8/14

here is my Signs take on the latest developments in my plans for academic progress: that music class was closed for a reason. if i had gotten it, i would have proceeded as planned, applying to the COE for spring and emerging two years later with a wrinkly piece of paper and a low starting salary. but i didn't get it, and so was forced to rethink everything yet again, and found a path that will let me start in october, not january. and i'll get a degree out of it, and not the kind i already have. and so decided life's not totally unfair. but while i'm being melodramatic, here's the story:

more rotten news about school ruining three hours of my vacation forced me into a dark, bleak corner where i contemplated my options (eternal kiddiepark employee, fry cook, dog-trainer, etc., all while i beg a bunch of low-IQ department secretaries to please tell me what's going on with my application) and decided that settling is for shit, and deciding to settle is where i went wrong. (it was either that or way back when, when i decided teaching was the noble profession for me.) if i'm going back to school, spending however long it takes to get another degree, i might as well spend it working on the degree i wanted in the first place. it's a simple decision but not an easy one, but it's way better than being wedged in this stubborn limbo between what i want but can't have, and what i don't want but need.

this planning is all practical, but i'm hoping it won't take long to find passion. not the passion that's required in order for one to not run screaming from this special field, i already have that. it's more the fire that makes me academically competitive that i've sort of lost. where did it go? is it squished somewhere between the pages of a 20-lb, $100 textbook? stomped into the dust by a parade of doc martens on their way to biology? did it go up in smoke with the last Sweatshop Times i dropped a match on? ah, it's got to be around here somewhere.

seeking motivation and a day job. oh, and the cost is huge. fortunately i qualify for financial aid in the form of parental love. or parental get-your-ass-a-useful-degree-already, whichever. i appreciate it either way.

well, one nice thing (i guess) about this whole plunging back into the fiery furnace that is school thing, is student insurance rates, which look nothing like the $180/mo i am currently paying. if i were sickly, or a hypochondriac, paying this much might make sense. hopefully soon my payments will be much, much lower.

i'm back from Family Trek 2k2. i brought my paper journal and updated on the road, stuffed in the way back of a kia sedona, scared to death of LA drivers and my dad's breezy "keeping up with traffic." i know i'm going through a freak-out thing that is all me, where even local "speeding" (60 mph, H1) makes me extremely nervous, as a passenger or driver. but i found it nearly impossible to relax sometimes, even through the desert stretch that i've slept or read my way through countless times before. or wobbling along (if it's still called wobbling at 90 mph) santa monica. at knott's, a ride operator made this joke: our coaster goes slower than you drive on the freeway. and nobody pulls a gun on you here.

oh, good.

the best thing about LA is krispy kreme donuts (actually, that might be the best thing about the entire mainland) and the worst thing is everything else. ok, i'll take that back. my favorite part of LA is my family (especially when they buy krispy kreme for breakfast) and my least favorite part is that i'm not comfortable between the restaurant and the car, the gas station mini-mart and the car, and the car and the house, and that those things aren't listed on my Stupid Fears List (which includes being afraid the ceiling fan will unbolt itself after 20 years of safe operation in the guest room and fall on my head as i sleep), but they're justifiable because people do get shot while filling their gas tanks, and people come home from work and are forced into their houses at gunpoint, are robbed, and occasionally are killed.

(the LA Times is a bummer of an evening read.)

we ate at lawry's on wilshire, ate lots of uncle's famous smoked chicken, ate lots of churros at disneyland, ate chicken dinners at mrs. knott's. ate at IHOP (of course), and denny's (oh god), and king's hawaiian bakery/restaurant (my favorite!). after we went to disneyland and knotts and spent a lot of time with the relatives, we packed up and drove to vegas, where we spent yet more time with relatives, lost a fair amount of money, ate a fair amount of food, had a good time. i like vegas because everyone's on vacation, and because food is cheap and plentiful, because my cousins live there now, because it's the factory outlet capital of the country (actually, that's probably not true but i always find oodles of satisfactory deals), because the dry desert air actually does good things for my skin and hair, because now that baywatch the tv show has been canceled, there's baywatch the live polynesian hottie action luau show. lots of reasons to love sin city. dozens. hundreds. thousands.

we returned to long beach after we spent/gambled all our money. barbecued with the relatives in lomita, got in a few snickers with the Professional. it was good.

now we're home and i'm crunching carrot sticks and slurping oatmeal and otherwise atoning for my cream puff and mashed potato sins. i found an interesting shrine on the back of Eugene's Brother's bedroom door, which shows 1) i have more good angles than i thought and 2) alas, it's true -- we've both expanded since we met. well, since we obtained a digital camera, anyway. it's not so much an aesthetic downer as it is a health concern (oh all right, and the fact that i don't WANT to become a human balloon before i have a reasonable excuse like babies or menopause) so i'll just have to smash my fear of public exercise and get back in the pool, or run a few laps on a regular basis, and eat more healthfully. good thing i got that krispy kreme thing out of my system.

so many things to do. get my mom and two cousins birthday presents. fill out the narrative response portion of this application (in other words, write a 3-page essay.) find my praxis scores. figure out what to bring to hawaii stories potluck sunday. thank Eugene's Brother and his brother again for standing in line for two hours to register for me in my absence. (thanks, Eugene's Brother and brother.) go to sleep in my new spongebob sheets. and not freak out that someone will crawl through the window if i leave it open because it is hot.