My Life, Defined

I'm working on my storyboard for my computer-assisted language learning project and of course, I'm looking for a reason to slack off. Why don't people ever call me in the afternoon when I need a distraction? It's like, the moment you sit down to watch Buffy, The Vampire Slayer - ring, ring, ring (or in my case, the X-Files theme), someone's calling to ask about consequential validity or some such thing. I have a personal telephone code - unless it's a die-hard, life-or-death, oh my God, call 911 (or in Thailand, 191) emergency, do not, repeat, do not call someone after 9:30 p.m. Just something I try to stick to. Seems like I'm the only one though. Hahahaha.

Anyhow, I don't really have anything to write, so I've decided to indulge in a little writing exercise. I love lists, but it's gets tiresome to make them, so this is a sort of modified list-making activity. I'm going to randomly select five words from the dictionary and write my thoughts on them - sort of a word association thing. Okay, here I go.

1. Interlude. Whoa. What a doozy. Well, I guess you could say my life at the moment is an interlude. From the beginning of grad school, I gave up on happiness and went for contentness, and this really changed my life; for the better, I think. No more drama. No more conflict. No more getting hurt or hurting others. Everything's light, everything's unforced. The only troubles in my life are academic and I can handle those. Things that are under my control, those are things I can deal with. Other people's, especially crazy people's, drama? No, thanks. So, yes, the interlude may just be filler between the action of two other parts, but I'm content to be right here, interluding it up.
2. Sixteen. Sixteen was a big deal for me, before I turned that age. That was the year of my worst birthday ever. That was the year I realized that "sweet sixteen" was just the result of convenient alliteration. There was nothing sweet about being halfway between girl and woman (oh God, cue Britney Spears cheesiness). I hated high school, and no, not in an American teen movie kind of way, in my very own "I'm the rebel nerd" way. Almost everyone rubbed me the wrong way. I just wanted to be left alone, but of course, I had to enter the International Baccaulaureate program, that locks you in with the same group of about sixteen other sixteen-year-olds for every single class. I had so many classes with these people, they actually thought we were sorta friends. Right. It's lucky I made it out alive. Sixteen - they should call it "sucky sixteen".
3. Auditory. Ugh. It's the grad school talking; this word makes me think of learning styles, the preferred mode of instructional input for a particular learner. I am not auditory. I need to see stuff in order to work. I have an awful memory for anything sound-related. Takes me forever to remember a song's lyrics (despite repeated listenings), can't judge pitch to save my life and don't bother reading something to me, I'll forget it in the next ninety seconds. Although, I do enjoy trying to place people's accents. I'm not half-bad at it either. I can guess pretty general stuff, like broad regional influences. I can even guess the relative time they've learned English, like late in life or quite early. But overall, I'm not auditory. Show me stuff. Show me the money!
4. Mixer. I don't drink. I'm twenty-two years old and I've consumed about four units of alcohol total in my entire life. I think people are surprised that I'm this old, and I look this old, yet I a) don't drink alcohol, b) don't drink coffee, c) don't wear make-up, d) don't wear high heels and e) have never been kissed. Blame my folks. They instilled me with overriding passion to march to the beat of my own drum and my own drum does not like alcohol, coffee, make-up or high heels; the kissing was beyond my control though. So, when I go out, I'm the only one who's 100% absolutely sober. Mixers? Pass the virgin Tequila Sunrise.
5. Long. I long for peace of mind. I long for things that have passed. I long for things that can never be. Yes, I long for many things, but as I've said, I've pushed them all to the side. My life is finally on the straight and narrow after two years of being a complete spaz and that's just fine with me. My goal is to be a Vulcan, you know, like Mr. Spock on the original Star Trek. All the emotion, all the passion, buried deep beneath the surface, so it doesn't interfere with what's really important - like evading Klingons, or in my case, graduating. Long...I've also been an idiot for too long. That's the danger of giving in too much to someone else, you know, especially when that person has no scruples whatsoever. For too long, I had the wool over my eyes, and when it was finally pulled off, my eyes smarted from the light, because I was in the dark for so long. Am I still an idiot? Well, yes, but at least now I'm aware of the fact. That's an improvement, right?

That was a pretty cathartic activity. And now, back to my work. Yes, this girl's got a goal and she's en-route to accomplishing it. Wish me luck.

Final thought: From Lindsay Lohan, Drama Queen (That Girl)
Armed with an attitude that she knows how to use.
She's gonna get there any way she can.
Now she knows what she wants
No one is gonna stop her
Nothing's ever gonna hold her down.