I am going to DIE next week.  And I'm not doing aaaanything about it.

Thursday, I should have stayed home and done work.  But there was first a meeting about study abroad that was absolutely useless to me, since I'm totally sold on studying abroad but can't choose where (however, it offered homemade cupcakes) and then a Chi O mixer at Phi Psi.  I lied to myself and said I could come back and do work, but obv there's no way I'm going to be comfortable talking to a ton of unknown boys with my normal socially anxious, overthinking self breathing down my neck.  So I drank enough, all dressed up with pretty names and mixers by Neel (the cool quizbowler sophomore) and then Andrew (more on him later), to feel noticeably fuzzy in the head, which was a first.  Dunno how I feel about that really...it is what it is.  And there were Ivan the amazing swing dancer and Charlton the hilarious kid from my 1st quarter Chinese class and Andrew (hang on) to talk to, and Chi O girls to do crazy things with, and yet I spent the ENTIRE TIME talking to this one junior who was one of those "nice, but..." guys, dammit.  And after that I just went to bed, because...

Friday, I had to be up at 7:30 am to catch a bus to Nowheresville, CA (didn't know those existed in a place as exciting as California, but there ya go) to paint The Endless Fence with a few other Roble kids (and 30 other non-Roble non-kids).  (In reality, I woke up quite abruptly at 6 am and couldn't fall back asleep for the life of me.)  It was erected for the purpose of protecting burrowing owl nesting grounds, or something like that, but I personally can't tell one jot of difference between the field on one side of it and on the other.  Anyways, about all the new paint job seemed to be good for was covering up the bird droppings that had collected on the identically gray previous paint, but it wasn't my job to critique, just slap and swipe.  The experience wasn't so bad for all that; rather scarily, I think I could be pretty happy as a menial laborer.  The mindless repetition is kind of soothing, and you get a concrete sense of accomplishment when you snap back into reality every so often and see how much ground you've covered.  I got back to campus from that around 1 and lost the remaining time before bio lecture to Internet timesuck and one of my pints of Ben and Jerry's, instead of: 1) showering off the paint flecks scattered Pollock-style across my person 2) exercising 3) studying or 4) SLEEPING.  (Although I did get 1 major thing accomplished: dodging 2nd date with grad student.  Phew.)  To make up for that, my brain decided it was time to shut off precisely when I settled into my seat for 2 hours of anecdotes possibly relevant to the biology of human behavior.  I woke up only during the 5-minute bathroom break in the middle.  Ok, I thought as I biked back to Roble, if I'm in the sleeping mood I might as well try to take advantage of it.  30 minutes of tossing and turning later, I got out of bed to (finally) shower and prep for big sis BBQ, having reaffirmed that the only place I can sleep in the Stanford bubble is class.  The BBQ was kinda short on food, but my big sis is Roxy, whom I already know and like, and I found out I'm having a mystery adventure all day tomorrow.  Super awesome (except I'm missing my 3rd Saturday practice for ballroom dance team in a row after only attending 1...being a n00b AND a never-show probably = not being a member. Which is fair.  But I do actually want to do it, and I don't want to look lazy and uncommitted to the other members.  Che Chao and Victor in particular...more later mayhaps?).  I got back planning to make some progress on my unholy workload before possibly partying with Dawn later, but then Kintu says that his date for Screw Your Roommate stood him up, and one of the buses still hadn't left yet so we could still go.  And it's his birthday and it's become a recurring theme lately for me to beg off on movie-watching and such because of looming work, so I went.  Another one of those things that it's totally plausible for just-friends to do together...and yet...  When Lilly and Karis are asking what's up with me and Kintu because of how much he's coming by my room, going on a "date" with him just adds to the pile.  And no.  I'm so done with dormcest, and possible serious endangerment of my tiny social circle, plus he's just...Kintu.  He's like my brother, to absolutely reek of cliche.  No.

Aaaanyways we did go-karting and a bit of arcade gaming, then came back and actually got prelim draw stuff settled.  Although our draw group is weirdly reminiscent of prom of a year ago the way it has suddenly ballooned at the last second to include people I barely know, without my knowledge or permission, and I just have to swallow the situation and the accompanying drawbacks (higher draw number/fewer options, higher probability of being split up and put either with literally random roommates throughout the house or in diff houses altogether) or seem like a raging, unfriendly bitch.  *Sigh* ohhh well.  We'll default into Toyon and everything will be peachy. *crosses fingers*  Then Kintu, Cecilia, Kyle, and I headed over to FloMo to see what the ever-inventive Dawn was up to: going back to Old Chem with some stencils and spray paint to "leave her mark."  We got her to stick around for a few rounds of card games and charades but couldn't dissuade her from her one-woman stealth mission completely.  I hope she's not stuck half-in half-out of the death hole as I type...:(  Awesome girl, but definitely a bit of a crazy one.  We have tentative plans for tomorrow to party-hop between the frickin 3 frat parties all going down simultaneously (and that's after ANOTHER Chi O mixer for me, though I might skip).  I wanted badly to attend the big swing dance extravaganza, but that's not like classes and would be completely pathetic without a partner.  Meh.  Next year?  Swing classes over the summer?

AAARGH argh argh!!!  As soon as Paul is neutralized, the nebulous form of a Kintu issue starts to coalesce, and I monopolize my night with random Phi Psi juniors, and all the while I've contracted a raging case of yellow fever and all I--me, the main character in this tale who feels like maybe it'd be nice if sometimes something could happen to her that she actually WANTED to happen--want is to somehow get either Andrew or Victor to notice me.  Unfortunately, with all this stupid drama I still haven't the faintest idea how to purposely attract attention.  Second unfortunately, although both of them and their adorable faces and their hilariousness (Andrew)/incredible niceness (Victor) make me melt, getting involved with either of them is logistically impossible. 

Andrew Chou is one of those cocksure, mocking guys that Janice hates (yet flirts effortlessly with) and I find screamingly funny (yet impossible to talk to).  Damn Janice, she HAS a boyfriend.  Perhaps that's why she feels secure to shriek when he says something obscene and then engage in an insult and splashing battle and run around the fountain after him (I sat there on the side of the fountain, pretending to be engrossed in my bio reading, for lack of anything to contribute to the scenario)?  It's telling and annoying that the one thing he said to me besides requests for drink orders was "where's Janice?" (A: at prom, with the boyfriend.)  But even if I could clear the first hurdle and get friendly with him, it's probably like not even cosmically allowed, because he was frickin Jared's friend first (he's another acapella-head (amazing voice...)).  Conditions of our Facebook friendship: known through Jared F. Brewer.  Reason he came over to where we were sitting by the fountain in the first place: presence of Jared F. Brewer.

...Verboten.

...I hate hate HATE this ex shit.

Victor Chen took me under his wing at the first (and only :(((( ) ballroom practice I attended and basically gave me a half-hour private lesson.  He gave me a lot of excellent tips and compliments I highly doubt I deserved because I was tripping all over myself and forgetting everything and in sum just a n00b-y mess.  He's in both of the classes I'm taking this quarter (jive and tango), which is kind of strange because they're both "beginner" while he has ridiculously amazing form, and he always makes a point to wave hello and goodbye and to act pleased when it's his turn in the rotation to dance with me.  But but but.  If anyone really on the dance team knows me at all, they know I'm there following Jen's lead.  And what has Jen done but gotten herself involved with one of the veteran members, the 29-year-old Che Chao?  Going after Victor would make it look like I only joined SBDT because I thought it was a route to picking up older Asian men, which reflects badly not just on me but on Jen.  (And on a practical note, although he looks younger than Che Chao, for all I know he could be 35 and married...some of the members have freaking gray hair.)

...Verboten.

Umm, shoot, I have to be in front of the Tresidder bollards in 4 hours.  Tres bien.