Classes and Vagina Monologues

Rivers belong where they can ramble,

Eagles belong where they can fly,

I've got to be where my spirit can run free,

Gotta find my corner of the sky

Every man has his daydream

Every man has his goal

People like the way dreams have of sticking to the soul

~Corner of the Sky lyrics from the musical Pippin

I still haven't chosen my classes for this semester, which is a source of some stress at the moment. I'm torn between wanting to take a great class that I'm going to love every minute of (I haven't found one that I feel this way about though) and one that's going to be easy enough that I have time to spend on my thesis (which I have a very very love-hate relationship with at the moment). I'm currently considering

• Music vs. Words (English/Music): I was beyond excited about this class, but the first two lectures have been okay and then terrible (the terrible one was poetry analysis. So epically not my kind of thing).)
• History of Science (History): I'm majoring in science, and so far this class has been okay. The professor is good but not outstanding and there are weekly reading responses and responses to other people's responses, which will make the class a little more difficult/time consuming.
• Art of Structure (Civil Engineering): seems like an interesting class and has great reviews. It's basically about form and function of buildings (which I am sort of interested in).

I'm leaning towards the civil engineering course, but I'm going to go to one or two more lectures for each one.

I went to BodyPump today, which was awesome. I love it! I went with one of my friends though, and she really didn't love it. We're not super close (I know it sounds mean but she's a huge social climber and cares about the quantity rather than quality of friendships, which I can't stand). She's also a little (probably 20lbs) overweight and never goes to the gym. I don't know why she disliked the class so much (other than that it was hard...she's normally a 2mph biker at the gym?! I don't get that, I love hard gym classes!). I suspect that her reaction might have had something to do with her realization that I am much, much stronger than her/that she's in incredibly bad shape. (Which, to me, is obvious. It was super tough for me at first to start going to the gym regularly, and even now if I'm lazy and miss a week it's a little tough to get back into the habit.)

I achieved one of my thesis goals today: I talked to my advisor! And it was way less terrible than expected. I wasn't able to show him a plan with chapter titles, but I know what he's expecting now and I also have someone else's old thesis which I'm meant to be (stylistically) following. He's also happy to read chapter drafts (up until 2 weeks before its due), which is a good thing. I'm not going to bother him with chapter titles, but I still want to have a proper list of it all by the end of this week.

The one bad thing was that apparently I have to stick to the 5 page max rule for the intro, so I'm going to have to scrap almost all of my existing work :(. (But, I am much more comfortable with the material now, which is obviously a good thing!).

[This is bit is a bit TMI. And I'm also a straight, non-feminist female, which colours my view here a bit]

I went to see The Vagina Monologues this evening. I thought I was going to really enjoy it and....I didn't. I know I'm a bit of a prude, but some parts of it were a bit uncomfortable (which is of course the exact opposite of the goal of it). I disliked being encourage to shout "c*nt" in one of the skits (I get what they're trying to do, but still...) and I also didn't like the portrayal of men so much. I felt that in a lot of it men were portrayed as "bad" and for many women they're an integral part of the sex/learning about their bodies.

Another thing that was probably a bit more in keeping with the goal was the whole orgasm thing. For whatever reason I haven't yet, and I felt like a lot of the skits were a bit focussed on it. Obviously it's an important part of everything (and I'm working on getting there), but I think it's also important to remember that that's not the only good thing about sex (that said I would really like to be able to).

Anyway, that all got a bit heavy at the end! Overall my day was good! (And I remembered how much I loved Pippin today :D)

My history with boys...

(My only other serious boyfriend graduated from University yesterday, so it got me thinking about all the guys I've dated)

Before I got to my current boyfriend, I had others, only one of whom was serious. My first “boyfriend” was when I was 14. I met him at a “Science Camp”. He was overweight, had ADD and was from Essex (which is a long way from where I live. I don’t think we ever actually met up after the camp, we were just nominally “dating”). He had a very different “world view” to me. Most of his friends seem to have slept around by the time they were 14, and he was desperate to have sex. He pressured me into it and was always talking about how he should come to my house and we should “sleep” in the tent outside, alone. (In retrospect I’m pretty sure my parents wouldn’t have let us.). He did some pretty inappropriate things over msn video chat (yes, we used msn). (I didn’t reciprocate and we never got anywhere near actually having sex. I don’t think we even ever kissed). Oddly enough, my experience with him shaped me a lot. It made me fairly wary of boys, and I think that experience is probably why I refuse to do pretty much anything with someone I’m not dating and don’t really like.

The second boy in my life was one that I randomly kissed at a party when I was 16 or 17. I was very drunk (and I’d never been drunk before that party) and he was in charge of the music. I wanted to listen to another song, so I guess my devious 16 year old brain thought the best strategy would be to distract him by making out with him.

Then came James. James was a really wonderful guy. I was stupid and probably 17 at that point and didn’t realize what it meant to “like someone”. I pretty much treated the whole thing as a joke, which I still really regret to this day. (He’s since found another girlfriend who he absolutely adores). After we broke up I almost starting dating one of his other friends, but by mutual decision we agreed that that would be a really bad idea.

After James came Andrew. Andrew is my only other serious boyfriend to date, and I adored him. We only dated for 8 months (we broke up when I came to college in the US and he stayed in the UK. It was mutual, and we always knew it was going to happen). He was the first boyfriend that I actually loved. We had a really fun relationship – we only ever really saw each other on weekends and because we knew we were going to break up we rarely fought. He was also the first guy I ever slept with - a difficult decision at the time because we knew we were going to break up and we didn't know if it was "worth it", but in retrospect I am so glad that I did. I’m basically still not over him. We broke up in August and a few weeks later he went on holiday (with his friends) and kissed another girl in a nightclub. At the time it was absolutely awful – I’d just started university, I was already having huge issues with homesickness and that that happened. I still have the voicemail he left telling me to call him so that we could talk about it. Anyway, he eventually ended up dating that girl for almost a year and then had a horrible breakup with her, so they don’t talk any more. Andrew and I are still fairly good friends (I still consider him to be one of my best friends in the UK, which I’m not sure the current boy likes so much) and we go out for lunch/dinner whenever we’re both at home. He knew me better than anyone else three years ago, so he’s still pretty good at giving me advice about various things and he definitely “gets” how I think. Anyway, like I said, I’m not entirely over him. I never will be because he was the first person I loved. That said, nothing would ever ever happen between us now, because we’re past that point in our lives, I have my current boyfriend and to be totally honest I’m not sure it would work.

After the incident with Andrew kissing the other girl, I felt lonely and terrible and like I just needed another boyfriend. I went through two boyfriends in about six months (the first of which later ended up dating my roommate at the time (and they’re still together), which led to a lot of issues. The other is a great guy, and we’re still fairly good friends.) Needless to say, neither relationship worked out, probably because I wanted to get pretty serious pretty quickly (I really just wanted another guy to take Alex’s place and to already be eight months into a relationship).

After I broke up with the second one of those guys, I was feeling terrible, depressed and homesick. For Lent that year I decided to “give up guys”. In other words, I wanted to be single for a while (which is atypical for me!). I told my new best guy friend (who is now my boyfriend) about that resolution and he seemed to think it was a good idea. As we got closer and closer we both wondered whether there was something there, and after a few small issues (most notably my jackass roommate telling him that I absolutely categorically didn’t like him and that he was wasting his time) he finally asked me out. (Or rather kissed me and then said “ok, how should we tell the others that we’re dating”.). And the rest is history J.

Anyway, sorry for the long post. Andrew graduated yesterday, which got me thinking about him again. I never once went up to his University to see him, which I kinda regret. On the other hand, I’m not sure the current boy would have gone for it!

How important a role do boyfriends/girlfriends play in your life?

Roommates

So, the boyfriend and I have had to move rooms for the next week or so. He technically isn't meant to be staying with me, but is. We have two other roommates and we're going to be getting a third one today (which means that my boyfriend won't still be able to stay with me :( ). Anyway, one of the girls has two of her friends staying which is fine, but....

Firstly, they have tonnes of alcohol in the room which is fine, but if the campus police were to find it we'd all be in trouble. Secondly, they're loud and noisy and in the room a lot. We came back last night and found one of the *guests* in our common room, on the floor with a guy, messing around. We went off to shower and came back to find an empty condom wrapper and an unwrapped (used) condom in the bin. I'm not a prude, but I think its a bit much to do that on the floor of a shared common room where you're a guest. Secondly, they woke us up at 8 with their loud talking and giggling. The boyfriend went out at 10 to ask them to be a bit more quiet, and they got better, but not much better.
I also went out into the common room and here was a guy out there, who presumably spent the night. I'm really annoyed at these girls (and our roommate who said they could stay) because they're really not acting with much decorum.

 I'm not entirely sure what to do. On one hand, I do have my boyfriend here and I guess he is a guest here. I have this other roommate coming back today, so I want to stay flexible etc because we might want to try to negotiate and get the others to agree to let him stay in the room. I also don't want to seem old and grumpy and like a party pooper. On the other hand, they're really not behaving with any decorum and disrupting our ability to enjoy reunions.

Does anyone have any advice? How would you all handle this kind of thing?

Health Visit Last Week

So, I realised that I never explained the mysterious "health visit" from last Friday.

Like I said, I have a boyfriend of two years who I am very fond of. Like most couples our age, we sleep together (in both senses of the word). Anyway, because of that I've been on the pill (Ocella) since June 2009, a few months after we started dating (we started dating in March, and "first"* slept together at the end of May, not ideal I know). Anyway, I periodically go to the doctor to get my prescription refilled. One of the side effects of the pill is high blood pressure, so I also get that checked. Before I was on the pill (and when I was chilled out and at home for the summer) my bp was 100/60 (pretty low). My blood pressure now hovers around 135/95 (pretty high. If I was my grandmother they'd give me medicine for it.) I'm pretty sure that a lot of it is stress/diet/lack of exercise, but regardless my doctor was kinda worried. I measured it regularly for about a month, but also started thinking about other types of birth control.

I'm very close to my mum and best friend, so I talked over it with both of them (and my boyfriend of course!). Anyway, I decided that I wanted to switch to the nuvaring which (and don't read this part if you're squeamish) is a flexible plastic ring which fits inside you, and stays there for three weeks. It releases low levels of hormones, so mimics pregnancy (like the pill). There are a few advantages of it for me - not needing to remember to take the pill at the same time every morning, lower doses of hormones (which my doctor thinks will help the blood pressure) and hormones not going through my gut (it's just not good for you to send things like hormones through it).

I had to go to the doctor to get the new prescription. She was really in favour of the switch, so that's good.

I actually put it in for the first time today...it feels strange. I know this is a bit gross, but I'm not entirely convinced that it's in me quite right (but, given that I have my period right now, I don't really want to go fishing around down there too much). I'm going to see how it goes though, and hopefully I'll get used to it (and stop being afraid to pee - I'm terrified that it'll fall out into the loo when I pee!). When I started taking the pill it gave me some...issues. I was stressed and depressed, and constantly angry at my family. I'm going to be recording how I feel with this new type of BC - I'm hoping I don't get any negative side effects from it.


*I'm pretty conservative, and I absolutely categorically do not believe in one night stands. I'm much more relaxed in relationships though, and even at the beginning of our relationship I thought we had a lot of potential. Anyway, we actually slept together before that first time (while we were dating). It was maybe a month into our relationship, but it wasn't a good idea. We both thought it was a good idea beforehand, but we weren't ready. The boyfriend had never had sex before, so that made it an even less good idea (I had, story for another day) (also, the fact that he was and I was pretty much a virgin is part of the reason that we have "unprotected " sex. He's also been tested for STDs).

EDIT: So it did almost fall out when I just used the bathroom - not just me being paranoid! I took it out and reinserted it though, and it feels much better now!