what I did over winter break part 1

I have adapted well to winter break. I took this week off because I have been pushing myself all semester, especially in this last month, and the idea of jumping into full-time work until my Iowa trip had me stringing up my noose. I wasn't sure what I was going to do the whole time, but so far, it's been awesome. I've been catching up on all the sleep I've been lost; my insomnia seems to be going away. Dan and I have spent more time apart than together since September-my classes are at night, he's working all day-and we are just enjoying spending time together. Lots of walks, Yahtzee, movies, and YouTube karaoke.

I've also been reading like crazy. I've always been a big reader, I can't remember a time in my life that I haven't been reading a book. As soon as I finish one, I start another. I don't know how old I was when I learned to read, but I imagine that's the age that I started reading like this.

Anyway, I've been having a hard time focusing on reading with all my school work--it's hard to stop thinking about the papers I have to write, the research I have to do, and so forth long enough to get into a novel. I've been reading a lot of essays: David Sedaris, Laurie Notaro, that dumb girl Sloan Crosley who sucks, etc. because it's easier to swallow little stories. But now that I'm free, I'm really excited to read as much as humanly possible. Right now, I'm almost finished with ¡Yo! by Julia Alvarez, next I'm reading Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko. Hopefully, when I finish that, the 5 books I ordered from Amazon will be here. Eeee!

I can't wait to get my grades back. I think they're due on the 4th, so I should know if I got that 4.0 or not in a week or so!

Done!

One year down, 3 to go. I just finished my last final tonight, and am now preparing for my holiday party tomorrow. Pumpkin cookies are in the oven :). I don't feel nearly as relaxed as I should, because my Public Speaking grade is hovering around the A/A- line, and I WANT A 4.0. God damn it. She shorted me half a point on my portfolio for some reason (5 assignments, each worth 3 points, total grade: 14.5. WTF?) which I emailed her about, but really my grade hangs on what I got on my final speech tonight. She said she's usually lenient and gives everyone a 10/10 as long as they participate, which I did, but if my calculations are correct, a 9 would push me into the A- range. I should stop being such an insane perfectionist. It would free up a lot of time.

I am not sure what to do with myself now. I've been on full speed all semester. I don't think I took a single day off where I laid on the couch by myself all day, and although this break is much needed, I feel a bit anxious about it. This week is nuts, but next week I'm only working Sunday. It's going to be beautiful. Oh, I could plan my wedding.

I slept for, like, 5 hours last night which is a record. I plan on sleeping until noon tomorrow.

3 weeks from now I'll be in Iowa!! I can't wait to visit my family!

A brief history of my insomnia, because I can't sleep

SO CRABBY.

If you are my friend on facebook, the update you are most likely to see on a daily basis is "Lindsay can't sleep. Again." I have been in denial for a couple of months that my insomnia has gotten out of control, but I guess it has. I have had trouble sleeping as long as I can remember. People who can fall asleep in less than 5 minutes amaze me. How the f do they do that? Even when I was a kid, I was always the last one to go to sleep at sleepovers and I would lay awake on school nights watching the clock.

It got much worse in high school, and I started taking sleep medication. That sucked because I would have such a hangover in the morning. After high school, I stopped taking the meds, and eventually got to a place where I could sleep most nights. I was in that happy place until right around the time school started, and now everything has unravelled.

Most of my sleeping occurs between the hours of 7am and noon, and always on the couch. I generally get into bed around midnight, and then I generally come back to the couch around one. Eventually I get in bed and sleep restlessly. It sucks. Today I worked on about 3 hours of sleep. No fun.

Consequently, I'm always tired. I'm not sure what to do about it. None of my old tricks that would help on those few nights I'd lay awake work anymore (singing 99 bottles of beer on the wall in my head was a favorite). I'm tempted to take medication, but won't because I have such horrible memories of the groggy feeling in the morning. Also, I don't want to be dependent on meds in order to carry out a basic bodily function. So I guess I'll just ride this insomnia wave a little further and see where it takes me. I keep hoping it will go away on it's own. Hmpf.

Local hero donates hair, studies for finals

Everyone knows this by now, but I'm not ready to stop talking about it. I got the world's most awesome haircut on Tuesday. I went to Ovation Salon on Geyser Road, and Krissy did an amazing job. I got about 9 inches cut off, and donated 8 of 'em to wigs for kids, which is a pretty easy way to feel good about yourself.

Last weekend I scored a surprise Sunday off and Dan and I headed to the city. It was a last minute decision, which is always more fun. I'd been studying my head off for finals, and when Dan suggested we go to New York, I was like, "Yes please!" knowing that, otherwise, I would not take a much needed break. We had a lot of fun. Friday night we drove to Poughkeepsie and stayed in a hotel, and then took the train to the city on Saturday. We didn't do much there, aside from walking and walking, which is what we like to do when we go there. We're such total dorks that we immediately use the "map my run" website when we get home to see how many miles we walked. This time, 9. There were a ton of drunken Santas, and some of them hugged me. I did not like it. We thought about going Rockefeller to Center to see the tree, but aborted the mission when we got nearby and were suddenly swept up in this herd of people who were pushing everyone they could reach (because that is obviously going to make people walk faster). I yelled "ABORT! ABORT! Meet me over there!"pointed across the street, and shoved everyone out of my way and got the hell out of there.

And since we got home, I've been studying. Except when I got my hair cut/was showing off my haircut. I'm writing this blog now because I just had to stop studying for my western civ test for awhile. I can't wait until Tuesday night at 7pm, when finals are over.

I haz a ghost?

To expand on my facebook update from 3am, something weird happened here last night. I got into bed around 12, and drifted off into a blissful sleep until Dan and I were awoken by a huge crash. I thought someone was smashing our back-door window to rob/kill us, Dan thought there was already someone in here who had dropped/ran into something. I don't really know what to do in the event that an intruder breaks into my apartment, so we went out of the bedroom to, I don't know, confront the criminal. Upon leaving the bedroom, I saw that there was a plate that had fallen off the counter and smashed everywhere. So that was the source of the noise. I quickly checked both doors, which were still chain-locked, and then checked both closets, which were intruder-free. We couldn't figure out how the plate had gotten from the counter to the floor, and went back to bed, both still in a state of panic. I had to get up a little while later to make sure there really wasn't anyone in here, because my number one fear (that I've had as long as I can remember, since I was a little kid) was that someone would break into my home.

I also got my iPod, as it was clear I wasn't going back to sleep any time soon, and in the dark I noticed something suspicious on the floor. I looked a little closer and realized they were stupid mouse droppings. Welcome to my second worse fear: mice.

But this explained how the plate broke, a stupid mouse must have knocked it off the counter. Great.

This morning, I was cleaning up the kitchen, and foun

d a suspicious lack of droppings anywhere. Hmm. That's weird, I thought. How could that dumb mouse have run all over the kitchen and not left a single poopy? I went back to the living room to sweep up the other poopies I found last night, and in the bright light of they day, realized they are only sweatshirt fuzzies! That really do look like mouse droppings, but aren't

So THANK GOD we don't have mice. Yet. This blog is jinxing me, I'm sure of it, and we will find our first mouse tonight. Thankfully, I stocked up on poison before I realized it was a false alarm, so I'm prepared.

But anyway, we're back to wondering how that plate fell off the counter in the middle of the night. I guess we have a ghost that got angry. Whatever, anything is better than intruders or mice.

I should pay rent

Holy crap, how the bleep is it December already? It's the 3rd, but I'm in denial, so I haven't paid rent yet. Whoops. My semester is almost over, which I am dreading because it means that I will have to work more (in theory, if there are hours for me) for a couple of weeks, and then I'll have to start my idiot schedule next semester that I'm going to hate. Thankfully, in between those two things, I am going to visit my family in Iowa for 8 days. I am so excited!!

I am working my ass off for all A's this semester. I easily have A's in Spanish, Health, and Western Civ (unless I bomb the last Western Civ test or my health final, but I'm not worried). The only toss-up is public speaking. I'm either going to get an A or a B+, but goddamn it I want an A! Right now, I have a 90 if I just tally up my speeches, but I've gotten 100% on all of the written assignments I've turned in, so I have a good shot. There is one more speech, so if I kick ass on that, I'm going to get an A.

Next semester is my third, which means I need to get my shit together and figure out where I want to transfer to pretty soon. It mostly depends on where Dan finds a teaching job. He's going to apply all over NY state and probably in Massastupids and Vermont as well, so I can't get too attached to any school because I have no clue where we'll be living. There's a chance that Dan will get a job around here, which would be nice, but a change of scenery would also be nice. I have a fantasy that we move somewhere less expensive and we can rent a little house. Sigh.

Okay, time to get back to work. This Western Civ paper that's due Monday isn't going to edit itself!