mornings suck

     i don't remember a time when i didn't hate mornings. even as a child i would glare at my parents with pure anger if they tried to talk to me before i had breakfast. most mornings, the first thought in my head is "oh crap, it's morning. ugh, i have to get up now." i don't even like to be sociable until after lunch. there's a reason why i love this picture so much:

     so in the past semester, my classmates may have noticed my increasing tendency to listen to music on my little ipod shuffle whenever the teacher isn't speaking. there's a couple reasons for this. one is that it helps with stress relief, listening to music that makes me happy and distracts me from all the crap i gotta do. the other is the fact that i truly hate the sound of 100 people talking at the same time in a small room. i definitely can't stand the sound of everyone in the program talking loudly in the morning when i'm already crabby and wishing i were in a quiet, empty room. i think the problem is, i can't help but hear random words of 20 different conversations within just a few seconds. it drives me crazy. and it makes it impossible for me to have a conversation with anyone who isn't sitting right next to me. if you are more than 2 feet away when everyone is talking, i will literally only hear every tenth word you said and completely give up on trying to hold a conversation with you. even when i talk to someone who is within a foot from me, i still miss a lot of words and occasionally have to do a fake smile like i know what the hell is going on. so i put the earbuds in and turn the music up loud enough that the sound of everyone in the room turns into a murmur where i can't distinguish any actual words being said. 

     sometimes i miss undergrad. not the just the lighter workload and having less pressure on myself, but the way people acted. normally, even when i was taking classes in my program, i only knew maybe a handful of people in the class.  so when there was a big lecture class of 100 or so people, it was for something like history, and most people didn't know anyone. and everyone was fine with sitting there either in silence or talking quietly to the person next to them. so when i had my quiet moments and didn't feel like talking, i didn't feel like the antisocial weirdo. nobody expected me to talk and be friendly to everyone in the room. it's kinda frustrating being in a grad program where all 100 students take all the same classes together and get to know everyone and are super friendly all day everyday. so even though no one has ever said anything to me directly, sometimes when i sit there with the earbuds in, playing solitaire on my phone, i wonder if others in my class are judging me for not being all sociable and talkative like them. 

     it's been a rough semester, i'm just trying to get through it in one piece. and among all the things i've learned about myself, i've confirmed something i've known for sometime. i'm not the sort of person who has fifty friends and constantly gets invited to parties and tailgates, i'm the sort that only really opens up to really close friends so i only really have a small group of really close friends. i cherish my best friend michelle who i have known for twenty years. i've made various friends from various places who i continue to keep in touch with, even though i really don't get to see them in person very often. i love my bar friends who bring out my more social side and make me feel normal. and i've become really close with a girl in grad school who is also named katie. i can see her being a close friend for the rest of my life, we have so much in common. i'm so glad i get to see her at school everyday. so going on the flex plan, where after this summer we won't have anymore classes together, is really gonna bum me out. hopefully i still get to see her on campus and hang out on the weekends. i don't know what the future holds and whether we will be in the same state or even the same country in the next few years, but i know that i will want to keep her in my life in some way. and with the invention of facebook, texting, and skype, it shouldn't be that hard.