Eye of the Storm

Never has a bumper sticker, including the ones I've made myself, been more appropriate. XD The entertainment for this week on campus has been a crazy street preacher who, with his band of merry men sporting hand-painted Jesus-love t-shirts (including a couple of mini-mes who looked to be all of three years old), has taken up lunchtime residency on our campus green and shouts hellfire and damnation at students who pass by or stop to watch him. He does the whole theatrical nine yards, including the bending low to the ground and pointing at people who aren't there routine. Yesterday, he wore a sandwich board instructing students to repent and change their evil ways. XD Serious quality entertainment here. :D However, there are some younger kids here who actually are kind of upset by his presence, so I may have to go a couple rounds with him if he doesn't knock it off before too long. He has the right to be here (public university) but I also have the right to mess with his head for harassing kids who've never seen or experienced anything like him before.

The shouting of crazy doesn't seem to be limited to street preachers these days. I watched President Obama's address to Congress last night, and was hugely annoyed by South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson's outburst of "YOU LIE!" in the middle of his speech. Have whatever opinion you want. Grumble under your breath to your fellow Republicans if you don't think the President is telling the truth. DO NOT act like a four-year-old and shout in the middle of someone's speech, especially when that someone is the President of the United States. Actually, I know some four-year-olds who know better than that. D: It is entirely possible to be passionate about a topic and have definite opinions about it and still be civilized - I should know.

With the exception of those two incidents, things have been relatively mundane since my last post. I finally found a shower with both hot water and decent water pressure, so I was able to get an actual, decent shower this morning. Trying to wash my hair in cold water was starting to get irritating. D:

I also discovered that my new wake-up time is apparently 4:30 AM. -_-; I've been plagued by nightmares for the last month, with no real reason. Originally, I thought it was just my usual "back to school" anxiety - I usually get nightmares for a week or two before the start of the academic year every year. This time, however, the nightmares have extended into the school year, and most of them have nothing to do with school-related themes or anxieties. I also routinely wake up from these nightmares around 4:30 AM. (There are some nights when it's before then, and every night after 4:30 if I attempt to go back to sleep.) The night before last, I had thought I'd shaken the nightmares, but I woke up at 4:30 anyway. I rolled back over to sleep again, and was jolted awake by a nightmare about 6:00, which made me angry enough to just get up - on a day when I didn't have to be to campus until noon. This morning I again was wide awake well before dawn, and when I flipped my phone open, the clock said 4:28 AM. >_< I resolved myself to not sleep again (though I did lie in bed in a zombie-like state until six - I didn't go to bed until almost midnight), and I didn't have any nightmares. I guess my brain just wants me awake at 4:30 in the morning for some unknown reason. This is irritating, because quiet hours in the dorm don't start until 10 PM, and on Tuesday/Thursday my late class goes until 8:50 PM. There is no way I'm going to be able to get the eight hours of sleep I usually need if I'm going to be getting up at 4:30 in the morning. >_<

Classes themselves haven't been bad so far. I have a paper due next week Wednesday for my Issues in Contemporary Art class, and I've already completed two drawings in my evening Drawing class. I've posted them to my deviantART account for anyone who wants a look:


James Marsters as Piccolo by *HurricaneIslandheart on deviantART


Afternoon Meditation by *HurricaneIslandheart on deviantART

Work also hasn't been bad, despite the fact that it puts me on campus at 8:45 AM on Tuesday/Thursday. That's right...my Tuesday/Thursday schedule on campus runs from 8:45 AM to 8:50 PM. =_= I'm so awesome to myself. XD At least it's only twice a week. @__@