There's something about today that makes me feel worthless, but in an existentialist kind of way. Like, even if I could change and make myself worth something, it would be useless because there's no point anyway. I'm not saying this is true, but it's how I feel.

Feelings have been ruling my life a lot lately. I'm not sure I can deal with the consequences very well.

Last night was an exercise in randomness. A boy with a tendency to neglect his body in pursuit of his inner self showed up at my door, nearly frozen to the core after 6 hours of wandering Seattle on foot in the cold with minimal outerwear. He provided me with deep conversation and intense ramblings about life, love, and God in exchange for the use of a sweatshirt and a blanket, a place to sit indoors, a PBJ sandwich, and a cup of chicken broth. Two quick hours later, our mutual friend called to collect him, and we met up for bubble tea on the Ave. Later, some Arrested Development with a friend and a roommate, making arts and crafts with one and cuddling with the other. As a result of all this, none of my schoolwork got done. Looks like I'll have a lot to do this weekend.

Speaking of this weekend, there are good times ahead. Naturally work will be in the mix, but outside of that there are some highlights: a party with my Trader Joe's peeps, a Senate show that will be rockin', and a day off on Monday for MLK Jr. Day. I'm thinking about signing up for something on that day, but then, refer back to paragraph #1 of this post. And then of course, there's today, which I might devote entirely to schoolwork. But that remains to be seen.

Alright, time for German class, and then I get 3 days off from school.

None of the stuff I wanted to get done for school today got done.

I am the best student that ever lived.

Just for quick reference:

Unfolded Protein Response and how it may prevent cells from dying:
http://www.physorg.com/news86362482.html

Memory formation
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061222092644.htm

Resveratrol in red wine helps reverse obesity-related gene pathways:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061101151156.htm



The rest of my day is going well. I'm tired because Ronda and I had way too much fun chatting last night - until we realized it was 3:30 AM. But we did our homework first, so the only problem was getting up this morning... and not sleeping through my lectures. Only 3 more classes to go, and then I have tomorrow COMPLETELY OFF!

I hate:

-the coffee that spilled on my brand-new bag that Andrea gave me
-classes/homework
-work, sometimes (but not today)
-the feelings that are making me do things I don't want to do, and hurt the person I'd rather die for than hurt

I love:

-tea and spicy cider
-the Senate
-postcards from faraway places
-music
-my friends, even when I give them every reason to hate me

Random: So Ronda and I just discovered a bag of new knives and wooden blocks in my room. Someone is doing some carving, and it's not me. How in the sam hell did it get here?!?

I don't think it's the lack of sleep and food that's making me feel like crap today. Nope. Probably not that.

Bevor ich dir Weh tue, bringe ich mich lieber um.

Dear Kyla,

Why do you have a tendency to be so self-destructive?

love,
yourself.

Wow. Last night was ridiculous. I feel like I'm on break again, which would be nice if it were true. But as it stands, I have homework to do. And I have work today and tomorrow. Grr.

So, yesterday. I got out of class at 12:30, and Jeff and I went downtown to see the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were really cool. We also got to look around at other parts of the Pacific Science Center, and we had fun competing against each other on things like grip strength testing and reaction time, and just basically playing on the exhibits and trying not to say bad words in front of the numerous children present.

After viewing the exhibit, I was due to eat dinner with Javod, Andrea, Bijan, Daniel, and one of Javod's med school friends. After much deliberation, we settled on Cedars, which would have been a ridiculous wait had a table for 6 not opened up 5 minutes after our arrival. The food was, of course, delicious, and we brought home leftovers. We decided to come to my house and hang out for a while after dinner, and we were pleasantly surprised to see that there were already 4 people in the living room when we got there: Ash, Ben, Fletch, and Joel. Max called and ended up coming over too, and drew us a wonderful new crest for our house (since apparently the old one needs to be burned). Various people kept coming and going, including our delightful neighbors and Andrea's brother's friends, and it turned into a party of sorts, minus the music (which, in hindsight, might have been nice).

And now it's 2 pm, I have work at 4:30, and I have a shower to take and some reading to do before that hour arrives. Better get going!

Wow, the new quarter is here. Guess that means it's time to get back down to business. Sigh...

At least there's International Night at College Inn to be excited about. That, and FIUTS lunch today from 11:30 to 1:30.

I miss Germany again. When can I go back?

Happy New Year's to you all. Hope you had a grand ol' time on the big night. I did!

Tonight was crazy. I don't really know what happened. All I know was, I was supposed to stay in Seattle after hanging out with Andrea and Bryan, and read or something. Just chill out. Instead, Andrea and Bryan convinced me to come to Olympia with them, and so I spent 9 fun and ridiculous hours in Olympia, hanging out with old high school friends.

Now I'm back at my house in Seattle (thanks to a ride from Matt Hall's dad), and it's 6:30 AM, so I think it's time to get some sleep. I'll be back up at 11:30 anyway.

It's been a while since I've blogged.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention the best part of last night.

On the bus ride home from Ballard at 2:15 am, we were in the back of the bus. Just seven of us, chilling out and laughing and talking. A dude came back, sat down, and asked to talk to us. We immediately quieted down to listen to him. It was apparent this guy was agitated, and either crazy or on drugs. He basically had one thing to say:

"Guys, I had some problems earlier, but it's cool now, yeah? We're not going to have any problems now, right?"

We tried to reassure him that this was the case. Lita, who was extremely intoxicated, kept talking nonsense and even tried to reach out to touch him, which he jumped at and reached for his pockets. We tried to calm him by chatting conversationally. Then the bus stopped and stayed in one place for a while. It was an awkward treading of water with the guy, as he kept asking the same question and we maintained that everything would be all right. This continued until the police showed up behind the bus a few minutes later. The guy made no violent moves and cooperated as the police escorted him off the bus. We watched him be handcuffed through the window as the bus pulled away.

We all breathed a sigh of relief, wondering what the guy had done and if he had any weapons on him. One of our group, who is a Marine, stated that he was ready to leap up and powerkick him at the first sign of aggression. He even demonstrated this, and we all laughed, relieved that it hadn't come to that.

Tonight was a good night. I had fun dancing at the Hazlewood in Ballard, a nice hole-in-the-wall place. It was the Trader Joe's anti-holiday/farewell Donny party, and it was fun hanging out with all my co-workers. Somehow, I don't feel like I'm friends with any of them. I'm getting along well with most of them (some better than others), and I had a good time tonight, but I don't think we're friends.

Also, I'm glad tonight that I usually have school. Just working makes me restless, like there's more I should be doing but somehow I don't have time for it.

I can't wait to go home on Friday and see Andrea and Sara for the first time since the end of August. I want to hang out with my family before I have to come back up here and work again, grr. And I can't wait for Jeff to come back from LA. Life is just a few weeks away from returning to happy normalcy.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

(Deutsche Kenntnisse waeren echt praktisch zum Anschauen dieses Videos.)

Yesterday was a very good day. I did lots of things in the morning because Jeff left for LA and so I got up with him at 8 to ride downtown and put him on the bus to the airport. By the time that the bus rolled out with my Jeff on it (wah!!!), it was 9:30 am and I was in the International District with no ooncrete plans. I ended up wandering west through the ID to Capitol Hill, because it was a nice day (no rain, at least) and I felt like walking. Here's all the things I saw and did:

-Went to multiple Chinese markets; was the only white person there; bought lots of good produce for about 6 dollars (peppers, basil, a pomegranate, an asian pear)

-Talked to a lady walking on the street, who was very chatty, and talked about her side job as a caterer, and how the post-holiday season is "funeral season"; asked her where the Capitol Hill Trader Joe's was, which she answered with a vague "It's on Madison" before jumping onto her bus

-Had a guy with dreadlocks call me "Rastafarian" and try to sell me one of 5 pairs of shoes, although they were all 3 sizes too small for me; at the same time, a lady asked me for food stamps

-Found the Trader Joe's and marveled at how nice the place is (much better than our ghetto store); bought oranges, bread, mango and smoked salmon. Helps to know the products well beforehand

-Went to find a bus line that would take me back to the U-District. Found one, but had a few minutes until it was due to come, so I went up the bus route to the main street. Came around the corner to see a wonderful view of the Space Needle framed by mountains. Was sad that my cell phone could not effectively capture the view.

-In trying to get an unobstructed view of the Needle, I found a side street that was closed due to a tree falling during Thursday's wind storm. The tree was completely uprooted and had fallen directly onto somebody's truck, smashing the back end pretty bad. My cell phone was able to take good pictures of that.

-Back in the U-District, I picked up my bike and rode home through campus. I saw two wedding parties and ran into an old friend from my parking job, who was working in the gatehouse, so we chatted for a bit.

-Made an omelette with the ingredients I had bought while out.

It was really nice getting back with time to kill before work. I think I shall try to get up early tomorrow and have more adventures. Today I got up at 2 pm, but with good reason: some people from Trader Joe's had a party last night, and a lot of us went after we got off work at midnight. We stayed out late and had a lot of fun dancing and joking around, and just hanging out together outside of work for once. Afterwards, Max drove us back to the U-District (the party was in Wallingford) and we hung out at his house for a bit, talking and petting his cat. Then I rode my bike the ten-odd blocks to my house, where I stayed up playing computer games and watching Arrested Development. So I was up super-late. Let's put it this way: If I hadn't slept until 2 pm today, I wouldn't have gotten 8 hours of sleep. :)

Well, I have work to be at again in 90 minutes. So I'm going to go get some stuff done, and eat lunch... Have a nice day.