Crippling Fears… and Grades!

I wonder if I will ever actually feel comfortable living alone.

I love the privacy, the solitude, and the self-made noise, which is no reflection at all on my roommate or other girls on my floor, of course. I’ve been living alone on campus for the past five days, going for daily runs, long walks, tinkering around on my computer, reading, and talking with my brother and my mother. None of this bothers me.

Of all things, it’s the bugs. And it’s always the bugs, even in my parents’ bug-free apartment in Charlotte. Here, there are potato bugs/lady bugs, big-ass retarded flies that slam repeatedly into the window, and these weird cricket/spider looking bugs that crop up occassionally. There actually aren’t even many bugs. But I find myself constantly looking for them, feeling like even the slightest tickle of my pajama pants or hair on my neck is a bug. I had to laugh at my own absurdity last night when I found myself lying wide awake for three hours on a matress I’d pulled about six inches away from the wall–just in case. As if my huge, king-size blanket was any less accessible to the critters undoubtedly hiding under my bed or sliding up the wall. The cleaning lady had no idea of the extent of my relief on seeing her this morning, with her vacuum and clean sheets and dusting supplies (I’m going to have to find out where they hide the vacuum–daily vacuuming isn’t excessive, is it?). It’s the kind of thing that has had me tip toeing around my room (my carpet is just the color to allow the lady bugs to blend in, dammit) and down the hall on my feed-the-pets stints (two lizards, a brain-damaged goldfish, and a plant), lest I step on… something.

That makes my dorm sound much dirtier and gross than it really is. Sometimes I just wish I could shake myself out of this, because all I’m managing to do is stay up ridiculously late weirding myself out. Le sigh. Bridget will be back Thursday, so there’s always that to look forward to.

Due to some weirdness that wouldn’t allow me to get my grades until today, I’ve been narrowly avoiding nail-biting on behalf of the ol’ GPA. But boy did I do a jig when I finally got my grades. Way better than I expected. Not all A’s, of course, but I was expecting one A and three solid B’s; I ended up with two A’s (one in Chemistry, too–that was one of the harder A’s I’ve ever had to pull off, but was definitely worth it), and two B+’s, which apparently have higher weight than plain ol’ B’s. Which drops my cumulative GPA a whole one hundredth of a point. I may not make Dean’s List with a quarter GPA of 3.73 (I actually don’t know what the requirements are for that), but they can sit on that and twirl, quite frankly. I got an A in Chemistry, and a B+ in the last goddamn Physics course I will ever have to take. There is some mad Happy Dancing and giggling going on around here.

Final note to self: When you’re having skin allergies activated by any kind of abrasion, do not, do not, do not attempt to shave your legs after a morning outdoor run. Jee-sus I’m stupid sometimes.