With the basics, I suppose. Yes, I am done my first semester of school. It's been long and tedious and interesting and intriguing and painful and exhausting. I have a lot of things swirling around the toilet-bowl that is my mind, and I feel like if I don't snag them they'll spin down into the darkness and disappear forever. There's so much I want to write down. About school, about money, about people and interaction. But I certainly can't do it all in one sitting, and I certainly can't do it all within the next two hours before bed. So here I go, I'm going to spill out onto the (digital) page, and I'll hope that a fraction of it remains coherent. Be forewarned, this is probably going to degrade into some semi-emo ramblings.
For the past thirteen consecutive weeks I:
- Have worked 70-80 hours a week, every week
- Haven't played a video game
- Haven't watched an entire episode of TV or a movie
- Haven't done any recreational reading
- Haven't played either of my instruments, written anything more than 170 words (that wasn't an MLA-style essay), gone on a late-night walk, or pulled out my camera from its case.
Impressive? Maybe. Unhealthy? Most likely.
I am not the person I was three months ago. If you would have asked me then what things I do that define who I am, I would've mentioned those things in the list above. Games give me intellectual stimulation, writing provides an outlet to organize my thoughts, playing instruments, drawing and photography were a way to express myself, and listening to music is how I calm and speak to my soul.
What really disturbed me was about mid-October when music stopped having any effect. My precious cornerstone stopped bearing the kind of weight I needed it for. Those were a couple of really hard, difficult weeks. Eventually it'd come and go in spurts, and I just had to make-do without it. It was an odd sensation - imagine you get this gorgeous, fresh pineapple. You cut off a piece, anticipating that overwhelming flavour... And when you put it in your mouth, it has all the taste of a weathered piece of wood. To me, it was honestly that jarring the morning I woke up and realized all I was getting from my headphones was sound. It's like the colour just drained from the world, right before my eyes.
I guess when you're relying on something so heavily, it's all that more of a shock when it evaporates in front of you. But I survived, right? There are some things that I let go of back in September, and I don't feel overly inclined to retrieve again. TV, movies, games... I don't feel like I desperately need them back in my life. It bothers me, a lot, that I've given up games. It used to be so intertwined with my day-to-day life, and I really enjoyed it. But here? Now? I don't think I need them. Maybe I just want them back for the sake that they remind me of another period in my life. Yeah, looking at the news online makes me miss these things. The Team Fortress updates make me remember how much I loved the game, and all the car news ignites a passion to sit down and watch as much Top Gear as I can handle.
But I think that those urges will soon recede too. Most of the browsing I've done has been to fuel a podcast I was doing for class. And now that that's over, I can see ye fine Intertubes as one more thing I'll leave by the wayside.
I really regret, however, how I don't play my sax/ocarina anymore. It bothers me how I've left that skill set to deteriorate at the side of the road. Hopefully I can make an effort to revive it once more over the break.
It's interesting. As the semester came to a close and started to slow down, the first allowance I made myself was to start drawing on the computer again. And now, writing this post. I naturally gravitated towards these two, beyond any sort of coherent reasoning. I'm now staring down the start of three weeks devoid of any school and/or homework. I think I'll be spending my time drawing and working and writing. Work to get money, draw to get better, write to de-clutter my stream of consciousness.
I miss those things that used to be so cherished, but at the same time... I'm afraid to slow down. I'm afraid I'll rediscover those things I missed, and breaking away from them again in a few weeks will be that much harder. /Yoda voice "Much conflict and unrest in you, I sense. "
I'm not really excited to be done, and I think the winter semester will hang over me during the break. I need to keep my head down and concentrate and be productive. I'm glad I have the opportunity to draw and write, and I can't really ask for much more. It was funny, I can recall the absolute euphoria that washed over me that first time I drew on the tablet again. It amazed me at how something so insignificant immediately cranked my mind up to eleven.
I wish I could be optimistic and say that next semester will be better, that I'll find a way to make things easier. But I'll have colder and earlier mornings, the equivalent of nine three-hour classes crammed into a week, and a desperate need to log as many hours as I can in at work lest my finances rise up and smite me.
But I can do it. What's three more months?
This is me, this is where I am. I work, I go to school, I draw, and (for the next three weeks) I write. That's about all there is to it, folks.
-Cril
Work it harder make it stronger
Do it faster makes us stronger
More than ever hour - our work is never over
Work it harder
Do it faster
More than ever
More than ever hour
Our work is never over
Work it harder
Make it better
Do it faster
Makes us stronger
More than ever
Hour after
Our work is never over
Daft Punk - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
Stay tuned in the coming days/weeks as I continue in my attempt to articulate my perceptions of the social, monetary and academic varieties.
