(no subject)
wew. my body and mind are so out of whack i can't tell up from down. what i would like to do is to go to sleep and not wake up until spring.
it's been a rather exhausting week and a half.
my grandpa died last saturday morning. he lived on the east coast for most of my life and, more or less, came back to seattle to die. i wasn't very close to him. by the time i was old enough and he was close enough in distance for me to know him, he was just a shadow. his actual death wasn't very hard for me since in my mind he was already gone. but seeing my dad, my grandma and all my aunts and uncles upset is a whole other story.
starting last weekend, the family started pouring in. most of them live on the east coast. my dad has six siblings and 4 out of those six had at least 3 kids, so that makes a lot a lot of family. i love them to death and only get to see them once every 2-4 years, so it was exciting and really great to have them around. combined with new years, i was up til 3 almost every night last week either picking people up from the airport or doing homework because i had spent the entire evening with everybody. and then there was the readjusting to the school schedule...but that didn't really happen. i just ended up running on 3 hours of sleep and stumbling around like a zombie. but actually i was pretty coherent for a zombie. i should also add that this past week i haven't even been in sole posession of my own room. i've been sharing it with uncle john. which is fine, there was just even less time and space for leah alone time.
i also started work thursday. four and a half hours of ingesting cleaning product and dog hair. it'll be a relatively low-key job. i work almost everyday but only for 2 hours. mostly we just clean up everything once their workday is over.
friday was the funeral. i didn't go to school. however that didn't keep me from staying up all night freaking out over my dineen semester project. the funeral was at 9, so i didn't even get to sleep in. it was held at st james cathedral in seattle. evidently, my grandpa was a pretty devout catholic. i loved the cathedral. i don't care what anybody says, i love catholic churches. especially if they're old. it's just the grandness and the familiarity and the history. the service was very nice too. we all took part in some small way. connie was there which i really liked. i wish i saw her more often. she's very open with her emotions and i like that.
towards the end of the ceremony i started feeling like i needed a good hard cry. i found if i just kept my eyes on the ground it wasn't so bad. but i saw my dad start to cry and my aunt patsy start to cry and i realized everybody else had watery eyes. i should have let it all out then. when i need to cry, i really need to cry, to let it all go. and it feels so good afterward. i just started thinking about what it will be like to lose my own dad. and what it will be like when grandma dies, because i'm very close to her. and everybody else. agh. i held most of it in. but i ended up fighting back tears all day. i felt like sobbing the whole day. it was very draining.
after the funeral we had a reception party thing at the retirement home where my grandma lives. it was good and everyone was happy again. after that we all drove to the cemetary above u village and had a burial ceremony. more sadness. we all got to sprinkle water on his little wooden box (he was cremated) and we all got to contribute a shovelful to the burying process. after that we went home (or to respective hotels) and redressed and took naps and drove back into seattle for dinner at ivars salmon house. with all thirty or forty of us, i think we made the head waiter guy the happiest he'd been in a long time. after dinner we came back home and i slept from 11pm on friday until 1 pm on saturday. i don't think i've ever slept that much. 14 hours. i didn't even mean to.
yesterday we had another giant family party at our house. we ate food, lit things on fire, it was fun. kiki came to meet everybody. then everyone left and we said our goodbyes since they all left this morning. i really wish we lived closer, because i'm so much more comfortable around this side of my family than the other. i should have applied to east coast schools so i could see them all the time. anyway, then me and kiki watched paris, je t'aime which is the best movie ever you should see it.
now i have all this leftover homework from thursday plus make up work and tutoring and a head cold and gah!
there are a million other things i want to write about but i need to save my brain power for more important things like thesis writing...er...
it's been a rather exhausting week and a half.
my grandpa died last saturday morning. he lived on the east coast for most of my life and, more or less, came back to seattle to die. i wasn't very close to him. by the time i was old enough and he was close enough in distance for me to know him, he was just a shadow. his actual death wasn't very hard for me since in my mind he was already gone. but seeing my dad, my grandma and all my aunts and uncles upset is a whole other story.
starting last weekend, the family started pouring in. most of them live on the east coast. my dad has six siblings and 4 out of those six had at least 3 kids, so that makes a lot a lot of family. i love them to death and only get to see them once every 2-4 years, so it was exciting and really great to have them around. combined with new years, i was up til 3 almost every night last week either picking people up from the airport or doing homework because i had spent the entire evening with everybody. and then there was the readjusting to the school schedule...but that didn't really happen. i just ended up running on 3 hours of sleep and stumbling around like a zombie. but actually i was pretty coherent for a zombie. i should also add that this past week i haven't even been in sole posession of my own room. i've been sharing it with uncle john. which is fine, there was just even less time and space for leah alone time.
i also started work thursday. four and a half hours of ingesting cleaning product and dog hair. it'll be a relatively low-key job. i work almost everyday but only for 2 hours. mostly we just clean up everything once their workday is over.
friday was the funeral. i didn't go to school. however that didn't keep me from staying up all night freaking out over my dineen semester project. the funeral was at 9, so i didn't even get to sleep in. it was held at st james cathedral in seattle. evidently, my grandpa was a pretty devout catholic. i loved the cathedral. i don't care what anybody says, i love catholic churches. especially if they're old. it's just the grandness and the familiarity and the history. the service was very nice too. we all took part in some small way. connie was there which i really liked. i wish i saw her more often. she's very open with her emotions and i like that.
towards the end of the ceremony i started feeling like i needed a good hard cry. i found if i just kept my eyes on the ground it wasn't so bad. but i saw my dad start to cry and my aunt patsy start to cry and i realized everybody else had watery eyes. i should have let it all out then. when i need to cry, i really need to cry, to let it all go. and it feels so good afterward. i just started thinking about what it will be like to lose my own dad. and what it will be like when grandma dies, because i'm very close to her. and everybody else. agh. i held most of it in. but i ended up fighting back tears all day. i felt like sobbing the whole day. it was very draining.
after the funeral we had a reception party thing at the retirement home where my grandma lives. it was good and everyone was happy again. after that we all drove to the cemetary above u village and had a burial ceremony. more sadness. we all got to sprinkle water on his little wooden box (he was cremated) and we all got to contribute a shovelful to the burying process. after that we went home (or to respective hotels) and redressed and took naps and drove back into seattle for dinner at ivars salmon house. with all thirty or forty of us, i think we made the head waiter guy the happiest he'd been in a long time. after dinner we came back home and i slept from 11pm on friday until 1 pm on saturday. i don't think i've ever slept that much. 14 hours. i didn't even mean to.
yesterday we had another giant family party at our house. we ate food, lit things on fire, it was fun. kiki came to meet everybody. then everyone left and we said our goodbyes since they all left this morning. i really wish we lived closer, because i'm so much more comfortable around this side of my family than the other. i should have applied to east coast schools so i could see them all the time. anyway, then me and kiki watched paris, je t'aime which is the best movie ever you should see it.
now i have all this leftover homework from thursday plus make up work and tutoring and a head cold and gah!
there are a million other things i want to write about but i need to save my brain power for more important things like thesis writing...er...