Restless dreams of a Gleek

I enjoyed watching the Superbowl commercials in between bits of the game, as well as eating various tasty football snacks, but the real treat came after the game: GLEE!!  I am a super Gleek (fan of Glee, for those that aren't familiar with the term).  Honestly, I could care less about the characters.  I sit through the talking portions so I can dance through the songs.  And most of the time I watch it the day after on Hulu.com, and I end up rewinding the songs so I can listen to them two or three times before I let the episode continue on.

Yes, the Gleekiness is unreal.  I have groups of friends that love the show, and those that hate it.  But I watch it because it makes me happy.  Lately what makes me happy is Daren Criss, who plays Blaine from a rival high school (pictured above).  He's all preppy and cute (I have some sort of weird uniform fetish) and they did Katy Perry's Teenage Dream awhile back!  I don't mind Katy Perry on the radio, but her songs are 10x better when Glee does it.  In case you haven't seen the song:

Sunday night they did a rendition of "Bills, bills, bills", which was good, but it didn't quite have the same feel as the Teenage Dream song.  Still enjoyed it though.  My other Glee favorites include Jason Mraz & Colbie Caillat's "Lucky", Cee-Lo's" Forget You", "Imagine", Queen's "Somebody to Love" and of course the classic "Don't Stop Believin'", plus pretty much all the songs from the Lady Gaga episode and the Rocky Horror episode... I could go on all day, lol.

Anyways, my other story is that I have been sleeping like a thrashing monster.  I don't recall having any particularly violent or active dreams, but my bed has been a disaster every morning when I wake up.  I'm not really a still sleeper anyways, but this is out of control this week.  I found my pillow on the floor this morning and my blankets were all pulled out of the foot of the bed.  I'm just chalking it all up to stress.  After all, since last year with grad school I started grinding my teeth so I now have to wear a really sexy mouth guard at night.  Oh baby, oh baby.  I can tell when I hit stressful times of the year because I literally chew the crap out of them and have to replace them sooner.

Of course, this active/angry/marathon sleeping doesn't do much to actually rest my body.  I have a rough day at school, fall into bed exhausted, and then wake up feeling even more tired.  I'm starting to wonder if I need to get one of those goofy guardrails that you put on the edges of toddlers' beds so they don't fall out.  I've done my best to work out *relatively* regularly so that I can work some of the stress off, but there are so many hours in the day that I can sacrifice to non-studying activities, and things like food and sleep take priority.

Obviously sleep is not taking enough priority right now, since I'm up late blogging.  G'night folks.

Deaths in threes

My apologies for lack of posting.  It has been a hell of a week.  We had two snow days (Mon/Tues) which lead to Wednesday being a landslide at school and I feel as though my life has been turned upside down.

First, the major things: ever hear about how people die in 3s?  Well I've had 2 deaths in my life in the past three weeks and I've been having nightmares about someone else dying.  SPC Torre was killed in Iraq, and my future sister-in-law-of-sorts (Emily) unexpectedly died on Tues day night.

My sister is getting married this June to her wonderful man John, and Emily is John's sister. (So technically Emily is my sister's sister-in-law, but you get the picture).  The plan was to have five bridesmaids and four groomsmen at the wedding.  I am the maid of honor (as the bride is my only sister) and I was going to walk down the isle alongside Emily and Jeff (John's twin brother).  Tuesday night, Emily wasn't feeling well.  She had some pain in her calf, and she passed out at home.  The ambulance arrived quickly but they were unable to resuscitate her.  Autopsy later revealed multiple pulmonary emobli, likely from a deep vein thrombosis.  Emily was quite young, only 29, but I guess she was as risk as a smoker and being on birth control.  The family is absolutely heartbroken, as am I.  My sister got to spend a lot of time with Emily, and my parents got to meet her at John's college graduation, but I never got to meet her.  I feel absolutely awful about it even though I'm quite removed from the situation.

Emily's funeral is 4 hours away on Monday, and I can't miss school for it.  On top of that SPC Torre's memorial service was rescheduled due to the snow, and now I can't attend because I'll be taking my Radiology exam at that time.  All this on top of the usual stress at school has turned me into an unhappy person this week.  I just feel conflicted - I don't know how to handle this other than to pretend it's not there.

Meanwhile my friends continue on with their lives.  Triumphs and failures, stress and fun times.  I went out to dinner with friends and all I could think about was death - which made it really hard to have appropriate conversation.  (After all, who wants to go out to have fun and then end up talking about serious/sad things)  I expect this conflicted feeling will slowly ebb away over the next few weeks, but I've been sleeping poorly and deep down I'm afraid of someone else in my life dying.  Maybe it will be someone who is exceptionally close to me.  I know this is completely irrational and worrying about people dying around me will do no good, but I still have that small thought in the back of my head.

On a high note, I did get to talk to DB for 20 min this afternoon.  He's not sure if he'll watch the superbowl (it'll be airing in Iraq at 2am).  He's not big into football, but this is the only time during the deployment that the guys are allowed to have beer - 2 beers to be exact, so he might go just for that.  Regardless, I hope he has fun and isn't too overtired in the morning.

Check out that handsome man

Alas, I should get back to studying.

Running the day away

Today was a big running day.  From about 11:30-5:30 today, I was solidly active, whether it was running or briskly walking.  I was one of two people in charge of laying trail for my running group.  I'm a part of a social running group composed of graduate students and soldiers from the nearby post.  We do a run every weekend, anywhere from 2-12 miles, and it's always a new route.  The two leaders set marks along the way by dropping handfuls of flour behind them, so the entire run is like a big scavenger hunt.  It's not uncommon for 4 miles to take us 1.5 hours with lots of dead ends, getting lost, and enjoying the activities along the way.  Today I was a leader with another group member, and I had worked out my upper body really hard the day before.  So from lifting weights and running, my body is completely zonked.  I'll likely spend most of Sunday resting (of course while studying everything that I've neglected in the last two days).

I came across this post in my dashboard while reading blogs:  http://gagglemaggot.blogspot.com/2011/01/what-not-to-say-to-military-wife.html  Too funny!  I love a good dose of sarcasm :) I have a lot of sarcasm in my sense of humor, and sometimes I wish I could let it shine through a bit more.  But it always seems to come off as cynical or negative, so I do my best to just be happy around people.  I certainly don't want to be one of those people that others avoid because they're not fun to be around.  I don't try to lie to those around me, but I don't want to be constantly whining about "poor me" or "I miss my boyfriend, blah blah blah".

Ok, I am entirely too overtired and I'm afraid this post is going to turn to emo, so I shall call it a night.  Hopefully I'll hear from DB tomorrow!!  (I missed a call from him today while I was out running  :(

Hundreds gather to honor fallen soldier

Today my heart goes out to the family of SPC Torre, who died last week in Iraq.  His body arrived stateside in California yesterday, and the OC Register wrote a very nice article documenting the event.  I've read about soldiers dying overseas, but I have never had close connections to them like I do to Torre.  His was the first death in DB's brigade since they've deployed.  It comes as a shock because things are calming down over there, but it is still very much a war zone.  DB is always working inside the wire, so I sleep ok at night, but I feel for the families of the men that stick out their necks every day on patrols.  Death is a reality of war, but none that anyone would wish to go through.  I hope the men in his unit are coping as best they can during this hard time.

May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall softly on your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the hollow of his hand.

All gave some, some gave all.  Thank you for your service SPC Torre.

Merp rocks my socks off

If anyone is looking for a TERRIFICALLY WONDERFUL TIME (<- note how wonderful, wonderful enough for all-caps) please visit my friend Christine at http://cjuen.blogspot.com/2011/01/choose-your-own-adventure-story.html  She is a masterful story teller and award-winning MSPaint artist.

Happy tears

I am not a fan of Sundays, mainly because it means that the weekend is over and a new week of activities is coming up (which is often composed of schoolwork).  But there are two things I particularly love about Sundays: going to church to spend an hour with God and reading the updated PostSecret blog.  It updates every week late Saturday night, and I just love reading the new secrets.  Many are sad, but some are funny, and most all are inspirational.  It really makes me reflect on my own secrets and how I would send them in.  Well this week they had a video posted in addition to the regular secrets.  There was a guy at one of the PostSecret events who proposed to his girlfriend on stage.  I watched the video in YouTube and of course started clicking on the related links.  Soon I was watching other proposal videos, then military proposal videos, then military homecoming proposals and then just normal military homecoming videos.

One of my favorite scenes from a homecoming video

I had plans to get a lot of studying done tonight, but no, like a crack addict looking for a fix I kept clicking on video after video to see more happy families reuniting with their military loved ones.  I literally sat at my computer watching military proposals/homecoming videos for two straight hours with big tears rolling down my cheeks.  Happy tears, but tears nonetheless.  I started to get ahold of myself, but then I clicked on a video of a military person reuniting with their dog after a deployment and then that just opened up a whole new can of worms - more adorable videos and more crying.  What is wrong with me, why do I put myself through this torture?

I was lucky enough to hear from DB this afternoon; we got to talk for 45min via Skype and it was so awesome to hear from him.  I have actually been quite proud of myself, because for the past week I have not been continually reminded about how much I miss him.  Most of it relates to school starting up in full swing so I really haven't had a moment to breathe and reflect, but some small part of me hopes that I am finally starting to adjust better to him being gone.  After all, come next week he will have been gone for 3 months.  That should be enough time to adjust, shouldn't it?  I don't expect to ever be completely ok that he's deployed, but I would assume that an adjusted feeling would eventually come around.  I know that I've been slowly emotionally shutting down, but I don't want to completely shut down.  I want to feel ok.

I've also recently come to the realization that I don't remember what DB smells like, the way his hair and clothes smell.  I don't remember what it feels like to cuddle next to him, which breaks my heart a little bit.  He always comes out of the shower smelling like Irish Spring, and if it starts to bother me enough I may just buy some Irish Spring at Walmart.  I found out today that his old roommate (who is PCSing at the end of April) has the key to DB's storage unit so that he can return DB's vacuum before he leaves.  Before he leaves, the roommate will leave the key for me to keep for DB.  I was really surprised because I thought that DB brought the key with him overseas, but we didn't really talk about it - I just knew that his things would be safe while he was away.  So I was thinking tonight about how once I get the key, I may go by his storage place and pull out some of his clothes, something to remind me of him.  I have one of his sweatshirts, but it has been washed many times by now and doesn't smell like him.  Then maybe I shouldn't go to the storage unit because it'll just remind him of me more and then I'll miss him more.  I'm pretty torn, but I have until Aprilish to decide if I'll do anything.

I am an emotional wreck now after watching those videos; that was a really stupid idea to watch them in the first place, but it certainly made me happy before I remembered that I still have 5 months before I get to see my boyfriend on R&R.  By that time it will have been 8 months since I last got to hug him, and that's just R&R, not the end of the deployment, and who knows when that will be...

My apologies that this post ended up being more rambling than I had planned on.  But then again, that's why I started this blog - to "blog it all out".  I am now going to go pretend to care about Radiology for another two hours or so before I call it a night.

Back To Reality

Christmas vacation from classes has been a blast, but tomorrow morning it ends.  Oddly enough, up until yesterday I was super-excited to dive into the semester.  Now I'm having the beginning-of-the-semester doubts about being able to conquer everything that's laid out in front of me for the next few months.  I have my fingers crossed that this feeling will pass and it will be a regular school day tomorrow.

This weekend had a moment of grim reality - one of the soldiers in my boyfriend's battalion was killed by a roadside IED.  An official message was sent through the FRG listserv and a memorial service is scheduled on post in a few weeks.  I would really like to go to pay my respects to the soldier, but the service is on a weekday morning so I'd have to skip class and drive 30min to post.  I may still do it, we'll see.  I spoke with DB briefly on Sunday; he sounded very grim and didn't want to talk about what was going on around him.  I think it was a combination of him trying to deal with the sadness and also not scare me too much.  I just hope that the battalion's morale continues on strong after this blow.  I'll definitely be saying extra prayers for the fallen soldier's family.

In unrelated news, a group of my running friends have pressured me into running a 10 mile race in 3 weeks.  I consider myself a mediocre runner.  I can do three miles ok, and 5 miles is a bit tough.  But 10 miles?  I am absolutely terrified, yet I am still going to do it.  The competitor in me doesn't want to walk at all during the race, but I'm afraid that may just be how it goes.  I will be quite pleased if I can finish the race and not throw up.  Luckily my running friends are great motivators, esp Mary who is really good about encouraging to overcome what I 'think' I can do and just do it.  The story on my running group is a fun, but long one - I think I'll save that for another post.

And I'm off to get some beauty sleep before the first day of school!