I hate coming home.

The place is just bad for me.

The default method of communication is yelling.  "COME HERE."  "CLOSE THE DOOR."  "TURN THAT MUSIC DOWN."  "DID YOU TAKE OUT THE TRASH?"  "EMPTY THE DISHWASHER."  "WHERE'S ROXXY?"  The loudness grates on my nerves; I just hate it.

Food revolves around the TV.  Don't you dare start a conversation, because mom and dad would much rather be watching the tv than talking with you.  At college, we talk and eat - there is no tv to watch in the cafeteria, and I've spent hours there with my friends, just talking.

The living room is really mom's room.  She sleeps there, and she watches tv there - God save you if you want to watch anything on that television other than what she wants to watch. 

The downstairs is dad's area.  He has his tv down there, and he plays his video games there. 

My brother and I exist in our own separate rooms.

Nobody knocks - and if they do, it doesn't matter.  Either way, they're just going to walk in.  It's not like I do anything uber secret in here.  I'd lock the door if something was going on I didn't want them to know about, but seriously?  Knock and wait a moment .  This is my space.  At least wait for an answer.

Mom and dad seem incapable of getting their own beverages or foods.  Even if I'm in my room, they will call me into the kitchen/dining room/"living room" area so that I can cater to their needs. 

Dad has one friend and coworkers, mom has no friends.  They don't do anything.  They work and come home, and that is their existence.  My brother is the same.  I have friends, but I hate having them here.  I hate it here...I don't want them here.  Relatives don't even usually drop by.  In short, the house is isolated. 

I hate being home.  I'm happiest at college.

The space may be small, but it's quiet.  I can walk places if I want to go.  Friends are more than welcome, and I can visit them.  Nobody yells at me.  Nobody talks badly about me (that I know of.)

Home makes me depressed and even more self-hating than I typically am - I become emotionally, verbally and sometimes even physically self-abusive.  I just want to get the hell out of here.  I want to go back to college.

The thought of having to live here over the summer makes me just want to die inside.  Maybe I'll try to stay at Lyco for a summer semester.

I get along with everyone.  Why don't I get along with my family?

My boyfriend tells me that he loves me because I'm a good, kind person.  When I'm home, I can't really believe that.  I don't feel like a good or kind person here. I feel stupid, miserable and angry; I don't feel loved.  That's why I don't want him to come here - I don't want him to come somewhere I don't like being in the first place.  I can imagine taking him to grandma's...but not here.  

I don't even think of here as "home" anymore.  That's college.  This is the place I go that is "away".

I don't even think of my mother as my "mom" anymore, because with all her meds and alcohol...I'm not sure who she is.

I don't know.

There, you've had your emo for the day.

If anyone was wondering....roomie got me a Hethert statuette for Christmas.

:)

I just handed in that huge paper.  I'm both relieved and nervous.

"it is in ritual - that is, consecrated behavior - that this conviction that religious perceptions are veridical and that religious directives are sound is somehow generated.  It is in some sort of ceremonial form - even if that form be hardly more than the recitation of a myth, the consultation of an oracle, or the decoration of a grave - that the moods and motivations which sacred symbols induce in men and the general conceptions of the order of existence which they formulate for men meet and reinforce one another.  In a ritual, the world as lived and the world as imagined, fused under the agency of a single set of symbolic forms, turn out to be the same world, producing thus the idiosyncratic transformations in one's sense of reality to which santayana refers in my epigraph.  Whatever role divine intervention may or may not play in the creation of faith - and it is not the business of the scientist to pronounce upon such matters one way or the other - it is at least, out of the context of concrete acts of religious observance that religious conviction emerges on the human plane."  from Geertz's article, "Religion As a Cultural System"

I love Geertz.  :)

Math makes me feel worthless and stupid.  Yeah, so it sounds emo...but it's really true.  I just want to bash my head against a wall, because I feel like my brains are useless if I just can't seem to get what it is I'm supposed to be getting. 

I want to be loved for who I am...not for who he wants me to be.

And he's gotten most of that right, don't get me wrong.  He sets a high standard for any guy I will ever date for the rest of my life.  For a first boyfriend, he's been absolutely wonderful, and he hasn't done anything wrong, per se: who he is, who he has been brought up to be, religiously-speaking, isn't something he's done wrong.

But he wants me to be Christian, and he wants me to be Orthodox and it hurts, because I am, naturally, neither.  My primary attraction to Christianity is cultural - it is familiar and, therefore, it feels very safe.  It is not, however, what I am.

What I am is a student of cultural anthropology and (comparative) religion.  Most people who study either of these end up Agnostic or, in either case, not a part of any of the Big Three.

My leanings are towards the polytheistic faiths, and, in particular, Kemetic Orthodoxy; I do, however, very much enjoy studying and interacting with members of most of the forms of Paganism. 

He has no real appreciation for my love of these religions, and that's what I want - I want someone who loves me, as I am; I want someone who loves me not in spite of, but because of, the things I am passionate about.  I want someone who will love me with all my idiosyncrasies.

I hate it that I do not feel free to be myself while I am with him.  It seems that I've been willing to sacrifice a part of myself in order to be in this relationship; I don't value that in anyone.  I want to feel free to be me again, all of me.

How long will I let this continue?  I don't know.

I'm naturally selfish.  I want to keep this person, whom I adore, and who seems to adore me, in my life; it's only human to want to love and to want to be loved in return. 

I am also afraid of losing a valued friendship, though I feel we are both rational enough individuals to continue the friendship.  He said to me once that, failing this relationship, he's found one of the best friends he could ever ask for.  What will happen after hurt feelings, however, remains to be seen.

I need to think about how to do this.

Pray for me, please - whomever your Gods are.

Don't forget to vote tomorrow!

Especially you women out there!  Our female Akhu (ancestors,) fought for the better part of a century so that they, and all women could have the right to vote.  What better way do we have to honor so many of our Akhu, female (and male!), as well as our nation, than to go out tomorrow and make our voices heard?

I found out today that someone I had once considered a friend was talking about me behind my back.  It wasn't necessarily a surprise, as she'd not been kind to me, nor spoken to me in months, but it still hurt.

I almost asked what she'd been saying, but I didn't; why should it matter?  And it would just hurt more to hear the details, anyways.

I can't control other people, I can't make them be kind.  All I can do is be kind towards others, and resolve to work harder to be the best person I can be. 

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what other people think of me.  It matters what I think of me, and I have to live with myself.

First, I think I'm crazy OCD or something.  I can't handle a disorganized pile of papers.  I have to stack them.  Just.  Can't.  Deal. With. It.  For serious.

And also, how come, no matter what I do, I feel like I'm betraying a part of myself?  An important part of myself?

Sigh.

He wants me to meet his dad and grandma, which I don't mind.  But I would meet them at a restaurant...for dinner...which I do mind.

I'm strangely uncomfortable with going out to eat.  I don't know why.  I hate eating out with friends, with him...I hate it more when people pay for me.  And I hate it even more when it's people I don't know that well.

The fact that it's Olive Garden makes it worse - - they serve a *lot* of food.  I can't eat it all, but if someone pays for me, I'll feel bad if I don't.  And if I do manage to force that amount of pasta into my stomach, I'd feel like a pig.

Food just makes me uncomfortable.  I hate it.

I wouldn't mind meeting his dad and grandma somewhere else...where we're not shoving food in our faces.

But how do I tell him that he's dating a paranoid crazy-person?

And I'm not ready to share my more serious issues, the crazy self-hatred that nobody actually sees.  So many people seem to think I'm a glowing ball of sunshine, but while they're busy thinking that, I'm probably busy berating myself.

He asks me a lot, "What are you thinking?"

I don't really say anything, but the answer is, "You don't want to know."

Sigh.

Why do people presume that my relationship is any of their business?

Mike doesn't have to sit with me at every meal; he has his own friends, and I have mine.  I don't want him to follow me around like a lost little puppy.

"Where's Mike?" they always ask.

Why do I have to know?  He can be where he wants, he can go where he wants.  I trust him enough that I don't feel the need to moniter his every move, or even most of his moves - - otherwise, I wouldn't even be in this relationship in the first place.

The printer in B200 ran out of toner or something; it's no longer "printing" anything but pretty white sheets.  Headache.

On my way over to the Academic Center to do my stats homework, I found some sorority girls hanging a poster about hazing, including, "Lycoming Sororities Against Hazing 2008." 

Sororities haze.  Period.  It's a part of their traditions, and there's nothing, nothing that is going to seperate greek life from its traditions. 

I went through 3/4 of a pledge period, and I got fed up with the BS.  In short, I realized that I was letting other people decide how I felt about myself.  Other than that, I won't say anything, except, of course, fuck them.  And I'm glad I bailed.

But those girls are lying.  And they know it.  The bitchy, vindictive part of me hopes they find themselves unable to sleep at night, because of all the crap they're going to put their pledges through in October.

I'm doing something stupid.  Making a very stupid decision.  Foolish.  Dumb.

But it makes me oh-so-happy.

No, I'm not going to tell you what it is.

No, it's not illegal.

Becky, you may feel free to smack me upside the head and tell me to stop being a dumbass next time you see me.

Everyone, when I'm done being stupid, I'm going to need you to look beyond the dumbassery and love me and help me pick up the pieces.

A girl in my stats class broke down in tears during the test. 

The class is, to be blunt, awful.  It's a plug-n'-play sort of deal, where you don't actually feel like you're learning anything except how to punch numbers into a calculator.  Actually, that's pretty much all we're learning, besides how to make box plots.  Somehjow, I feel like it would all make so much more sense if the prof would teach us the why and the reasons behind them...what things actually mean, applications, actual uses for what we're doing.

I believe it was Mr. Miyagi who said, "No such thing as bad student, only bad teacher."  While this isn't entirely valid (the student who doesn't study, obviously, isn't a very good student,) there is some truth to it - - if the prof isn't willing to teach the things that help the students...what point is there?

Oh, and tutoring is a joke - - they just give you the answers.  Yeah.  That's totally helpful.

I guess it's time to really get in shape.  My Sensei wants me back in the dojo.

New Goal:  Shape up some by December - - get back in the dojo.  Start working on second degree black belt.  ....GO! 

My dad built the bookcase I requested for college, which is actually bigger than I had anticipated.  I looked it over and decided that I could very well use about 1/2 of it as shrine space. 

The left side will be books, mostly, except for the middle, which I've decided will become a shrine for Hethert.  Because I love Her.  I don't know if she'll be my Mom.  But I love her.  And if She's not my Mom, I'm going to call her "Aunt Hethert" and have a space for Her, regardless.

Top right will be a space for my Akhu.  

Middle right will be for my Parent(s) and Beloved(s) when I find out who They are.  

Books were the original plan for the whole thing, but I like this idea.

My grandma (who already has a whole bunch of paint,) volunteered to help me paint it, so we brought it down to her house, had breakfast and started painting.  It isn't finished, but she said she would finish it for me while I'm at work today - - everyone should have such amazing grandmothers. :)

Also, last night, I visited my Great Mommom Florence.  How many people can say they have a Great Grandmother?  How many people can say they play cards with her and other family members?  I always make sure to take pictures with her, because she's an amazing woman and I want to be just like her when I'm in my 80's.  

I feel so utterly blessed to know that woman.

Which Egyptian God(dess) Are YOU? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Hethert You are Hethert (Hathor)! Hethert is THE female goddess of Egypt. She was widely worshiped by women and had a variety of roles for this reason. Primarily, she is the goddess of love, joy, music and dancing. She is sexual and sensual, and is the most light-hearted goddess. While she does have funerary aspects, her roles as mother/musician/dancer/woman are more remembered today. She is depicted as a cow-headed woman, a cow, or a woman wearing cows' horns and the sun disk. Her animal is the cow. Hethert 75% Sekhmet 75% Heru-sa-Aset 70% Bast 70% Aset 70% Amun 60% Ptah 60% Djehuty 60% Nebthet 60% Wesir 60% Heru-wer 60% Set 55% Nit 55% Ra 55% Nut 55% Bes 50% Wepwawet 50% Serqet 50% Yinepu 45% Seshat 45%

Went to a Pagan meeting (won't post the name out of respect,) last night, and decided that while I adore one or two of the people there, I don't really belong.  I'll go to a few of the meetings, I'll go to the events, but I won't be a really active member.

But!  On a brighter note, I've been messing around with sculpey again, and here's what I came up with this morning:



Yay!  Tewaret! :D

It's an *okay* turn-out.  I only spent maybe 2 hours on it, and the sculpey's too soft for my tastes (I will be finding Super Sculpey for my future endeavers.)

I, obviously, need a lot more practice.  I've never had a pottery/sculpture class in my life (well, one, but we didn't deal with much clay/sculpey, and that was in HS,) so I'm on my own.