My Crippling Social Anxiety

Here is the thing about my social anxiety: it is pretty ridiculous. I don't know if this is true of anyone else, but I don't actually get seriously anxious until after the social interaction happens. I have this habit of obsessively thinking over conversations and remembering everything I said that could be construed as awkward and dumb (and you of all people know that I can have lots of dumb moments). And while this whole anxiety thing is happening, there's a more rational part of my brain that is telling me that I am ridiculous and there's no reason I should worry about past conversations because the other person probably doesn't care that much if I had a brain fart or moved my hands too much.

But then I think about all the brain farts I had and all the weird and unrelated hand movements I made, and feel deflated.

In other, rational news, though, I once again met up with my conversation partner and she brought one of her friends with her, as I have told you, who was pretty awesome. I'm finding that every Korean male I meet here has already been in the military. I get the feeling, and you may confirm this, that people who have been in the military tend to be more dynamic people in general. Something about character development. Anyway, even though I am incredibly nervous in these kinds of social situations, I had a grand time and didn't choke on my own spit or anything (these things have happened in the past).

They also told me to spell my name 에이미 instead of 애미 for reasons that are not readily evident to me at the moment, but I will go with what they said because they're probably the experts.

Yesterday, on the spur of the moment when I found myself in possession of $6 without any pressing costs to cover, I decided to go watch The Cabin in the Woods. As an admirer of Joss Whedon, I have wanted to watch this movie from the moment I saw the trailers a few months ago, even though they made it look like it was just another lame horror movie about stupid kids getting hacked to pieces in the woods.

Well it wasn't a normal. In fact, it was pretty messed up, and premise was so opposite to what I was expecting that I spent a lot of the movie feeling a strange sense of "what... what just happened? And why?!"

It was a riotously grand time. I've found that attending movies alone sometimes is pretty fun.

Okay, it's later now and I just received a package of delicious goodies to tide me over through the valley of death that is finals week.

The truth is that finals week isn't a valley of death. The truth is that finals week is pretty cushy because even with the extra studying, there's a lot of time since there aren't any classes and usually never more than one final per day.

But, the package of goodies is still endlessly appreciated, so thanks, Mom. I ate some of the Mike & Ikes in there and was transported to joyful days of yore.

So you know that thing I have about not wanting to do things unless I've had time to mentally prepare for them? Well as evidenced from my midnight movie run last night, that is not always true. But I only have about a half-pint of spontaneity in me at any given time, and right now it's all gone, which is why I'm not a huge fan of the way people have been bursting into my room for the last half an hour insisting that I attend some school-sponsored bash called "Fun Before Finals". I wouldn't even mind much, except I'm bad at parties. I'm bad at spontaneity and bad at parties. What am I good at then, you ask? Well. I am good at being a snooty prude. Just ask anyone.