coexistapart's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- this is not \"Top Scallop\" I may or may not go back and delete my last entry, where I complain about not having received the letter(s) I waited for all week. A four-day weekend was really not worth losing to stress. Once I did a little mental re-evaluation of the situation, everything essentially boiled down to the fact that it is not worth the further complication to call everyone in a panic tomorrow and have them go out of their way to make new copies, to pay $30 for them to arrive tomorrow, possibly at the same time as the original copies. At this point I don't even know where that 1-2 weeks would (will) make a difference about getting into Chinese; as it is, I am not 100% positive I actually want to go if I do get in, even with a full scholarship. I'm also not sure that I wouldn't prefer to take modern Hebrew--for which the applicant pool does not close until MAY--and I'm also not sure that I want to reorganize my summer on the substantial probability that Chinese IS a preferred skill set for the foreign service, but most of those rules and regulations are generally very lax if you are simply applying to do consular management. See my point? So all of this is to say that I really needed to slap myself upside the face and go: what CAN I do in this situation, and what lengths WILL I choose to go to this weekend to actually resolve the situation and not simply spend time stressing over spilt milk? I mean all that being said, the February indicator deadline set last year could be a complete joke in the face of an economic meltdown where people just don't have $9000 to waste on a summer school program. It's the February 2 scholarship deadline which really matters. And two weeks is ages away when there's FedEx overnight service close at hand. Weekend has been good; we still have tomorrow off because the US Army is either on call or not working. There's really not all that much to report...I went skating yesterday. I always forget what great exercise it is, so I'm sore in strange places today. I also tripped over my pick and fell flat on my face *literally* on the last lap before I planned to skate off... just as I was thinking that skating is not an outdoor activity worth taking up when you don't have health insurance. Thankfully, all I did was bruise my hip bones (yes) and my knees, though I could have easily broken my wrist. Friday I did end up speaking with Anna for an hour or two on Facebook chat. Because she had her phone stollen right before she went on Christmas break, I haven't spoken to her since I was at DIA with the 20 minute connection for my Heathrow flight, right before she left for the SBL. That day I called her purely out of guilt, not because I wanted to our felt like the conversation would be healthy or enjoyable. None-the-less, she still has not remedied the phone situation, which has been a convenient way for me to say "hey, I keep trying." I finally got a hold of her Friday night; I was online for a little while, didn't really think I had the energy to "deal" with her, but messaged her after a little while anyway. Turns out she's up to her old antics. I can hardly judge her--pot calling the kettle black here, but it just all sounds so exhausting. In the same way that I find America, Americans, and their rude myselfism exhausting some days. I never thought of Canadians as being exceeding polite, just realistic and understanding, but we look like saints compared to people like Anna and the way they behave, generally. So when I last spoke to Anna in November, she told me that three other grad students were renting ONE room for the SBL conference. This did not strike me as particularly odd--just a tad radical. (I mean aren't there other ways to save money? ) Then I found out that the room was going to comprise of Anna and her new first year German friend, plus two MALE, MARRIED grad students I knew from previous classes. Obviously they are not married to either Anna or the German girls so the girls were going to sleep in one bed, the two guys in another. Again, I didn't think too much of it other than "there are probably other ways to save money," and practically-speaking it has the possibility of being awkward, but I'm not a "starving" grad student so what do I know? Turns out, Anna...after rebounding from construction guy (end of August/when I left) to some guy studying the LDS in the history department, ends up having a "tryst" (her words) with this married grad student that I quite like, who she's sleeping in the same room with at the SBL. I mean really she's welcome to sleep with whomever she wants, but she's just being so flagrantly STUPID about the situatioin that she's just inviting more problems than are really necessary. I mean I could tell a mile away from her fb page and his very frequent recent comments that something was going on, but she--on the other hand--is being all kinds of flagrant and telling everyone in the department, and leaving racy voicemails and status updates and fb comments and telling EVERYONE. Now granted he technically is doing his doctorate out in the Mid-West, but both he and his wife were at YUS for their MAs, everyone knows them, everyone is fb connected, and they're just being all new love/hot sex about keeping things under wraps. If you're read/known me for a long time, then you know I went to great pains not to embarass/humiliate Big's ex-wife. I mean none of this was her fault. I really feel as though that's the ONLY person who does not deserve to lose face if/when things blow up. But I digress. Again, so fine. Anna and dude can do what they please. Go ahead: make your life more complicated than it is, why don't you...but then, on top of that, she has the gall to say things like "I've never been in love like this before," and "he'd go anywhere with me" or "everything is changing." It's probably that I'm a bad judge of character when it comes to people my age, or I really don't know Anna that well because we've only been friends a year, but that seems a little extreme for someone you've slept with 10 times in two months. I mean I'm sure the sex is good--he's deprived, she's deprived, and she's this tight little manic, juicing mega athlete, but STILL. I mean at this point I don't even feel allegiance to Jesus Prof after what I her that he did to her in Italy in 2007, but part of me is kind of thinking...you would say all of THAT about GKF (nick for new fling) after having a 5 year relationship with Jesus Prof? How do you flip flop like that? Is that not a massive trivialization? How do you value relationships? And part of the whole scenario is of course that I do have to work very hard to reserve judgement. I'm old fashioned, a lot of my girlfiends are very old fashioned. There aren't very many of us AT ALL that would just break up with someone and start dating again overnight. (Frankly, there aren't that many of us that would start off dating the wrong guy in the first place....) It's a specific socio-economic demographic and with it comes a specific expectation. Kind of like I said a while back (probably last May-June when I first met Spoon's gf) that it was not within my frame of reference to meet someone who had been dating our neighbour last week, and who was/is dating Big's coworker this week. I mean I know a couple of girls who are nortorious for not being able to hold relationships...they can't commit, they're flighty, they constantly bounce around from guy to guy because they like to go out dancing or they're very introverted, but all of my best best friends are in long-term relationships (2-4 years) or they're alone for quite a while between relationships. Pickin and stick with'em is what I've heard, whether you believe it's a good practice or not. This is not a vast generalization; I'm really only talking about people, namely my male and female friends ages 22-27. It's got nothing to do with people who choose to be alone, or who are too busy to have partners, or who remain unwilling to "settle." It's just these so-called "committed" people who think they get to be in the same boat as the rest of us. So Anna is young, attractive, very fit, lonely, and more than slightly emboldened by her sexuality. (Anna is actually, in this instance, a very bad pseudonym because I'm calling up all these fat, asexual Russian ladies in my mind...which does not fit at all.) Dude she's flinging with is very typically Canadian, average than normal height, strong build, friendly, generous. I joked with her that she's actually going to have to learn things about Canada now; I mean the first sign she was having an affair with this guy is that she was in Peterborough for the weekend, when she could barely place it on the map let along have been there before. On the bright side, I was saying to my mutual friend with Anna, hey at least this gets her mind off going to Cali. But I almost think this girl needs to be alone, to get her life back in order after all these missteps the last little while. Then again, if I were to really stop and evaluate the way she deals with me, the way she truly believes that I should be "cartwheeling because you have money and you're with a man who makes lots of money" (WTF? she seriously thinks that) then it's not really worth taking anything less than academic as serious coming out of her mouth. That was the other thing that was driving me crazy on Friday. So while I'm IMing with Anna, I'm simultaneously talking with Diana; we're going over some of the new things she's been writing about, and how imprudent other bloggers can be. And I totally empathize, because she's articulated some of things I feel/believe. Meanwhile, Anna over here, probably because she's alcoholic drunk alone again that night (another issue) is like "how's the sex life with Big? amazing? any details you're going to share with me? and I'm like "ANNA, you KNOW that's not like me to want to share that kind of thing; sorry," and she says, "yeah, no prob, I totally understand" and then circles back to it not 10 minutes later. In the same way that she wants me to SPELL OUT how happy I am to be down here with Big. Which just emphasizes for me that I would never share any real unhappiness with her because she just glosses over it: you don't have any emotional problems, YOU HAVE MONEY! Seriously. Her (jealous) response to everything. And I mean I try to play along to some extent, realize how unhappy she is in Toronto and how she's trying to live through other people; not knowing the reality of my existence, taking the year off and not working/being taken care of financially might sound like a walk in the park. And so sure, I'll tell her things like oh, I went to the gym, did some baking, eBaying, scrapbooking, and Big and I went for a sunset walk but I'm not a girl that chats about her relationship. Now maybe, becuase she complained so much to me over the summer she feels like it's my time to share, and I'll try, but I'm really not a let's come mine to yours kind of gossipy girl. The other thing too is she kept pushing the "well how ARE things?" referencing our mutual friend who just had her bf of many years move out after saying that him moving in was the "death knell" to their relationship. I just said a relationship is work, because it is, and even if my relationship WAS at death's door, do you think I would tell YOU? Would I really want to tell anyone? Because I need other girls' OPINIONS of MY relationship to negotiate/mitigate my own feelings and pragmatism? Like YOU should help ME decide if MY relationship is worthwhile...when you just told me that having sex with someone random guy in our department with (little-to-no future, at least above average) to speak of is far superior to a relationship YOU TOLD ME you were firmly commited to for 5 years? WTH. Seriously. And I don't like using that term anymore, but what the eff'in hell. Anyway. I've said this before, and I'll say it again: I'm happy to have Anna as a friend, and I hope I can do for her what her relationship with JP used to do in terms of weekly excitement for me, but sometimes we're so different in terms of moral realities that it's exhausting to contemplate trying to help her with her every-day problems when I see the pitfalls coming a mile off. And I thank you for putting up with this rambling entry, which would have certainly been more coherent if I'd written it Friday or Saturday when the whole exchange (and its related insights) were fresh in my mind. The whole thing is just bizarre. I someone how lost the 2009 resolutions I've been working on, so I just added the blank page and I will go from there this week. Adding and updating ideas that I've been implementing. Song of the Day: Every Day is Exactly the Same 11:20 p.m. - 2009-01-19 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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