Life's a bitch and then you die

[laceblade]

Weather
OMG. Okay. So, I will not complain about the cold. Yesterday, it was like, 45 (I refer to all of my degrees in Fahrenheit, I know Americans are stupid, I am sorry, the end) degrees outside. I even walked all the way home from campus, and it was nice.

Today started out nice, and it's been plummeting ever since. But, like I said, I have a few Canadians on my LJ friends list who have been experiencing -50 degrees. WTF IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE? Holy crap.

To make matters worse, either my car's battery or alternator is dead, as the interior lights faded and the "volt" light was on. I had just gone to fill the car up with gas so that I could still start it, and picked up some salt for the sidewalk. :( I just hope that I can get it figured out. I park my car on the street, and when there's snow, I need to move it every day.

This stuff with the car is just....shit I don't want to deal with.

:(
When I called my dad to consult him about what might be wrong with my car, he asked me for the millionth time if I was applying to any graduate schools. He's not mean about it, but it's just....every time I talk to him, he asks if I'm applying to grad school or law school. And it's nice that my dad thinks I'm smart, and I know I'm one of the luckiest people alive to have parents willing to pay for more school. I know I don't want to go to grad school (unless I get some job where they're like, "Hey, go to grad school and we'll pay you more monies," and I would say something like, "HOKAI.").
The question of law school is one I consider, quite frequently. I love my Constitutional Law class. I remember loving my Criminal Law & Justice class. Being an English major is a good thing in law school (yes, it is good for something). And it's not like I have any idea WTF to do with myself anyway. But that's just the thing - I've watched Chad and I know what it takes to get yourself through law school - killing yourself to get shit done, etc.

Mostly, I just feel disgusted with myself. I am worth a lot more than a person who has no goals, aspirations, talent, or passion. I haven't dragged myself through so much shit only to fumble it now. And yet, there is no palatable option. Nothing is appealing.

The Org Fair
The semesterly Student Org Fair was yesterday, and it sucked. We fill half a table with DVD cases, manga, and figurines of anime characters. Two Club-members were there with me, so I wasn't alone (yay!). We hand out fliers with our website and meeting-time information, and I get to talk to people and tell them about Anime Club. Also, while we do have some curious people ("My brother is obsessed with this stuff....can you explain what it is??"), for the most part, we don't have to do much in the way of attention-grabbing. You are either excited by Evangelion robots acting out a death scene on a table surrounded by Japanese candy, or you are not.

But what sucked is that I usually have at least 2 pages full of names and e-mail addresses of new people to contact. This semester, I have less than ten. I have tried to do a lot for this Club, and it's getting to the point where I don't even know what to do any more. Sometimes, I feel like I'm a bad president, even though I know that stuff like this is beyond my control. :/

TV
I have no notes on the last few episodes I've watched of Angel. They've been filler-y, but the good news is that the filler is so much better than season 1 filler.

OMG, season 5 is so much better than season 4 x1,000,000. At least, taken as a whole. But I LOVED Buffy, her mom, and Willow sitting in Buffy's living room talking about Spike's crush on her. LOL INTERVENTION. I just found it so.....funny. Bwahahaha.

Okay, but the best scene ever? You will think I'm a sadist or something. But I really loved Dawn's complete freakout to finding out that she's not "real." When she came into the living room holding a knife, shaky voice, asking if her blood was real? BEST SCENE EVER. Morbid, dramatic, WTF. That is a scene that I would write.

Am still loving Spike and Dawn. Buffy knows that there is some kind of tension between herself and Spike - she does keep turning to him when she's in need. But I can definitely see why she finds it so ridiculous. OMG, that scene of her in the car with him, when she knows but he doesn't know she knows yet? And she just keeps looking at him, like WTF? That was awesome. I love this show.

Glory might also be one of my favorite Big Bads, although I really liked The Mayor a lot.


Also, Giuliani = pwned

Comments

[sasha-feather.livejournal.com]

When my alternator failed, I had my car towed to the mechanic-- the one on Speedway that is walking distance from here, Moore's Tow and Service. They continue to be pretty nice to me. I have the phone # around here somewhere. An alternator, even a rebuilt (not new) one, will still set you back a couple hundred bucks, I think.

If you're not excited about grad school or law school, wait. That's my advice. Work for a while, figure things out. It's not like those are the only two things smart people can do, although society and academia seem to support that notion.

Sounds like you're being kind of down on yourself. No talents? No passions? Wait, aren't you passionate about anime, manga, feminism?

I'm not a particularly driven person myself. And I'm just fine with that, although it took me a while to be so accepting of the way I am.

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Antoine's roommate just went through this with his car, so it sounds like first we're going to use his volt-meter to test whether it's my battery or the alternator that's the problem (I'm told I should hope it's the battery, as they're cheaper?!). The car didn't actually shut down while I was driving in - I'm hoping it might have enough juice that I could drive it to a car-care place like that. One advantage that I do have is that Chad's car works just fine, so I'll be able to go get an alternator or something. I've also been told by Chad's dad that we could save about $100 if we put the new one in ourselves. So....I'll have to see about that!

As for further schooling, I'll definitely be waiting before doing anything, and I know this is a good choice. I guess I just get frustrated because my dad is *always* bringing it up, but not actually *talking* to me about it. Also, whenever I tell or remind *anyone* what my majors are, the response I get is either, "Oh, so you're going to teach?" or "Oh, so you're going to Law School, huh?" Part of me wishes I had a good plan just so I could say, "Bitch, please" every time occurs.

I guess I'm passionate about those things. I don't know. I'm usually quite down on myself in general, but for the last year or three, have been trying this experiment where I don't get too melodramatic on the internet. It's weird, because people think I'm a happy person, and I'm like, LOL.

[sasha-feather.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

Sounds like you have a plan on the car, good.

Eh, people are narrow minded. You can do anything you want to do; you don't have to "use" the degree.

[lavendersleeves.livejournal.com]

It sounds to me like you need to go on a quest. A journey. Doesn't matter where you go, or what you do, so long as you go *somewhere* and do *something* which means leaving all your old comfortable things behind. Future employers are not going to fault you for broadening your horizons after college. I mean, jeez, you've been going to school for the past, what, 16 years? Not including kindergarten and maybe preschool? That's like swimming in a pool all day. Eventually you should probably get out and try the water slide. Experience some undertow, that sort of thing.

And then, go to law/ grad school when and if you know that's really what you want--and when you know what you would do with it if you had it, and if it's worth fighting through in the first place.

But don't just get yourself a safe job. If it isn't an adventure, you're not helping yourself.

I use words like "adventure" and "quest" and "journey" because you're a geek.

Also, not a lot of people even go to the spring org fair. I mean, by then a lot of people are in an org or don't want to be in one. To the older kids, fliers etc are far more influential, as are chalkings. Not to mention, anime club kids aren't *the* most social of butterflies. I certainly never went to the org fair (and the club was only 6 members--kind of miraculous that I heard by word of mouth, really).

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

I think that getting myself a safe job is probably what I'm most afraid of - settling for mediocrity. Even if I still lived in Madison, if I was working a job that was difficult and scared the shit out of me, I would call that an adventure. I should just find something that sounds totally awesome and makes me say, "I'm not sure I qualify for that....and it sounds really, really intense."

I also really don't want to be the lame girl who lacks agency, and refuses to go somewhere apart from her boyfriend. But, at the same time, I've waited a long time for a relationship like this, and I'm not sure how easily I could leave Antoine for a year. Is that a terrible reason? I'm not sure.

Chalkings are not possible at the moment, but yeah - I'm hoping random fliers and word of mouth will help. And I guess that's also true about anime kids staying in their houses. Maybe it would be more prudent to make a Facebook event? In fact, that might be what I do! (And then I did it.)

[lavendersleeves.livejournal.com]

No, my point is really that you need to leave Wisconsin. My point is *not* that you need to go for a year. I'm pretty sure I never said anything about a length of time. (Can't look back at my post just now). But take a few weeks. A month. By yourself, if possible. Talk to people you never would have talked to before. It's really easy to think "well, I'm a fairly broad-minded person" and leave it at that. There's always more, and some of that "more" is going to click with you and give you ideas.

[brdgt.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you have a realistic idea of graduate school - when I hear people thinking about doing it just because they don't know what else to do I want to grab them and yell "you don't put yourself through this just because you don't have any better ideas!!"

Plenty of people need longer than a four year degree to figure out what they want to do, just don't settle for something that will make you feel trapped.

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

Indeed! In some ways, I'm pretty glad that my boyfriend was in grad school when I met him. He ended up leaving with a Master's degree (he was going for a PhD), and I understand how much it really does take to get through it. Plus (as I think you and I have agreed), English grad students are pretty pretentious. Poli Sci ones aren't much better, although they're more annoying than pretentious.

[brdgt.livejournal.com]

And the other English grad students thought that grad school would teach them how to write and they have been sadly disappointed!