gunslinger

The school sent me a bill that had a late fee if paid after the 15th.

They mailed it on the 16th.

I got an e-mail for a scholarship to learn a language in a far away country. It’s the same scholarship I was rejected from last summer. I don’t know if I should apply again.

It’ll never live up to my expectations of what I’d want to see and do over there. I’d be daydreaming of meeting all kinds of cool “qué chido” people and I bet I’d just end up fighting over the bathroom. Or maybe I’d make some life-long friends? I don't know.

At summer school everyone was talking to me and being cool, and then I come back here and everyone looks at me like I'm a freak, which I don't get. There isn't much of a difference in appearances between me and the sorority girls. They aren't beautiful, well maybe in their heads. They just have better clothes and better electronic toys.

I finally got my name changed, and I’ve already been teased. Twice.

In the darkness of the night, a faint light can be seen under each head of the gas stove. Something I notice, mainly because I notice little things.

I’d been sleeping with the air conditioner full blast to deter the noise of my neighbor’s stereos. I woke up around 4 a.m. freezing like I always do. Only, this time I was wearing a sweater, a thick cotton shirt and my warmest pants. I staggered to the bathroom without turning any of the lights on when I noticed only two of the four lights on the stove were lit.

Come to think of it, the apartment did smell like gas.

I opened all the windows and lit heads and let them burn for awhile. I turned it off, and then turned it on again and they wouldn’t come back on. No, it was just that sickly smell of gas filling up the apartment.
I put jacket on top of my sweater and shirt and slept with the front door open. I fell asleep through the calming noises of police sirens and drunks throwing up from the apartments across the alley. Somehow, that sounds better than my neighbor’s choices in “music”.

I called my landlord to tell her about the problem, but she said she couldn’t turn off the gas and then started talking about herself. I think I’ve told her that my cell phone cost $.25 a minute to use and I don’t like to chat a lot on it. Anyway, I told her I had to go to school, and then I locked up the apartment and left.

If it did blow up, I’d like very much to see it. From afar, of course. I wonder if it would be like in the movies, with just one single orange-yellow blast of fire mushrooming up into the sky as lumber rains down on the surrounding area. There would be no way of putting it out. There is no way a fire truck could fit in the alley. It would just burn and burn until a smart fireman decides the closest way would be through the parking lot of the apartment building that sits on the other side of the fence of the dead-end street.

I was in the computer lab trying to watch a show online that my sister was bragging about. I had my headphones plugged in and was watching it. Everyone around me got up at the same time and left. I thought it was a class and their class was over. A guy tapped me and told me to evacuate as I pulled out my earphone. When I pulled out the earphone that’s when I heard the deafening sound of the fire alarm. Did you know I can hear my neighbor’s music even when I have my headphones on? That essentially means they are louder than a fire alarm.
I wondered for a second if my apartment did blow up and the whole city was ablaze. It wasn’t. I was a little relieved. Just a little.

Step by step… I’m wearing the shoes I promised myself I wouldn’t wear because I was saving them for next year. They feel weird on my feet.Last night my grungy green shoes got ruined when I was running home from the library through a lightning storm.

The things I do for a freaking education!

The rain was coming down hard and this guy on a bike was trying to turn around on the street and rode past me. We stopped for a split second and laughed each other. He looked like a drowned rat, water streaming off his thick black hair, and I probably looked ridiculous with my hoodie on my sweater pulled up around my face. I could see the giant, laughing smile on his face as lightning hit a few hundred feet away.

When I got home, my pants were soaked from the ends to mid-calf. My backpack was ruined and my shoes were a wet muddy mess.

Luckily my book was only a little wet, but everything in the front pockets on my backpack, like my only calculator, was soaked.

I spent 10 hours doing homework yesterday. I woke up at 6 in the morning to do more. I’ve never felt so stupid in my life. I didn’t even finish it all. I wrote two papers that probably suck. I came to the computer lab to work on Spanish and some other stuff and when I realized that I didn’t have my Spanish book and I didn’t want to walk through the crack alley that leads to my apartment to get it. I don’t want all these fucking classes, but I don’t want to be here next semester. The only thing is that I don’t think I can pull it off. I’ll never be able to study enough, understand enough, write the perfect paper in time, or pull out the right themes. No matter how many times I stare at my economic homework, it looks like an alien language. The formulas in class aren’t the ones from the book. I don’t know what to do.

The lady at the tutoring center said my economic class would be above the level of the tutor. That I know more than the tutor at this point. So, if I’m lost and confused no one can help me.

I feel so inhuman today.

I sent off for my transcripts before summer ended, but this uni didn’t get them from my other one. I’ll be mad if my minor doesn't show up on my degree. I didn’t know because I can’t get internet at my apartment and didn’t go online until yesterday to read my e-mail when I went to the computer lab.

All the computers in all the labs were upgraded to Vista 2007, which makes them incompatible with my computer. At $.10 a page, I can’t afford to print my homework at school. I tried copying something to my flash drive, but nothing came up. The computer lab closed at 9 p.m. When I got home, I tried getting the news, but those channels wouldn’t come in.

I spent all yesterday reading the children’s books for my Children’s Literature class. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was a lot more gruesome than what I remember from the movie. I don’t recall so many beheadings, or amputations. Didn’t Dorothy and her friends go to the witch to get the broom in the movie? Or did they go there to murder her like in the book? I don’t remember. It’s been ages since I saw the movie because my mom threw away the movie. My mom has this thing about throwing away anything she finds objectable, even if it doesn’t belong to her.

Once my dad bought a bunch of movies like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and she threw them all in the trash. She’d never even seen the movie, but decided that it was bad. Once she threw out my Play Station video games. They weren’t violent video games either; they were race car driving and kung fu. I could have traded them in at a video store if she thought they were so bad. She even threw away all our old Disney movies because they had witches in them.

Once, she even gave away my beloved rabbit while I was apartment hunting. I was looking for an apartment that would accept animals so I could keep him forever. Oh, I still miss that bunny.

When I was moving my things for my new apartment, I saw her eyeing one of my two stuffed animals so I brought one with me. Now, I’m sad thinking of the fate of the little stuffed rabbit…he’s probably gazing wistfully at cardboard boxes in a landfill somewhere.

I shouldn’t think of all the things people have done, because it’s in the past and it’ll just make me sad.

I found my landlord dumpster diving this afternoon; if only I had brought a camera. In her defense there was a lot of cool stuff in the dumpster.


I'm worried about not having enough credits to graduate.

One of my pets (that I’ve had for 4+ years) died, I’m not eligible for any scholarships this semester, my TV box died, my little table broke, I still don’t have a bed and my landlord never finished remodeling my apartment.

Why? Because it flooded, but not with water. Think about it.

Sigh, I don’t even want to think about it. There is no where I can stay and school starts soon. If I find another place to stay, chances are that I’ll be too far away to walk. I can’t afford a parking permit, and I won’t have any way to park on campus. Classes start next week and I have no place to stay and no books for my classes.

What a fantastic start to my upcoming semester.

I must be the only person on this planet that doesn’t want to be famous. Everyone else can only think of getting in front of that invisible camera in their mind. I guess I don’t want to be on film because I hate looking at myself. I just don’t see how that can be everyone’s goal in life. Why can’t I just be like everyone else? I feel like a zebra trying to be a horse.

I heard two of the new Seo Tai-ji singles off the Moai(?) CD. One of them is great, and I’m listening to it right now, the other one is quite bad. I have been holding off on buying the singles because I can’t really afford to buy stuff online. Shipping costs are just outrageous for a poor college student like me. I think I will probably buy the 8th CD when it comes out just to have it, unless it’s sold out or if the songs from the second CD single really suck.
I’m going to be sad next month when I won’t have internet access--unless I can pick up a connection from the Chinese restaurant across the street.

I was watching the news and this girl in my college town was arrested for rape (just like the editor at the college newspaper months before). I don’t know what’s worse, that it’s a town of rapists or that I know who these people are because I go to school with them. Although, I don’t feel so bad for not being miss popularity because those people are fucked up. I am apprehensive about going back. In a way I want to move there and have my own little apartment to myself, but I don’t really have anything to look forward to expect graduating. There’s no one I really missed except the Hot Boys, and I doubt they even missed me. I mean, they probably don’t even know I exist.


But one day they’ll all wish they knew me…you know…when I’m famous! (See, even when I try to think like them it doesn’t sound genuine)

So, I still haven’t found a place to live for the fall. I had signed up to take Spanish in the summer, but the day before classes started I got a phone call saying the class was cancelled.
It was the only Spanish class being offered.
I had planned my whole summer around finishing my last leg of the stupid language requirement, and now I’m going to have to squeeze it into my fall schedule. I don’t even know if I can graduate this year. I really wanted to graduate before the economy gets worse.

I went to the store and everyone in the store was paired up in couples. The people behind me were talking about how great marriage was to their friends who just got married. I had to listen to their wonderful life story until it was my turn to pay. Everyone was hand in hand—it was really sickening.
I stopped at the library to pick up some of their free magazines, and one was a Time Magazine. I thought it would help me get my mind of my lack of love. I get home, and I turn off the TV (all love stories, no doubt). I turn to my magazine.
The whole magazine was dedicated to love and stories of love.
This is just cruel.

I hate moving from one bad situation to another. I still don't have my own bathroom or air-conditioning, but at least I’m not paying for it.

I know it’s worse over there. Although, I think next semester will be better. I have fewer journalism classes, which means I don’t have to be around those nefarious journalism students as much.

It’s weird to think that the business students would be the ones who are sweet and down to earth, while the journalism students are shallow, callous and high schoolish. (Yeah, I know that isn’t a word, but it should be).

I mean, the business students are all about running the show and making money, while the journalism students are supposed to be the ones in love with ideas and striving for justice—but those clichés couldn’t be farther from the truth. The business students would give you their last dollar if they thought you were hungry and the journalism students would keep driving if they hit you with their car. I know because it was a conversation I over heard two rich blonde girls discussing in my PR class.

I never appreciated my family until I escaped from the lunatics at my college.

This isn’t a glorious place by any means, but at least I saw a cute baby today. The first time I started noticing the ugly babies, I thought I was losing my mind. All the people in or around my college had the ugliest babies imaginable. In that land of nightmares, even the children look like hideous monsters.

The more days I’m away, the more I feel it was all a bad dream: the shallow sorority girls, the journalism student with no morals and the evil administration.