Resurfacing

So what if I've been gone for over a year. I'm still writing, and you're still reading, so obviously I've got something to say and you're at least mildly interested. My room looks like a tornado went through it, twice. It didn't bother showing up the third time because any further damage would actually clean the place up a bit. The kitchen is somewhat similar, with splatter stains instead of clothes and car parts on the floor. I haven't seen my playstation in a few weeks, but I imagine it's somewhere under the pile of bike parts in the living room, under those two stacked chairs next to that gas tank. I'm petitioning the governor to declare this place a national emergency.
I've decided that moving is a great alternative to cleaning. Thus, I'm heading out to Colorado, just as soon as they let me into their law school. Those will be the last 3 years I spend in school. Then, I have to face the real world, holding down a job, budgeting, getting up early every morning for work. No more scheduling your first class to start after noon. I've realized that by the time you're done with school, you've been in it for about 20 years. Between k through 12, undergraduate, and graduate, you spend an awful lot of time learning. For the first twelve years, you learn how to learn. For the next four years of college you're told that you don't actually know shit and oh by the way you're just a cloistered, uncultured barbarian with no appreciation for the world as a whole. For the last four years of graduate school, you take this to heart and desperately try to learn all of these things you've apparently been blind to. But, if you haven't learned it in the last 16 years, what are the chances that you'll be able to figure it out in 4 years, or less? So, just when you begin to figure out how things work, they stick a funny hat on your head, throw a robe over your shoulders, hand you some scrap of paper and boot you out the door. No more college life for you, time for the real world.
How are we supposed to know how to cope with applying the knowledge we don't really have yet to a world we don't understand? We just learned how much bleach to use, and that you shouldn't use it on your favorite red shirt. We just figured out that if you put something in the vegetable crisper, you should check on it before the 5-month mark rolls around. Apparently, at that point, you're not taking things out of there, but rather pouring them out. Who knew that a cucumber could liquify? And suddenly, we're forced to be responsible for ourselves, and sometimes even for others.
This is why a lot of 20-somethings end up childish and immature in the eyes of their peers, they were forced out from the classroom and into a cubicle too early. We're all just trying to hang on to our sanity and what we suddenly realize were the best years of our lives.

Good hygene gone bad

The campus starts to smell funny just around finals time. People start ignoring basic hygene and Ramen Noodle profits go through the roof. The library turns into a zoo. At about the same time, the snow falls out. So, you've got a wind chill of minus 20, no way to get to your test because your car is snowed in, no idea what test it is you're taking or where it is you have to go, no chance of getting anything higher than a D, and absolutely no clue why you got up this morning.
Welcome to college. Finals are the most productive time period in the entire year for anything but studying. I will clean my room, do the dishes, even clean the bathroom (which has't been done since last semester's tests), but I refuse to study. Of course, I have to, so I'll do it between the hours of 1 and 6AM the day before my 7:30AM test. I'll get it done, but I'll be very confused why I feel like I'm in a daze for the rest of the day.
College has given me some extraordinary abilities. I can accelerate my typing speed to over 3000 words per minute when I have a 5-page paer due in fifteen minutes and all I've managed to write is my name and half of the assignment title. I can stay awake for 72 hours straight, accomplish about 15-minutes' worth of work, then focus my attention on a 3-hour test, do well, and promptly fall asleep for the next day and a half. I can survive without food or water, as long as I have Ramen Noodles. As far as I'm concerned, nothing involved with them can be classified as nutritious, despite being delicious.
But I can't get myself to study for finals. I know I have a test in seven hours. I know I'm not ready for it. I know that there has to be something that I haven't done around the apartment. I might need another Swiffer wet pad, though. WalMart is probably still open...

In the Company of Giants

I am a member of a society. I belong to a group of people who look down upon others. My mere presence in this company allows me to label popular ideas on the subject at hand as "crap" or "asinine." I may be behind a desk in a classroom, but I might as well be in a plush leather chair with a snifter of brandy in hand and the next great philosophical advancement in the field on the tip of my tongue. I am a psychology student.
Academia has an odd tendency to instill either an infallable drive towards the goal of higher learning or a lazy roll off of the bed and into mediocrity instead of a morning lecture. It's like a light switch, either one or the other, without any real middle ground. Yet this is probably true for many different parts of the collegiate experience. You either understand something, or you don't. You either like your professor, or complain about him under your breath to friends who aren't taking any of his classes. You either do your homework on time or watch shows that you would never even consider under anything but dire entertainment circumstances until two in the morning, at which point you decide that you're rested enough to begin a week's worth of homework in a single night. Might as well, it's due tomorrow anyway.
Yet if you do decide to take on the challenge, you discover that you are not in the company of many, but in the presence of the select. You are a discovery in and of yourself. You understand! There can be no greater feeling of accomplishment than the single moment you have between when you figure something out and when you forget it so utterly and completely that not even the first two words of your thought that made it onto your paper seem to remind you of anything even resembling a coherent thought.
Alas, do not despair. This, too, is a sign of your greatness. The speed of your thoughts exceeds even the speed of your pen, crippled though it may be by severe carpul tunnel syndrome from entirely too much internet date chatter with hOtTiEMchotHOT791823@yahoo.com. Unfortunately, neither crude online sexual innuendos nor moments of clarity that have long passed are evaluated on midterms or final exams. So all that remains is to buckle down, kick yourself a couple of times for not paying attention, watch TV until three in the morning, then cram until you're late to your 7 a.m. test.
Good luck, young student, for you are not alone, and we all stand behind you willing and ready to partake in your example of laziness and procrastination. Lead on and we will follow.

On the importance of gum to western civilization

I have been chewing Juicy Fruit for well over 14 years now. It has gone from a rare and amazing treat to something I pick up as an afterthought to a tank of gas. In that time, it has had its package changed, its flavors added to, and its commercial image solidified as the "sweet" that you've just "gotta have." The sugary rush of the first five chews is incomprehensible. The complete and utter satiation of the next five chews is beyond comparison. The devastation of the last five chews is only comparable to the sadness one feels in tasting a stick of gum live out its entire life in fifteen minutes - amazing in their quality and miserable in their longevity.
We have much to learn from the fruit which is juicy. Indeed, the gum that chews sweeter, chews faster. Is this not the conundrum over which the introverts of the world have pondered their exit into civilization? Or is it the fatal reality which extroverts have accepted in their late-night slow-motion dance floor advertisement choreography. Because when she sweats, it's only sexy if you're watching from in front of a TV. Otherwise, it just stinks.
I have come to the realization that the biggest threat to my well-being is me. I am the one who bought that motorcycle, drank that beer, and slept with that...never mind that. Apparently, I am on a mission to destroy myself from every concievable aspect of humanity. If it's not from the outside witht he business end of someone's rear tire, it will be form the inside with any combination of emotion and/or pharmaceuticals. All this steering clear of any sort of illicit implication of illegal drugs. If I'm on a quest for self-destruction, you'd better bet that I don't plan on doing it the herbal way. That's too easy. Race-hot Pirellis are much more fun.

How the mighty have fallen

So after no less than two years of convincing myself that I would never make a blog, here I am. It would feel like a journal if I wasn't justified by every major news media outlet calling this the "information medium of the future." At least I can blame them if I start complaining about my life in anything but an artistic fashion.
Between forcing myself to keep AIM off an not going on thefacebook.com, I get very little done, as the aforementioned activities are very time-consuming. Perhaps a few claims that Kate Chopin's "Awakening" is a masterpiece of homoerotic overtones. To tell you the truth, though, outside of being able to utter those words to anyone in any conversation for a quick cheap laugh with minimal effort I got nothing if not a sudden dislike for the author from reading that book.
A few useful facts:
-Gummy bears last a lot longer if you keep them in the fridge for an hour or two
-If you think that two cartons of lemonade will be quite enough, buy four
-You can never scrounge twenty bucks for a subscription, but five bucks a month seems like chump change tospend on a great magazine
-Keep the sticky side down and the shiny side up
-If you didn't get that last one, go out and buy a copy of Motorcyclist or Sport Rider
And with that, until next time.