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As much fun as I’m having in school, as many friends as I have right now, I’m still afraid. It’s not self-esteem this time. My good grades have done wonders for my self-esteem. It’s plain old insecurity.
Maybe part of this stems from not living on campus, but I’m afraid of losing my friends. What’s going to happen next semester? Next year? Will I find myself back in the land of having books as my only friends? Will I study hard and get good grades but find myself alone?
It almost makes me want to run away from school so I forget about the friends before they forget about me. But really, did I come to school for a social life, or for a degree? Shouldn’t I be happy getting A’s even without the friends? Is it just that I have something now that I’ve never had before (ie, friends) and I’m afraid of losing them?
School is my job now. I haven’t had a lot of friends in my previous jobs. Can’t I get by without them? Secretly eating my lunch in the Deaf Stacks of the library, hoping nobody catches me with the food? Or will I just work a lot more hours so I forget about it all?
Why am I so scared, dammit? Maybe I am worth keeping as a friend. I’m smart and I can give advice sometimes and I try to be nice to everybody. So why do I worry like this?
I was tagged by 
fairerhiannon! I’ve never been tagged for a meme before, in all the times I’ve seen people get tagged since tagging for memes got popular, um, a month ago.
List five things you enjoy, even when no one around you wants to go out and play. What lowers your stress/blood pressure/anxiety level? Make a list, post it to your journal, and then tag five friends and ask them to post it to theirs:
- Coloring in a coloring book
- Playing Katamari Damacy
- Taking a long shower
- Tackling a medium-difficulty crossword puzzle
- Masturbation
Let’s see…I pick Neil, Levi, 
firesign3000, 
kaileo, and 
pixielust.
Tonight I am going to Dyke Night at the Eagle…I have no idea what to wear. I’m nervous!
Due to a complete lack of ambition, motivation, or even just any idea what to do right this moment, I’m stealing this quiz from 
preppyperv. I wasn’t actually tagged, but I don’t think she’ll mind.
Three Names You Go By
- Meredith
- Etoile (or e-tool)
- Bunz (or bunny)
It’s not Friday, but I just caught up with these questions courtesy Neil and I’m answering them now.
What’s your native language? Do you speak any foreign languages? If so, how did you come to learn them?
My native language is American English, presumably spoken with a mid-Atlantic accent. I speak ASL fluently enough to be a professional interpreter - I picked that one up over the years and took some classes at Gallaudet as well. I speak and understand French reasonably well (I struggle with writing because I’m a perfectionist about grammar) after having studied it for eight years in school. I can still sound out Russian and identify some words because I studied it briefly in high school. My current language project is Esperanto, though I’m not doing much right now in terms of self-study.
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Hooray for Filkerdave - he was nice enough to come up with five questions for me to answer!
- What fictional character would you most like to be, and why? - The one that springs to mind first is Deanna Troi from ST:TNG. When I was a kid I always thought it would be really cool to be empathic.
- What’s the coolest thing about your SideKick that you DIDN’T know about before you bought it? - I’m not sure if I knew about the terminal client capability when I bought it. It is definitely awesome to be able to MOO from my Sidekick. Plus I like that the light flashes several different colors!
- Is there any Hello Kitty stuff that you just have no desire to own, ever? What is it? - The only thing I can come up with is candy/food…because I eat it and then it’s gone and I don’t have it anymore!
- Have you ever tried to learn another form of sign besides ASL? (Is there a French version? I assume there must be.) - Yes indeed, there are dozens of sign languages used all over the world. Funnily enough, LSF (French SL) and ASL are more closely related than ASL and BSL (British SL)! It’s unlikely I would need to learn LSF unless I were going to work in France, because if I were just there as a tourist the two languages are mutually intelligible enough that most American signers can get by in France. As for learning another sign language, the closest I’ve come is trying to learn British fingerspelling, but it’s so different from ASL that I only remember the vowels.
- What place do you and A want to go on your next big vacation? - Japan!
If you would like me to ask you five questions too, please feel free to comment.
This is a silly little meme I got from Malcolm:
1. Reply to this post if you want me to tell you how cool you are.
2. Watch my journal over the next few days for a post just about you and why I think you rock my socks.
3. Post these instructions in your journal and give your friends a much needed dose of love and adoration!
Note: It should be obvious, but this will only work well if I actually know you. Also, I reserve the right to only post in the comments if I am not writing a novel about you - I don’t like making lots of short little entries. Finally, you are free to request that I send the results only to you via e-mail.
This seemed fun; I got it from suteki. It’s a year in review by copying the first sentence from the first post of each month of 2004. Incidentally, with the exception of August 21st, I have made at least one entry every day since April 27th.
January - I am now the very proud owner of 0.48 carats worth of real diamonds
February - Today wasn’t very special; I didn’t even do much online today.
March - I was at my usual workplace today - I’m normally only there Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays - so I brought my gym bag with me and did 30 minutes on the elliptical.
April - I thought about posting an April Fool message saying I’d decided to close down my blog, but I decided against it.
May - I went out for my first outdoor paddle of the season (not counting the winter classes I took) today.
June - Oh dear, my dermatologist isn’t on my new insurance.
July - For the month of July, I’m going to try to post a new site each day.
August - I was playing The Sims last night (Deluxe Edition, which includes the basic game plus Livin’ Large, but I don’t have the disk space to install Vacation even though I own it) and I had just started a new house with one person.
September - Usually I am amused by the wording of news reports from India, as they tend to use English at a lower professional standard than is used by western news outlets.
October - As I suspected, I can’t get into my own user account today.
November - My first day back to work after our vacation has been going as well as it possibly could so far.
December - Not to be confusing or anything, but I think about thinking about things.
I haven’t done one of these in a while! This is Unconscious Mutterings.
- Limited time only :: offer
- Voluptuous :: breasts
- Nutritionist :: dietician
- Belt :: whipping
- Star crossed :: lovers
- Snakeskin :: pocketbook
- Athlete’s foot :: Foot Locker
- Boom :: bang
- Freezer :: laundry room
- Store hours :: open
I borrowed this meme from Rachel.
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
Awash in the glow of the setting or rising sun, his feet an inch deep in the Mekong, his hair a disorderly black nimbus, Father would school us, contorting his hands into an approximation of a tiger’s claw to scratch or grab an imagined opponent by the face; or, as the crange - moving his arms in circles to block imagined punches, emulating a beak with his fingers - he would teach us to poke out eyes.
from Chang and Eng: A Novel, by Darin Strauss
This meme has been seen at several blogs I read, but I stole the subject line from jadedgrrl.
1) …John F. Kennedy was shot? (11/22/1963)
Not yet born - in fact I suspect I wasn’t even a glimmer in my mother’s eye, given that she was only sixteen at the time.
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