Rough Night

If last weekend was a high point of my time here, this weekend has definitely started as a bit of a low. Last week was catch-up week. Midterms were over, but I still had a month old Quantum Mechanics homework to turn in an a looming assignment in E&M. Plus, I had shirked my grading responsibilities on Sunday to go out with Sarah.

Monday and Tuesday were pretty rough. I tried to get a little Quantum done, but ended up spending all my time grading the thirty lab books sitting on my shelf and trying to prepare for the class I teach on Tuesdays and Wednesday. Things came together alright, but I was staying up until 2 or 3 every night and growing more exhausted as the days passed. Yoga helped, but when it came time to finish the Quantum on Wednesday I still had four of seven problems left. Somehow I squeaked out three and handed it in, leaving a difficult cylindrical Bessel problem untouched.

Thursday and Friday were much the same, except with E&M. This time, we only had three problems to do, but one was a difficult one out of Jackson. I pretty much spent mornings this week in a haze in class, thinking about Sarah and trying to make sense out of the lectures. In the evenings, I did homework and, a couple of times, smoked to help me fall asleep.

On the up side, Sarah and I had another date on Thursday afternoon. She wouldn’t have much time this weekend, she said, because her adviser was finally returning to campus and she had a lot of work to do. Anyway, we met for coffee at Starbucks, then walked around and finally made out a little bit in the zen garden behind the East West center. I was a bit hesitant to get things going this time, especially after what happened with the first Sarah. Plus, I tried to kiss her at another spot, but she sort of said no (because she’s shy about pda’s). So yeah, I was happy when she asked me to make out this time.

Friday came, and I knew she would be busy, but I was still hoping she’d show up at TG’s. I got high with Clay, then rode my bike over. Brilliantly, I had showered, but totally forgot to brush my teeth or floss or anything, so out of paranoia I rode back home and touched myself up. When I finally got to TGs, there was no sign of Sarah, but most of the physics guys were hanging out. I had a couple of beers with Jake as we tried to get Jeong-Wan to drink too much and say something funny. After about thirty minutes though, Sarah appeared in the crowd, standing next to this tall blonde guy that I assumed was her adviser.

“Dude, you should probably go talk to her.”

I was trying to hold off a little, I explained, so I didn’t seem over-eager. But hey, maybe he was right?

I snuck over and scooched my way past the beer line and sort of popped up next to Sarah!

“Hey!” I said, interrupting a conversation she was having with another guy. That was probably my first mistake. We chatted a bit, but there were a whole bunch of other geophysics guys hanging around chatting with us too (including her office mate, John). I felt sort of like a third wheel, so I eventually ducked out and went back to talk to Jake. Predictably, Elan wanted to head off to the stream to smoke some more, so he, Jake, and I roamed over there and chill for a bit.

When we came back to TGs, it seemed like everybody would be gone, but there was still a decent crowd outside. Jake and Elan went up to use the bathroom, but I roamed over and found Lydia and Sarah and some people still over there! “Hey!” I said, happy to see everybody. They might have said hi or something – I don’t remember that well – but then everybody sort of agreed to leave and roamed off without even saying goodbye to me. It was surreal and I was totally crushed afterward. Maybe I was being a bit weird (and smoking before hand wasn’t such a good idea), but the farewell was still really cold.

I walked back up to the building, sulking like a little kid who’s just had his lunch box stolen, and told the other guys that everybody left. Of course, I always try to put on a good face, so I didn’t say anything about what happened. Jake and I chilled and watched Aqua Teen and Venture Brothers in the office while Elan watched the movie across the hall. Then I biked home and look for munchies. It was only about 8 p.m., but I ate some ice cream and almost immediately passed out.

When I woke up, I felt horrible. My head hurt (from the beer), my stomach was a mess, and my emotions were all over the place. I shielded my eyes and walked to the bathroom to drink some water, then tried to get back to sleep. Two hours went by, and I was still lying awake. Finally, I went to the bathroom to puke and I felt a little better after emptying my stomach out.

I went back to bed, surfed the web a bit, and finally got to sleep. In my dreams, my mom threw a surprise birthday party for me and all my old friends came. It made no sense because it’s October right now, but somehow I woke up feeling happier.

Now I’m in the office, chilling, writing, and planning on going hiking in a bit. Hopefully today will end up a bit better than yesterday. I think I might have been a bit of a jerk at TGs, but I’m really not sure. There’s nothing much I can do about it now. Ah well, so it goes.