Attestations

I got accepted! To a wonderful French university to study French for the year. I'm excited! And "Attestation" is the title of the document, as in "Le Directeur atteste que.." I got accepted. So I understand now lol.

Next step; get a law school deferment for a year. I'll probably need even more luck for this one :)

Cramming

I'm cramming for A&P, so of course this is the perfect time to blog lol.

Thesis still not done. I'm at the stage I should've been at a month ago. Writing, sending in a draft, P looks it over, sends it back to me, I re-write, send it back to her, etc till it's perfected. So far, only my results section is basically done. Methods is almost there. Intro still needs a lot of work, and the discussion needs even more. The defence itself was changed to the 23rd because P thought I deserved more time. Don't really know how it's going to get finished - I'm predicting I'll still be doing the bouncing drafts back and forth by the time the defence comes around... or else I'll completely skip studying sufficiently for my last exam on the 22nd. Invertebrate. It's my hardest. Gah!

Had a mix up with a law school - somehow I missed an important deadline with the Ontario Law School Application Service, but after an alarmed email and a phone call from me to the law school, it's all been straightened out, and I've settled and accepted to what had been my 2nd choice school, but which has really evolved into my first choice. I think I'm going to love it there. I won't feel like I'm seriously going there, though, until they reply back and say they've received my deposit, and then they grant my one year deferral so I can go to France. THEN I'll breathe my sigh of relief.

Still have a lot on my to-do list, mostly thesis stuff, but so much else too. Big plans with all my friends to celebrate when all this is through. There's a grad pub crawl I'm looking forward to. I can almost see the finish line - my thesis will be due either two or three days after my defence. Though then I've agreed to keep writing more stuff up so we can maybe get my work, plus P's, published- which would be nice, but I wouldn't really be getting anything out of it, aside from a publication in a discipline I'm now leaving lol. Oh well, should be fun (or whatever).

I've been wait-listed to do a 5-wk French Immersion program in mid-summer. Crossing my fingers for it.

I didn't shave for three weeks. It was interesting. Last week I played around with a goatee and side burns... then let it all grow in. Beth said today that it was making my face into a different shape lol. So I shaved it off tonight. I liked it most of the time, and got some compliments. I'm glad I can grow facial hair well; it gives me options- from the way the hair on my head is going, I think I'll probably be bald by the time I'm 30 if not sooner. Damn genes lol. I'm glad my self image is ok- hair is not necessary to look good lol. I always get my hair cut really short anyway. I've seen other guys in my situation shave all the hair off their heads... I'm not sure if I'd want to go that far... but I guess I'll have to see lol.

Mom's laptop died while they were in Florida, and she just got it fixed. She's quite excited. Most of her memory was retrieved successfully. I'm a bit scared that mine's going to croak one of these days - I always get that blue screen of death. I would like to get a new laptop before I go away, but then I also want a new camera, and a bunch of new clothes, and spending a year in Europe isn't cheap... so I can see something getting cut. Though maybe Mom and Dad will be extra generous somehow.. lol. I think Beth said she'll sell me her old camera, which I think would be awesome, because it's small and easy to use, and it would be cheap. She's looking for something that'll take better photos- like, artsy photos or something.

Speaking of Beth, she's still dogsitting. Tonight she'll be watching BSG with her dog, which she hilariously finds annoying, while I'm here cramming (or blogging).

...but yeah, should get back to cramming. Wish me luck!

Trips

Lots to blog about.

First, the pre-law/pre-med trip on Feb. 24-25.

- - -

Instead of renting a bus or something, the group decided to go in a few cars. Somehow I ended up in a car with these two really hot straight guys. Who for some reason seemed to like me. One of them has been in the pre-law group since last year, Jason. He’s a year or two younger than me. Dresses well. Dark brown hair. Tall-ish. I could see him being rich some day. Seems to know how to have fun with the boys watching the football game, but at the same time can give a great impression in the classroom. And he’s friendly. I think he’s in arts, but he looks like a business person. Actually, I remember now, he’s in poli-sci. Shannon knows him. Calls him her hot friend lol. The other guy is a bit shorter than Jason, same age. Slightly more adorable and less intimidating than Jason. Darker hair, darker eyes, tends not to smile as much, but when he does it’s really cute. Name’s Luke. Gives off an impression he’s more macho than he is. He’s in bio, like me, but he’s in the pre-med group, not the pre-law. And he’s in the military, or the militia, or something. We were in programming together last semester, and he totally saved me in the lab. He could actually program, whereas I’m not that great. He was an awesome help. Anyway, so I end up in the same car as them. Thought it would be pretty fun. They’re both pretty nice guys, it seems. Then this other guy got shoved into the car, too; Ray. He seemed quiet. He wasn’t attractive, and he ended up being a douche, which only added to his unattractiveness.

So off we go. The car ride was about 4.5h long. The guys spent most of the time quoting from comedy routines and Family Guy and South Park and SNL and lots of other things I never watch. I totally could not participate in these convos, but I did laugh sometimes. We ended up listening to this random song about a zombie talking to his friend in a mall… actually a good tune, became like the theme song of the trip. Ray was kind of homophobic, in a weird way. Like, at one point he’d be saying how outrageous it was that the Westboro Church people (you know, they protest at everything, super anti-gay) were protesting outside Heath Ledger’s funeral, and then later on he’d make these awful gay jokes, and he always used “gay” derogatorily. Almost like at heart he might not be homophobic, but that most of the time it didn’t matter because he gave off a homophobic vibe because of the casual things he’d say. Luke, on the other hand, was very vocally pro-gay rights, surprisingly, and made a point of saying how it didn’t matter to him if someone was gay, and how he thought discrimination based on sexual orientation was stupid, etc. Like, even just if something he was saying could potentially be interpreted, indirectly, as being homophobic, he’d make a point of saying that that’s not what he meant. I REALLY appreciated this. Made me like him even more. Jason wasn’t homophobic, aside from occasionally calling something gay, like, the rain or something (at which point Luke would be like, “I didn’t know rain had a sexual orientation.” lol), though he wasn’t as vocally pro-gay as Luke. It’s funny how often topics about gay people or sexual orientation or whatever come up in a group of straight guys.

After stopping at a restaurant and a liquor store on the way up, we arrived at the hotel, and lounged around for a while. We drank a bit, went out to eat with the whole group (20-ish), came back, kept drinking, went to a bar, back to the room, and to bed by 3-something. A very fun night. But we, everyone (well, almost everyone), stayed up far too late really. The organizer of the whole trip, E, had scheduled a tour of a courthouse for 8:30am the next morning, which most of us, including myself, thought was optional. A few people ended up going, but most of us decided to sleep through it and go on the law-school tour at 10am. Apparently E was pretty upset about it. We seriously thought she’d said it was optional, but anyway, nothing we could do about it but feel bad, and apologize (which I did when we got back, via email). Anyway, the law-school tour was awesome. Two students and an associate dean talked to us for a while, and then the two students led us through the whole law building. It would be pretty nice to go there (it’s my third choice school, the one I’ve already “accepted” to), but I still think my second choice is preferable.

After that we all met up at Pizza Hut (took forever to find, and it was super windy and rainy) where we all decided to buy E a big gift ( ...not from Pizza Hut tho lol) and get her a thank you card. I’m the money collector, and I’m still trying to track one last person down now, and it’s 3 weeks later. Drive home was fine, a girl came with us, I talked to her for most of the trip back. It was nice to have someone who could carry on an actual conversation and not just endlessly quote from comedy sketches or whatever.

About three days after we got back I worked up the nerve to msg Luke and tell him how much I appreciated how open-minded and non-prejudicial he was of gay people. Naturally this meant I came out to him, too. He wrote back this awesome reply, was glad I told him, and agreed that Ray was an ass lol. I would NEVER have done this, say, last year at this point. Being out is so wonderful. But seriously, I think it's important that straight people who bother standing up for gay people get positive feedback about it. Like, I really liked that he said the things he said, and the only way he's going to know how awesome that is is if someone tells him. And I love it that I'm ok enough with myself, and open enough about my sexuality, to be able to give him that feeback.

- - -

After the trip was through, break was great (see last entry), but my thesis was beginning to catch up with me. The big biology conference was coming up (March 7-9) and it was Feb 22 and I hadn’t even finished all my data input. P, my supervisor, had gone abroad for the break, and so wasn’t around to make me feel like I had to rush. Or be productive at all. So I spent that weekend at the lab, and after contending with a midterm and other business, finished it all by Tues. Another midterm on Wed and then I had a meeting with P on Thursday. I was SUPER stressed that day- I thought that P would be terribly disappointed and possibly angry that I hadn’t gotten as much accomplished as she’d wanted (I’d told her I was almost through with the data input before she went away). But she was so positive! She can intimidate me a lot, but I really do love her. So we made a plan for all that I had to do between that day, Feb 28, and March 4th or 5th. I was putting all my project onto a poster, which is one of the ways scientists convey their findings to their peers at conferences (either posters or oral presentations). P had wanted me to do an oral at first, but the two other students presenting at the conference from our school had also wanted to do an oral, so we drew from a hat, and they won (which I’m now very happy about). Anyway, so the poster had to be given to the printer’s at least 24h before I could pick it up. I was leaving at 4am on Friday, so I had to pick up the poster by Thursday, which meant I had to have it done by Wednesday. And when we were having this conversation it was Thursday. I basically had to do all of my data analysis, write a conclusion, revise my intro, objectives, and materials and methods, and then design and put together the poster in 6 days. Plus contend with two more midterms.

Those six days were the busiest, most intense, and most productive of my entire life. I spent almost every free hour at the lab, usually staying till 1am or so. I skipped every class except labs and midterms. P stayed with me for quite a few hours for a number of the days I was there, she was a HUGE help with the stats. My stats background is pretty weak – for some reason our school doesn’t offer an upper level biology stats course. First year stats is almost useless, and plus I forget most of it. And anymore stats than first year’s isn’t mandatory, so I took other things. Anyway, I was really overtired through that period, and I didn’t end up finishing the poster till about 6pm on Wednesday, after the printer’s had closed. I had been talking to the printer guy the week before, however, and he’d said that really, while they recommend 24h before-hand, or even 48h to avoid technical difficulties, it was possibly for him to do it in one 8h shift. So early the next morning I brought in the file, and we set about trying to get it to print. The printer guy is maybe a few years older than me, like, 25 or 26, really nice, so it was a pretty good morning, even though it took over 3h to just get the file to transfer correctly to the right format. We were dealing with both PC and Mac formats for things, and just moving the file around seemed to mess it up. Anyway, the laminator guy was sick, so I couldn’t get it laminated, but P had said it wasn’t necessary if I couldn’t get it done. Beth agreed to pick it up because I had lab that afternoon. She was so good to me that week, even sat around at school waiting for me that Wed. when classes got cancelled but P and I stayed in the lab to keep working. Anyway, the poster looked fantastic, I was so happy.

I still wasn’t happy with my grasp of the stats however, so I took a bunch of books and papers with me to read before I had to present. 5 of us were going on the trip, all bio students naturally; myself, Shawn (super smart, super nice, cute, popular, all around wonderful person, thin, dark hair), Dana (enthusiastic, nice, she loves me, recent convert from psych, I work with her at school, curly brown hair, not overweight, but a few extra pounds), Taylor (reminds me of a petite version of Angelina Jolie, smart, hilarious, stylish, straight brown hair), and Nicole (gorgeous, blond, smart, stylish, got to know her last year in fish class). I’ve known all except Nicole since high school, Dana since elementary school. Nicole and Taylor are already really good friends. I know them, but I’m closer to Shawn and Dana. We left at 4:30am to drive to the nearest big airport. Dana drove. We could’ve taken a flight from the local one, but it was way cheaper to drive for almost 4h to catch our 11am flight to the conference city. The drive there was pretty fun. Dana got to know Taylor and Nicole and bit. The flight was fun, too. I sat by Nicole and Taylor. And I got the window seat.

Friday afternoon was good, too. Hotel was fine, me and Shawn in one room, the girls in another on another floor. I spent most of the afternoon with Dana and Shawn buying sticky things at Staples to put up my poster, and trying to figure out bus routes, finding food, and walking back to the hotel on my own, where I fell asleep for an hour. Woke up and reviewed stats for a while, then went to the university to register at the conference. Wandered around the campus with Taylor and Nicole (the other two were visiting friends). It was fun just exploring. Anyway, I stayed up till 2am –ish reviewing stats.

Conference really began the next morning. The building we were in was super modern, lots of glass and steal and tile, I loved it. I presented my poster at lunch time. I thought it went well, though the judges had way more questions/criticisms of my experimental design than they had about my statistical analyses. But whatever, I was just glad to have it over with. SUCH a relief. All of that work, all of that time, finally I had presented. Really, the effort was more for P than for the conference, and while presenting for the judges had been stressful, the deadline of the conference for the poster’s completion was more stressful, and the stress I felt for the judges is more representative of the stress I still am feeling for my thesis defence in April. Anyway, at that point I could then enjoy the conference and not have to worry about remembering what the parametric equivalent of a Wilcoxon Sign rank test was or whatever. The presentations were mostly interesting, although, as with past conferences, most of the molecular ones went over my head. Taylor and Nicole both presented around 3pm. Both of theirs went well. Shawn probably understood and retained more than any of us. Dana, while not understanding as much, was definitely enthusiastic and into it all – I was impressed. Last year she wasn’t much of a student. This year, however, she switched her major to bio, and she’s studying way more, and getting better grades. I’m impressed. The third and last presentation session was the worst, just because we were all pretty tired, especially me, and the presentations weren’t as interesting. We were back at the hotel by 5-ish. I’d wanted to take a nap, but that never happened, and before I knew it, we’d started drinking.

I had three beer in the hotel room with Shawn and Dana. Then we all went to the banquet at the university. And who ended up sitting next to me but the chair of the biology dept! (from my university) I was like, this is going to be a disaster – but it was actually really fun! It’s nice to interact with professors in a non-classroom, non-hierarchical environment. He was super pumped I got into law school. He and one other prof sat with us, B. They were cool. And drinking a bit, though not as much as we were. It was Nicole’s birthday, too, so we all sang to her lol. Big 22 lol. I was on my 4th through 6th drinks at the banquet, and I never thought I’d interact with faculty while that intoxicated. But it went well. Immediately after the banquet was, for some reason, a lecture. Another academic lecture. About half the people skipped it to go downtown, but we decided to take it in. And it was absolutely hilarious. Everyone was loaded. And the prof giving the talk totally knew it and totally made the whole thing really funny. I really enjoyed it. Then that other prof who came to the conference, B, he’s great, drove us downtown in his rental!

Anyway, the rest of the night consisted of many bars (maybe 5) and the walking outside required to get from bar to bar, which was in itself pretty fun, lots more drinking, a hilarious girl from Alex’s school, dancing, a rapping Englishman, a karaoke bar (I didn’t sing, but Nicole did), pizza, and finally back to the hotel where I barfed and then went to bed, where Dana and Shawn leapt on me when they got back about 2h later (I was in a surprisingly good mood and just laughed).

The next day was a slow recovery. We missed the whole morning session of the conference and made it to the lunch banquet. B let us hang out in his hotel room all afternoon (Me, Nicole, and Taylor all slept in his bed) while Dana and Shawn went on a drive with him to see things in the area (it was freezing raining and cold and I was hung over so I opted not to go). Anyway, we ate a nice supper when my appetite came back, and then got on our flight at 8pm. Dana had slept from when she, Shawn and B had gotten back to when we left for the flight, so she was ok to drive home when we landed. B was staying an extra day. I left one of my bags in his room but he brought it back on Tues. Everyone stayed awake for the drive home, it was hilarious. I was in bed by 4am. And up for class the next day! Having skipped so many the previous week I was intent on making it – and I did.

So then there was this week. Pretty low key, communications assignments/tests/speeches dominated. Easy stuff. I’m feeling scared again for my thesis, but today I basically just slept and lounged around. Nice to do nothing, but I’m totally on borrowed time.

Mom and Dad are still in Florida. They call now and then, still always laughing and happy. I’m glad they’re having a good time. Snow is still on the ground here, but it’s getting milder.

When I read this in the distant future, I’m going to wonder what was going on in the world. The US presidential election is in the news a lot, or at least, in a lot of the news I read. Hillary and Obama are still battling for the Democratic nomination, while McCain’s got the Republican nomination wrapped up. The Conservatives under Harper just passed a motion in Parliament extending the Afghanistan mission to 2011 at least. The space shuttle’s just brought the Japanese built module up to the ISS. The governor of NY, Eliot Spitzer, just resigned over a prostitution scandal, making way for the first black, and first blind man to become governor of NY, David Patterson. I think today’s the anniversary of the Iraq war. The Latimer guy from out west who killed his disabled daughter a few years back just got parole. The Russian election was a few days ago; Putin’s successor was “voted” in, of course. Pakistan had their election, too, in the wake of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. …I think that’s an adequate snapshot of what’s going on in the world at the moment.

Rachel’s brother. I haven’t really blogged about him ever. I’ve known him almost as long as I’ve known Rachel, since, like, grade 7, but he was always an extra person, you know, younger sibling of a friend. Anyway, his girlfriend is very sketchy. It’s led to numerous iffy situations for Rachel’s family so far, and now, quite suddenly although Shannon predicted this would happen, his girlfriend is pregnant. I thought that this wouldn’t happen because it’s so easily preventable… but I guess I was wrong. I thought he was smarter than this! He’s only, like, 19 I think. Anyway, apparently she’s going to get an abortion. But she’s very mentally unstable, and if she thinks that he’s going to leave her if she gets the abortion, then she might end up keeping the baby. Which, of course, Rachel’s family is completely against. Rachel’s brother’s always kind of been the golden child, destined for great things and all that. And he is smart, if a bit full of himself, though he’s gotten better over the years and I do like him. I hope things work out for him now.

Just over at my grandparent’s place. They have me $1000! To go toward law school. I’m still in shock over it. SO nice of them. I love them so much… and really, they never give huge gifts like this. Well, I shouldn’t say never, but usually they give random gifts, like, knick-knacks that they’ve picked up in Maine at these super cheap stores or something. Hilarious, random things. I love listening to my grandfather’s stories. While he can go on for quite a while, they’re always interesting. And my grandmother’ll chime in, and they’ll bicker, and it’s always funny. They’ve done so many things in their lives, and now they’re super old and they’ve still got each other. I think it’d be nice to end up like that.

Okay, enough blogging for one night. Today was a completely wasted day. Up super late chatting to Chris last night, mostly about sex, till 3:30am, slept till noon-ish, then did nothing today except cook, and read (l’Actualité), and nap, and blog, and visit my grandparents, and now I just drove Beth to a friend’s place. No productivity at all. Oh well, guess I haven’t had a nothing day in a while. But I bumped into P at the grocery store yesterday and said I’d be in to the lab on the weekend! I’m getting up early and going tomorrow. I have to lol.

Night!

A Date

About two weeks ago, around Feb 8th, I was offered a place at my second choice law school. I was so happy! It’s one of the more competitive schools in the country, I don’t really know how I got in there. And they sent me the letter JUST after I accepted the offer from my third choice school. But oh well, the only reason I “accepted” to my third choice was because no other school had offered me anything at that point, and in order to keep my third choice as a viable option, I had to “accept,” or, in other words, pay them the non-refundable deposit. So I haven’t really decided where I want to go yet. My first, second, and third choices are all good, reputable schools. The main difference is that my third choice is much closer to home than the other two, and is somewhat less competitive. And it would be cheaper to go there. I think I’ll still choose my second over my third choice… but I’m not committing for a while. I have until May to decide on this new offer.

School’s been busy but good. Last week was definitely the busiest week of the semester so far. Not insane busy like other weeks I’ve experienced, like, no all-nighters, but still busy. A few 3am nights. And for some crazy reason I decided that I’d message a few different guys on a few gay profiles sites. And then started chatting to the se few guys. I always choose the moments when I have the least spare time.

The first guy was a cute, 30 year-old hair dresser. I considered meeting up for coffee or something. He seemed nice. Had just gotten out of a serious long term relationship. Truthfully he didn’t really seem like my type, but I was like, ..whatever, meeting up can’t hurt. The age difference didn’t really bother me (30 – 22 = 8y). Age is just a number anyway, it’s really all about how compatible our personalities are. On Friday last week, quite randomly, Shannon goes to get her hair done at his hair salon, and somehow I come up in conversation lol. So then that evening I tell Shannon all about him (I love that this can happen and it’s not awkward). She tells me that he’s nice, cute, and that I’d probably get along with him, but that he is a huge gossip. Stereotypically? I suppose so, but that’s not a turn on anyway. As the days passed, he and I continued chatting, but he seemed to lose interest a bit, so at this point in the week I’m really thinking that I’m not going to push the meeting up thing, I’ll just leave it up to him.

The second guy (and the last one I kept around from the few I msged and started to chat with from last week) was a university student like me, also 22, but he goes to school away and was home for the break. Name’s Chris. He seemed nice. Very closeted unfortunately. But I’m always happy to help someone along, offer advice and support, especially if they’re good people. Gradually I was able to discover that he had gone to my school last year, also taken biology, and that we’d actually sat next to one another in a class! Pretty random. I’d always had a feeling that he was gay, though apparently he’d never pegged me as gay. But then he says his gaydar sucks. Anyway, we kept chatting, he seemed nice, if a bit too excited to meet up. I generally like to be kind of low-key, low-expectations on the internet prior to meeting up with someone, if only to quash potential disappointment. But we decided to meet up.

And so last night we did! He came and picked me up at 8:30pm and we drove around for a while. It’s amazing how much ground you can cover. Like, we could have covered quite a distance if we’d actually driven in a straight line instead of driving in circles all night. Personally, I don’t like to drive too much on these random hang out things, just because of all the gas you waste. But some people, like Chris, and Six, too, LOVE to just drive and drive. And of course they never let me give them gas money. At least Six lets me buy him coffee. Anyway, so we chatted about lots and lots of different things. School, people we know in common, his future plans, my future plans, what it’s like to live away, working, summers, music, religion, gay issues, coming out to family, friends, how ppl took it, and in his case, how ppl will take it. Eventually we got to guys we know in common, and it turned out he knew Six! Not only that, he also knew S, Six’s ex, and he had also had felt in the middle during their whole break up drama! I couldn’t believe someone else had been through the same experience lol. He also knew of Vince, though hadn’t met him. Hadn’t heard of Alex. We knew a bunch of other guys in common too. It was so cool. We parked and chatted eventually, at this park/track I seem to always go to when I’m talking with anyone. Chatted about a lot more stuff there. Eventually I suggested grabbing some food, because it seemed like everything was going so smoothly. He liked the idea, so off we went to McDonald’s, where I got an oriental chicken salad, the only thing I ever get at McDonald’s. We parked and chatted some more. Got into some really deep topics, like, people who had died who were close to us – he definitely could’ve made me cry if he’d kept talking down a particular path, but then thankfully he made it funny and we were able to laugh, and the laughter was all that more intense because of the intensity of the conversation. But we talked more about the future, about our families, about lots and lots of things. He was very easy to talk to. Much easier to talk to than, say, the last guy I’d hung out with in January, who I’d first met this past summer. Anyway, he ended up dropping me off at 1am – the time had FLOWN. I kind of wanted to give him a hug or something, though I could tell if I’d gone in to kiss him he would’ve been pretty receptive. But I don’t really know how I feel about him, so I opted to kind of touch his arm, and say “..I feel like I should hug you or shake your hand or something,” and so I ended up shaking his hand, but it was a very warm hand shake, not a formal one. Almost a hug, really. Goodbyes can often be awkward, so I was fine with however we ended it. So yeah, definitely a successful meet-up. I refer to is as a date when I’m talking to Shannon or Rachel or Megan lol. I’ll have to call Alex and tell him how it went.

Speaking of Alex, we got to hang out on Saturday. It’s always so nice to see him. We went to the mall, then had Chinese food. I don’t know when I’ll get to see him again in the near future. Within the next few months sometime I’m sure. He was taking a little trip to see a guy-friend he’s made on the internet, I’ll have to see how that went, too.

Saturday night was awesome, I got drunk at a friend’s party, and went out to a bar. So much fun. Shannon even came, and took her boyfriend, who has definitely grown on me. It was a great night.

Sunday I went to tour that #3 law school with the pre-law group at school. Plus the pre-med group, who naturally were touring that school’s med school. It was a great trip, though I’ll blog more about it later.

And this week I’ve done almost NO school work. I’ve been to the lab ONCE, and only for about 2 hours. So awful. Planning on going tomorrow, early. Wednesday night I went to a low-key potluck, and the host gave us all the leftovers because she knows we’re home sans parents. So nice! Good food, too.

This evening I hung out with Megan and Shannon and Rachel. We watched The Notebook. So sappy, yet so sad. Totally hooked me, dragged me in, and then when it dumped the sap all over me I was balling lol. Like, it got seriously cheesy, but I’d been sucked in, and it only made me cry harder. Good movie. It was good to see Megan, too. She’s seeing someone! A crazy girl she’s mentioned before. I’ll call her soon and we can have a good chat about it, because we didn’t have a chance to really talk this break. They were all so excited for my date lol. I love it that we can talk about it so openly! I’m still not used to being out of the closet. I love it :)

Anyway, talk soon!

Friday night

I accepted my law school offer day before yesterday. :)
The admissions woman was so nice! She makes me feel like I would really enjoy attending this school. That’s irrational, I know, but still, little things like that definitely influence people’s overall perceptions. I’m still going to keep checking my application status to those other schools though. Just in case.

Mom and Dad have gone to Florida. They called us yesterday from Penn. They always have to rush whenever they drive anywhere because my father just has to get where ever they’re going as fast as humanly possible. It’s one of his most infamous traits, at least amongst Beth and I. They’re going to visit my aunt and uncle, and a few friends. They’ll definitely have a great time. I’m jealous. John, another gay friend of mine, a guy with whom I have a somewhat more complicated relationship (for another entry), is going to Florida for spring break. I, however, will stay here, and probably spend spring break in the lab frantically trying to get as much done on my thesis as I can before the conference in March. Gah, I have so much more to do, and I can’t get to the lab tomorrow because we’re going to have a snow storm. Or, ice storm, or something.

My sister bought a gym membership today. It only serves to remind me how long it’s been since I’ve been active. I think the last time I ran was… October. And I haven’t been to the gym since early last year. Blah. Thank god I’m skinny… but I’m definitely not as fit as I want to be. This is one of my qualities that I’m least satisfied with. My lack of physical activity. Or rather, my lack of ambition to do physical activity. I must admit that I am usually satisfied with my body, at least, when I look at myself in the mirror. If you get me to stand next to a bunch of muscular male athletes at school or something, then I’m less happy with my body. But if it’s just me and the mirror, I’m usually happy. I think this is both good and bad. Good because feeling good about your body usually has positive repercussions for how you act, your confidence level, the things you choose to do, and thus how you are perceived. It’s bad, however, because I know that I would rather be more fit, at least slightly more muscular, and if I was more unsatisfied with my current appearance, it might motivate me more strongly to pay a visit to the gym.

Anyway, snack time. Cereal, plus sci-fi short story anthology (when I probably should be reading that article on water economy in avian models, or reviewing gastropods for invert., or the circulatory system for a&p, or etc, etc, etc… but it’s Friday night, and since I dismissed the bar, I’m going to do something at least mildly fun).

Autoanalysis

I think I’ve developed an unhealthy obsession with Vince and Six’s relationship. Well, maybe it’s not an obsession, but it’s a …preoccupation, there’s the word. Maybe it’s how I channel my suppressed jealousy. I’m attracted to both of them, physically. And mentally a little bit, too. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be as attracted to Vince if I was around him all the time… but the only reason I say that is because I’m not around him at all, and haven’t really spent any extended amount of time with him. And I automatically assume I wouldn’t like him as much if I was around him all the time. Reasonable..? So I suppose I might actually like him more in that situation, but who knows. Six I already know how I feel about him. We’ve been friends for years, since 2004. I’m attracted to him physically, and he to me apparently, but he’s got issues that prevent me from liking him as any more than a friend. He’s still got issues about being gay (… don’t we all, but still, his are larger), he’s a bit too negative and cynical, as much as that can be funny sometimes, he’s a drop-out who continues to not go back to school, he smokes, AND he’s paranoid. Now, these only matter in judging him as a potential boyfriend. In terms of being a friend, the only thing I can fault him with is that he’s not the absolute best to go to for comfort, and he’s paranoid. Both of which are get-around-able. Vince I’ve yet to really get to know, aside from our online chats, and that one weekend. But still, they both have occupied far too many of my thoughts lately. Now, I don’t want you to get the wrong impression – I don’t think I’ve ever thought of them at school, which takes up a lot of my time. Ok that’s a lie, but not very often anyway. But still. I can’t go online without thinking about them. Just, either one or the other, or both, or spending time with both of them again. Alex would have to be around, too, but he’s not part of my preoccupation. And you know, it’s totally idealizing them, and their relationship, and building it up into this wonderful, perfect thing of which I’m envious and for which I’m happy.

I did this exact thing with Thomas and Rebecca, two friends who’ve since moved away. They were much more ideal in reality than Vince and Six, at least in my eyes. Both of them were geniuses, first of all. Awards and scholarships galore, and they won even more upon acceptance to their grad schools. They’re also both extremely friendly, community minded, politically aware intellectuals, but at the same time they’re approachable and funny and weird. In my eyes they're nearly flawless. I loved them then and I still do now. I totally idealized their relationship, and I suppose them as individuals to a certain extent. I wanted to be around them, I enjoyed them, and I just knew they’d be together forever. Of course, this was doomed, and they broke up shortly after leaving for different grad schools. To me, once I heard, it was as if the world had gone mad. I was totally unprepared for the break-up (not as much as Thomas, apparently, but whatever). This event definitely contributed to the somewhat fatalistic attitude that I now hold towards relationships. But this attitude is still buried beneath a romantic, sentimental, sappy layer within me that I think has led to this current thing for Vince and Six. It seems I can’t help but let this happen.

I must admit that I think part of the thing I’ve got for them is due to the absence of gay friends in my day-to-day life. I SO enjoyed having that when I went and hung out with them and Alex that weekend. So, this is a temporary feeling. All I have to do is find some new gay friends lol.

Six and Vince had their first big argument last Sunday, a week ago. I was at work when it happened, but Six had msged me on facebook as soon as the whole thing got going. Which says something about how upset he was, because Six NEVER msgs me. On msn or facebook or just email, or anything. I always have to start the convo. He’ll keep it going, even invite me places and stuff. But he never starts it. It’s odd. And on occasion supremely annoying. Anyway. Apparently, Vince had been drinking in someone else’s dorm room, at some party or something. It took place in Vince’s res. Anyway, Vince’s friend G was in attendance, too. One of Vince’s few gay friends, and also one of the few people he’s out to. So they all got drunk, and then the party ended in the night sometime, at which point Vince learned that G had no way of getting back to his apartment aside from walking. It was an approx. 20min walk. On a windy, frigid winter night. So Vince, the nice guy that he is, said to G that he could just stay in his room for the night, and walk home in the morning. Thought nothing of it. They stayed up for a while talking and YouTubing or whatever, talking a lot about their respective boyfriends apparently, and then went to sleep. Both slept in the same bed, though not under the same covers, or something. PS this is all Vince’s version of events, although I do believe it. Six was aware that G was there, because he chatted to Vince after Vince had gotten back to his room with G after the party, and they’d used a webcam. Six was a kind of upset that the whole G staying over thing was taking place.

Next day, sometime around lunch time, Vince clicked on Six, tried to make some small talk, but Six was upset about the night before, so he wasn’t being very conversational. One word answers and such. Eventually Vince, gently, was like, is something wrong? And then, are you upset about last night? And after a bit of Six being like, I don’t want to argue on msn, and then, I don’t want to argue when we’re far apart, he eventually just let it out, how upset he was about the night before. Anyway, I won’t go into the gory details, even though Six told me absolutely everything. Just sent me the msg history. It was, frankly, depressing to read. I felt a little bit like I was intruding, even just reading the thing, and also pretty upset just because they both got so upset. Like, tears upset. Six was totally the angry one, and Vince was totally the apologetic one… ughh it makes me sad to just think about the whole thing. Anyway, I quickly encouraged a phone call- I would NEVER want a fight of any emotional import to take place over msn. Ever. It’s nice as a casual chatting medium, or information exchange, or something through which you can chat to people you’ve found online. But not for anything too serious. I mean, I’ve done it, argue, talk about big important things, but it’s not my first choice. Alex and I were chatting as I crisis-controlled Six. He’d been doing the same thing for an hour. Apparently Six had also turned to a few other people for advice, some of whom were not the most wholesome, and just reflected Six’s confusion/distress back to him, amplifying it. Both Alex and I tried to calm things down and encourage phone calls. Eventually this happened, and they made up, and all was well. I briefly chatted to Vince a few days later, and tried to be supportive to him, too, just so he would know I was still behind this relationship.

I’m very wary of trying to be a support for both of them, however. I tried to do this with a past relationship of Six’s, with S. I’d started chatting with S summer before last. Six met S that Christmas, and they started dating before December was through. It was Six’s first serious relationship where he really fell for the guy. It was also S’s first serious relationship. Six was 20. S was… 18 I think. I thought that S was a nice person. They appeared to be happy, and in love, and I was happy for them. I never actually met S. (My relationship with Six is weird, it’s only started to become a bit normal this year. But anyway, that’s for another entry). So my judgments of S were based only on online chats. But still. He was young, but he seemed nice. At least fairly mature. Anyway, as you might’ve guessed, this relationship came to a rather untimely end. A very awkward, messy, untimely end. I forget when exactly. The whole thing only lasted for a few months, although in my mind it takes up a larger portion of time because of how strongly they felt for each other, and because of the lasting impact it’s left on Six. I mentioned that I’d started chatting with S that summer. Well, we continued chatting all throughout that fall, and through the winter, during the whole relationship with Six. At first, this was awesome. I felt like I was the confidant of both of them, and I could calm things down between then if there was a fight, I could open communication channels if they were blocked, and I could also be in the know about everything that was going on with them. I liked both of them and they both seemed to appreciate having me to talk to. Now around the mid-way point of the relationship, I started to realized that I was starting to play for both sides, so to speak. Sympathizing with both of them, often in a way that I wouldn’t really want the other guy to know about. Sort of like a… “I’m really on your side” kind of thing, to each of them. I don’t think I realized what a bad situation I was creating for myself. But still, they both seemed to appreciate me, a lot, so I kept doing it. As things started to get weird between them, the whole thing began started to get somewhat stressful for me. I had to really start, not lying, but really crafting how I interacted with both of them so as to keep the appearance that I was just as close with each of them as I’d always been, even though at that point it would have been impossible because they were really not getting along. I was lying to one or the other, but I could never really tell which. Truthfully, if I had to choose who I was being more truthful towards, it would’ve been S, unfortunately, because I often find Six too emotionally unstable, a bit too reactive, a bit too.. paranoid, I’ve mentioned that lol. Not that S wasn’t being unreasonable sometimes, too. But anyway. Six started asking me what S was saying about him. S started asking the same thing. I’d always been open about the fact that I chatted to both of them a lot. This is where everything really got out of control. Unfortunately, even though I hadn’t been completely truthful with either of them about how I felt about what was going on with their relationship, and how I judged the decisions they were making in terms of what they were saying to each other, and how they were treating each other, I’d still developed a sense of loyalty to each of them. As in, I would never really sell one out to the other. If one of them told me something in confidence, I would never share it with the other. I’d only really lie about what I was feeling about things, so as to appear more in line with what either S, or Six, was venting about, depending on which one I was chatting with. This sounds like I’m a terrible person, and maybe I was, but I’ve certainly learned my lesson. Anyway, so they started asking more directly about what the other one was saying about them. And of course, I couldn’t really reveal anything explicit, I’d just try to give vague positive impressions of things. Six especially wanted more information, and when I refused on the grounds that S was my friend too – yikes. He felt so betrayed. He said some pretty hurtful things to me. Fortunately, I’d been in arguments with him before, and I knew he had a tendency towards the melodramatic, if perhaps unintentionally. So I didn’t get very hurt by anything he said, but it certainly put a strain on our relationship. S never really got too upset, he seemed to understand a bit more what my predicament was. Eventually Six and I got past the whole him feeling betrayed by me – he had a lot more anger and sense of betrayal toward S than he ever had toward me. But it continued to come up now and then over the following months. That’s one thing about Six, he doesn’t let things go. He’ll bring it up, use it as a jab, but then quickly say “anyway” or “but whatever” and interject some new topic. I hate this. Either address the issue, and resolve it, or bury it and don’t bring it up ever again. Unfortunately I could never really get angry at him when he’d bring it up because I felt guilty over the whole thing. During the break-up, Six had used the argument that he and I were better friends than S and I, and so I should spill S’s secrets to Six out of loyalty to Six. This of course discounted any loyalty I felt towards S, which I couldn’t do. Even though, and I agreed with Six on this one, I had never met S in real life, and I really did have far less of a friendship with S than with Six. But I still couldn’t bring myself to betray S like that. As much as Six felt betrayed by me withholding information from him, I never saw that as real betrayal. Telling Six everything, however, would have been.

So we eventually moved past it. The larger issue for Six, of course, was the break-up itself, and the betrayal he felt at S. I think he still finds it very difficult to really fully trust a boyfriend again. I’m sure this affects how he behaves in his current relationship. The larger issue for me was that I could never again put myself in a situation like that, where I was on both sides of a relationship. So really, when I’d blocked Vince before he and Six started dating, after they started dating I was glad that I wouldn’t have the opportunity of getting to know Vince, because then I’d never be the middle person again. But then Six asked me to give him another chance, and then I went up to see Vince and Alex with Six. And I really liked Vince! So now my goal is to somehow be friendly with Vince, but remain definitely on Six’s side. Hopefully the situation won’t have to be framed in terms of “sides,” I’d rather just be an observer. But seeing as I am Six’s friend, and we’ve been friends for years, and we share stuff with each other, I will not put myself in a position where I feel loyalty to a guy who is causing him so much pain.

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In other news, my grandmother is completely losing her mind. It’s pretty sad if you think about it too hard, but she is happy, she lives at home with her husband, my grandfather. They have the best of care (hired). Lots of creature comforts. And really, she can be quite funny, if you indulge the repetitive questions and comments, which of course we all do. We went to their place for supper tonight, brought all the food with us. Beth, my sister, and I always really enjoy our grandparents, they always make us laugh hysterically. They’re in their late 80’s now. Hopefully they’ll stick around for a while longer. I think when they go it’ll be the first time death really touches close to me. I’ve lost a gazillion older relatives over the years, been to more wakes and funerals than I can remember, but I was never terribly close to any of them. Sure it was sad, and I may have shed a tear or two here and there, but no one really close to me has ever died. This is definitely a temporary state of affairs.

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I’m going to accept my first, and so far only, offer from a law school this week. Put down my non-refundable deposit. The deadline is the end of the month, and I’ve yet to hear from any of the other schools I’ve applied to. I’ll be more than happy attending this school… but it’s not my first choice. It’s my third. Though first, second and third are all rather close in terms of how glad I’d be to attend there. There’s also a fourth choice, which I already don’t really care about anymore because my third accepted me. My first choice is somewhat more competitive, so I’m trying to be defensively pessimistic about my chance of being accepted. But I can’t help but hope. If I do get accepted there, or my second choice, then I’ll just let my third choice keep my non-refundable, and I’ll accept to the first or second. I might not hear for months, unfortunately.

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I have a crush. I think. My last real crush moved away summer before last. I’d hardly had any time to even learn if he was gay. We’re facebook friends though, so I keep tabs on him lol. Still inconclusive. Anyway, this new guy, Liam, he’s in a class with me. A comm class. I noticed him in the first class, thought he was cute, in a dorky kind of way. He’s kinda short, longish hair, though not really long, not like, shoulder long, just got a lot of it. He had glasses that first day, though he hasn’t since. He’s a first-year. He gave a speech the other day that was really touching. I made an excuse to talk to the prof so I could learn his name. Since then I’ve been trying to find a way to catch up with him in the hall sometime to tell him I liked his speech. Seemed like the best way to start a convo. Unfortunately, there’s this girl he’s always with. Lisa. I’m hoping she’s just a friend and not a girlfriend. Another first year. She also gave a good speech, technically better than Liam’s. Though not as touching. Maybe because Lisa’s was more polished, while Liam’s was more… earnest and unpolished. I like her contributions to class discussions; they’re intelligent, and articulate, in a soft-spoken kind of way. So she does present somewhat of a challenge to talking to him, but I think I could reasonably talk to both of them at once. Anyway, I couldn’t find an opening this week. But then, today, coming home from work at the library, I passed him in the parking lot! I work at the university, and he lives in res. He was just walking by with a guy friend. I looked up, realized it was him, smiled, just as he seemed to do the same thing, I said hi, quietly (I’m generally dissatisfied with my casual hi’s, I don’t think they have enough umph to them, but whatever), and he said hi back! In that shy little way he has. This made me really happy lol. I’d never interacted with him before, so, I’m hoping this is a nice first step. It’ll make it easier to start that initial convo.

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I could probably keep going, but this is a bit of a mammoth entry lol. I’m half watching Twisted with Dad on Bravo… it’s pretty dark. A movie, for those who’ve never heard of it.

ciao

Rocket Man

I kind of feel like my life is about to launch or something. Like, there’s one of those countdowns on, and as soon as I graduate, I’m going to just blast-off. It’s a wonderful feeling. It’s exciting.

My last email was a bit morose – I rarely, rarely am in a bad mood like that, and naturally by the next day I was super happy. The good parts are what I tend to dwell on if you give me time. Plus on Monday I was thrust back into my normal life, which does make me feel fairly content, if only because it’s so busy and people-filled. And the weekend was SO awesome. I felt literally like I was on a high or something on Tuesday night. I ended up calling Shannon and having an enormous, deep, fun conversation with her. Like, almost three hours long I think. She told me all about this drama at school. She had accidentally blurted to this girl that this girl's boyfriend had been cheating on her (I’d told Shannon about the cheating, in confidence, but we’d both thought that this girl had known the full story, that the boyfriend had confessed – but he actually hadn’t. He and the other cheater had fabricated a story that they were both sticking to. Whoops lol). (Anyway, that’s since been resolved). We talked about the future. We talked about all the crap that Shannon has to do right now. We talked about all the crap I have to do right now. We’re both doing theses. Blah. Then I told her all about my weekend, which she loved. I told her the entire back story. Like, the ENTIRE story. All about me chatting to Vince, and Six, and Alex all separately, and then Alex meeting and dating Vince, and then them breaking up, and then Alex meeting Six online, and then the entire fight I had with Vince online because he lied over something stupid, and then me blocking him, and then Vince coming here to do his practicum, and then he and Six starting to date, and then me unblocking Vince at mostly Six’s request but also a little bit of Alex’s, and then he and I making up, and then all of them inviting me down for the weekend. That took a while, it’s like a soap. And then the whole weekend was recounted, too. Which led to this big conversation about me being in the closet and what she and our other friends had been thinking through different situations over the years. Everyone’s so shocked at my “secret life,” all these guys I’ve met through the internet and developed friendships with, without my straight friends knowing about it. I was so sneaky lol. It’s so nice to be out! You get to deepen your friendships.

After that I chatted to Alex for a bit, and went on a bit too long about how adorable Six and Vince are together. I kind of forget that Alex and Vince dated through September. I ended up being totally insensitive and then apologizing the next day. I so would never want to hurt Alex… I just get swept up in the whole Six and Vince are in love and I’m SO happy for them. It’s so nice when two people who you like find happiness with each other. Sappy, I know, but I can be pretty sentimental. I cried today while rushing to finish a short story before I rushed to anatomy class. The main character died in the end! Quite moving. Anyway.

Six told me last night he’s applying to a journalism program! Now, this must be the sixth time he’s told me he’s applying somewhere, and they’ve all been different places and he’s never actually gone through with it. He started university at my school when I was in second year, but then he dropped out a little over half way through. Dealing with being gay was definitely a contributing factor, in my opinion. He’s come such a long way since I met him. I really, really hope that this program works out. We’ll see. He wants to apply tomorrow. I’ll check in with him.

I finally met up with my supervisor today. She’s so awesome! Yet she intimidates me more than anyone else. I love her, and am scared of her all at once. I jump at the chance to work with her or impress her, but I find I avoid her if I’m at all nervous about something. It’s weird. I’ll be glad when this thesis is behind me. It’s way too stressful.

Six is going back to visit Vince on the weekend of Feb. 8th. I really hope I can go. I’m having a meeting with my sup on Saturday, after which I can really buckle down and get a lot of work done. And as long as I keep staying on top of all my other course work… everything should work out! Two other trips are planned this semester. One to tour a law school in mid Feb., and the other to a biology conference in March. If I go on all of these including the one on the 8th , it might be my most travelled semester yet. I was also invited to go with Shannon to see Megan at her school at the end of the month, but it’s way farther, and I’d have to buy a bus ticket… and I’m too cheap. And frankly, I’d rather use a free weekend to go see Alex and Vince with Six than to see Megan. Even though she’s one of my closest friends and I have never actually been to visit her at her school in the last three years.

I’ve been meaning to call Rachel. Her brother got in a car accident (that I’m not suppose to talk about), and she’s also having people over this weekend. And she wants to hear about my weekend away. I also need to call Jocelyn, who called me, like, two weeks ago! and then I had to let her go because I was going out. I feel really bad. I suck at calling her! She’s going to be in England next year while I’m in France, so we’re definitely hanging out. She wants to go to Prague together. Maybe Rachel will be there too, just for fun for a few days. I’d love it!

Anyway, gotta go snack and send a gazillion emails and eat something.