Neglect.

I have neglected this blog. In my defense... I've been really busy, and also very depressed, and no one wants to hear about that.

So I should really be writing my final papers and studying for my one final exam, but the truth is that I am just not feeling it. I can't write. Not a single thing. I'm overwhelmed and feeling this bitter-sweet feeling that can only come from being close enough to the finish line that I can actually have nightmares about it.

I will be graduating from Cal in May. I have my classes lined up. I am planning the move back to SoCal. I will get to see my dogs in June, that's just a few months away and instead of thinking of final papers and exams I'm thinking of walks on the beach with the puppies and taking the longboard out and kicking my feet in the cold pacific ocean.

I took a walk earlier around my neighborhood and I was overcome with this sadness. I have to leave this place soon, and I don't think I'm ready. It's become such a huge part of who I am. My experience here has changed me in ways that I never thought it would. It has damaged me in ways that I never thought it would as well, and I feel a great loss because of it. In a way though, the loss is balanced by the way that I am able to feel like I understand myself better, and I am able to understand the relationships that I've found myself in, and out of, over the years as being so important in the way that I view myself and my place in this crazy, fucked up world.

I've got stuff to do, but I'm not done here. Not yet.

Oh, this again...?

Hi. I can't sleep! It's exciting! I have to be up in less than 5 hours.

So about a week ago my friend and I were hanging out where all the college kids hang out, you know... at the college. We overheard that there was to be a great bus caravan to a special event at the local Target and that there would be free give-a-ways and a DJ and gift bags and killer discounts!

It was earlier this evening (um... last night?) from 10:30pm-midnight! So myself and 4 other single moms decided that we would crash their exclusive little Target party. We drove over there after having secured babysitters for our kids, with CAL ID's in hand (just in case,) ready to face not only age discrimination and requests for proof of ID, but also crowds of dorm kids with daddy's credit cards. GOOD FUN.

Anyway the free door handouts were full of CAFFEINE and we partook. Bad move for the 5 of us that have to wake up at like 6:30am to get our kids to school before we actually need to be in our classes. I hope my friends are having better luck falling asleep than I am =/

That said... I'm really not sure why they only offer this to the students that live in the dorms. I mean, here in the university village, which is literally on the other side of the train tracks from the Target, we could all really benefit from discounts on back to school supplies and stuff, I mean most of us are buying that stuff anyway for both us, and our kids! They could make so much more money if they invited us! And we're closer! They wouldn't even have to pay for charter busses to get us there!

So it was odd, and I am tired, but can't sleep.

Tomorrow is the last day of my first week of my second to last semester at UC Berkeley. I'm still blocked from registration, broke as hell, and both excited and scared.

Wish me luck kids. I think I'm going to need it.

Distractions

I love them... distractions. They are really so good for me. I have a midterm tomorrow. My son comes home next week.

So in the meantime I will be babysitting a lovely girl for the weekend, and for tonight I give you a poem. It's not mine really... a friend of mine on the old Livejournal.com linked to this person, and that's where the poem format came from.

Here's mine:

I am from microwave dinners, kraft and welfare.

I am from the the beach...wet, angry, sand between your toes.

I am from the waves, the orchids.

I am from alcoholism and those who can't reach, from richards and anns and nichols.

I am from the neurotic and forgiving. From "you're not good enough" and "follow your dreams."

I am from the Catholic, fallen, forgotten. From sinners and a lack of faith.

I'm from nowhere particular, fish and cocaine.

From uncle Jason logging in Alaska, aunt Donna throwing out my "slutty" clothes, and aunt Jackie covering for trips to the abortion clinic.

I am from the bottom of a black chest full of old shoes and an army flag, from old shoe boxes in the backs of closets from Michigan to Portland, and hidden away in drawers full of SOS tapes and newspaper clippings that no one wants to remember, but no one can forget.



So where are you from...?

Exciting Friday Nights...

I am babysitting a couple of Cal babies tonight so their mama can finally have a night out. It was lovely... they are sleeping now and I'm watching this weird film on IFC & it has a super adorable, very young Jake Gyllenhaal. Lovely & Amazing, it's called. It has very little, next to nothing, to do with Jake's character. It's about being a woman and how fucked up it is. It's complicated and I'm digging it.

Earlier we all ate pizza and soy beans and played video games and watched a movie and ate popcorn.

It made me miss Dasan even more... but he'll be home in 10 days. I can survive for 10 more days by borrowing other people's children.

I have a midterm and a presentation next week. Something like 4 more weeks of summer classes? Then a week off. I think that I only need 4 more classes to graduate. That means that I will be graduating on time. No matter what I do. That means that next May I'll be done here.

Watch Lovely & Amazing. It just keeps getting better.

So much!

If all goes well... I will be starting my last year at Berkeley in just a couple months. Is this a joke? Is this for real? What the hell is happening???

I'm currently in summer school. I'm without my son. I'm alone in my apartment, which finally feels like home, and for the first time in over a decade home means just me and my things. My homework. My reading assignments. My friends, that qualify as my new family. My open space. My space that is empty in ways that I could not have defined prior to my coming here.

I owe so many of you so much. I don't even know how to express what I feel when I think of what it took to get me here, to this point, so close to the finish line, so close to being able to never look back.

And still... there are these remnants of me. The me that dropped out of high school. The me that got caught up in a life that I will never forget. The me that will always know what it's like to come down, to be high, to feel as though all hope is lost. That me. The one that clawed her way out. The me that thinks "theory" of things like loss and love and hate and classism and racism and sexism and all of the other "isms" is just a pile of shit. How can I sit in these classes that try to theorize shit I've lived through?

I try to just find the balance. I'm sure I'm not alone. Clearly I'm not alone. I just feel like we all need to take a deep breath and a long nap.

I mean really, do you have a better suggestion...?

Finals already...?

I know. I'm a bad blog friend. I never say anything. I'm emotionally distant. Sorry! The first year is almost over and it turns out I'm not in very much of a hurry for my time here to be over. I'm also not so sure I want to be a lawyer... I think what I really want to do is to stick around and try to figure out what I really, really, really want. Which of course is to write, but I need a project. I want it to have something to do with madness and media and violence and pain and death. Because I am not the eternal optimist, and because man is that stuff interesting!

I am about to start writing an awful lot of stuff for finals... but I promise when I'm done I'll come back and talk about all the fun stuff!

Spring Break... hooray!

I know... it must feel like I have stopped writing here, but what has actually happened is I have been overwhelmed with the insane amount of reading that I have been assigned for this semester. It's nutty! It's good though... I feel like I'm learning a lot and it feels good. I feel like my understanding of not just the material, but life in general and even what I'm doing here is expanding in ways that I didn't realize. It's hard! But I'm getting there... I can't believe I am more than halfway through my first year at Berkeley. This summer I will start to study for the LSAT and less than a year from now I will be almost done. CRAZY!

I've been studying violence and trauma and it's hard. It makes every single thing that happens in real life seem more significant than it was before. It highlights the bad things in ways that I never acknowledged, but it also challenges me to really appreciate the good ones. And there are a lot of good things.

This experience continues to amaze me.

Oh, I already need a nap!

Today was brilliant! I will come back to that... but for right now, this very moment, while I am exhausted and longing for sleep... I would just like to pose this one question to you:

How is it possible that I have only just completed my first day of the new semester, and have only attended two of my four classes, and yet I am already behind in my reading assignments???

I mean, the things I'm reading are WONDERFUL, but for serious? If this keeps up I will surely go blind, deaf, dumb, and unable to parent in a matter of weeks. Usually it takes months for that to happen! What gives man?

I am all of a sudden terrified that I am not good enough, smart enough, or driven enough to do it... and those are all of the things that I usually console myself with. This is going to be a long 4-5 months.

Just sayin'.

January 20th, 2009

So that's tomorrow's date. It's a special one, and one that I have been waiting for for the last 8 years. Of course, what's amazing is that really we've been waiting for a day like tomorrow for our countries entire history. I'm grateful for the fact that I will be able to spend it on Sproul Plaza on the Berkeley campus watching with thousands of others as our new president takes the office. I'm not the most patriotic, and I'm not the biggest Obama fan around, but I can't tell you how happy I am to be able to say good riddance to Bush.

Plus... classes start! So that's exciting.

Every day that I am here, I love it more. I feel at home and it's pretty awesome :)

Oh... hey there!

So... it's been awhile. Finals came and went, and I survived a semester at Cal. It could have been better, but it could have been far worse and to be honest, people get a little irritated at my complaining when they find out what my grades were. Still though, it wasn't perfect and that's a problem for me.

Then I survived the holidays. And when I say that I survived, I mean really it was pretty horrible. So now I'm back in Berkeley and have said so long to OC (hopefully for a very long time) and my boy turned 10 and I am going to sit around for two weeks feeling old and lonely and getting a head start on spring semester reading.

It's going to be a good one, classes on theory and crime and violence and power and subjectivity. Sounds good to me!