Random stuff? Very strange dreams, lol.

Chronic pain: About 2-3 days per week, I experience nasty joint pains, often that prevent me from getting sleep, or make it difficult to be mobile. Hips, shoulder, neck, back, knees, ankles, wrists, everything just aches awfully. A bit less frequently I have muscle pains-- feels like I have torn some leg muscles, or an oblique, or something random. Doesn't seem to be triggered by anything. Some days I wake up in the morning feeling like that, some days I'm doing great and all of the sudden start hurting.

Headaches: These occur less frequently that the pain. Usually about once a month I get a multi-day headache. Headaches are often accompanied by extreme dizziness and a weird floating feeling (sort of like I can't feel the weight of my own body? is very strange), as well as eye pain. I guess these would probably be considered migraines because of their length and other symptoms.

All of this of course impacts my ability of get good sleep so of course that can be kind of shitty, when I'm just trying to get comfortable all night.

Body temperature: My body is a bit odd about controlling my temperature. My comfortable temperature is mid 80s- low 90s. Temps over 100 don't particularly bother me that much unless it is New Orleans humidity. I generally wear jeans and sweatshirts in the summer because of my fear of skin cancer (redhead lol), but I don't find them uncomfortable, even when outside for some time.

Now it is in the mid 60s-low 50s, and I am ridiculously cold. I bundle up in multiple layers-- sweaters, down coats, etc. and I cannot get warm. I walk to another building, and once inside it may take me up to the whole 3 hours of my class to stop being cold (teeth chattering, shaking, etc). The cold becomes painful to me actually, and feels like my skin is being pinched, which is not a terrible pain, but very uncomfortable. I don't think most people have these issues, lol.

I have a doctor's appointment Wednesday because she thought these issues were probably stress related, but after a while of managing the stress more appropriately and getting rid of many of the issues that were giving me problems, the problems are just as bad. Very paranoid, because many auto-immune diseases run in the women on both sides of my family, so I am afraid of going in there and being diagnosed with something terrible. XD

Is actually going surprisingly well. I quit one job for another, that fit better into my schedule, so pretty much my week is-- work or class every morning at 9 am, and then I get back at 10 on Mondays, Wednesdays, Sundays, and 7 on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Saturday is my free day, yay!

All of this means I have very little free time, but I'm managing it fine in terms of time I think. I've been using the Learning Resource Center at my university to help plan out my projects really far in advance, since I only have a little time each day to do homework. Unfortunately I don't have too much room for being social, but I manage to do at least one or two things a week with activities in my dorm and such. Hopefully can have some fun IPL3 viewing with other sc2 fans this weekend. Was planning to go, but it's too much with my schedule.

I want to try to at least play a few team games a week of sc2. I just don't have the mental energy to play 1v1s now when I get home from work and class, nor do I have the time for it usually. Been playing 1 or 2 games of LoL when I can. I feel like it's a much less... mentally intense game. You have to have enough mental presence to be aware of what's going on, but once you learn a character it becomes easier to autopilot.

I hope I will still be able to return to regular ladder at some point-- maybe breaks, or next summer. I want to keep improving, and I want another lesson if I actually have time to devote to it in the future. My lesson with Mr Bitter was definitely really helpful, and showed me the biggest weakness in my play (mechanics lolololol), and then I got promoted, yay!

I am studying art-- my concentration being animation, but specifically the 3d modeling and texturing part of the pipeline. I am really hoping to work in the gaming industry, but we'll see how that goes. I am also taking a lot of traditional art classes (painting, drawing, sculptor, etc) because I feel like they are very strong foundations to visual understanding.

I want to try to work on my own on my art and post that to a blog, but I am having trouble finding time. I spend about 8 hours a week in a traditional art class (Drawing II, and Figure Drawing II), and probably 6-12 hours a week out of class working on the homework. I know a lot of people like to doodle in sketchbooks, but I am definitely the kind of person who needs to sit down and focus solidly on one task. When I wrote, I would sit at my desk, turn on my writing music, and only write for a few hours. When I would practice the piano, same way. I just can't do something for 5 minutes, be interrupted, and come back to it. Still though, 14-20 hours a week is a pretty decent amount. Just wish it was closer to 40. XD

I guess non-existent? Still care about Evan, gave up caring about shit between us. We still talk everyday and get along fine, and have 'fun' when we see each other so oh wells. No potential boyfriends to be seen, but part of the problem might be the noticeable lack of guys in my classes. XD Also I think I find myself very impatient with people who I feel like don't have 'real life experience'. A lot of people here seem privileged (which is not to say all of them-- I know a few who are definitely not, and really appreciate them), and like they haven't reached an understanding of adulthood-- which to me basically consists of having to deal with life's shit on your own instead of letting your parents do everything for you. For example I know a kid who doesn't know how to do laundry and fold clothes, so instead of learning when he came here, his parents just pay for a laundry service for him. That's stupid, imo. I am looking to date a man, not a child. XD Don't know many men. -.-

I thought I would include this for the lulz, cause it's a bit trippy. Yesterday I took an hour nap cause of my migraine.

I was a young boy, maybe 12, maybe 14. I lived in a small town off Highway 80, except there were trees (idk wtf either). Something evil and magical was in the forest, which the town /doctor/ was trying to catch for some reason. There was something strange and wrong about his young wife, but I never found out what.

I had a tiny 'laboratory' in the cellar because I wanted to be a scientist, and two dolls (a rabbit and a bear) who watched me work. I kept seeing tiny blue gnats that were actually birds the size of gnats, flying around the flowers on my desk. Finally I caught one, which I accidentally smushed in the process, and I was trying to put the droplet of blood in one of my little test tubes, but for some reason I ended up putting it in a bowl of water.

Two faces formed on the surface of the water, which were anime faces for some reason-- a boy with a girl whispering in his ear, looking at me. Somehow they morphed into living yarn dolls, but the girl became an octopus doll with more than 8 arms, and teh boy was a jack in the box. The boy had a blue uniform, but the girl had grey arms and a red body, and they turned into multiple ones, and they were definitely evil. They were singing but I couldn't hear them.

Then I woke up cause my alarm went off. :D

Another dream I remember with frightening clarity even though it happened 2 years ago almost (but is more lucid maybe, haha):

I was attending a protest in DC at the National Mall. It was raining a bit and so the speakers were delayed. I began talking to a few guys who were standing next to me (probably about early 20s.) We decided to go play some games while we waited.

Since it was sometime in the future, gaming occurred at game centers, which you went to to enter a virtual reality. (Sort of .hack) The game we entered into was a first person shooter, which I usually don't play, so they just told me to tag along in the back.

We were running down a metallic hallway, in search of something or other, when someone came bolting around the corner. The guy obviously knew one or more of the guys I was with, because he stopped for a moment to tell us to get out because people were disappearing before running off again.

His fear was so tangible and disturbing that we all immediately panicked and started running, even though we didn't actually know what we were running from. I got separated from the group, and ended up in a hospital ward. The ward was where people were taken if they got shot. Once shot you became disabled, and nurse-bots came to pick you up and take you there for a certain amount of time before you could re-enter the game.

I crawled under a cot and lay very still. Shortly after that, nurse-bots entered the room, and took the few people in the room away. This was not supposed to happen, and so I realized this must be how the people were disappearing. One of them mentioned something about organ farming.

Very disturbed by this, I decided to leave as soon as they left, but then a group of middle-aged women entered the room (inorite?). They pushed aside some of the cots, and sat down in a large circle on the ground, next to the cot I was under. They began a discussion, while passing around a large blue bowl full of chex-mix, and I realized that they were all teachers, who were part of this scheme. They would identify trouble students, for whom it would be plausible to set up an unfortunately end from a drug overdose, etc, and then if that student entered a game, he would be targeted for the organ farming operation.

The power went out suddenly, and the woman closest to me dropped the chex-mix bowl, which was being passed along, and it rolled under the bed next to me. The lights came back on just as suddenly, and I was confronted by the eyes of all of these women as they leaned over to see where the chex-mix was gone. I was so frightened I help my breathe, thinking that if I did not move-- not even to breathe-- perhaps they couldn't see me.

I was actually holding my breathe, which was what woke me up very abruptly since my body started freaking out about lack of oxygen. I remember how things looked actually very well, which is strange. XD