Males are violent and rapey.

I'm in pain. Stomach cramps. The way I eat now has all but cured my chronic constipation, which I've dealt with for years—but I now have a little less control over bowel movements, so I'm more prone to stomach cramps after having one. When I couldn't have one except after eating fruit + taking the constipation meds, I basically scheduled bowel movements for morning and just before bed. Now I'm having them in the afternoon, which causes cramping. Why, I do not know.

Somehow I spent hours preparing and mailing documentation for my state job application this afternoon. I had to go to the library three times, for printing, copying, then for tape for my super old envelope that no longer had enough licky glue on it to be completely sealed, then back to the post office. At least I got more exercise.

I made an unpleasant decision about revealing personal information to help me get this job. I guess the office that'll be handling the paperwork has a decent privacy policy; I didn't look at it in depth. But what I had to reveal still hurts and frustrates me. My parents (probably only my father, actually, since my mother was a very passive parent) made a choice for me that will follow me for the rest of my life. Unless I leave this country, I think. I can't ever fully escape what they did. Just typing it out bothers me, that's why I'm being vague.

What's worse is that I don't even know how helpful my revelation will be. Maybe there aren't a lot of candidates for this job and I don't need the boost in my application. When I logged onto the hiring site today, I found two messages, each concerning the availability of the same position at other government agencies. Maybe there are so many openings that I don't need the boost in my application.

I just really, really want to move away from here and rent a house and have a chance at finding a boyfriend, so I decided that I'd do whatever I could to increase my chances of getting hired. And try to stop thinking about the consequences. I've been imagining myself in my own house. Not consciously; the images just pop into my head as I'm lying awake in the mornings. My clothes strewn on the bedroom carpet. My gym equipment in the garage. My boyfriend in my bed. I just now noticed that I've been picturing a bed in the bedroom even though I don't want a bed. I'd sort of decided on a futon.

Well, it's done now. It's almost four pm; time for my afternoon snack. I've been having dark chocolate because it gives me an energy boost. It's expensive as hell.

I've gotten behind on my Mandarin to the point of demotivation. This is worsened by the fact that, starting with this second volume, new terms are introduced in the workbook that are not taught in the textbook. So now I have to open up the workbook to understand the workbook audio, which I had been using as a purely auditory supplement to the textbook material. All the texts are pdfs, and reading them from a computer screen is uncomfortable, so this is something of an issue.

Also, the English translations seem to diverge further and further away from the Chinese text. I find myself surprised more and more often when I look at the English after being unable to decipher the Chinese and my French translations. Chinese syntax is kind of bizarre. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that it's too open to interpretation. It seems that crucial words are omitted.

Now I guess I'll distract myself from my pain with a computer game. There goes my productivity. I was supposed to be catching up on my Mandarin today.

My sensor expires in three hours, so I guess I'll be installing the second sensor in my other arm soon. Fifteen days has gone by so quickly.