Bad Dreams

So I've been having problems sleeping.  Don't know if it's my back, our crappy bed, an inability to turn my mind off, staying in bed too long in the mornings, or what, but sleep has been rather elusive of late, which is frustrating.  It's even more frustrating when the neighbors' dog starts yapping at 6:30am.  For 5 hours straight.  And no, I'm not joking about that.  When the little bastard decides to start barking he doesn't stop. I chalk it up to poor (or most likely non-existent) training, no regular incentives to not bark, and the fact that it's a bloody Jack Russell and all those little shits do is bark.

But I digress.  The dog generally doesn't bark in the middle of the night, which is when we go to bed.  So last night, after I eventually fell asleep, I had a bad dream.  To call it a nightmare would be inaccurate; it wasn't even frightening to me, per se, just irritating.  Maybe a little frightening, but not terrifying (and please try not to laugh too hard when you read the next paragraph).

I dreamed I was back in high school, which to some may be terrifying enough, but wasn't so much the problem.  The problem was that I was, once again taking Functions, Statistics, and Trigonometry (better known as FST, since the textbook couldn't bother to write it all out on the cover).  I was struggling mightily with the problems, which was even worse because the answers were in the back of the book, but I was having so many problems getting it that I couldn't even copy the answers correctly.  Seriously, it was so confusing to me that I couldn't look at the full problem and answer written out in the back of the book--everything that I needed to put on my homework--and copy it verbatim onto my page.  I kept trying and screwing it up, erasing it over and over, while getting more and more confused, frustrated, and scared.  Thankfully Dad (and Adam, who, oddly enough, was there and was my husband even though I was in high school--although I was also about 24) told me it was ok to drop the course; I'd already been accepted to university, and dropping the course wouldn't affect that, and it wouldn't mess up my GPA.  But it was still a sad and confusing ending to the dream, and didn't lessen my frustration of being so completely lost that I couldn't even cheat properly.

In reality, FST, which I took the first half of my junior year, was the first high school class in which I didn't get an A.  When I found out I was getting a B--and that there was nothing I could do to change that, despite begging to do extra credit or redo the project (which we were allowed to do for our portfolios, but it wouldn't change the grade)--I had a meltdown.  An absolute nervous breakdown.  Additionally, I was angry because in the math classes, 88% constituted an A.  I believe I had something like 91.4% before the final project of the term, and that final project was weighted so heavily that my final grade for the term was around 84%.  A term's worth of nightly homework, weekly tests, and other projects was overshadowed by one project.  A project of such importance to the world, let alone the class, that I couldn't tell you for the life of me what it was, except that we worked on it as a group and it dropped my final grade by over 7%.

Things didn't improve the next semester.  My spirit was broken.  Mock me if you will, but getting all As was important to me for some ungodly reason (if only this determination had continued into my PLU years).  I got a B in the next term of FST as well, and a B in the second half of my beloved Philosophy in Literature course (no idea on that one).  Again, I really do think my spirit was broken.

Over a decade on and in hindsight, I'm less upset about the Bs in FST.  To this day, I do not understand functions, and I couldn't tell you what they are, why we need them, how to use them, or anything else.  I've always struggled a bit with math, but never like I did with functions.  Everything else I could fake my way through until I eventually understood it, but I never understood functions.  I fared slightly better in statistics--I couldn't have done worse--but I did spent the entirety of that section muttering "three types of lies."  In hindsight, it occurs to me that perhaps the teacher heard me, and that's why my grade suffered so badly.  Anyway, I never would have thought that trigonometry would be my savior.  That was old stuff, having studied it in Algebra II (why there were are sections of algebra I don't know, nor do I understand why they are split up by geometry, but thankfully I understood algebra the second time it came around, since I didn't the first time).  I think it was probably much harder in FST, but after functions and the only slightly improved statistics, trig really was my savior.

Needless to say, FST is where I ended my high school math career.  PDM (which had the same naming issue as FST, and I believe stands for Pre-Discrete Mathematics, or maybe Pre-Calculus and Discrete Mathematics; ask someone who took it for the official name, since we all called it pre-calc) was not going to see me after the failure of FST, and I was trying to take so many other classes anyway.

It's interesting to me the strange thoughts about my past that have been going through my head because of one miserable dream.  It's been a day of reminiscing.

Neglectful

I have been neglectful.  I haven't had anything major going on, just not much to write about.  I can't do anything about my visa until March, our TV works despite the strange noises it makes from time to time (so far as we can tell, it's condensation), and I got the nurse/doctor to let me go a year between appointments for birth control (except that the prescription I was given isn't going to last 12 months if I extend my cycles, which I do--still, it's longer than 6 months).  I am still unemployed, and I am still writing, and still frustrated that this isn't coming easily.  One good day of writing should mean many good days of writing, dammit!  But it does not, and deadlines draw ever closer, inexorably increasing my worries, fears, and frustrations.  Don't get me wrong; I don't expect this story to be published, but I need to submit it.  I need to do this for myself, to prove that I have been doing something, not just sitting around on my ass pretending to do something.  And I need to submit something that isn't rough, but rather something that, if not perfectly polished, at least resembles decent, coherent, and edited prose.

The only other happenings in my life are not mine, and not mine to share, though they have been shared on Facebook (by the parents).  The generic version is that a friend's newborn is not well, and we're all worried.  Not the best way to start off parenthood, or life, and we're all praying (yes, even me) that things improve, and there are no lasting effects.

There are so many things I should be doing.  I should be applying for jobs (I do from time to time, along with about 79,000 others).  I should be exercising more (I'm trying; my weight is too high, and I think it's adding to my back problems), and I should be eating less crap.  I should be writing more.  I should be doing more with Girl Museum (currently preparing for a conference that two of us are attending at the end of February).  I should be communicating more with my friends.  I should be writing more here.

But I'm not.  I'm striving to change some of these behaviours, but they won't all change at once, and there are only so many hours in a day, so they can't all happen all the time anyway.  But I'm trying.

Frustrations

So I'm not eligible for citizenship this year, it seems.  I'm less than thrilled about this; I swear they changed the rules on me, but I can't find any proof of that being the case.  As they post all immigration rule changes on the Home Office website, and I've read through all of them back to 2009, I'm thinking maybe I misunderstood.  Either way, I'm still angry because instead of being able to apply for citizenship and be done with this malarkey, I have to spend another £550 for another visa (settlement/indefinite leave to remain) and I still have to take the stupid "Life in the UK" test, which is another £50, plus £10 for the book.  Like the US citizenship test, no citizen of the country could actually pass it.  Argh.

In addition, I'm still angry at the various neighbors and the noises they produce, but despite that, Adam and I will be signing our Lewisham Road lease for another year.  Our landlord was over today, repainting part of the bathroom for us since we have mildew in places, and it was missing paint over the shower.  I don't think the color matches, but honestly, I really don't care right now.  It still looks better.

Also, our TV is half broken.  Last we looked the picture was ok, but it makes a horrific static/buzzing/hissing sound.  It's not easily described, but it's quite loud, doesn't seem to be coming from the speakers, and we're worried it will burn the house down (some of the possible problems do include fire, according to the ever-trustworthy internet).  So the search for a TV repairman continues, as the number Adam was given is disconnected, and the other number is missing a digit.  Luckily, our aforementioned landlord's father-in-law is a TV repairman, so hopefully Landlord will text me his phone number this evening (it wasn't in his phone).  This is doubly sad because while I was able to finish the first series of Downton Abbey (which is completely awesome, by the way), I just got all seven seasons of Deep Space 9, and without a functioning TV I can't watch them, unless I either a) use Adam's computer or b) grab the little TV from the bedroom and hook it up.  It's a good little TV for a bedroom (except we can't plug it in because there are no outlets on that side of the room), but it's not real good for DVDs or gaming--or really anything that decides to letterbox the screen.  I watched Lord of the Rings on it, and--I kid you not--the picture was only about 3 inches tall.  Also, it hated my PS2 cable, and when we played Lego Star Wars on it, the picture was green.  So all in all it was a very good day when Steve of Titanic Mill gave us his old TV, and then apologized to us that it was so crap.  We love it, and think/hope it just needs to be cleaned to be as good as new.

Otherwise, writing went really well yesterday.  The plot is spinning off in a direction I didn't anticipate, which is ok, since I was hoping something would develop in the way of a plot, but now I have to figure out this particular direction.  I created a "bad guy" with a more-than-usual nefarious plan, that the hero feels obligated to stop, but I don't know what said bad guy's nefarious plan is.  Still, any semblance of a plotline is good because even a vague idea is something I can flesh out, and more than I had before.  So that's finally starting to chug along.  Which is extra good, since the deadline is March.

I'm also going to a conference in York at the end of February, which will hopefully be interesting and very good for both Girl Museum and me professionally.  If all goes well, I'll be presenting with another Girl Museum intern, and she seems extra nice because apparently I can crash at her place instead of shelling out for a room.  Adam thinks I should still get a hotel room, but since he's not coming with me, I'd rather not spend the money since I'm not making any of it.  Besides, it's only for one night, so it's unlikely to be too horrific.  And if it is, well, it's only for one night, and I lived with my freshman roomate for a year at PLU (trust me, it was tough, and not just because I'm a bitch who can't share).  Perhaps someday I should share those stories.  I probably won't, since they're not flattering at all to someone who had pretty severe mental and emotional (and physical) issues, but some are probably funny in hindsight.  About 13 years on, I don't find most of them particularly funny, just sad and hurtful.