It's not a cry you can hear at night, it's not somebody who's seen the light...

Large aftershock just knocked out the power. It was only out for like...five minutes, but that was five minutes of me panicking that it was starting all over again. And it seemed to last a lot longer. I checked the water and that was fine (thank Christ, I really didn't do well without the water), and then my fan came back on and I felt this ridiculous sense of relief.

I don't like this. This doomsday feeling that my life is on pause. Though I read that the area where my placement is might be opening back up, since it's in the inner city cordon now, but they're decreasing the cordon tomorrow. And I think they mentioned the area where my placement is. That's good because it means I might be able to go back to placement. But it's bad because it means I might be able to go back to placement and I don't know if I'm ready. On my first day all Hell broke loose. Kind of literally. Though I will probably feel this way until it happens, so maybe the sooner the better. I have to tell you, this is making my 'spend a few years in the UK after graduating and then come back to NZ' plan look all kinds of nice, even though I don't want to leave my people :(

When I do go back, I will be terrified the entire time, and it is no longer because I feel I will do a bad job. I am so beyond that now. It's because I don't want the world to fall in on me.

In other news though, I'm about to go have a sandwich. And that's a tick in the 'Good Things' column! And my head is feeling a little clearer. Maybe I can write something today that isn't historical fiction. This would please me greatly.

Also, my cat is an agent of chaos. Just so you know.

All the dust in the air is wreaking havoc on my sinuses. I have had three nosebleeds in the past two days. One I WOKE UP TO which was quite a disgusting feeling, okay. AND NOW YOU ALL KNOW.

But it looks like we didn't have a broken pipe after all, just an hot water tank that fell over to some extent. It's been switched back on today so we might have hot water back by tonight. Which would be really nice.

I don't even know what day it is.

I used to spend my life in my high school theatre. There were days I could be at school from 8 in the morning until 9-10 at night. I didn't drive until I was 21 because instead of taking driver's ed, I was doing everything I possibly could in that theatre. I ate, slept and breathed that place.

When I was in my final year of high school and I was on my way to rehearsal when I saw a little girl in the hallway behind the theatre, crying. She was about eight and I went over to her to ask what was wrong. She said her mother was supposed to pick her up a half an hour before that (why she was being picked up at a high school when she was 8, I still do not know) and she was scared that her mother had been in a car accident. I asked if her mother had a cell phone and she nodded, so I led the poor girl through to the speech office so she could try calling her mother.

When there was no answer, and the girl started crying again, I told her we should go out to where she was supposed to be picked up and I would wait with her.

I ended up waiting with her for nearly 45 minutes. I kept her calmer than she probably would have been by talking about stupid things and telling her ridiculous stories about myself and my very strange friends. Her mother eventually came by and the girl hugged me and they went on their way. I have no idea why the mother was late, or what happened, but I never saw the girl again and I don't remember her name.

What I do remember, was that I was late to my rehearsal. I knew I would be, and since one of the advantages of my crazy brain is that it traps things inside its cage of memory, I had the entire play memorized already so I figured it would be okay. The director wasn't pleased however, and he informed me of this. I told him I had been waiting with a scared, little girl, and he asked me why that was my responsibility.

You know...if that's how you think, then I guess it wasn't. My responsibility was to my cast mates and my director and despite the fact that I was never late before and always went above and beyond to help and be do whatever I could to move the production forward, I was still late this time and that had inconvenienced people. I still feel like the right thing to do was to stay with the poor girl. What about my responsibility to help out another human being; to care for someone who was scared and alone? If I had been that scared little girl, I would hope someone would have extended the same kindness to me. I just apologized and we got on with it, but I never really forgot that.

I'm not someone who can pass people by. Which is why I am the one who ends up sitting with the homeless person on the street who passed out and hit their head on the pavement so hard they are bleeding into their eyes, while they wait (for over an hour) for the ambulance to come. The amount of people who walked by that day, averting their eyes so they didn't have to see, makes me feel ashamed. I don't ever want to be that kind of person. It's why I'm doing what I'm doing, despite the fact that I am not okay. The helping people is as natural as breathing. It's not going out of my way, because helping people is my way. It's everything else that's the problem. Forcing myself to leave my home, when it's the only place that I feel safe. Forcing myself to talk to people, even though I'm terrified of it. All that functioning as if I don't panic about every little thing, that's the hard part. It makes me feel like I have no right to act like I could actually help. I feel barely human. Sometimes I feel like giving up. But I won't. I can't. I'm taking responsibility. I just wish it wasn't so hard.

I missed a courier today so now I'm just waiting up so I don't miss it again. It's either my St Patrick books or something else I'm expecting.

So I am watching old episodes of Supernatural. Look at me be distracted, woooo.

Oh my god. JDM. Big Papa Winchester, I love you. This show has brought EVERYONE ELSE BACK (and gotten beyond stupid) why can't you bring him back so it doesn't suck any more?! Oh right, JDM is off doing more awesome things than SPN. Oh...oh John. He's crying and that always gets me. And now he's gone, grrrargh.

I miss the first two seasons of this show. I miss when it didn't make me want to scream at the screen in frustration.

But my toothache went away! Hurrah!

/pointless entry

Day Two: Nine things about yourself.

Alrighty then. Things people DON'T know and won't be horrified to read. Hmmm.

( Nine Things )

I am having the hardest time speaking tonight. I am stuttering and stumbling over my words all over the place. And while this isn't unusual for me in smaller doses, it won't stop and I feel like I am trying to talk with marbles in my mouth and I can't make myself understood unless I speak in 3-word sentences and I just want to cry. It's really frustrating and it's making me grumpy (though I am managing not to act like a bitch, go me!) and FFFFFFFF whyyyyyy

I talk a lot. I like talking. STOP BETRAYING ME, TONGUE. If it were daytime I would sing a bunch because it's never a problem when I'm singing. but it's late and I can't because I'm a high-pitched, loudymcloud when I sing. So I'll sit here and bitch on LJ and be frustrated and weepy woe woe woe woe is me.

...I hope I don't have a stroke... (I think it's more likely just the messed up sleep that's doing it.)

I cannot sleep. My cat is mocking me because she has crawled into my bed and under the covers as if to say "HAHA I CAN SLEEP IN YOUR BED AND YOU CANNOT!"

Mind won't stop. I even wrote quite a long scene with Patrick in FS (it technically takes place tomorrow hush) to get him out of my HEAD because he was yammering on and on and that didn't work. I spent hours looking on Tumblr and found amazing things (Tim Minchin singing Single Ladies it was epic) and still NOTHING.

So I decided to watch Rock and Roll Nerd, the Tim Minchin Story because Alina gave it to us yesterday.

I cried practically the entire time. Oh, Tim. Oh, Tim!

I should explain one of the oddities of Lara. I don't like concerts. I find them boring because like...if you're going to listen to music, LISTEN to it and do other things at the same time. My mind never shuts off. It goesangogesandgoesandoges so if I watch a concert I get twitchy and jumpy and bored so easily and I just want to be doing something else about 4 minutes in. So while I think Tim Minchin is brilliant and I love his music, I haven't really watched his shows. It would be a bad idea until I know the songs by heart. Only then can I stop my stupid brain from flying all over the place because I can appease it by singing along. So I knew the songs sort of, but seeing Tim do his thing is not something I am familiar with even though I use him as a PB in several places now.

BUT THE THING!! He changed his look and he got so popular so fast and he was all "Seriously? O_O okay then..." and his WIFE and the baby (OMG I cried so hard it hurt) and he was just so...lovely. Lovely and real. And now I want to see all the live shows. Because I am, if nothing else, contrary.

I am terrified of fireworks. Like...really. When I was younger, my mother took us kids out to Whitefish Lake in Montana to watch a fireworks show on the 4th of July. Only there was a problem and the freaking barge blew up (and that wasn't the last tragedy that day, stupid Independence Day) and so I associate fireworks with that. Oh my god, I'm terrified of heights too and this one time during the county fair, the fireworks show started and for it, they stop the ferris wheel and I got STUCK AT THE TOP while these things went off right over my head. Most people would be thrilled, because it was a great view, or would have been if my eyes were open. I kept screaming and ruining everyone else's fun.

Anyway...it's Guy Fawkes day on the 5th, and the neighbours are already firing off the fireworks. Actual 'explodey in the sky' ones, not the tiny little cones my father used to purchase for my brothers for them to set off in the woods in our backyard mostly aimed at birds or trees or the house or each other (HOLY CRAP how country bumpkin do I SOUND in this entry?!?). And instead of screaming, I flailed a little and then went to stand at the window with Alison to watch them.

And the house didn't burn down yet and no one started screaming and no one was on fire and it was allllll fine. And they were very pretty.

So maybe I can get through this stupid day without having a heart attack.

It's interesting being surrounded by social workers who are going through trauma along with everyone else in Christchurch. Some of the people in my course are absolutely torn apart over the earthquake and I'm realising I am not as okay with it as I thought when EVERY loud noise in the building makes me nearly dive under the desk. When I got home I have earthquake dreams because I couldn't sleep last night and now all I can dream are shakeyshakeshakes. Arrggghhhhhnotcool. And it doesn't help that then we have a lecture on mental health services and the teacher (lovely lady, honestly!) is talking about how some people feel unwell or whatever and I'm like ...god I feel pretty fucking unwell sometimes! Like now, not wanting to leave my home because aftershocks could happen at any time and what if shit falls on me and lalala headfuck.

BUT. Surrounded by social workers in training IS good. I send a text message to one of them and I get a reply in seconds that makes me feel better. Pretty awesome.

I am so tired. So unable to sleep. I should try to remember, when I think I can get to sleep without sleeping pills, that I AM MESSED UP and my brain doesn't just shut off. I can function and sometimes my ability to function surprises me, but that doesn't mean I'm a-okay. Lara, learn your limits. Take the damn pills. You'll feel better the next day.

(Also sometimes RP scenes give me flashbacks, but I have no one to blame but myself, because I did read the warning thing and read it anyway! Once again, I need to learn to listen to ME...)

It's only July and already I'm all sad I'll be leaving my kitty for two weeks in August. My little Ariadne. I don't wanna :(

She's curled up on me right now, watching the mouse with intense fascination and it's adorable and darnit why can't I take her with me!!? Murgh. I lost a cat once and a piece of my heart went with her. I tend to get hyper about this now. Wah.

( Ariadne says o_0 )

She seems less concerned ;)