Mo' Drama

I was pretty busy on Sunday and yesterday, thus no posts. I had a paper due, which I finished and turned in. Hopefully it isn't shite. I feel like I'm not giving my best effort in this International Law class, but that could just be because I haven't gotten any grades back on the work I've completed and I have no idea how she's going to grade. Either way, it's not my favorite class, in fact, it's mostly boring shite because it's taught more as a law class and less as a politics class. Plus, I'm not really fascinated with international law. Definitely need to know about it, but it's not my thing really.

I booked a flight to Dublin next month. I'm only going for 3 days, but it's a much needed break (after exams) and I've been wanting to get there. Only cost £30 return on Ryan Air. Of course, the actual ticket was priced £2, but there are £28 in taxes and fees. I'll never understand that one. After booking it I realized I could have gone to Cork for £20, but that's ok. Dublin first, Cork second. I have to start looking soon for a trip in July after the quarter is over - as in, after school is over (except for the thesis part!).

Real World's new nickname (although not on this blog) is Kensanity or Kensania, depending on usage. Yesterday in class I think she was having a manic episode. She kept tearing paper repeatedly in that obsessive-compulsive can't stop kind of way. It was quite disruptive so I asked, "having fun?". No response. Later, she showed me this thing she wrote (wasn't taking notes, not writing on the lines of the paper) that basically says that she can't find happiness or love in any guy that she's with and she doesn't know why. I ask, "have you tried loving yourself?" She says "no". I suggest that she try.

Later, in the middle of class, she gets up, packs up her things, hands a note to the prof and leaves. I get a text from her that is all sorts of dramatic about "wanting to die". Now, I'm not normally so skeptical about people with suicidal thoughts and maybe I should be with Real World, but for many reasons I think she's crying out for attention more than anything. I had a conversation with her before class where I stressed two things: her friends can't help her and that she needs to go see a professional. So later, when I receive that text, I send her a message back that instructs her to seek help now, not delay, get treatment, get better. She replies that she doesn't want to get deported or institutionalized and that she "doesn't want to put this on [me] but she needs [my] help". I have read that people with chronic mental illness always find excuses not to get treated, so I send her a text that said that there is nothing I can do because I have not the training and that she won't get deported or committed and that she shouldn't let her fear of treatment stop her from getting help. I don't know what she did because I haven't heard from her since.

I'm really at the end of my patience with this one. Maybe she is having suicidal thoughts, she's certainly a manic depressive, but I refuse to be an enabler for her to not get treatment. She always turns to her friends instead of getting real help and as I was saying to The Tease (finally found a nickname for her), it's time for her to help herself. It's not anyone's job except Real World's to get her head straight, so to put this on someone else, as she put it, while not even possible, merely risks repeating the manic cycle that defines her life. I learned a long time ago that you can't save someone else from themself and that the only thing you can do is continually encourage them to get help. Whether they do or do not is never up to you.

Anyway, enough of the heavy stuff. Here's a little ditty I wrote this morning while shaving with cold water, appropriately titled "Shaving with cold water" and best sung to the music from the Jewel song "Standing in Deep Water". (And yes, I'm a dork.)

When you find yourself rising anew
Your hopes in the sky but your head feels like you’ve been sniffing glue
And you try to find yourself
In the abstractions of a hot shower that takes you somewhere else
And you wake up to realize
Your student house has run out of hot water before sunrise

And when you're shaving with cold water
And you're shaving yourself with a cold razor
When you're scraping stubble off your chin
And your upstrokes make your blood churn
Well it's these little times that help to remind
There’s nothing like cold razor burn

When you realize your only pleasure
has always been showering in hot leisure
That's when everything fades or falls away
Cause the cold water which once was warm instead continues to cascade

And when you're shaving with cold water
And you're shaving yourself with a cold razor
When you're scraping stubble off your chin
And your upstrokes make your blood churn
Well it's these little times that help to remind
There’s nothing without hot water, hot water, hot water

So I compromise and skip the shower, sacrifice cleanliness
We must demand more, not from each other, but more from William Temple House

Cause when you're shaving with cold water
And you're shaving yourself with a cold razor
When you're scraping stubble off your chin
And your upstrokes make your blood churn
Well it's these little times that help to remind
There’s nothing without hot water, hot water, hot water
The dawn is nothing without hot water.