I got a B+ on the paper Noa helped me with. I owe that girl.

That feeling of rush returns; that struggle to keep jogging when your heart tells you it just needs to breathe a bit slower, just a bit slower...

There is no time for slower.

Relief is transient, again.

There is a fine line between appreciating life - celebrating life - and ignoring it, destroying it.

I'll hold that thought, for the moment.

Classes, work, and so on. Days blur when schedules are crammed.

On the 21st, I went home for Pumpkinfest. Each night ended in intoxication.

On Friday night, Mandi got dropped off at my house, and we headed over to Ty's place. I remember drinking, sharing a joint with everyone...including Ty's mum - SO WEIRD HOLY CRAAAP, and going downtown for a slice of pizza. I was going to return to Ty's house, but the boy that joined me on the pizza-run was terribly creeping me out. Ugh.

Darby got a ride into town on the Saturday of the festival, but it rained all day. Although we didn't get to spend a whole lot of time outside, we still had a lot of fun. We saw a hilarious busker, had two dryer-runs (ha), and shared a funnel cake. On the Pumpkin Express ride back to my house (awesome in the lamest of ways), a woman let me give her son a piece of the funnel cake. He must've been about two years old. When she wasn't looking, I snuck him another piece. He crammed it into his face SO FAST...cutest ever.

That night, after some drinking under tarps in Scott's backyard (SO MUCH FUN holy crap), I met up with Mandi at Ty's place. His girlfriend broke up with him sometime since I had last seen him, so he was in no mood to go out, despite my poking-and-sitting-on-him-in-his-computer-chair and everything. Sucked. She doesn't know what she's lost. Pity, that. Anyway, after failing to convince Ty to join us, we headed out to Swazzee's. I saw so many faces that night, that I hadn't seen in ages. I saw Josh for the first time in several years. Crazy. I don't remember much beyond being pretty intoxicated, and avoiding rain as much as possible. So much fun.

I saw Adam the next day, for the first time in...gosh, a couple of years, at least. Such a talented kid. I spent a lot of money on crappy festival foods that day - most notably, fudge and cotton candy. I ate pizza every day, ha...I'm gross. Oh, and there wasn't an absence of tiny donuts, they just moved the damned thing. Cinnamon donuts = yesss. My mom took me to the craft fair that day, too. I got CINNAMON CREAM HONEY. I nearly messed myself. My two favorite flavors, ever in life, in one delicious jar. ea;lrbmkwea;lrbkmbao;wjn SO GOOD aaaaaaah. I had it in tea today, actually. Yum.

The biggest drawback to the weekend, though, was all of the gross, GROSS boys from days past hitting on me. What the fuck...

I'm glad I got to see Ty a lot that weekend...I can't ever express enough gratitude for his friendship. I love snuggling into him, and feeling the absence of meaning-making. He'll always be one of my most comfortable friends.

I wish I got to see all of my friends more often. I miss so many people, all of the time...

On the 24th, Carly met me at my house, and we went to QQs. We both got giant spicy soups. Chris joined us after a while, and we played Boggle...Another friend of theirs came, too...whose name escapes me, gah. She was really nice though. Oh, but they're all wrong about the rules of Boggle. Because I said so. Haha. Always fun times with those kids! Mike visited that night, and yet again, I got no sleep. I really have to work on my time-management skills...one of these days. Ha.

I worked the next night. The next day, I had a rehearsal for a presentation for one of my classes. It was frustrating, but we accomplished a lot. The presentation, which took place the very next day, was quite successful - quite impactful. I think we'll fare pretty well, marks-wise.

On the 28th, I worked in the morning. Kinda brutal...I'm still not getting enough sleep, nor am I sleeping under any sort of normal routine. Sucks. That night, Rick took Monica and I to a house party...which, she and I later found out, was in celebration of a birthday, haha. Odd, yet so much fun. I watched two people drink themselves absolutely stupid, to the point of massive vomiting. People...know your damned limits. Haha. Oh man.

The next day, I had my first rehearsal for As You Like It. It was fun. At one point, I'm supposed to lay down on a "hill" to "rest" for a bit. During rehearsal, I definitely fell asleep. I didn't wreck the rehearsal in any way by doing so, though, thankfully.

That night, I joined a group of my friends, and we all headed over to Lauren's house. Tanya's costume? "Freshly Fucked." Yep, I'm just that awesome. It went over fabulously. Again, someone drank themself right stupid, and vomited massively. Limits, limits...oh boy. I gave Mike a ring on his cell beyond midnight, which might've been a bad call - but luckily, he hadn't fallen asleep yet. He ended up coming over again, and I ended up...getting nowhere near a full night's rest, again. Dear Mike: we need to try and spend time together during the day. Wouldn't you agree? Love, Tanya. Hahaha...

On Sunday, another rehearsal for Henry V. I had a bit of a scene rehearsal in the morning, and then we commenced Act runs around 1pm, until...maybe 7pm? I fell asleep during one of our breaks. Agh. This production is going to be big, though, I can feel it.

Yesterday, I worked with Joe...gosh, I'm going to miss him when he transfers over to another store to manage it. Ugh. And with news of Heather leaving soon, I'm not exactly excited to see what will happen. They're going to hire someone new, apparently.

Ah, change.
Not a big fan of you, these days.

After work, I joined Monica, Rick, and Julie Ella to QQs for the ArtsSci Halloween party, with the same costume I "wore" a few nights prior. I got slightly drunk early into the night, and capped off the evening with my good friend Water. I was pretty friggin' sober before I got home, which was good.

I came home, continued sipping water, and felt alright. I started writing an essay...gradually began feeling worse, and worse. Uncontrollable body shakes. Fever? I think so...

Sometime around 3am, the doorbell rang. A friend, going through hard times, decided to stop by rather than spending a sad, drunken night alone. I'm glad she did. I'm glad she knew she could. We talked for nearly an hour...I cried with her. For different reasons...personal reasons...individual reasons.

I procrastinate, and then write shitty papers and get mediocre marks. I get by, but I can accomplish so much more. I've stopped caring. I'm not happy with where I stand, but I'm struggling to just move through it all anyway.

I've got an overload of courses right now (six instead of just five), I work, I'm in a play that's opening soon, I'm in another that opens at the end of March, I've got a pile of papers due over these next few weeks, soon I'll have exams...and I just skip through it all, tra-la-fucking-la-dee-da, and settle for whatever I can achieve by putting in as little effort as possible. I take extra-curricular activities (the plays) more seriously than my classes a lot of the time. I feel like it's hopeless to invest that much effort in my classes, because I always feel like I don't have enough time to actually invest in them.

Never enough time.
Never appreciating enough, just ignoring it.
Never celebrating enough, just destroying it.

Sure, I could drop a course or two, maybe ask for less hours at work...but I won't.

If I start something, I see it through to the end, no matter what.

And it's all finally catching up with me, and wearing me down.
Lovely.

I'm just afraid that, if I alter anything, I'll stop appreciating the things in my life that I'm genuinely thankful for. There are so many factors, so many elements that I can be happy about - and I don't want them to change. I like the way certain things are in my life right now. I am happy.

...I think I just need to learn how to budget my time more wisely.