Damn, this just reminds me of my university life quite some years ago. Taking the bus to school was the worst thing ever. I feel your pain! Is your college far from home? My bus trip usually took 40 to 60 minutes depending on the traffic. The only saving grace was I lived close to the terminal station of that particular bus route, so I could almost always get a seat and just sleep (also 8am classes were the worst!!!). Those backpacks were definitely problematic, the bus drivers around here (especially those who worked on the university routes) would always let people know that they should remove their backpacks and move further to the back. Would there be any detours that you can take to avoid the high school? Or are you any where close to the terminal station?

I can commute easily as I'm living close to college (let's say less than 20 minutes). The last stop for this line of bus is basically my college so by the time I get there, we just all go to the same place or a few teens transit to a different line. The teens going to my old high school are problematic and they always fill the bus to the brim between 7:00 to 7:40 because their first ring is at 8:00 or something. If I take the last one, I seriously might be late or forced to run to get there and get a close call. It's annoying as heck. I just loathe public transit because people are just unable of being civil. A year ago, while coming back from my internship, a lady in her 40s was blocking the entrace with another one. They were both on each side and the wheels take about 40% of the space just at this spot. So I gently nudged my way in while apologizing. However, the lady at my front (but on my side ... I had to slide sideway) started to push me and grind on me with her gross ass. I was literally speechless because she made this gesture in front of everyone. When I dislocated myself from her gross behind, I grabbed a pole to hold onto. She was glaring at me and I looked at her with one of the most deadpan face ever. What a bitch. Sorry! This turned out as a mini rant haha. @ Elliot

Today was a chill day. I have been struck with insomnia for the 4th?5th? night in a row (read more here if you want to laugh). I've been ditching a lot of people recently. I'm grasping the fact that I'm no longer important to her and she prefers to have classes with them instead of me. Just fine. All is good.

@ far

It certainly helps me, too. Finding people in this little community who know what I'm dealing with (even if it's sometimes not EXACTLY, it's still the general issue[s]).

I feel it on the hit-or-miss stage. Gosh do I ever. Especially since it seems like for a lot of us here that it's firmly stuck in "miss" right now.

Sincerely: good luck dealing with this new schedule & the transportation issues. :(

edit: oh lordie, your insomnia issues... I feel that very hard, too.

Thanks again and YES it really is like collecting things (and it's all I collect here). I'm so into collecting books that I have a gallery of books AND I have 12 other pets who have read a ton of books! My number two pet is at 1710 but I had to stop reading to him in order to keep up with the really expensive books for Penny. And I just noticed that the high scores list for reading only goes to 30 now, so Mouseferatu will never get on it, anyway. He wasn't going to make it into the top 100 without me spending billions on him (as well) and I can only spend that much on ONE pet!!

I wanted to let you know that I empathize with the BP issue. For years I argued with doctors who wanted to medicate me, cause I KNEW my BP was only high when I was at their office. I still have that white coat issue, it's always higher there. Of course I have anxiety cause they NEVER listen to my concerns and MOST of them have never heard of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, so I've been treated as if I'm crazy for decades. But as for the BP, a couple of yrs ago I found myself more than 100 pounds overweight, almost diabetic and finally conceded to taking a mild amt of medication for BP. I truly understand the struggles, even though my perspective is different, due to my lifestyle being so odd. I am mostly sedentary in my "older" and disabled life. I have already "been there and done that" in terms of college, though I wish I had the emotional energy to get out there on a campus and take classes again. When I was in my 40's and 50's I took a class now and then, just to keep active, so maybe I will (again) someday. PTSD has me pretty much inside most of the time. But enough about me, other than to say that I HEAR how hard it is to struggle with weight and life and stress. I am happy to say that I have lost almost 50 pounds, but it's been VERY slow going, and I still have over 50 to go if I want to feel truly comfortable in my body. I'm at 212 and large boned, but even if I get down to 172 I might think I'd feel better if I could get to 150 or so. I don't know. I've been over 170 for about 10 yrs. I was used to weighing 140 to 150 when I was young.The struggle with weight is SO hard and if I'm repeating myself, forgive me. I think I talked about my weight issues in a previous forum post, but my memory SUCKS these days, and I simply wanted to reach out! I hope you were able to tolerate the monitor, and I HEAR how stressful that idea was/is for you. I was asked to wear one of those about 20 yrs ago and I refused and never did it, but as I said, I finally gave in and started taking meds more recently. And I DO feel better, cause yesterday I forgot to take it and a few hours later I was getting stressed and didn't know why (home alone with not much stress here) but then realized I'd forgotten the med. OK, well I DO get stressed about being alone so much, too, but that's an entirely different issue.

I hope things are smoothing out for you.

Thanks for the congrats and for acknowledging that you rec'd my Smail. I look forward to hearing from you, when you get around to it. No worries and no hurry!

I really hope your new white-collar-certificate-know-it-all whille listen to you this time around. I understand how it can be a task for you to do all over again. Let me know how it goes if you feel like it? I'll update you on my high blood pressure if you want and whatnot. Ironic but I've found out that insomnia is associated with high blood pressure. If only my body would settle down! I started having insomnia about 5 years ago? Well ,when I started to workout regularly. How odd. I've been having more and more issues with digesting lactose recently. I may have to give it up for good. Hopefully the weather gets better. I really wish it would stop raining here. My chronic pain flares up when it gets overly humid, meh. As usual, thank you for your concern!

I've never heard of it either but a lot of diseases and syndromes are what they call "orphans" which means that little to no science work were made on them. It's a bit like my potential "orphaned disease" called Verneuil syndrome which cause my body to produce painful boils and zits on very sensitive area. There is nothing to do. I'm about 200 pound overweight and gain my weight by waves (we think it may be when Hashimoto is at its hormonal peek? we just can't confirm anything). It's extremely nerve wracking and difficult to live with it. I still haven't taken the bp test. I'll need to put my name on a list and wait to be called by a nearby hospital. Thank you for your inquire tho! It can be distressing and stessful to be alone. Are there ways for you to join a circle? Friends? Relatives? Good luck on your weight loss journey ❤️

Thanks, and I think you're right about the orphan diseases. EDS is caused by a mutated gene and it effects far more people than what doctors know. I once watched a talk on youtube given by a pediatrician who treats EDS (my sister and I were not so lucky to be diagnosed when our symptoms first surfaced before the age of 10) and HE said that ED-S is not actually as rare as doctors say. He suggested that we could throw more money into research if people would stop calling it rare. IMHO if males had EDS they MIGHT throw more money at it. It's mainly a disease of females (over 85 percent) so it sort of gets perceived as something that's mentioned only by "hysterical hypochondriacs." Especially since the main symptoms (joint pain and a lot of internal stuff with digestion and so much more) are very hard to pinpoint, diagnose, prove etc.

As for you, so very sorry to hear that you have Hashis (and verneuil, which I just googled). I had some boils years ago that were painful and I don't envy anyone who's dealing with that, chronically. I do know a bit about Hashis, since I have a friend who has it. and I see that it's very very difficult to live with. She struggles with weight as well and has been limiting a lot of foods, she says it makes a difference with joint pain and skin issues when she avoids certain things.

You're welcome and I hope you DO get what you need in terms of the medical issues (and thanks for sharing about your weight, I truly sympathize). I also read your post about insomnia and i do NOT envy that. I have struggled with sleep issues since I was a child and at this point it doesn't matter that much WHEN I sleep, but usually I don't sleep much before 6 AM. Makes it hard to be a part of life, but at this point it's not that important. Thanks for asking about that--friends and family are very few and far between at this stage of life, and YOU guys are my circle!! I have so much trouble getting out into life that I rely on my online contacts as a way of feeling that I'm a human being (and not just floating around in my apt. toggling between Netflix and Subeta, but those ARE my main sources of comfort).

Editing, cause I overlooked what you said about humidity--check, I GET that one, I have not been opening up my windows at all and running AC even when it's cool at night JUST to keep the humidity out THERE. It majorly effects my joints. Also wanted to say I hear you about the lactose. I was diagnosed as "allergic to milk" in the 50's when I was an infant, and back in the OLD days they had a crazy notion that you would outgrow that. I did not stop drinking milk for decades but once I stopped I felt better. I still eat a bit of cheese, but mostly stay away from the foods with lactose, but I resisted giving up pizza until I finally started to limit gluten a couple yrs ago. Now if I have pizza I feel as if I'm dying the next day.

Maybe science and medicine will have grown more in the next few years but we will both be long gone by the time it happens (unless there was to be a sort of pandemic). Chronic insomnia can really be a pain. It brings a lot of consequence on your life and those are long-terms which makes things even more bad. I've always had issues with keeping friends. I'm mostly ending up with bad people which is pretty much getting redundant nowadays. I'm glad you've joined us! We may be far from each other but we have a very nice community that is supportive as well ❤️

Humidity is bad. Rainy days are harder to get by and I cannot wait for things to clear up during the day! I don't remember getting it at night tho. I was also said so be allergic to milk when I was a toddler (even allergic to my mother's milk so I had to take soya beverage). I kind of grew up drinking milk ... even tho it was basically toxic for me ?? And it looks like we grew up with the same mentality. That sucks. I've mostly cutted dairy out of my life. If I really crave pizza, I try to switch for vegan of take an enzyme pill to digest it and save me a trip to the bathroom ... and cramps :P I feel you a lot. It's sad because pizza is good haha.

Gosh, that lady was just such an asshole! You have all the right to rant about it. Public transit just seems to be a good place for all sorts of bad dramas. I remember once the bus driver stopped the bus so that he and a female passenger could shout at each other (not sure why though since I sat at the back of the bus). I hope you could find a better solution for your mourning transit routine! Rude/loud/inconsiderate passengers are almost unbearable to me too (also I hate crowds), which is why I mostly just drive or walk to destinations nowadays.

Also sorry to hear about your friend. I guess it's her loss! College folks are really not as mature as most people think they are. I've met quite a few of them who thought they were just so much better than everybody else, and treated people like shit. I had to distant myself from so many of them.

SUCCESS! Aside from one half-hearted woof several minutes in, he didn't make a sound for my entire visit. He was so quiet that when I didn't immediately see him upon entering the house, I thought he'd died.

It's been bad on my end for a while now, but I'm trying my best to get through it.

- Awww. :( I hope you can or have been able to change the schedule.

@ far Pinging you since you wanted to be in the loop on my health updates & I actually HAVE one for a change. (Also YES please feel free to update me on your stuff, too.)

First tho: RE: insomnia--

As far as I can tell, mine is a mixture of being in too much pain & then disruptive sleep patterns when I do get to sleep. The hope is that in solving my pain & fatigue issues (or at least moderating them if there's no solution), that will in turn help with my sleep (or lack of).

I'm also (somewhat) lactose intolerant! I can usually handle "small" amounts (in that I can endure the after effects in pursuit of gloriously tasty dairy products). About the only things that don't cause me tons of distress are plain yoghurts or alternative milks like goat milk. (I grew up on goat milk, actually, as well as stuff like soy/almond/rice milks because I couldn't tolerate formulas, & later found I couldn't tolerate cow milk, either!)

I actually prefer goat milk as a result. It's creamier & sweeter to me. It's not as readily available here as it was back home, unfortunately. So I often have to go without (plus they sell it in such tiny containers so I have to make it last).

As to my update:

@ Skylar I'm sorry to hear things are rough. I'm glad you're persisting.

: My friend's dog. I've been trying to teach him not to bark at me when I visit.

Today wasn't half bad. Went to the antique mall, but couldn't find what I wanted. Then went to DQ, had a Reese's Blizzard, enjoyed it immensely.

I'm lactose intolerant. My mother told me that as a toddler, I was and I also couldn't digest her milk. Therefore, I had to rely on soy formula. I have recently (5 months or so) cutted milk and almost all dairy to my diet. I mostly use almond milk because I hate the rest and I take lactose enzyme to digest lactose (duh) if I need to eat something (pizza, eating out, some cakes). I buy them at Costco for $11 and it lasts quite awhile. Since stopping, I've had a better digestion and less acne. I'm really glad. Do you have lactose free food in your area? I mostly only buy yogurt and try to swap the rest. I was also about to get better sleep. I've tried to cut sitting in front of the computer one to two hours before going to bed and ... it might be working? It sucks but I really need to sleep haha.

Heeelll yeah! Less mystery! Of course more medication but at least there are some things being worked on and mentionned. It's less like "we just don't know but try this". I'm really glad for you ;___; !!

Hope you've been feeling better, somehow. I'm with you if you need me.

I'll be going back to school shortly so I'll be incredibly slow to answer (if I answer at all - I apologize!!). Otherwise, nothing new. I'm alone with my brother til Sunday afternoon and we plan to watch Ghost in the Shell later today. I'm also trying to cancel an order with a Canadian retailer since my anime figure is already released in Japan + I can get it for cheaper. I'm seriously never buying from this retailer again. Way too pricey.

- I'm really happy that you have some idea of what's going on and that you can now get the help you need. While it's scary to know the truth, you're right, it's definitely much worse to not know what's wrong.

Thank you! With the help of some amazing friends, I've been able to get through the worst of it. While it's not over, at least it's better.

- Thank you~ I'll comment you tomorrow to give some updates. c:

B R O I'm going back to school tomorrow. Enrolled for another 2 years (4 semesters) Ha ha ha ... almost 6 years of college pls end me. I've been baking so much to prepare for school but I forgot to find good recipes for sandwiches ???? So I'm here Googling ideas haha. Summer vacations sure went by quickly. BLINK AND YOU MISS q____q

Which means I'm entering a sort of hiatus (ouo)b.

I'm going back to school tomorrow, but all of my classes are online. I'll still be around, though not as much.

Yesterday: I won the jackpot in the arcade at my brother's birthday party (1000 tickets). The 'Big Bass Wheel' machine will tell you an 'fish story' in a mock Minnesota accent when this happens. Which is not an entirely bad thing, given that dispensing that many tickets takes several minutes. Today: Can't go out to watch the eclipse because some moron decided to rob the neighborhood gas station and then take off in my direction. They COULD have headed for the lagoon and probably lost the cops in there, but NO, better scare the pants off innocent people by running the other way.

Summary of my first day:

okay

super tired but glad that i went walking a lot during the past few weeks

thanks for the well wishes about my last update

As usual I'm slow to reply here; I finally just added this to my subscriptions so I can just keep checking it instead of losing pings in the mess that is my events tab.

Right now, I'm keeping my fingers crossed, though so far the new meds aren't really doing anything at all for me & I'm in a world of hurt. Today wasn't a terrible day, in spite of that. There weren't any storms. The heat was just a pleasant heat instead of super humid & wet & thus hard to breathe in. My sunflowers (real ones ha ha) outside are finally blooming. Though they are getting munched by caterpillars so we are trying to figure out what the heck to do about that... none of our natural deterrents are keeping them away. I fear they will go the way our tomatoes did last year.

I didn't get to see the eclipse, but I hear it was pretty cool.

I've been enjoying my roommate playing through all the Kingdom Hearts games for me as distractions from my health. We just finished Birth By Sleep & are on Dream Drop Distance. I'm in love with how cutesy & vividly bright everything is. & of course the characters I've had time to grow to love because we've played everything in order so now I have all these feelings I don't know what to do with.

I'm slogging through quests for the Quest-A-Thon event. Trying to encourage others to keep at it.

That's about it right now. I'm very tired.

P.S. grats on winning your thing. C: that's really cool, tbh.

@ far & @ skylar some more: I'm really impressed at ya'll about school. Good luck with it. Gonna miss seeing ya'll around more often!

I've been using subscriptions a lot recently but I opt out of being notified (is it productive? ehhh who knows haha).

I'm sorry you're hurting so much :c You would have hated yesterday's weather: humidity on fleek, rainstorm, thunder and whatnot. It was basically layers upon layers of pouring rain. I'm glad my mother got me to school and picked me up. My raincoat was quite loved too! Caterpillars?! I love them. Sorry they are being lil turds tho. I have no idea how to keep them safely away ... (I'd suggest talking to them but what the heck haha)

hug I hope you'll get some rest. Chronic pain is really terrible.

UGH. That's why we can't have nice things. I couldn't see the eclipse because I'm in Canada (so ty Nasa for the nice videos and pictures ) That sucks :c But congrats on winning tho!