I’m from Jersey, bitch.

You know how you sometimes follow people in parking lots to try and steal their space when they leave? A girl tried that today with me. Just one problem with that. I routinely walk back and forth to the van dropping off and picking up books. This was one of those times. I indicated that I wasn’t going anywhere, and she circled the lot. Silly girl.

I was driving to county yesterday like I usually do. I know Route Ten like the back of my hand. I get on Route Ten by the Hess jughandle. The next light will always be green if I make that left, and the next light will always be red. The speed limit is 50, but your best bet is going around 35 until you move within firing range of the car in front of the cars in front of you, who will ALWAYS have their brake lights on by this point. And. Without fail, there’s always some jackass behind me who’s tailgating me. Naturally, given what time I was driving, it was a lot of traffic, so he couldn’t pass me. I also know that after that perpetually red light, a lot of people get off on Sussex Turnpike, which thins traffic as it goes up that hill.

As predicted, the truck tailgating me yesterday passed me as soon as it could, going up a hill that will usually bring me down to 35 MPH. Oh sure, I COULD maintain my speed, but the light at the top is usually red unless you go around 60. Which isn’t possible if there’s a car in front of you. Indulging myself, I flipped the guy off as he passed me. A nice public gesture of driving courtesy. Heh. People that know the roads know why we go slow sometimes, and don’t tailgate each other. And impatient people always deserve the finger.

The mood swing last night was odder than usual, but I think I can learn from it. That’s the important thing. Although it may seem hopeless at the time, I at least have the knowledge that things DO get better. Again, mood sags don’t last as long as they used to. Documentation does a lot for helping me repeat the process of getting over them.

Typically the reason I avoid schoolwork is because it seems like such a MOUNTAIN. One calc homework turns into FOUR LARGE PROBLEMS. But that’s nothing compared to the veritable mountain of spanish homework. I’m willing to bet I could talk myself into starting it a lot easier if I parsed out different things I had to do.

Similarly, if I start thinking about all my classes at once, I immediately block everything out. I remember what my Rapist asked me a year ago. She asked me what I would do different to do better in school. I remember saying, “Do everything at once.” Or something to that effect. She pointed out that’s exactly what I want not to do.

Delayed gratification doesn’t always work, because I fear I “won’t finish”, and then won’t get the corresponding gratification. Time blocking seemed to work okay at Rutgers. Saying to myself, “Here’s an hour or two, or even a half hour of time to do this, and if I don’t finish, or don’t feel like finishing, that’s okay.” Starting has the result of making me feel like I’ve done something. Which I have, after all. Starting means the hard part is over.

This morning, I considered bringing my calc book with me to my first class, in addition to the five-hundred pound page plus Windows XP book. I decided against it. Why? There’s something about walking back and forth to the van that I enjoy. It decompresses me. It gives me space between activities. Walking relaxes me. I could use the exercise, after all. This may sound like an odd good thing, but it also makes time go faster. If I have a lot of stuff to do, I try to relax, and look back at the time only to notice its the same time, I feel like I’m constantly doing work and STILL need a break. But if I’m doing calc and notice it’s an hour and a half later, I realize, “Wow, I’ve done a lot of work.” Passage of time is accomplishment.

It’s all how my mind looks at stuff and understanding how my mind looks at stuff. Exploiting the positives and augmenting the negatives into something useful.

I’m here now writing because I once again didn’t allocate enough time for sleep. Writing further distances me from the fact that I “just” had class, and talking about school gets me ready to actually do something about it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to parse some time to do calc homework for later today that I haven’t started.

(Nevermind that he said you could hand in all the homework before the exam. Oh. He earned instant credibility by saying you could re-hand-in your HW with corrections. Learning from your mistakes about the best tool there is.)