Firemare's Profile

As I've said on here, college has had it's ups and downs. A few weeks ago my family sent me a care package. Gummy brains, comics, a new scarf... Suffice it to say I felt loved. Today topped that. I live on the opposite side of the country from everyone but my immedeate family, so when I got an e-mail notification that I had recieved a package, that was who I expected it to be from. It wasn't. My grandmother, aunt and cousin had heard about my rough time, bought me some fudge and mailed it across the country with a card wishing me well.
To say it made my day is an understatement. I love my family so much, and I rarely appriciate them as much as I should. The fudge is delicious, but the card and the thoughts behind it mean so much more.

Trying to assemble all the incidents of the last few weeks is like being buried in a shower of colored stones and trying to arrange them into a mosiac, but I will try, if only because I don't want to forget. The last thing I posted on here was about An incident around dragoncon. But before that I posted about H1N1, or the swine flu. I was under the impression that I didn't have it. I was wrong. It did no lasting damage, I'm fine, but it did knock me down for a while. I recovered, but by the time dragoncon came I was sick again. I didn't mention it at the time because it didn't seem important, but I had shingles. That took a couple of weeks to recover from.
While I was recovering and catching up in classes, as best I could, things started changing in other parts of my life. A friend of mine, a brother at the fraternity who I had met my first night there... Well, for anyone who has felt their perception of someone change from a blossoming friendship into a blossoming romantic interest will know how I felt. It wasn't much at first, just a changing of perception. But I'm sure that no one wants to hear me raving like a love sick teen. Suffice it to say I grew quite fond of him, and threw many hints his way. He didn't catch on. It was around then that I got sick again. I was mildly ill wedensday and thursday, and got worse on friday. By the time I was ready to go to the health center it was closed for the weekend. I was horribly sick over the weekend. I spent a lot of time at the fraternity simply because I was afraid that if I got too weak in my lofted bed 8 feet off the ground I wouldn't be able to get down. I made it through the weekend, it was miserable, but I was recovering from my illness. I went to the health center anyway, I was still dizzy, weak and had a racking cough. The timing of going in first thing in the morning made me miss a math test, as I ended up sitting around for a couple of hours while they performed various test. It turns out that I didn't have strep, or mono, but they weren't sure what I had. What they did was gave me quite a bit of antibiotics and other meds and said to come back if it didn't clear up in 72 hours. I got a pass for the day off, and went back to the house. Luckily, I got REALLY good meds. The cough went away almost instantly. The next day I was ready to go back to class, but I made a bad decision. I wake late, as late as I can, so I ended up taking several pills on an empty stomach right before class. I made it through, and the teacher excused my test practically before I could speak. (I took it a couple of weeks later, I made a 95) I went back to the house, with an escort, and made my crush into a pillow. It was a great idea at the time, but I regretted it later as I think I may have passed it on to him, he was certainly coughing later. It was around this time that my soon to be big, Julia, told me some facts of the house. I'm not going to mention the names of those involved, perhaps years from now, but even though I'm sure they don't read this, it would be callous. I gamed with a group of three to five men at the house, always a core three. A brother (my interest), an alumni and an honorary member. Julia asked me if I was interested in the brother of the group. I admitted that I was. She informed me that this was good, we would be a cute couple. She then asked if I knew that the alumni of the group liked me. I was flabbergasted, and replied that I did not. She instructed me not to date him. This situation repeated itself half a week later in the dining hall with a different brother. I was confused, and a little thrown off. I had no interest in the alumni in question, but I was growing ever more attracted in the brother in question. It was hard to figure out what to do. I wanted to be around the brother, and I thought of the alumni as a good friend, but I didn't want to cause strife. I continued to throw my hints at my interest. I've never had a boyfriend of any kind, and I didn't want to give up this chance. I knew that he was at least somewhat interested in me as well. Though his hints were not nearly as obvious, he certainly wasn't pushing me away and I liked what I was seeing. I decided that if nothing had happened in a week, I would just ask him out. I knew that dating between pledges and brothers was discouraged, but I really didn't care. I'm level headed enough to handle myself maturely, and so was he. It was part of what attracted me in the first place. On wedensday every week the brotherhood has a series of meetings, then adjourns for food. I liked to ride with the alumni, he and my interest as well as Geoff, the president of our chapter all usually rode together. It's an experience, music and singing all the way there and back. Companionship and fun times. Only thing was, I had been offered dinner by another brother. I was up for it, until I realized that I wouldn't be riding with my interest. I was so attracted to him, to not be around him for the ride like I was used to would have been... lonely. I made an excuse to ride in the car with him as usual. He and I rode in the back, we were just setting out when we realized we didn't know where we were going. We called my big, and she said that if we had a spare seat there was someone at the house that knew the way and needed a ride. When we all got out we found out that it was her. As navigator she took shotgun, Geoff sat behind the alumni, and my interest sat in the middle. As I moved in to sit beside him I realized that I didn't know where to put my hand as I no longer had room. I was putting it on his leg to get in when his hand was suddenly in mine. We fumbled for a moment and ended up holding hands. I was happy, how could I not be? I felt like a giddy school girl, trying to hide our clasped hands from the parents up front. The alumni would not have been happy, and Julia is not exactly subtle. When we got to the restaraunt, IHOP, we ended up sitting in a half booth, half chairs. He and I were in the booth. Though it was made for three people, there was room for a person on either side of us we were sitting so close. When we got into the car on the way back the first thing he did was reach for my hand. When we got back Julia took him to the side and, I found out later, asked him if we were dating yet. He replied "Not quite" before coming over to the couch to keep me company. Within half an hour he was laying with his head in my lap, hand in mine, fast asleep. Several people, brothers and pledges wandered by and enquired silently about us. I was happy to silently answer "Yes" The next day, when questioned, we agreed that yes, yes we were dating. This was two and a half weeks ago. There is one more incident I want to cover before I stop for now. A week ago I was home for fall break. Down on friday, home until tuesday. We kept in touch by instant message, for hours a day, but we still missed each other terribly. I was glad to be home for a while, but I missed him so much it hurt. I just wanted him there, or to be there with him. Still, I had fun, and was certainly kept amused by derailing his train of thought with mental images of me in dresses. On monday, my ride was coming down to my home town, to return to college on tuesday. I was in touch with my boyfriend and he said that he had something to do, but would be back in an hour. Three hours later I was confused. This wasn't like him. I got on AIM to chat with someone else in the house, ask where he was. It happened to be the Alumni, who thankfully had gotten over me. I was told that my boyfriend was off working on a project with none other then the person who was supposed to be my ride. I was highly suspicious. Further inquiries and behavior cemented my suspicions. My boyfriend was riding four hours down to see me, maybe 15 hours sooner, after only a week and a half together, and three days apart. When he showed up on my doorstep, I was wearing a black dress to meet him.
I could rant about him, my feelings for him, and even some interesting things with my family for many pages, but I think that this is enough of a mosiac for now. And from where I'm standing, it looks beautiful.

I've had a lot to do lately, and a lot has happened. But this isn't about any of that. Today I was at Dragoncon. I got tired early and decided to go catch a nap. As I left the Metro and walked back towards where I was staying, an african american man asked me and the clump of people I was walking among for just one quarter. He pointed to a nearby studying student and said that he "was proud of that boy" and that if we would look inside the restaraunt we would see why. Of everyone in the group only I stopped, instantly actually. I gave him four. He told me that his world was pure, but not pure enough to tell me what he wanted to say. He said that I was pure, that he could tell, that god made no mistakes, that he would rather die then come into my life, because I was pure. I found that a little confusing until he said that he would rather die then "fuck up [my] life." He gave me two hugs, a kiss on the shoulder and looked me straight in the eyes. No one looks me in the eyes, I think he was surprised I looked him in his. He was, and is, one of the most, honest, sincere, caring and truly religous men, no, people I've ever met. I keep wanting to cry now, because I think he should be a father or a pastor or bus driver for young children somewhere. But he can't be. When I did move on I glanced into the restaraunt, but I didn't see anything but people.

Mene, I was wearing a medieveal dress and boots. He told me I "Was pure" and meant it. why is such tolerance and compassion so rare? Perhaps if there were more people like him in the world, the world wouldn't be in the state it's in. If every christian had even a measure of his character, I would be honored to carry that name. Something about that man calling me pure, made me feel more... worthy then almost anything I've ever felt.

I have to say, I'm a little sad. A few years ago I was majorly into an online quiz site called quizilla. It was fun, had some good stories with open endings, nice fluffy mary sue romances with elves and catboys. Not meant to be fine art, just a fun story to brighten someone's day. Now I don't hold a very high opinion of romance novels, just because I find that they DO try to be fine art, yet still try to keep the light fluffy, happily-ever-after goodness. In my opinion, authors should realize exactly what it is that they're writing. I write lots of random little gratuitous fix-it romance stories. Of course I know they're trash. That's okay, they're supposed to be. I enjoy writing them and I've found a couple of people that enjoy reading them, and that's more then I ever expected.

Moving back to the topic of quizilla. Back when I was on quite a bit, there were a nice variety of stories, generic quizzes and ones that made you think. The silly romances didn't take themselves too seriously, and were better for it! But they did try to make a coherent story and make it fun for the reader. I enjoyed it, it was a fun site. I've checked in on it a few times over the last year or so, and honestly I'm not happy with what I'm seeing. The first thing was that they split it into sections for quizzes, stories and poems. Inherently I don't have a problem with this, except that they also put a character limit on the "questions" for the quizzes. Meaning where before you could have two paragraphs of a story leading to a question of "What do you do?" there are now either lots of irrelevant breaks or worse, that the mass of the question gets cut out completely. The absolute worst part is that they applied it retroactively. Now lots of excelent material is gone forever since the authors had either moved on, or given up at the enormous task of re-doing all that work.

With most of the better authors frustrated with the new format, the median age of the site declined rapidly, along with it's general maturity level. Just a moment ago I decided to check in on it again. Waste maybe half an hour or so to wear out my mind before going to bed. What I found shocked and dissapointed me. In the past the "What is your love story" or "Who do you end up with" quizzes were fun to me. They usually used characters I already knew and had a crush on, the results were fun, and almost always had a happy ending. Again, NOT fine art, but they weren't trying to be. What I'm finding there now is far from that.

Firstly about half of the results are now "He's mine HA HA HA HA HA! You die old and alone" and/or "He loves me and not you so he kills you! And then kisses me and we live happily ever after and have lots of kids!" I'm sorry, how did it come to this? The point of the quizzes is to be fun, entertaining and enjoyable to the reader and writer. Where along the line did that turn into a juvenile case of one-up-manship against someone who didn't even know they were participating? The entire attidude of the site seems to have become more hostile and greedy, the motto being "You don't like it? I DON'T CARE!"

Secondly, the results that aren't claiming ownership or making fun of the reader are filled with chatspeak, horrendous spelling and grammar and seem to be written by a third grader, if that. Worse, the entire quizzes can be written this way, making them near to totally incomprehensible.

If most of the site was like this, but there were still some jewels, perhaps I would be more forgiving. But when I find the "Top rated" list populated with the above I officially give up. The site I once knew is gone. Rest in peace Quizilla, it was fun while it lasted.

No philosophy or deep insights this time. I apparently am sick enough to be quarantined for a week or so due to H1N1 (Commonly known as "Swine flu") prevalence. In simpler terms, my local health center is so overwhelmed with H1N1 cases that they no longer have the resources to test the difference between that and the regular flu, so anyone that meets a certain number of symptoms on a checklist is considered to have "Flu-like symptoms" and is quarantined. My sore throat, racking coughs, body aches and slight fever put me into this catagory. So I'll be in my small dorm room for most of the next week, and probably won't have anything interesting to report...