Just Wasting Time

It has been almost a week since my last post. Sorry guys, I'm slacking. I don't honestly feel like all that much has gone on in the past week, but I guess I must have been busy doing something since I didn't have time to write.

I haven't been busy studying, that's for sure. My thesis is back from my committee, and it's good to go other than a few minor punctuation things that weren't caught in earlier revisions (apparently I underpunctuated for the first time in my life; normally I'm the Comma Queen so I'm not sure how that happened). All in all I've been surprised at how easy writing the thesis was. It was time consuming, sure, but in retrospect it took much less time and effort than I thought it would. Now all I have to do to earn my degree is make those minor edits and get copies of my thesis bound at the library (once it gets approved by the grad college dean, which it will), do three more things for my Classical and Renaissance Drama class (another play report, a five-page book report, and a final exam) and do my thesis defense/comprehensive exam. That takes place a week from tomorrow, and I'm at a loss as to how to study for it. How do you cram two years (six years, really) of material into your head in a week? The answer is YOU DON'T, so I haven't studied at all yet and I don't think I'm going to. I either know it or I don't, at this point. I'm probably just going to skim my Dramatic Theory notes, and then I'm going to hope that they want to chat a lot about Shakespeare and the Greeks since that's what's fresh in my mind this semester. So yay! I'm almost done! A month and seven days until graduation! I think I'll spend the entire time lying out, reading for fun, trying on sun dresses, and bar hopping, which is what I've been doing with my free time so far. Don't you just hate me this month?

Speaking of graduation, I still don't know where I'm going when I'm done here. I finally e-mailed the three schools I haven't heard from, but I haven't gotten a reply yet. I'm hoping that the fact that I have another offer will make them give me an answer promptly, but who knows. I'm not-so-secretly hoping that all three will come back as either rejections or "sorry, there's just no way we can let you know your status before April 17th" because then I won't have to make a decision on where to go, I can just accept my current offer. Because the thought of actually having to make a decision that important in a matter of days is really daunting to me. It would be kind of nice if the universe just gave me one clear path for now.
And speaking of trying to decide what to do, my dad was in town last night and he said--with no prompting from me at all whatsoever, which leads me to believe that he and Mom just don't want me cramping their style, haha--that he and my mom would pay my rent for me if I decided I'd rather spend the summer living here instead of in El Paso. Unfortunately, it's too late for me to stay in my current apartment because I would have had to renew my lease by the middle of March, and I don't know if they'd have let me go month-to-month anyway. Subletting another apartment here for just three months at most seems pretty pointless, and my sister mentioned I could move into her house in Austin for the summer but...eh. I hate packing and unpacking. I also really, really, REALLY hate not having my own space. I don't care how big my own space is, I just need to know that I have some space of my own to organize the way I want. So if I moved up to Chelsea's, I wouldn't really have my own space, I'd presumably have her space with all her stuff still in it, even if she had technically moved to her boyfriend's house (which is her current plan). Or if she had moved out completely, I'd have to move all my own stuff to her house and then move it again three months later. Not fun. Plus I'd have to find a job in Austin since I wouldn't want to commute back and forth to my job here all summer, and finding a job in Austin for three months seems pointless, too. And then there's the fact that ideally I only want to pack and unpack one time. I want to pack here, and unpack when I get to wherever I'm going. I realize that I might have to move stuff into storage temporarily, but that isn't completely packing and unpacking, that's just loading and unloading. And ideally I'll somehow find a way to skip that step, too (maybe use one of those shipping/storage companies like those Pod things? I don't know). So moving all my stuff to another location in this area, unpacking it or living with my space like a storage unit (UGH) and then packing it all up again and moving in the fall just seems stupid.
What makes sense, of course, is to just go back to El Paso. In El Paso I have my own space at my parents' house. It's just a bedroom, sure, but at least it's all mine and it doesn't involve any unpacking to make it livable and I know I'm capable of being comfortable and relaxed there even if I am living out of a suitcase for three months while most of my stuff is in storage. More importantly, in El Paso I have a definite job where a) I can make better money than I'm currently making here at Applebees and b) my dad is my boss so I can have time off to go on family vacations, go to Ruidoso, maybe visit Cassie, etc. Plus I wouldn't have to be paying rent, and I honestly wouldn't have to be paying for much of anything while living with my parents. Trying to earn and save as much money as possible this summer seems like the best possible plan.
The one thing lacking in El Paso, though, is my friends. But logically, I just can't convince myself that hanging out with my friends is enough of a reason to stay here all summer. Especially since most of my usual gang is spending most of the summer in Stratford (or Canada). The truth is, even if I stayed here for the summer, I probably wouldn't have all that much of a social life anyway. It wouldn't be like it is right now, that's for sure. I just hope I don't regret the decision to go home, though. I hope I don't get there and feel bored out of my mind all summer. I hope that I can hang out with Mike and the people I know through him without it being weird, I hope that I can make my own friends at the bar or elsewhere. I hope that my grand scheme to take several vacations works out, because I think I can definitely handle--and would even enjoy--spending a few weeks in El Paso, then taking a week-long vacation, then spending another few weeks in El Paso, then going on vacation again, etc.

I just don't want to make the wrong decision. About anything. But I also make the best of things no matter what I decide, so maybe there are no wrong decisions for me. I don't know.

Oh, and about those friends that I don't want to leave behind? Well, this afternoon Richie and I were standing at the box office together watching these scenes that were going on in the lobby (our department's contribution to this ) and during a very quiet scene change Richie turned to me and said, very loudly, "How are you, anyway? I haven't seen you since our drunken night!" And the guy working in the box office just goes, "Uh..." and Richie was like, "Oh. I meant..." and everyone turned to stare and I had to quickly clarify, "Not OUR drunken night. A drunken night," and I think everyone in hearing range was relieved because Richie and I share the exact same taste in men, and he's engaged, and Richie and I having a drunken night together would blow everyone's mind. Ha. Plus all that actually happened on our drunken night was that Richie ate the world's most disgusting hot dog and then five minutes later bought a slice of pizza because he'd somehow totally forgotten that he ate the hot dog. I love Richie.