Today has been horrible so far. I fell asleep watching Criminal Minds last night, which was a very bad idea in retrospect, because I had horrible nightmares of a ghost girl who cried at me until I went and looked for her body, which turned out to be buried under a piece of plywood that was also covering up about a thousand skulls because a serial killer took and buried the heads of all his victims. And murderous sharks that were stalking me. And snakes that were chasing me. And a tree lady who had a grudge against me for some reason and kept trying to pull me into the ground. And cannibalism. Which has EVERYTHING to do with Criminal Minds.
So after I woke up from nightmares, I prepared myself for my day. It was AFTER I got out of the shower that I remembered that I forgot to put my clothes in the dryer last night, so I dried them for as long as I could (about 11 minutes) and then headed off to work in 7 degree cold with soaking clothes because I had no dry ones AT ALL.
And now I'm bored. I have a paper due today, but I already finished it, so I'm just bored at work because nobody comes to the library on a Wednesday morning when it's 7 degrees outside.
When your day starts out like this, there's no denying it. The rest of your day is going to be an endless barrage of things going wrong. I can hope that this won't happen...but I'll probably be disappointed. Sorry for the pessimism. I'm rather grumpy today.
I do, however, have two things to look forward to in the near future:
1) the college I attend has an annual Pride Prom, which is being held two weeks from tomorrow! Seeing as most of my friends are very involved in this school's LGBT community, I can look forward to a fun night of hanging out with totally awesome people!
2) In two and a half weeks, I'm leaving for a 10 day vacation in Ecuador!
I've never been to Ecuador, but the idea of going nearly makes me faint with anticipation. I love to travel. I don't get the opportunity to travel very often, being a poor college student. But one of my very good friends, who was an exchange student to my school when we were both seniors in high school, lives in Ecuador. I had no plans for a fun vacation this winter break. The property that my family owns in Florida is currently being rented FOREVER, so that option was out. Plus, I probably would have got about ten feet out the door to Florida and then had to turn around because I have very little money, even if I had been able to go. So I was very crabby and planning on staying home for my break, AGAIN, because this has happened every winter break since I moved out of my parents' house and suddenly realized that they're quite well off and I (on my own) am not very well-endowed in the financial department.
Anyway, I was talking to Ecuadorian Friend on facebook (because international phone calls and texting would serve to eat away the last of my saved funds), and I made a joke that I should go and visit him. He took my joke seriously. He was like, "YEAH! DO IT! COME VISIT ME! NO ONE FROM THE U.S. EVER COMES TO VISIT!" because he's been back to visit the friends he made here several times, but apparently no one has made the commute to go visit him. I patiently explained to him that I am, in fact, very low on money and the moment and I could never afford an international flight, let alone the expenses of living in another country for multiple days. But I had already put the hope in him; two minutes later, he was telling me that he had run it by his parents and they were fine with me staying with them for the duration of my (then fictional) vacation.
I ran the idea by my parents. I told them that if I spent absolutely no money whatsoever on anything besides groceries and gas for my car, I could probably save enough for the $900 plane ticket (the cheapest I could find) to Ecuador. I didn't mention that after arriving in Ecuador, I would probably be utterly devoid of money entirely and have to beg Ecuadorian Friend to feed me during the trip.
My parents considered my plans for about 1/1,000th of a second before saying, "You're graduating in April, right?"
Me: Yeah. Why?
Parents: We'll pay for the ticket.
Me: Why?! You guys pay for enough of my stuff already! I want to be financially independent!
Parents (knowing the impossibility of my financial independence): Consider it a graduation present.
Me: Are you sure?
Parents: Stop protesting and accept the present.
So that's how I went from no vacation to SUPER AWESOME EXCITING KICKASS vacation!
The only thing that worries me slightly is that Ecuadorian Friend says that everyone in Ecuador is Catholic and they really don't have transpeople there. He also tells me that he hasn't yet informed his parents of my transition, although I will be living in the same house with them for ten whole days. The impression I got when he told me this was that he was going to spring the news on his parents at the last minute and then immediately dash out the door to pick me up from the airport, leaving them no time to refuse to let me into the house.
Ecuadorian Friend says he doesn't know how his parents will react, but hopefully they won't care. I honestly don't know how I'm going to react, either. The idea I get is that most people I meet in Ecuador will be confused by my request to be called Pete despite my obvious feminine appearance, that they will probably be slightly confused by my decision to transition when this is explained to them, but that they will probably be open-minded about it. I've met people like this on an individual basis, but not in mass numbers. We'll see what happens and how it all works out. Ecuadorian Friend says I have nothing to worry about, so I have high hopes for the trip.
My only other concern is that I'll be eaten by velociraptors hidden in the jungle, but I keep getting repeatedly told that this is unlikely to happen. I intend to keep an eye out for anything nearby that could be used as a weapon in a dinosaur attack.
No comments:
Post a Comment