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knock yourself out // 2005-01-07

it's been both comforting and exhausting being back in school again. i'm still trying to wrap my head around how i got all As last quarter, especially when i felt so insecure about my performance. i got my final back today from one of my therapeutics classes from last quarter, and i got 100% on it, which is crazy for me, because though i mostly get As, i usually miss at least one question due to overthinking and/or changing answers at the last minute to something totally and completely wrong, even though i know it's wrong as i'm doing it. but all this sort of makes sense to me, since self confidence can be a damning thing. there was some study a while ago (don't quote me on this, though) about how people/kids with higher self confidence tend to be less smart than kids/people with lower self confidence (and usually bigger assholes, if you ask me). it's that constant self doubt that makes a person work harder. which would make a person scratch their head, probably, unless, of course, you're one of those people with very little self confidence and then you know exactly what i'm talking about.

i just got back from dinner--sushi and sake at fuji--with my ex-girlfriend, shannon, and i was so very out of it and not very coherent and felt like i was acting distant, even though i didn't mean to. and it made me think about something again that's been on my mind for a while. several months ago, at the first appointment i had for five element acupuncture, i was talking about some of the grief i carried about one of my best friends dying (in 1997, from cancer), and separately i was also talking about how i don't have a lot of close female friends, at least not ones i've made recently. and it occurred to me that these two things might be linked, and i felt very stupid and horribly out of touch with myself for not realizing sooner that perhaps the death of my friend might be related to the fact that i've been unable to make and/or stay friends with female friends since amy died. so... if you know me and you've made friends with me recently and you feel like i'm distant and strange and i don't do a good job of maintaining our friendship, i'm very very very sorry. really, i'm filled with regret and remorse and know consciously that i probably don't put forth the effort that i should. not like this is an excuse, but it probably explains a lot.

how does one get over something like this? is knowing enough, or is there more to it than that?

p.s. i think i've decided that i heart huckabees is probably my favorite movie of the year. even more so than sideways. the more i think about it, the more i love it.

p.p.s. semiarchly is back! i baked that german chocolate cake you see me eating there (yes, i'm eating directly off of the cake stand), for c's birthday, which incidentally was just this past monday. c and i have been working at that cake for the past few days, and it's slowly become my nemesis. or my bane. or my archrival. or something like that. damn you, german chocolate cake, damn you to hell! [shaking fist in air.]

before // after