Bad Dream

I had an incredibly vivid nightmare last night. I don't even know why I remember it, because most nights I can't remember my dreams-- or even if I dreamed any. It is so disturbing, and the conflict is so real in my life, that I can't even bare to share it. This has always been one of my weaknesses; that I am pessimistic, and focus always on the negatives. Maybe that is why that dream seemed so realistic, because I subconsciously allowed it. Anyway, spring break is right around the bend, so I guess I'll just press onward, &as I LAUGH at all the drunk and hung over students today,I'll try to be a little more optimistic, to focus on the good things in life!

Adult or No?

This, my friends, is the event. I argued with my parents through e-mail correspondence tonight. They seem to think I am still a kid, and find it bitterly ironic that I want to be treated like an adult. In my case, I am on loans that they co-signed for school, but I will be the one paying back that $10,000, and every loan to follow. I borrow their old cars, always paying my own insurance. I pay my own bills-- telephone, credit cards, fees for participation in events. If I want to go out, it is all my own money, even in the case of travel, i.e. my trip to Georgia, or the loan that might take me to study in France in the future. And when I am home, I help out, cook, clean, spend hours with my brothers, and still try to abide by their strict curfews (sometimes as early as 10:30pm.) The curfew aspect is especially fun since I usually wait until after my brothers go to sleep to go out. (8pm-10:30pm being my evening outing time.) I feel like an adult. After all for my 18th birthday, with my college opp classes, I received 3 final exams, two bills due, and two important extra-curricular meetings all in the same day. Has anyone else had difficulty with the transition? Are you a kid or an adult in your parents eyes? And how does it make you feel?Me, I feel belittled... in the worst way.

Into quizzes? This one is a little different...

"Just three questions and the answers will surprise you."Do not look ahead, it will bias your answers. Read slowly & do each exercise as you read it. Get pencil and paper and write your answers as you go. You will need these at the end. 1. Put the following five animals in the order of your preference. Write down the animal names, not the letter.a. Cowb. Tigerc. Sheepd. Horsee. Pig2. Write one word that describes each of the following:DogCatRatCoffeeSea3. Think of someone (who also knows you and is important to you) that you can relate to the following colors. (Name just one person for each color.)YellowOrangeRedWhiteGreen(Stop.)Interpretation:1. This will define the priorites in your life.Cow=CareerTiger=PrideSheep=LoveHorse=FamilyPig=Money2. Your description of ... implies ...Dog... your own personalityCat... partner's personalityRat... enemy's personalityCoffee ... how you interpret sexSea... your own life3:Yellow- someone you will never forgetOrange- someone you consider your true friendRed- someone that you really loveWhite- your twin soulGreen- someon eyou will remember for the rest of your lifeThat's it. It was in an e-mail, and the concept boggles my mind. Let me know if you felt like your results were accurate!!

An original poem, modeled after my favorite by Emily Dickinson...

This is my letter to the friend, That often wrote to me--My words of praise for all you've done,And what you've helped me see.You are my inspirationYou taught me all I know;That bravery and likes and love,Will help me where I go.You have been strong and valientI know you deep inside;Your heart is pure, your soul, gold,You're the one in whom I confide.You are the meaning of compassion,For that let me thank you--You will succeed in life and love,I have faith in you!Written by: Melissa F. KaelinJune 2002Dedicated to compassionate friends.

"You are the dream that saved my life..."

I looked up the song "Never Thought" on the internet and it's not as good as I remember it to be, but the one line remains consatantly in my mind, teasing me. Yeah, I talk like I'm still one of the "dateless losers" that Reel Big Fish so accurately described in their hit album, "Cheer Up!" The irony is that I'm not dateless, though it feels like it. I haven't seen my man since we so strangely decided to hook up. Yeah, you know the one, Chris. It's as I told Court, I always date the weird ones. But the guy has some profound thoughts, believe it or not. But who knows what the future will bring for us. Besides, my French friend whom I've never met, but have chatted with for some 7 years online... He says that at least in France, it's perfectly ok to date someone you've met only once or twice-- a whole three times in Chris & I's case. Understand, Aurelien is wise, being older than me, French, and having smoked many more joints.Seriously, though, I am going to adamantly join in on March 5, Books not bombs day, because I think France has a point, America is blind, and war is hell. But that's conservative Missy transforming into liberal.I'm excited about spring break, but is it realistic. My mom says she would feel bad for me not having had any responses from potential employers, only if I had applied to 25 to 50 places by now. 25-50. I guess she set my goal. 25-50. Whoa.And what of me $10,000 in debt, working, and this loan being my own? She decided she would decide what grades I would get in school, how many credit hours I would take, even as I work a job, and then if she was not satisfied, she would not co-sign. All I need her co-sign for is my lack of credit history. And news flash to mom: many people want me to go to college. I could find a co-sign. Because apparently she would first have me drop out of school, then not be straight Dean's List. True, I owe it to myself, and am perfectly capable of doing that well, with some effort. It bothers me that she still sets my curfews when I'm at home too. For any of you who feel old.. I will be 20 this year!! True, it's not until December, but that is two decades! And Mother still runs my life.But it's ok, and I will respect her wishes, because I love her, and she's really the best Mom anyone could ever have. I came to a startling realization after a frappochino and work tonight that I missed pages of LJ by not checking over the weekend. And still, I'm having trouble adding Antoine to my Friend's List! Anyway, I guess I'm just trying to catch up. My roomies probably loathe me because I'm still awake. The light is dim and only in my corner, but neither of them are sleeping very still-- and Steph just murmured something in her sleep. This may be an old school laptop by the way, but thank God it's keys are so relatively quiet!So back to the subject, I guess I am an idealist. I want a dream to save my life right now. Spring break will be a blast, though too short, and I could constantly type my mood as LISTLESS, just because I feel like something is definitely missing in my life.

"A real friend is someone who walks in when the rest of the world walks out."

I have this awesome professor, Kenneth Alrutz. He teaches my modern American lit class. What of it? Well, today in class he asked each of 60 students an important question. Then he listened to every answer, and related them to a story about returning home after college. The question... In what ways have you changed since you came to college??? On a sheet of paper write one way that you have changed for the better, and then one way you have changed for the worse. The hardest part of answering the question was limiting each side to one predominant change. Unfortunately my list of changes for the worse was way longer than for those for the better. But this is what I wrote... Positive: I know myself much better. I've discovered what I stand for, and I've embraced my true self. I've taken time out for me-- something I never did in high school, especially coming from a big family by today's standards. Negative: I get depressed more easily. I float around in many circles of friends and I don't know any one person extremely well, so I don't know who to turn to when I'm distressed. Other students listed procrastination, growing closer to or further from their families, keeping an open mind, learning to party, becoming less selfless, or too serious. In response to the guy who never talked to his mom, the prof said "Call your mother!" (Every week!) In response to my getting to know myself, he asked, "Do you like yourself?" I replied, "Yeah, we get along pretty well." I guess my problem is that after leaving a close knit circle of friends in high school, I feel as if the rest of the world has walked out. But the good news is that especially this semester, I have grown closer to many people-- many of you are reading this right now, & you have no idea how much that means to me! Of course, some of my optimism came out of a relationship with this guy, Chris --not Vincent! And who doesn't feel better after a feisty game of "You don't know Jack!" But strangely enough, it's the friendships I have that I am really thinking about at 4am on a Saturday! I love you guys! And I mean that.

So I'm Blue

You are blue. You are somewhat innocent, in the fact that your genius only extends to the physical world. You have a false sense of contentness. You are usually the quiet one, the genius. Everyone can count on you to help when they have problems, but you only fall short of being able to solve your own. What inner color are you? </P

Hueston Woods!

So there is one reason above all else that I chose to go to Miami University. That is nature! I LOVE it! And here, it's everywhere! There is nowhere else on earth that I feel so alive and in touch with my inner being than in nature. One of the requirements for any school I would choose was that there must be beaucoup land area of forest or natural park, a place where I could go to get away. So when the weather warms up, probably after spring break, I want to try to get out to Hueston Woods to hike-- one of my favorite pastimes. Two things, one is I don't have a car to take me that 5 miles, and the other is that this is a pastime spent better with friends-- going with a few friends from our corridor would be a blast! Anyone up for it? Let me know! I can't wait to see Oxford's forests in full bloom!!!

IS ANYONE GOING TO THE BSKTBALL GAME TONIGHT???

I haven't even been to a basketball game here, but this instructor from high school who is also a good friend of mine said he better see me at one of the games. So is anyone going? I'd love to join you guys if you are. Until the earlier LJ post, I didn't even know when the next game was. Post me one!

Imagine...

I absolutely love writing, and the book I am writing all my personal thoughts in now has this word scripted across the front cover in blue against a fiery orange and red background, with green wisps throughout the art. The book is one of an entire series by Flavia... the last one I finished was entitled "Dreams."So I have decided, in the spirit of writing & getting to know myself, to try to "Imagine" something every few weeks along my journey. I gave it a shot a moment ago.Imagine... imagine having a loving relationship on the most casual of terms, where you & he are almost like best friends, and you know each other so well that very little hurts you; a relationship where you can chat and hang out, and lie beside each other with your clothes on, in the same bed; a relationship where nothing physical or sexual is jumped into & getting to know one another is enough for both of you; a dating relationship where you go out to dinner, spend weekends in each others' company, go on roadtrips and group getaways together; a relationship where problematic labels like boyfriend or girlfriend are only a compassionate way to address each other.

"...the sexiest mother fucker to ever grace the earth with his presence."

I never meet a guy without some strange circumstances surrounding it. I was looking back at some of my written diary entries, wondering what I could share with my LJ friends, when I came across this quote. I met an interesting guy when I visited a friend, who is married to a military man & living off the base in Savannah, GA. The trip is a story in itself-- as crazy as any of my stories. (It was a week of my winter break.) But I met this patriotic wonder first at the New Year's Eve party, and again when he visited us the next morning. I was so hung over & ultimately mellow, that I went outside to get away from the sounds of the TV, and anything else making noise. It was like spring in Georgia, so I laid down leaning my head against the trunk of a huge tree, I buried myself in leaves, and I went to sleep with my iced tea right beside me.This guy asked me if I was ok, only to comment that I would probably be eaten by fire ants if I laid in the leaves like that any longer. Then later, I realized he had been teasing my married friend, trying to tempt her to have an affair. I thought I'd get his mind off her and try to seduce him, but before talking with him for long, this girl told me not to flirt with him. Though married, she had eyes for him and it would hurt her if I messed around with him. Excuse me! Who was the single one? She had no right. And it really pissed me off, but I was there to support her, so I tried to let it go.Frank Curby-- can you believe his name?! He wasn't worth it anyway. The guy turned out to be a total asshole & his head was stuck far up his ass too. My friend's husband commented to me though, that this friend of his was "the sexiest mother fucker to ever grace the earth with his presence." Yeah, he was so sexy he probably had sex with the other military men every night! No woman in her right mind was giving him any. I'm definitely glad Vincent isn't anything like this guy. He's a strong person, but he has a good heart too.

Your heart is free; have the courage to follow it.

So there's this guy in my life now... And you're thinking, no way! Missy has a guy? I know!! Me too. His name is Vincent. And he is soooo sweet. I don't even know where it came from, because when I met him I was like "Whoa! I dig him," but he didn't exactly come off as sweet. Casual, rugged, sexy, sure, but not sweet. That's the thing with guys, when it's just you and him, he transforms into this love & sex diva, but you never see it coming. He told me how he felt about me, and it was deep. So he was like "Sorry... I hope you're not weirded out." I told him, "I know what weirded out feels like, and this is not it." A few minutes later, he asked me what it was, if it wasn't weirded out. I didn't know.He didn't know either. But we only talked for like, an hour or two, and we were definitely going strong when we had to split. He is awesome beyond all reason. And I've only known him for like a week. I'll have to visit him when I'm home though, because he is definitely not a Miamian, never comes to campus either-- so it may be the only way to bridge the distance."A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out."

No individual snowflake ever felt responsible for an avalanche.

This has been one crazy week. I'm disappointed that I couldn't get a ticket to the Vagina Monologues, not meaning to mention that I was extremely unproductive during the week. But there's another element in my life that has helped me make it to the weekend. It's just awesome to talk to people and get a little encouragement. And it was great--though exhausting-- to hang out with the guys on Tuesday for that bizarre flight. Between that all-nighter and an all-nighter in the classic sense, I am still tired. Of course, being up at 2am may have something to do with it. Blame it on the frappochino. Hopefully the weekend will bring some rest, some studying, and some fun, so that I can conquer next week with a vengeance. Because I may find some cool plans for next weekend, and the weekend after that takes us to Spring Break!!!

LJ Help

None of this is all that important.. but I am obsessed with Supernova style on LJ, and I can't read the text in it! Any reccomendations? Which one of those color schemes reads well and looks good? And for any computer/LJ gurus, I don't think I was successful in loading Vision Client or whatever. My comp is old school, Win 95, but are there any tricks to getting it to work that I should know about? btw, I'm definitely lazy on this slow computer, and I plan to neglect to spell check. Hope that's not a pet peeve to any of you.

Prospective LJ Addict

Those of you who know me well know me as a writer. I'm not very public with my writing, but even in the past 6 years I have finished some 10 books, cover to cover, full of introspective reflections and struggles I've faced. They've been many. Anyway, the point is I have potential to become an addict. I'll wonder the streets of Oxford at night, insomniac as I am, searching indefinitely for anonymous clubs and therapy. I tend to be long-winded... oh, the shame! So please excuse me. On the other hand, I am still very unfamiliar with the program.More later... something interesting perhaps. 1-West rules all of middle earth! That is, I had no idea we had such a strong network of sharing feelings & writing. You guys are the best!

The Grande Brigade

It was already 11:30pm, on a Tuesday night no less, and there was a party in Eva's room. Her friend Chris asked me earlier if I wanted to take a flight with he and some people in his personal aeroplane. I couldn't pass it up. So to try to make this long story short... Two Chris guys, Grande, and I drove out to Oxford airport, although it took us a half hour and a phone call to find the car we were taking from Ditmer. Chris spent another time wave trying to start his plane, but we finally plugged it in via extension cord to get it running. We left Chris, II, to pull the cord out of the plane, but he took his time and was almost blown away by the instant wind factor. Then we took off. We flew to Dayton, but couldn't land, and flew back to Oxford. That's when my motion sickness kicked in. Chris, II, watched for the runway but visibility sucked, and he finally shouted, there it went! (Or something of that nature.) So we flew around a little more and ended up landing in Hamilton, somewhere around 2:00 in the morning. The runway wasn't plowed, so the plane got stuck in a snow drift. We pushed it out of the snow and down the runway. Then we quickly parked it and tried to get in to Hamilton airport, which was closed. It's too bad Grande tried to open the revolving door, because he broke it! So we jumped a few fences and began our multi-mile hike down who knows what road, past the powerlines that sounded loud enough to electrocute us all. We had all we needed to survive though. Even as I was without socks, and Grande and Chris, II, had only hoodies on, we saw a little Bible study bonfire setting on one side of the road, a lumber yard on the other, and enough power plant to start a fire.We crossed the railroad tracks to the sound of a train, then spread ourselves shoulder to shoulder across the highway-- just walking. We tried to thumb down a guy in a silver porsche, maybe... He swerved in our direction then drunkenly continued down the road, only to smash into a pole a quarter mile down the road. How do we know? We didn't see it happen, but after standing dead center in a four lane intersection, and hiking down a random road, we were picked up by the cops. "Excuse me, we got a report of four Hispanics flagging down traffic.." So, we got into the cop cars that had searched us out, just in time to overhear the reports of a guy in a silver car that plowed into a pole. It was nice of him to miss us at least. Let's not forget the drunken lunatic who on sight of us sounded his horn down the entire remainder of the road! So, here we were, 4 Hispanics, in 2 cop cars, and they pulled up all of our driving records. We were terribly suspicious, with the guys' infamous court histories and bad driving records, and my being listed as M for male on my license. (I had you fooled, didn't I?!?!) Not meaning to mention they wanted to know where we got the plane, etc. Chris had left his pilot license in the plane which was still stranded at the airport, so ours seemed a very likely story.We call a cab, a 50 dollar cab, and wait at a UDF, where the women won't sell us beer because it wasn't quite 5:30am yet. The cab picks us up, tries to tell Chris exactly how to drive a plane-- and he definitely had no idea what he was talking about. Then he continued to ask us if we did all this shit on a normal basis. As the cabby tried to take us back back to lock up the plane, the train on the tracks came to a stop, with an ambulance on one side, and a silver car on the other, accompanied by emergency vehicles. Did the car hit the train? Or the train hit the car? And what of the pole? The question remains... but that could have been all our asses!!! We finally get back, keep poor Eva awake for a while-- as she was writing her lab paper; then randomly spray Chris's crotch with Febreeze, then Grande's, then mine-- and repeat as needed. I walk into the bathroom to brush my teeth before taking a short nap in time to go to my 8:00 class. The entire corridor is in the bathroom, so I ask what time it is, and they tell me it's 7:30am. So our crew sat around in Eva's room until we all gave in to either attending class or sleep. The guys came up with our ingenious Hispanic gang name, for our short comrade who goes by Grande, and who busted the revolving door; The Grande Brigade.

First day

Yeah, Collins Hall!!! Live from Miami University, this is Missy. I have a lot of work ot do on this journal, including updating my friends list, but I already have plans for tonight. Somehow, I am going ot work my late shift at the deli, then go flying in Chris's personal plane, and after that finish a novel-- that is, read it, cover to cover. This should prove to be an interesting night. I love that we had a ton of snow this weekend-- 6 foot drifts in my front yard! And I definitely got down with my little guys to tunnel through the snow when I went home. Those handsome twin brothers of mine turn 5 years old on Wednesday! It's very exciting.