Tuesday, April 24, 2012

#4

A Reality: People care too much about what others think of them.
    Let's face it, no matter how many times you hear "live for yourself, do what makes you happy no matter what others think," you still can't shake off that small flair of disappointment when somebody says they disapprove of something you've done. I'm growing out my hair (I hate it and it looks terrible, but what else is college for?) and I'm trying to find ways to help get it out of my face when I'm studying. My bangs aren't long enough to stay behind my ears yet, so the best solution I've come up with is two semi-bun things, one on top of my head in the front and one in the back. I don't think it looks terrible. A little weird maybe, but again, this is college. You see weirder things walking down the sidewalk all the time. I've only worn my hair like this in public once or twice. People do kinda give me looks when I have it like that, but I'm pretty sure they're more "Oh that's not something you see everyday" rather than "That guy looks really retarded right now and probably doesn't even realize it" looks. So its all good. Until Vee saw me with my hair like that. One of the first things out of her mouth is, "I'm not being seen with you like that." One of our other friends who was in the room took more my view of my hair like that: its fun(ny) because it's odd. It's not necessarily embarrassing though. Vee would not change her mind. She is still dead set against me wearing my hair like that. So, even though everyone else seems to accept me like that, Vee won't. And just because that one person won't, I don't wear my hair like that. I suffer through it getting in my face (it's actually long enough to get in my mouth slightly when I'm eating) and making my glasses dirty when I wear them (we can't wear contacts in chemistry lab).
     Another example is Vee herself. She applied to get into a professional school her sophomore year, but really worried about not making it. She really likes planning things out, so she decided to plan out multiple schedules for what to do if she didn't get in. Basically it came down to she could get in to the school, she could go another year and apply again, she could get a BA, or she could get a BS. Obviously since she applied this year, a bachelor's degree isn't required for admission. However, they are thinking of making it mandatory for future years. She was actually thinking she might be more competitive when she gets out into the work force if she would have a bachelor's degree as well like all the employees a couple years younger than her would. So she was thinking she might decline even if she got admitted and just go for her BA. Then a lot of people were giving her grief since a BA is the "wimpy" route to a degree. So then she was planning on a BS. She had pretty much set herself up for going that route (she did end up getting rejected by the school), but it wasn't until her parents visited and she talked to them about it that she decided that's what she was going to do. Her parents were greatly in favor of the bachelors once she explained her reasoning to them. The thing is, Vee doesn't need her parents to go to college. She's a first generation student (both immigration and college-wise) so she gets more than enough money to cover college without her parents. She was legitimately concerned with making sure her parents were happy with her decision. Maybe other people don't think that's so weird, but I'm not super close with my parents (I've never called them for more than asking a quick financial question since I came to college). I try to think I'm not going to worry what my parents think of what I'm doing. If they disapprove, I'll just talk to them even less (they're not paying for my college either). But even though I would care less than Vee, I would still be slightly torn if my parents didn't like what I decided to to. And I really don't think it's healthy to live to try and please your parents.
    I really wish I could have enough poise and self esteem to not care what others thought. But I can't help caring. It's not something you can wish away. There are secrets I keep that most people wouldn't actually care if they found out, but I'm still not going to tell them just because I'm still scared of what they might think of me. Feeling judged is one of the worst feelings in the world. And most people do it to people around us all the time, without thinking. If everyone could stop doing that, maybe people would start to "dance like nobody is watching." But that's not going to happen. The world doesn't work that way. And you can't wish yourself impervious to that feeling of shame from others' disapproval. That's not how reality works. Fuck reality.
   And I do realize that none of this is super original. I'm pretty sure most people have thought of this stuff before. But I'm not writing this to be original. I'm writing this to try and get some of my angst out and figure out what the hell I want to do with my life. Maybe seeing stuff in words will help me sort it out.

#3

A Reality: I really suck at managing my time.
   A perfect example of this is me typing on here rather than studying for the four tests I have this week. Honestly, my time would be better spent sleeping. I can't help myself. I will mean to study, but I just don't do it. I don't even just screw around on the internet all the time. Sometimes I will just sit and do absolutely nothing rather than study. I guess none of us are who we want to be. Maybe I'll rant about laziness sometime. For now, I'm going to try to go back to studying. Probably won't happen. Fuck reality.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

#2

A Reality: I have a fucked up relationship with my friends.
I think I proved that point quite thoroughly in regards to Vee last post. About the only person I actually hang out with outside of class consistently is a guy I'll call Barry. Barry is an interesting guy. He's very quiet and not super social. He still lives in the dorms as a senior. That's not a bad thing, it just says something about his personality (I don't know how it works at other colleges, but here, juniors are pretty rare in the dorms and seniors are probably less than 1 per floor). He talks about the people he works with or is in (concert/marching) band with a lot, but I don't think he really does much with them outside of class or work. Once in a while he'll go to a band party, but that's pretty rare. We lived on the same floor last year and didn't really hang out that much (though our floor was pretty close). This year, we've started hanging out maybe once or twice a week. A lot of times we go to the free (either old or independent) movies down at the student union, which is fun. When we do other things, our conversations often get a little awkward, however. He's a music person, while I'm a science person. Sometimes he'll say things that are blatantly wrong and if I try and hint that he might not have it right, he gets a little irritated. Which is fine; everybody tends to have a hard time admitting they're wrong in casual conversation. It just pisses me off he seems to think he's so scientific because he did well in those classes in high school. When we go get something to eat together when the eating halls are closed, its never a short affair. We get done and he wants to wander around. Which is, again, fine; I can use the exercise. It's just it usually ends up being at least an hour or two and I usually things I want or need to do. He has this tendency to just kinda corner you into things you don't want to do. Like if I stop by his room I end up watching music videos I think are lame for an hour when I just wanted to say hi. That's part of the reason I only hang out with him a couple times a week. When we do have conversations, they are mostly pretty good. He listens to how I have no idea what I want to do with my life and helps me be positive about it. We agree on many issues and can have good conversations about them. Once in a while we find something we don't agree on and he comes up with examples and analogies I don't agree with but can't fight because he won't listen to why I don't like his rhetoric. That's also fine; I just avoid those topics in the future. The one that we don't really agree on that keeps coming up is drinking. He doesn't approve of drinking to get drunk (though he likes to have a beer when he goes out for supper or something: he's not opposed to drinking itself), something I like to do once in a while. I get drunk twice a semester after I have a round of midterms. It's a way for me to relax and actually be social and want to talk to people for once. He seems to think people like me (well not exactly me, the freshmen who go out and get drunk every weekend) are just immature and only enjoy drinking because of the taboo factor.
   So basically what this all boils down to is that by the time I'm done hanging out with him, I almost invariably leave feeling I've had enough of him for quite a while. So why do I always go back later in the week or next week? Pity. I pity the guy. I think he spends so much time holed up in his room. He really enjoys our conversations I think, getting him away from his anime and games. He's not an attractive guy (extremely overweight), isolates himself a lot of the time, and is extremely awkward in conversations when you introduce him to someone new. He's almost painful to watch sometime. He hasn't picked up the art of summarizing stories (something I was bad at in Jr. High and specifically worked to fix) and includes details he really doesn't need to. Granted Barry and Vee are both pretty tolerant of my tangents, but I really only do them in conversations with people I know well. So yeah, I hang out with Barry because I pity him. Which is not a good basis for a friendship. It just doesn't work that well. Just like my relationship with Vee being based on hate. And the sad thing is that these are basically the only two people that I hang out with in college. I have no other friends I haven't drifted away from. A person I hang out with for pity and someone I'm still not sure why I'm friends with. Neither is super healthy I think, and I really need to change that. But I can't. Fuck reality.
    Wow, I think that's enough writing for one day. I had to write a lab report today so that kinda helped fill my quota. I'm still coming off as a little bitch I think, but I guess that's okay. Nobody's reading this anyway. We'll see how much I post this week since I'll be busy (I have four tests. Its the last round of midterms before finals in two weeks). As much as I think I'm portraying myself as a type of person I hate, it is nice to put some of these thoughts down. Until next time.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

#1

A Reality: I hate my friends.
     I know, if I still call them my friends, it can't be that bad and I'm just being melodramatic. But it's still sort of true. I went to a very small high school (my graduating class was about 50) and so I always knew basically my entire class. That's not to say I was friends with them, but I still knew them. Of course, the smaller class size meant fewer opportunities to meet many new people my age. My personality is such that I can't stand being around the same person all day every day without wanting to kill them. In high school I had several ways of dealing with this: 1) I would kinda rotate through my group of friends, changing who I spent most of my time with. 2) I would get super pissed off at someone and stop talking to them. They usually didn't know why I was suddenly their greatest enemy and I didn't ever have a reason. I just got sick of them. I tended to do this a lot more when I was younger and tended to keep most of my friends when I got older. But this still illustrates my weird lack of regret when I lose a friend. Unfortunately, that has come back to haunt me in college.
    I started off my freshman year determined to meet a lot of people right away and get a bunch of new friends. I figured that all the other freshmen were in the same boat as me and so it would be best to start early. And that's just what I did. I met a girl who lived down the hall from me (it was a coed floor) and we hit it off. We had several classes together and met a bunch more kids. The kids from my classes were like me: studious, not into partying, slightly awkward. It would seem to be a good match. We weren't. One of them I ended up doing the stop talking/hate thing before the end of the semester. That made it awkward to hang out with several of the other people that were friends with her, and the other kids no longer had classes with me after the next semester, so we've lost touch for the most part.
    The girl from my floor, who I'll call Vee, is absolutely nothing like me. She is loud, outgoing, very open about everything, very experienced in many worldly areas. We have very different senses of humor (we usually fail to even crack a smile at links we send each other) and almost no music we both like. There is essentially nothing keeping us friends, except one thing: we are both filled with hate. She and I tend to hate the same people in our classes and most of our conversations over dinner are about them or other people we know and how much they piss us off. We talk a little about other parts of our lives, but she mostly goes to her girl friends to talk about that stuff. We bond over hatred. I think its pretty predictable that that might not be the most sturdy foundation for a friendship. Invariably, one or the both of us will get pissed at the other for some little thing (or just because we're sick of spending so much time together, she's like me with that) and we spend the next couple weeks avoiding each other and acting like we're not mad at each other. In the end, we get enough space and then start spending a lot of time together again. But that's not a good thing. It's so easy to hang out with Vee, but whenever I spend long periods away from her, like Christmas or summer, I realize that just being around her makes me a more negative person. It's like I specifically look for reasons to hate people just so we can bond over it and reinforce that hatred. There's people that I would probably only consider a minor annoyance in other circumstances that I can bitch about for hours with Vee. If I even try to say "Oh, so-and-so's not that bad," she gets super pissed at me for not agreeing with her. Over breaks, I always come back determined to start hanging out with other people, but it never happens. As soon as I see Vee, we fall right back into our usual conversations.
     So why do I spend so much time with Vee? I honestly can't answer that. I can't stand her, but I also couldn't stand to be without her, partially just because there aren't other people to replace her. And that is why I say fuck reality: I hate that I hate my friends. If I could change that I would. I'm not sure if the solution lies in changing my outlook on people, or if I do just need to stop hanging out with Vee. There was another friend I was going to talk about, but I'll save him for another post since this one is long enough already I think. I also realize that this post makes my sound like a very unpleasant person. Hopefully that isn't true. I like to think that I'm not, but then, it's not really your opinion that matters. If people don't think you're fun to be around, you're not a pleasant person. Oh, well. I think for now I'm just using this blog to put my thoughts down. I'll try not to care if I'm coming off as a shallow jerk. Maybe later posts will be better. That's all for now.

Friday, April 20, 2012

Blogging Virginity Lost

So. It's just me and my computer. Once again I'm procrastinating, only this is the first blog I've ever made for that purpose. We'll see how it goes. Maybe I'll never post again, maybe I'll use it to continue procrastinating by putting random rants on here, or maybe I'll use it as a journal. That last one isn't too likely. I have too many secrets that I'm not ready to share. Not even with strangers anonymously on the internet.
     So. I'm a college student at a large university. I don't think you can figure out which one by creeping my profile. I'd feel kinda ridiculous trying to be all anonymous if it fails miserably. I'm still learning this website and stuff, and email addresses I've never used for sites will randomly pop up sometimes. So hopefully that won't happen here. I suppose you can tell from that that computers aren't my forte. I'm not really amazing at any subject in school, hence my lack of direction, hence my dissatisfaction with life, hence the name of this blog. I've been super unmotivated this semester because I'm realizing that I have no idea what I want to do when I graduate. I still have a couple years, but if I'm not going to be happy with a job with my current major, I might still have time to change. I've have to go to college five years probably, but oh well. The problem is that no other majors sound more interesting than the one I have now.
    This is all for now. Kinda short and random, but give me a break. It's my first time. Maybe I'll come back soon with some rants about my friends or students who are pre-med (I have to deal with a lot of them). We'll see. Not that I'm expecting large numbers of visitors, but if anyone wants to correct my grammar, feel free. I do try and write well with everything I do. Not that I really succeed. Oh well, that's my life. Till next time, whenever that is.