This is Why I'm the Way I Am

Oh how I hate today. I will not go into all the reason I hate it. It is the same as it always is over here. I am afraid and I am trapped. One should probably not feel so fearful in her parent's home. (Non-pleural possessive on purpose.)
I am wishing so much I was in my own snug apartment, curled on the couch with my cat, or really, with any friend in America, even the distant ones, than here, now. A week and a few days, and I will be back. The beginnings of this week were uneventful, I hope after this ungodly day, it continues this way, though I doubt it. I can't keep doing this, it takes too much out of me. Someday, my own self-preservation will outweigh my duty to my brothers and sisters - after all, they have each other. Step-parents in general should be banned. However, they will not be, as parents in general are selfish, angry, and childish. Then, children from previous marriages should be openly banned, so we can cease to cause such trouble to those who bore us - unwanted ticket stubs from a sham of a marriage that ended almost two decades ago.

As the famous line goes, the pitying soldier leaning over the grossly wounded but still choking body of his enemy - 'For God's sake, he's still alive.'
Finish it, or leave us be.

I Miss my Cat and my Bed

(Because one loves and snuggles me all the time, and the other doesn't hurt my back.)

I forget exactly why I was thinking I should post last night. I realised that usually I blog more than this while in the UK, esp over Christmas, but I think I've learned that blogging from the UK is a bit like yelling into the wind - not worth much.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a good Christmas, and that the end of 2007 looks to be a good one for you. 2008 is dawning slowly, an eventful year for many, I know, as it's the graduation year for most of us '04-ers.

Well, I'm in the UK, and I'll be back on the 8th, as my dad... well, I'm too pissed off to go into it right now.

For those of you who haven't heard, my journey here was quite an adventure. Took WAY longer than it should have, and took WAY more effort than it should have. Let's just say that in one day, I rode in: 1 plane, 1 taxi, 1 car, 2 busses, and 4 trains. All to get from A to B. I'll tell the whole story later.

For Christmas, my presents are thus fairly unremarkable:
Alice - Maltesers (British candy, like Whoppers, but better)
Heather - Cat necklace
Kenneth - New Harry Potter DVD
Libby - Maltesers and House Season 1 (already have, so I'm going to exchange)
Liz - Two good books, two really nice Mackintosh-style cups, Planet Earth poster
Dad - 1 CD, 1 comic book, 1 box Maltesers, 2 packets of instant soup

Yea, I'm about as befuzzled by my dad's present as you probably are. I mean, he often gives some weird food present as a joke, I don't know why, he finds it hilarious. Last year I got chicken-spread. But, usually I get something at least a little noteworthy, like a DVD TV series set or something. Oh well, win some, lose some, I guess.

Well, that's about all the yabber I can muster right now, as I'm in a rather bleb mood. Maybe it's the darkness getting to me. We only get about 8 hours daylight this time of year - 8 to 4. Gets you a bit mixed up, as you look up, it's pitch black, and it's 4:30.

Anyway, look for me by 8th, watch for me by 8th, I'll come to the by 8th, though hell should bar the way. God damnit.

Packing, My Hidden Talent

I thought I'd write up a post saying that I'm feeling much better today. Well, maybe not much, but at least better. I've an excitingly super-busy morning of last-minute errands that had to be run, and after I finish my quick lunch, I'll commence on the packing. Or at least the organizing for the packing. The difficulty, of course, is Xmas presents, which are going to take up an ass-load of space. And, then I'll get dirty looks from everyone who finds out I'm only going for 2 weeks, and yet I have two bags and a huge-ass carry-on. And I can't explain with 'Christmas Presents' because that would be 'importing goods' and they'd have to get a survey of all I'm bringing to see how much import tax I'm bringing. So, if my bags are searched (thankfully much less likely in the UK than in the US), I'm ready to explain how I'm bringing all this unopened things over 'just to show' and 'for my own personal use' and am totally taking them back to the US. And I'm ready to be searched roughly 6 gazillion times because my carry on will have more electronics in it than a Best Buy (laptop, 2 cameras, Wii, nano, DS, phone, backup phone, and all the hundreds of chargers, cords, transformers, and plug adapters that come with the above).

The only thing I like about packing is that it feeds my slightly OCD inner desire for organization. (This is usually overshadowed by my laziness, but does display itself in certain forms.) In real life, there are always loads of things that don't really fit into good 'categories', so you have to stuff them somewhere. But when you're packing, everything has a place. Clothes, toiletries, electronics, and, for this trip, presents. Then there will be a couple books, and probably a journal, but that's such a small part, it's hardly worth worry. Plus, books are nice and rectangular, so packing them is easy.

The difficult part of packing is organization, especially when travelling with valuables and breakables (ex: Christmas presents). Luckily I don't really have breakables this year, but between presents and Wiimotes, I do have valuables. This means you have to wrap them up, cover them up, and generally hide them, which often messes up the symmetry of packing.

Well, I'd better go start selecting clothes to pack, which will be harder than usual, as I haven't had to fetch out my cold-weather clothes yet this year, so they're still.... who knows where : (.

Ah, well. At least I'm so used to packing that I'm pretty efficient at it.

Perfect Exhaustion

So I'm here typing once again, instead of being asleep like I should be. Why this time? I don't want to go to Britain. It's been a long while since I was eager to go, but right now I'm just dreading it. There are many reasons, but one is resonating, and has been resonating, so strongly right now.

I'm tired.

I'm tired of life. Which is sad, considering I'm young and 21, and 'the world is my oyster' - whatever that means. I don't even like oysters. I'm tired of getting up in the morning. I'm tired of being alone, tired of lying in planes for hours, tired of navigating layovers and flight changes, tired of packing and unpacking, tired of trying to be a long-distance big sister and daughter to people whose lives function perfectly well without me, tired of fading friends, tired of explaining my life story to anyone who talks to me for more than 5 minutes, tired of being a 'child of divorce', tired of being strong, tired of psychoanalysing my family for my family, tired of surviving the experience of my family, tired of going to bed every night, tired of having to feed my grumbling stomach multiple times a day, tired of trying to figure myself out, tired of adjusting to change, tired of looking for stability, tired of the prospect of 'future', tired of my own past, tired of the present, tired of trying to please everyone, tired of being nagged, tired of being warned, tired of finding lack of happiness in too many places.

It's only two weeks, but it will be exhausting. I will be yelled at, lectured, and generally emotionally abused by my father. I will try to catch up with the ongoing lives of my younger siblings. I will generally be isolated from the world, and probably be yelled at for reading too much. I will be yelled at for a lot of things. I will be tricked and lectured, and miss my cat and my privacy. I will do my best to comfort the young ones, as I have done for so much of my short life, from the yelling and the arguments, and the general hurt my family routinely inflicts upon itself.

But who am I to complain of anything. My father is rich, and I have travelled a lot. Certainly, my life is perfect.

I am so tired of being me.

Six Degrees of Uselessness

To All of You Who Have Joined the Group 'Six Degrees of Separation':

1 - You do realise that this group proves absolutely nothing related to the initial idea of any two people in the world being connected by 6 people, right? Because the population sample here - it's kind of skewed - being that we're all on a fucking social networking site. (And predominantly American, as well)

2 - You do realise that by just ME absolutely refusing to join this group, I am dooming you and the group to fail in your goal of 'getting everyone on Facebook into one group'. Every person like me dooms you more.


Come on people, use your brains. What exactly did you think this group was going to do???

I laugh in the face of dooming you and your little group. And your little dog Toto, too.

Life, The Java Applet, and Everything

I know I haven't posted in a while - sorry about that. However, this post probably won't make you feel better because I'm posting just for one small reason that will mean nothing to you, so feel free to skip this one if you want.

Today at my mom's request I sent out an email to some family members linking to my index of finished Java applets from this semester in programming. Horribly simple and unimpressive, it's not much, but whatever, if the family wants it, I can please.

I am a little fond of the last applet because it's a) a game b) has pretty pictures and c) has Christmas sounds. Also, I just finished it, so of course I'm happy because I got it done and all is up to specs. In the email I noted that this was probably the best applet to look at.

Later tonight, I got an email from my dad, my real dad, in England, saying that he'd done quite well matching up the cards on the game with the music.

My father, the crazy man, the Lord, the control freak, actually read (not scanned) an email I sent, actually followed a link in the email, actually bothered to figure out which game I was directing people towards, and actually played the game.

I still can't quite believe it. Never in a million years was I expecting that, for my dad to sit down and actually pay close attention to something small that I'd done that he is generally disdainful of. Let alone play a childishly simple matching game just because I wrote it and send out a link about it.

It's really made my day, maybe week. Of course he pays attention to the 'important' stuff, the ochem, the biology, etc. But he's never shown any interest (even fake) at all in my love of programming.


I know my life sometimes doesn't fit the average idea of what life should be - hell, it doesn't even fit my fairly modest standards, which mostly revolve around stability, caring, and everyone getting along for once. But, I have my kitty, I have new pyjamas, my dad played my Java applet, and I have Christmas lights up.

It's not all that bad, life.