Random thoughts

So, May is almost over, I'm three weeks into summer vacation, and I only have a little over a week left until I have to leave for summer classes. They're in another state, the furthest I've ever been from home (and most certainly the furthest I've been by myself) and I'm going to have to fly for the first time (both ever and by myself) to get there. Should be interesting. I'm actually kinda excited for the classes since they're in a subject area my university doesn't offer anything in really. It's really a once in a lifetime opportunity to take them. They sound like they're going to be really hard, but I also think there's going to be a lot of resources available to help us to. There's going to be 2 TA's for a class of 12 kids, so that's good. Plus, with such a small class, I think we'll all probably be pretty close and work together on the (non-graded/for our benefit only) homework in the evenings (we all have to live on campus in a dorm for the classes). It's kinda amazing I've been home for three weeks though. I've only done a couple things with friends while I've been home, and I've been really slow about getting stuff done that I wanted to. I most certainly haven't been outside biking everyday like I wanted to be (it's been a very windy couple of weeks). I don't know how I've managed to eat up so much time. I must have been watching more tv than I realized since I haven't read more than a couple books and I haven't been playing that many video games (only pokemon Ruby on the Gameboy). Oh, well. What's summer for, except to be lazy. As long as I can make myself work once summer classes start. The class description said to plan on being busy everyday from 8-6 so I think the days are pretty structured. I usually do better with a lot of structure in my day, so this is a good thing. I do hope I can see a little of the area while I'm out there, though. It's probably my only chance for many years, so I had better make it count. I hope everyone else is having a productive summer, and I wish everyone luck in their projects. (At least one of my friends from college is doing a big REU project this summer. I really hope he enjoys it. It's really amazing he got it.) That's all for now. Happy end of May!

#10

A Reality: I’m scared.

     I’m scared of many things. OK, not really, but a couple things truly terrify me. And the ones that do are pretty much completely irrational (like a zombie apocalypse). I keep them under control pretty well for the most part, but one I’ve been doing well with for about a year and a half has been stirring lately. Two summers ago, it pretty much took over my life and completely fucked me up. I got ahold of it in late fall that year, but it’s been slipping through a little the last couple weeks. I don’t want to say what it actually is because 1) I don’t want to think about any detail of it for fear of making it worse and 2) most people think it’s kind of silly and think I’m odd for freaking out because of it. I’m really good at hiding these fears. That summer I was basically incapacitated and able to think of little else, but no one had any idea. In fact, I’ve only ever told one person about it in detail (in person at least, this blog is telling anybody who reads it): the psychiatrist I mentioned a couple posts ago. I’ve only met with her once, and won’t be able to meet with her again until next fall since she works for Student Health at my university (my summer classes are at another college). I freaking love her though. I’ll call her Dr. H.

     There’s kinda a stereotype of psychiatrists just throwing drugs at a problem to fix it, but I don’t think Dr. H. is like that really. I’ve been to a psychologist once and he did less to figure out what was wrong with me than Dr. H. did. She didn’t just try to give me a prescription to see if it helped any. She first tried to figure out WHY she should give me a prescription, what she was trying to treat/accomplish by giving me drugs. I knew when I went to see her I had some sort of depression, but after talking she said the depression was probably due at least partially to some rather severe anxiety (like maybe always feeling pressured to do well in school, or worrying about my future/lack of direction). Dr. H. said my anxiety was “smoldering” at the moment, and she was worried it could erupt back into something like two summers ago. I told my parents that she thought I had anxiety but I didn’t tell them why. They already knew about the depression, so that’s why I saw the psychologist, the one who was completely unhelpful. As you, the nonexistent reader, may or may not know, many of the same drugs can be used to treat both anxiety and depression. So Dr. H. did say she would sort of like me to start on a prescription (my family and someone from the university wanted me to be on drugs like no other) but wasn’t pressuring me and in fact was a little hesitant herself. The problem was, she couldn’t follow up since I met with her about two days before I left for home and you can’t really know what kind of side effects you’ll see until you’ve taken the antidepressants for a couple weeks. I told her my parents had set up appointments with someone back home since I thought the psychologist was going to be a psychiatrist who could write me prescriptions. However, he can’t , so I missed my chance to start medication before next fall unless it’s an emergency. I’ve been slightly down the last day or two, and I’m praying it’s not a sign of worse to come. My summer classes are all the way on the east coast, so if depression/anxiety flares up there I’m basically fucked. I’m worried that’s what’s going to happen.

     However, none of this stuff so far is what I meant when I said “I’m scared” at the beginning of this post. What I meant by that is I’m scared to take antidepressants. One doctor once told me a giant proportion of people my age are actually on antidepressants. He said it was normal and nothing to worry about starting. However, as I told Dr. H., our brain is all we are. All people are is thoughts, and every single one of them is contained within a person’s brain. Basically, I believe if you fuck with your brain, you fuck with your very self. You fuck with who you are (that’s part of the reason I try not to drink very much, or even use caffeine much). I’m not going to use drugs to start changing things in my very brain without some serious thought first. I may still end up doing it, but I’m most certainly not going to rush it. Dr. H. said antidepressants don’t do anything really extreme to your thoughts and behavior. She said it’s more like giving yourself some insulation, keeping you from extremes of emotion. You still feel stuff, but it’s not going to be extreme enough to fuck up your life. However, even if the antidepressants do what they’re supposed to, there’re also a lot of side-effects that are possible with them, and they scare me a lot too. They can be minor, like a little more drowsiness (though that would be bad for when I’m in class), bruising easier, oddly vivid dreams, or weight gain (I really don’t want any of these, though everyone tells me I can afford the weight if I would gain it). The effects can be severe too, like getting random little suicidal thoughts that Dr. H. said can be really scary. You generally stop treatment immediately if you get the suicidal thoughts, but stopping the drugs right away can be really nasty too. Like, permanent effects if it’s bad enough. Forgive me if I’m not going to take drugs with so many possible side effects without being certain they’d help. There're some sexual possible side effects too, though I'm not too worried about those since I'm still a virgin and that's not looking to change any time soon (I haven't been in a relationship in years). It really would be nice to get some of my motivation back (treat depression) or not be so worried/paranoid bad things are going to happen (treat anxiety). But a lot of people are pressuring me to take them, like my family and some people back at school. I’m not going to take these drugs just to shut them up. They’re not the ones who have to live with the results, so frankly, I think they have exactly no say in my decision at all. But I also worry that my stubbornness is also leading me to reject taking antidepressants as much as my worry about side effects and such. Am I just trying to prove they have no control over me? I’d like to think I’m over my pointlessly rebellious teenager phase (especially since I’ll be 21 in less than three months), but the truth is that I’m not completely. If anyone who happens to read this has any experience at all with this sort of thing, I’d love to hear from you about this. Am I freaking out needlessly over taking the pills? Is there another effective way to treat this stuff without drugs? Should I give a therapist/psychologist another try (my school does offer counseling)? Oh, well. I’m just grateful that this isn’t something I have to decide until next fall. I don’t need to decide now, so there’s no point in worrying about it. It still kinda sucks I have to make this decision at all, though. Fuck reality.

#9

A Reality: I’ve still forgotten my dreams.

     So as I discussed very briefly in a previous post, in the past couple months it’s really hit me that I’ve lost anything resembling a dream, goal, hope, or belief. In elementary and high school they always had little things where they made you write down where you see yourself in one year, or ten years, or whenever. They’d have you write down a goal you had that you could actively work toward. I always thought those things were a waste of time. And honestly they were. They did nothing for me. I knew what I wanted to do back then and I didn’t need to be forced to write things down when it accomplished nothing (I have a couple of issues with people forcing me to do things I either really don’t want to do or I don’t see the point in). I’m not even sure something like that would help me now, since you can’t really make up a goal and stick with it right on the spot. Believe me, if I could, I would have done it weeks ago. But, alas, one cannot force the heart to feel (is that from something (possibly very badly paraphrased) or did I make that up?), and so I can’t really force myself to genuinely care about something. And I refuse to just go through the motions, pretending to care about something. That would make me a giant hypocrite since I often criticize people who do exactly that (cough cough pre-med students who volunteer just to look good cough). As I may or may not have said in my previous post about goals, I’ve never appreciated how important goals are in your life, how important they are to giving meaning and direction in your daily activities.

     So as I mentioned in my previous post(s), Vee really brought all this to my attention. I knew I’d been super neurotic and apathetic lately, though I hadn’t connected it to being a result of losing my goals/direction in life. Me and Vee went out for lunch and were talking (it was one of more serious, less hate-filled conversations) and during it I came to the realization that I really had lost all sense of purpose. That was why I was so unmotivated to get things done (like homework and studying) and was being more down and depressing than normal (I’m usually slightly cynical anyway, but this semester took it to a whole new level). It was a very eye-opening conversation and I’m very grateful to have had it. However, people who have never been in my situation can’t really have an appreciation for it. Vee’s response illustrates this. She seemed to think I was just being a whiny, lazy, spoiled American who didn’t want to do anything to help himself fix a very solvable problem. She said I just needed a project. Her suggestion was volunteering somewhere, the logic being that if I was having trouble finding my own things to work toward, I should try working to help others. Now, I agree completely that living to help others is a very admirable quality. But as I said earlier, I won’t do something I don't genuinely care about. I don’t want to be one of those shallow people doing something for the wrong reasons (like helping others only to help myself (I want to help them because I want to help them)) and it would be extremely hypocritical if I did. So basically I’m still open to that approach, but I’m waiting to try it until I find some volunteer organization or charity project I can really become passionate about. That’s really easier said than done. Vee has it easy. She helps out with Habitat for Humanity back at college. It’s something she definitely genuinely cares about since her family was helped by that organization when they first came over to America. She sees it as her way to give back and help others now that she is in a position to do so. I don’t have anything like that, though. One thing I think does sound interesting is going to a nursing home and talking to some of the (preferably non-completely-senile/dementia-suffering) patients who are lonely there. However, I don’t know anybody in a nursing home, and I think it would be kinda creepy to just start sitting in there talking to random people by myself. Plus I’m really shy (something I’ll probably talk about in a future post) so I’m not really good at just starting conversations with random people. I never know what to say or ask.

     I guess it’s fair to say I have a couple small goals in my life still. I still try to get good grades (perhaps slightly unhealthily so) and such in school, but even that wasn’t motivating me during the semester. Some of my grades were quite close at the end. I almost wish I hadn’t done as well as I did this semester, because the last thing I need is any sort of reward for my incredibly lazy study habits this semester. The problem is, trying to make myself do well in school isn’t enough. I have absolutely no idea what I want to do with myself after wards. I probably won’t get a job right out of college, but instead do some sort of grad school or professional school. But I can’t for the life of me get any sort of inkling what kind of career I want to pursue, and it makes it really hard to stay motivated and work towards something in your undergrad years when you don’t even know for certain what subject area you’re going to end up in. I have it narrowed down to two, and I’m getting a double major (it’ll take me four and a half years to do it which is really sad since I’m only going into my third year and already have enough credits to be considered a senior). I used to have all these career ideas, and I suppose I still do to an extent. They’ve lost most of their appeal, though. I can’t see myself being happy with any of them for my entire life. Basically what happened by about a third of the way through last semester is I was just trying to get through to the end of the year so I could relax and collect myself/figure myself out over summer vacation. I felt wonderful and carefree when I was home over spring break. Talking with my parents and getting away from school really put my mind at ease. The same sort of thing happened the first week or so of summer vacation.  But now I’m halfway through my second week and I’m finding myself start to slip back into apathy, laziness, and a deep lack of direction. I had plans to help myself over break before my summer classes start (another two and a half weeks), but I’m finding myself too unmotivated to accomplish anything. I haven’t done stuff necessary to prepare for my summer classes. I haven’t sorted through my stuff from last semester so I can get my room more organized and less cluttered. I haven’t been getting out and exercising. I’ve been blaming the weather for not exercising (it’s been a very windy spring so far), but the truth is I’m not making as much of an effort as I could be. Pretty much, summer is not instilling the sense of purpose and accomplishment I had hoped it would before my summer classes. I hope I can do OK in my classes if I’m still like this when they start since they’re going to be pretty intense I think. I’m just waiting for something to change. I can’t keep going on like this forever. Doing nothing and having no direction is surprisingly draining. All I can do is hope I can find a way to help myself soon, before something truly bad/permanent comes about from this listlessness. And that is why I say fuck reality. Fuck my current lack of control over my life’s direction.

#8

A Reality: Vee doesn’t respect me.

    So Vee and I are very different people. I think I said before one of the few things that we have in common is that we get sick of people easily. Other than that, there’s few important things agree on. One thing we can agree on is that I’m shy, incredibly awkward around people I’ve just met, and just generally don’t make friends that easily. The problem is that she and I have very different views on how to change that. I prefer to meet just one or two people in class and gradually get to know them over the semester and do stuff after I get comfortable around them. Of course that obviously hasn’t been working too well for me since I’m basically down to Barry and Vee at college. Barry is gone for next fall (he’s graduating) and Vee is living in an apartment instead of the dorms. We still have one class together, so we will see each other, but I don’t think we’ll hang out much at all. I think that the main reason we hung out so much this year is because many of our friends no longer live in the dorms so it was just more convenient to go down the hall (or stairs) and see each other. So I’m really going to have to make an effort next fall to find some new people. Vee’s idea for making friends is to go to parties. “You have to go where the people are,” she says. “You’re not social enough.” Well, the thing is, parties really aren’t my thing. I latch on to any person I know willing to talk with me. I don’t talk to new people and if people I do know want to talk to new people instead of me, I end up sitting off to the side, feel depressed, and eventually wander off on my own without telling people. This doesn’t even have to be at a party. I’ve done it in a small group of people where I knew two of the four and it was a super casual setting. Alcohol does make me super friendly and outgoing, but I still tend to stick with people I know. And even if I do talk to someone I don’t know well and open up to them when I’m drunk, I’m always to awkward to keep the bond going when I’m sober. Vee knows all this. She’s seen this on several occasions, but she just doesn’t accept that the party scene isn’t for me. Plus a psychiatrist I talked to recently said I shouldn’t drink any more anyway since that can aggravate problems, so that’s out, too. Which is sad since my 21^st is in a couple months (right at the beginning of fall semester.)

     So what’s wrong with Vee? She occasionally will snap and bitch at me for being moody and usually saying “I’m not in the mood to see people tonight” when she invites me somewhere. She says that I need to make an effort and take advantage of the opportunity when it presents itself if I want to meet new people, but the thing is, I don’t do that at parties (see previous paragraph). It doesn’t work like that. Vee will just rip into my character uninvited and criticize a number of things she sees as flaws when she’s like this. It’s only happened a couple of times, but it’s kinda hurtful when she does. Am I just supposed to wish myself different? I don’t think it works like that. She ripped into me on the day of my last post saying I’d lost all dreams, goals, beliefs, and motivations. Which is perfectly true. I have lost all those this semester. But then she says I need to just find a new one-of-the-above. Oh, yes. It’s just that simple. I’ll just pick a something to give me meaning and direction in life. If it was that easy, I wouldn’t have lost those things in the first place. Basically, she thinks I’m a little pussy who’s not doing anything to fix my problems. I really don’t think she can empathize very well with people. I can see her point of view, but, again, these aren’t little habits to change. This is my personality, who I am. Vee sees me as willful, weak, and stubborn. Again, true to a point, but not the level she seems to think. My refusal to go to parties is because I know they usually leave me feeling down. Why put myself in that situation, what will it accomplish? I really need to find different people to hang out with next year (maybe I’ll spend more time with my friend Jenna. She’s really into exercise, so it might be a good thing.), but it’s sad that I have a friend who thinks so little of me. It’s also sad I keep hanging out with her anyway. Oh, well. Fuck reality.

     On a positive note, I got through finals week and I am now back home for a couple of weeks before summer classes start. Things are a little odd here at home. My parents are being both more supportive than usual and less trusting of me being out doing things. I know why that is, though I don’t want to talk about it yet. There’s kinda a hint earlier in this. If you really want to know, my non-existent reader, ask me. Maybe I’ll make it a post later. Or maybe I will anyway. Again, this blog is really more for me. Though any feedback people want to give is welcome. I really hope I’m not coming off as a little bitch in this blog. I’m really more of a depressing cynic who prefers to keep things to myself than a bitch. Of course, everyone needs to let stuff out eventually. And this is my outlet. We’ll see if it helps. Also, I don’t have a personal internet connection while I’m home so I have to use the family computer to put posts on my blog. I’m going to write them on my laptop (like this one) and then transfer them over. So they may not be posted right on the day they were written, or there may be a couple posted in one day even though they were written a little spread out. We’ll see how it ends up. That’s a problem for future me. Until later, my non-existent audience (imagine a top hat being tipped jauntily).

#7

A Reality: I've lost my dreams.
     The above image is from xkcd and pretty much describes my life. I've lost my dreams. I've lost my motivation. I'm just going through life doing what I'm "supposed" to. Except I don't even really care enough to try and change it like the comic is saying. I kinda know why that is. Losing my dreams, beliefs, and goals is a relatively recent occurrence and one I pray is temporary. If it's not, either I'm in trouble or the world is. Oh well, that's a problem for future me.
     If I had any readers they might ask, "What occurrence could bring about the blessing of two delightfully insightful posts in one day?" (Or maybe insert pessimistic, whiny, or depressing in place of delightfully insightful; your choice.) "Why," I would answer, "a conversation with Vee, of course! Who but a true friend would make you feel incredibly hopeless about your future while talking over lunch! Shame on all my other friends for not doing this." I feel I'm being overly dramatic about this. Plus I really don't feel like typing more right now. I more just put this up to help remind me what to talk about next. But yeah, pretty much I think my life sucks. (What? A young person who thinks that? Never! I know, I'm original in my thoughts.) Fuck reality.

#6 part 2

A Reality continued: I kinda have a terrible roommate.
    So my room this year is all the way up on the fourth floor of my dorm. I don't really mind the stairs, but I've definitely started taking the elevator more as the year goes on. I signed up for a double room without finding a roommate so I was expecting to be assigned a random freshman over the summer. And I knew a lot of freshmen probably don't want to be with a sophomore their first year, but honestly they could do worse than me. If they were taking any science or math classes at all, I could probably help them quite a bit with any of their questions. Heck, I'm even pretty good at editing English papers. That's kinda off topic though. I got one guy assigned to me over the summer, but I couldn't figure out which person with that name he was on facebook, and he never contacted me. Next thing I know, I get a little confirmation of my room for the fall from Housing and it says "No roommate assigned." So I don't know if that kid went to another college or decided to live off campus, or what happened. Hope everything worked out for him, because things certainly worked out nice for me. I spent the first two months or so of the year living by myself in a single room. It was wonderful. Lots of extra room, no worrying about another person's sleep schedule, yeah. Just nice. There was one kid who lived in another dorm and hated it who wanted to transfer into my room (his best friend from high school was right down the hall) but they wouldn't let him because I didn't have a roommate. Which I thought was weird. It's not like the empty space would disappear, it'd just be in another dorm. Whatever, no skin off my nose. The only bad thing about my floor was that I didn't/don't really talk to anyone from it. In fact, I've probably talked to about 3 kids once or twice. A large reason for this is that most of them are freshmen. The freshmen actually move in several days before returning students so they all meet and bond and such before the rest of us have even set foot on the floor. Which is fine. Most of the people are kinda partier types anyway. I enjoy drinking occasionally, but I'm not going to go to an overly crowded house where I know nobody, its too loud to get to know anybody, and which has a good chance of being busted by the cops. Not my idea of a good time. My floor is usually pretty calm, thought, and they are WWWWAAAAAYYYYYY cleaner than my floor last year (aka flushing toilets ect) so I don't really have any complaints with them.
    So I enjoyed the months free from a roommate, but I kept waiting for a roommate to randomly be in the room when I walked in sometime. What eventually happened was his bags appeared in the empty closet. And then sat there for a week with no sign of him. When he finally did show up, something he said made me think that he'd had keys for more like two weeks and just didn't move in. He also had really bad English. He's Chinese, so lets call him Fob (Vee (who is also Asian) uses that for Fresh Off the Border people). The awkwardness started with the arrangements of the beds. Basically I couldn't get into mine while he was at his desk. I'm not sure if this is why he moved his computer to a little arrangement by his bed, or if he just thought it was more comfortable. Anyway, so it took us a while to really get used to each other. I completely gave up on small talk when I asked him how his weekend was, and he replied "Oh...um...that's private." So I'm pretty sure his English was bad enough that he didn't quite know what I was asking. So basically we had no communication. Which is fine, because, again, I look more for a roommate I can coexist with rather than be best friends with. But then there was/is his sleep schedule. It was really bad at first. He has this online multiplayer game he likes to play, which is fine. Except I like to go to bed around midnight or earlier, and he would still be up and I'd hear clickclickclickclickclickclick. I don't know what that game involved but sometimes he'd click his mouse nonstop for minutes at a time. I'm much more sensitive to sound than light when I'm trying to sleep, so I basically couldn't sleep while he was doing this. To make matters worse, he'd be audio chatting friends over the game while doing this, so he'd be silent for minutes on end, where I'd start drifting off, and then start shouting into his microphone, jarring me back awake. He'd do this into the wee hours of the morning. Then, he'd sleep until sometimes three or four in the afternoon, forcing me to basically go somewhere else to spend a lot of my days. I don't think he was going to class. It got really old really fast. The problem is, I inconvenience myself to be a good roommate, so rather than confronting him about it, I just let it go. Thankfully second semester was better. He kept better hours and didn't shout into his computer nearly as much (he still does occasionally, and it gets ridiculously loud. Like, I'll have headphones on and he'll drown out whatever I'm listening to). He's also been going to class more. I kinda wonder if he didn't do so well first semester and had to get his act together a little. After all, studying foreign exchange isn't cheap. He still occasionally will have a late night, but not too often. Unfortunately, those late nights often seem to fall on the night before a test for me. Plus he disappears for the weekend a lot, so that's nice too. (I'm not sure if he goes to parties or if he has a girlfriend. Again, no small talk.) Though when he comes back, he sleeps all day again.
    So really, he hasn't been nearly as bad this semester, and like Ed, Fob wasn't being malicious, just oblivious. One time he was playing his computer game late at night without his headphones (I think he lost them over Christmas break, so there was a couple weeks of second semester where this was a problem.) and I finally asked him if he could turn it down. He immediately turned it off and apologized. I think, he honestly doesn't think of that sort of thing. He doesn't realize his noise might be keeping me awake, but he is genuinely sorry when he does realize it. So he's been kind of a burden to live with, but not horrible and the year is almost over. I can make it one more week. So I guess this isn't something that makes me say fuck reality. It's more of a thing that makes me say, I'm glad that's over, and I even if me and Fob weren't friends (he really only talked to other Chinese students. Some of them are like that.) I still wish him the best. I'm still looking forward to living in a single room next year though :p

#6

A Reality: I kinda have a crappy roommate.
   So obviously I knew this was a possibility when I signed up for a double room in the dorms this year without choosing a roommate. This is actually my second year in a double (though only 1 week left before I'm done with finals and move out), mostly because I'm cheap and didn't want to pay extra for a single for a couple years. I did get a single for next fall, however, and I'll probably get an apartment the year (or two, there's a good chance I'll spend 5 years in college) after that. So neither of my roommate experiences have been awesome, though neither has been terrible. I guess I don't have a whole lot I can really complain about. But I'll just put my thoughts down anyway.
     My first roommate I lived with in a double room my freshman year. I actually really liked where that room was. It was right on the first floor and close to the bathroom, trash room, and laundry room. Very convenient. We had a cool floor (at least the guy's half, most of the girls kept to themselves, except Vee) and an awesome RA. My RA used to read us Cosmo sometimes and we'd take the quizzes together. My roommate was OK. I think the biggest problem was that we went into the year with very different goals/expectations. My roommate (let's call him Ed- he was an education major) was very dependent on his friends. I think they were kinda the way he defined himself. He needed people he could hang out with, and be buddy-buddy with. That's not to say he couldn't ever spend time alone. He just had to hang out with his friends every weekend and go out and party. On the other hand, I prefer to have only a couple close friends and then a couple people that I consider somewhere between friends and acquaintances at any one time. I don't feel the need to hang out all the time, and I'm not going to feel moody and abandoned if I don't see my friends for a couple days. Ed went into the year looking to be best friends with his roommate (me). I think he's one of those people who doesn't think of the fact that you get kinda sick of anyone if you live in a tiny room with them for a year, and it tends to be worse if you're friends who don't get lots of space from each other. I think he views being best friends with the person he lives with almost like one big, long sleepover. I went into the year hoping for someone I didn't hate and could just get along with. Maybe make small talk with once in a while, but for the most part ignore. I think Ed was extremely disappointed that we didn't really have anything in common. Some of our mutual friends on the floor later told me he complained he couldn't talk about sports, cars, or girls with me. That person's reply was, "you could probably talk about girls, you two just have very different tastes". Which was true. He liked to party and drink every weekend (especially first semester) and I only drink twice a semester, and usually in a small group setting. So he found his own group of friends and I found mine. We'd occasionally go eat in the dining hall together, but not a whole lot. We just kinda did our own thing. We kept similar hours, which was really nice. We coexisted. I was happy with it, and I think Ed figured it could be worse. He did end up living with a bunch of his friends in a quadruple this year, so I hope he's happier with that. We run into each other some, but we barely acknowledge each other (unless one of us is drunk, then we usually talk for a bit).
     All together, there were only two things that really irritated me about him. 1) Ed was kinda oblivious about some things, like cleaning. Not like cleaning as a whole; we both kept the room relatively clutter free. It was more like, once he puked in the sink and a little in the trashcan. I don't think he ever really cleaned out the trashcan so it always had a little stain in it. The sink ended up backing up, and it was a pain to use it for a week before I finally dealt with it myself and bought drain cleaner (which he never even offered to pay me back for). He moved out a couple days before me and he apparently didn't think to clean out behind his desk, because I had to do that before I left. Just little things like that. It wasn't malicious, just oblivious. 2) Starting second semester after spring break, Ed barely left the room on weekends. He'd go out in the evenings, but he'd be around all day when I wanted to study (I don't usually get stuff done on weekend nights even if I don't drink). It'd have been fine if he had been studying too or something, but what he'd do is sit in front of the t.v. with ESPN on all day. They'd start repeating things he'd seen earlier and he'd still watch it. While on his laptop playing minesweeper. He wasn't doing anything, just sitting in the room. I like to read laying down in bed, but I can't concentrate with noise very well, so basically every weekend, I'd spend a while trying to be productive in the room before finally giving up and going somewhere else. Again, not malicious, just oblivious. I'm not entirely sure why he suddenly starting doing that on the weekends. I think it may have been because his friends kinda wanted to hang out with some of their other friends a little more. I think Ed had this little fantasy about an insanely close group of friends that did absolutely everything together. When it didn't work like that, he withdrew a little. They still did stuff together in the evenings, but he didn't want to go out and find other people to hang out with during the day.
     Basically, like I said, me and Ed weren't best friends, we just kinda coexisted. It worked fine, though I think he was always a little disappointed with it. This is so long, I'll talk about my other roommate in a separate post. My dad's coming down this weekend and should be here sometime relatively soon. I don't know if I'll post the next part later today, or tomorrow, or when. Finals are here, so life's a little busy. And I do realize at least most of this post didn't really show how crappy a roommate I have. Ed was perfectly tolerable to live with, but I wasn't originally planning on talking about him, and I'm too lazy to go change stuff at the beginning. I promise my next post will be more on topic. Not that anybody's reading these anyway. I'm OK with that :)

#5

A Reality: This week has been insanely busy, and it doesn't look like things will let up until finals are over.
That really just sums it up. I wish I could go on more of a rant about this, but I'm just so tired. I'll leave it at that. It really sucks that all this kinda lands on you at once every semester. Oh, well. Fuck reality.