College Loves Me

It's a bit too late for this, perhaps.

By "late" I don't mean what the clock says. It is nearly 0100 hours and I have class at 0930, but have not run into any problems with missing Chinese in favor of sleep.

By "late," I mean what the calendar says. It is November 30th (or at least, it has been for about 40 minutes), meaning that on Wednesday it will be December, and 2010 will fast be drawing to a close.

This begs the cliché question - where did the time go?


Did anyone notice I have made only one blog post the whole time I've been at college?

The first semester is almost over, yet the second semester is still rather far off. Thanksgiving break is over, too, having passed by all too fast while still fulfilling what it needed to. In the odd period of time between now and the beginning of my winter holiday, which is well over a month long, I've got almost nothing to do. It would appear as though I have two final exams alongside two papers to write (for one class). I'm still not sure how well that all will go, but there have yet to be any problems.

In fact, for all I am doing and have done here at college, there is very little to write about. I've encountered about as many roadblocks as I'd expected - obstinate people and financial insecurity to name a few - but perhaps it's a reflection on my realistic expectations and overall preparedness that I feel as though college is simply the next step up. Not 13th grade, not overwhelming-workload-place. Pretty much exactly what I expected, I'm getting.


Naturally, there are a slew of things no one could anticipate or plan for. How was I to know, for instance, that my MacBook would die after being here for less than a month? And how could I have possibly imagined the toll that distance can take on relationships? 

Resolution rises from the ashes of conflict and confrontation. It always does. There are so many reasons for which I'm thankful I found Gabriel, for one. It is hard to believe we've been together for nearly a year now. I suspect the strength of our relationship is founded in our ability to resolve any issue through a form of malleable compromise in which neither party feels put-upon or disadvantaged. No argument between us ever ends with a clear winner or loser, something of which I've become acutely aware given the growing tension between my father and me.

It's hard to find solace in knowing what someone does for me while knowing what he stands for, always aware of the conflicts and increasingly pessimistic that we will ever find common ground. 

Gabriel represents everything I've unconsciously been searching for in a person, a fact I've only just begun to realize as the physical distance between us forces me to come to terms with the degree of reliance we now have upon each other. He's as much a part of my life as my laptop or my daily coffee - a comparison seemingly unflattering, initially, but think about it. My laptop is always there and always reliable, a powerful entity that does exactly what I need it to, often without my asking it. My daily coffee, well...that's just a given. Hence, comparisons to boyfriend. Being away at college has made me realize what it means to be interdependent and revealed the immense benefits it affords.

College is supposed to be a time to find yourself. Everyone starts from the proverbial "clean slate." No one knows anyone initially. It's a chance to forge new friendships, find a new niche, expand your horizons, change or eliminate your comfort zone. The independence of college life is the catalyst for molding you into the person the world will eventually know. 

Initially, I was a bit worried. I admit it - what if I didn't "find myself" at all, or what if I found myself to be exactly what I thought I was? That is, what if the person I thought I was in high school is actually who I am?

Of course, that's not true. First of all, the person I was in high school is actually the person I was during my senior year, with a few select parts of the person I was in my junior year. Nothing else counts for anything in the long term. For all intents and purposes, I was a nobody. I have little to no recollection of my first two years in high school, and I barely remember any of middle school and anything prior to that. Medically, that can be explained...that sounds ominous, doesn't it?

A big concern was, perhaps, that I would "find myself" in an environment devoid of anything familiar to me - family, friends, relationships, pastimes, fixtures of my home life, et cetera. Luckily, this looks not to be the case, as I've found that the college environment affords many more opportunities to appreciate what I may or may not have left behind. I believe it was Socrates who said that "a man is the sum of his convictions," a permutation of which I frequently use: "all your past experiences and actions have shaped how your present and future actions will affect your future experiences."

In a sense, it's been proven to me that you can't know where you're going unless you know where you've been. You are who you were; you will be who you will be. 

I wish I could write more, I really do. It is getting rather late, though (according to the clock this time.)

Sorry for the ridiculous lack of activity on my DeviantArt page. I have quite literally done nothing in the last month and a half.

Also check out the new layout of this blog. I'm going to make a new logo soon, too. In fact, I'll be doing a lot, including making a bunch of computer-related posts and showing you how I've tweaked my system(s) to be optimal performance machines.

And of course, more semi-personal, quasi-philosophical stuff. Whatever people will enjoy reading - I'll write it.

:)

What runs in your family?

Heart disease, lung cancer, skin cancer, alcoholism, and conservativism.

Ask me anything

I will

Definitely.

I promise a something. There will be words with meaning here in the future in between the present and the unpredictable static routine that simply won't go away, no matter how much I strive for variance.

A conversation I had this evening left me with a strange feeling I can only understand whilst in a certain state of mind, induced by the potency of interpersonal accord...a uniqueness in a strangely familiar peer, with whom I seem to be acquainted though there is little mutual in our brief exchanges thus far. 

How can I know...where will it go?

Do those dear to me care about my thoughts in anything other than intimate verbal form? Why do I maintain this slew of what was supposed to be photography and philosophy...is it a glorified micro-social network? It would be more efficient (in the eyes of this transient cosmic being) to invest in a digital IV so no one will ever be out of touch.

I have so much to say and so few who care. In between yawns I reflect on the happenings and the experiences of each and every day, wondering if it's worth the effort to re-live them, if only for a moment, and transpose them to a pleasant twelve-point rendering on this virtual mental outlet.

Chinese has a word for everything; in many cases, several ways of conveying an idea, an action, a feeling in many ways in varying degrees of severity, sincerity, serendipity, other words that begin with S.

I can hear pounding on the floor (or walls?), and it's a fucking soccer ball; grow up and realize that we are not all insomniacs by choice!

But it's ok...it's ok...tomorrow brings what is now only in our imaginations...we are all amazing artists at our cores, able to envision even the most complicated and unusual of scenarios...that's what I try to say, but words suffer from an unfortunate duality; what is written cannot even be lent a guiding hand into the vast swath of verbal drobiaziach without becoming a victim of degradation...write on a compact disk, have the computer read it back - they are more human than we ever would have imagined in the 1980s. The science fiction writers of yore...oh if only they could see us now. A characterization come all too eerily real.

If I can make it come true...all of it...if I have the means, the method, the madness...I will.

pasiadzieć, kol zorak. Chaj pylu liažać dzie jon liažyć.

 

Do you believe in Jesus?

I believe he existed; he was a traveling teacher who proliferated and explained a certain set of morals and virtues. While these differ slightly from the Aristotelian set by which I tend to abide, I believe he had a lot of good things to say that were, at the time, revolutionary and vital to social and intellectual growth.

Ask me anything