the sound is rain inside of my head

No matter what I do, what I keep hearing, is the sound of rain, pattering against the windowpane, inside of my head. There is no rain outside. It's perfectly clear out there. Somehow, it's all in my mind. I have earplugs in, right now, trying to garner a silence that isn't altogether successful, but it's somewhat better, at least some of the external sounds have stopped.

I might have fallen down into an alternate reality over the last few days, into bizzaro-world. I keep sort of wondering if I'm going to wake up one morning, and find that the last couple of years didn't actually happen, and that while I can still *remember* the last couple of years? Everything is back to where it was, and I'm supposed to...what? Run-through a do-over? Make different choices, with the memory of the time in between in place, so I can change the way things happened?

Bizarre, I tell you. Looking around, and wondering how it is that I appear to have falling into alternate reality world is disconcerting at best, disturbing at worst.

To the point that my speech goes in and out at random, because I've been that disturbed. I'm not angry, I'm not ready to rip people's heads off. It's just weird. Monkey isn't a child anymore. She's all teenage angst and attitude. She's tall, and filling out, and almost unrecognizable. She'll be happily slouching down the road to slacker with lofty goals in no time. (eyeroll)

All kidding aside, few more years, and she actually *will* be an adult. I came right smack up against that last night, looking at the now-grown Jackie, who is going to be *nineteen* shortly. I know how old she is, but in my mind she's still 'munchkin', the ten-year-old, who was struggling with her math homework. And she's beautiful, and she's got a job, and a car, and a life. It's obvious that she's a young woman, with life ahead of her...and that Monkey's fast headed that way.

Bizarro-world, everybody on board? I'm looking for a new apartment, which will more or less solidify the rest of the changes to the life I've made, which sort of threw me, when I realized what it meant. I want to be closer to school. I know what I want, in an apartment, and why I want it. I have this list of must-haves, and wants, and places I refuse to live. And at the end of the day, it will be exactly the way I want it to be.

....

(sometime later)

....
So much trouble focusing. I keep thinking that something is off with my meds, that I'm having this much trouble focusing, or it might be that I need some serious sleep. I'll have to figure out which, and respond accordingly. I've done more than 3/4 of my school assignments, which means theoretically I can call it quits, and finish the other bits tomorrow. Linguistics, Psych, and Mgmt, oh my! I can more or less toss the typing class out in about fifteen minutes flat, which is handy, and that's the one I haven't done yet. But I have a tests due Wednesday, that I'm going to need to study for tomorrow, and discussions that will need thought as well. It's more in-depth than the first semester, but at the same time, also much more interesting.

Next semester, I really want to take a sign language course, and several more Psych courses, and there were some sociology classes I want. But almost all of them are on-campus things, ergo, why I want to be closer to the campus. Gas prices will kill me if I have to go back and forth every day. Sigh. But I think I might be okay now, with actually taking more of my classes as a 'regular' student. I'm at least more willing to give it a shot. I need to discuss it with my counselor. She's awesome.

And by next semester, I will have decided for sure what it is that I want to do, SW or law. That will decide what transfer courses I need to be lined up for as well. And my life will then get infinitely more complicated, as I'll have to start taking courses that are difficult for me, like math classes.

We shall see.