Patches is doing much better since the last time I wrote. For that matter, so am I. After a really nice talk with Misti, I realized I had been on edge ever since Homer got out. The truth is, everyone in a household is affected by stress. Kids get sick when their parents are too stressed, and I believe pets get sick when their humans are too stressed. In an effort to calm everything and everyone down, I did lots of journalling and meditating and generally made a conscious decision to stop freaking out about my cats. Not everything is cause for doom-and-gloom thinking, and imagining worst case scenarios all the time does not do good things for my sanity. Writing and breathing helped me relax quite a bit.

As for Patches, she decided she hated having her own room. She cried a LOT while she was in there. We bought a large open-wire cat cage from Petsmart and placed it in the living room. Even though it's smaller than the bathroom, she seemed rather content to be in the same room with us, and quietly napped on the pillow we gave her. She's had free range of the apartment again since Wednesday, and she's been fine ever since. She seems to be feeling much better and is back to normal. I couldn't be happier!

As for everything else, things are going well. I'm trying to get some studying done. Well, I'm thinking about studying, anyway. Does that count as trying? In research methods, we're in the midst of designing our experiment. It's insane - there are SO many variables to control for in an experiment, and the experiment itself has to go quickly since we only have one day to do them, and there are six groups. I think every group's experiment has to last no longer than fifteen minutes, or something. It's crazy! Luckily, my TA is helpful and friendly, and my group's been talking with her whenever we get the chance. I'm sure we'll pull it off, somehow. It's all jsut very mind-boggling right now.

And then, there's Social Psych. I am in love with everything that is Social Psychology. That class is phenomenal, my professor is incredibly funny and interesting, and everything he talks about is fairly easy to remember. I even like the textbook! I've been talking about it a lot lately, though, so now I don't feel like writing about it. Maybe another time.

Web class is cool! Well, when we have it, that is. My poor professor was sick and then ran into a bout of personal problems, so we've missed a few classes. I'm sure we'll catch up eventually. Hopefully I'll get to learn CSS soon!

In web class, I gave out my URL, so I might actually have classmates reading now. (Hi!) That's kind of a weird feeling. I'm such a dork when it comes to online writing. On the one hand, I'd love to be all popular and beloved, like many online writers seem to be. On the other hand, I feel somewhat self conscious when a lot of people I know are reading. (And I'd hate to receive the hurtful hate mail that seems to pop into the lives of really popular journallers too!) Maybe having lots of people read is a good thing. Maybe I should hand out the URL to everyone I know (though, how geeky is that?). Maybe it'd force me to just BE MYSELF instead of trying to write in a way that will leave a good impression for people I barely know (such as classmates or my dad's co-workers). I mean, what is that, anyway?

Of course, in social psych, we learned the importance of making a good first impression is kind of a big deal. Everything you learn about someone AFTER the first impression they left on you is filtered through that first impression. In other words, if someone is amazing the first week you know them, and then starts making bitchy comments all the time, you're likely to excuse the bitchy behavior and explain it away. They're so nice, after all! This can't be the way they really are. Except that it is. Likewise, if someone seems like a total asshole and subsequently is very nice and wonderful after the fact, it may take time to warm up to them and believe they're actually a nice person who was having a bad day. Isn't that fascinating?

I find myself wondering what kind of impression I'm leaving on people. From a web point of view, it's interesting, because people can float into any page of my site through a search engine, and that's their first impression of me. In some cases, it works out well. After all, that's how Kirsten found me and we're really good friends now. When I think of it from that perspective, the importance of being myself is even more apparent - I'm not going to find people I can be friends with by writing about stuff that's not really "me." And since finding online friends is my favorite part about writing online, I guess I need to concentrate on just being the truest version of myself I can manage. Maybe I'll just start posting only drunken entries! That'd help drown away my inhibitions, right? Heh.

That about wraps things up for now. I'm sure I'll write more soon. See ya later, alligators!