Busy week for me, at least in the evenings.

     Sunday night I went with my dad to the hospital to help him get Avô up and walking for a few minutes, and then to drive Avó home.  Avô's still in a lot of pain, but he's been getting better since the surgery on his spine.  After driving Avó home, I went and hung out with Dave, Ryan, Clinton, and Eric at Dave's.  We watched two episodes of Spartacus: Blood and Sand and Robin Hood: Men in Tights while chatting.  I had a really good time, and it was nice to just get together and hang out.  It seems like the only time we do is when Dave is home from college.

     Monday night is, of course, my beginning cabinetry class.  We're still going through how to use all the tools safely, but hopefully we should finish by next week.  After we pass our safety exam, we can begin work on the breadbox that serves as a proficiency exam of sorts: it's a small project, but we'll use nearly all of the tools in the shop to complete it.  I was initially surprised to see Steven (who was my TA at UCM two years ago) in the class on the first week, but I've enjoyed talking with him during the small breaks in instruction.

     Tuesday night I made dinner.  Mom's decided I should make dinner at least once a week, and I've been enjoying it so far.  Last week I made a potato-fennel soup, and this week I made a Thai chicken curry.  They both went over fairly well.  I've been browsing Epicurious.com for dishes to try, but it's been somewhat problematic finding recipes that work for only three people.  I've found a few recipes that sound absolutely delicious, but serve 8+ people.  I'm currently trying to decide between an Argentinian flank steak with chimichurri and a Spanish recipe for garlic chicken for next week.

     Tonight I have conversational Assyrian.  It's been fun to try to learn to pronounce the new phonemes.  The instructional format of the class is different than other language classes I've taken in the past, and I'm not sure whether or not I like the difference.  This class hasn't focused nearly as much on learning rules and forms in the language as some of the others I've taken, but I suppose that's to be expected as it's a conversational language class, rather than an academic one.

     Sara and Matt should be here tomorrow.  Carolina and (possibly) Andrew are coming for dinner as well.  We'll be having the chicken tortellini alfredo dish mom makes.  Carolina texted me a couple of weeks ago asking to come over and hang out, so we decided to have her come on for dinner on a night we're having that specific dish, because she loves it.  We also decided to wait until Sara was home to make that specific dish, because the recipe easily serves 8, but there are only 3 of us at home normally.  This way, there'll be seven people for dinner, and we won't be eating it as leftovers all week.

     Friday night I'm going out to the bar with Jenn and Jose again.  I'm really looking forward to it.  Even though I'm not too fond of certain aspects of the bar scene, I had a great time when we last went.  I had been invited to come with them on New Years Eve, and I really wish I had.  They look like they had a fantastic time in the pictures I've seen. I ended up at my aunt's house with my family, but without a car instead.

     Sometime this weekend I'm planning to get together with Shannon, who I haven't seen in probably 2-3 years at this point.  We took German 2 together at MJC.  I really miss the class and the people in it.  The class was small, with easily fewer than 20 people, most of us in our late teens.  We all got along really well, and it was not unusual for us to be assembled 30 minutes in advance, just hanging out in the class room chatting until the professor showed up.  I think we've only seen each other once or twice since graduating from MJC, really.  I'm excited.  We've got lots to catch up on.  We haven't got any concrete plans yet, but we've plans to make plans. (Does that even make sense?  She's going to call me on Friday once other things our schedules have stabilized.)

     Last night I went out to a bar for the first time since I was in Germany 3 years ago.  A friend from HS invited me out for drinks and to catch up.  We used to be fairly close, but I hadn't seen Jenn in at least 5 years.  I had a great time hanging out and swapping stories.  We talked about stuff that happened back in HS, traded tales about the people from Delhi that we each maintain some sort of contact with, and about what we've done after.  (I finally found out the story behind Jackie S moving to England.)  Jenn also brought her friend Jose, and it was nice to meet him.
     Overall, though, I'm still not too fond of bars.  Nothing against them, really.  It's just not my scene.  I don't drink much, I don't feel comfortable dancing, way too many people smoke, and I'm not much for staying out late. (The first thing I did when I got home today was run a load of laundry to get the slight smoke smell out of my jacket.)  I was kind of disappointed when I couldn't get a German beer, because I would really have enjoyed that little bit of nostalgia.  I'm not surprised, though.  In the three years since I've been home, I've had no luck finding my favorite beer from Germany (Koenig Ludwig Weissbier Dunkel), not even online.

So, I really think that I ought to record the events of the last year or so (maybe longer), if only to try to put some things in context.

Late September '08: The dogs get out of the yard one night.  Pumpkin is mauled to death by coyotes.  Daisy escapes with minor wounds.  She heals up fine, except for scars.

October 9, '08:  I talk to Melissa about the religious differences that had been bothering me since her return from Australia.  Within a few weeks she seeks counsel from the regional heads of the Neocatechumenal Way.

November 4, '08:  Sara ends her almost 4-year relationship with David and begins dating Matt (one of the friends Dave is living with) almost immediately.

Thanksgiving '08:  Sara and I get into a big fight the night before Thanksgiving about how she ended things with Dave.  Things get so bad that I almost bow out of the family dinner the next day.  Melissa is unable to come to the lunch on Dad's side of the family because she's running a children's day retreat for the Neocatechumenal Way.

December '08:  Tio Seraphim dies on Monday during finals week.  I buy a suit and am a pallbearer in his funeral later in the week.  I spend most of Christmas break agonizing about my relationship with Melissa, but don't want to act on anything rashly, especially not before Christmas.  Sara and I don't particularly get along while she's home from St. Mary's for Christmas break.  A week or so before Christmas, Melissa invites me to a meeting of the Neocatechumenal Way.  It's the first time in the year we've been dating that I've been invited to anything involving the Neocatechumenal Way that's not mostly a social gathering.  Some aspects of the meeting further strengthen my fear that we won't be able to get along religiously.  I spend Christmas Eve with Melissa and her extended family (mother's side), and things go fairly well.  A few days after Christmas we meet up and I have a talk with her about the things that have been bothering me in our relationship, especially my problems with the Neocatechumenal Way, and how I feel excluded, and how I feel it comes before me and my family too often.  When inviting her to my family's NYE party, I emphasize how important it is to me that she a) come and b) not leave early.  Despite this, she leaves our family's New Year's Eve party early to go to a Neocatechumenal Way NYE party.

January '09:  Melissa and I meet and have serious talks twice more during the first two weeks of January.  On January 16 I break up with her.  I'm feel horrible and want to go away for a while, so I head up to the bay area to visit Sara and Dave at school.  I watch the film "Der Freund" at the German Film Festival with Sara and Matt and spend Saturday with Dave.  Over the next week, Melissa sends me increasingly desperate messages to which I can think of no response; at one point she intimates that she's thinking of self-harm.  I ask Vandana to look out for her and try to get her to start eating and sleeping regularly again.

February '09:  At work the afternoon of February 3rd, Tio Tiberio tells me that I'm not working enough hours and times are tough and says something that I understand to mean I'm about to be cut out of the schedule until the semester ends and I can work full-time again.  That night, Sara and I have a major talk about her relationship with Matt and how she ended things with Dave.  Mom then decides to talk to me about how my relationship with Sara has deteriorated since November. On February 4th, I receive a message from Melissa informing me of the detrimental effect our breakup is having on her mental health and imploring me to come back so we can try to find our own way.  I can think of no response which will make her feel better about anything.  Later in the day I have a massive panic attack right before lab.  I miss the lab and get very poor grades on my exams later in the week. During the rest of the month I slip into depression and start regularly missing lectures and failing to complete assignments.  I basically fall off the face of the earth socially for about 6 weeks.  I neither make nor return phone calls, text messages, or e-mails.

March '09:  I have a talk with Professor Dawson about a paper I didn't turn in on time, and he grants me an extension due to the circumstances.  By spring break, I'm almost back to normal and starting to get caught back up on school work.  I write the missing paper in two days during spring break and go to visit Sara and Dave at St. Mary's.  However, on the last day, I run across two things Melissa had posted on MySpace and Facebook talking about how she is OK with the thought of suicide; I had never unsubscribed from her blogs.  During the next week I start having frequent panic attacks that leave me wiped out and depressed.

April '09:  I start seeing a therapist.  My panic attacks and depression have been getting much worse.  While Mom and Dad are chaperoning the THS band cruise to Mexico, I have the house to myself.  I don't leave the house that week except to see my therapist.  I've started to lose it: I'm having panic attacks for no reason, or I'll suddenly feel absolutely awful, or laugh nervously for no reason.  The next week I start paperwork to drop out of school because I'm failing all my classes by this point.  While filling out the paperwork it takes me several minutes to remember my own name, and when I do, it feels like it belongs to an acquaintance.  By the end of the month I've started Paxil, which I'd been resistant to doing before spring break because I had been improving, and the transition onto Paxil is rough and takes a few weeks.

May '09:  I finally get all the things I need to drop out of school together and submit my paperwork in a way that will allow me to return in the fall.  I don't get final notice of approval until just before finals.  In the meantime, the Paxil has started to take effect.  The first three weeks or so I have a lot more sleeping problems than usual, but things are getting better.

June '09:  I house-sit for Tia Laura and Uncle Eddy while they're in Europe.  Between the Paxil and having my own place for the summer, things start to improve.  Towards the end of the month, I forget to take my pill for two days in a row.  All of a sudden I become extremely horny and aggressive.  I'm making inappropriate comments and picking fights fairly often, especially with my dad.

July '09:  Uncle Eddy and Tia Laura come home early because Eddy's brother John has severe pneumonia; he might not survive.  I start to wean myself off of Paxil towards the end of the month because it's becoming impossible to live with my family while I'm on it.  My depression starts to worsen again.

August '09: I'm nervous about school starting up again because I still feel mentally handicapped.  I have an appointment with Dr. Hennes on the 19th, and he suggests that I start back on a different anti-depressant, so I start Zoloft.  Almost immediately, I can't get to sleep before 2 AM, often not until 4, and am lucky to get 5 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period.  This continues for the duration of the time I'm on Zoloft.  Classes start again on the 25th.  I'm retaking classes from the prior semester.

September '09:  The Zoloft is not very effective in treating my depression, and the sleep deprivation takes its toll on my ability to function.  During the second week of September, I contract what appears to be the swine flu.  I have to stay home from work and school for a full week.  It's hard to get back into the swing of things once I get back.  Even taking into account the week I missed, the first round of exams is much more difficult and time-consuming than I remember exams to be.  I start developing a twitch.

October '09:  At a follow-up appointment, Dr. Hennes suggests that I change medications again, this time to Lexapro.  He also prescribes me a few weeks worth of Ambien so I can actually sleep.  I miss the next week of morning classes because I'm unable to wake up and get clear-headed enough to go.