july

• actual fieldwork for my field notes!

june

• answers to the question "what else are you going to do in mount pearl?"
  • black mass
  • night gardening
  • eat plaster
  • softball game

may

• obsessively planning my fieldwork travel but not the actual fieldwork, just itinerizing every single day. and also planning all the groceries i'm gonna buy, it's gonna be a glow-up month for me since with the per diem i can actually afford good produce. i will be unrecognizable with all the vitamins in me
• at the eye doctor and hearing "wow this looks great and -- wait. huh. ok........." during my exam
  • so anyway yeah. iritis! spent half the month at eye appointments and putting steroids in my eye that made me unable to read, which was just super great timing since i was supposed to be finishing my lit review this month. but definitely one of those things where you get a little break and your body is like "ahhhh, wonderful, time to give in to all that stress-related inflammation we've been fighting while you had shit to do"
  • watched like 80 hours of dimension 20 because it was the only show that 1) it didn't really matter if i could see it, since mostly the action is happening in the ~theater of the mind~ and 2) didn't have fast cuts or bright effects that strained my eyes lmfao. and like what else was i gonna do when i couldn't read and was also extremely photosensitive so i couldn't like. go outside much
• my horoscope: may is YOUR MONTH, it will be a month where you can accomplish your dreams. everything is possible for you in may
  • me, lying on the couch in pain, vision blurry: yay

april

• at the dentist and she's like "ok yes this is TMD but i see very little evidence of grinding?" and the hygienist says "did you look at the insurance" and the dentist says "oh... grad student... you need to unclench your jaw" lmfao cannot believe i got diagnosed with grad student
• goodbye gathering for s :(
  • lovely time with some of my favorite people in the world, i am so lucky to be a part of this cohort
  • bum bada bum song???
  • s teaching us kurdish swears
  • "what department are you in"
  • "what is vigilante shit"
  • "i love walnuts"
  • listening to acadien and quebecois rap to hear the difference in dialect/accent
• nan's birthday
  • sooooo many relatives i haven't seen in 20+ years greeting me by name and i was just like "hey... you......"
  • they are all great tho i love them. the genes are just too strong tho and i can't tell anyone apart
  • baby j feeding me crackers
  • sneaking into the employees-only basement with my mom bc she snuck in there with my uncle the other day to look at the antique toaster
  • literally the coolest venue i've ever been in, what a spot
  • me and l frantically jamming buttons on the fancy keurig trying to get coffee made for some feral old ladies
  • my aunt to the two 95-year-old and 100-year-old guests: can i get you some sandwiches?
    • the response: oh no dear, we don't eat (???????)
  • baby c sticking his hand in the cake and then trying to share the icing on his hands with nan
  • i love family bc sometimes your fav relative can be your uncle's ex-wife's second husband who you just met. and all your actual relatives are like "oh yeah no he's great"
• thesis proposal presentation
  • definitely followed the old "bad dress rehearsal, good performance" rule, godddddd it was so bad and i got so anxious after that i had to 1) throw up 2) lie down on the floor 3) go to bed
  • but the actual day of was good!
    • s was so kind to me, she taught me some techniques that did wonders for my nervousness and she let me hole up in her office while i got ready and even insisted i take her chair bc it was the comfiest
    • coming back to my seat after i presented and d had left a little note there for me to welcome me back
    • afterparty part 1: legacy beer (which members of the faculty brew using the previous year's beer)
    • afterparty part 2: campus bar with some of the cohort ahead of us; absolutely incredible darts tournament (none of us knowing how to play well and just kinda trying to do trick shots with zero skill)
    • everyone's day started at 6 so i was at home on the couch by 8, lol
    • someone telling a story about getting bruised across the back of their thighs, me saying "wow i've never had that happen on both thighs at once," waking up literally the next day with giant bruises across the back of both thighs and no idea how they got there, aside from perhaps witchcraft

march

• easter at my nan's
  • getting to see my cousin's baby for the first time
  • my uncle telling a story about "scummy jim," my new favorite entry into the extensive unclesverse lore

february

• observation since leaving twitter: i am having a much nicer time getting quality attention over quantity
  • still gotta go there to see what the weatherman says about storms, though :(
• rewatching yuri on ice for pretty much the first time since i originally watched it back in 2017 or whenever; getting to introduce a new person to it (who loves figure skating so that is very fun)
  • "i forgot about the mortifying ordeal of [gestures at screen] whatever that is"
• e saying "you guys have LIVED" as j and i were reminiscing on our years of dirtbag depression travel in our early 20s (not to be confused with all the dirtbag depression travel i did in the years before and after that)
  • but it was cool to hear that and be like "yeah! i have in fact had a somewhat adventurous and happening life!" considering the like. however many years of just straight-up being mostly unable to function or sometimes leave the house or sometimes get out of bed. i got a little emotional at an art festival last year bc it felt like a glimpse of how my life could have shaken out if i hadn't had that long-ass breakdown period but rn i'm kinda like "ok well if you want to have had that life, have it now, and then you will have had that life in another 20 years and not have to be sad about it"
• glass bowl-making class with my bff
  • running out of time and just haphazardly gluing pieces on because we spent sooooo much time just looking at all the pieces of pretty glass
  • hers is beautiful!
  • mine is. well. i described it on the form we had to submit so it doesn't get mixed up after the kiln as "looks kinda like the sun setting on a sea of goth doritos"
    • but as we were doing this i was like "god i missed just being real goddamn awful at a new thing" like. it is so fun to be bad at something and just make a big ugly mess
  • anyway it was very fun and i would like to do more glass stuff, it was sooooo satisfying to break the glass with the big clampy boi

january

• road trip highs
  • the return of the dirtbag tableau
  • marfa... we were so upset at this point but also what a place
  • also alpine! only drove through but it was kind of a balm
  • arriving at k's to find the most soothing and relaxing atmosphere possible after a hellish few days
• road trip lows
  • wipers dying in the middle of a downpour
  • getting robbed :/
  • a million traffic jams
  • accidentally booking the wrong trailer in marfa and ending up in one the size of my goddamn 6' self
• befriending the cab driver but fearing for my life bc i sat in the backseat and he kept turning around to make eye contact while we talked. which was very nice and meaningful but also we kept veering over the lines
• grad school, semester 2
  • showing up to find a new guy in the class i (until now) only shared with my cohort and low-key panicking like "am i fictional. are we fictional. are our ratings so low they had to add a new character" until finding out he's from another program but wants to use geographical methods for his research lmfao
• the worst ibs flare i've had in years (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
• off my meds and i always forget that the worst side effect is not the mania or anything physical, it's dreaming vividly. hate to be aware of whatever's going on in my brain while i sleep. that's simply none of my business
  • most recent one was trying to do a heist in a fancy hotel in france but also it was some kind of weird dystopian post-apocalyptic future and somehow also tedious. like this should have been fun or scary but it was boring and i woke up tired, i hate dreaming
• the godforsaken boxspring is out of my room!!! instant mental health improvement 400%
• "i would so enjoy being stuck in an elevator with post malone" - my mother
  • to clarify she does not have intentions towards him, she just wants to hang out
• 100% on my first assignment of the year
• museum with my bff, befriending an archivist, an exhibit i was excited for but didn't love (but an exhibit i wasn't excited for and did love!), best sandwich i've had in a long long time
• running into m downtown about five minutes after wondering if i would see him while he's home!
• the absolute funniest comedy of errors trying to have dinner with some of my cohort, i don't know if i have ever laughed so hard (future self, when you read this and if you have forgotten what this refers to: l and j leaving for less than fifteen minutes and coming back to me and b crying with laughter in the laundry room in different clothes than we showed up in)