And it's ringing in my ears.

My sister went off to science camp yesterday. While when she got to the camp, there was no incident, the night before she suddenly started crying. She had been extremely excited for the past few weeks to go to science camp but I guess it just occurred to her all of a sudden that that meant that she would spend an entire five days without the family, by far the longest that she's ever done that. So she just broke and started crying. (I bet her hormones had a small part to play in that, too; it's nearly her time of the month.) She even googled "how not to cry at camp" that night. Hoo lordy, that was funny. In a pathetic sort of way.

Normally, I take my sister to school. This entails waking up at 6:00 am and leaving the house by 7:00 so we can beat the worst of the traffic. Every morning is loud--as soon as she's up, it's non-stop talking. Hell, I'd be worried if she weren't talking because she is after all a fifth grade girl; kinda goes with the territory. Sometimes she gets too loud and my mom censures her: "You cousin is still sleeping." Like that would stop her from making noise. (And like my cousin can't sleep through pretty much anything.)

I don't have class today until 10:00 so it was my intention to wake up a full hour or two later than usual. Heck, even two-and-a-half hours would have been fine. But out of habit I woke up at 6:00 am. It was dead quiet. I used the bathroom and went back to sleep.

When I woke up again at 7:00--just can't seem to get back into sleep mode--I noticed my parents were gone. I hadn't even heard them before they left. I normally would have heard them shuffling around--it's not like I was in a deep sleep or anything. For some reason they seemed to have escaped me.

It must be hard for them, having the little girl gone. Last night, my mom said that it's too quiet and boring without her. And I agreed. At night, she's always watching TV with me or we're always playing games together or whatever--provided we're both not busy--and I found myself at a loss for things to do. I fidgeted around with getting everything ready for class today, but that didn't take long enough. I fucked around on the shoutbox accusing people of giving me syphilis, but that was only mildly satisfying after so long. I read for a while, watched some TV, and went to sleep without much incident. Boooooring.

And my parents? I was just thinking about how incredibly difficult it will be for them to adjust to the empty nest once my sister leaves for college. It's a long way off, but consider this: my sister was born 12 years after I was. When I left home for college, they still had her to keep them company. That was probably one of the main reasons my mom had enough strength to let me go out on my own. But in eight years, will she have that strength? For the first time, she will be faced with the prospect of a completely empty house if she lets my sister go someplace non-local for college. Would she be able to do it?

In typical American culture, I guess this would be a foreign predicament--at least on this scale. Here, we're taught that at a certain age, you need to be forced out of the house and you need to be able to stand on your own two feet. We're enculturated to embrace those values; we undergo independence training: everything is a competition and you have to win and if you don't win then you're a failure. Well, that's part of me now, in some little way, and I wonder if I ever have kids (big fucking if) if that's the way it'll be. I hope not. But at the same time, I grew up in a household where family was of paramount importance, and where it isn't a shameful thing to be dependent on your family because they will be dependent on you. So in the case of my parents, they have done everything for the ideal of the family. They could have a larger house and fancier cars and nicer clothes and they could have taken more luxurious vacations and seen the world but because the family comes first, they opted instead to send us to private school--that's 9 years for K-8, 4 years for high school, and 4 years for college; you do the math.

So when my sister is on the cusp of leaving, will it be so easy? What's left for them if you take the family out of the equation? It's going to be the most difficult thing for them, I think, to let their baby girl go. So much harder than it was to let me go. It's going to slice them open and gut them, and as strong and as loving as my parents are, I don't think they can take that sort of damage. And who's being wronged here? Will it be my sister (assuming she wants to go away for college)? Or is it my parents?

Cross-generational and cross-cultural tensions will end up tearing a hole in all of our hearts.

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So today is the start of classes. Well, except for the grad seminar I want to take at SJSU (it's pretty much confirmed now--my mother is willing to pay for it since it'll get me some credits for grad school). I'm looking forward to breaking out of the biosciences box further. I have always loved "traditional" scholarly subjects--and apparently I'm good at them since I have the ability to bullshit like whoa--but I didn't really have that much time to branch out too far in college. Yay for not working for a year before graduate school. Boo for trying to salvage my academic reputation. Damn you, lack of grade inflation! (Um, and I guess also: damn you, general lack of discipline in all years except for the last!)

I swear I'm making good on my promise to myself. I even got a 4.0 last term. Who the hell does that? Certainly not me since high school. That's something that was virtually unheard of in my major. But I apparently do have the ability to pull it off. If I try. Really hard. So hard that my eyes bleed and my fingers go numb from typing.

So here's to more bleeding eyes and numbing fingers. Here's to actually going to class and actually giving a damn. Here's to bullshitting and saying "fuck it!" to all the reservations that keep me from expressing my opinions in the classroom. Here's to another successful quarter to (hopefully) kick off success in my future. Here's to the hallowed halls of Academia--the bastion of esoteric knowledge and the vanguard of the army of the self-important and the intellectually sanctimonious and the pompous circumstances that govern their lives.

God, how I love it!

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Hey, guys! You guys are all fools! You really thought I gave a crap about what you thought, but you were wrong! I was just trying to entice you onto my site with (semi-)normal blog entries so that you'd comment and drive up my revenue! Ahahahaha! AhahahahahahHAhahaha!

I WIN! I WIN!






FUCKING, NOT.

It's... annoying, to say the least. Here we have a community of people who actually (somewhat) care (or pretend to care very convincingly) enough to read and comment on what people write, and being a revenue whore is just a huge slap in the face to the dynamic of the community at large. Go ahead and make your money--I don't care--but do it with the respect of the community intact.

Or, you know, get a fucking job.

</rant>

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My back hurts.

This doesn't happen to people in their early-mid twenties. It happens to people who are twice my age, in their mid-late forties.

Is it the way I'm sitting at my desk while using the computer? Is it the fact that my back muscles have probably atrophied a bit during my extended stay in bed while sick?

Well, whatever the cause, I have the perfect solution for it.

DDR.

Because as my time in college has taught me, DDR solves any problem--physical or emotional or mental. And right now, I've got the time, why not use it?

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I haven't coughed like this since... well, since I smoked cloves every day.

And even then, I coughed like this only when I smoked while I was sick.

I wish I could say I was coughing up a lung, but the cough isn't that deep; it's more like coughing up my larynx. Over and over and bloody over again.

And resting my voice doesn't help. And neither does drinking water. And I'm this close to losing my cool, but that wouldn't help either. And I could take a cough suppressant--oh dextromorphan, how I love your NMDA glutamatergic-/a₃b₄ nicotinic receptor-antagonizing and opioid s₁s₂ receptor-agonizing ways--but I can't seem to find the bottle of Delsym around this drugforsaken house.

And so the search continues, as does the coughing. Tonight's going to be... interesting.

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So yesterday, much to my surprise, I cracked the books open and (re-)learned things about biochemistry and cell and molecular biology. All while watching Scrubs. It's like killing two birds with one very inefficient stone.

Still, I'm amazed I actually did get some studying done, even though it took me a lot longer than it should have. Maybe I'll study more today? I have a little under four months until the exam, so I have to really work my ass off on this. A pleasant surprise, though: I actually remember more than my grades in these subjects would suggest. Go me.

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We left the house while the sun had just begun to pop out from behind the mountains. Traffic was heavier than usual, making the 20 miles between the house and my sister's school less fun than I thought possible, but we departed so early that we got to her school 10 minutes before the first bell. After my sister left for class, I made my daily drive to the local Starbucks. I parked the car and stepped out, only to realize that all this time I did not have my wallet, which contained not only my money, but my driver's license as well.

Fuck.

So not only did I not eat my breakfast or drink my coffee, but I had the added stress of trying my hardest not to get pulled over only to have to explain the situation to the CHP, who really are not the most jovial people to converse with in the first place.

Of course, when I got home, I did not cook myself anything because there's really nothing to cook. I am still jonesing for my daily dose of caffeine. And I have some studying to do for my biochemistry GRE which I had planned to do at Starbucks. And let's face the truth: I'm not going to do it here. I can never do anything here. Too many distractions: unwatched Scrubs episodes, Sim City 4, and constantly checking my e-mail for any sort of reply from the internship sponsors.

If gas weren't so expensive, I'd drive over to the bookstore or the library or Starbucks or someplace that I could study at, but alas. I suppose I could actually try to review here, but that would be far too responsible. And I know I'm supposed to be working on improving myself, and yes, being more responsible would fall under that category but...

Fuck, I can't think of any more excuses.

While I sort through my conflicting feelings about this, I shall waste away watching Scrubs I suppose...

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Pshaw! OMG, being hard on yourself is SO oh-six.

In 2007, it's all about trying to make yourself better without beating yourself up. Self-lovin' (in every sense of the term) is the new self-loathin'. Get with it.

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