A ship is safe at harbor, but that is not what it is built for

Sometimes I complain about my new school, sometimes I ask myself why on earth I didn't just stay at the other school and get my degree there, sometimes I feel like running away... But at heart I know it's for the best that I moved. I may not be quite happy with my life right now, but I'm happier than I would be if I had stayed here.

Living never wore one out so much as the effort not to live

I'm actually pretty proud of myself. I've done some things that required a little bit of bravery, one of which has needed doing for a long, long time.

On Tuesday evening, I went to a Fab Four (Beatles tribute) concert all on my own. I absolutely love the Beatles, and this is the closest I will ever come to actually seeing them. They were very good, and sounded very, very close to the Beatles. Of course, you knew it wasn't actually the Beatles so that diminished the excitement somewhat, but it was an enjoyable evening and definitely worth ten dollars.

However, I had to go alone. I didn't have anyone to go with. Most people my age aren't wild about the Beatles, and I don't have any friends here that I could've dragged along.

It was fine until intermission. They had a long intermission, and I was sitting alone towards the top of the auditorium above the exit, and I felt really obvious. However, no one really cared. Any insecurities I had about it were in my own mind. I mean, if I went with a friend and saw someone sitting alone, I would barely notice. I certainly wouldn't think, "Wow, look at that loser who came here alone, what is wrong with her." If anything, I would admire her bravery and maybe be thankful that I had someone to go with. But I wouldn't be mentally trashing her. I feel better about myself since I had the nerve to do that.

I wouldn't mind going to a movie alone; however, I don't think I could brave eating at an actual sit-down restaurant by myself. I've been to fast food places and eaten alone, but I would feel too awkward at a real restaurant.

This morning I went to church alone, too. That is something that I should have done eight months ago when I first got here. But it's never too late. I wish that I had started going back then, but I did not, and I have learned that there is no point in regretting the past. It won't solve anything, and there is no better way to agonize over something that cannot be changed than wishing you had done this or hadn't done that.

I'm glad that I went. I intend to go back next weekend.

I have realized that I can live with this, the problem that bothers me every day. There are people with much worse burdens to bear. If God has led my life in this direction, then I can handle it. It's that simple. I'm not alone, never have been alone, never will be alone. It won't be easy, and I'm not saying that this is going to last forever, but while it is here I can handle it, whether it continues for two more weeks or for the rest of my life.

The difference between knowing and doing

Isn't it strange, how hard it is to make what you believe and know rationally in your head influence how you actually feel?

I have so many reasons to be happy right now, but instead, I tend towards the melancholy.

I know that I have been blessed with so much, but so many times, instead of celebrating those blessings, I want more, more, more. I mope about the things that aren't great.

Something small and insignificant can bring me so low. Something that shouldn't matter makes me have really negative thoughts.

I know what I ought to do. I know that I ought to be happy. But it doesn't work out that way.

Why is that? I do not understand myself.

Skydiving.

Wow.

Just, wow. I think I have discovered my One True Hobby.

I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time writing about the experience itself it in this blog because I have done that elsewhere, and because you can go online and find all sorts of tales of skydiving. But just rest assured that it was super.

Strangely enough, I felt very little fear. I was a bit apprehensive as we drove to the dropzone, and then a little more apprehensive as I signed the waivers and watched the training video, but when it came time to board the plane, and throughout the jump itself, I was not nervous at all, just ecstatic.

It's not that I'm brave, though. Never think that I am brave. My cowardice just takes a different form. I'd rather jump out of a plane a thousand times than turn around and talk to Beautiful Eyes, or approach him in Wal-Mart or at the library.

They say everything comes out even in the end, and I suppose it's true. I was fearless when it came to skydiving, but I am incapable of even meeting the eye of a cute guy at a gas station who's looking at me. I am the girl who will only go shopping on Tuesdays because she knows that a certain someone has lab that day and will not be in the stores, but is not afraid of parasailing or hang gliding or skydiving.

Everyone who went loved it, and I think almost all of us said we wanted to go again. Of course, not everyone will. I am going to, I know that for sure, but I'm not too certain about the others, even the two who organized the whole event. But it was too amazing to not go again! I can't imagine never doing that again! On Facebook, I found this quote: For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return. It's so true! Between January, when I decided to go, and now, I would look up at the sky and wonder what it was going to be like. Now I know, and now I look at the sky and think of going again.

Completing the accelerated freefall course will cost at leat $1,710, but I'm going to do it. Since I am a student and have three more years of school, it's going to be awhile. The people I went with plan to go again in the summer, and if they don't, I'll go alone. I'll get a friend to go with me and watch/keep me company. I can't avoid this.

Leave it to me to pick one of the most dangerous and expensive hobbies! Hahaha!

This may sound silly or overly dramatic, but seriously, this has made me feel a lot more favorable towards things. I now have motivation to stay in school and not drop out no matter how bad it gets, because if I don't graduate, I won't be able to afford to do this. If I do graduate, I should hopefully even be able to afford my own custom setup someday, and those start at about 3 grand. I was never suicidal, but I saw where it could develop. This gives an additional reason to keep pressing on.

I like skydiving even better than I like Beautiful Eyes. I now have that lovely memory to sink into when I start feeling bad about other things. It's something good that I can always fall back on, and motivation to keep doing what I've been doing, only better.

Of course, I haven't made a good start on that today. I've been too busy wasting my time on the internet.

One thing I can say is that I liked myself when I was doing it. I don't hate myself, but typically I don't really like myself, either. I'm always too loud, or too quiet and mousy, or too stupid, or too weird, too irritating, too fat, too lazy, too afraid... but I wasn't any of that then. I wasn't afraid. I wasn't angry or sad. There's a picture of me that was taken right after I landed, and I love it, because I looked so darn happy. I don't have any other pictures where I look like that. I want to look like that more often.

My new hobby, it was born on Saturday.

Everything was fine when you were alone, or at home, but as soon as you were with other people you were in difficulties

Sometimes I wonder whether or not a group of women exists that gets along without silly little petty issues.

I am friends with several girls about my own age (21-22). We have known each other and been friends since high school, but we've all parted ways now and gone all over the state, so we see one another only rarely. We do communicate to a greater or lesser extent online, but of course that is not quite the same as seeing one another in person.

On the surface, we all get along well. We rarely fight or argue, little disagreements don't amount to much, and everyone is friendly with everyone else.

And yet, when I talk to them one-on-one, I find that resentments frequently bubble beneath the surface. Sometimes they take an incident and try to turn it into something that it is not, while other times, they dislike someone's personality or basic behavior.

I'll admit, I used to be bad about being secretly resentful and wounded. Even now, I am sometimes hurt when I find that I was excluded from something, or left out of something else. But I've basically accepted it. It's not intentional. If they don't invite me to something, it's not because they secretly dislike me or because they're mad at me, it's because they were just being somewhat thoughtless, or because they didn't think I'd be able to go, or because they forgot me. I don't really take it personally anymore. It might sting for a little while, but in general, I just let it go.

I have learned to keep my mouth shut. I am not as closely knit to the group as others because I keep my mouth shut. When I disagree with something, I don't say anything at all. When something offends me, I just take it (that's pretty rare, though).

I have learned that telling people my secrets will not necessarily make them tell me theirs, so I am very careful about sharing. I have a tendency to open up to people at random times, which is okay, except for when they don't open up in return. One friend in particular always wants to know the latest gossip, always wants to be in on everything, but she never shares anything deep about herself. I don't know what she thinks about Obama or whether or not she has a crush on anyone, I don't know why she is having a disagreement with another friend or if they have made things up, I don't know anything. She never says, but she always wants to know everyone else's secrets.

On Saturday night I referenced something (someone, to be exact- Beautiful Eyes) that I don't really want to discuss with them. Fortunately, it didn't come up again tonight. I was glad, because when I got home, I asked myself why I brought it up. I don't want them to know my problems and secrets when they haven't told me any of theirs.

I don't even know what to say

Okay.

So, last semester, I did pretty poorly in school. This semester has been a little bit better, but things still haven't been liked they used to be when I was at my other school. Last Tuesday, I had a test in a class we'll call Frustrations II. It was the second test of the semester. I barely studied for the first test, but I somehow managed to get a B.

For this second Frustrations II test, I wanted to do well. I wanted to get an A in the class. Frustrations I and II have a lot of math, and it's not particularly difficult math, so I thought that I should be able to do fairly well.

So I started studying early, because although the math isn't difficult, it's easy to make mistakes. The test consisted of 100 points worth of material from Frustrations II, and 20 points of review material from Frustrations I. I spent a good amount of time reviewing the material from Frustrations I (the professor told us exactly which material it would be). I had it down! I was ready for it. I started studying on Saturday, on one of my rare weekends home! When Tuesday rolled around, I felt ready. I didn't feel confident of making 100% or anything like that, but I felt good about it.

I took the test, and it went pretty well. There were two questions I was pretty sure I missed, and one math question that was a bit troublesome, but all-in-all I thought I had done pretty well. I thought I'd gotten an A on it.

I got to class this morning, and the professor began handing back the tests. The girl next to me said, "Uh oh, this could make my day a whole lot worse." I laughed and said "Awww" because I thought that I had done well enough that it wouldn't damage my day.

Well, wasn't I just all kinds of wrong! I got mine back and flipped through it to find my grade. I got an 88 - but that's 88 out of 120, not 88%. So that comes out to a 73%.

I looked to see what I had missed. I did okay throughout the 100 points of Frustrations II material; I missed several things I hadn't expected missing, and I only got one point of partial credit for the 6 point math problem I'd messed up on.

But I did okay until the review from Frustrations I. I missed four out of the five problems, even though I had been sure I'd gotten at least 4 of the 5 correct!

We are able to rework the Frustrations I review problems and turn them in for one point of credit each, so of course I planned to do that. I finally steeled myself to look through the test to see exactly what I'd done wrong on the review.

Here's the thing: I don't even know. I fixed one of them (I hadn't realized what the professor was asking, so I missed it), but as for the other three, I have no earthly idea what I did wrong. Seriously! I have my tests from last semester, a textbook, and notes, and I still don't know what I did wrong!

How can I fix them if I don't even know what the problem is?!??

I am so frustrated. I studied for the first Frustrations II test for about 2 hours, and got a B. This time, I studied for much longer than that, and got a C. What's wrong with this picture?!

Why did I bother studying? I mean, I get Cs without studying... so why did I waste the time?

I don't know what I'm doing that is so wrong. Why does everything here blow even when I do what I'm supposed to do? I mean, last semester, my grades were so terrible because I didn't study. This time, I did study, and my grade was still awful! What more can I do? Other than sit here and cry about it, that is. I wonder how many of the people who did better than me spent as much time studying as I did? Probably not many of them. It seems that I am just a moron. I am so sick of things always being like this.

There are times when I really wish that I had just stayed at my other school, kept my freakin' sweet scholarship, and majored in something else. I was going to do business, originally. What happened to that? I should've stuck with it. I could be graduating in May, instead of having to endure 2.5 or 3 more years of this torture!

I wanted this so badly. How did my great big wonderful dream turn into this nightmare?

Always Indecisive

So, as you can tell from my previous entries, I wanted to get into this school desperately. I wanted it more than I wanted anything else. I succeeded, and moved in August.

Now, I wasn't expecting it to be an easy change for me, but I was definitely not expecting to fall into a deep depression. But that's what happened. Nothing in life is ever what you expect it to be, and this was no different. I am not sure why I thought everything was going to be perfect when I moved out here, but I learned very quickly that I was very wrong.

Everything suffered. I cried all the time, my grades were absolutely awful, I didn't make any new friends, I developed a new crush within fifteen minutes of hitting the school for the first time, I had no appetite and no motivation to do anything.

Last semester was awful. I had been "depressed" before, but never anything like this. I had never lacked the motivation to make changes the way I did last fall. I didn't want to do anything but sit in my comfy chair and idle around on the internet. I didn't read any books or play The Sims, I didn't do any of my usual things. I just moped.

I was never suicidal, but I did have thoughts about how dying would be a relief.

So, how are things now, six months later? Well, I'm doing a lot better. I am more motivated to study, and I'm getting better grades. Slightly better, anyway. I don't have zillions of new friends, but then again, I haven't made much of an effort to make friends. In high school, I always had lots of friends, but back then I was involved in band and such, and I met people and spent more time with them. Here, I don't do anything but go to class.

So, we're approaching May of 09, and many of the people who are my age are graduating from college. And then there's me. One of my friends has already graduated, is married and has a baby. That makes me feel like the world's biggest loser! FYI, my pitiful "relationship" status has not changed.

If I had stayed at my other school, I could be graduating this May, too. If I had stayed with my business degree, or maybe even with my second degree choice, I could be finishing up. And I wouldn't have payed a dime for school. Instead, I'm here, paying a horrendous amount each semester, with three more years of this to look forward to.

So, if I could go back to 2006 or 2005 and stay put, would I?

I don't know. I can't say.

It's like I spend my whole life waiting for some magical event to happen so that I can really start living, but I don't even know what it is that I'm waiting for. I need to stop doing that. This move was obviously not that magical event. There is no magical event. I need to grow up and realize that this is my life, that my life is occurring now. These are my golden years!