Aches and pains

I really wish I wrote more often, but  1) I can't find the time, or 2) I don't know what to write about. I'm not a particularly great storyteller, you see.

But what the hell, I decided I should write SOMETHING. The title of the blog has the word "babbles" in it, for crying out loud. I don't have to write flowery prose to keep my blog alive.

Maybe it's because it's senior year, or maybe it's because I'm suscpetible to extreme amounts of stress to the point that I make my hormones sabotage my body, but I've been going through more aches and pains than I ever have in my life. I think I've set a new personal record on this thing.

Symptoms have usually included:

1) Cold symptoms

I don't have a cold anymore since the "Back-to-school-everyone-is-sick" season is over, but I do run across mild symptoms frequently, such as blocked nasal cavity, runny eyes (and nose), or a parched throat that only a gallon of orange juice can quench.

2) Pain in the back of my head

AKA "뒷골 댕긴다" in Korean (how many of my blog readers know Korean? Anybody?)
It's the persistent pain in the area where your head ends and the neck begins. I'm not sure about other cultures, but it's a very common somatic symptom among Koreans under extreme stress (and I have also discovered, lack of sleep).

Sometimes old people temporarily faint from too much pain in the back of their heads when they receive shocking news or rage too much, according to word of mouth and K-dramas. Hopefully I don't keel over like that any time soon.

3) Digestive problems

Usually involves eating something wrong (I don't know how) and feeling nauseous for the rest of the day. It is most irritating when you feel like throwing up the entire day but you never do.

4) Sleep paralysis

The most annoying (and creepy) out of my aches and pains, this happens my sleep cycle is destroyed.

First, I feel a strange ringing vibration at the back of my skull, and then I feel as if I'm floating on air. I know that I'm not actually floating, but the sensation feels so very real, you almost swear that you are floating in reality.

Apparently, when you're in sleep paralysis, your mind is conscious but your brain is in REM mode, which creates this hyper-realistic feeling. And it's true; even though I know I'm dreaming, everything seems so real. I can see my room clearly as if I was physically awake. I can touch my pillow or blanket, for example, and I'd feel the smoothness of the fabric just like in reality.

This is why it really sucks when the hallucinations begin. Sometimes I hear things, sometimes I see things. Sometimes it's both. And most of the time, they're creepy situations, like I'm in the scene of a horror movie. Here are some "dreams" I've experienced during sleep paralysis:

-A long-haired ghost charged towards me screaming, I hid my head under the pillow, ghost started wailing and scratched the pillow with her long fingernails.
-Sound of somebody incessantly laughing
-A creepy little girl standing at the side of my bed saying, "Play with me. Play with me. Why won't you play with me? Play with me. PLAY WITH ME! PLAY WITH MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!! *SCREEEEEEEEEEEEECH*!"
-My grandmother just standing in front of me, incessantly laughing in an uncanny manner.
-Sound of screaming from next door, as if someone was being murdered.
-White lab rats the size of chihuahuas screeching and snarling at each other.
-Two girl ghosts playing next to me, when a third one appears and asks, "What are you doing?" The two girls reply, "We're watching this girl next to us sleep."

-Strangers breaking into our apartment.
-Sound of people talking, faster and faster, louder and louder.

Imagine if all this happening to you while you were in bed, and that it felt very, very real.
The worst part of it is that it's "sleep PARALYSIS", and therefore, when I try to escape this situation, I can't move my goddamn body. I can't even scream. I scream as hard as I can and no sound comes out save for a pathetic, hoarse whisper. It is the worst feeling.

The key to breaking this is to wiggle your fingers, and make an extra effort to sit up and wake up. What makes this extra sucky is that if you wake up and just go to bed straight afterwards, the paralysis begin again. You have to sit up  for a good long while, or even stand up, until you calm down and go back to bed. It's even more difficult since you feel extremely sleepy after you wake up from a sleep paralysis.

So in summary, I'm not feeling very well this semester. Yaaaaay.

September Highlights (REVISED)

It's a bit late considering I'm writing this at the beginning of October, but that's how it will be.

I meant to write entries for September, but somehow I never found my chance, and before I knew it, the entire month had gone by. So here are mini-entries about what happened in September and subsequent feelings of it.

1. Senior year, and class adding/dropping.

You'd think that there would be no more hassles with classes when you've become a college senior. But the first few weeks were absolutely chaotic.

First, a Korean literature class I was to take had been cancelled. It's not even a section cancellation; the ENTIRE CLASS was gone, poof, and I was told to drop it from Wolverine Access. To fill up my credit hours, I needed to find a new class (which I did).

Secondly, I was waitlisted on a psychology class on children's literature. At the same time, I was enrolled for a developmental psych class. As luck would have it, the first day of the waitlisted class was full of whimsy and rainbow and unicorns, while the other class showed an ominous start, with an absentminded professor who did nothing but brag about her rich in-laws for thirty minutes before dismissing us. (I later found out that the professor had abysmal reviews on ratemyprofessors. com. Oh shit.) Luckily, I got into the chidren's lit class, so I was able to drop the other class. THANK YOU, GOD OF COLLEGE CLASSES, THANK YOU.

This is the only happy image I have.

2. 3rd Hunt Lounge has relocated

Not the actual lounge, but the people who commonly inhabited it - Andrew, Michelle, Steffie, Jordan, and Ben - had moved into one house, which happens to be the second floor of the house that Robert, Feiqi and co are living in. So now people are kind of living like one big chaotic family in one house (except me). I must say, the upper floor has a much cleaner and nicer arrangements. I expect to visit and study there often.

 Will everyone get along, like this giraffe and penguin?

3. Tiger and Bunny ends

Tiger and Bunny, the anime series that I sold my soul to have come to love very much, has ended. I wouldn't say the show is perfect - there were many elements that the show alluded to but never showed, and several characters have eventually been brushed off to the sideline at the expense of a plot that later dragged much longer than needed to be.

(The "manual" books that the studio publishes aren't making things any better. Nathan had a sad backstory? Ivan looks up to Keith a lot? Nathan and Antonio have a more mature relationship than Antonio does with Kotetsu? Pao-lin and her manager/guardian get along well? SHOW US THESE THINGS IN THE SHOW, DAMMIT, STOP TELLING US ALL THIS IN A BOOK AFTER THE SHOW IS OVER!)

But all in all, I still loved the heck out of the series and would still gladly reccomend it to others. The character development of the two main leads were very well written; it was like seeing two real people react to real situations. And more importantly, you UNDERSTOOD why they acted the way they did and felt for them throughout the series. Not to mention that the premise of corporate-sponsored superheroes is really interesting.

So it was great fun watching the series.

Also, Kotetsu is gorgeous inspiring.

And Barnaby is a lovable prick.

4. Avenue Q

(I forgot to add this in last night! How could I forget this one?)

Through the LSA Honors, Robert, Andrew and I procured tickets for Avenue Q at just $5 (about 22% off original ticket price) and watched the show at the Mendelsohn theater.

The show was amazing. The songs were catchy, the content was truly relevant to college students everywhere, and it was both funny and throught-provoking.

After the show, the little Honors group got to get behind the stage and talk with the actors and see how they controlled the puppet and how the magic was done. I don't mean to sound arrogant, but oh, the privilege of LSA Honors was so sweet that day.

I think I had the biggest, silliest grin after the play, and when one of the actors told me that "Your hedgehog shirt is awesome", I think I jumped around in girlish glee for a good fifteen minutes. It was definitely one of my happiest days in September.

Now, if I could properly find a job with MY English B.A....