Distribution Frame

Packing for school tomorrow and I can't believe that after all those months of longing for it, I'm going to have to leave my bookshelves behind again. I wasted twenty minutes of last minute packing time just staring at the rows and double-rows of books that I'm not going to be able to have, like, in my hands any time I want, for the next few months. It was kind of really pathetic.

The few I'm taking back with me... a disproportionate amount are children books I read in, like, elementary school. I'm thinking of it as comfort food. Something warm and heavy and not especially challenging to tide me over this coming half-year when I'm losing my shit because science no longer fits into my skull.

Speaking of which, just looking at my schedule for next year makes me want to curl up in a little ball and cry. And there are only four classes? And one of them is karate? And this is really pathetic? (There are now four five four sciences, karate golf? lap swim, and a Global Core (African Civ!). It seems more doable, somehow. An illusion.)

Of course the other three are all hard core sciences, but come on, self. Remember when all you lived for was to be a good student? Remember when academics was your element?

Oh, and then remember the past two years. What the fuck was that?

... This isn't helping with anything, but on some level, I feel like if I scare myself enough, I'll perform better. This used to be how it worked. Scare myself, work harder, ???, profit. But now I think I've reached the limits of how far threats can take me. Paralyzing fear, or just procrastination from packing? Either way, this is pretty terrible.

I'm so terrified for this coming semester. Why on earth am I... Why do I have ambitions? Why doesn't that at least make me ambitious?

Talking to Second helped. We are, all of us, scared. I'm going to go hide under a chapter book.

My clever clever cousin is one of the best things that ever happened to me, although I certainly wasn't convinced of this as a tiny child. He's now studying in a great school about four hours north of me doing insane things with time management (!!) and Game Theory in addition to his double-major-plus-premed shaped thing. Among the other wonderful and RL-relevant things he sent me that will no doubt involve me actually being motivated and, well, awake for starters, he sent me this:

Pancakes Every Morning!

( Reproduced because I'm afraid of the internet eating these things years down the line. )

I can't decide whether I feel inspired or exhausted.

11/26/09
I dreamed I was a bacterial chromosome being attacked by restriction enzymes. They kept menacing my restriction sites, and I was worried my sticky ends wouldn't match up again in the right order. It was so AWKWARD.

Why can't my lab class invade the more useful areas of my brain?