The past few weeks have been busy, what with finals, graduation, and moving stuff around between Austin and the house. Graduation was nice, but loooong since it was apparently the largest graduating class they've had in the history of the college. To pass the time, I texted my sister, who let me know the crying status of my mom. Dad was disappointed in me. Big surprise.

I can't wait to have doctoral regalia one day, but for now my BS in Biology: Neurobiology is pretty nice. I'm taking a year off and heading up to Canada to work and hang out with Meghan, then heading to graduate school somewhere to earn a PhD and said regalia. I'm not sure specifically what sort of neuroscience lab I'd like to join, but I do enjoy electrophysiology, and I'm open to pretty much anything. Hopefully I can find a school that will take me. My GPA isn't fantastic after my Fall 2009 mental break, but it isn't bad either.

Speaking of issues, I probably shouldn't have posted that horribly depressing post without a follow up soon after. My bad, guys, I hope I didn't worry you. I actually hit a full-on hypomania episode not long after, which sort of pulled me up out of the rut. I haven't had one of those since I was about 15, so it was quite a surprise. I am an incredibly happy, but easily annoyed for roughly two seconds, hypomanic-person. I was particularly creative (wrote a ton in one sitting, and the work was actually quite good), alert, and enjoyed school. Most importantly, I was functional, which is what marked it as hypomania rather than mania.

It was more or less exactly what I needed, so for once I thank my mind for being loopy. I can see why some bipolar people refuse to take meds just to have those ups. Not that I would stop taking my meds since I can apparently have hypomania episodes in spite of them. The SSRIs keep the darkest depression holes (mostly) away, and that's what is important. Hypomania every few years is more like an unexpected bonus now and again.

I feel I'm still riding the aftermath of hypomania overall, which is awesome. I've been drawing, though I haven't uploaded anything in a while. Any depression I'm going through is situational rather than chemical, which means it can be dealt with rationally. I am nervous about moving to another country, even though culturally Canada isn't exactly exotic compared to the USA. My stay would be extended if I go to graduate school there, and I may. Though I don't always get along with them, I'll miss my parents being out of touch. Oddly, a lot of anxiety has come about because I'll miss my mini-library and my accumulated stuff in general. I'm not taking much with me for the year. I won't have my desktop, just my little Asus Eee PC, my cat, some clothes, and whatever household things I need to bring...which shouldn't be too much. It's my packrat personality not wanting to part with my "stuff". To quote the wise Tyler Durden, "The things you own end up owning you."

I also had a birthday in there. 23 now, still figuring out what's what. I am considering taking some of the money given to me and heading to the bookstore soon. I've run out of room on my bookshelves again, so creative stacking has begun. It is totally ruining my alphabetical sorting by author's last name. I haven't sat down to read much lately, save for the odd National Geographic, thanks to Pokemon White (and finals and grad and etc). Pokemon, you enthrall me as much as you did when I was ten. I don't know what that means other than awesome. For those curious, my starter was Snivy. I replayed FFVII not long ago too. Man, that was a nostalgia punch. ShinRa science department, ftw. I had forgotten so many of the little details, and now I want to play through Crisis Core again. Other games I've been playing include Mass Effect and Dead Space on the Xbox 360. More on those as I finish them.

I'll have to post more cat pictures, grad stuff, and drawings. Will work on that soonish.