linkismyhero

I should reply to your comments, but… I'm not gonna. I'm tired, stressed, and unhappy. I love you all, and you have left some very nice comments that I truly appreciate, but I've got to take care of me right now. To my new friends: I am usually better about replying to comments than this; don't worry.

Life can be pretty awful sometimes, can't it? I won't go into the details, but it's times like these I wish I could just stand up in the middle of the bus and start punching people in the face (I was going to say "shoot people" but that is pretty bad and I don't want to upset anybody. Not that punching is much better.).

I feel sad, scared, trapped, stressed, anxious, all of the above. Mostly very, very sad. I haven't lost my will to live or anything terrible like that, and it isn't even hard to get up in the morning (not yet, anyway). But it is really not nice. At all.

Here's a little sample of the ickyness I've had to deal with lately:

Yesterday I was having a terrible panic attack on the way to school. It was one of those where I was essentially gripping the seat and wishing I could melt into the floor and disappear. As it so happened, mom and I were running early, so I caught an earlier bus. When I got to the next subway station to transfer, I was so early that I caught the second-to-last bus to school, as opposed to the last. I felt so disoriented and terrible from the panic attack and could barely speak that I had to sort of mutter to the driver asking her what route it was, making sure I wasn't on the wrong bus.

Now, as an aside, I will explain that this route I take to school from the second subway station is a limited stop, morning and evening rush-only route. The busses they use for this route are always these terrible old buckets of bolts that have basically no shocks left, so it's like sitting on a jackhammer. These busses are so old that sometimes their route displays don't work properly.

Well, that was the case this morning. Where the route number should have been was just a "....". So, to be safe, I asked the bus driver what route it was.

And you know what she said to me?

"YES! You asked me the same thing yesterday! Come on!"

I mean… seriously. Was that really necessary? NO. It was not. There are some seriously terrible, rude bus drivers working the city busses. The shady characters riding the bus are bad enough, but I have to also deal with sass from the drivers, too? I feel scared and unsafe enough without the drivers yelling at me. I'm sure it would have been pointless to try to report her. Who cares, right?

Yuck. Yuck, yuck, yuck. I was already feeling bad from a pretty awful incident at home last night, and now this? I covered my face with my hand the entire way to school, and left by the back door in case the driver decided to yell at me some more.

And this stupid, awful class I'm taking. I hate it so much. I just want it to be over. I'm going to give my best shot on the stupid final on Friday, and if I don't pass, I don't care. I just want this to be over. Let this be a lesson to everybody else: if you're a senior computer science major with only four (really hard) courses left to graduate, don't take one over the summer. It will be insanity. Don't do that to yourself. Be smart and wait for the fall and spring.

If I fail, I have other options. I can either try to retake it during a calmer semester, or try to retake another class I dropped some years ago now. I may have more options than that. I hope I do, really, because it does sound pretty dire, now, doesn't it? But I'm not going to worry about retaking anything until the spring. I'm all registered for the fall and am more optimistic about it. Database Design and Elementary Theory of Computing. I seriously long for the fall, so I can experience my classes at a not-insane pace. This summer course was a bad idea, I think, but it is just that I am so close to graduating (and I should have graduated, what, four years ago now?) that I want to try to get things done quickly. But I was only planning on signing up for one course in the spring, so if I fail my current one, I can sign up for two. Meaning I don't have to worry about it until next year.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, BLAH! My wonderful girlfriend MollyMolly has been helping to keep me sane, always there to talk to every night. She is a shining light in my life and I don't know where I would be without her. She does so much for me.

I mentioned video game speed runs in my last entry with that cool video of the world record 5:06 speed run of the original SMB. I've started watching tool-assisted speed runs (TAS), now. Regular speed runs just involve a player aiming for the best time by playing normally and (usually) not abusing glitches like walking through walls and stuff. But tool-assisted speed runs are run on computers, not consoles, and often exploit glitches, and use software with features like slow-motion as well as hex editors and a bunch of other crazy things to manipulate luck and execute things perfectly in ways that are impossible with conventional play. It's not the same as regular speed running, but I like it just as much. It's pretty neat, really, because the guys will walk through walls or break gameplay sequences in totally unexpected ways, or will just move so perfectly and with such perfect reflexes (due to slow-motion and things like that) that it's pretty amazing to watch. You all can have your "tee vees" and "dee vee dees"; this is my entertainment.

Well, it's been nice to write a journal entry and get out my feelings. Now back to watching this Final Fantasy 3/6 TAS.