"You and I" by New Look.


I've been listening to New Look a lot these past few days.

I'll be graduating in a week! Crazy to think about. I still have a ton to do before then though. :( In all honesty, what I have to do isn't hard, it's just tedious.

This morning I got up at 5:45 AM because I have a 7 AM crisis line shift. It's... only 7:43 right now, haha. Got a few hours to go... Then I'm going to have lunch with my new friend. Hopefully that'll be fun! I liked hanging out with him last week.

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So... Recently I've been considering moving in with my boyfriend. Assuming all goes well and I'm accepted into the school I want, that would be really convenient, since he's close to it. I wouldn't have to pay rent, but I'd help clean and cook and other chores. And run errands. Housegirlfriend! :P It's exciting and just a little scary to think about. He's thinking about moving apartments soon, so we've been looking at some together...

Also, our anniversary is next week! I guess we're probably not going to celebrate it, since other stuff is going on, but it's kind of crazy to think about. A year seems like such a long time. And yet, it also feels like I've been with him all my life. Maybe he'd think it's silly for me to say this, but I often feel like our relationship is outside time. Like time is just a distraction from something which has no true beginning or end. It's funny to think there was ever anything before this, because how can there be something prior to that which is timeless?

I feel very happy today!

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So this came up after some Touane tracks I was listening to...

"L'Indien" by Baron Retif & Concepcion Perez.


I wasn't watching the video at first but switched to that tab just in time to see random dolphins poorly greenscreened into the background and ended up watching more of the video. It's... silly. But it amuses me.

I've been listening to videos like this while I write my paper for my Intimate Relationships class and I feel like it's sorta helpful, because it keeps me from wanting to find any music to listen to, but it's not distracting. The past few days while I was trying to work, I wanted music to listen to but I ended up spending too much time looking for something that felt right and too little time actually working on anything...


In any case it's almost 3:30 AM so I should probably be getting to bed...

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So I saw Mad Max: Fury Road with a new friend today. It made very little sense and at some points I was just laughing because it was so ridiculous. My friend was into Mad Max and has seen all the original films, and he said this new one was kind of different from the old ones. I haven't seen any of the old ones, but the new Mad Max reminded me of Doomsday in that it had lots of random unexplained details that raised lots of questions for me.

After the movie we chatted for awhile, which was fun. He was pretty talkative but said that he's only that way one on one and he's actually fairly introverted and quiet in groups. I wouldn't have guessed, but then again, I guess I was talkative too. He said my stories were more interesting than his, which surprised me. I don't feel like my stories are super interesting. I talked a fair amount about my work with my client though, so I guess that could be part of it.

Graduation is only a couple weeks away! And there's so much to do before then, gah. >_<

I heard this song on the radio today and I'm really feeling it. Her lip syncing is really bad in this video though, to be honest.

I never thought that I could ever be this happy

It's a cute song. Not particularly deep or anything, but it's catchy.

Friday night I took a pole dancing class for the first time. It was pretty fun, although some parts of my body hurt afterward. I got dizzy doing some of the moves, too. I'd really like to go back, though. The place I went to has pretty reasonable rates, although I don't really have any money at the moment (haven't been paid in awhile and having to buy gas has drained my checking account :\), so it doesn't make much of a difference. A couple of my friends might do it with me though, so I'm excited for that. I did feel kind of awkward trying to do the sexy moves, not gonna lie. I kind of just like spinning around on the pole, that's the fun part. :P

---Edit---

Another edition of "my boyfriend, master of romance"...

Me: Sometimes I feel like I could never love another person as much as I love you.
Boyfriend: I bet you could.

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"Maple Leaves" by Jens Lekman.

She said it was all make believe
But I thought she said maple leaves
And when she talked about a fall
I thought she talked about a season
I never understood at all

I felt sort of ambivalent about this song at first, but after listening to it a few times and paying more attention to the lyrics I like it a lot more.

Between the final projects I have (one 20 minute individual presentation, two 1 hour 20 minute presentations, two 10 page papers, one 8 page paper), final exams coming up, and the game jam I'm doing with some people, I feel pretty exhausted right now. My graduation is in a bit over two weeks, so everything is piling up. It'll be nice to be done though.

My boyfriend and I were talking last night and it was kind of distressing for me at some points, but he did a good job of explaining things and reassuring me and I feel much closer to him now.

I also talked to my friend and we cleared up some ambiguities regarding the nature of our friendship. He wasn't sure if I was interested in a more-than-friends way and had interpreted some of my statements to mean that I was suggesting we'd be a good match, but I told him that I didn't like him like that and it resolved things, which is a relief. He wanted to know why my opinion of him has been decreasing and I admitted that I felt uncomfortable telling him stuff because of some of the reactions I've gotten from him. He's fairly socially awkward and I mentioned that, and he said he was hoping I could help with it. Maybe I should just make a career out of helping socially awkward guys be less awkward, because it feels like I run into this situation surprisingly often.

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So I was thinking about anger.

I try not to get angry much. I don't feel like it's the most productive emotion for me, although I know it can be very productive for other people. My therapist sometimes tells me I'm "too rational" though and thinks I should let myself get angry more easily. If I felt like it served more of a purpose than maybe I would. But I don't think I need to be angry to be assertive. And I don't think avoiding anger makes me a pushover or a doormat. I just think it's easier to resolve conflicts when I can think straight. That makes sense, doesn't it? I'd rather not have to try to think through the haze of like a murderous rage or something.

And anger is one of those things that seems really satisfying in the moment but doesn't really... contribute anything in the long run a lot of the time. I kind of feel like "it'll make me feel better" is a really stupid reason to do something that won't have longer term positive consequences.

Still, despite all this, I think it is important not to just suppress any instance of anger that may occur. If I do feel angry about something I try to examine the roots of it and see if my own perspectives are the problem. After all, they say anger comes from not getting what you want. I don't think that remaining free of anger is valuable in itself, anger just gets in the way of things I think matter more.

The only instances I can think of in which anger was useful to me were situations in which:
-I was angry at myself, which motivated me to change
-I was angry at someone else, so I wanted revenge

But as I think I may have mentioned before, I feel that the best revenge is to live a happy life, because it shows that whoever I'm angry at is inconsequential to my being able to thrive. It doesn't matter what happens to them, that's not my problem. If I were to hold a grudge and dwell upon whatever happened, that's just negative for me, so I'm perpetuating my own problem. No reason to do that.

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Lately I've been running into a few problems. I feel like I'm getting to a point where I'm hitting the edges of what I feel "comfortable" developing. Lots of my self-development in the past has been driven by feelings of deficiency or a desire to be more effective. So it's stuff I want to do. But now I'm at a place where there isn't much I can really see that I want to improve. That doesn't mean there isn't anything I could work on, though. I think there's a whole lot I could work on. It's just going to be harder because I'm comfortable where I am.

For example, when I hate someone, I really hate them. I don't want to be around them, I don't want to breathe the same air as them, I don't want to acknowledge their existence. This is not something I've ever really felt like changing. I think I probably should try, though. There's someone I'm around on a fairly regular basis that I absolutely cannot stand and I've been wondering if I should try to break down that hatred for her. We're not friends and I don't think we need to be, but my attitude toward her could probably be better. It is hard, though. The challenge is good, at least. I think I've been fairly eager to make changes in the past and that has made it significantly easier. It's like a hobby, I guess. But to get really good at something maybe you have to do things you don't necessarily like.

I remember trying to go outside my comfort zone before, and maybe this is a good time to increase that. Being open to different people and experiences (with the exception of anything like drugs that could do long lasting damage) has been helpful to me in expanding myself, but maybe I've become too settled, too content, where I am now. I'm not really going outside my comfort zone anymore, I'm just pretending to by making behavioral adjustments within realms I already know.

Gotta go find some things that make me mentally uncomfortable and figure out why, then correct for it (unless the discomfort is natural and beneficial, anyway).

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"Private Life" by Oingo Boingo.

This song was on the radio earlier... it makes me think of my boyfriend, since he likes this band. I don't know if it's just the ones I've watched, but I feel like Danny Elfman is wearing a wife beater in every Oingo Boingo music video I've seen so far.

Yesterday night I went to some networking event. It was kind of awkward but there was free food, so that was cool. I was talking to my friend Becka's husband and these two guys came over and introduced themselves and said they were from HP, and asked what we did. Becka's husband and I ended up in separate one-on-one conversations, but his was clearly going better than mine. I don't know if it's just because the guy I was talking to was super awkward or what, but he didn't seem to have much to say after a bit, so it was just silent and he stared at me. I didn't know what to say, really. Maybe once he found out I was a student he didn't consider me a useful person to network with anymore, who knows. At the end of the event one of the people who organized it gave this speech that could basically be summed up as "networking doesn't have to be about using people for their connections, you can just be friends with them!"

Anyway, the networking thing was at this fancy hotel, and they had a room with ping pong tables off to the side (also, they had some damn swanky bathrooms), so my friend Ben and I and a couple juniors from our program just went and hit ping pong balls at each other. It was a little difficult because I was wearing a tight dress and heels, but it was fun. After that we all went and got ice cream and chatted about stuff.

And today... I got some sourdough crackers! Organic einkorn sourdough crackers, which are kinda fancy schmancy. I really like sourdough crackers but it seems to be hard to find them anywhere. :( Whole Foods used to have some awesome ones but they stopped carrying them... They're quite possibly my favorite cracker though. Even though I like various cheese crackers a lot, I think sourdough ones are better. The texture is just so much more satisfying, I guess.

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We didn't end up going to the Winchester Mystery House after all. My friend took Caltrain and we didn't realize that it was on a different schedule today (because of Memorial Day), so we didn't have enough time to go. We just ate lunch at some Mediterranean place instead. They had a soda called Gazoz, which said "Turkish Sprite" in parentheses next to it. He got that, and I got a cherry juice, which was like a nicer version of Ocean Spray Cran-Raspberry, to be honest. My friend paid for the meal... I felt a bit bad about it, but he said it was fine, and it was still less than he'd expected to spend that day, since we weren't going to go to the House (He said he'd pay for my ticket since it's kind of expensive and I don't have much money).

So... after lunch we went back to my house, and Sean came over and we watched Death Bed: The Bed That Eats. It was about as bad as you would expect from the name, but in an enjoyable way. The sound effects were kind of over the top, and every actor sounded like they didn't know what emotions were. Unsurprisingly, it was written, directed, and produced by one guy. What does surprise me with these movies is that these guys somehow get other people to work with them. Either this guy was rich or he had something else going for him. Or I guess everybody who worked with him could've been stupid. That seems possible.

After watching stuff, we tried to go to Villa Montalvo, but it was closed, so we wandered around my school's campus a little instead...

To be honest I was kind of tired and didn't really feel like hanging out for the whole day (I remember thinking I'd rather just nap and play Twenty on my tablet), but it ended up being alright. Sean left to go home and eat dinner, so my friend and I went and got pizza, then drove back to the Caltrain station and chatted there until his train came. Sean didn't seem like he was in a good mood, and I felt worried about that, so after he left there was less tension and it was easier to just talk with my friend about random stuff. He said he had a good time, so that was a relief. I feel like hosting social events, even if they're small, puts me kind of on edge if people seem like they're bored or not feeling good. I always end up feeling responsible. Sometimes it happens even when I'm not hosting. I know it's not really my responsibility to make sure everyone is entertained and happy, but I still feel some pressure. It's especially hard since I'm mostly friends with people who are on the introverted side, so I end up feeling like I have to take on the extravert role and keep conversation going. It does drain me, even though I've sorta been doing that for years now. Socializing can be so exhausting. It's easier if I'm socializing to create a social network for/with a partner, but it's more tiring if I'm by myself and trying to keep everyone satisfied.

Anyway, I'm pretty sleepy. Maybe I'll go to bed before 2 AM...

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"Glitter Girl" by Kidneythieves.

There are skies that don't have clouds like you
There are skies that don't rain down like you
There are skies with a silver cloud
There are skies that you're not around
There are skies that paint a bluer blue

So this song came up in Pandora. It was new, and (surprisingly!) not another remix of "Omen" by The Prodigy, which seems to come up a lot in this particular station. Wasn't sure if I liked it at first, but after another several listens, I think I do. It seems kind of like it would be in a dark action movie.

Planning to go to the Winchester Mystery house tomorrow with my friend! I don't remember the last time I went. It's possible I went with my ex, but if I did then I don't recall. I remember going with my first boyfriend, though, and with my uncle. When I went with my uncle the tour guide was some teenage-looking guy who seemed really depressed, and my uncle suggested that maybe his girlfriend had just broken up with him.

The latest Basic Instructions amused me, but I think it also makes a good point:

How to Discuss Something Unimportant That Bothers You

The cause may be unimportant, but the fact that it's troubling you is important

I feel like that's something a lot of people don't get. Like, when you vent about something, the focus shouldn't really be about the thing that bothers you half the time, it should be about the fact that you're bothered, I think. And not treating things that ways often results in people giving advice when it's unwanted or they really don't need to. Sometimes people just need to be listened to.

My friend Fro keeps having issues with her boyfriend's mom, and she talks about it sometimes. A lot of the times she mentions it she says something to the effect of "I'm not boring you am I?" or "I'm sorry, I talk about this so much." Every time she does that I feel a little sad, like she thinks I would be bored by her unhappiness or get annoyed with her for talking about something that really negatively impacts her life. Like, I'm her friend, and I care about her, so I have no problem listening to her vent. Her situation is very stressful for her and I want to do what little I can to make her feel better. Friends gotta have each other's backs!

---Edit---

So I was watching a bunch of "___ people taste ____ food" and after like ten different videos... this one came up...

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