God, not another title. I'm out of ideas.

(NOTE: this post was originally entered on May 20, 2012.)

Fourteen class days left.  Four weeks to graduation.  Twenty-one days.  Twenty-five days until my last final exam.  An unfortunate biproduct of finishing off GEs at the last possible moment.

When I was thirteen I hurt my left knee playing soccer.  I did the whole physical therapy bit (and it sucked, of course) and ended up wearing a brace to bed every night until March 24, 2011 when I took a train from Edinburgh to London at the beginning of a three-week long trip through Greece and Romania and ended up forgetting my brace.  I left it under my pillow in Edinburgh.

But as it turns out, I didn’t need it those three weeks I was gone.  I just didn’t. 

I hadn’t worn my knee brace for 390 days. After leaving Edinburgh I put it inside my hollow purple ottoman and it stayed the ottoman at the foot of my bed all year after moving from San Diego back up to Santa Barbara.  I didn’t have to think about it often—the only other things I’ve got inside the ottoman are the serving spoons my grandmother gave me and extra mulled wine spices—but I always knew exactly where my knee brace was.

And last night I pulled it it out and put it on, and I hate myself a little bit for it.  I got up this morning (afternoon) and did the leg exercises I’m supposed to do something like three to five times a day, but I made this horrific, relieved noise when the brace closed over my knee last night before I could even stop myself and I can’t stop thinking about how much I hadn’t even realized it hurt until it suddenly only hurt half as much.

This is mostly just a melodramatic complaint about how difficult it is to take care of myself.  Food every five or so hours (it never ends!), laundry, exercise—the only enjoyable part of the upkeep are warm showers. 

The weather has lost its mind.

That's really the only explanation.  There is snow visible in the hills (when they're not obscured by massive grey clouds), the wind is literally whistling through the apartment, it's sunny with raindrops all over my windows, and there is a tumbleweed--an actual tumbleweed, guys--blowing across the parking lot. 

I'm kind of loving it.  Mostly because it's fun to watch while I'm snuggled up under my NHS blanket (the one the paramedics gave me when I blew up the kitchen) while I'm pretending to study for my exam.

Wow, scratch the sunshine bit.  It suddenly started pouring.  And there are people wearing shorts and hoodies sprinting across the parking lot.  hahahaha!

Monday (tomorrow) marks the official start of finals week, I think.  (If it didn't officially begin on Saturday, that is.  Dunno.)  I've got an exam on Tuesday, my last essay is due Wednesday, but hopefully it'll already (magically) be completed and I'll get to head home early.

It's sunny again, by the way.  And the rain has stopped.

Spring break is only a week this year, so by April 1 I'll be back up in Santa Barbara slogging through the first week of my last quarter (!!!!).  I'm teaching a writing class of my own creation on Friday afternoons called "Villains in Fiction," and I'm... sort of already freaking out a bit.  Mostly because when I'm supposed to do some kind of public speaking and I get nervous I talk too much.  Gaaaahhhh.

It'll be fine, though.  It's alllll going to be fiiine.

The sky is now completely clear.  I really don't understand how.