I'm...sorry?

Well, if you cared, that is. Not that I'm insinuating that you're not a caring person. I mean to say I'm sorry that I haven't blogged in 600 years, but then again I have this idea of myself that I'm very annoying and I say silly things so you might have been relieved that I've been gone and now I'm back so...if that's the case I'm sorry for that. Or maybe you forgot that you follow me and you're like darn, I thought I stopped following her ages ago! And if that's the case, feel free to unfollow. I will not blame you at all.

Not that I don't love that you follow me.

Ok, well now that I think I might have insulted you and you really have good reason to pay no attention to anything I have to say, I'll explain where I've been.

I finished my first year of college/university, and that last part of the semester got pretty rough. I got depressed and didn't talk to anyway and didn't turn in assignments and it overall was not my proudest moments. But I didn't realize I had psychological issues at the time, so I just felt super guilty and worthless. And I came home and saw a psychiatrist and started taking medication. Turns out I have a family history of depression. (Thanks for telling me, Dad.)

Anyway, the point is I feel so so soo much better now, and it's great! If anything like that ever happens to you, don't assume you're an awful person, because it's really easy for an imbalance in certain chemicals in your brain to make you feel like you're just not that capable of a person, when in reality, your normal self is so much better. And you might have a family history that has been kept secret because people don't like to talk about depression, so don't rule it out, and try to talk to people who might be able to help.

I did not mean to turn that into a public service announcement. Basically I want to say that I'm back, and I think I'm going to blog a bit more regularly now, at least over the summer. Maybe I'll give life update type blogs, or maybe I'll just rant. We'll see! 

Suicide

When I took a career assessment test, I think one of my top results was counselor.

Which I scoffed at, because it is so obvious how much I need to be a scientist.

But lately I've realized that might not be too far off. Not as a career, but more as a personality. I counsel.

I've read and heard a lot about the movie "Bully" that's coming out, so I've been thinking about that in the back of my head. And today I accidentally found a suicide note on tumblr, which made me realize this vast community of teenagers online talking about how they want to kill themselves. But they tag it as #suicide and #help, so they obviously want someone to listen to them and understand. So I've spent the evening messaging people on tumblr in case they want to talk about anything with a stranger, no judging.

It's very strange to me how whether or not someone's post is noticed online can affect whether or not they live.

It's super convenient having one sister who is also my best friend.

• I can say, "My best friend is my sister," and no one can ever get mad or jealous, because that's adorable.
• Instant future maid of honor. No tough decisions.
• Having just one means I don't have to choose between them.
• It's useful to hang out with her because then I can ignore a lack of a social life.
• I can do and say whatever I want around my best friend because she is biologically forced to love me unconditionally.

Once upon a time, my mother took me to a psychiatrist.

It's a pretty good story.

So, I was a very strange child (still am), and I got very seasick and carsick all the time. I also in trouble for  making a fuss about a lot of weird things. Then I realized when I got a little older that my symptoms weren't the same as seasickness or carsickness at all. I didn't feel sick; I felt anxious. I felt incredibly anxious when I saw or heard things moving, especially boats, swings, balloons, or anything that moves back and forth. I still do, actually. It's like something is annoying, except I feel passionately annoyed, disturbed, and anxious. I just want everything to stop.


When my mom realized I wasn't making things up (I was about 12 at the time), she told my pediatrician, which I begged her not to do. It's not exactly a health issue. And my doctor agreed. It was a mental issue. So he referred me to a psychiatrist.

That was a weird day. We went into the office, and everyone talks to you like they're being reeeeally careful. The doctor introduced himself, very carefully, and took my mom back to talk to her while I sat in the waiting room. I was a little offended. They gave me a questionnaire to fill out, and it was intense, both in sheer length and in content.

Do you often feel depressed?

Do you ever think that life's not worth living?

How often do think about death? 

They were all like that. As if the only psychological issue in children is depression. I put a lot of effort into that survey and started feeling pretty nervous about life by the time I was done. When the doctor called me back, he looked at it and said, "Oh. You didn't need to answer these."

Ineffectiveness points: 1

The doctor had my mom fill out a survey while he talked to me this time. There was a couch, but he had me sit in a chair. I described to him my problem, explaining how movement sometimes made me feel really anxious.

"Hmm." He looked a little confused.

"So," he said, "How does this make you feel?"

[Note: At this point my friends and I were obsessed with the comic strip "Pearls Before Swine," and there had been a running gag about psychiatrists in it lately with all the clichés, including the phrase "how does that make you feel?"]

I started smiling and nearly burst out laughing, but I fought the urge.

Things did not get better from there.

"Anxious," I said, patiently. "Really, really anxious. And annoyed."

"Yes, but how does that make you feel?" He started acting like a teacher whose trying to get his students to come up with the right answer.

I was confused. Apparently anxiety, the only word I had ever found to perfectly capture my feelings about this issue, did not count. I wasn't stupid. I knew what anxiety meant.

"Like...when something's moving, I just want everything to stop. I want to be in a place where there's no sound or movement."

After going back and forth about this for a while, he was clearly stumped.

"I want you to know that you're not the only person who has this problem. There are other people out there," he said, sounding like someone who has never heard of anyone else with this problem. "I'm going to give you a few tricks to cope with this, and we'll see how that works, ok? So, what I tell patients to do sometimes is have a mental vacation, some people call it going to their 'happy place'..."

I nearly lost it again.

"Just think of a place you like to be, perhaps the beach. Imagine all of the details, the sounds, the waves..."

Hello? Have you not been listening to what I have been explaining? I believe my exact words were "I want to be in a place where there's no sound or movement." But I was already tired of him, so I didn't protest.

"Another thing you can do is think of your irritation as a cloud, and watch it float past you."

What? First of all, how would that possibly help? And second of all, again, ENOUGH WITH THE MOVEMENT OF THINGS. Not helping.

Ineffectiveness points: In the double digits by now.

"...so try that, and before you go to bed at night, practice going to your happy place. And then let me know if things don't get better."

I indicated that his comments were helpful (they weren't), he looked pleased with himself, I said thank you, and then I walked out of there knowing very well that I would never contact him again, even though things wouldn't get better. It wasn't that big of a problem, anyway.

I figured out the problem and solution by myself. When my mind isn't very focused on anything, it makes up things to focus on to the point where that's all I can think about, and it's very unpleasant. But a combination of keeping myself mentally busy and just outgrowing it make it not that much of a problem nowadays. Whenever I'm driving a boat or a car, though, I kind of have to focus on things that are moving and it comes back.

I'm not against the psychiatric profession, though. Alright, alright, I am, but I'm sure there are some geniuses out there. Freud and Jung were pretty good I guess. But most of it is not any sort of definitive science, it's just people sitting around and guessing, and this episode definitely didn't change my mind.

Madagascar

Anyway, just because I'm not going to major in zoology doesn't mean I can't practice it at least a little before I graduate.

My AP Bio teacher in high school would, one day a year, show us slides from her study abroad trip to Africa in college. She always says that studying abroad in college is really important because you're never going to have the chance again. You'll have a family or a dog and a job and responsibilities that will prevent you from living a dream while your young, so you might as well do it now.

Because she's right and the Kratt brothers are both married and too old for me anyway, I've decided I'm going to go to Madagascar within the next couple of years. I found a study abroad program in Madagascar that has biology courses, biology courses taught in French, French courses, and introductory Malagasy courses as well as an independent study project, like observing lemurs. This is perfect for me. I have, and I am not exaggerating here, been fascinated with Madagascar's biodiversity since I was 5 years old. I have been taking French lessons since I was 6.*

The only problem is I'm pretty sure my university won't accept many, if any, of the credits. Plus 9 credits of study abroad are required for a French minor which is what I want to have. But even if I have to take spring and summer semesters and not have leftover money for grad school, I'm going to do it. Because this perfect an opportunity will not be available to me again.

*OK, back, that one's not as impressive as it sounds. My understanding of English grammar wasn't very complete at that age, so my French didn't progress much in that area either. Also, while my French teacher was a native, she wasn't a very rigorous teacher and most of our lessons involved learning the names of various animals she had stickers of and eating French candy. So my accent and intonation is fantastic, but my grammar and vocab is pretty much on par with your average French student. I do think I'm the only one who would much rather give a presentation in French than write an essay.

#daughterofanobstetricianproblems

I say "problems," but really, it's mostly benefits that are perceived by the rest of the population as potentially awkward or problematic. But it took me a long time to understand that having an obstetrician as your dad might be considered embarrassing. The whole having "the Talk" with my dad instead of my mom was a little very off-putting, but other than that, my father is most embarrassing when not representing his profession.

For example, one of his passions appears to be public yodeling. This is traumatizing for a preteen girl. Owning Yaz® sticky notes is not.

It's also not awkward when dinner conversation centers around the female reproductive system. It's not awkward when women come up to your mom and say, "I just love your husband!" It's not awkward when your teachers tell you they saw your dad the other day. It's not awkward when your dad can explain to you exactly what happens in the uterus during the menstrual cycle because of how hormones interact. No other parent could explain it better. And it's also not awkward when your dad explains how birth control pills regulate hormones so the periods can happen more smoothly and naturally and how they are the only known preventative measure against ovarian cancer. And it's not awkward when your dad explains to your little sister how politicians are turning abortion into an anti-feminist issue. It's not awkward when you listen to your dad talk in awe about what an infant being born must be experiencing, going from knowing nothing besides a dark, warm, small space, to being bombarded with all these sensations of light, space, and sounds and breathing a crying on its own for the first time.

I will say, I think the playlist for c-sections is a bit cheesy, but as long as your generation enjoys it, go for it.

It took me a long time to figure out that people other people might not think having a dad who specialized in female anatomy for a living was awesome, and by the time I did realize it, I didn't care what they thought anyway. There were a few friends who made fun and I let them, but I never could never really see things from their perspective. And there were a few non friends who did not have nice things to say on the subject. I may have been an incredibly insecure middle schooler, but I was never insecure on that topic. I've loudly discussed birth control in front of Catholic friends who made me confusedly promise not to tell anyone they were on it. These social taboos are stupid. Why can't we talk about this stuff? It's science and it's cool! I thought those pictures from my dad's surgery where he removed a ball of hair and teeth from someone's uterus was fascinating (it's called a teratoma) and I don't understand why other people didn't think so.

Oh, and to that boy in my 8th grade English class: You are not allowed to make fun of my dad. He is an amazing doctor who listens to patients, understands them at a surprisingly profound level, and helps them have better, healthier lives. He saves lives and brings new life into the world. He's delivered several of your friends and a few famous people's children that I'm not allowed to say because of patient-doctor confidentiality. He brings home huge chocolate cookies from the cafeteria and is very useful for AP Biology projects. I really don't think you have any grounds to make fun of him or anyone else who wants to be an obstetrician.

He's rather dyslexic and can't spell or pronounce anything, nor can he remember anyone's name,
so I suppose you can make fun of him for that. You can also get mad at him for sleeping through all of my concerts because he can't stay in one place for too long without falling asleep. He also gets irrationally angry at waiters and doesn't understand animal rights, which I get plenty angry at him for, so you don't need to. But overall he's really great and his profession is noble.

One time my dad kind of apologized for being an obstetrician. I was surprised. Being an obstetrician was great. Being a doctor was not so great. Why? Because people have no imagination. And so when you're dad's a doctor and you pay attention in school every single person has been telling me about my future career as a doctor. When I got glasses in 1st grade my teacher told me I looked like a doctor. When my 7th grade math teacher handed out awards to everyone, mine was "Future Doctor." Why? "Because she's smart, and, well..." (the sentence she didn't finish is that my dad delivered her baby 2 months earlier.) People have seemed legitimately offended when I answer, "Are you going to be a doctor?" with a forceful "No." One of the best compliments I ever got was a few weeks ago when I was visiting my old chemistry teacher and she said, "I can't see you as a doctor."

In case you're wondering, I want to be a scientist. From 2nd grade when I read about Jane Goodall watching a chicken for 4 hours when she was 4 years old until this past year, I wanted to be some sort of zoologist. Then I realized that I could never really feel like I was doing anything if I watched animals all day. And since ever single subject in biology aside from ecology is fascinating to me, I want to do something more molecular.

I think I should rename this blog "Tangents" because that's the only thing you'll be able to count on in these posts...

About Invisible Children and other charities

This is why my parents, and probably other adults, always get on edge when I bring up a social cause. Because I’m an emotional teenager frustrated that by all of the awful things in the world that I can’t change and I’ll throw myself into a movement. That’s what we teenagers and college students are famous for. 

And that drive is wonderful. Young people’s spirit drives revolutions and movements and great things throughout history have come from young people who hadn’t yet settled into the norms of society and were anxious to do things for the world. 

But the passion behind these movements is just the first step. It’s vital to the process to spread awareness and get the issue out there, get people angry, and get people motivated to do something about it.

Invisible Children is obviously really good at this part. They’re filmmakers, they make people aware. But there’s obviously more to a solution than just knowing about the problem. And sharing their video across the internet is fantastic. But if you’re going to donate, please be thoroughly researched in the matter. 50% of the Invisible Children’s programming budget goes to spreading awareness, not actually helping the Uganda situation, according to their website. And this isn’t 50% of the budget, this is 50% of the programming budget. So according to the numbers on this website, only 40% of what you donate to Invisible Children goes to help anything directly. So go to something like Invisible Children to find out about the problem, and then find ways to donate directly or more directly to where the problem is. (Their website says the Schools for Schools program gives 90% of donations directly to help improve education, but that campaign is “currently inactive.”) 

(This information is all what I’ve been able to find out on my own. I’ve also read from reliable and not reliable sources about transparency issues with Invisible Children (i. e., they won’t share the details of what they’re doing, which is suspicious), but I haven’t been able to find a primary source for any of these claims.)

This is the problem with popular charities. They become popular and stay popular for a reason, and that reason is money. It’s important to let people know that they can donate to cancer research, but if you want your money to be used solely to cure cancer, then donate directly to a facility that does this, not the American Cancer Society.

I’m not trying to attack these charities. I’m just worried that people will get caught up in the sensationalism of the message and forget to think about practical solutions. Because there’s another problem with charities, especially in Africa. Poor African countries are corrupt and obviously dangerous. Also, us first world countries have a habit of “helping” these people before we fully understand the root of the problem, the best solution, and how our proposed solution might backfire in an entirely different direction.

I need to do more research on all this, but my roommate has ordered me to go to bed and I think it’s a reasonable suggestion at 2 am on a school night. 

I’m going to have to catch up on so much homework tomorrow…

I'm "That Friend"

I'm not the person people go to when they want to have fun. (Unless your idea of fun is watching Hitchcock movies, trying to dance to "CATS," singing along to Broadway, or doing organic chemistry. Which fortunately is a few people's idea of fun, so I lucked out there.) I'm normally the friend you go to when you need to talk about something. Mostly your relationships.

I would be the last person I would go to for relationship advice. If you want relationship advice, go to someone that's actually been in a relationship. But most people looking for relationship advice don't want or need actual advice, they want someone to listen to them. And I listen really well. And I'm not many people's best friend or the one they tell everything, but I'm always the one that's there when you're feeling upset or depressed about yourself. I'm the one who builds up your self esteem and sense of empowerment and makes you feel like everything's going to be ok, really. I just inadvertently talked a friend I haven't seen for 8 months out of losing her virginity to a random guy because she was so depressed. 

I'm ok with being that friend. 

College (the university type) can be really cool.

Today I didn't go out of my way to do anything.

-For my first class, I spent an hour skyping a French engineering student and talking about feminism in our respective countries. We alternated between French and English.

-For organic chemistry we had a project where we had to come up with three steps to synthesize a useful organic molecule, and they had to be things we could do/buy for our weekly labs. My group's procedure was selected as one that the rest of the groups are going to have to perform. We figured out how to make melatonin in 3 steps, and the starting material is just $15 a gram, and now we're going to actually carry out a lab based on what we've figured out. This is the real deal as far as chemistry goes. I actually had to find  a book published in 1930 on our library's shelf and translate it from the original German to figure out part of the procedure. It's such a rewarding experience.

-On a sidenote, I also found chemistry journals from the early 1800s just sitting on the shelf in our library. The actual original 200 year old books. And lots of them were in different languages or from countries that don't exist anymore. This is very cool.

-My crazy idea about not studying for my archaeology exam was a surprising success. (I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS. I rarely studied in high school, and I have to study for everything in college. This class is a rare exception where I can just pay attention to the lecture and the readings and be set. Unfortunately, I was not able to work pygmy mammoths into my essay, but you can't win 'em all.) 

-I'm taking a seminar class along with the research program here, and today our class was going around the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology. We looked at mummies for a class. 

-I spent an hour acting like a fool dancing ridiculously cute dances and singing ridiculously happy songs for a charity/singing club.

-I have run out of clean underwear and had to ALL the laundry at 1 am. Where I ended up having a conversation about evolutionarily static gastropods of the east coast of the U.S. and the amazing complexity of life and metabolic pathways and this chart. This episode caught me quite a bit off guard, but occasionally honors housing can do that to you. 

That was just today. I've also:

-Gotten free tickets to see the Hamburg Symphony.

-Been taken to the basement of the natural history museum where they keep all their fossils for a class.

-Allowed to handle several famous fake Michigan artifacts in said museum for an entirely different class.

-Seen Starkid live at the place where they all started.

-Played Mafia for 5 hours with a bunch of strangers.

-Watched classic Doctor Who with the TARDIS club in a classroom for hours on end.

-Picketed and protested puppy mills for the Michigan Animal Rights Society.

-Studied for hours in the 123 acre arboretum.

-Been present at 2 of the most thrilling football games in Michigan history. I don't even like football, and I've rarely been that excited in my life. 

...and several other things I can't think of at the moment. And I haven't taken advantage of anywhere close to everything that's available to me. Any one of these things would be incredible, but in context it's just part of normal college life. I love it.

On that note, I have 2 days left until spring break and I couldn't be more relieved. (Do all Europeans think of "Spring Break" when they think of American university life? The French students seem to. They all want to party in Panama City when they eventually visit the states.) I'm really excited to go home and be crazy with my sister and be with my dog and eat really good food all the time. 

Brilliant Ideas at 2 am

What if...I just don't study for this midterm tomorrow? Wouldn't that be fun, to see if I can do well without studying at all? 


Yep. I needed to write that down just so I could prove to myself how stupid that sounds.

I'm still probably going to go to sleep now anyway.

I have lost the ability to stay on topic and make separate posts for separate ideas. I'm sick. That's an excuse, right? But really, this is an abomination and I'm sorry. Except not really.

So you know that last post about my roommate? Well next year I am going to be living in an all girls dorm in a double with someone I don't know. I do know that they were not the person listed in the box I checked that said, "I want this person to be my roommate," or something to that effect. My roommate now has a room on North campus.

There's a really long and complicated story behind all this, but even I don't know parts of it and I feel like I would just be listing a series of complaints that no one really cares about (Hey, don't you do that anyw--oh be quiet). So, after a stressful Thursday and Friday I am now alone for the weekend because my roommate is in Wisconsin visiting her boyfriend. Only the phrase "visiting her boyfriend" doesn't fit at all.  Those two are more like a boy and a girl who live in different cities and keep trying to break up because they don't have time to be in a long distance relationship but still promise to be exclusive because they couldn't imagine being with anybody else. They're very silly and adorable. And I introduced the boyfriend to Sherlock and he talks about it more than I do. Friends will come up to my roommate and say, "Hey, I just saw Matt!" "Did he want you to watch Sherlock?" "Um, yeah, what is that about?"

So anyway, I'm alone this weekend and sicker than I've ever been without a fever or flu, and this was the first time I felt genuinely homesick. I've missed people and things from home before, but I never felt this sort of longing. This was the first time I bought my own kleenex and cough drops and took my own temperature and made my own tea, which is more complicated because it involved microwaving the water in my room and going down to the dining hall to get the honey. I felt very sad just because I'm so sick.

In other news, we have SNOW and it is 13 º outside! Yes, that is Fahrenheit!! AND my brother is on Facebook! This is big news because he has been keeping with an anti-Facebook mantra for 8 years now. I'm not a huge Facebook fan or anything, but my brother gets very stubborn about certain random issues and it's really funny when has to cave. He says he's doing it because it will help him find an apartment in Wisconsin where his new job is going to be, but I think he might have to stick with it, seeing as he's working for a technology company and everything, and eventually he'll have to friend me and then I can post really annoying stuff on his wall all the time! Unfortunately he won't help me find him yet, and we don't exactly have the most unique surname on the planet. It's one of those English names that evolved from professions, like Smith.

I go to college with all of these diverse people with interesting names, so it's almost embarrassing when we're working on a school project and we have to find each other on Facebook. On the bright side, I never have to spell my name. On the dark side (this phrase does not have the exact connotation I was aiming for, but you get the idea), you can never find me. Do you know how many Molly Smiths are out there? My name's not actually Smith, but you get the idea.

Everything above this point was written a few days ago and then I got distracted. So now I'm back, after getting a lot sicker and then better, having watched an unhealthy amount of Veronica Mars, and getting so behind on work that if I actually sat down and thought about all I have to do I would probably hyperventilate and pass out. So we're just going to live in denial a little while and take things as they come to get through the next 2 weeks.

BRFs!!! (Best Roommates Forever!!!)

My roommate and I were randomly assigned to each other at the beginning of the year. She's from Lincolnshire, Illinois, and I'm from Peachtree City, Georgia, and neither of us had any idea what to expect. I thought she might be Jewish, she thought I was going to have a southern accent, and we found out later that we were both a little disappointed when we met.

The first few weeks I thought we were really different people, even though she was perfect roommate material, nice, giving, perfectly accommodating. But she mostly hanged out with her high school friends and went to parties in the evenings, so I socialized mostly with other people on my hall.

Now, we are kind of like best friends. Except not all best friends can actually live together compatibly. Everyone warns you going into college that your roommate's probably not going to be your best friend, or even necessarily a friend, so I was totally prepared to tolerate a roommate. But we completely lucked out. Not only are we fantastic roommates and friends, we cannot live on our own. We will go insane. We need each other when one of us comes home late at night after various clubs and is so hyper and stressed that she starts somersaulting instead of walking (ok, that was me). So of course, we're going to room together next year.

At least, that was what we thought until we got assigned one of the later housing signup times. The doubles in our first choice dorm filled up. And then our second. And third. And then all of the doubles on central campus, where our classes are, were filled. So now, we have a plan. We sign up tomorrow at 3:10. There are still plenty of singles available in our 2nd choice dorm that are next to or across from each other. So we shall get 2 single rooms, but there is no way we're going to live in different rooms. Some of these single rooms are bigger than some double rooms, so why not have a sort of bedroom and separate "living" room sort of situation? It may be crazy. It may be technically against the rules. But we are going to try, gosh darn it!

In other news, I am jealous of Europe right now (shout out to my 1 follower). In my French class, we Skype with students in Bordeaux once a week, and ma partenaire said it was -8 ºC! In southern France! Which is apparently around 18 ºF, and it was in the 40s (5-10 ºC) here at the time. This is the opposite of what's supposed to happen! I chose this school because of the cold weather and snow, and we haven't had snow stay on the ground for more than 3 days this entire semester! I am sick of sunshine, and even more sick of this semi-freezing rain thing we've got going on. If this keeps up, I'm going to have to look into grad schools in Canada and Iceland.

Adventures in Sickness

I haven't been really sick in a very long time. And it is not fun. Especially in college when you can't just take the day off and have your mom take care of everything and the dorm you live in gives you asthma on top of your virus.

When I'm in weird moods or I'm just bored, I tend to editorialize my notes. So yesterday's archaeology notes looked a bit like:

I feel like death.

This is weird. I feel like my uvula’s been scratched with sandpaper.

Oh dear. I’m that annoying person who won’t stop coughing in lecture.

I just coughed so hard I cried a little bit. Ouch.

Ouch ouch ouch.

Pygmy mammoths. I would like a pygmy mammoth of my own please.

My saliva tastes a little bit like blood.

Maybe I have Ebola.

That would be mostly bad.

But also a bit exciting.

Then I did did nothing but organic chemistry and drink tea and smoothies for the rest of the day. I went to bed early, because 1 am is early, right? Or at least I tried to, but my Residence Advisor next door was playing music. I don't know what's worse, that she plays music all night long and I can't sleep or that she has really wonderful taste in music and I want to join in and can't sleep.

My alarm went off this morning, and my dream versions of Benedict Cumberbatch and Lara Pulver told me I was too sick to get up and go to orgo lecture, so I listened to them. I then rationalized to everyone all day long that I would do better on the exam if I got enough sleep instead of going to lecture, which would just be review. And I just now remembered that I don't have orgo lecture on Tuesdays. I missed my archaeology discussion. Whoops.

By the way, I don't remember what happened, but my dream version of series 3 of Sherlock was fantastic.

After Recess-Change the World

Reading this made me really really happy. I almost cried at the end, but that was mostly because I’m so exhausted. But still, it’s heartening to hear about important changes actually happening because people tried, and Change.org is a very good organization and I highly recommend it. 

I hate being one of these people.

I'm really trying to not feel sorry for myself. It's just so annoying and frustrating to have chronic health issues when I've got better things to be worried about.

I had asthma when I was little and then, when I was older, only around cats. A combo of allergy shots and antihistamines make me fine around cats now, so I thought I was set. Then I started college in Michigan and when it first started getting around 30 ºF and lower, my asthma came back. So I got an inhaler and things seemed fine.

Then someone played rugby down the hall and set off the sprinklers a few weeks ago. Since then, my asthma has been persistent 24-7 even though the weather has been relatively warm. Apparently, all that water could have released a lot of the allergens that have been collecting in the carpets for years.    It's very frustrating to be out of breath walking to class or not be able to sing and dance at the same time in my singing and dancing club. On top of that, getting a migraine and a sore throat the weekend before a major French presentation and my first organic chemistry II exam has not made things better. Thank goodness next year I'll be living in a newly renovated dorm with air conditioning. 

This sort of thing is also indicative of my life.

I just went to fill my Brita filter water holding thing up in the laundry room sink down the hall. I could see my reflection very clearly in the windows, and while I was waiting for the water to trickle down I started mouthing "It's a Brand New Day" from Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog to myself. The door was propped wide open and people in the hallway could clearly see my reflection just as well. One guy walking by and I definitely made reflection eye contact and then looked away super quickly.

My handheld vacuum cleaner is covered in dust. This is very indicative of my life right now.

This might turn into a sort of twitter/facebook status feed where I don't have to worry about annoying anyone.

Because no one is reading this but me. About which this website  is very good at informing me. I'm not sure I like that so much...

Hello, World;

I'm one of those people on tumblr who actually blogs. You know, writing about one's life and thoughts and things like that. And since that doesn't seem to be the best place for all that, I'm trying this. We'll see how it goes.

I mostly just need a place to write things down every once in a while, and I never keep up with journals. Both in the sense that I don't keep writing in them and I can't find them later. So hopefully this solves at least one of those problems.

So, shall I say little bit about myself? Yes, let's do that.

• I like to propose rhetorical questions and then answer them.
• Cheerios are my life force. 
• I am a vegetarian for ethical reasons.
• I can explain my ethical reasons at great depth if you get me started.
• I'm a 2nd semester freshman at the wonderful University of Michigan.
• Until now, I've lived my whole life in Georgia (the state) (not like anyone really thought I was eastern European anyway).
• I am a redhead.
• I am allergic to sunscreen.
• Life is difficult.
• I love all animals, nature, trees, all that stuff.
• I'm allergic to most animals, trees, all that stuff.
• Again, it's rough being me.
• I am a stereotypically rebellious (by comparison) middle child.
• I seem to be in a parentheses mood today. Occasionally I have asterisks moods, though. Sometimes I'm spontaneous like that.
• I LOVE cold weather. I yearn for snow and frigidness and all things cold and frosty. 
• I have Raynaud's disease which basically means poor circulation to my extremities in cold weather.
• We don't need to go through this again.
• I absolutely detest warm weather, especially humidity. Let's just say I was not the most cheerful metro Atlantan.
• There are many television shows/books/movies/musicians I enjoy, and I will probably bring them up many times in the future.
• I'm best friends with my little sister and we have grand times together, mostly doing things that no one else would ever find fun, so it's a good thing we have each other.
• My sister is very strange.
• My brother is also worth mentioning. So that's done.
• My randomly-assigned roommate here is wonderful and I spend most of my time with her, so you'll probably be hearing a lot about her. 
• 66.6 inches tall. According to my pediatrician, I am 66.5 inches tall, but they only ever list height in intervals of .25, so whose to say that I'm not 66.6 inches tall?
• I'm taking a Faust class and I've been reading a lot about the devil, ok?
• Contrary to what you may think after reading the title of this post, I hate computer programming more than I hate physics and humidity and nails on a chalkboard combined. 

Nothing else comes to mind right now, so I'll stop there. So...let's hope this works out!