Because of shitty roommate problems, I may suddenly be moving out of my house in Olympia by the end of the month and move to Portland sooner than expected, when I get back from Brazil. I still need to take summer classes, though, so I'm looking for any last-minute opportunities related to animals in the area.
I found a broad list of animal rescues in Oregon. Scrolling through it, there was one entry under exotic birds, a few for cats, blah blah, and then DOZENS for dogs. It started off like "dog rescue", "dogs for the deaf", "blind dogs rescue", then as I kept scrolling I saw rescues for specific breeds, like "chow chow rescue" and "dachshund rescue", then it combined the both like "deaf dane rescue" and "depressed dalmations lacking in spots rescue" (that one I made up, of course) and so forth. I was amazed that these places were so specialized but still managed to stay running, and most of them were in the Portland area. (Thinking about it, it's probably because these are common problems with the breeds or something.)
"They should have a center for dyslexic dogs," my dad said. " 'Krab! Krab!' 'No, it's bark bark!' 'Fruh! Fruh!' 'No no, ruf ruf!"
I have unfortunately begun to recognize signs that I have inherited his sense of humor.
Anyway, yeah, looks like I might move to Portland a bit early. The landlord keeps leaving us in these awkward, expensive positions just because he doesn't want to get involved in doing his job. He's a nice guy, but my roommates and I are at the point where we're thinking, "okay, if we don't find two roommates in the next two days for the open rooms, then we'll suck it up and pay the extra rent with all the money we poor college kids have to our name and then YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN, BUDDY, GOOD LUCK FILLING THIS HOUSE BECAUSE IT INVOLVES DOING LANDLORD-Y THINGS, GOD FOR-FREAKIN'-BID."
This involves living with my parents again for a short time after I'm back from Brazil, while I try to find a place in Portland. I love them, but I'll start to lose it if this time ends up stretching on, so I'm a bit anxious. Also because I don't know who I'm going to live with, and I'm reluctant to do the "move in with strangers I found on craigslist" things again. I've had amazing luck with that, but for all the good roommates I had, there have been two horrendous ones that cancel out all the goodness and more.
Also, as I was driving down from Olympia on Friday, my "check engine" light came on about halfway through the 100+ mile journey. After a bit my car began to do worrisome things. I was considering pulling over and checking things out, but had the feeling I wouldn't be able to start it again and decided to see how far I could get before my car started smoking or something. "Wouldn't it be shitty if my car broke down on the offramp by my house?" I thought. That offramp is at the bottom of a hill people tend to speed on, and the lane I would be in is the only lane that turns left. It's also a hot corner for bums, and 99.5% of the time there's at least one chilling there.
Naturally, as soon as I entered the offramp, my engine died. I coasted to the side as much as I could and didn't completely reach the bottom, and fortunately, there was no bum. Some dude helped me push it completely off the road and I waited for my dad, with two anxious cats stacked in the passenger seat wondering why the hell we stopped because they could sense we were ALMOST THERE WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON MEOW MEOW. We towed it to an auto shop, which of course had just closed and won't open again until Monday.
Ah well. All will make itself known in the next few days.
A few days ago I returned from a family vacation in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. This is not going to be the post that goes into detail about it, because I still have 600 pictures to go through. But I will talk about being back.
After being in Cambodia during the hottest time of the year, coming back and having it snow yesterday was unfamiliar and kind of annoying. I'd hoped that the lingering winter would have passed on in my absence. My pessimistic theory is that I'm getting all the show I wanted before college so that school would get canceled, and now that I actually have places to go and things to do, fate has decided to bless me with all the snow and keep me even more secluded up in my little forest house.
Speaking of houses, we finally kicked out our deadbeat loser roommate, and another one is moving out as well, so we have to find two people to move in by the end of the month. Since we've had the whole month, I was hoping we would have relatively easily found some people. I turned over the advertising responsibilities to the others and figured we'd have people when I returned. Of course, it's never that easy, and we still have to find two people in the next two days. Otherwise, the three of us have to cover an extra $650 of next month's rent. Boo. This situation actually happens pretty frequently, and we just barely manage to scrape by. I'm tired of it though, and while this house is pretty bitchin', it sucks a lot of energy and money out of me. I'm hoping to move to Portland after I finish summer classes, but I am itching to get out NOW RIGHT NOW. The dreamer in me is thinking "you could move out right now and live with your parents for the next month until you leave for Brazil, and when you get back you can find a place in Portland and maybe do a Portland-based independent contract for the summer to finish up your credits" but realistically this won't happen. I'm looking on Craigslist anyway.
Nik and I have been chatting about moving in together when I move to Portland. At first I was excited, but after a prolonged period of him being wishy-washy about it, which basically sums up our whole relationship (as delightful as it is), I put more thought into it and realized I'd probably get really frustrated with him. He's not being very proactive about his life (in my opinion -- but of course, it's his life), and while I know it's a big concern with him and he wants to figure out what to do with his future, there's so much he could be doing in the meantime. Even little things to do to help, like see a career advisor or something. I don't think I want to live with him until he works this out, because I already nag him enough about it, and it would be unfair to him and stressful for me.
So I have basically nothing to do for the next month until I leave again. I will dream of things to accomplish in this time after I've overcome jet lag.
I must make an entry. For at least the past month I've come here at least once a week and started to type up something, only to eventually lose interest and discard it. This time I hope to post it before I lose interest (the coffee should help), so it may be short.
I am having a great time studying art (and ASL) this quarter. Even in the writing class I mentioned last post. I still don't feel quite comfortable, but it's fairly laid back. For example, on Wednesday the teacher threatened to urinate on a student if he "fucked around" one more time, but no one seemed to mind. And we have assignments at the mall.
I'm really excited for next quarter. Well, first, the end of this one. I'm finishing a week early because my family and I are going on a trip to Vietnam for a couple weeks (with a brief visit to Cambodia and Thailand). Since we don't have an abundance of money right now but my parents had a strong hankering to travel, we're going through a reasonably-priced tour group that my mom's friend (who went on the very same tour) recommended. I'm a bit apprehensive about being such an obvious tourist in a huge, white American group wearing button-up shirts and neck scarves. Not that I haven't been an obvious tourist in previous travels, but it's usually been with just my family or with a group of obvious students. And any tour guides we had were private, local ones. I'm not too worried though, and still expect to have a fascinating, enjoyable time. It will be refreshing (I hope... maybe frustrating) to have such a structured schedule, with everything 100% planned out in advance and no worries about "We've been on this rickety boat with a bunch of chickens for two hours and have no idea where we're actually going since the driver speaks no English" (Peru, Amazon) and "Wait, do we actually have enough food? When is the next time we'll see a grocery store?" (South Africa) or "I was forced to wake up 6 hours early because I was told I was going to this temple but I've been sitting here waiting for the driver for 10--Oh, it was never actually scheduled?" (India).
Upon my return, I'll have a month before I leave for my study abroad trip to Brazil! Yaaay. I was getting a bit worried since I hadn't heard from Wildlands Studies about it. Did they remember I'd registered for it? Was it still happening? Finally, I got word that we couldn't go because the wet season arrived late to the Pantanal and it would suck really bad while we were there. SO WE'RE GOING TO THE AMAZON INSTEAD. I am inconceivably excited. I'd just been thinking how badly I want to go back there, since when my family went before, I was only 11-12 and didn't fully appreciate how remarkable the environment was. And this time I'll be there for SIX WEEKS(ish), thoroughly studying it, so I'd better fucking appreciate it.
Oh--Valentine's Day. I had class that day, so the day itself was pretty lame, but that evening I drove to Vancouver. Nik said he wanted to plan a surprise, but honestly, I didn't think he actually would. Last Valentine's Day we took a nap, and I gave him a mix CD I made for him. It was pretty lame. I don't really give a shit about celebrating the day, but as far as normal days go, it was really boring. This time, though, he followed through and made me fondue. (FYI, I love cheese.) There were also roses involved, and a cozy fire. Even a card. It was sweet. Hopefully he'll come up later today and visit for the weekend.
That's really all that's slightly-more-than-boring now. I guess that wasn't very "short". At least I didn't lose interest.
Due to the independent contract I'd been working out since last summer for this quarter suddenly falling through and me not becoming aware of it until after registration for Winter Quarter, I am an evening and weekend art student this quarter (+ ASL). But it's really exciting, and I now realize that I have missed art. Not that I ever really stopped while I was pursuing other studies, but I stayed mainly in my comfort zone and did not challenge myself very hard. I'm enjoying all my classes, basically, except I'm worried about my creative writing one.
It was basically the only class with room still available that didn't conflict with my other classes, and it sounded kiiiiiind of cool, although honestly, I had no idea what to expect and I'm terribly out of practice. However, since he emphasized "forgo any worry you have about your 'creative abilities'", I decided I might as well go for it. I've been writing less and less over the years, and I want to get back into it.
Unfortunately, I am not yet enjoying myself in that class. Part of it is now that I am immersed in a creative environment, I realize that the rigorous science writing I've been doing for the past few years has totally rewired my brain. Hopefully it isn't actually "rewiring" and is more "suppressing talents". Because--not to toot my own horn--I used to be pretty good at it, for my age at least. I definitely needed critique (or "guidance", or "restraint"), but I was compulsively expressive and it ended up being mostly good stuff.
It used to be the case that whatever I was reading at the time would influence how I wrote, and I would frequently adopt characteristics of the author. Perhaps once I start reading more narratives again rather than non-fiction and science writing, my brain will go "Oh yeah!" I'm sure I've lost a lot of what I used to have, but all I'm hoping for is at least a good starting point. Because right now, I got nothin'. I guess I should practice by writing in here more! Yay .... ?!
Other things limiting my enjoyment of the class are my peers. I am trying to be stay open and lighthearted, to have a good time while I'm learning/struggling, but far too many of my peers--NOT ALL OF THEM, for the record, but more than I'd like--are so damn serious, at least towards me. It's probably because I don't qualify to be in their Ostentatious Writers Club.
Why is it that pretentious writers are generally so much worse than other pretentious people, except for maybe Republicans? (Hah :P)
I hope I've just had bad luck with people these first two weeks. We'll see when I have class tomorrow.
