What I got out of last night’s trip back to Rowan

Partywise, nothing.  The one we went to was a sausagefest.

A confirmed rift between me and my roommates.  None were at my apartment when I arrived with my friends for pre-gaming, but they had left a mess of pizza boxes and filled garbage cans.  One popped in with his friends from home (apparently they were playing wally-ball at the rec center).  He hid in his room for ten minutes gathering his personal effects while his friends sat in the living room with us, not talking.  Then he walked out in one trip with lots of stuff and no garbage.  Then the next morning I find that he locked his door out of an unfounded fear that my friends would sleep in their beds.  It’s clear there’s no trust and no respect in that apartment anymore.  For the first time I left Real World Glassboro a pigsty.

But the trip wasn’t a complete waste.  If we hadn’t driven down that night, I’d of never gotten the most classic video of my friends dancing.  It’s the little things that count.

Late post

Last night was moving time; didn’t have any time to post.  After the speeches, my home friends told me they were going to be in Lawrenceville that night.  I’d be seeing them the next day (today) when we all go to a party back at Rowan, but I stopped there anyway on the way home to Montgomery and it turned out to be a very important get-together.  We’re all very close and get along great but they love to quote movies verbatim and if you don’t know the source of the nonsense they’re spewing you can feel a little left out.  The latest movie they’ve been quoting like Scripture is “Superbad,” which they’ve watched a ton of times at home and I haven’t seen since it was in theaters.  Somewhere in the conversation, I was able to convince everyone we should watch Superbad again, for my sake, and we did.  Now tonight’s party-going will be even better.  Though my movie-line-encyclopedia friends will just quote the movie randomly, I tend to throw quotes in the mix during the proper situation which makes it funny for everyone, especially for my friends and I.

Now I’m home and loving it.  When I got in just before midnight and all my family was asleep, I went quietly into the living room to scope out the Christmas tree.  For the past week or two that tree’s been my computer wallpaper, keeping me going in my apartment, which is devoid of holiday cheer.  Since then I’d been waiting for the moment I could truly stand in front of it.  I’m not religious anymore, but “the holidays,” as they’re called very correctly today, are still very important to me.  Christmas has always been a big time in my family, with three birthdays within two days of Dec. 25, including one on the big day.  No matter what denomination one belongs to, a time reserved for family gathering is incredibly important, especially during the dark and cold days of winter; it’s no surprise that Christmas comes right after the solstice.  I won’t really be able to cherish the family gathering until Friday when I’m back at home for good, but even now while my family is out at work or at school I have the Christmas carols running to indulge in the sounds which remind me of those wonderful times with the people closest to me.

Lately people have been asking me why I came home last night if I’d be back down at school the following night.  One reason was that I was out of clothes and food and couldn’t really live another day properly down there just to wait for my friends.  The other reason was most evident just before as a certain song came on in the living room: “O, there’s no place like home for the holidays…”

Slowing

Indeed, all this downtime is pretty boring.  Everyone else is doing finals while I sit around trying to think of something to do.  I probably join the blogging majority with this boredom posting, so congratulations to me for fitting in.  I’m usually pretty good with finding things to do.  Over the summer my daytime working schedule conflicted with my friends’ evening schedules, so this has happened before.  While they worked, I would read a book or watch a baseball game.  In my literature -starved apartment during the offseason, I don’t have those pastimes available to me.  The magazines are nearly spent and the library is filled with people studying.  TV’s always available, but rarely worth watching until late at night.  Chances are, all I’ll be doing at home is reading and watching TV, but it seems better there.

Boredom expectedly leads to consumption; my roommates are out buying alcohol now.

I need to do something great this break.  Productive plans (as in plans not involving drinking) so far include keeping this blog and reading a book on Theodore Roosevelt.  Between those and the non-productive plans, I don’t think that’s enough!  If gas wasn’t so expensive I’d be out driving, even now, but even with that the way it is I want to go into the City a few times, definitely be around in general.  It’s always good to have friends along when you’re traveling, and I think they’d be up for it.  It seems like being of age gives a reason to go places - when you’re under 21 all you really have available is hanging out at people’s places and dick around.  Saying, “let’s go to the City or Philly” might result in a “Why?”  Saying, “let’s get drunk in the City or Philly,” will probably result in a “Fuck YES!”  One alcohol-based road trip is already planned: me and my best friends are hitting up Boston for St. Patty’s weekend.  Concern for the future is not an option: we’ll go broke for this trip, it means everything to us and we’ll never forget it.  I hope that in the future traveling won’t necessarily involve drinking.  For now, though, the best way to see the world is through the bottom of a glass.

Coasting

All work is over for this challenging semester, and I’m looking forward to taking a break.  Five weeks until school starts again, and in those five weeks is plenty to do:

Christmas and birthdays, one of those being my 21st.  My friends have promised an exciting time.  I’m looking forward to being able to go to bars, and generally just being able to get alcohol wherever I want to, and more generally just being an actual grown-up.

Back in the early fall I suggested to the family that we all get cheap tickets to a Nets game.  I pointed out a game that looked pretty good at the time: Nets vs. the very promising Boston Celtics.  Back then, the Nets were supposed to be OK, and now they’re just sucking up the court.  I hope Jason Kidd’s still there so it’s not a complete boredom festival.

A few of my friends turn 21 soon after I do, so this whole break will be defined by bars.

I’m still down at school until Wednesday evening, though.  Good ol’ Intro to Writing Arts has mandatory speeches, which actually won’t be a complete pain.  The speakers include a graduate in Writing Arts and a freelance writer, so…yea, relevance.  But I’m peacin’ at 8 sharp.

Until then, I’m left to figure out something to do with my time.  The semester had a respectable flow of work throughout, and now that I’m just sitting around, I’m frankly bored.  Aside from this blog (which might get touched more than once daily now) I have two new magazines to read: Time and National Geographic, which I get delivered here.  Not as hip as Motor Trend, but it’s good reading and it keeps me in the know.  NatGeo has a depressing story about the disappearing population of rural North Dakota.  Not surprisingly, people don’t like the weather and the isolation, so there are now virtual ghost towns all over the state.  The pictures of abandoned homes and schools showed the state of affairs best, though.  Great to read.

almost done

How do you say “ant” in Swedish?

Most of today’s energy was exhausted on my project, which is now 5/6ths done. It might have been done by now if I hadn’t spent so much time today fretting about whether it would fit criteria. It doesn’t, but hopefully the teacher will give me enough effort-credit so I can pass the class. As I made clear to anyone who would listen today, I’m mad that this semester’s magnum opus was a grade-school-like project involving a blue glue stick and scissors, but what I didn’t tell the others is that I’m a little upset that I didn’t recognize this project’s magnitude from day 1 when it was assigned. I’ve been blaming the teacher for this ignorance, but in the end it’s all on me like everything else. I can hope that I’ll never deal with another instructor as off-base from my way of doing things, or I can be ready to adapt immediately knowing that it can very well happen again. After this weekend’s debacle, which ranks up there with the worst I’ve ever had (and I’ve had some bad ones), it will definitely be the latter.

I could have gone out tonight but I’m staying in, unwinding from a hectic day of work. There’ll be enough time to party in twelve days when I turn 21; my friends back home told me so today. I’m watching a Discovery Channel show about army ants (fascinating!), indulging in Svedka and juice anyway.

With the Eagles game at 4:15 tomorrow, I’d hoped that CBS would be cool and air the Jets game for us fans down here in Philly-area exile. I just checked the TV guide (one of the benefits of overpaying for cable) and found a game between Green Bay and St. Louis on FOX (which has about as much playoff impact as the Pats-Jets game) and on CBS…Jaguars-Steelers. Big cable lets me down again. I’m not surprised, though. This game has much more in the way of playoff implication, and the Steelers likely have a higher sphere of influence down here than the Jets. After all, aside from local teams the Steelers are pretty much the team of the redneck Northeast, South Jersey notwithstanding.

Caught singing in the shower

First of all, I’d like to give a shout-out to the audience I’m now conscious of.  I appreciate the provision of the proper link to this site from “againstourwill,” as well.

It’s cool that at least somebody is tuning in to my blog.  I half-expected it to be completely ignored, however, and I would likely have started to post more personal reflections and wild ideas from the corners of my mind if I had not finally gotten a response from another person.  So, sorry for those who might be cruising for something spicy, but this daily is going to get relatively vanilla.  (Flavor metaphors still abound, though.)

I will let the public know, however, that I had a bit of a crisis with a tedious Linguistics project (that big one I’ve been talking about) today, wondering whether or not I could complete it properly, and whether I should just forget about it and take a hit in the GPA (it’s worth 50%).  But then I realized that would result in a course failure, requiring my taking yet another three credits some other time.  So after that and a little pep talk from my #1 motivator, my mother, I resolved to hold it off until the morning and try my best at it.  If I may so brag (see, now I’m humble in my posts!), I expect A’s in each of my four other classes this semester, so even a D in Linguistics would allow a pretty good semester GPA.

If there are any fans of prog metal out there, check out Between the Buried and Me’s new album “Colors.”  Yea, it’s the blog’s namesake; this album is pretty much a sacred entity to me right now.  To prevent myself from curling up in a ball of self-hatred because of my near-forfeiture tonight, I turned on my iPod to this album.  It essentially flows as one song for a little over an hour, though the content is very diverse.  With this album I’ve drawn parallels to the flow of life through time, and that “deep shit” parallel was the straw that broke the blog-hating camel’s back, so now whenever another one of those great ideas comes along, this blog is here.

Response to Kindle readings

I read readings on the new Amazon Kindle, the gadget that is meant to replace books, for class just now.  Maybe I’m just a sucker for simple things, but I can’t wait to get one of these for myself and use it to its full potential.  The list of advantages are great: easy-to-read screen, cheaper e-books, small size, fancy design, wireless capabilities.  This thing really does have the potential to change the way people read and write, and I say why not?  Books are great, and when this Kindle revolution is in full swing I’ll probably hide those relics away somewhere safe, but this thing and its descendants are sure to be a lot better overall.

Some opportunities:

School texts can be put on this light little thing, saving children’s backs and saving schools (and college students) tons of money on textbooks.

Lots and lots of trees can be saved.

Everything is in one convenient place (perfect for those that aspire for simplistic purity like I do)

People will start reading long texts much more.

Communities can chat through the Kindle while the book is right there.

The vessel could take on many different forms and become a fashion statement (and a status symbol)

Libraries may make disposable versions or leasable versions.  This might require the library to be revamped, though.  The library of the future could be more fully like a lounge, with tons of creature comforts, while individuals sit around, chit chatting, and reading their Kindles.  That sounds a lot like a Starbucks, though, so maybe libraries will just become storage facilities.

There’s also the chance that the Kindle can constrain.  Amazon is currently the only company which users can access for e-books, and though there are tens of thousands available, there’s a good chance that not every e-book ever made will be downloadable.  To take that further, what if Amazon decides not to make something available?  Let’s say that Kindle totally replaces books worldwide a few decades down the road, as this article playfully suggests.  With no gold standard of physical books to fall back on, and with every e-book available coming through an Amazon-controlled portal, what’s to prevent the manager of the Amazon volumes from making, for argument’s sake, Fahrenheit 451 unavailable to anyone?  The corporation seems to love free thought and liberty now, but what if the government takes control of it in some future tide of conservatism?  Kindle has all the ingredients for dystopic authoritarianism.

I don’t think that will come to pass, though.  It’s easy to say now with our relatively permissive society, but the Kindle should just be a great tool for the new generations to access more knowledge in a nice little machine.

Gutcheck post (if that’s what gutcheck means)

I’m not even a week into this blog and I find it a bit of a hassle. Come the end of the night, I don’t feel inspired enough to write a post and whatever comes out is not good enough. This is the most inspired I’ve felt since I began. Thinking of the basics of writing - that it is simply a recording tool to save whatever your mind comes up with - I wonder what I need to record so much of. Especially now that I’m so dead-set on work, I think of nothing but execution. The beautiful things I think of every once in a while, such as the commentary on “Colors” which inspired this writing space, are few and far between right now. Maybe I just need to get used to this, keep with it unlike that blog I posted on three times three years ago. Nobody’s judging me yet, and this is way different than the essays and responses I kill on a regular basis. Surely, a few thoughts will come together like they always do and become a major part of my life, and this is here to record it.

Maybe the reason I don’t feel the need to store my thoughts in writing is because my memory is so good. I don’t need to take notes and my thoughts remain in my head pretty well in some way. Though when I’m prewriting for essays, I still do best when I write down basic notes (in nice organizations), so why not record whatever I think of on a blog right now? Even now it’s helping me form thoughts, uneloquent as it may be, unorganized as it may be. As I write this I feel re-invigorated, and I will keep my pre-set goal to write in this at least once every day. Right now I am too busy with work to preoccupy myself with abstract thoughts, though I’m not doing too much work admittedly. But really, when I’m back in the comfort of Home Base at least an hour of the day set aside for a perspicacity will be very easy. The good life. Exciting shit.

This writing I do here has potential to be creative, which is why the guest speakers in Writing Arts class still held some value for an aspiring technical writer like me. They spoke on how creative writing is NOT a profession. The question I finally threw out for them to respond to was mostly a point of pride for me to think of something so cool when no one else had the balls or the brains to do so, but I still got a lot out of what Mrs. Guess and Mr. Block had to say. I’m a pretty artsy motherfucker, and while technical writing appears pleasing to my need to produce and my need to not live “in a cardboard box,” as that one girl from work says, who knows when I’ll start feeling like a square? Hopefully this blog will do toe-keeping-on in that respect as well, so that when I freak out and leave everything to go road-tripping around the country, I’ll have some craft to survive. Of course, I need some more practice, but this isn’t something you should be going to school exclusively for, anyway, as I made clear in my super-cool question today.

So basically, I should stick with this, not worry about anything except writing in it every single day, and I’ll be happy I did.

Good evening imaginary audience.  Today was…productive enough.  I wrapped my final paper for the year this morning before lunch, and that leaves me with one more non-test assignment, a god damn Linguistics notebook to do before the end of the semester.  Five days seems like enough time to complete it, but I’ll need to keep on task.  I plan on getting down to business on Thursday when in-class time trickles down to one class a day.  And hopefully I’ll finish before Sunday, partially because I want to have extra time to study, and partially because I’ll have a strong urge to just sit around and watch football.  This project is alien to me: it’s more like a high-school arts and crafts project than a college assignment.  But I think it will be easy, if not just long and tedious; and come Monday my writing won’t be like Confessions of a Workaholic.

I remember a day, long ago, when Family Guy was hysterical.  In related news, I think I’m going to learn the piano over winter break, too.  It’s related because I just watched Stewie charmingly playing the piano at a party on Family Guy.  Why can’t I do that?

Winter break has great potential, really.  It’s five weeks long this year, giving me a lot of time to do whatever tickles my fancy - celebrate my birthday through excessive drinking, visit museums, work, or just get in some good family time and relaxing in preparation for a huge spring semester, etc.  Hopefully all of the above.  It’s the best I can do to make the most of this literally darkest of breaks.