose I'll find out if this is a good plan or not.

Speaking of illogical plans, I'm putting in an offer on another horse. Seriously. I have no logical explanation for my motives or how I think any of this will be possible. It's fun though, and, like mum says "when it rains, it pours!"

The horse show that I have planned and organized is this weekend. I have an assload more of organizing to do, sorting awards, paperwork, prepping the judge (the lovely JR) amongst making sure helpers, riders, parents, and all others are in the right places at the right times. Can.I.breathe.yet?

Rowan has been a doll, minus our near death experience of "The Honeymoon has Officially Ended". Or, well, maybe it's just that I really should ride him every day otherwise he goes a little coocoo. I absolutely adore him though, and I think he is quite fond of me as well.

I just received a bill for my MRI: $1,217. For serious. They might as well just have taken my leg off for that cost.

But alas, I'm surviving. It has been taxing, but it's livable. (although, I have been fending off sickness for approximately two weeks now, oy oy.)

Please let Friday bring good news. (sigh.)

Scabs.

Last week in an AH bathroom, living in the created world of headphone music, I stumbled upon a conversation that was...well, odd. People always graffiti the bathrooms and I suppose that on a regular basis these conversations or statements are wiped clean. Perhaps it was a fluke that I was there seeing the almost clean slate. Someone had written, "I'm depressed" and someone else had responded "Don't worry, I am too" and somewhere off to the side I contributed my sentiments, "I have become comfortably numb." But this is the thing about AP, it seems to have become a work horse environment. I get this sense that we're machines or robots and going through the motions while underneath there is all of this junk going on. Are we there because we want to be or because our parents tell us that we have to be or because society says that we can't survive in the idealized lifestyle without being there. It's become quite the contradiction, I don't want to be there, not now, not in these classes. I always somewhat figured that the cool thing about college was that I would finally get to take classes that I really cared about... but it's not the case. I realize that there's give and take but I also realize that I've only been able to manage to take one class that was extremely appealing to me.

I feel like I've lost the passion for things accomplished. I spent most of the weekend reading sections of Plato's "Laws" a fitfully dense piece of political banter that left me in bed trying to fall asleep but not being able to because my eyes hurt. Yes. My eyes hurt from reading so much Plato. So much Plato that I stopped counting how many hours I was investing in finishing it. And when I finally finished it? Nothing. I felt no sense of accomplishment. I can't find my reward out of school. I don't understand. I don't know how to create this feeling, it's something I've never actually had to create before. It's frustrating. What happened?

The fact that I'm struggling in a realm of things intangible I'm finding myself seeking to find the ground again. I need the stability of things not constantly feeling as though they are over my head. I need the affirmation. I'm afraid I'm not going to get the grades. It's ridiculous, I know. I think we're conditioned to this feeling of inadequacy so that we consume more and spend more. I don't trust my talents enough.

I love to pick scabs. I'm constantly picking at things that should be left alone, learning that when I peel the cover off what's underneath is much deeper than I expected it to be.

When I ride my bike to class I ride by the cemetery. It's a peaceful, serene place that's (for the most part) empty. I was riding home the other day when I noticed two piles, one being of dead tree branches and the other being of fake plastic flowers. (presumably both piles were to be removed) I was struck by the contrast of such a situation, the maintenance (or lack there of) of life in fake flowers and the decaying of fallen tree branches. Such elements contrasting the cemetery and surrounded by autumn (and falling, dead leaves) left me with a pitter-pattering heart and sensing the difficulty of pulling away from such an image.

Picking scabs and worrying about stuff. Those are things I'm good at. I've picked the scab of the memories of the vengeance of cancer. Stuff from years ago that you don't even have to try to forget because evolution or instinct or something unnameable has already erased it for us. The contradiction of trying to know yourself but not knowing what's really going on inside of you. It's frightening and I can't even conceptualize what life will be like if/when I have to deal with it again.

I'm wearing Africa on my chest and hanging it from my rearview mirror (always looking back, always looking back), securing Norway around my neck, and cutting Obs from off my wrists.

Week, in review.

All week deer have been laying siege to my sanity. Honestly. I suppose this is a common occurrence just before winter as the walking death traps forge Pontiac Trail for food (?). I image the fright of seeing a deer infront of your car when you're going 60mph is about equal to the same fright I would have if there were a child infront of my car while I was going 30mph. Here's the thing, deer work like this. They're social animals, thus when one runs across the road you're left wondering if another one will stupidly run into the side of your car. Because they do have that good of aim.

I have successfully accomplished a whole lot of nothing this past week. I hardly did any AP work and have self-inflicted guilt about it. I'm fretting that I won't finish the semester or the year or school in general. That would suck. The thing is, I kind of like not doing homework. I mean, I don't really accomplish much else (I guess riding Little Red One) but I don't seem to care too much.

My head is still kind of fucked since last week.

Or my motivation is just fucked since Cape Town. Thanks.

Little Red One has been coming along quite delightfully. Well, despite the fact that he fell over yesterday while I was riding him. It's not the most pleasant experience to be cantering along and then not have a horse underneath you. Luckily he picked himself back up, and by some miracle I stayed on. He gave himself quite the fright and quite the faceful of dirt. He seemed okay today though, even a little pushy (which I didn't so much appreciate). Tomorrow I'll put the pressure back on.

I've become so socially inactive that I've found myself reading Plato on a Saturday night. Is there something wrong with that?

Oy.