Sorry, this isn't the cheeriest of entries, but not much cheery goes on that I can talk about in a public journal these days. Feel free to ignore and skip on to the Round Table if that's not your thing.

Work goes great, everything else sucks. That was last quarter, that's going to be this quarter and the next. School started and I'm dreading having another hugely heavy workload that leaves me no time to enjoy anything in life. Last quarter I was a mean, snippy bitch on school time, let me tell you. One of my English profs called me about my grade and said that I'd had a chip on my shoulder. I said "That's nothing, you shoulda seen how I was to my design prof."

I meant to do more entries for here during break, but I spent the time recovering. I felt like I'd gotten my life back during that time (at least, I had time to have one), even if my break was all rushed just like everything else in my life. Now as of January 4, I'm owned by the design department, body and soul.

The class I have to take now and next quarter, which I have been dreading, is fabric dyeing. I had to do that last quarter, and just hated it, and I've been warned this class is "hell" and has an even worse workload than I had last quarter. And everything else I'm taking (history of costume design, fashion design) is also design, so that can't be too easy either. Even perhaps stupider of me, I'm seriously pondering taking an independent study class (only offered winter) in which I'd make a line of clothes for the April fashion show. It'd be a phenomenally cool opportunity, and I'll probably kick myself forever if I don't do it. On the other hand..even with the other three classes alone, I'll probably be miserable and stressed to the gills. Do I really want to make it worse on myself? I really don't know what to do.

And then there's my lack of a social life. I actually went out on New Year's with the old gang and realized they'd all gone on in their lives without me. I'm so damn stuck with schoolwork all the time I never go out, and I'd be willing to bet a million bucks that if I disappeared from the planet tomorrow, maybe one of my friends (who I e-mail a lot) would notice I was gone. The rest wouldn't notice for months. I hate that.

The majority of my closest friends all have SO's now and spend their time with them. It's like they don't need friends any more, in some ways. It doesn't help that two of them have SO's that I haven't met but from what I've heard, I don't think I approve of them. Not wanting to bond with your friend's SO really hurts your friendship. I'm not sure if I should just give up on the friendships or give up and meet and befriend the SO's because I'll probably lose my friends otherwise. It seems pretty mean of me to not want to give them a chance. One person, last time I checked (after this conversation I've tried to avoid the subject at every turn), said it was really important that previously-existing friends and new SO's become friends and get along. I just don't know what to say about it. I don't try to contact them much any more partly because of this and partly because they're soooo busy (presumably with dates). I didn't talk to one of them for a month (highly out of character for me) and he never noticed. I don't like having to be the one who has to do all the contacting--I'd like to feel wanted for a change instead of wanting. But them's the breaks: Single people lose their friends once the friends become coupled. It's practically a law.

In some ways, I feel like I've outgrown the people still left (dare I say it, the single folks). At New Year's, there was literally nothing to do but (a)drink till you puked (which a lot of people did) or (b)dance. When I was with my ex, he had friends who'd actually do things besides a and b at parties, and went interesting places, etc. I envied that he had friends who would do that, but the crowd I'm stuck with is too immature for that, and at any rate people living in suburbia don't exactly do funky, interesting things. I suspect I'd need to adopt an out-of-town crowd in Berkeley or SF or Santa Cruz if I want that kind of life, but living here and having classes that force me to stay at school working all weekend, every weekend prevents me from doing that.

Basically, I'm very frustrated with things as they are, but thanks to school, I can't do anything to try and change that as I'd like. I keep saying "It's only six more months of my life, it's only six more months to put up with this crap," but I can't imagine how much more fed up and cranky and miserable I may get by that point.

Oh well, at least I've found a new entertaining hobby to do in my "spare time."