i should be studying.

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21 october 1997

6:36 p.m.

Dear diary, I know, I know, I've missed you too. It's been a hell of a week, and the week's still young. The worst has passed, thankfully... but one thing's for sure. I still think being in school is better for me than shredding lettuce at Subway, but I will never ever again say it's easier. I pulled an all-nighter on Sunday to finish an eight-page paper, realizing only after 4 o'clock in the morning that I'd forgotten to record all the information I needed for the citations. I had to scramble into Hamilton the moment they unlatched the doors, chase down my references (which, after a fit of panic, I discovered right where I'd left them) and figure out which articles I used and which I'd pulled just so I could pretend I knew what I was doing. I was then reduced to waiting twenty minutes for a Mac at the Keller labs to fix everything up, typing next to a man who seemed intent on checking out every student who had a web page on UHUNIX. By the time I finished I was late for class, so I slipped the paper under my prof's door -- braining myself on the handle for good measure. (It's mind-boggling to think how much of my college career has passed under assorted doors.) All this wouldn't be so bad if I hadn't pulled another all-nighter last Thursday for a ten-page paper in another class. And now, after re-reading what I turned in, I really think I should've gone with the "Mother of all Midterms" option instead. Are these complete sentences? I can't tell. I think I'm at that point where after you've had so little sleep, your body gives up trying to force you to crash. Brain function, however, is also long gone. I was so delirious this morning, I swore up and down it was Thursday. I didn't care that I couldn't remember Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday... my memory was never that great anyway. While I didn't give up my delusion 'til noon, at least I still ended up at the right classes. Well, except Hawaiian. `A`ole au i hele ho`i i ko`u papa `olelo Hawai`i... aue. I think I've missed ten classes so far, so there goes an A. I wonder how many more I can miss before I'll have to give up on a B? Twenty minutes just passed between the letter "B" and the question mark. I have no idea where I was, but I seem to have brought back the term "compound adjectival phrase." I don't know why. I need to sleep. Wake me when the ark is done. (No, I don't know what I mean either.) One more thing. I miss Jay. Frankly I think he's too much of a character to be gone from weblife for too long, but his ramblings were among my few regular stops on the net. Mostly because I wanted to see if he'd mentioned me. Now who's going to publically speculate about my sex life? One more thing. Some of Derek's coworkers want to go trick-o-treating this year, ostensibly (now where'd that word come from?) 'cause some of them have kids they'll have to be following around anyway. On one hand it sounds fun, and being out of the apartment will mean I won't have to sit in the dark and hide from assorted Waikiki revelers. On the other, I hated "grown-ups" who did it when I was a kid. They had the cars, the wine, the R-rated movies... They could have any fun they wanted. Why did they insist on taking what few joys in life kids were allowed to enjoy? What's worse, most of the teenagers that came to my mom's doors were desperately lazy. They'd have an eye patch or a sheet with two holes if we were lucky. I especially despised the ones who'd say, "See, I'm a college student!" One year when I was in high school, my mom and I bought a tin of Japanese individually-wrapped prunes especially for post-pubescent trick-or-treaters. Our pumpkin was stolen within an hour.