Open Sesame...

One of my hopes for the New Year (besides everyone living through it) was that I could stop internalizing everything...and just get out of my head. The past two weeks I have failed miserably and I am currently awash in negativity. And so I'm going to open my valve and let my negative experiences and feelings spew all over this blog. [on a side note, it's totally weird but I can't help but picture a valve (triangular, on the side of my shoulder/arm) opening. Is that weird? If you had a valve where would it be and what would it look like?]...

1. I had no idea I was going to take the death of Allie as hard as I have. I felt cryish all day yesterday (maybe because everything else added together made it harder?). Either way, it's sad.
   
2. Stupid radiator. I come home last night to a freshly "sealed" wall. All this meant to me was anger. Why? Because, the assholes that "maintenance" my apartment didn't cover my furniture with plastic sheeting (most likely because I wasn't around to make them be careful). I came home to a layer of crappy white dust all over everything and toxic fumes. It makes me angry just thinking about it. It's bad enough that they make a mess of my floors with their dirty boots (this is my HOME, take your shoes off) but then they had me worrying about ruined furniture? The idea of dealing with landlords and maintenance men for the next 5-10 years makes me feel utterly despondent.
   
3. One of my professors is horrible. Not mean, just a horrible, horrible teacher. It is week 8 (of 11 weeks) and I just turned in my midterm (he gave it to us 3 weeks late). I have yet to see a grade for any of my assignments. I have yet to learn a single thing (for the first...4 weeks he was literally making it up as he went along. We did nothing but stupid assignments where we searched the internet during class time. And it was 4 weeks of one topic that had nothing whatsoever to do with the subject of the class). At the 5th week I think he panicked, and at that point he stole (or borrowed if you feel like giving him the benefit of the doubt. Which I don't.) powerpoint presentations from another professor. Fine, right? At least he'd have a clear outline. No, not true. He didn't LOOK at his slides before class and any time anyone had a question he looked like he was about to shit his pants. I have no respect for this man. None. And yet I have to try to get something out of this class (the only class I'll take about Internet Security, which is kind of important). Thinking about paying $2300 for his BS just makes me boil. Boil.
4. My group, for a huge website development project, turned out to be 50% worthless. That makes a solid 3 of us (self-included) out of 6 able to actually code. The sheer amount of work is enough to stress anyone out. Add to that the work taken to clean up the work of the only other person in the group who's trying and it seems like there is no way a working site will be ready a week and a half from now. Thinking about it makes me ill. And angry (how, HOW did these people get into the class???!!!?)
5. This quarter, for the first time...since regular college, I have two in-class exams that are not open note. Not of the multiple choice variety (because I am 100% OK with those) but of the short-essay variety. And I dread them.
6. My cat (MONA) keeps peeing outside the box. Cat pee...it smells really, really bad. The strongest smelling pee in the world. So now I'm coming up with all kinds of solutions to this problem...the first of which was to put the top on the litter box. But Mona is so tall and Boku is so fat that they both look all squished up when they get in there. I'm just waiting for the day where they start peeing out the hole in the front. I basically need to go on a search for a gigantor litter box...
   

Valve closed. I don't really feel any better. At all. If anything I just feel angrier at my "Professor" and more stressed about tests and websites. I'll be very glad when this quarter is over.

Maybe I'll open the good stuff valve really quickly:

1. I finished a whole lot of knitting projects in the past few weeks. I've tried taking pictures....but I suck, suck, suck at it. Plus, one of them is for someone who doesn't know they are getting it (don't get too excited readers, I think that the recipient doesn't read this blog. But I have to be careful). Another finished project is for a reader and I might as well not show her a picture before she gets it. And the most recent was a little hat. That looks pretty kick ass but its a little tight...and my earlobes are showing (not unusual because my earlobes are unusually large).
2. Spring break is soon (negative valve creeps open with a hissed Not soon enough).
3. My job is looking like it might be perfect. Right now its a lot of build up (and sort of boring build up at that) but I wrote my first update for a school website the other day and watched it go into production with some lame excitement.
4. I skipped class last night (because of #3 combined with #1 on the negative list above) and made myself tacos. First time I've had a real, made by me meal in...months.

Maybe steer clear of me for a few weeks?