The Week I Wish Wasn't

As I write this, I'm trying to push out of my head the annoyance that is Ohio University Halloween and all the hassles it brings into my life. However, I suppose that after this week, whatever inconveniences it causes me should be considered minor.

The best place to start, I am told, is the beginning. On Monday, I had an exam in my Rome class. I felt reasonably prepared walking into it. After walking out, however, I severely wanted to hurt the professor. Severely. Allow me to illustrate. The test was one hour long and featured 75 fill in the blanks (yes, 75), six short answers, and 42 map questions. Please explain to me how I am supposed to get all of that done in an hour. The short answers alone would've taken me at least a half hour to complete. I left a healthy portion of that test complete. I was seething. What's the point of creating a test like that? I don't get it. I can't wait to get it back and find out there's no curve on it. Really, I'll be thrilled. I might high five someone. Seriously... why? Do you have a bonus for each student flunking?

Tuesday featured an exam in my globalization class, which I think went OK. The test largely had what I expected (imagine that!), so that was fine. But that night, a guy on the third floor exposed himself to Carolyn. And when I say exposed, I mean exposed. The whole farm.
That started off a whole ugly chain. Carolyn, you see, is a girl who has lived something of a sheltered life. She went to a Catholic all-girl school, has lived very clean, very pure. As she said, the last penis she saw belonged to her baby brother. So this didn't go over well at all. She told me the whole thing has made her feel dirty (even though she didn't do anything), like she can't trust going to that floor anymore or going outside alone now.
So now she's had to deal with it, and I think she's done a good job. She reported it, the police have gotten involved, and action will be taken. But on a personal note... I feel like she's keeping me at arm's length right now because of our situation. I understand it, I'm not upset at her for it, but it's very frustrating. All I want to do is hold her and tell her everything will be OK, yet she's skittish around me right now. Conversations have been... uneasy. She's keeping me updated on what's going on, but she's not really letting me in. For things she would normally come to me with, she's seeking out others right now. What this means for us, I'm not sure. Her roommate tells me I'm doing the right things by letting her come to me instead of my coming to her and that she's probably not even doing this consciously... but right now, I just feel powerless to do anything and a little left out in the cold. It's yet another thing we're going to have to work through on the way to things being as they should.
She also dyed her hair red. I don't like it. Thankfully, I haven't had to tell her what I think.


On Wednesday, Jeff Newbauer died. If you know him, I really don't have anything to add. If you didn't, well... google his name. Look at the CNN transcripts, the news stories, all the stuff he did in his abbreviated life.
Also, the guy who harassed Carolyn decided that he wanted to pull me into it. Knowing we kind of sort of have a thing, he told a bunch of guys he was going to try and provoke me. And he tried to accomplish that when we played basketball, slapping me, pushing me, bumping me, and throwing forearm shivers at me. I came close, but I didn't let him... mainly because he's a scholarship athlete and could probably kill me without much effort. And he was probably looking for an excuse; he shattered someone's jaw once. Naturally, I reported it.
I also got to schedule for next quarter. Amazingly, baseball history counts for my 20th century American history graduation requirement. Good times.

Nothing really bad happened Thursday... but it was pretty blah. I was tired from the week. I didn't really do anything.

I did learn today, though, that the guy is being removed from the building, so that's good. The Cardinals won the World Series a few minutes ago... and I don't even really care. I'm pretty sure baseball was entertaining once. And Carolyn is on her period and in a lot of pain... girl's had an awful week. I wish there was something I could do.