callmecasual

I hope. Vague, I know, but I'm in a vague mood.

I'm a little down because I haven't done anything with my life. Obviously, this is nothing new, but every once in a while between bouts of apathy and happiness I start thinking about what an enormous waste of potential I am. I'm stuck in the middle because I can't deal with the fact that if I try to improve my life I'm going to fail at some things, that I'm going to show some miniscule signs of weakness that devalue me as a human being. Instead I tell myself that if I really tried I could accomplish anything I want. Really, though, I'm more of a failure for not trying.

Not up to much these days, just wasting the lessons I learned in Europe by reverting back to the same routine I had before I left. Good times.

I'm more anxious than I thought I'd be. It just hit me that I'm going to be completely alone in the middle of a foreign city with no cell phone and crappy hearing. I'm sure you're sorry for me.

I'm excited, though. It's an adventure. I've been living comfortably for too long. Time to be scared and alone in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but my wits and my mom's credit limit to help me. To infinity...and beyond!

I'm up at midnight finishing homework and I have yet to start studying for a final in a class I haven't paid any attention in at all. Ah, London!

Last day of class, tomorrow, at least. Then I'm off to Paris, Interlaken, Milan, Venice, Florence, Pisa, Rome, Naples, Pompei, and Athens. Then back to London. You know what? My life is pretty sweet.

You know, the list I made a few entries back. Scroll down, numbnuts.

1) In shape: I haven't even played basketball in a long time, much less worked out. Partly a product of my being in London, but still bad.

2) A lady's man: Hah!

3) A leader: Nobody wants to follow me. I can't hear what they're saying back there.

4) A great writer: I haven't written shit except a few journal entries about my trip. I'm starting to wonder if I have the motivation to ever succeed as a writer. Then again, I don't really have the motivation to do anything but sit on my ass.

5) An intellectual: I've been reading books, but not any world news. It just so boring.

6) Rich: No job, but I haven't had time to get one. I'll have to when I get back, anyway, to pay for this trip I'm on.

So, basically, I've made no progress in almost four months. Are you as shocked as I am?

So yeah, I haven't used this in a while. Ran out of stuff to say. I'm in London for now, kept a few journal entries in Wordpad cause I want to keep them for a long time. It has been fun in London, but it hasn't brought about any big change in my social skills as I hoped it would, which is rather unsurprising. I've bored myself with the amount of bitching I do about my ineptitude, so I won't do it here. Just popped in to say something and plant the seed for possible posts in the future.

I need sleep, but my body doesn't seem to like the idea of going to bed. I'm super bored as a result. Don't want to play video games, don't want to watch a movie, nobody is online to chat with. I could read, but I always read right before going to sleep, so reading late at night is connected with sleeping in my mind. Fuck it, I'm just going to go read, maybe I'll get lucky and pass out.

I also just used up any content I had for this entry with the topic title. Quick, make something up! Uh...currently writing my second short story for class. It's not bad, but I can't tell if I'm subconsciously trying to make sure my story is something my peers would like or not. If I ever want to be a good writer, I have to let loose the shackles. Funny how metaphors only suck when they're in poems.

I'm tired of complaining about my lack of motivation and my schoolwork. I guess this is the part where I string together a bunch of entries about how I don't know what to write about. Sounds like fun. Nothing exciting really happens to me. I just started San Andreas, which is really fun. It's fun just cruising around listening to your personal radio station. Woo!

So I got up bright and early to go to my Geology class for once. Took a shower, ate some breakfast, and got dressed. Class starts right about...now. This is really pathetic. I can't even get to the class when I'm not sleeping through it. Anyway, another day, another attempt to be less socially awkward. Got a conference with my poetry teacher in a couple hours and a geology lab I have to go to after that. Then I'm going to try to talk to my former English professor about why my grade from last quarter is SIX WEEKS LATE. That should fun.

I had an interesting thought this weekend. My cousin discovered he has a form of cancer recently. He's in no danger of dying, but I was thinking about it and I realized I would give my life to save his without a second thought. I think at least a little part of that is low self-esteem on my part, where I think my life is somehow less valuable than others. Honestly, though, I'm not afraid of death at all. I don't want to die, of course, but the idea of dying doesn't really bother me. You know what does scare me? Pain. I'm not scared of death, I'm scared of a painful death. In some ways, this fear is responsible for my pathetic lifestyle. I'm scared that if I try something and fail that it will somehow invalidate me, so I never try, with women, careers, or hobbies. I know that failure wouldn't really be so devestating, but that's the way my mind works. I'm kooky.

I thought I had my sleeping schedule all straightened out. Apparently not. I was sore as hell after going to the gym and decided to take a nap. A ten hour nap. Woke up at 1:00 AM and I'm right back where I started. Shit.

Let's list the things I want to BE in life, and see how I could go about doing them.

1) In shape - An easy one. All I have to do is go to the gym more.

2) A lady's man - I'm too nice to actually hurt women, but I can't deny my desire to have some kind of power over the opposite sex. I'd have to start talking to women to do this. Lots and lots of women. I don't talk to any unless it's through school or similar matters. I'm not really nervous or anything around them, I just can't accept the fact that I might fail to get a woman I want. I know, there are plenty of fish in the sea, but that's the way my mind works.

3) A leader - Not a socialite or anything, but a leader of men. I guess "a role model" would be a better way to put it. I want to be a strong, fearless man who takes life by the horns and twists its head off. Due to my hearing and lack of general social skills, I'd have to lead by example, though. There's no specific way I could go about becoming a leader. I just have to have more self-confidence in myself, and if I do that things will find a way to work out.

4) A great writer - The power to move people (and myself) with words has great appeal to me. All I really have to do is write and read all the time to get better. I've been reading a lot more lately, but I can never seem to get started with the writing part.

5) An intellectual - I always wanted to know what's going on with world politics and discuss military movements with brilliant strategists (http://www.guidautile.com/blog/img/simpson/Negozio_Herman.jpg). Problem is, I've never been particularly interested in that stuff. I don't know whether my desire to be an intellectual is simply jealousy towards smarter people or an actual urge to learn. Either way, I need to start reading the newspaper more and reading books besides science fiction.

So, basically, I want to be good-looking, smart, confident, and have a lot of sex. Maybe I'm not as deep as I thought.

Could I fit all of this stuff into my daily routine when I already have schoolwork? Going to the gym would take about two hours every day at the least, writing and reading about the same. I can't really put a numerical figure on boosting my self-confidence. Say I'm up for 16 hours a day. 16 - 2 for gym - 2 for writing/reading - 2 for eating - 2 for school. I still have eight hours left. That's a lot of fucking free time, even if my estimates on improvement were the bare minimum. I really need to start doing more with my day. Oh, wait, I forgot. I want to get a job.

6) Rich - What can I say? I like money. I need to actually apply for jobs to get some, though.

If I get a (hopefully) part-time job that's about 20-30 hours a week, that takes another chunk out of my time. Still, if I manage things right, I could do everything on this list. Problem is, I've never been one for organzing my schedule and I've always been one for lots of leisure time. Ah, well, I guess I can always go back to sitting on my ass if the whole self-fulfillment thing doesn't work out.

I have no idea what I'm doing anymore. I sleep in the afternoon/evening and stay up all night. I would fine with this if I knew WHY I was doing it, but I have no real reason. I've missed my last *counts* 8 Geology classes because I don't feel like waking up in the morning. I have a midterm next week and I haven't learned shit about rocks. I'm getting really tired of this whole quest to find myself. I've been drifting through life since I started high school and the only difference between then and now is 7 years of experience. Let's list all the reasons I suck and get this out in the open. Maybe it will be some kind of purifying experience that motivates me to change myself. Or not.

1) I'm a social reject - It's not that people don't like me, I just don't make an effort to connect with anybody, and very few make an effort to connect with me. I've basically given up on socializing because I'm too lazy, which brings me to my next point.

2) I'm really fucking lazy - EXTREMELY fucking lazy. It's 5:00 AM in the morning and I've been doing jack shit for the past 5 hours even though I have a page to write for my class at 9:30. It's not like my homework is difficult. If anything, my work load laughable for a serious college student like I pretend to be.

3) I don't care - This is what gets me. I pretty much know what my problems are, but I don't do a fucking thing about them. I've always tried to be honest with myself about my faults, but what good is it when I don't make any effort to change my life. That's what this is all about, after all. Changing my life. I feel unsatisfied with the way things are going, and still I sit on my ass at 5:00 in the morning taking stupid fucking tests on OKCupid because I've exhausted the rest of the internet.

I've said all the above stuff to myself countless times, but it doesn't seem to make any difference. Maybe the human mind can't conquer all. Maybe I just need to sign up for the Anime Club or something and force myself into a social situation to get the ball rolling. (Just to clarify, I would NEVER EVER join the Anime Club, that was just an example because I really can't think of a club I would want to join. Where's the fucking NBA Club? I would join that in a heartbeat.) What was I talking about again? Changing my life? This is what happens when you stay up all night for no reason. You get lucid as hell and you can't tell which thoughts are strokes of genius and which are the ramblings of a crazy man. Hopefully I can get back on some sort of normal sleep schedule this weekend. It sure as hell ain't happening today.

From the day we arrive on the planet
And blinking, step into the sun
There's more to be seen than can ever be seen
More to do than can ever be done

Some say eat or be eaten
Some say live and let live
But all are agreed as they join the stampede
You should never take more than you give

In the circle of life
It's the wheel of fortune
It's the leap of faith
It's the band of hope
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the circle, the circle of life

Some of us fall by the wayside
And some of us soar to the stars
And some of us sail through our troubles
And some have to live with the scars

There's far too much to take in here
More to find than can ever be found
But the sun rolling high through the sapphire sky
Keeps great and small on the endless round

In the circle of life
It's the wheel of fortune
It's the leap of faith
It's the band of hope
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the circle, the circle of life

Went up to my Grandma's house for Easter, like usual. I wasn't sure if the family was going to meet this year, but I'm glad we did because it's always fun seeing my cousin. We played Mario Kart and Mario Party 5, yelling at each other the whole time. I don't get to play multiplayer games a lot due to my introversion, so I enjoyed the chance to put my Xtreme Mario Kart Double Dash skills to use. Dinner was good, too, I inhaled a lot of steak, about a pound of potatoes au gratin, and ate half a chocolate pie. Sweet. I don't eat like that much now that I live in an apartment and cook for myself. As a matter of fact, I was thinking about this. Everybody talked about the freshman fifteen, but I think I actually eat a lot less whenever I'm at school. When I'm at home, my mom makes actual meals, and when I'm at the dorms/apartment, a sandwich with a banana will constitute a dinner. I really need to learn how to cook.

In other news, I'm probably going to totally rewrite the six page story I wrote for my Short Story class. I don't think the first draft is that good, and I feel like if I just add onto it, the story will seem pasted together and inorganic. This is further proof I'm actually serious about this writing thing. I may not be putting THAT much effort into it so far, but my desire to do so is shocking considering my apathy towards past classes. Poem writing still sucks, though. Fucking metaphors.

I'm guess I just talk about my day here. I stayed up all night last night doing various homework assignments, the biggest of which was my first short story for my writing class. Reading the story after I printed it out, I realized it wasn't really that great, but it's only the first draft so I'm not too worried. The biggest problem with it is that I pretty much ended it short of where I planned to because apparently I was tired of writing, so it just feels incomplete in my mind. It's also not that great technically, but I've got seven weeks to improve that.

After turning in my story in class at 11:00 in the morning, I still had to write a poem for my poem writing class. The idea was to write it from the point of view of an animal, and since I had been up for about 24 hours exactly at that point, I was a little...lucid, and I'm not entirely sure what the hell I turned into my teacher. Here it is:

Lab Rat #694

My brothers have seven legs
My best friend has one eye
I have a bruised ego
But I guess it’s better than
A fat red cow in a muumuu
Chasing me with a rolling pin

The needles in my side
The tails I grew
The shocks I heard
The burns I smelled
It was all for you

Because of me
Those pills will deafen headaches,
This cream will stop the itching, and
That shampoo will get rid of those nasty
Split ends
No need to thank me

At the end of the day
You looking in the mirror
I’m rotting in a blue trash bin
Labeled “Toxic”
But I guess life is unfair

...yeah, I don't know, either. I'm caught in that place where I don't know if what I've written is good or complete bullshit. I'm leaning towards the latter, here.

Guess I'm done in here for now. You stay classy, LiveJournal.