Grrr...

You know what the mom said to me today?
"If you feel trapped, why are you still here? You don't have to pay back the MAD money right now."
This coming from the woman who told me that she will only supply me with tickets home (not away), I should finish what I started (namely, Uni), and I shouldn't be too far away from family for too long. Yep, that woman.

Mothers.

Blah

You know that feeling when you're trapped inside a glass elevator? You can see everything swirling around you but can't find the open door button?
That's me today.
I'm just hoping it's only for today, because I have another 4ish weeks of class and yearish of being trapped in Washington.

Blah.

Happy November!

Today was an amazingly beautiful day! The sky was bright blue, the sun was shining, everything was so pretty. If it weren't cold I would've gone outside to enjoy it!

I'm excited about November, and why shouldn't I be? I can already feel it's gonna be great (and/or I'm gonna try my damned-est to make that happen) and November is the halfway point, soon I'll be getting ready for a whole new set of classes and whatnot.
But before I get ahead of myself, let's bullet.

~ALPHA. It's weird that I met him the night before school started, because now when I think about the quarter and classes and such it makes me think about the different phases of relationships and moving on and whatnot. Boo! I don't want to over-analyse it!
But things are great right now. Our first date was only 2 weeks ago, so of course it's still the getting-to-know-you phase. And he is just so romantic. So much so I asked him to cut it out! Seriously. I'm not looking to (think I've) fallin in love. I'm shipping out of here very soon. He took it in stride--even though he still sneaks things in every now and then--and, well, it's already dangerous territory because I already like the guy. There isn't a separation like in the past.
But it makes me (or isn't taking from) happy.

~Something that's definitely making me happy: all the dancing!
I'm teaching hip hop, I've gotten past my awkward 'But they're all staring at me' part and now just revel in the endorphins, how excited they get when they master a move, just everything.
I took a bachata, cumbia, and cha-cha class that was a little slow, but fun! With teaching 2x per week, bcc 1x and occasionally (well, once) going samba dancing my body is looking fabulous! PS samba dancing: most aerobic dance I've ever done!
It's weird, I was seriously fit when I was doing cheer/gymnastics but this is different. It's less of a gym fit and more of a form fit. Think less hard more firm.
Which Alpha has no problem with, I will share that he is definitely an ass man.
So I'm deciding what to do next with the experimental college...I'm thinking martial arts, pole (see if I still can...wait! Was that judgement?), and/or belly.

~Speaking of dance, even though my burlesque is on hold a bit, I'm still excited for the next step.

~I declared my majors and all the demand got the class I need for next quarter! Boom baby! I'm truck-truck-truckin along and will be out of this hell-hole in no time flat! This quarter feels a little shaky grade-wise, but I think I'll make out okay, I mean Nov. 1st is the halfway point, so I'm sure I can buckle down and finish this ish!

~Ummm, hello Thanksgiving is this month! Mmmmm...I'll leave it with that deliciousness.

Weed isn't all bad

Okay, so I don't want to make people think I'm a pothead (actually, I barely care), and I don't want to glamorize it at all...but weed has actually helped me!

I've been in this funk all week. Haven't been going to classes, have barely been making it to work, that sort of thing. All my energy went towards just getting out of bed. I couldn't figure it out, I wasn't depressed in the least, I was just bored. And boredom is, well, it's my kryptonite, completely destroys me.

So last night, when I was invited to join in the festivities of the night (I told you, I live with the hippy sort) I was close to declining, per usual, but I changed my mind and smoked a little with them.

I went to bed (had some crazy vivid dreams, mind you) but I actually slept through the night. The first time I woke up fully was 8 hours in! Then slept another 4! This is unheard of for me. But when I woke up everything was finally okay. I realised and accepted this past week, wrote it off as a vacation, and am ready to get back to it!

I'm gonna say it's because I finally slept, but there could be a lot of reasons. I'm just happy it got me out of my funk...
...but that doesn't mean I'm gonna keep smoking or do it more often. Once every 6 or so months is enough for me.

I think I like this advisor...

Okay, so yesterday it hit me, y'know, how boring school is.
So I decided to go in and have a little chat with an academic advisor. A pep talk, if you will.
My usual wasn't there so I ended up with Andrea, and I must say, it wasn't bad.

After going through the list and trying to find some way to help distract me enough to finish, but not so much that I end up bombing school...she settled on more volunteer work and/or a boyfriend. Ha!

She thought it was a little strange that I do better when I'm doing more (as in my grades were better in all of my classes when I overloaded, and I only made the Dean's List after I doubled the advised credits) and the grades slip when I'm doing less.
Yeah, this quarter I'm doing less. 15 credits only to be exact and it's driving me nuts. It's hard to get absorbed in something when there isn't enough with which to do it!
So she said:
"Job?" Two.
"Volunteer?" Check.
"Boyfriend?"
"Ha, maybe the boyfriend will distract you enough."

I know I just need to buckle down and do it. But I really don't want to. This isn't fun, this isn't new, this isn't exciting.
And just to piss me off (OR because of budget cuts) the classes I need for French aren't offered next quarter. That's 2 quarters in a row that I haven't been able to take the French that I need and I don't have an alternate, I have to take this course to be able to take the next one. That puts me 3 months behind schedule and I'm not happy about it! Hopefully if we (there are about 20 of us that have been waiting for this class all quarter) complain they'll fix it, because seriously 6 months (total) is too long to wait for a class that we have to take before we can finish the last 6 months!

They're sucking the money out of us!

Did I Misread the Signs?

So, for about 2 weeks there were flirty texts back and forth. Wait, actually there's no 'about' it WAS for 2 weeks.
But nothing was ever nailed down. So I started to wonder if I'd misread the signs, if maybe I made up the chemistry in my head because he's just that good-looking.
This lovely mix of wonderful things (Puerto Rican, Dutch, Egyptian, and Indonesian) could very well have been playing a game, which is definitely within his rights.

I just so very much hoped it wasn't the case.
Because everything that I heard just kicked up the attraction a notch:
~He was in China for about a year and a half teaching English to kids
~He's coming to the end of his military career (and has the body to show for it!!)
and (the main reason I call him Alpha)
~He has started commercial diving classes!

He loves traveling, loves the water (and as a commercial diver can go anywhere as long as it's near water) and has a tiny bit of an accent that I couldn't place but MaPetite got off the bat: from the south!

Georgia, to be specific.

So, Alpha, with his southern charm and dash of bad boy (oh, did I mention he rides a motorcycle?), was definitely reeling me in:
Thinking about you texts (which, of course had me thinking about him!), accent, that little bit of mystery and bad-assness...I still wasn't sure if it was for sport or not though...
When finally, two weeks to the day since I'd first met him he asked me if he could take me out to lunch or dinner. Yes! Finally!

And Mmmm, that first date...

Alpha

Unfortunately ma petite has left...she's now in Argentina! I've already begun saving (well, like $5, but we'll get there) so I can go see her next year. I'm so very excited to go to the Land of Tango already!

But let me tell you about this guy...
...this amazingly sexy guy...
...this guy that for all appearances (and honestly, that's not really saying much because I've known him for 3 weeks) is as good inside as out...
...this guy that I'll call Alpha for reasons you'll understand soon enough.

I don't want to get too excited because we're young and playing right now, but something felt different. Not the way I met him, that was normal, but my reaction, that's what was different.

I was out salsa dancing with MaPetite, we were trying to get as much in because she was only going to be here for a couple of weeks, and as rare as it is that we are in the same country at the same time, we absolutely HAD to take advantage.

So there we were, at a cute little place just getting to the dancing part, when in walks this (yep, I'm gonna say it) stunner. She noticed him first, and when I saw him the first words to pop outta my mouth were "Oh, come to mama" and he did.

But that's leaving the juicy stuff out.

I'm not normally the flirty girl at the bar. Shoot, I only go to bars to dance. Seriously. So I had to reach down deep inside and find her, tell her that it was okay to come out and play. Many a friend have told me that if I would just give a guy an opening they would be swarming me. So I did the move that so many have mastered and I had yet to try: The Look paired with The Smile. I wasn't sure it worked, I wasn't even sure he'd seen me, but I did my duty, then went off to dance--after all, that's what I was there for, right?

We get back to the table and guess who's there? (If you didn't guess him start over)
So we get to talking a little, I mean as much as we could between dances and with the blaring music, and I'm actually intrigued AND listening to what he's saying*.

Towards the end of the night he gives me his number without the number "talk" (they ask me for mine--which I don't give out--then they give me theirs--which I forget about as soon as I get it) and a couple days later I actually call him**.


To Be Continued...



*weirdness one: I don't go to talk to people, I just don't. I get bored easily so normally when a guy tries to talk to me my head starts doing the 'yeah yeah yeah' and eventually I basically say: We need to dance or I need to go elsewhere. In nicer words, of course...oh, who am I kidding?

**weirdness two: I don't mean to not call, but if I forget about you, why would I? Besides, once I do you now have my number, which is what I was trying to avoid giving to you.

I wasn't gonna blog

Until I finished this horrendous streak of work and school. But I just have to today.
Let's talk about the horror that is too much in my life right now.

I am halfway through a 3-week work-every-damn-day cycle. I'm 3 days into school. I have a paper due Monday and an article discussion on Tuesday. I know this doesn't sound that hard but they are in ITALIAN! That's right. All of my classes are only 2 days per week (I have Fridays off, yeyeah!) But that means that in the meantime they give us quite a bit to do. 2 Italian, 1 French class...and my Italian prof means business! If we are to finish the first 6 chapters of our mafia book we have to get crackin...so the first chapter is due on Mon. If we are going to finish the entire coursepack about contemporary Italy we have got to get crackin, so the first article is due on Tues (and that's starting slow, after that we have 2-3 per week). And my French book is to be finished by October 19th. DAMN.
And I'm working every day until October 10th for GWP. People be goin insane for free stuff!
So between work and school my sleep and food have been slacking.

You do NOT want to meet me when I haven't been eating.

However, one night this week I gave up extra sleep to go out salsa dancing with ma petite. This was after a particularly awful day. Work at 9, break for class, back to work and off at 9. This was after spending the night before reading. This was without food OR coffee.

I feel for her. I snapped at her. I damn near ripped her head off. But we went dancing anyways (it fixes my downers).

She didn't cut ties or shy away from me. Instead she brought me food today.
It was one of those 'awwwww' moments, and I swear I damn near cried. Y'know, if I were a crier.

These are the things you just can't thank people for enough.
The things you can't really say because there's no real way to say them (except 'thanks,' of course, which I said).

Just like there's no real way to say:
Wow, your brother is actually kinda hot.