|
| Yeah, this is pretty much a dead blog. I'm continuing the show at my own domain, GregABrown.com, although the tone is decidedly more interest-based and less personal. That might shift over the next few months, but we'll have to see. | | |
| Children of Men is a very good film. You should watch it, please.  | | |
| I figure that I should post another entry here to show that I'm not that mopey all the time. The cold I briefly mentioned in the earlier post returned earlier this week after I got back from Thanksgiving Break. It may have also been around for part of Thanksgiving, but I think that was just allergies at all the dust from how dry they were. I got a good night of sleep on Thusday night, and again on Friday, so I think I'm almost out of the woods on that one.
So far, this weekend has been some grading and a lot of ruminating on term papers. I turned in the workshop draft of my second paper for Intro to Writing Creative Non-Fiction on Thursday, so it'll be fun to see what everyone else thought about it on Tuesday. I have the grammar and structure down pat, and it's just the thematic/introspective portions that have me worried. It's not quite clear at what point remorse becomes self-pity, and introspection becomes mere whining. I also have a strange obsession with wind farms. Bizarre, huh?
Outside of that, I'm writing a paper on political disengagement for my Rhetoric and Social Movements class. We've all seen the statistics about young people not voting as much as they used to, but I'm totally unsatisfied with the existing explanations or assumptions on the topic. So that'll be a fun, discursive paper. Professor Griffin seems to enjoy it when I incorporate stuff from other fields into my quest for truth (or something like that), so that makes my discussions with him incredibly exciting.
Political Philosophy still has my head hurting. My essays suck. I feel really bad about this, although I occasionally feel that I've redeemed myself in the class discussions on a topic. I'm so much better at tearing down ideas than I am about constructing them, especially when it comes to using strictly philosophical methods. I guess that explains my penchant for self-doubt somewhat.
I've always hoped that I remained only skeptical rather than descending into cynicism. Vonnegut just makes me angry in his refusal to consider that there may be good things out there, and his total ignorance of existentialist thought. And a lot of other people are cynical too, which just leads to unremittant grumpiness. I do tend to get annoyed about some things (like having to grade math papers, sadly), and I find myself bitching about it way too often. But at the end of the day, 90-95% of bad stuff just gives me a big grin on my face, and an increased resolve to find some way to make it better.
I'm good with book-learning, and so I'm trying to forge an ethical path from that. I don't know if it'll work out, but it's the only thing I know to do. I ask my friends all the time whether I'm on the right path, but it's so hard to tell sometimes. Defaulting to sheepishness seems like a safe alternative most of the time, but that may be ignoring some things. I just don't know.
| | |
| So I have a cold, and I thought that would be the big problem this weekend (aside from the whole school and work thing). But instead, it's the medicine I took that's really messing with me. I was coughing and sniffling some on Friday and slowly developed a headache by around 11:30 pm, so I took some cold medication to help me sleep and get rid of the headache. Having done this, I went to bed at 1, woke up at 3, went back to bed at 4, and woke up again at 8. I got six hours of sleep if you're generous with how you count it, and I still have no idea why I wasn't able to get back to sleep after waking up the second time. The medication also seems to have not kicked in until I woke up this morning, which is making for a very strange day.
I feel like I'm in a cognitive fog, unable to concentrate very deeply on anything but also with a lengthier attention span. It's nice in some ways, but my memory appears to be messed up. Things I thought I did last night were actually done this morning. My recollection of things that have happened so far today is clouded. I'm adrift somewhere between waking and slumber, and it's kind of weirding me out.
Anyways, I forgot why I was going to write this or if I had any big point that I was driving to, so I'll quit now. I hope this made at least some sense.
| | |
| Tonight sucked. It was the night of the Homecoming Dance, and the cap
to a week that hasn't been anywhere near my longest or my hardest, but
was instead dominated by a sense of foreboding. I was tired and
stressed, and while I had the release of a great TV show and some
excellent music to start off my evening, it didn't get me any more
energetic.
I've pretty much decided that I'm antithetical to
college parties. I can handle intimate gatherings of just a few
friends, but throw me into any more than that and I'm sunk. My
increasing alienation from popular music trends also doesn't help at
all, leaving me speechless and lost while everyone else is singing
along and getting down to the beat. And that ballroom dance class I'm
taking with Shana turns out to be a lot less applicable than I thought.
I made two forays from my room up to the party in the lobby. The first
time was in a full-fledged suit, and I left after a while, feeling too
overdressed to really dance and get along with everyone else. I
switched to the opposite end of the spectrum, and although I went up
sporting jeans and a partylicious t-shirt, I returned realizing that my
real problem is that I can't find it in me to dance to the DJ's music.
While
I did get an increasing headache - probably from the cumulative stress
I'm under, or perhaps the pounding bass - it's really no excuse for not
hanging out. I've fought through headaches before to have a good time
socializing. And I slept until 11am this morning, getting a ridiculous
10 hours of sleep, so I can't really complain too much about that. I
just feel like I've failed the day more than the other way around. I
tried to cheer myself up by reading this really awesome book I got in
the mail today, but it just makes me feel worse by featuring a
character who's cripplingly like me. And this excellent music I'm
listening to is not exactly feel-happy music; another piece by the band
doubled as background music in 28 Days Later. The opening lines on
their debut album are "The car's on fire, and there's no driver at the
wheel."
But still, I try to find solace in beauty alone, hoping to one day produce some of my own.
| | |
|
