• shopping for ski clothes;
• cleaning the apartment;
• watching How I Met Your Mother;
• going to the gym;
• doing (much-needed-to-do) laundry;
• attending a UCLA basketball game;
• roadtripping to Tahoe with friends; and
• skiing and/or snowboarding + falling on my butt for three days straight

… are 40 multiple choice questions.

The downside to taking evening classes = evening finals.  This 6pm final has eaten up my entire day.  I drove to school early so I wouldn’t have to sit in traffic on my way to the final.  The library is packed and I am starting to feel overcome with the general malaise and panic that saturates this place during finals time.

I’m going to go find a place to sharpen my #2 pencils and then very slowly crawl over to the testing room.

By sheer happenstance, I scrolled through the monthly WAR newsletter and saw a piece that said “Allies of WAR: Dark Age of Camelot.” Intrigued, I scrolled down.

The word? 10 days of free play time for old players who want to check out the new server merge and game updates.

The hook: I’m technically an old player, since after my first free trial, I forgot to cancel the sub and ended up with a month of game time. Sadly I only realized it the last part of the month of game time and so I didn’t take advantage of it. But the good news is, I qualify for the 10 days.

So looks like I’ll be burning hard to try to make DAoC work for me. And if it doesn’t? Sony…you’ll be hearing from me.

I have it.   And as usual, its a chain reaction.  I’ve been swamped at work, with some major things going down, that probably won’t be resolved fully for another month or so.

Artwork by Dale Wicks, visit his site and see his other awesome prints!

And once I get hit at work, it pushes my game time.  In part because I have less time to play, and in part because by the time I get home, get family stuff done, and hit my usual playing time, I can’t bring myself to do much more than stare at the computer screen.  I’m either so stressed or so exhausted that its hard to get over that hump.  It helps having a good corp in EVE that I can just log on and chat with.  Even if I decline to do much of anything with them, they understand, presumably because they’ve been there before too.  (The two month long long marathon to Cruiser V/Med. Turret V/Weapon Upgrades V/Hull Upgrades V doesn’t help either, esp. coming after the corp required two week long starbase gunner training.)

So the best way to break malaise is with something new and exciting and shiny right?  I’m sure the two weeks of Conan will pass pleasently, but unless I stumble into a good guild, I don’t think I’ll be resubbing there at the moment.  Honestly, I’ve contemplated two paths.

There's no giant yellow question marks or red dots - how do I know which way to go?!

One is Everquest II.  Its still by far the only fantasy MMO that has “the complete package.”  Fun crafting, solo and group adventuring, housing, and tradition behind it (I get goosebumps and flashbacks when I hear the main theme redux on the loading screen).  And I have a waiting guild invite.  It would mean either transferring my character or starting fresh (tempting here is the new box version at Best Buy – start a new account, with two months free, and all expansions, and 500 Station Cash, for $20).   I could also go the Access Pass route, tempting because this is my favorite time of the year to play Vanguard (Randolph the Free Flying Mount!), which still has my favorite class to play out of any game out there.  Plus, Pirates.  On the flip side – if I start a new account for EQ2 , it won’t be linked with my Station Pass sadly.  And none of it is really new – so will it help my malaise?

The other option is a pretty oddball one, but it might just work.  I missed the glory days of DAoC.  And I still kick myself for it.  WAR is really nothing more than a stripped down kiddy version of DAoC.  I asked around on the forums and it seems there might be a few guilds left kicking over there that would be willing to take a complete noob in and help him level and show him the ropes.  The downside is that population is down, and so finding friends to just go explore and grind with might be difficult.  As one responder said to me “Most people PvE to powerlevel. Almost no one does it for the content anymore because everyone has done it.”  So there is the inherent frustration – what will be new to me will be ho hum to all others.  I don’t suppose I could convince some one out there to go in with me to make for a better experience for us both eh?  Normally I’d drag my brother in, but between EVE and FE and WoW he’s got his hands full already…

So there’s my dilemma in a nutshell.  And what good is having a blog if you can’t share your dilemma’s and find aid for your DMD (decision making disorder)?  Even if you don’t respond, if you’ve made it this far, I feel better just knowing that through transference I might have a chance at another saving throw to overcome this Paralyze status ftw.  ::wink wink::

Having a blog (really an internet diary) can sometimes feel far less cathartic than actually talking to a real person. After all, their response is such an important aspect of growing and learning. But even after such a short time my entry earlier this morning is beginning to have an effect on my outlook.

I find that instead of focusing on how awful school is and how much I’m unhappy that I’m not doing any work, my mind is drifting towards the future.

No, I’m not studying like a should. But at least the heavy dull hatred has fled for a moment.

My mind is contemplating what it means to be a medical student.

More importantly.

What do I look like as a “good” medical student? Who is that person? What does he care about? How does he structure his life? How does he study? What makes him happy?

I can’t see beyond the next few months. I have no idea if this is truly the right path for me, yet. These existential questions will only be answered with time. What I can say is that if I don’t pass right now, and if I don’t continue to pass then these questions will be moot.

The main difference between this mythical Jon a few weeks from now is efficiency. It’s Jon who does the necessary work every day. There will be those doing more. Yes. There’s no way around that. I cannot be a robot. Certainly not within the next weeks. But a more efficient Jon does what’s necessary. Keeps up. Nothing more.

By the end of a section I’ll need to review for sure. But I won’t be learning the basics.

One important aspect of this (which I haven’t mapped out) is a way to resist temptation. When work seems bigger than me. Too difficult to tackle. I generally just walk away. If I know I can do something. If I know I have the tools. I will perform generally well. In previous sections of school I was a very unhappy boy. I hated the work-load and didn’t like school. But the material could be studied in ways I was very familiar with. And I got through it with scores, which weren’t top 5%, but were pretty good.

It was good enough to put off some of the deeper questions.

Not anymore.

I won’t promise to be that good Jon if I pass this upcoming exam. That’s a lame promise that god-fearing people make.

What I’ll say is that I’m ready to look for a way to become that better student. I might just need a little help.

Les enseignants ont de plus en plus de difficultés. Leur charge de travail est beaucoup plus lourde aujourd’hui et ceux qui ont plus de 20 ans de métier sont les plus formels.

C’est ce qu’analyse entre autres choses le rapport de 224 pages commandé par la Direction de l’évaluation du Ministère de l’Éducation nationale à une société externe et rendu public le 30 octobre dernier.

Certes, les termes du rapport sont choisis et les conclusions noyées au milieu d’un ensemble de tableaux croisés décomposant les résultats de l’enquête menée de septembre à octobre 2008 auprès de 1200 professeurs.

Mais le constat est enfin posé :
« Plus des trois-quarts des enseignants estiment que leur charge de travail s’est alourdie ces dernières années ».
Et ils n’en restent pas là. La cause est clairement mise en évidence :
« L’hétérogénéité des élèves est sans conteste la première explication à l’augmentation de la charge de travail des enseignants ».

Depuis 30 ans, en effet, on n’a eu de cesse d’abolir les classes de niveaux, de mettre les bons avec les mauvais et de dire aux enseignants : « débrouillez-vous ! ».

Résultat : on paye la note aujourd’hui. Les enseignants ne s’en sortent pas et l’on ne peut plus cacher que l’on a rendu au fur et à mesure leur métier impossible. 

Que fera le ministre face à ce constat sans appel ?

Les enseignants, de leur côté, auraient une solution en tête : « diminuer le nombre d’élèves par classe ». C’est la première proposition qu’ils émettent pour améliorer leur métier, selon ce sondage.

Pourtant, il n’est pas prouvé que la difficulté d’enseigner soit liée à la taille de la classe. Si tel était le cas, depuis le temps qu’on pratique les petits effectifs en ZEP ou dans des classes spécialisées, on aurait dû obtenir des résultats.

C’est que ce n’est pas une affaire de taille mais de niveau : faites des petites classes avec des élèves qui ont des niveaux radicalement différents et la situation reste toujours aussi ingérable pour le professeur.

Kevin Brookes, étudiant assurant des cours de soutien scolaire dans un collège de ZEP, le rappelait ici : les classes des établissements difficiles sont peu fournies en élèves, et pourtant, l’échec scolaire et la violence y sont monnaie courante. En revanche, certains établissements de centre-ville ont des classes chargées, mais d’un niveau homogène, et les professeurs peuvent se consacrer à leur mission de transmission des savoirs.

Revenons donc à des mesures réalistes et à une gestion de bon sens loin des théories développées et re-développées depuis plus de 30 ans.

Proposons au sein de chaque établissement que les classes soient organisées en fonction des niveaux des élèves – les bons avec les bons, ceux qui ont des difficultés avec ceux qui ont des difficultés – pour permettre au professeur de délivrer un enseignement approprié à chacun. On aboutirait à une organisation réaliste et non à un système, comme c’est le cas actuellement, où personne n’y trouve son compte.

7 enseignants sur 10 se sentent déjà personnellement concernés par le malaise enseignant. Pas la peine d’attendre d’en compter 10 sur 10 pour agir.

Adoro le frivolezze artistiche!

I don’t know what it is, but put a lefty President in the White House, and Americans will start to feel bad about themselves and their country.

Like a narcotic, the initial euphoria of a “hope and change” candidate can make many feel incredibly good. Pie-in-the-sky notions of a national rebirth, where abandoned ideals are at long last tended to, where the promises of humanity arc across the overcast American sky signaling a new post-everything era while waves of optimism flow over disenchanted, dance like sugarplums in the heads of many.

We saw this after the election last year. With Barack Obama’s victory, many said they were finally proud to call themselves Americans.

But once the high wears off, and the bumper stickers are torn off all the Subarus, the crash can be harsh, even cruel. The doldrums that ensue can be pervasive. True, there may be little hits – little fixes – here and there that temporarily bring some people up from the pits, but ultimately, nothing helps. Nothing has changed. Government just hasn’t done enough.

It’s all too familiar.

Liz Sidoti of the Associated Press, in telling the story of how Americans seem to be in “a funk,” broke out a Jimmy Carter-era nugget to describe the state of the American people – malaise.

Talk about a flashback.

The term itself is a stomach turner, particularly for those of us who remember the disastrous tenure of peanut politics. 

However, it appears to be entirely accurate.

The latest Associated Press-GfK poll shows that Americans grew slightly more dispirited on a range of matters over the past month, continuing slippage that has occurred since Obama took office as the year began.

They were more pessimistic about the direction of the country. They disapproved of Obama’s handling of the economy a bit more than before. And, perhaps most striking for this novice commander in chief, more people have lost confidence in Obama on Iraq and Afghanistan over the last month. Overall, there’s a public malaise about the state of the nation.

As President Obama’s jobless “recovery” continues to drive the unemployment rate higher and higher, and as tax payer “stimulus” dollars continue to fund the study of radioactive rabbit feces and inner city doorknob replacement, almost 6 in 10 Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction – a five point uptick from last month. Only 46% approve of the messianic handling of the economy – down four points from last month.

And while the New York-23 congressional race, according to Democrats, was the tell-tale sign that Americans enthusiastically embrace Obama-style liberalism and its big government ideology (their gubernatorial losses in Virginia and bluer-than-blue New Jersey not withstanding), half of the country (in this poll) gives a thumbs down to ObamaCare.

Astronomical debt, wishy-washiness with troops in harm’s way, zero proof that the stimulus has accomplished anything, weakness in the face of our enemies … what’s not to love?

-

Il y a environ deux semaines, des amis, des amies et moi sommes sortis dans un bar. Belle soirée arrosée de plusieurs bières. Un bon vieux classique « amis-discussion-bières-rires-musique ».

Après que les douze coups de minuits, personne ne s’est changée en citrouille. C’est rassurant parfois de se rendre compte que nous ne sommes pas dans un conte de Disney. J’attends encore les preuves que je ne suis pas dans un film ou dans un roman.

Toutefois, une connaissance est venue nous rejoindre. Ou plutôt me rejoindre. On part alors un autre classique: « Ça va? Ouais! Toi? Oui! »

Puis voilà que le malaise se met à rôder autour, au même rythme que les ombres créés par les lumières virevoltantes – ou en crise d’épilepsie, c’est selon. La dite demoiselle, bien jolie, disons-le, me lance un « t’es beau! »

Le malaise s’est mis à se frotter sur moi, comme la demoiselle, d’ailleurs.

Les gars normaux ne comprendront pas mon malaise ici.

Lorsqu’on est un gros tas, que l’on sait que nous ne sommes pas beaux, se faire dire ça, c’est presque insultant, parce qu’on y croit pas. On ne veut pas se faire dire ça. On a l’impression de se faire niaiser.

Mais tu ne peux pas non plus commencer à t’obstiner avec la personne qui te lâche ça. Ça va l’insulter, ou tu vas finir par apprendre que c’était effectivement faux, ou tu ne la croiras pas de toutes façons. Surtout qu’elle vacille entre le “pompette” et le “saoule”.

Pis encore, tu te sens déchiré. Tu aurais le goût d’avoir du bon temps et donc de passer du temps avec cette demoiselle. Si j’étais cru comme Jean-François Mercier, je dirais qu’elle m’allumait. Mais tu ne veux pas non plus. Tu ne veux pas qu’elle te voit nu. Pis tu refuses encore de croire qu’elle peut s’intéresser à toi. Par compassion, tu te dis qu’elle ferait mieux d’aller cruiser un autre monsieur. Qu’elle perd son temps.

C’est triste et con. Non?

Je devrais être frustré. Et remotivé à faire des efforts pour diminuer mon taux de graisse.

Mais combien de temps cela va durer? Comme pour une bonne brosse, le lendemain on se dit « pu jamais, tabarnak! », puis un, deux ou six mois plus tard on le refait allègrement.

Je ne veux pas que ma mémoire subisse encore ce syndrome de la brosse oubliée. Donc je blogue.

What possesses people to adhere to the chemical regimen?

I was talking about putting two strand twists in my hair with the Maternal Parental and, despite repeatedly mentioning needing a spray bottle to put water in for use during the styling of my hair, all that was heard was “chemical”. I got multiple suggestions on how I could use any number of spray amalgams to “fix” my hair and have it look like other womens hair.

Uh no.

I like my hair the way it is.

I was already leaning towards splurging to take her to see the movie Good Hair. After today, I would say the leaning is in the territory of keeling over.

Aside from that, I have the Flu. Dunno which version of it, but no normal Rhinoviral pathogen could take me down like this. I’m starting to get better and, hopefully, I’ll be at least mobile by tomorrow. I have a heavy backlog of work, which I do not like at all. I also have more volunteer training that I absolutely do not want to miss.

25 ! C’est le nombre de suicides enregistrés chez France Télécom – Orange (FTO)  depuis février 2008. Le dernier en date remonte à la semaine dernière. “Pressions, stress excessif, méthodes de management douteuses, objectifs irréalisables” tels sont certains des arguments invoqués par les salariés et syndicats, dont la colère ne retombe pas, dans leur combat en faveur de l’instauration d’un réel dialogue avec leur direction. Objectif visé ? L’établissement pérenne de meilleures conditions de travail.

source: lemediascope.fr

Dans cette perspective, les 102 000 salariés de l’opérateur téléphonique se sont vus adresser hier un questionnaire sur leurs souffrances au travail. Par cette consultation sans précédent, chaque salarié aura donc l’occasion d’exprimer son sentiment face à sa situation et au malaise galopant au sein de son entreprise.

Qu’en est-il du grand public ? Spectateur muet de la spirale infernale des suicides et d’un dialogue social qui piétine jusqu’à ce jour, la population ne peut demeurer insensible au climat délétère régnant chez France Télécom – Orange. Quel regard porte-t-elle alors sur le quotidien des salariés de FTO et soutient-elle leur action ?

En tant que client de l’entreprise, consommateur de téléphonie mobile ou bien simple citoyen, vous avez forcément une opinion. C’est pour tenter de répondre à cette question que j’ai décidé de lancer le sondage suivant auprès du grand public. Merci d’avance pour votre participation.

Nota Bene: suite à un problème technique indépendant de ma volonté, le sondage en cours (démarré le 20/10/09) a été interrompu et réinitialisé (le 21/10/09, à 23h00 – heure de Paris). Les personnes ayant déjà donné leur avis sont invitées à revoter. Merci pour votre compréhension.

]]> http://ashleycaggiano.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/theres-a-plane-and-i-am-flying/ Tue, 20 Oct 2009 05:45:54 +0000 Ashley Caggiano http://ashleycaggiano.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/theres-a-plane-and-i-am-flying/

Some guy cut me off this morning. He had a block letter “Stop SOCIALISM!” bumper sticker on the back of his pickup trick. As he pulled in front of my tiny Tracker at the last moment after barreling up beside me, I thought, “Well, gee, I would have just let you over,” but then I realized he wouldn’t have wanted that kind of cooperation anyway. So, since I didn’t die or anything, I guess it worked out for everyone.

That was the start to my day.

And maybe I’m an asshole, but I couldn’t help thinking he or someone he knows and cares for is probably on welfare. Or collects social security. Or is only as well off as they are today because their grandparents got a job during the Depression created by the New Deal. Yes, please, stop this horrid beast known as socialism that is ruining our country!

So, I don’t hate my job. In fact, I love my job. In a very pleasant, but not surprising (because life IS like an after-school special) turn of events, the people that I tutor teach me a great deal every time I sit beside them and talk with them. I’m getting this amazing opportunity to meet people I’d probably never talk to under other circumstances because I’m too shy and we’re so dissimilar. But it still totally drains me. It’s just so active and constant and collaborative which are very nice things, but for bursts of time. And I want so badly to not crap out mid-session, but I don’t have all the answers (I hardly have any) and my brain sometimes goes mushy. This I can’t control. Caffeine helps a lot, but makes me have to pee. And I don’t have time to be peeing all day long.

Knowing that you’ve helped someone is probably one of the best feelings in the world. Yet, it always reminds me of that episode of Friends, the one where Phoebe hates PBS, where Joey says there’s no such thing as a selfless good deed. This is probably true. Not that my job’s a good deed–I’m getting paid for it–I was just thinking that it’s probably okay to feel good about stuff and that negates the mushy-brain effect.

That being said, I came home today feeling pretty terrible. It doesn’t help that my period decided to make a guest appearance a few hours ago, but that might explain my moodiness. Still, I’m shucking everything up to the general malaise of my life lately. Malaise–a general feeling of discontent. This is a good word.

Not a discontent with the people in it or the stuff I get to do. Just where it’s all headed. I know I don’t need a man or need to know what I want to be when I grow up (this I learned from Mrs. Brown who is still thinking about it) or even need to know what I want to have for dinner, but I get so scared sometimes. If I don’t change things very soon nothing else can ever change. I cannot work from this or adjoining counties in Ohio. I’m sorry, I just can’t do it. I also can’t stand to feel so alone when that’s coupled with the feeling like it’s never going to change. I know this probably sounds stupid, but I’m so incapable of actually acting like a real human being around strange people that it really isn’t all that crazy to think that I’ll never meet anyone and actually connect with them. And I don’t want to settle for someone who doesn’t know me. I only feel comfortable with about the amount of people I can count on one hand (and none of them are candidates for mating, not that I wouldn‘t want to make any of them my lobsters). It’s just that everyone else makes me break out into a sweat and hives. No exaggeration. I do have blotchy skin, but a lot of this is due to scratching the nervous rashes that the presence of people I’ve known for years causes. Ugh! I don’t know if anyone will ever have enough patience to deal with me, and that sucks because I’m pretty great. To those of you who have missed out: you’re fucking dumb.

It’s not like things need to change this second, not that that wouldn’t be nice, but I’d like to feel like I’m moving toward something. I’d like to know that *this* is not the penultimate experience to death.

Someday I'm going to have my brother's babies.

I wish I were as good as her at guitar. Or talking to people. Or getting Paul Rudd to fall in love with me.

I said I miss learning last night.  Oh noes.

On a more positive note, I caught up with Molly, Maggie and Mrs. Brown’s blogs. It kept me up until right now, but it was so worth it.

23 novembre 2007

When I was 15 turning on 16, I started my first job. It was okay, it paid school expenses and it kept my parents off my back. I worked with one of my best friends, the place belonged to her parents.

I wasn’t the most brilliant and efficient worker. I was a bit slow, kept to myself. I liked working mornings because it was not busy, I could do my things and read or write.

I remember it was winter because I was cold, winter coats were hung in the back store and there was snow piled around work. My boss had hired this man to shuffle snow. He was around 60, slim, white hair. He would hang around the store, looking outside, asking me questions. I did feel uneasy but didn’t want to be impolite. I couldn’t wait for him to go, I just wanted to go back to my reading and I didn’t like letting him alone inside while I answered customers. But he was hired by my boss, he was older than me and I had never learned how to ask someone to leave without sounding really not nice. Plus, he must be okay, right, if my boss had hired him ? So I endured. And boy did he talk. I didn’t even know his name but I knew he had kids.

I don’t remember what he was talking about because I was the kind of person to space out once in a while. But when he asked me what was back there, I went near the door to the back store and told him what was there. Then, he came behind me, put his arms around me, lift me up. He then put me down but put his hands on my breasts and told me I had nice breasts.

All this while, I was paralyzed with fear. Nothing had EVER prepared me for this. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t say a word, I was feeling blind and deaf. It was like big heavy white sound had entered me and had taken everything conscious with it except that when he put me down I had landed on one of his feet and I was sorry.

It was all my fault. I shouldn’t have, I should, if I had…

He just moved away and got out of the store while my eyes welled up, I was choking up and it is really the right word, choking. I shouldn’t have, what had I done to make this happen, if I hadn’t, if I had…

A customer arrived and I did what I had to do even if my eyes were full of tears. That customer probably saved me from worse. I hadn’t realized it then but it resurfaced this year, a car had arrived when all of this was happening. If he hadn’t heard the bell signaling a car was waiting, he would’ve raped me. We were right in front of the back store, the door was open, the light was off.

I felt small. Vulnerable. Empty, used. Numb.

This numbness would take a very long time to go away. No having bruises doesn’t matter when someone tramples you. He had taken my space, my body.

It was the first time this happened to me, it was the first thing of many that made me the person I am. Untrusting, afraid of being in a relationship, afraid of meeting people, and it took me until not so long ago to be able to talk at all.

I did tell what happened to my boss after telling my friend. She asked me if it was an accident. NO it was not, how could she ask me that ? If it was I wouldn’t have told her what happened. I felt angry, even more dirty and vulnerable. I wasn’t believed by an adult. When I told another friend she told me it meant I had nice breasts. It was like being beaten with an open hand, again and again. No one was reacting like they were supposed to. Hadn’t I always heard that you are supposed to tell ? And I wasn’t taken seriously, I wasn’t believed.

I didn’t tell my parents and they didn’t think anything was wrong.

I stopped telling what was happening to me after I was raped when I was 19 and my boyfriend didn’t believe me. I stopped telling. What was the point ? I never had any bruises, nothing showed. No one believed that these things happened to me. But they did and I still have nightmares every spring when it’s time to let doors and windows opened because I was threatened by someone. Nightmares, words, silent threats and fear don’t make proofs that things happened. The police don’t believe me.

So I developed a neat way to cope with all the violence. I would forget, numb my mind and body until I exploded. I wouldn’t cry, I wouldn’t tell, I wouldn’t think about it and if thoughts of it sneaked up on me, I shut them out. I kept having boyfriends and to have sex. I had all kinds of problems and I couldn’t figure why.

Now I’m in therapy and I remember. And thinking of a smell makes me almost faint. So I cried. because I have no hope, really. I don’t see the end of feeling untrusting, being afraid. I can’t have sex without feeling claustrophobic and panicked if I see the person. When things are over I cry. Sometimes it hurts. I only have sex when I can’t see the guy and I feel so helpless about everything. Some touches make me nauseous, being tickled makes me hyperventilate, pain takes me out of my body.

But the fear…I fear everything all the time. I want to be invisible. I am envied by a lot of girls around me. Long neck, long shiny hair, nice face, thin, nice looking. Makes me grind my teeth, envy. It’s like getting blasted and getting blame dumped on me again. All I’ve wanted for years is to be invisible so men would look away and not at me. I don’t want them to notice me, to follow me, to get ideas when I’m nice, to love me.

And I do feel unlovable. Why would someone want me ? I’m rotten.

So, yesterday, thinking about the smell of this workplace, I saw it, and I felt the heaviness, the fear, the despair, and I cried.

Will things ever be different now that I remember all of it ?

5 octobre 2007

Lately, my colleagues have been an infinite source of questioning, answering, discussion, explaining and other synonyms for sighing and talking, eye rolling while I try to find the right words…

This morning, the same colleague as the other day said that when I talked about my experiences with my parents he couldn’t help but be awed by my detachment. And I wonder is it really detachment or emotional unavailability ? I know I am detached from what I talk about in the sense that I talk about it like it’s happening to someone else. I guess I’m emotionally unavailable while talking because if I was emotional I would be all over the place. My parents make me so angry, so sad.

So I explained that yes, I was detached because I was in this mess since I was small. And instead of laughing about it like I used to do and it made everyone feel very uncomfortable I just talked about it and didn’t let my feelings show. I used to laugh because I was very detached from any feeling I had. In fact I didn’t feel a thing, I just couldn’t. But yes, sometimes I get very sad and it hurts inside in my plexus. But I don’t want people to know how sad or angry I am because I don’t want people to toy with my feelings. Instead I just feel it and keep it for a time when I will be able to cry alone or write about it or talk about it to my therapist. That’s what I pay her for every week, so I can have feelings again.

It’s hard for me to allow myself to cry. When I allow myself to become attached to someone, I become so vulnerable, I feel so helpless and I’m so afraid they are going to go away and they’re going to hurt me or die. And you know what, most of the time I’m right, it happens. The last time I allowed myself to care for someone enough to need him to be there he wasn’t. I felt betrayed, once again. And I just wouldn’t cry in front of him anymore because I had done it too much and so many things were happening and I felt so sad and lonely. My life was a mess. My throat became constricted and I just couldn’t cry anymore it just got stuck in my throat and my plexus. It stayed there and hurt.

When I started seeing my therapist and she asked me what I was feeling I didn’t have an answer. I wasn’t feeling a thing. “Nothing”. For me it was a good thing. I was doing good if I wasn’t feeling. But for her it wasn’t good at all. It meant everything I was feeling was bottled up very tightly, I was disconnected and she was seeing something else. If I was hurt or was on the verge of feeling something I would just fly away in my head and wouldn’t be there anymore. And when I saw I was doing that I stopped because it reminded me of when I used to go to sleep instantaneously for 15 minutes when I fought with my boyfriends. When I would wake up I wouldn’t remember a single thing we would have done or said.

Yes it’s hard to feel something. It gets easier but you won’t catch me feeling in public ! If I can’t help but cry on the subway, I get off and get back on when it’s over. I have been depressed enough to cry at work and hide in the girl’s locker room or behind the coat rack. Sad enough and helpless enough to hide in stairwells. I was just overwhelmed by these emotions.

Now I just feel it but don’t show it. I don’t want people to know what I feel. I’m a bit like Bones. It’s easier to analyze and see love and friendship from a sociological and biological point of view than to participate. When I do participate and love and have friends life becomes a mess and I get hurt and mad.

But I try.