Life is just getting super busy and I can’t find time during the day or night to post anything. I’m always too tired. These new meds that I’m on also make me dizzy and forget the time. Sometimes they even make my eyes water too much to where I can’t be bothered to stare at a computer screen for more than five minutes.

I’m dieting. And yes, it’s consuming my life, but I’m barely losing any weight. I hope I can blame hypothyroidism soon. I just got some lab work done to test for it. We’ll see. If it isn’t that then I’m probably just doomed to be fat for the rest of my life. Hoo-ray.

And that’s it.

Talk (read) more soon (but probably not).

I woke up this morning with a hangover quite similar to the ones you get after a terribly late night drinking. Oh, and I woke up at 4 a.m.

I don’t think this diet was meant for people who are working 40+ hours a week at a factory. And then going to an internship for 15 hours a week right after. Maybe I just need to sleep more.

By 6 a.m. I was ready to pass out. To distract myself from feeling that way I took an early break, ran to my locker, and chugged down one entire bottle of the drink. (I brought two with me to work.) It definitely made me feel full and the hotness of the cayenne pepper made me forget about my eyes continuously rolling to the back of my head. Handled that one, I thought.

Let me give you a background on what I do at Gentex before I keep going.

I stand all day. Sitting is not allowed. Work starts at 4:30 a.m and ends at 2:30 p.m. I assemble rear view mirrors for cars. I probably assembled the one in yours. I solder daughter cards to mother boards and then I test each finished board in a combo. I get three breaks. The first is at 6:30 a.m. for 10 minutes. The second is at 8:50 a.m. for 10 minutes. And the final break is our lunch at 11:30 a.m. for 20 minutes. We are allowed to sit down at breaks.

By 6:30 I was miserable. I kept nodding off. I couldn’t tell if I was just really exhausted, hungry, or both. On break, I took my meds–doubled-up again–and sat with the cold drink against my forehead. It kind of made me feel better? By 8:50 p.m. I drank half of the second bottle that I brought and was nervous about what I was going to do for “lunch.”

Lunch was a horrible experience. No one who works with me seemed to mind what they shoved down their throats. I watched Hot Pockets go down in two bites, an entire bag of Bugles gone within seven minutes, one of those $10 pizzas from Pizza Hut with the original pan crust gone within 12.

Okay, I was a little jealous. I gulped down the rest of my spicy lemonade and walked to the bathroom to hide myself in one of the stalls. High school all over again? Yes, but this time there wasn’t an available art room for me to sulk in.

After work, I drove home not remembering most of the drive. I changed into my gym clothes and got ready to go work out for an hour or so at the gym. I packed another two bottles with me and when I got there, situated myself on a stationary bike for half an hour. The rest is kind of a blur.

I just got back and I am, at 8 p.m., ready to go to bed.

I’m extremely lightheaded and I’m thinking I may not make it pass day 3.

It actually went pretty fast and a lot easier than I thought. It was most embarrassing at work, though, when my stomach kept growling–making it uncomfortable to stand up/assemble boards.

(Just to add as minor background information:  I’m hypoglycemic. I take meds every morning just in case I don’t get enough sugar/eats throughout the day.)

This morning I doubled up on my meds thinking that it would curb the hunger. It kind of did, but mostly I just got super dizzy really fast. I’m already starting to get really sick of the drink.

First of all, I never make it the same way ever. It’s that cayenne pepper part. I either add too much or not enough. Today, I added too much and the drink burned my throat on the way down. It was kind of nice as a distraction from my grumbling stomach, actually.

I got really hungry around 11:30 a.m., which is when we have our lunch breaks. I sat through it though, and so did my mom. It was nice to have her there.

After work I had to go to my internship where everyone had a panini for dinner except me. To ignore the temptations I actually “ate” alone.

When I got home I walked up the stairs to find my mom at the dinner table eating fried tofu and rice. She looked over at me apologetically and laughed.

“Uh…” She just shooed me away with her hand as she stuffed another piece of fried tofu in her mouth. Jeaaaalous.

I had to lie down because my head was getting really light. While I was on the bed, I think I slipped in and out of sleep a few times. Then Jake called, which was a nice boost because it made me want to go to the gym.

I dragged my mom to the gym with me and we worked out for an hour and half. It feels really good. I don’t feel too weak yet, so I’m going to assume that’s a good sign and keep going.

I talked to my friend Matt after I got home and he told me that the Native Americans would fast for days so that they would be able to have similar experiences to the effects of peyote. I told him that if I started hallucinating anytime soon he would be the first to know.

Sadly, I’m sure all my hallucinations would be manifested as foods.

This will consist of us not eating any solid food for 14 days. Instead, to quench our desires, we will be drinking this mixture of water, lemon juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper. It’s going to be a lot of fun and a, largely, mental challenge. I’m thinking I can do it and with my mom chugging along beside me I think it’ll be easier (especially since she’s the one who cooks all the meals at home).

So for the next 14 days I expect to be miserable, irritable, weak, and a cranky, jealous bitch to anyone eating anything. It should be exciting.

I’ve done this detox a year ago and could only last six days before I had to quit, but not because I was ready to kill myself. Instead, my family thought I was slipping (back) into an eating disorder. I guess I do have tendencies to…do stuff like that, but this time is really for health reasons. Also, it’s not my fault that I get too easily obsessed/addicted to doing challenges like this.

Today, after we had a nice Father’s Day dinner, my mom and I mixed up the concoction and tried it out. It tastes like spicy lemonade. Not bad at all and reminds me a bit of Crystal Light.

I did a little research on the diet before I decided to start it and it sounds pretty ridiculous. I doubt it will make me lose 20 lbs. like Beyonce did, but I know it’ll make me feel cleaner.

My fears:

1. I’ll just starve myself and when the diet is over my body will just turn everything I eat into fat instantly.
2. My mother will pass out. (Okay, she’s older and I’m worried about her!)
3. I’ll puke. If anyone knows me at all they know puking is in my top five hates.
4. Someone will make my favourite food and I’ll cave. (As to protect myself I will not list my favourite foods here.)
5. I’ll pass out at Gentex.

So, Monday morning here I come.

At graduation we took a lot of photos. In the family photo, Jake stands in the back behind my father on the outer left edge. He sticks out like Papyrus on a resume.

Still can’t find him?

In that case, here is the run down from left to right:  Jake, my father, me, my mother, Hudson (Luna’s son), and Luna, my sister. (We’re only missing my other sister, Bay, and my younger brother Daniel. Neither showed up.)

After looking at the print of this photo my mother first said, “Jake is so…tall” in a bemused sort of tone and then right after said, “He dresses goofy, doesn’t he?”

Shall we dissect her dress for a minute?

They are wearing almost the exact same colour top. Her’s just has a weird paisley pattern on it. She loves paisley patterns. My dad always says that my mom dresses like “khon bahn nawk,” which in Lao means, literally, “someone from outside the country.” It makes me laugh because we all give my mom such a hard time about her clothes. She just laughs.

After she laughed at Jake for a bit I laughed, too and said, “I like the way he dresses” to which she replied, “You dress goofy, too.”

Oh, mom.

(More pictures to come.)

That is all.

Yes. It really happened.

Graduation was a little underwhelming–the actual graduation part, I mean, not graduating from college.

I feel really accomplished and pleased with myself that I’ve made it this far and actually finished.

I remember being in my freshmen year of high school (nearly eight years ago–wow, right?) telling my parents that I couldn’t wait to go to college. I remember my senior year when I hugged all my friends, said my goodbyes, and left for Savannah, Ga to attend the Savannah College of Art and Design. I remember my first day being a freshmen moving into Turner, meeting my roommates for the first time, and feeling completely overwhelmed. I remember my parents setting up my room, taking me out to dinner, and then leaving immediately right after.

When they left, I sat on my bed in Turner feeling really excited, scared, anxious, lonely, ambitious, starry-eyed, and, again, overwhelmed. On the last day I felt all the aforementioned emotions and more:  proud, relieved, accomplished, nervous, and happy.

The ceremony was a bit underwhelming, stressful, and inconvenient. I wish I had time to see more of the friends I made over the four years and to at least say goodbye to my professors. Everything felt so rushed. I was exhausted. Tending to my parents, waking up at 5 a.m., packing, moving out…why was graduation weekend near the first of the month? I feel like it’s necessary that I return to Savannah if only to thank my professors and say a proper, “See you later.”

Other than that, the ceremony was pretty cool. My parents and sister were there. My boyfriend. My friends. My fellow classmates. It was nice to all be together for that one last time. Getting to see my friends walk across that huge stage was very satisfying and rewarding. I’m a little sad it ended abruptly.

And that was it. Feels good to be done, though. Feels really good.

Graduation, what a blur. I feel relieved, nervous, and exhausted.

While I don’t have much time to type up everything that’s been going on, I decided that this would have to be that obnoxious (and annoyingly esoteric-sounding) list post.

Here it goes.

Things of importance happening in chronological order (that I will eventually elaborate on at a later date):

1. Graduation — I did it. I finally graduated from college. It feels great to finally be done with school. It also feels kind of lonely in the real world.

2. Road trip home — Can I just say Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies (of Ripley’s Believe It or Not) was one of our detours? Yep.

3. My future — New York, Washington D.C., Chicago? Where am I actually headed? For the moment, it’s looking like NY.

4. Factory jobs — I’m working at Gentex this summer to raise money to live in whatever city I decide to move to. The job drains me.

5. ArtPrize — I will be working alongside this wonderful organisation/festival this summer as well. So it’ll still be fairly colourful.

As for right now, I’m going to bed because list item #4 requires me to be up at 3:30 a.m. to get to work by 4:30 a.m.

Goodnight.

I’m happy about it. It brought on a lot of stress even though I only worked there for a month and the job was pretty easy (75% of the time I either played Solitaire, checked Twitter or Facebook, or goofed off in the sets trying on costumes and taking photos of myself).

The days were always slow (barely any customers) and by the end of the nights my brain just felt completely numb. The job, for me, wasn’t intellectually stimulating at all. It actually bored me so much that I felt like I was getting slightly stupider.

But that’s not to say that I didn’t also like parts of the job.

I learned a lot more about marketing, advertising, and the ins-and-outs of running a small business. I even got to re-write their fliers, create some blog posts for their website, and even designed some cool posters for the store. I learned how to take some really cool photos, pose people, and use DarkRoom. I also learned a lot about sales, promotions, and publications. I feel like I got a lot of cool skills that I’ll be able to take away with me to future jobs.

Another thing I enjoyed was the company (and by that I mean my coworkers). Most of them were sarcastic, dry, and hilarious. And when they also hate the job as much as you, the days only become funnier and funnier. They were also the kinds of people that would drop what they were doing to help you. One of my coworkers drove all the way out to Garden City to pick me up when I was stranded after my car accident and I had only known this girl for maybe a week and a half. The people I worked with definitely made me enjoy the job way, way more.

Now my bosses. They were really nice, although sometimes quite confusing, uncomfortable to be around, and awkwardly impersonal. They’re from Cuba, or Venezuela, or…somewhere over in that general area…so I felt like in some ways that I could relate to them, but only vicariously through my parents (living the American Dream and all).

Most of the time I understood where they were coming from when they would talk about how they started the business and why. The rest of the time I just felt awkwardly uncomfortable to be in their presence. I don’t know if it’s just something about bosses in general, but I felt like I had to keep some kind of distance between us.

Example from today:

One of my bosses discovered my Twitter account and saw that I was tweeting about my love for Xanax and feeling stressed, sick, and overworked. She pulled me aside and asked me if I was “depressed.” Depressed is in quotations because she, indeed, used air quotes while asking me. I wanted to laugh and reply with, “No” air quotes and all, but instead I just said, “Where’d you get that idea?”

I guess tweeting about enjoying the effects of Xanax while I’m on the verge of a panic attack makes me “depressed,” which is her babied version of depressed. Afterward, she started telling me about how talking to plants can be as effective as therapy. I nodded because I seemed to remember someone saying that talking to their fern made them feel better. She then left and later they came back from Kentucky Fried Chicken with a pot pie for me to eat. It was totally good, but it definitely (combined with my meds) made me feel incredibly nauseated.

Then they left to go home and I laid on the floor of the Victorian set whining about how I felt like I was going to puke. Stuff like that would happen at work a lot. Good times.

So I have to say I think I’m actually going to miss it a tiny bit. It gave me a lot of laughs and taught me a valuable lesson:  Dream big. Really, really big.

All in all, today was a good last day of work. It makes me want to be really ambitious about my future because I definitely don’t want to end up turning a menial labour job into my career. And I know, like, for real, that I got to make my dreams come true somehow.  And I know there has got to be a better, more fun, and intellectually stimulating way to do that. That’s why I went to SCAD, right?

Today Barak Obama signed the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act.

Tomorrow is looking bright.

I’ve been a supporter of Invisible Children since my sophomore year in high school–ever since Charity Schwartz showed me that pirated DVD she had of the Invisible Children movie. I’ve participated in two Displace Me events. Have shoved the IC mission in everyone’s face. And have followed their news and blogs religiously. I’m so happy that its been signed. The Rescue is finally underway, slowly but surely, we are making an impact.

This is a really, really great day for IC, change, and justice. Joseph Kony your arrest is near.