I posted this to my livejournal earlier today, but decided to cross post it here as well. I miss updating this baby, and need to keep it up. Now that I have a somewhat productive life, hopefully I will have more to write about. Speaking of which, I've been itching to write a series of short stories. I've always attempted to write novels and never got very far, so I'm going to aim for a short story instead. A solid beginning, middle, and end. I need a spark to flow out some creativity, but I just read a great article on publishing and am going to dig around for some short stories to get some inspiration. It feels like it's been forever since I've written anything substantial and need to get some action going. I feel like a part of me is missing when I don't write. I used to do nothing but write and now I do everything but write.

Also a quick health update that I didn't include in my entry below. I went and got the biopsy done, which didn't hurt as much as I had feared, but still felt uncomfortable, weird, and a little bit painful. The results came back a little less than a week later (during which we suffered a tropical storm and went without power for three days, although on the plus side I got a lot of reading done) and showed that I had mostly type 3 pre-cancer cells, but because there were some type 2 cells mixed in there, I could choose to wait six months, and at that time get another colopscopy and go from there. She said it was a lot worse than she had thought, but because of the mix of type 2 and the fact that I am young, she has hopes that my body may heal itself in time. If I have progressed by February, we will have to take action, probably with Cyro, or LEEP, but at this point, while I am right at the threshold of cervical cancer, I have not yet crossed the line. This is both good and bad news, as I am worse than expected, but at least not so bad that I have to treat immediately, as that would be a huge burden on my school work, my body, my stress levels, and my bank account. I'm hoping my body will heal itself, and while the threat of cancer lingering over my head has made me make some life changes (quitting smoking - for the most part) I'm doing my best to push it out of my head and not worry about it until February. I'm hoping it's the right decision and I don't go back and find out that it's now full blown cancer and has spread, but I'm going to trust the doctor for now.

Anyway, here's the entry from my livejournal, just a quick update about school, a small rant, etc.

Getting into the swing of things now that school is back in session. The way I arranged my schedule is thankfully easy-going, so that even though I have four classes, I only have one class Monday and Wednesday and two classes Thursday and Friday. To be honest, I thought I was going to have a horrible time getting back into the student mind set, but I'm really enjoying it. I have always loved learning, and I'm glad that although I have abused and misuses my brain and mind these last few years, it isn't rusty enough to fail me yet. I'm enjoying the majority of my classes, and only one class in particular is really a drag to go to, but one out of four isn't bad. My favorite class is my Intro to Law class, which unfortunately only meets once a week for about three hours. My political science class is also interesting, although in a different way and for different reasons. It's more of a repeat of a few high school courses I've taken, but it is helpful in that it covers a lot of basic information that my other classes are also going through, and it offers up more class participation than any other class except maybe my Paralegal Ethics class. My Ethics class is also great. It's probably the class that I feel like I'm learning the most in so far. Everything is new to me in this class, and while my teacher can mumble a bit and be a little hard to understand, it's a close second for my favorite class because it seems to have the nicest, friendliest students. (I think they are all older, since it's a very specific class and is held at night, so it's aimed for working adults who are serious about school and know what they want to do.)
It is difficult to be around a lot of younger people. I've never gotten along with younger people, even when I was one, and so it can be extremely frustrating to have to listen to them talk, especially when they talk about their opinions or outlooks on things that they have no clue about. For example, I was in the library on Thursday in between a seminar at the school and my Ethics class. Two young kids behind me (probably just out of high school) were complaining about having to be in classes with "old" people, and said they couldn't understand why adults come back to school so late. They remarked that one girl in their class graduated all the way back in 2006 ("what's what, like 7 years ago?" they grumbled) and added that she must have been a bum since apparently the only think a person can do after high school is go to college or sit around eating hot pockets and begging for change. This not only made me feel old and bad about myself (I graduated in 2005, so I'm apparently even older, shitter, and more of a bum than this poor girl, whose probably only fault is that she made these two assholes feel stupid in class for knowing more than they did about life), but also made me wonder who the hell these people think they are? Not everyone knows what they want to do after high school, and of the ones that do know, not everyone can afford to go, or has parents that can pay their way. I wanted to turn around and let them know that those adults that are going back to class are improving themselves, which is a good thing, not something to be scoffed at. Not to mention a lot of these people are going back to school because the economy is so horrible that they have to either go to school or fear not being qualified to have another job, since the people with college degrees are stuck working the minimum wage jobs that the people who may only have diplomas, or nothing at all, usually work. Besides, what does it matter to these stupid kids if someone older than them is in their class? The only thing I can imagine is that it makes them feel stupid, or young, or intrudes on their image of college as a place of the movies. On a closing note, these kids are probably, what... 18? Shouldn't they be thrilled that they are surrounded by older woman, who are more experienced, can buy them alcohol, and maybe even have their own apartments? Even if they were at a regular college campus, they would still be surrounded by people in their early to late 20's. Most people don't graduate from a four year university until they are 22 or older. I don't think I've thought someone in their 20's was old since I was in single digits.
Oh well, the opinions of two, obviously simple young boys shouldn't sway me too much. I'm doing what's right for me and the people I care about, and the hell to anyone who thinks I'm too old, or have missed my chance and should go crawl under a rock and die and/or waitress for the rest of my life. These kids are missing the obvious opportunity presented to them of "older" woman. Although what they're really pissed off about is that he probably thought she was cute, and she won't give him the time of day because he's still a child. And if this didn't happen, I hope it does in the future, it would be terrific karma.

Along with school, I feel that Paul and I are finally, slowly, getting our adult lives in order. He has a great new job doing what he loves and that not only pays well, but promises to be a career for him and not just another job. Plus he is still working in the deli to make extra money enabling me to pare down my work hours to attend school full time and not get overwhelmed. If we really wanted to, we could probably afford out own apartment, or at least have the ability to share rent with someone, but we haven't decided if it's right for us to do just yet. Hopefully, after Paul's ticket is paid off and my doctors bills are squared away we can start to save again. At one point we had almost $800 stored away, but then I got sick and things had to be taken care of and that flew out the window. Now once again my doctors bills (and Paul's bad luck) are knocking at our wallets, but hopefully that will soon be taken care of.

I may have wasted a lot of time these last few years battling my addiction and my mental health problems, but now that I'm here and I know that I have worked and struggled, I know that I have accomplished something and am ridiculously grateful to be where I am. I may be "old" but no amount of school could have given me the life lessons and the wisdom that I gained through failure and suffering. I may have spent five years "wasting" my life, but those five years made me more grateful for contentness, comfort, safety, and security than anything else could have.