ranking

Just to warn you now, this is a rather long post that kinds of winds around and around and around. However, it gets where it's going... eventually.

So, how do you rank the importance of two different somethings between two different people? I come home most days, and study until a new episode of NCIS comes on... The USA Network's got three of them in a row on every day... and I usually get to watch at least one. It's important to me to take a break from studying. However, I do my homework during the commercials, so I'm not just mindlessly staring at the TV.

When my roommate comes home, she asks me to turn it off. She never asks me to simply just turn it down, she asks me to turn it off. I'm sorry, but I don't want to turn off my show. Every time I come into the room and need to get something done and she's watching something on her computer, I don't ask her to turn her computer off and just completely stop watching her show. I ask her to put headphones in, which she does, I'll give her that.

However, I cannot put headphones into my TV. Personally, I don't think it's fair for me to have to turn my show off whenever she asks... oh, but there's more.


Yesterday, I come back to my room, and she's moving around the room in her underwear--this usually means she's either going to bed or getting up from it. Either way, it's like 4 in the afternoon. She has two classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Tuesdays, her first one is at 10:30, and her second is at like, 7:30 at night. Once I walk in, she informs me that she's been diagnosed with Strep. She expects me to study in the afternoon with just a desk lamp. She wanted to close the shades and turn the light off... I do this, almost every night... For hours and hours on end, starting at about 11p and ending whenever I decide to go to bed... so like, 3 in the morning usually.

Being the docile *cough cough* soul that I am, I challenge her and tell her that I think it's unfair for this and that and everything else, blah blah blah, you probably don't care. Somehow, though, we segway-ed into "you need to turn your TV off when I'm studying." Somehow, it turned into her yelling "MY EDUCATION IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOU WATCHING TV."

This was the only argument she could come up with for this specific, I don't know, topic? She argued some other things that were completely unrelated to me turning off the TV, so personally, I don't think they relate. Sure, I'm at the university to get an education, but that's not going to be the only thing I do while living here. Silly me, but isn't a "living" space for doing more than just studying? To me, a "living space" is for living, which might involve watching my TV show.

After my simple comments pissing her off, she left the room at least twice, bawling. Really, I don't care if I make people cry... I'm not saying things to intentionally hurt her. She just can't hear my opinion (which is different than hers, mind you) without bursting into tears as though she's the victim. *for clarification, I'm not saying I'm the victim, I'm just saying that she makes herself out to be one* Sure it's bitchy, but her leaving the room gave me a chance to turn my music on and actually study for my math test (it's tomorrow).

So, eventually, an RA from one of the upper floors came down and talked to me... she had gone to go get him. I'm not pissed, I'm really not, but flying off the handle right away and going to get an RA instead of calming down and seeing if whatever needs to be talked about can be discussed calmly and maturely is ridiculous. I'd like to pretend that I'm a mature adult. If I've got a problem, I'm going to try to work it out on my own before bringing in a parent figure. I've already got two, I don't need anymore, thank you.

After the RA came down, I studied for a little longer and then went to dinner... where I ate food. I literally felt nauseous about halfway through the meal, so I got up and left for chorus early.

I called my mom on the way to the music building that I've got chorus in (it's a decent walk away from where I live), and told her that there's a good chance that I had strep... my immune system's been down recently, and I thought that I was getting better, until dinner when my throat started to feel scratchy. She had my call my aunt (who's a doctor) to see if she'd call me in a perscription for some antibiotics. My aunt wanted me to make sure I had strep first, and then she said she'd be more than willing to call in a scrip for me.

Chorus was tough, because I still wasn't feeling great and I was kind of dizzy the whole time... which makes chorus tough because standing/sitting over and over and over probably isn't the best way to cope with dizziness.

Afterwards, some stuff happened (happy stuff, more in a blog later), and I ended up at my friend's dorm room. She said I was more than invited to work in her room at these odd hours of the night, so that was cool. I got there, she fell asleep, and I did homework, haha. But yeah, a huge thanks to her for that. Before she was out, though, I stole her mini-mag-lite and looked at the back of my throat... where there were little white spots all over the place. So, okay, I've got strep, woo hoo!

Sure, I'm sick, but I get up this morning before 7 to register for summer classes online. My first class today wasn't until 11:30, so after registering, I slept for another couple of hours. When I woke up, I had a text from my aunt (I had texted her earlier saying I had strep) telling me that she had called in the scrip. So, I took like, 5 minutes to get ready to go, and I left, with 20 minutes to get down to CVS and then get back up to where I've got chemistry.

Sure, I'm sick, but I get up and go to my classes. I went to all of my classes today. Sure, I'm tired, but my underlying motive for coming to the university is to learn. I'm not going to let a scratchy throat keep me from learning.

But my roommate will. Every time I've come back to my room today, she's been in bed. When I skip class, it's for a good reason. There's usually something that I've got to get done. I'd say, on average, I skip one class every two weeks, and that's rounding up.

She skipped two classes yesterday and two today... and that's just during this week, and we're only halfway through. She's also not taking nearly as many credits as I am.

Sorry it took me so long to get to the logic behind my post, but here you go...

How can her education be that important to her if she doesn't make any sort of effort to get up and go to class? Her first class today started an hour or so before mine, and I didn't hear an alarm go off... I always hear her alarm go off. She didn't even make the effort to get out of bed and learn.

So why? Why should I believe her when she says that her education is more important than my TV show? Why should I listen to her at all, if all she does is contradict herself?

actions speak louder than words, yeah?