Don't Fear the Reaper. He Rides a Vespa.

I thought the week from hell was supposed to be next week, the week before midterms, but it's turning out to be this week.

I'm playing email tag with a bunch of freshmen I'm supposed to tutor, trying to work out appointments, had one no-show which bugs me TO NO END, studying for tests and writing essay and another manuscript and trying to read and understand Spinoza, not to mention having to jump in the car on Friday right after class for ANOTHER doctor's appointment, thereby killing my Friday afternoon when I could meet with more people and stop this week being so insane, then driving back Sunday to see a film for class I was going to see Thursday but which is looking way too busy to manage, and also trying to get to this meditation class tonight because I missed last week and I really am interested but I'm probably going to be so tired I won't be able to make it, so I get another night of sleeping badly only to wake up the next morning completely not prepared for a midterm in three hours and yet more meetings with freshmen, hoping they don't blow me off and writing reports to their professor, all the while trying to find some way to shower and eat at least one meal a day, and working it out so that I don't completely blow my dining credits at the coffee shop because that's practically the only place on campus I can get food to go and quick energy, running seriously low on funds and gas so I don't know how in the hell I'm going to pay for that, trying to remember to take my meds so I don't start another session of skipping meds and going off the deep end, as has happened far too often, and trying like hell not to catch a cold because that's honestly the last thing I need, to be sick and feeling like crap on top of everything else.

And yes, that was all one sentence.  That's how I feel.

( Meme )

The iPod is here!  It is BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*SOOOOO EXCITED*

I'm not sure if this is going to work, but here goes:
( Insight )

My utterly lovely parents gave me money for a new iPod for Valentine's Day!  Or, as I prefer, Singles Awareness Day.  I picked a quote for the back, and after a long and hard decision, I decided on:

Unbreak me, unchain me
I need another chance to live

It's from "Afterlife," by Avenged Sevenfold, the AWESOME BEYOND AWESOME band I saw in Baltimore two months ago.  The bridge of the song has two parts: one top part, which is louder, and singing/screams in the background, which go "I am unbroken/I'm choking on this ecstacy/Unbreak me, unchain me/I need another chance to live," so I took the last two lines for my quote.

I really wanted something from "A Little Piece of Heaven," another truly amazing song, but everything was too long to fit.  I could have put "when the fire dies you think it's over but it's just begun" but the line break would have been in a really awkward place.  So no, sadly.

This is my third iPod--the first, my Nano, had "Katherine Sanford 2005/The truth is out there,"--the tagline from The X-Files--the second had "Throw out your cares and fly/Wanna go for a ride?" from "Zero," by My Favorite Band Ever--you should all know who this is--and now it's Avenged Sevenfold.  I can't wait for it to come!  Being iPodless is no fun jeans.

ALSO--in my creative writing class, we're working on microfiction, which is like really short short stories.  I wrote one called "Insight," which I turned in today to be commented on on Tuesday.  Within an hour after class ended, I got an email from a classmate that said: "I don't know if we're allowed to comment on this before Tuesday, but sweet Jesus.  What a fantastic piece.  It gets better ever time I read it."

Go me!

iPod: still gone.

MRI: clean.

My day: BORING.
 

I have lost my iPod.  And by "lost" I mean:

a) it fell out of my bag somewhere and I have been unable to find it, even though I know for a fact that it disappeared within a twenty-five yard radius

b) it was abducted by aliens who are performing cruel tests on it

c) it was stolen.

I missed class today because I was so frantic looking for it.  I've retraced my steps about fifty thousand times, looked over every inch of ground I could find, asked people to help me look, revisited my classroom, checked the lost and found, repeatedly checked my pockets and even my hands to see if I've been holding on to it all this time, et cetera et cetera.  No such luck.  The 'Pod is AWOL.

Just about the only thing I can think is that it fell out of my bag, someone spotted it and hey, free iPod!  I'll probably call the university police to report it--hopefully the person will be goodhearted and turn it in.  If not, I hope it decides to be ornery and not work for them.

Music is such a huge part of my life, I feel lost.  And even if I got a new iPod--my folks graciously offered to split the cost with me--I don't want a new one.  I want mine.  It's got my music and my play counts and my special customized inscription from "Zero."  I miss it, and I want it back.
 

Over the weekend, I had three tests done, trying to explain my recent event.  They were:

Standard bloodwork
EEG (electroencephalogram, checking electrical activity in the brain)
MRI (checking for tumors and/or masses in the brain)

So far, the bloodwork and the EEG have come back completely normal.  I should be getting the MRI results in a day or two, and in all likelihood it will return normal as well.

A relief, to say the least.  I knew from the outset that it was unlikely to be anything serious, but there was still that possibility.  And I knew that even in the worst case scenarios, epilepsy or a brain tumor, I would manage--epilepsy can be controlled with medication and a brain tumor can be benign, and is either operable or it isn't.  So I am thankful that my brain seems to be functioning in its normal, insane fashion.

But even if the MRI comes back clean, and it probably will, that leaves the question of whatever the hell happened.  The only viable explanation seems to be something to do with low blood pressure, which, while it's an explanation, is very unsatisfying.  There's a small part of me that almost wishes it was something bigger--not for the attention or the hospital stays or the trauma to myself and my loved ones, but just to KNOW.  I'd just like to KNOW what it was that I experienced--I'd just like to know if it really happened or if it was some kind of hallucination.  Given my mental state at the time, it doesn't seem too far beyond the realm of possibility.  Even if it was nothing, a momentary surge in the wiritng or a glitch in the Matrix, I'd just like to know.

But I'd like to thank everyone who reads this journal for your kind words and your thoughts.  They meant a great deal to me during a time I was pretty scared.  I hope nothing like this ever happens to any of you.  It's really, really scary.

I don't know what the hell is going on with me, but it sure is scary.

I fainted on Saturday.  The second time in my life, and it was the result of standing too quickly.  My vision grayed out, and then I was getting up off the floor.  Fortunately, I fell on a pillow, and am fine.  Just a bruise on my hip for my trouble.  Nothing to worry about, right?

Maybe not.  I had what I think was a seizure tonight.  I was sitting down, I stood up to adjust my stereo, and my vision grayed out again.  I grabbed onto the end of my bed to keep myself steady, and then my vision came back.  But I started shaking--my arms and my torso.  I didn't fall over, but I slumped forward onto the bed.  The worst part was that I was conscious during this--I could see and I could hear, but I wasn't really aware of what was happening, and even if I was I had no way to stop.  It lasted about five seconds, and then I felt completely normal.  Well, normal and totally freaked out.  I remembered what happened in a vague, disconnected way--I remember whacking my hand against the bed over and over again, and knocking over the lamp, and not being able to stop.

So I called DL, freaked out, went to my RA, and the EMTs came and checked me out.  My blood pressure was normal, and everything else about me seemed fine.  So I have NO IDEA what the hell that was.  I'll be going to the health center tomorrow to get a more in-depth looking over, and in the meantime I looked up seizure information.  If it was a seizure, and the jury's still out on that, it was probably what's called a simple partial seizure, subclassified into a motor seizure.

Then I had to call my dad, who was scared but trying not to show it, and my mom will call later in the night, and I know she's going to be scared.  I'm scared to.  This has never happened to me before.  I never had seizures as a child, and I've never had any neurological problems outside of some mental health issues.  God, what the hell is wrong with me?  This is scaring the everloving crap out of me.

In better news, my Aunt Paula is talking, moving, standing on her own, and generally doing amazingly better than she was even a week ago.  She talked to my Grandmama on the phone, which I KNOW was a huge relief to her.  I know my Grandmama was worried she'd never have an exchange with Paula again, and she's ninety and I didn't want her to leave this world without ever talking to her only daughter again.  God forbid she leave.  But thank heaven that Paula's doing so much better.  Maybe she'll remember what happened in time--we thought initially it was just a riding accident without a helmet--ALWAYS wear a helmet, people!--but now it's looking more like it was a hit-and-run.  People are bastards.

Hey, guys!  Long time, no me writing.  What to say, what to say?

In really really really good news:
My Aunt Paula is starting to come out of her coma!  She squeezes hands when asked to, she reaches out to her husband, and she focuses on eyes.  This is such enormously good news, especially as her accident was over a month ago and we didn't initially know how much like her old self she would get.  I am so so so so so thankful.  Thank you God and Jesus and Allah and Buddha and Avalokitesvara and Krishna and Yahweh and every other deity and/or enlightened being that exists.  Thank you thank you thank you.

In other news: I am really enjoying all my classes, and I have what could possibly be construed as a date on Friday!  I'm not really sure whether it's dinner and a movie as a date, or dinner and a movie with a friend, or dinner and a movie with a classmate, but I'm sure I'll find out.  It's exciting.  I haven't done anything like this for so long . . . yay!

And I wrote two poems for my creative writing class that I'm quite happy with.  Go me!

Two of my classes got cancelled today, so I could watch the inauguration.  I was so thrilled to be able to do that.  It was great.  Although I'm glad I wasn't in DC, because it was PACKED, I'm still so happy that I was able to watch it live.

Christmas was good on this end, except for some serious shit.  My godmother Ellie died on the night of December 23rd, and I miss her like nothing else.  She died after a long and painful struggle with pancreatic cancer, so I guess I should be grateful that she's at peace now.

In other news, my aunt Paula's official diagnosis is a bruise on her brain--which will heal, in time--and much more serious, brain shear, which roughly translates to intercellular damage which she may never recover from.

Shit.

Merry Christmas/Happy Hannukah/Happy Kwanzaa/Happy New Year/Happy Winter Solstice/Happy Diwali.

Hope you guys are having a better time of it than I am.

On a happier note, I got a shitload of music.  "Calling All Skeletons" makes me feel infinitely better.

So I've got a crazy case of laryngitis, which may or may not escalate into full-blown bronchitis.  I screamed myself hoarse at Avenged Sevenfold, then two days later attended an hour and a half choir rehearsal.  Two days later there was a three hour rehearsal, and then singing for a good hour and a half the next day.  So my voice was very very hoarse.  Now I have developed a hacking cough, and have been sucking down lozenges like crazy but they don't seem to be helping a lot.  I am just really hoping that I don't end up with bronchitis for Christmas.

This has been a really crappy week.  My godmother is dying, my aunt is brain-damaged in the hospital, my neighbor is also dying of cancer, and I have laryngitis which may turn out to be bronchitis.  I can only hope that exams are going/went well for the rest of you guys.

My aunt had a bicycle accident a few days ago.  She wasn't wearing a helmet, and she broke several bones and is now in the hospital.  She has what the doctors describe as a "moderate brain injury," whatever that means.  They had to do surgery on her to relieve pressure on her brain.  The doctors will know more in three weeks.  They did take her off the ventillator this morning, and she started breathing spontaneously, and she also reacted when the nurse shined a light in her eyes.  Two good signs, but we don't know yet what the consequences may or may not be.  There's probably brain damage, but we don't know what kind or how bad.  We don't know where she hit her head, so we don't know what part of her brain was affected.

It may be good enough for my uncle to say "God is in control" and leave it at that, but that's just not good enough for me.

So I raided my dad's office yesterday; I was looking for his copy of The White Album.  I didn't find it--I think it's in his car--but I did make an awesome discovery.  When I was growing up, I never had video games, but I did have computer games.  Some of my earliest memories--meaning from about four onward--are of sitting on my dad's lap and watching him play Doom.  Which is probably one of the reasons that the two of us never, ever get tired of watching The Matrix together.

So where other kids grew up on Mario Brothers, I grew up on Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Pitfall, Doom, Croc, Lemmings, and one of my personal favorites, a game called Abe's Oddysee.  I found a bunch of our old computer games, and I spent some time seeing which ones would work on my laptop.  Some of them were too old, sadly, and it really is a shame because I maintain that the Indiana Jones game is completely awesome.  It sells for something like eighty dollars these days.  But Abe's Oddysee is from 1997, and it works just fine, so I've been playing it.

It's kind of a logic-puzzle type deal crossed with shoot 'em up.  You're this little alien dude, Abe, who's a slave at a meat-packing plant.  He discovers that the evil capitalist pigs who run the place are planning on making the slaves the next menu item, so he sets out to save his race.  He has to run and hide from the guards, called Sligs, who look like cyborg bugs, and try to rescue your fellow aliens.  You apparently have magic powers, so you can chant to open up "bird portals" to let the other guys escape.  You can also possess the Sligs when you chant, which is really fun because you can get them to get rid of other hazards with no harm to yourself.

The other really nice thing about this game is that you have unlimited lives, which is good because I've died about fifty bajillion times so far and I'm still on the first phase of the game.  And it was especially fun with my dad watching me.  When he found out what I was doing, he said "Oh, I remember this!"--which from him is actually pretty high praise.  He doesn't get excited about pretty much anything, except occasionally football or politics.

I miss computer games.  It seems like they've died out in favor of online games.  It's a shame.  I'm just glad this one still works, because it's definitely a favorite of mine.

I received news several days ago that my godmother has gone into hospice care.  She has very advanced cancer, and she isn't expected to last very much into the spring, and maybe not through the winter.  The really sad thing is that she has been steadily declining for months if not years, and she isn't really herself anymore.

My godfather came over for dinner last night, and it was absolutely horrifying to see what he's going through.  I can't even imagine.  I've thought a lot over the years about my family dying, because we all know that everyone's going to die, but I somehow always expected family friends to be there.  It puts everything in perspective.  And not in a good way.

HOLY FUCKING GOD.  So the concert that was postponed back in September?  I went to it last night, accompanied by Dorothy and James.  And OH MY GOD IT WAS SO FUCKING KICK ASS.

Dorothy was smart and wrote the playlist down, so you'll have to head on over to her LJ to see that.  But just as a matter of course, I'm back in Richmond now, having driven over 350 miles in under twenty-four hours.  My voice is non-existent in the upper registers, and I hurt everywhere but I am so concert high.

It took FOREVER for anything to happen; we were honestly standing in the club for a good hour and a half, waiting for the opener.  There were actually two openers.  The first wasn't all that great, but I felt really bad for them because the crowd was feeling really beligerent and booed them.  Poor guys.  It wasn't your fault, it was just that we were fed up with standing around and not getting any information.  We met some cool people standing near us, and made friends with them.  We honestly played "never have I ever" between sets.  The second opener, Burn Halo, was FUCKING AWESOME.  Who knows?  They might be a big name sometime in the future.  And I can say I saw their first ever show.  Their guitarist Joey is a sex god.  And their drummer was also really pretty.

Then it was FINALLY time for Sevenfold.  Or so we thought.  Synyster Gates, the lead guitarist and PROFESSIONAL GOD OF SEX, came out to tell us that M. Shadows, the singer, was coming from the hospital and would be there about 11:30.  I got to say, once we got the news of what was going on the crowd got a lot nicer.  It was all, "aw, poor Shads, that's how much he loves us!"

Avenged Sevenfold came on and KICKED RIGHTEOUS ASS.  We managed to elbow our way to about the third row from the stage, on Synyster's side, which was FUCKING HOT, and generally awesome.  After the first two songs, "Critical Acclaim" and "Afterlife," Shads explained what was going on.  He had been going with Johnny Christ, the basist, to Walter Reed to see the troops, and his face paralyzed briefly.  Then it happened again for about ten seconds.  Then, in Shads' words: "So I went to the emergency room and waited four fucking hours for an MRI so the doctors could tell me they don't fucking know what the fuck's wrong with me."  But he loves us so much he came anyway.  And Syn got some major solos because M. wasn't really up to a full concert, but he still gave it his fucking all.

At about the fifth song in the "crush," as I came to call it--it wasn't really a mosh, it wasn't moving enough--I started having some serious problems.  I was surrounded by people much larger than I was, and I was having a problem where my lungs couldn't expand to take in air.  So I had to duck out for a couple songs, get some water, and try breathing again.  I ran into Dorothy again, and we ran around trying to get back in, but we didn't have a whole lot of luck until the encore.  They played "A Little Piece of Heaven," which is ABSOLUTELY FUCKING AWESOME and which ROCKED THE FUCK OUT.  I got into an actual mosh for that one, although I did go under four about twenty seconds 'cause a bunch of drunk guys decided they wanted to crowdsurf.  Kathsan = much smaller = easily trampled.  I fell on my ass and then my back and was down there for about twenty seconds, and there was a moment when I honestly thought I wasn't gonna come up again.  But then this lady grabbed me and pulled me up, and gave some righteous shit to the drunk guys.  One of them actually looked sheepish.

There's also a part in "A Little Piece of Heaven," cause the song tells a story (more than most songs), where the lines alternate between a man and a woman.  I was standing/moshing next to this random guy, and he was singing the guy parts and I was singing the girl parts.  We bonded.  It was a pretty awesome mindmeld moment.

Then we drove back to my house.  We planned to drop James off at the metro, but unfortunately it was closed, so he crashed at my house.  And now here I am back in Richmond, having dropped everyone off.

THAT WAS SUCH A FUCKING AMAZING CONCERT.  As amazing as Avenged Sevenfold are on CD (and they ARE utterly amazing), they are even more amazing live.  If I had had enough room to take off my bra, I totally would've thrown it up there.  And I thought about crowdsurfing, but after my little brush with death I decided against it.  The concert was almost over at that point, anyway.  Next time.

To sum up: Avenged Sevenfold is made of AWESOME.

So the concert that I was looking forward to SO MUCH was "postponed."  Which may mean "cancelled."  We're not sure.

I was going to go on a rant, but I honestly feel too drained from driving all the fuck over two states for the past three days.

I'll just end with a wish for M. Shadows' surgery to go well.  Feel better, man!  Rock on.

Well, I didn't get in to the choir.  Not entirely surprising, but hey, at least I gave it a shot.  To be honest, I wasn't really expecting to get in, because I expect that the choir I was auditioning for (the only one I was available for) is comprised of more advanced and professional singers.

On the other hand, this frees me up to do other things I would like.  The club fair is this evening, so I'll definitely be checking that out!

Note to that: pissed off at SELF. 

 Fuck.  Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

I just had an audition for one of the school's choirs, and pretty much all I can think is WHAT IN THE HELL POSSESSED ME TO DO THAT!?

It doesn't help that the Joker poster on my wall is asking me "Why so serious?"

FUCK.