Kat’s Pause 

My school had a thing about university and college application today. It was pretty useless and I think I went to last year’s anyway, but I got the dates for university visits and the university fair in Toronto this Saturday, plus the fat book with program requirements for Ontario universities.

Lately I’ve been thinking about going into nursing. There are a shortage of nurses here, so every time I go out I pass at least one advertisement/propaganda encouraging people to become nurses or to harass the government for more funding and training. Problems with this include my sucking at chemistry, total lack of physics knowledge, and iffy math skills. However, I think the actual job after nursing school would be alright. I could see myself doing it.

Other fields of scholarly interest for me include writing (obviously), lit studies (maybe), journalism (possibly), philosophy (but not as a major), and psychology. Only a few of those have definite career prospects — journalism and pysch, for instance. I don’t care what they say; you can’t make a career out of philosophy other than teaching it. And I do not want to teach. (Which also rules out English skills as a viable opportunity.)

I still want to live in residence, but not too far away — maybe Laurier. My friend goes there and it’s close to Waterloo. Time to start researching scholarships and bursaries and kicking myself (again) for not keeping my average above 90. I could have fairly easily, but no, I had to be lazy and waste my life. The way things are looking now, it’s possible that I might even end up below 85. That will get me all of $750 off one year’s tuition — maybe enough to cover books — as opposed to the $2000 I could have for a 90 average.

Well. At least I’m not pregnant. My throbbing uterus assures me of this.

I got a letter today from the library. Somehow my poem and my short story both won first prize. I haven’t started believing it yet, but the $200 prize money is more tangible, so I’m believing in that for now. Woot.

Maybe this will get me to write the next chapter of my fanfic…

The hell is with all these spam comments out of nowhere? Oh Christopher, you were sadly right in the end. Luckily I wrote down the name of a program you told me about way back… something called “Spam Karma Module.” I shall certainly check that out now.

Update: So. I do not understand how plugins work. What do I drop in where now?

One year ago today I received notification that I had won my city’s teen writing contest. Since this year the 22nd has passed with no news, I will deduce that I have won nothing. It is a misguided deduction, but I’ve learned (several times) that it’s best to expect nothing and leave the potential for a pleasant surprise. It makes anything good that much better, and anything bad (or simply absent) neutral.

95 on my calc test, and the lost marks came from dumb mistakes like not reducing. Also, I wrote the philosophy paper I was debating whether or not to do. And my English lit teacher extended a small assignment’s deadline by like a week. So now I’m settling in for a night of (understandable!) math homework and magnolia. Life is good when you’re a good girl. I miss Ning though. And the other day I started thinking about babies. Weird.

I WANT TO KNOW WHY IT RAINS FROGS DAMMIT?!

Drooling boys suck. Kaileena is a bunch of polygons, not a totally hawt gurl that you’d do anything to see naked. For the love of God, grow up you dolts.

Unrelated: I think some guy in my philosphy class sort of asked me out. I dodged the question to save him some embarrassment if it was a proposition. If it wasn’t, I saved myself some.

mmmm rainbow sorbet.

Oh yeah, and today’s calc test wasn’t so bad, despite me screwing up on the last question and almost completely missing one worth 4 marks. However, I’ve already forgotten the first lesson from the next unit and I have to write a philosophy paper, so it looks like I won’t be doing the homework tonight…

Didn’t make the second Grease callbacks. Oh well. Now I’ll have time to get a job and edit the school’s literary magazine. I was really disappointed yesterday when we got the news because I made the mistake of getting my hopes up before; compliments went to my head and I started thinking that maybe I had a chance. Afterwards Ning took me shopping, which was enough of a distraction to take away the initial sting, and the rest fades quickly with time. Yes, I probably take these sorts of things too personally. I don’t know if that will ever change; it’s just how I am. But it hasn’t made me terribly upset, tearful or suicidal, so I’m pretty sure I’m fine.

I don’t feel like recounting all the stuff that happened with callbacks… things generally went pretty well dancing- and acting-wise. People told me I was really good, but people also say things out of politeness. One thing I’m proud of is the final vocal callback from last night, when we all sang the first verse of “Freddie My Love.” Previously, whenever I got my chance to sing, I would get nervous and screw up — not the words or anything, I’d just sound sort of flightly and out of tune. On Friday, I managed to get over that using a trick that’s worked in the past whenever I’m dreading my turn at something: don’t think about it. Make sure I have everything memorized so that I won’t blank out, and then do my utmost to forget about it up until the moment I have to perform. It’s the anticipation that always kills me, I think, because if I can start well, I’ll settle into it without fear. Up until Friday, I was really worried that I would get scared, so I practiced myself to bits and clung to people’s compliments for support. Then I got up and sang and my voice didn’t go freaky or out of tune or anything, which gave me the confidence to sing the rest well. I’m glad I have that to take away from this experience. I can’t say all the work and time has been worth it, but I haven’t come away with nothing.

The girl who got Sandy is really cute and amazingly talented. We were practicing “Freddie” together in the music room with a pianist friend and when that got boring, she got out her guitar and started playing and singing Joni Mitchell songs. She could’ve passed for the radio. She’s sweet and humble and hates all the competition this causes, and I was hoping she’d get the part. As for the others, I think it was cast pretty fairly, even though a lot of really talented people had to be cut.

Made the callbacks for Grease, yay. They’ve narrowed us down from 140 to 30. During lunch we learned Freddie My Love, which will be our next audition song, and then after school there was a callback/rehearsal type thing that was mostly for dancing, but still required mandatory attendence from everyone. Not too fair considering the dancers don’t have to go to vocal rehearsals. It was frustrating because they called the same ‘good’ people up over and over again, and said they’d take the rest tomorrow, but everyone knows those people are the ones who’ll get cast. There really isn’t any point to holding auditions, except to shuffle the parts around the ten or so well-known actors/singers/dancers. I knew this was going to happen, so I shouldn’t be disappointed, but… I am. It’s silly and it doesn’t even matter, but I am.

My audition for Grease (high school production) was Friday — dancing and vocal. Somehow, I curried enough favour with unseen gods to not fall off the stage or injure anyone, myself included, during the dance routine. Understand that I am kinetically challenged; i.e. bad at moving. I drop things, trip, hurt myself, and appear generally dorky. So how I managed to pull off the dancing bit with, according to others, some degree of finesse, is a complete mystery to me. Ning and I are proud of me.

Vocal didn’t go so well — I was nervous and out of tune. Considering I want to do as much singing and as little dancing as possible, this more than compensates for any success I had with the dance. Still, I got through my little song (the end of “Bill” from Showboat) without screwing up too much, and the teachers in charge know just how nervous everyone gets, so maybe it won’t be so bad. I’ll find out Wednesday morning if I made the callback list — but not for which part. Scary. However, my sweet and wonderful old music teacher will be teaching us the songs for callbacks, so I’m looking forward to it.

In other news, my sister and her boyfriend/fiance bought me Half-Life 2 as a late birthday present. Despite having an outdated video card, it seems to be running fine and I am thoroughly enjoying it. I haven’t had a chance to thank them yet because of the time zone difference between here and Switzerland, but if I don’t catch them on MSN or Skype soon, I’ll resign myself to email despite its impersonal…ness. Impersonality, impersonability?

Anyway. Something of mild interest yesterday: Ning told me he’s thinking of going into the military if his university doesn’t re-admit him this year. Needless to say, this was totally shocking and unexpected, unsettling, etc. He knows I don’t want him to, and he doesn’t want to be away from me, so I don’t know how much of a possibility this really is… according to a friend who’s known him longer than I have, it’s not going to happen. I told him I’d rather he became a cop — something he mentioned earlier, but I told him I’d worry about him getting hurt — because even though he’d be more likely to get shot at, he’d at least be working near home, wherever that might be. It may be interesting to note that we make decisions about a future years from now, possibly with children, but always married and living together. It’s like the expected route. Yes I know I’m terribly young to be thinking about such things, but really, why not? It’s not as if we’re planning to elope in a year or anything. School means no marriage plans for at least five years. I’ll be 22 then, he’ll be 24, and by then the idea should be easier for everyone to accept. Meanwhile, the two of us don’t seem to have much trouble imagining a future together.

Back to school, boring boring boring suck. Because I’m a lazyass I have copied and pasted from what I wrote on the forums:

I hate everything about repeating philosophy. Bigger class full of people I don’t know. Same assignments, only I can’t write the same thing again. Same tough teacher. Same dread of the multiple-day final exam. And that same introduction for the philosophy newbs.

Calculus makes me feel incredibly stupid and unworthy. Once again, I can’t even do the review questions. And Ning can’t help me because he works and commutes for so long every day. I was complaining to him today about how dumb I feel, and he reminded me that his failure cost money… and was actual failure as opposed to my chickening out of effort. Then I felt bad for both of us… and stupider for complaining to him. Sometimes I wonder how he puts up with me when half the time I can’t stand myself.

In English Lit we wrote lists of all the books we’d read during the summer. I realized I’ve read and written absolutely nothing of worth for months. Feel crappy about my feeble contest entries now too. If I win anything, it’ll only be because people sucked more than me. God I sound like Piro or somebody. Watch out world, my self-pity knows no bounds.

And the ever-present thought, through days of painful bleeding, whispering smugly every time I pass a stroller or hear a kid crying: at least I’m not pregnant. But it still sucks that I won’t be able to marry or live with Ning for at least five years.

Update: Checked up on Ren’s and Zero’s blogs after neglecting the for a bit… I feel like making a happy post now for some reason. And wow Zero’s new layout looks awesome. A much more fitting tribute to his great skillz. XD

I keep wondering… what would people think? How would their opinions of me change? I keep imagining the expressions on their faces, the shock in their eyes. Friends, family, even teachers… Little KitKat, sweet Sarah, our precious baby daughter, that skanky bitch from school — pregnant. My mother trying to figure out when I’d lied to her about my virginity. My sister’s disappointment that I didn’t take her advice and wait longer.

Yeah so I’m feeling moody right now. Blame it on the damn monthly time and Ning’s argument with his father over school. (Please don’t kill yourself… please.)

Life status: No job, no driving experience, no virginity (that one I don’t need, at least), have boyfriend, who has car, and need to reschedule dentist and orthodontist appointments.