I. HATE. EVERYTHING.

Not really.  But kind of.

I hate things a little less than I hated them yesterday.

I'm so tired. So, so, so tired. I have one more paper due Wednesday at 6:00pm, and My parents fly in Wednesday night at 9pm. I'm relatively certain that as soon as we get back to my apartment I'm just going to collapse into a ball of sad-happy-tired that they're here and I'm really done with school and they'll take care of me for a second and shit.  I just think it will be enough of a release/relief that I probably won't be able to take it. (FYI, Dad, I'm probably just going to hug you for like, hours, on Wednesday night. You don't get to unpack, you just have to stand/sit there and let me hug you until I fall asleep. Then you can unpack.)

(click, then right-click open in new tab to see full size)

I really did eat the worst shit imaginable for the past 7 days. WHICH IS SO UNFORTUNATE, because I was on the last week of this big crazy diet and so I pretty much destroyed all the good work I had done.  But really, today is the first day in a week where my brain has been able to say, "hey, maybe we should, like, drink some tea and not destroy ourselves with chocolate and fried and all the sugar, what do you say?"  I say yes, body - we can do that. I'm sorry for the last 7 days in which I treated you like an abusive boyfriend.  So back to paleo eating. Which, really, is pretty great when I think about it for half a tick. Because I like meat.

I have dreams of getting back to where I was at the most successful point of this diet, because, like, daaaamn.  I looked good.  Partially just because I felt like I looked good, and that makes all the difference. And I could see my collar bones really easily, that makes all the difference too.

See - lookit my sadface now. First picture is from May 31st, just 11 days ago.  I was really trying to recreate the first picture for comparison's sake, but I just couldn't hide the sadface:

also fatter cheeks and sadder skin :(

I'm happy my parents are coming. And I'm happy that I had to clean my apartment Sunday (they were showing it Monday), so that's already done. SEE, I'M LOOKING FOR POSITIVES, HERE.

Also, was supposed to go to Crossfit last night but couldn't make it because was finishing my crazy paper. Am signed up for class tonight - hopefully I can make that. (Even if I am marginally afraid of it.)(But better to jump in than pussyfoot around it - and I know once I get there and get back into it I'll be much, much happier.)

It's been busy. It's going to continue being busy.

Le Sigh.

Just thinking about everything going on in my life makes me really fucking exhausted.

I just want to be in Korea already, where the only prescribed schedule to my days will be teaching and crossfit. Everything else will be optional.

So I've got about a month of grad school left. And in that time, I've got 2 10-pg final project/presentations, a midterm (three days from now, which I predict I will bomb solely because it's economics and that's really not my forte), and a monster capstone project report that will end up being around 70 pages total with references and appendixes and diagrams, etc. At some point I should also register for the graduation ceremonies.

I'm also on the board of a choir that I sang in for the past two years, Ancora. I like being the board secretary very much, but I really want to make sure that all the little things I've set up (a new website (which needs updating), dropbox account, pursuing grants for the organization) get continued - and that's going to take some effort on my part to document all those things and find people willing to take them on. I hope I can get to it, but I'm also aware that this is the thing that may get pushed aside given everything else that's going on.

I'm taking Korean classes on Saturdays. The first two weeks were easy, because it was just learning the alphabet, which I already know. However this past week there was a whole list of vocabulary that I should have been memorizing that I haven't even touched.

Also, I'm fucking MOVING TO A FOREIGN COUNTRY in two months. That takes some set-up.  Here's a tiny list just off the top of my head of some of little things to get sorted out:

- Inform landlord that I'm moving out
- Close extra bank accounts, paid subscriptions, monthly donations, etc.
- Sell all my furniture
- Make sure the cat's paperwork is all in order - he'll need a health certificate within 10 days of leaving
- Buy the cat a new airline-friendly pet carrier and pee pads for the trip
- Ask the current teacher in my apartment if he could buy a litter box for me so it's there waiting and not the absolute first thing I have to run out and buy
- Go through countless boxes and bookshelves to figure out what I actually want to save
- Send of Visa application stuff to my school
- Go to the Korean Consulate to get my temporary visa
- Send extra diploma copies to the WA state gov office to get them stamped with an apostille
- Give the post office a forward address for my mail - probably to my parents'?
- Figure out my finances/loan repayments so I can set up a backup account for direct deposits of all my bills that will need to be paid from US accounts
- Consolidate all my student loans
- Buy adaptors/transformers for which ever electronic stuff I decide to take with me
- Buy a new laptop before I go
- Stock up on shit I know is totally difficult to get in Korea
- Buy tiny gifts from home to give new friends/co-workers in Korea (gift-giving is big, and I want to be polite and make a good impression!)
- Figure out when the fuck I can see all of my friends! When should I have a party?
- Call the piano guy to schedule him moving out my piano - see if I've got any friends who can help with that?

Oh, and I desperately need to get a haircut.

This is where I'm going, FYI:

View Larger Map

But more on that later.*



Something struck me the other day in my Executive Leadership class (which is a blast, except our 6-person group gives me a scheduling headache - we've never actually been able to meet all at once) when we were brainstorming a list of emotions people would have to certain situations. When we seemed to be running out of ideas, the professor hinted with, "Stressed?" And while everyone agreed, my immediate reaction was more of, "that's an emotion?" Do people above a certain age actually think of stress as an emotional state?  I remember once when I was in undergrad my dad asking me if I felt stressed out all the time. "Of course," I answered, which apparently kind of shocked him. Stress is just a state of being for me, and I assume many of my generation. It ebbs and flows, but it remains as constant background noise to the rest of my life.

I don't know if this is just because I've always got too much going on, because something in society has taught me that stress is a thing that successful people carry at all times, or something to attribute to the ubiquitous presence of technology in all our lives that requires us to constantly multitask. In any case, I'm pretty sure it's not healthy.


Anyway. I just felt like writing.



That's a lie.

I felt like avoiding the 15 pages of project paper I need to write before Tuesday, mid-term I need to study for that's on Monday, and vocabulary words I need to memorize before tomorrow. Writing a blog post seemed infinitely funner than any of those things.

* I do plan to make a blog post in the next week letting everyone know the details of my job, etc - since I haven't posted anything on facebook that's very extensive or informative yet.

I hope you all have a much more quiet and relaxing weekend than I will have.  XD

filling in the gaps

I didn't write in this blog for about 4 years. Here's the list of things that need to be caught up on, and which it would probably behoove me to write a recap for future-me to enjoy.

1. Grad school
      a. Living on my own. With the cat.
2. Am I gay? (Asexual? Graysexual? A Robot?)
      a. Regardless, I'm never dancing at a straight club again.
3. Let's join a fancy new choir!
      a. And let's be on the board. And be the webmaster. And the secretary.
4. Hey there, active Riley!
      a. How the hell did I get up that early?
      b. A brief foray into Roller Derby.
5. Hey there, Crossfit!
     a. Burpees and lunges and wallballs, oh my!
6. Paleo say whaaaat?
     a. Also, vegetable juices.
7. Hair is better with color in it (a photographic journey).
      a. Apparently everyone hated my perm but never told me.
      b. Why I will never again have long hair.
8. KPOP HOLY SHIT KPOP.
9. K-Dramas
10. No, for real, let's move to Korea.

I'm sure there are other things that I'll remember along the way, but that's a good list to start with. Don't know yet if I'll make them posts, or sections on a separate page.