It's been a few days since I updated my blog, so I thought I'd do it tonight before I get stuck in the habit of never writing in it and leaving it completely abandoned and forgotten about for nearly two years... again.

The last couple days have been pretty uneventful, but I've been losing a lot of my precious sleep trying to finish assignments. I still have to finish my winter term paper for Thursday. Luckily, I got the long, boring and tedious part out of the way over yesterday and today, so it shouldn't take me too long to finish it up tomorrow. I still need to resend my other assignment in to my TA, though. I didn't go to her tutorial this morning, because I felt sick, but we ran into each other later today and she told me the attachment to my email didn't go through. I told her I'd resend it tonight, but since I did the project in such a hurry last night, I'm terrified that I made a citation mistake and that she'll accuse me of plagiarism and then I'll get a zero in the course and get expelled from York, which will go on my educational record, so Guelph will see it and reject me because they don't want someone who plagiarizes attending their school... yeah... I worry... A LOT! I've been crazily paranoid about being accused of plagiarism since I came to university, though. They tend to strike absolute fear into your heart over it.

Now I've returned to playing Restaurant City, which I've abandoned for a while. It's nice to be able to relax and enjoy a game I really like. I haven't been able to do that for the last little while.

----------

Okay. What you just read above was the blog entry I started two days ago, but never finished. Yeah, I got sidetracked. Sorry. Since there hasn't been much to talk about lately, I'm just going to talk about the most recent stuff.

A few days ago, I got in a fight with my dad over the phone. I called him on my walk back to my grandma's from the bus stop to ask him what my mom wanted for Mother's Day and we ended up fighting over school. This is almost word-for-word how that conversation went.

MANNY. Well, I'm concerned about your courses for next year. I don't think two days off is good for you.
ASHLEIGH. You know, I'm so fed up, I don't want to go back next year. Like, I want to stay in school, I just don't want to stay at that school. I hate it. It's been nothing but depression and misery since day one.
MANNY. Well, what the hell do you want to do, then? You want to go to Laurier so you can play house with your boyfriend!?!
ASHLEIGH. No! I want to go to Guelph.
MANNY. Why would you want to go to Guelph? It's not a good school for you! York is where you need to be to do what you want to do.
ASHLEIGH. You don't know what's good for me and York isn't where I need to be. It's just where you WANT me to be!
MANNY. You know, I used to go on and on to all my friends about how dedicated to school and education you are! Boy, have you ever changed! I'm not surprised, though. You haven't been making good choices recently.
ASHLEIGH. I know what you're alluding to and that is none of your damn business.
MANNY. It is my business! Everything you do will always be my business!
ASHLEIGH. Newsflash, Dad! I'm a grown adult. You have no say and no control over anything I do anymore. Get used to it.
MANNY. Only in the eye of the law.
ASHLEIGH. Yeah well the law's the only thing that counts in this world.
MANNY. You're all talk, but no action.
ASHLEIGH. Well, I think you'll be very surprised soon enough.
MANNY. What are you talking about?
ASHLEIGH. You'll be very surprised when you find out that all my "talk" is more than just hot air and that I'm serious about what I'm saying.
MANNY. Well, you're just going to have to find a way to go to another school on your own, then!
ASHLEIGH. I'm already applying to OSAP and planning to work my butt off this summer.
MANNY. It makes no sense. You're going to put yourself in debt so you can go to a school that isn't good for you, just so you can have some fun.
ASHLEIGH. I'm hanging up now.
*click*

Yeah. As Alex put it, it's pathetic how he assumes his way is right, just because it's his way. Asshole. If I get accepted to Guelph and can afford it, I'm cutting them out of my life. It'll be easy when I'm living in residence and not with relatives and supporting myself and my own education. I can't stand my parents anymore. I put up with their controlling bullshit my whole life, thinking that they'd let go once I turned eighteen, but they've only tightened the choke chain more and I'm done. I'm breaking free of it, and if they don't like it, well boo-fucking-hoo for them. If they wanted me in their lives, they shouldn't have constricted me so tightly. It's their own fault. I reeeeaaaaallly hope I get accepted to Guelph. I still need to call my old high school and request that they send a transcript to Guelph for me. As for my transcript from York, well who the fuck knows when my grades will be in and they decide to get up off their asses to send it to Guelph? I'll be pissed as hell if they don't, because I already paid an eight dollar fee for them to send the stupid thing and I know that if I have to ask them again, the greedy bastards will charge me more money that I don't have. I'm begging change off my grandparents to take the stupid bus to school every day. Do I look like I have another eight dollars to send by money order, which is really more like fifteen dollars because of the money order fee? Even if I sent a cheque (my chequebook just came in a few days ago and I picked it up), I still don't have eight dollars that I can spare. I am SO fucking broke.

I also got in a fight with Alex a few days ago, but it actually returned very happy results. It's not my business to post her personal problems all over the internet, but I'll just say she was going through some stuff that made her very gloomy. I tried to give her solutions to fix her problems and improve her life and she just wouldn't listen, saying that it didn't matter what she did, nothing would ever change and that no one understands her and what she's feeling... basically, just being really emo (no offense, Alex). I finally got fed up with it and lost my temper, telling her that if she wasn't willing to do anything to fix her problems and help herself, why should anyone else care to help her and to call me when she actually decided to do something with her life. At first, she was all angry with me for blowing up at her and posted a blog entry with some... erm... colourful language concerning me, but then she came back about an hour later and apologized for being... oh how did she put it? A whiny git? Anyway, it was something along those lines. Beyond being sorry for not accepting any help from me, she's decided that she's going to finish this correspondance course of hers and complete the rest of the courses she needs to get her high school, get a job, and apply to college for ecotourism. In fact, she's away at an interview for a placement agency right now! I'm so proud of her! Now, I'm just hoping that she'll be wise enough not to spend money that she needs for tuition and books. I'd suggest to her to keep spending money and school money separated in separate bank accounts. Keep money she can spend in her chequing account and money that she needs for school in her savings account, and don't ever touch the money in her savings account until she actually needs to pay for her tuition, books, and residence/rent (at least, I'm assuming that's why a lot of people have both a chequing and savings account. I've realized recently that I'm a moron when it comes to financial knowledge, but I'm learning). I'm sure that if she's motivated enough and really serious about all of this that that won't be a problem for her. It'd also be a good idea to focus on paying off any debt she has first before anything else, too.

I'm also so angry with my other friends, Marilyn and Joanna that I'm seriously at the point of telling them I want nothing more to do with them. Joanna invited me to her 20th birthday party in June. Apparently, everyone's going to go to Niagara Falls for the night to gamble/drink at the casino. There's a problem with that: I'm not 19, so I can't even get in to the casino at all, and even if I could, I don't drink and don't gamble. I got really upset and told Chris about this, saying that they must have only invited me out of obligation and were probably planning on leaving me by myself in the hotel room all night so I don't get to celebrate Jo's birthday with any of them. Chris, always giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, assured me that that probably wasn't the case and that of course they wouldn't leave me by myself and at least one person would stay and do something fun with me. I wasn't so sure, but I wanted to believe that my friends wouldn't be so mean to me and calmed down, but then the next day, Chris saw Marilyn at the book store in our village and asked her what they were planning to do about me not being able to get into the casino, and she just kind of shrugged and nonchalantly said that she guessed I'd just have to not come with them. THEY WERE GOING TO LEAVE ME ALONE IN THE HOTEL ROOM ALL FUCKING NIGHT! I hate them! Why the fuck would they even invite me if they were just going to do that to me? Cruel kicks? Well, fuck them! I'm going to take Chris with me to Niagara Falls and we're going to have a great time at Jo's party on our own, and their whole cruel plan of making me feel like shit will blow up in their faces! Chris and I have been fantasizing about a trip to Niagara Falls together for a long time, anyway, so now we'll get that chance. I'm already looking for a cheap hotel room for us. Hopefully, we can go and Chris' dad's birthday doesn't interfere. He says he'll know by this weekend for sure. After this stupid party of Jo's, I'm telling them both to go fuck themselves and never try to talk to me again. Friends don't do that to each other, and I'm sick of putting up with their bullshit after months of them ignoring me. I think I have to go to Marilyn's May 24 weekend tent party at her house, too, because I already agreed to go months ago. Chris is going, too, so it should still be fun, even if Mare and Jo treat me like shit.

Also, on Saturday, I'm going to be spending the afternoon and/or evening with Chris and his friends. This hasn't happened for a long time. The few times he's made plans with me and his friends together, it hasn't turn out well. We just have nothing in common and don't really get along. Chris says they want to get to know me, but I don't think that's true at all. They're so loud and talkative with each other, but then never talk to me at all. Bobbi's the only one who bothers to acknowledge my presence when I'm with them, and she makes an honest effort and is actually really nice, but it's obvious we don't have a lot in common, either. One time, I got so fed up with one of his friends that I asked Chris to take me home early. It's not that I dislike all of them. I dislike a few of his friends, but not all of them. There are more that I like than I dislike, I think. They don't like me, though. Chris says they do, but I don't believe him. I can feel the dislike and alienation flooding the entire room when we all get together. Someone told me once that it's just "weird and awkward for everyone when I'm there." Later, they apologized for saying that and said that it actually wasn't true, but I still remember that every time I hang out with his friends and it makes me feel so awkward and weird that I can barely make myself say two words. I have a lot of problems talking to people I don't know, especially when I have nothing in common with those people. I never get any of their jokes, or have anything to contribute to their conversations that won't make them hate me even more. It's so stressful and frustrating. I still hang out with them, anyway, because I know it makes Chris happy and I really want to try this Saturday for him, but I don't know if there's going to be a noticable difference. I'm still so scared to open my mouth around them. I turned down bowling with Mare, Jo and Alex on Saturday to go to John and to see the new Star Trek movie with Chris and his friends, but that's okay. I didn't really want to see Mare or Jo anyway and if I'm really determined, I can figure out a way to hang out with Alex sometime in the near future. I'd much rather see Chris than Mare and/or Jo any day, even if it's in a stressful situation.

Okay, change of topic! So last night, I was finishing my term project I mentioned in the part of my blog entry I never quite finished. I was planning on finishing it the night before, but I got into a fight with Chris and crying and working don't go well together. As for the fight, I think it's been tentatively resolved for now, but I know we're going to have to revisit the solution we came to at some point, because it's not exactly the best solution for him. Anyway, no more details than that will be given, only that we're okay and we always will be okay because we work through our problems like adults instead of throwing hissy fits and walking out on each other every time we have a disagreement like a couple of fourteen-year-olds. I ended up finishing it at like one last night, instead of eleven like I wanted. My cousins came over unexpectedly and distracted me for a while and then Chris and Jaquelyn were online, so I was talking to them. Then I got sidetracked by looking at hotel rates in Niagara Falls. Once I finished it and sent it to Jacquelyn to print out (my printer/scanner/photocopier's pretty much in a vegetative state... permanently), I couldn't sleep. I was thinking about the fight with Chris and what awful friends Marilyn and Jo are, and just ended up crying into my pillow with Wilfred clutched to my chest under my chin. I finally texted Chris, but he couldn't stay up with me because he needed to work at the animal clinic for his dad the next day. I needed to get up at 6:30am anyway for class. I decided not to miss this one because I've missed too many classes lately and I need good marks to get into Guelph. I did get to sleep at like 3:30am or so, but it was really fitful and I was still semi-conscious, so I still didn't really sleep. The shower this morning helped wake me up, though.

Now, I'm sitting in that class and I need to pack up, because it's ending now. I think this is a good sized blog entry anyway, so I hope that makes up for the few days' hiatus.