Update, and I made a friend!

Time for an update, me thinks.

School is crazy, work is crazy, bunny is crazy (fat)...

More? Okay fine. School is proving to be more of an emotional and mental challenge than I expected. I really anticipated a lot more of an intellectual challenge, but I didn't expect the ways in which it would make me question my capabilities. Part of that probably has to do with a bad professor who creates a ridiculous classroom hierarchy (there's eight of us, and there's one that she always uses as a go-to, thus making the rest of us feel completely inadequate), but I find myself questioning everything from my writing skills to my articulation skills to my social skills. I'm learning when to speak up against this sort of behavior, and when to keep quiet, and recognizing the consequences that calling out the department chair on being racist, classist, and yes, even sexist can have on me as a student and on my funding for next year. So often, I find myself being quiet when I want to stand up, only because this person is in charge of money. And without funding, I can't be here.

On the plus side: I got my work hours cut a bit (almost too much), and now my job is really just a teeny bit of extra pocket change. BUT, I made a friend. And for me, you have to understand, that's sort of a really big deal. I'm actually quite shy and it's really hard for me to make friends. I don't trust easily, and I give very little of my own emotion and my own story at first. But there's a subway right next door, and the woman who works there on Saturday nights, I'll call her Hot Subway Chick, is slowly winning over my trust. For some reason, I'm not all that shy around her (maybe it's because she's so incredibly flirty, that I find myself trying to at least look confident), and I find myself warming up to her more than I usually do to people after this short of a time knowing them. Saturday nights, we both close alone, and we take really good care of each other. We check in about once an hour when it gets dark, and she always takes her smoke breaks out front where I can keep an eye on her. At the end of the night, we take down the trash together, and wait until both cars start (because sometimes, hers doesn't) before we leave.

 (FUCK! I just had three more paragraphs, and somehow deleted them).

But it's nice to have a friend who isn't in my cohort, someone who I can talk to about something other than postmodernism or Derrida. I realized that since moving here, I hadn't met anyone. I guess that's why I really crave Hot Subway Chick's company; she's really my only friend out of my program.

Let's see, what else is there? Cowgirl is good...her work schedule changed drastically and we aren't able to talk at all during the day anymore, but we're managing. With my work schedule, it's impossible to see each other, but we're doing our best. It isn't always easy, but as she reminded me last night, this schedule won't be forever. We're starting to think a little more concretely about the future, where we want to live, what we want to do, that sort of thing. One thing is for sure...we both want out of small town Texas.

Oh! My bunny! She's sweet and fluffy and cuddly and growing enormously large. She was the size of a box of cigarettes when I got her...now, she's about eight times that size. We don't get as much snuggle time as we'd like, but she's learning to amuse herself.

I think that's a pretty good update for now. More to come when I'm not so crazy busy!

Oh wait! Before you go! Go check out my new guest blog at Card Carrying Lesbian! It's about Lady Gaga...from a queer, feminist perspective!