Taking a Break From All Your Worries

I'm trying to consume healthier sweets

Now that it's Spring Break, I have some time to catch up on things.

A couple weeks ago, I went to Student Health Services to have my blood glucose checked. After the whole Dunkin' Donuts fiasco I was worried about my health. The doctor there recommended that I lose at least 20 pounds, and try to eat healthier, of course. My test results were emailed to me a few days later and reported that, while I wasn't officially diabetic, my blood glucose level was high enough to be considered "pre-diabetic", a term which means I'm basically screwed if I don't do something about my health soon. I guess it is better to know than be in the dark. Since I got the results, I've been trying to cut back on sweets, and eat more vegetables. I still eat sweets 2-3 days a week, but that's better than the 5-6 days a week I was doing prior to going to the doctor. Since the blood test is able to detect glucose levels for a three month period, I'll try to go back for another glucose test in the fall to see if things have improved.

During the two weeks prior to Spring Break, all of my courses held their mid-term exams. I managed to make a 100 (A+) in Behavioral Research, and B- in Philosophy of Science. I don't know, yet, what I made in Modern American History or Western Lit, but I feel pretty confident that I made at least a B+ on each of the exams.

Speaking of Western Lit, the Sexy Scot implied during class a few weeks ago that she is a lesbian. I don't have any problems with gays or lesbians, but I still felt sad when I heard the implication. Why did I feel sad? Well, because my professor clearly won't be having sex with me since she is in a relationship with another woman. It has nothing to do with me being fat, old, broke, or one of her students! No, potential lesbianism is apparently too strong a piece of evidence for even my incredibly strong power of self-delusion to set aside!

An End is Just a New Beginning

I now have a 3.239 GPA overall and 3.597 in my major

The fall semester ended a little more smoothly than I anticipated. After camping out at DH Hill for most of finals week, I was able to somehow manage all A's and B's for the semester, although I honestly didn't deserve the A I was given in French 201. I shouldn't have gotten more than a B+, at best.

The Saturday after exams ended, I took the GRE in order to apply to Graduate School. While I know people who bought all sorts of study manuals, flash cards, and practice tests, I can't imagine how anyone would truly study for the GRE. It was, without a doubt, the most obtuse exam I've ever taken in my life! Rather than the analogies that I recall having to sort through during the SAT I took back in the early 1990s, the Verbal sections of the GRE required me to read a bunch of essays and analyze which of five paragraph long answers seemed to best respond to whatever deep thinking question was posed. And, usually, the paragraph answers I could choose from were incredibly subtle in their distinction, which only succeeded in making the test unnecessarily dense and incomprehensible.

Regarding the Quantitative sections of the GRE, maybe I would have done better if I had been fresh out of high school and college before taking this, though the main focus seemed not on actual problem solving, but rather on understanding the relationship of variables to one another. Most of the questions didn't even involve numbers, at all! The few questions which did have numbers that could be solved couldn't possibly be solved in the short amount of time given for each section. So, I was left to only half solve each of these questions, and then make some leap of logic to guess from among the given answers. At any rate, I was able to score in the 84th Percentile for Verbal, and in the 61st Percentile for Quantitative, which is enough to qualify me for the Graduate Psychology program at many US universities, including NC State. Presumably, I could apply to other universities, as well. However, as I've said to friends, I don't really want to pack up and move unless I have a job to go to which is paying for the move.

Off My Game

I'm still waiting for the release of The Secret World

This week has not been one of my better experiences. And, as I've mentioned previously, this semester isn't exactly shaping up to be one of my more crowning achievements, either!

Aside from being low on sleep for most of the week, I got grades back on two tests which were not very good, at all. To be fair, the 80 (B-) I got on the Finite Math test wasn't as horrible as it could have been. I wasn't as confident in my math skills as I perhaps should have been. I made a minor stupid error that cost me 5 points right off the bat when I got confused and thought that the slope of a line is the negative of the slope of its corresponding perpendicular line, when it is actually the negative inverse of the slope of its corresponding perpendicular line! Oh well... I've never claimed that math was a strong point of mine.

The harder hit for me came just today when I received my grade on my first test in Cognitive Psychology. I knew I wasn't going to make an A, since some of the test focused on brain anatomy, which has always been a difficult concept for me in regard to psychological study. I try to memorize the parts of the brain and their primary functions in cognitive processing, but every time that I do I get this dizzy feeling upon realizing that my brain is reading about my brain and how it actually functions. It sort of reminds me of the movie Inception, in that some mysteries are just better left unanswered. At any rate, after making a fool of myself on several questions that, again, I should have known the answers to, I ended up with an agonizingly painful 76 (C) on the test! My only refuge is that we still have two more tests, a final exam, and a paper due in that class. Since I usually do well on papers, I am hoping that I will be able to pull out at least a B+ in Cognitive Psych.

The Numbers Are In...

I was really expecting a B in French

Well, that wasn't at all like having teeth pulled!


Now that I've completed my first semester at NC State, I have to say that in some ways it was harder and in some ways easier than I had originally expected. As you can no doubt tell by the semester grades, the two biggest struggles for me were French and Psych Research. I was really disappointed with my French grade. While I can only really blame myself, I did explain in detail during my course evaluation a couple of weeks ago that I don't think the course should have required as much homework as was expected of us. That was my major downfall, as I usually made 85-96 on the tests. The course is on one hand sold as a refresher or review of French, and students are required to take a placement test to stay in the class. But, on the other hand, the course crams all of the material from French I and II into the span of one semester. As I commented in my course evaluation, the main reason students take this course is because they don't feel confident in their speaking abilities and want extra prep time before entering the 200-level French course which is taught almost exclusively in French. Students, such as myself, want French 110 to give us greater confidence with our speaking and oral comprehension, which I don't feel like the course actually provided. Granted, my French writing and reading has improved slightly, but I feel as though my speaking and conversational skills actually regressed a bit over the semester because so little time was focused on actual conversation skill. And, after all of that, I have a C on my transcript!

The Fortunes of Futures Passed

Fortune Cookies Are Getting Morose

I'm not one for backup plans. Generally, I make my mind up, I go in a direction, and I see where it takes me. If I end up someplace good, then I'm happy. If I end up someplace not so good, then I'm not so happy, but I deal with it and accept my fate... at least for awhile. However, I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't start trying to create a backup plan, in the event this whole going to Graduate School and becoming a professor thing doesn't work out.

The thing is, I don't see myself as becoming anything other than a college professor. Well, at least not realistically. I've had a fantasy for years now about creating a company with my friends for the sole purpose of saving the world from itself. That whole God complex of mine enjoys reveling in that fantasy. But, the job of college professor is uniquely suited to what I consider my strengths, while still allowing me to indulge in some of my weaknesses. For instance, I love giving presentations in front of groups of people. I enjoy reading up on some obscure bit of knowledge, breaking that knowledge down into a set of presentation slides, and teaching it to people who didn't take the time to learn what I just discovered. Also, I enjoy being a little judgmental (that would be classified as one of my weaknesses). Asking people to write a literature review paper, or other such assignment, would allow me an outlet for looking down my nose at students who seemingly can't find their ass with a roll of toilet paper.

That Thing I Said... Yeah, Screw That!

Poe Hall Sign

So, I've been trying to come up with themes to reflect the overall trends of each week. While I'm sure that by now I'm exhibiting a clear vacillation in my attitude, if I had to come up with a theme for this week it would be "Let's shit all over Ashe's hopes and dreams!" In psychological research, there is a term called "regression toward the mean" which basically means that even though participants in a study may occasionally exhibit unusually high or low scores on a given examination, during repeated re-tests the participants will typically regress in performance toward their natural average. This week I got grades back on several tests, and I wasn't happy with the results. I made an 86 (B) on the Ergonomics test (a drop from 94 on the first test), a 73 (C) on the Biology test (a drastic drop from 94 on the first test), and an 80 (B) on the Psych Research test (a slight uptick from the 78 of the first test).

I honestly don't see why my grades dropped so much this time. I can't say that I did anything drastically different from the first tests. I take notes, I read the textbooks, I do whatever homework is assigned to me. Admittedly, both my Ergonomics and Biology professors gave smaller curves on these tests than on the first ones, but that wasn't enough to account for a 10-20 point drop in test grades! Some of the material on genetics really threw me for a loop on the Biology test, so that certainly didn't help. I'm just terrified that these test grades may fall into the category of regression toward the mean! And, on top of all that, we had speakers in my Orientation to Psych seminar today talking about graduate school who repeatedly emphasized the importance of a good GPA and standardized test scores in order to gain acceptance. Apparently, it's almost not worth it to even apply if you don't have at least a 3.5 GPA in addition to high test scores.

A False Alarm?

Jeans and Chucks

Monday and Friday were eventful bookends to a decidedly mundane week. On Monday, I managed to get a 94 on a French test, which is always nice, and on Friday I had tests in Psych Research Methods and Biology. I'm not confident about my grades on those tests, but I'll find out about them next week.

The more concerning event happened Monday afternoon during Biology. As I was sitting in the auditorium taking notes and listening to the professor, I realized that my left leg had become numb. Since the auditorium seats are always cramped, I thought my leg had just fallen asleep from being in a bad position. Unfortunately, I couldn't move my leg at all. It felt heavy, as though it suddenly weighed 500 pounds! After a moment, I discovered that my left arm was also numb and heavy and that I couldn't move it, either. Thinking that this was not a good thing, I made sure to test my right leg and arm, both of which seemed to move normally. Considering that my seat is in the middle of the row, I couldn't exactly get up and leave in the middle of lecture, assuming that I could have even walked with a dead weight for a left leg. So I just sat there and continued trying to observe what was happening to my body. I struggled to move my left side, but couldn't make any progress. Eventually, I began to lose focus on the room, and I couldn't hear anything that was being said. My head fell down and I went unconscious for about five seconds before snapping back to reality.

Knocking Down the Pins

Textbook and Bowling Scores

As another long week draws to a close, I find myself reflecting more on positives than negatives. Grade-wise, I was able to get a 94 on my Biology test (with a 9-point curve), a 94 on my Ergonomics test (with a 5-point curve), an 87 on my second French test (no curve), and a 78 on my Psych Research Methods test (for which I REALLY think there should have been a curve). I am almost caught up on my French homework, and I am fully on top of all the reading in the rest of my classes.

The overarching theme, if one can be found, for this week has been about trying to put out feelers and make connections with people around me. First, I'll touch on the frustrations. Professors in the Psychology Department at NCSU are apparently not the most communicative bunch of people in the world. This comes as a shock only because it has always been my contention that people who are drawn to psychology tend to be over-sharers. Psychologists are supposed to be the touchy-feely people. We're supposed to want to tell everyone everything and be willing to listen as everyone else comes to cry on our shoulders. Why then can't a single professor email me back within a WEEK when I try to set up appointments to talk about doing independent research work for PSY 499? You'd think they would love to sign up suckers like me who are willing to devote hours of our lives to reading research studies and doing data entry for little more than course credit and the vague hope that maybe, just MAYBE, we will look 2% better than some other dumbass when we apply to Grad School. My advisor informed me that I shouldn't get too discouraged by not getting an email back from the professors I contacted and recommended that I continue to be persistent. Anyone who knows me should be aware that persistence isn't my problem. Finding that fine line between persistent and stalker is where I'm a little less comfortable. I'll send out follow up emails next week and see if I can make any progress in getting my PSY 499 done.

Don't Panic. This is Only a Test...

DH Hill QR Codes

While I can't exactly compare it to the trials of Hercules, this has been a little bit of a rough week for me. I've been experiencing a little discouragement as it seems like the honeymoon, hectic as it may have been, is beginning to fade at NC State. I had three tests this week in my hardest subjects (Biology, Ergonomics, and Psych Research Methods). I wouldn't have been worried too much if it weren't for the fact that I've been reminded about three times over the last week that getting accepted to Graduate School is apparently pretty hard. Don't tell me that! Sure, it may be true, but it feels like I was given the option of having sex with a cute, big breasted brunette, with that Jewish Princess look I'm apparently fond of, only to be told, "Yeah, that didn't work out as we expected. Here have this scrawny 12 year old redheaded boy instead!" Besides being quite a bit illegal, I'm not even INTO 12 year old boys! Maybe that wasn't the best analogy in retrospect!

One good thing did come out of the week, though. As part of my newly discovered assertiveness, I reserved a study room at DH Hill and invited several friends from my Psych Research Methods class to study on Thursday afternoon before the test which happened this morning. It might come as a surprise that this was the first study group I've ever participated in during my entire school history. I was certainly aware that such things occurred, but it never entered my mind to try and be a part of one until now. Maybe I wasn't ready to share my brilliance with others. Maybe it was just that I was so scared of doing well on the test. At any rate, it went as well as I could have possibly imagined. Not everyone showed up, but those who did were very helpful. We all seemed to contribute something positive to the group discussion, and we were able to wade through the sometimes confusing material. I won't know what sort of grade I got on the test until next week (nor the grades I got for Biology or Ergonomics), but I felt pretty comfortable after each exam I took this week and think that B's are very likely, and A's are not impossible.

One Thing Leads to Another

What a week! It definitely had its ups and downs. It started easily enough. I turned in my final paper in American Literature, then I skipped out on my reviews in my other classes. Since my grades have been good all semester I didn't really need the reviews. I worked on my final presentation in Humanities, a lecture on Colony Collapse Disorder.

Then Wednesday hit. I was dealt not one, but TWO bad pieces of news. First, I was denied acceptance to NC State due to my grades. I had known it was a little bit of a long shot, since I wasn't even close to the 3.0 GPA requirement, but it was still a disappointment. For about an hour I entertained the possibility of applying to UNC Asheville, since they only require a 2.0 GPA minimum. The problem with UNCA is that I would have to move to Asheville, and that is an extra hassle and expense that I don't want to deal with.

The second bit of bad news involved financial aid. Thanks to my failing two classes several semesters ago, and withdrawing from British Literature last semester, my course completion rate fell to 64%. Unfortunately, it needs to be at least 67% to qualify for financial aid. According to the Financial Aid Office, my completion rate will probably be back above 67% after I finish exams for this semester, but until that gets processed through the system I will have to pay for tuition and books out of my own pocket! The problem, of course, is that I am down to my last $1000 of financial aid money. And since I won't be seeing anymore money until February, I really need that money to live on. Naturally, that creates a conundrum, since if I don't use the money to pay tuition I won't receive ANY financial aid in February because I won't actually be enrolled in school! In other words, I am really over a barrel on this one.

Exams went well, though. My final presentation for Humanities was pretty good. Then, my two math exams were easy. I should make an A in Survey of Math. My American Literature exam was a killer, though. The quote identification section was easy, but we had to write two page and a half long essays with text citations. The essays were worth 30 points EACH! I'll be lucky to make a B in that class. I enjoyed American Literature, but it was definitely a challenge.

My Statistics exam is Monday, but I'm not worried. My professor gave us an Excel spreadsheet to calculate our grades, and I only need a 68 on the final to still make an A in the class. Since I never made less than a 93 on any of the tests, I should sail through easily.

Now, if I could just figure out how to get $650 by next Friday, I'd feel alot better about my life.

Have fun, and keep living life... Or some approximation thereof.

Semester Redux or How the Hell Did I Get Myself Into This?

I made it through the first week of this semester. Every class that I'm taking is in some way a redo of a course I've already taken. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I'm taking Statistics I, which is a replacement course for College Algebra which I made an F on last fall, and American Literature, which is a replacement for British Literature which I withdrew from after several week last spring. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I'm taking Survey of Mathematics, which is a redo of the same course which I made a D on over a year ago even though I made A's on all of the tests! And, finally, on Thursday afternoons, I'm taking Humanities 220, which is a redo of the same class which I made an F in because I didn't do any of the assignments and pretty much just showed up for class!

I'm not too worried about my prospects to do well this time around in all of the classes. Let's just say that I've now learned from past mistakes (namely, not doing homework is NOT a strategy for success!) and should have no problem making straight A's, or at least close to it, this semester. If all goes well, this SHOULD be my last semester at Wake Tech, as I will have accrued all the credits necessary to earn an Associate of Arts Degree. But, of course, there's a small catch... It wouldn't be a story in MY life if it didn't have a catch, now would it? I was crunching some numbers earlier today, and I calculated that even IF I make straight A's this semester, I will graduate with only a 2.661 GPA, which is lower than the 3.0 GPA I NEED in order to get into the Psychology program at NC State! In fact, in order to make at least a 3.0 GPA, I would need to make straight A's this semester, next semester, AND THE SEMESTER AFTER THAT! It's amazing that 2 F's and 2 D's on your transcript could pull you down so far into the hole.

So, now, I'm in a quandary as to what to do next. I don't want there to be a lapse in my schooling, as I was hoping to go immediately from Wake Tech to NC State. Someone at school suggested I look into going to East Carolina University because their admissions standards are lower. I did look them up, and supposedly I could get accepted with as low as a 2.5 GPA. However, the problem is that ECU is around 75 miles away from where I live, which would mean I would either have to move (the most rational choice) or commute over an hour each way to school for two years (the least rational choice simply due to gas costs and wear and tear on my car, which already has over 120K miles on it). Honestly, I don't like either of those choices. Moving would mean giving up my current apartment, which is nice and comparatively affordable, and living in a small town which has nothing in it except the university. Granted, the rents are around $200 cheaper in Greenville than they are in Raleigh, but I'm not excited about the prospect of leaving what few connections to people and places that I have here at home. And commuting 150 miles round trip everyday would quickly gobble up whatever financial aid and loans I would be able to get during that time.

I haven't completely given up hope that I might be accepted into State, although the chances aren't looking really great at the moment. I will call the Admissions Office sometime next week and see if it is even worth submitting an application for the Spring semester. My hope is that, since I will actually have earned my Associates Degree, State will have a slightly more relaxed GPA policy for Associates Degree holders than for standard Transfer Students. But, as I said, things aren't looking great at the moment.

Have fun, and keep living life... or some approximation thereof.

Exam Week

Next week is Exam Week. I have Environmental Geology Monday afternoon, Developmental Psychology Thursday morning, and Philosophy Friday morning. This past week I made an A on a test in Developmental, a C on a test in Environmental, and an A on a Philosophy paper. I'm in a pretty good place right now and could easily end up with 2 A's and a B for the semester. Of course, that assumes that I make A's on each of my final exams which, while being unlikely, doesn't seem impossible.

I'm feeling pretty proud of myself right now. Thanks to my decision to drop British Literature earlier in the semester, this is the best semester I've had so far. I loved all my classes and I feel as though I've learned a lot.

Still, I'm concerned about my exams. They won't be easy. For Environmental I need to go back and read over the chapters on earthquakes, volcanoes, and coastal processes, which were among my weakest sections during the semester. It's unlikely I'll make an A on the exam, but I'd love a solid B to lock in my current B average in the class. I think I'd need a 96 or better on the exam in order to get an A in the class, but that isn't even remotely possible since my highest test grade so far has been an 88.

For Developmental my concern is that we will have to be able to, completely from memory, list all eight of Erikson's stages of development, with the issues to be resolved, and the corresponding virtues gained. Oh yeah, they have to be in order, too! That's on top of the 60 multiple choice questions which I'm less worried about. Right now I have an 88 in the Dr. Mike's class, so I only need an extra two points on my average to get the A. If I can get at least a 90 on the final I'm guaranteed to get it.

Philosophy is a bit worrisome to me though I don't know why. I think I have a solid A in the class right now, but Gandy doesn't post grades during the semester. Still, I made a 90 on the first test, an 80 on the second test, an A on the first paper, and a 90 on our make-up day assignment. We haven't gotten our grades back on our second paper, but I don't see any reason why I wouldn't have made an A on it as well. That means that the exam can only hurt me at this point; it can't give me a better grade than I already have. Having to defend an A is not a position I'm used to being in.

I plan to study for my Environmental and Developmental exams, but there isn't a good way to study for the Philosophy final since Gandy wants us to apply our philosophical knowledge to readings he'll provide on exam day. At this point, I can only hope for the best.

Have fun and keep living life... or some approximation thereof!

Grotesque and Mundane

The semester is winding down. Exam week is the first full week of May, then I'm done until Fall. Unless something drastic happens I expect to either make 3 Bs, 2 Bs and an A, or (this is least likely) 2 As and a B. I entered the semester needing straight As, but I'm not too bothered right now. Next Fall will be the worst semester to date as far as pressure to do well is concerned.

To that end, I will need to register for classes this weekend. I'm hoping I can get into all classes I want and need. Since all the classes are do overs, scheduling will be my biggest concern for now. The humanities class is an afternoon seminar, so it won't be as hard to schedule as the two math classes and the literature class. I still haven't decided which literature class to take.

Last Thursday, my philosophy professor had us watch clips of art films to determine what qualified as art and what truths about life, if any, were revealed by the clips. Among the clips we watched were The Amputee and Lumiere from David Lynch, of Twin Peaks and Mulholland Dr. fame. The clips were horrifying in their juxtaposition of the grotesque with the mundane, a concept Lynch has revisited in several of his professional works. It is hard to fully explain the clips, or why I found them so horrifying, but as a result I've been afraid of silence and the dark ever since. Only now am I getting back to being able to sleep in the dark, even though I have to keep a podcast running on my iPhone while I fall asleep.

In more mundane news, I finally broke down and joined Meetup and signed up for three groups thus far. One of the groups, one devoted to Doctor Who, had two meetups this week that I attended. The group gets together mostly to watch episodes of the show which has been running on the BBC off and on since the early 1960s. The group is largely made of 30-40 somethings but since they have a narrow focus (love of a TV show) there isn't enough there to make me feel like I don't fit in. And, besides, watching TV with other people is more social than sitting at home alone. We'll see how well I fit in with the other groups I joined.

My financial experiment hit another snag. Due to a minor miscalculation which I won't go into except to say that investment websites really should give you real-time quotes for free, my investment account has been reverted back so I can only use funds from "settled trades" again. This is quite a significant blow to my experiment at a time when I really needed some expediency to build my account up. As it stands now, I once again have to wait three days between trades before I can buy new stocks. Since my account had only grown to $3000 when this happened, and I'm forced to take out $1000 for the next month's expenses, I've essentially been made to restart from scratch again!

That seems almost as grotesque as a David Lynch film!

Have fun and keep living life... or some approximation thereof.

Acting Like a Student

I feel worn out. I had to turn in a paper today for Dr. Mike's Developmental Psych class. The paper was a literature review and analysis of a study on mothers who were survivors of childhood sexual abuse. As part of the paper we had to summarize significant sections of the study, present several pros and cons of the author's methodology, and create two additional hypothetical studies related to the original study topic. According to Dr. Mike this should have been a five page paper. MY ASS! Mine was eight pages and no one I asked wrote less than six! Dr. Mike still contends that we probably wrote too much in trying to summarize our selected studies. Whatever!

I waited until the last minute, as usual, to write the paper. There's something about the thrill of intentional procrastination that works for me. Although, truth be told, I almost chose not to do the paper on time. It would have cost me a letter grade for each 24 hours that it was late. Since I can easily get an "A" on any paper that I write, taking an extra day to do a paper and taking a "B" isn't that big of a deal to me. Of course, that attitude costs me when the final grades are calculated.

Last semester, in Abnormal Psych, I had an 89.64 (a high B) before the final exam which meant that I needed to make an "A" on the final to guarantee an "A" for my final grade. Needless to say, that didn't happen, and I ended up with a "B". I could have made an "A" in the class if only I had turned in my term paper on time and gotten the 95 I deserved instead of the 85 that I received for being late!

It seems I am constantly locked in a battle between my desire to succeed and my utter lack of motivation. I know what I want out of life, but it is so easy to just sit back and do nothing, or let random distractions, like reading Raleigh's 20 year Comprehensive Plan for Growth, absorb my time (yes, I actually read stuff like that for fun... but that obsession is a whole blog post by itself!)

I suppose that leads to an important lesson of being a Lifer: Sometimes you have to do it today no matter how much you want to put it off until tomorrow. Granted, unless it is a life or death emergency, almost everything CAN be put off until a later date. But, there are times when the benefits of getting a job done immediately will outweigh the comfort of delay. We would never procrastinate directly doing something we enjoy, but we often procrastinate to do things (like homework) which indirectly lead to being able to do something we enjoy (like graduating college and getting a successful job). A key to having a life well-lived is to be mindful of these moments when the reward for action is more indirectly earned and to push through our natural tendency to maintain inertia. Perhaps, with a little effort, our dreams and goals will start to seem a lot more accessible as a result.

Have fun and keep living life... But stop procrastinating!

Marching in Place

March has been one of those months where things happen but nothing really moves forward. Odd, considering that the month is called "march".

Earlier this month I had tests again in my classes. I made an 80 (B) in Philosophy, an 86 (B) in Human Development, and a 72 (C) in Environmental Geology. I could have done better in Environmental, but I didn't keep up with the reading as well as I should have. This past week has been Spring Break, although I didn't do anything except stay at home and sleep at odd hours. Next week I need to work on papers as I have a five page paper due in both Human Development and Philosophy, and a two page paper due in Environmental Geology.

While practicing saber spins with my newest lightsaber I accidentally dropped it in such a way that the end cap came off and the battery pack slipped out and broke. Now, since the damage was my fault, I'm going to have to buy a new battery pack and learn how to solder the wiring so I can replace the broken one. Fortunately, a new battery pack only costs a couple bucks, and a new soldering iron less than $20. Still, it beats the shipping costs of sending the saber back in and paying for the repair.

I haven't mentioned my financial experiment because, much like this month, it hasn't gone anywhere. Thanks to the topsy turvy market over the last few weeks I've managed to lose $1000 and make almost all of it back, all without buying or selling stocks once!

The incident with Elizabeth helped to reinforce an idea which has been brewing inside me for about a year, namely that I need to find other 30-somethings to hang out with. I haven't enjoyed swing dancing for months because the crowd has been leaning more toward a 50-something age range over the last year. And, as much as I'd like to, I'll never really fit in with college aged kids who, on some level, see me as the "creepy old guy"!

The reason I sat at home and did nothing this past week is that I didn't feel as though I had anyone to do anything with. The friends who are my age, whom I relate to, are all living in Florida, Georgia, or California. In a way, for all the ways in which my life has progressed over the last few years, I'm still in the exact same position as I was the day I first met Ex. It's as though I've been marching in place the whole time. The only difference is I'm less likely to have a scowl on my face as I do it.

I feel like I've fallen through the cracks socially. In high school I felt more comfortable around teachers than around kids my own age. Then, I eventually fell off the face of the Earth for ten years as I chose to lock myself in the dungeon of the radio station. Now that I'm finally free I have no idea where or when to go to meet people my own age.

They say that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. For me, at least, as I reflect on my situation, I'd have to say it's the other way around.

Have fun and keep living life... or some approximation thereof.

Days of Futures Past

After aiding Chris with his girl problems our discussion somehow turned to my writing. I informed Chris that I currently have two unfinished novels sitting on my hard drive. He asked to read them, so I emailed him the files. Of course, after I sent the files, I immediately began to re-read them for myself. What I read both impressed me and troubled me at the same time.

The longer of the two unfinished works, Pair Bonding, is 94 pages of dense, elaborate, and dark storytelling. I haven't worked on it in earnest for almost a decade. The bulk of it was written during long nights at Waffle House through numerous periods of depression throughout my early 20s. It, along with the second novel, is a part of a time travel series based on a character I created during my junior year in high school.

The second novel, Lessons to Learn, is much more current. In fact, I originally came up with the story after my break up with Ex. I've only written 20 pages of it so far, though the goal, as with Pair Bonding, is to have between 200-250 pages at completion, as I've never been a fan of books longer than 300 pages in length. The tone of Lessons to Learn is far more hopeful and upbeat. Unfortunately, the writing, as a result, isn't at all as good as in the writing in Pair Bonding.

I'm not sure what it is exactly, but I've long observed that some of the best writing comes from depressed people. Authors like Edgar Allen Poe and Ernest Hemingway wrote literature which will be read for generations, all while being depressed alcoholics. And I've read psychological studies in recent years which point to a correlation between depression and hypersensitivity to minute details which could explain how depressed writers are able to paint such vivid pictures with words. So, does this mean that as long as I'm not depressed I'll never be able to write as well as I did when I was trying to escape my pain by withdrawing into my own creative universe?

Of course, that raises a whole other proposition. Is the loss of my best writing ability an equivalent exchange for improved self-efficacy, self-esteem, and overall happiness? I used to think that true happiness could only come from exploiting your natural talents to their fullest. Granted, I can be happy without writing, but there is something special which comes from knowing that people enjoy my work and having them offer validation of my talent.

Nowadays, validation, for me, comes in the form of good grades and new friendships. It's a validation of me as a whole person rather than simply a validation of a specific skill. And perhaps that is the way it should be, because it is too easy to pass my writing off as something separate from me as a person. I can say that writing is a "natural" talent as opposed to something that I am personally responsible for through my own deeds. But good grades and relationships are something which I have to cultivate with my own actions. And each new step is rewarded with a greater sense of personal achievement for which there is no equivalent exchange.

And let's face it... I'm still a pretty good writer!

Have fun and keep living life... and exploit your talents to the fullest!

Another One Bites the Dust

I had to make a hard decision today. I chose to drop my British Literature class. I'm not sure why, but rather than feel like I made a good decision I feel like I failed somehow. This is the first time I've ever dropped a class even though there were several in the past that I probably should have in order to protect my GPA. By dropping the class I insure that a low grade will not lower my already injured (2.54) GPA.

Part of the problem comes with the fact that, in order to drop the class, I had to get the professor to sign off on the form for me to drop. I've mentioned that I wasn't really in love with her as a professor (Okay, so, without ANY evidence whatsoever to support this, I called her a Dick Cheney-loving dominatrix... but not to her face!), but when she asked me my reason for dropping the class I actually felt bad for her! I didn't want to hurt her feelings for some reason. Now, understand that I had already planned out that I was going to just go ahead and tell her that I felt she was condescending and that if we were in the corporate world her teaching style would be equivalent to that of a micro-manager who picks at every little detail of his underlings tasks, and how I don't appreciate that level of specificity because it insults my intelligence and gives me the sense that my work and talent isn't being respected, and if she doesn't like how students write papers at this level she should just feel free to give them Ds or Fs rather than laying out every single point that she wants presented in a paper. Instead, I meekly commented that I wasn't enjoying British Literature as much as I had hoped I would, and that I just didn't think her teaching style meshed with how I like to work as a student. For her part, she politely recommended I take a literature course taught by a professor who by coincidence I've had before and is, according to her, "less structured" in his teaching style and looks at everything from a "communist" point of view! I have to admit, the professor in question DOES sort of look at things with a communist point of view, but I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing!

I've been trying to figure out why I backed down from telling the professor how I really felt about her. Some might say that I'm "maturing" or "becoming more sensitive to the feelings of others" in my old age, but I think that's a load of bullshit! I think it has something to do with the power differential between us. You see, in normal classroom situations (ones where I feel glad to be there) I am incredibly outspoken with a mix of insightful comments and wry sarcasm. In those environments, I feel as though I'm an equal (perhaps even occasionally superior) to the professor. It would be completely natural to let those professors know EXACTLY how I feel about them because I didn't hold anything back during standard class time. Unfortunately, I never felt at home in my Brit Lit professor's classroom. Rather, I would sit there quietly staring at her PowerPoint presentations, rarely making eye contact, trying to avoid being called on, absolutely never interjecting my own thoughts, and just trying to pretend that I wasn't there while still showing up enough not to go over my allotment of permissible absences. The assignments I did turn in all made As, but I just didn't want to be there. I didn't want to work for her. I didn't want to impress her. And I didn't want to connect with her as a human being.

I guess that's why I feel so bad about dropping her class. In that one brief minute that it took to get her to sign the form I was forced, for once, to consider that she was a person with feelings and a life outside of the classroom. Granted, by tomorrow (certainly by next week) she will likely have forgotten all about me as a student. And perhaps that's the way it should be. Because for her to remember me beyond next week would have meant that I had to make an impact. And to make an impact, at least in that moment, would have meant that I had to be rude and insensitive and try to take away, for a time however brief, another person's sense of self-esteem. In doing so, ultimately, I would have gained nothing but a fleeting sense of ego-inflation. I can get that somewhere else.

By the way, I got my first test grades back from all my other classes and I made an A (90) in Philosophy, a B (88) in Environmental Geology, and a C (76) in Human Development, though Dr. Mike will drop our lowest test grade and I expect to make an A on my paper in the class so I'm still in okay shape there, for now.

Have fun, and keep living life... or some approximation thereof.

Reality Sets In

Painting entitled "Screaming" by Louisa Giffard

It always does... Reality manages to creep itself back into everything I ever attempt to do. There's no way around it. Life just simply NEVER goes according to plan. It's such a pain in the ass!

My Financial Experiment tanked. A couple weeks ago I was all set to double my initial investment, and then some. If things had gone according to plan, I would already have over $3000, possibly closing in on $4000. Well, as I already said, nothing ever goes according to the plan. Instead, my investment dropped back down to $1000. That's not a big deal, you say. At least you didn't lose your initial investment. True, except I was counting on having at least $3000 by now so that I could take out my initial $1000 and have some money to live on (and still leave money in my experiment to grow and take out as needed) while I wait for my next batch of financial aid money to roll in sometime in February. Now, I'm forced to take out the whole $1000 so that I have money to live on, which will not, by itself, stretch until February.

That's not the only bad news. I am not going to pass College Algebra. It isn't possible. Perhaps if I had bothered to really do the homework diligently, and ask for assistance from my friends in class, I could have done it. But, that ship has passed. And an F on a transcript really fucks up your GPA. Little known fact: Do you know that's why they call it an F? It helps to reinforce the idea of just how truly FUCKED you are! Now, my recourse is to either take the class over again (in which case I would need an A in order to balance out the F so I could get a C) or take another math course (possibly Statistics) in which I would still need to make an A. Also, I have a few Ds on my transcript which will not transfer over to State (you need to have a C or better in a class for it to transfer), so you might already see where this is going.

Yep... It looks like I'm going to have to spend an extra semester at community college before I can apply and get accepted to NC State. Granted, it isn't the end of the world, by any means. After all, I waited 13 years to get my ass back to school. What's an extra semester in the scheme of things? Still, it does annoy me a bit. I'd like for things to stick to the plan once in awhile. It would make life so much easier.

At least with regard to the grades, I can't blame anyone but myself. I knew going into the class that math isn't an easy subject for me. It isn't like English or Psychology which I have a natural talent for; I have to actually do some work to get by in a math class. I chose not to do it. Sure, my old Nemesis, the calculator, didn't make things easier, but if I had done the homework everyday I would have eventually gotten the hang of it. It just isn't going to work to try and pawn this failure off on someone or something else.

You know, in the past, it's always been so much easier for me to blame my problems on things other than my own choices. I would say and think things like "it's because I was abused", or "nobody ever helps me", or "people just don't understand". Even if I did accept blame, it was a value judgement on me, like "I failed because I'm a bad person", or "I'm just no good at this". None of these ideas ever really helped me identify the real problem and come up with a solution. These rationales just made me feel worse about myself. Either I was a bad person, a born failure, or I was helpless and hopeless.

I'm not sure what's changed, but I don't see myself or my problems like that anymore. Maybe I don't want to see them that way anymore. Now, I can see that failing at something doesn't have to be about me as a person. Instead, falling short of expectations can be the result of poor choices. I can learn to make better choices. I can clearly identify what events led me to this point and I can say "this worked" or "this didn't work" and I can adjust my behavior to compensate.

I think I understand now why I haven't been feeling bad about this realization, and why I haven't been beating myself up over the bad grade. It feels empowering to look at the world in an objective way and, rather than personalizing the mistakes, being able to see a better course of action in front of me. I guess this is the way that people with a healthy level of self-esteem must react to setbacks.

Have fun, and keep living life... Or some approximation thereof!

Sick Days

I've been getting sick for the last few days. My throat was sore at first, then I started getting congested. Now my nose is running and I'm coughing up phlegm as if I were being paid by the pint! Add to that the periodic sneezing that erupts with so much force that my whole body feels weak for five minutes and you can guess I'm not feeling all that peppy.

On the bright side, I finally got around to doing my Abnormal Psych paper on the safety and efficacy of SSRI-based antidepressants. I made a 90 on it, an A, even with the 10 point deduction for it being over a week late. I also made an 88, a B, on my last psych test despite not reading the book!

I wish I had a working TV. I'm afraid of missing the election results this Tuesday night. Hopefully, I'll be able to find live video coverage online somewhere. I'm still all a tizzy about the prospect that North Carolina may go blue this time. The Real Clear Politics average right now is Obama by 2.5, with poll data ranging from a tie to as much as a 6 point lead for Obama.

I don't talk alot about my grandmother, but I was just thinking about things she used to do for me when I wasn't feeling well as a kid. I remember the familiar smells of Vicks Vaporub and Resinol that permeated sick days in her home. If you couldn't be cured by one, the other would never be far away. Toothaches were held at bay with the pungent, acidic, and somewhat alcoholic taste of Anbesol and the feel of a hot, baked in the oven, wash cloth pressed against my cheek. Spells of vomiting were always met with sips of Coke and Captain's Wafers. I miss Captain's Wafers. It's hard to find them in stores these days. There's something very comforting about those old home remedies that just gets lost in today's "there's a pill for that" mentality to sickness. Maybe I don't want to get better in six hours by taking Cure-Tex Pharmaceuticals "Healz-All Gel Capsules, Now in Minty Green Flavor". Maybe I'd like to ride out the cold for just a little while longer with a salve, a Coke, a puke bucket, and a pile of warm wash cloths. Screw you modern health care system!

One good thing about colds, though, is you just don't want to eat a whole lot. Food doesn't smell or taste as good when you're congested, and swallowing can be a real chore when your throat seems so swollen that you think someone must have installed a rusty sliding door that food has to open and close in order to go down. At any rate, I can now fit into a pair of 36" pants I couldn't button before.

I was trying to come up with some nifty lesson to all this, but I don't guess life ALWAYS has to have a point to it. Although, if I had to pick one thing that I've learned from this experience it would be that I find it annoying how completely out of touch I am with my body until something goes wrong with it. But, then, that's how I am with my car, and it's still alive... sort of.

Have fun, and keep living life... And bring me some more Kleenex while you're at it!

My Weekly Roundup, or With New Enemies Comes a New Hope

Okay, I totally didn't mean to abandon the blog for a week! Once again, it seems life got in the way. I'll try to give a review of sorts to the week's events along with some thoughts on the big debate between Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin.

I meant to post something on Sunday, but, well, I was feeling decidedly anti-social. Actually, that may explain why I didn't post anything this week perfectly. I've been fairly depressed lately because of my money situation. That is to say, I have no money situation, because I have no money with which to have a situation at all! I don't think I ever mentioned that I lost my job about a month before school started this semester. I had been working for Clear Channel in Raleigh for TEN YEARS when I was fired (Clear Channel owns a large percentage of the radio and TV broadcasters around the US and a growing number in Europe). To be honest, I should have left the job around 5 years ago, because it wasn't challenging, fun, or at all redeeming in any way. I was working overnights, by myself, and the schedule helped to isolate me from people. I only continued to work there for a paycheck and insurance, because medications can be pretty expensive. By the way, if you have a Costco nearby, get your prescriptions filled there. They are SUPER CHEAP! Instead of paying $275 a month for drugs (now that I have no insurance), Costco only charges me $90 a month!

So, anyway, I've been desperately waiting, longing, dreaming for my financial aid money to get sent to me. I was expecting it to arrive the last week in September, but due to a holdup in paperwork (Okay, I forgot to fax an enlarged copy of my driver's license to the bank for my records) the loan money didn't get disbursed in time for the first checks to be sent out. Now, I'm hoping that the money will be sent out on October 10th, because I've been living off of fish sticks and Lean Pockets for a week. That's a step up from the Oodles of Noodles and beef stew diet from the previous week.

Monday: I didn't get around to posting because I intended to work on a paper that I needed to turn in Thursday. I didn't do it, choosing instead to spend my free time surfing the Internet. Then, I had to volunteer at dance classes, so by the time I got home I had time to download Countdown with Keith Olbermann to my iPhone, watch it, and go to sleep.

Tuesday: I got my World Civilizations test back. I should know by now that if I ever think a test was easy, I failed! Well, I thought the first test was easy... However I barely made a D on it. By the professor's own admission there were only a total of 8 A's and B's in the whole class. There were a few Cs, but there were 8 D's and 8 F's. He had the nerve to call that a "perfect bell curve"! Bell curve my ass! That's a drop off into an ABYSS! What an ass! It should be illegal to be that psychotic in class and THEN be a hard ass on your tests! Forty points of the test was devoted to essay questions, and he wanted lots of specifics. One of the guys who managed to make a B said he wrote essays that were two pages each!

Later in the evening, I had to conduct a training class for potential volunteers to the dance academy. It went well and I had an okay time during the session, but it lasted 2 hours. At least I got fed pizza and cookies for a change.

Wednesday: I don't really have an excuse for why I didn't post on Wednesday. Again, I convinced myself I was going to work on that paper that was due Thursday. I didn't... Again! It wasn't that big of a deal. I just had to put into words (two pages of words, double spaced, to be exact) an outline that I had already written up in class describing my ideas for how best to judge a written paper. It's for my Humanities 220 class. Now, maybe you know why I like the class! It's easy, breezy, beautiful, Covergirl.

In the morning, I had a test in my College Algebra class. The best I could have gotten was an 80 because I had to skip 3 questions since I had no idea how to do them on my calculator -- change that, my NEMESIS, the TI-84 PLUS graphing calculator! And then, because it took me so long to do the rest of the problems by hand I had to skip one of the last two questions on the test. I was hoping for a C, but I was worried about getting a D.

Thursday: Okay, Thursday was unique. Thursdays are already my long day. I have class from 1230 PM until 5 PM. World Civ was dull and boring as we had to sit through a lecture on Africa. And since there aren't many written records about the various tribes throughout the history of Africa, the professor could only show us a slideshow of famine, disease, cattle, and give explanations of what the African indigenous people had to go through in order to survive. All that stuff is interesting, but it was nothing that I haven't seen or read a hundred times before! After that class was over I went to my HUM 220 class where there was some discussion about the final chapters of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Then, we headed to the Automotive Department to see the progress on the motorcycle. The head of the Automotive Dept. went through a meticulous explanation of the things he had done to the bike over the last week and how it seems to run. However, there are still obstacles in the way of getting it drivable, such as the carburetor, which is probably filled with rust or dirt, and the gas tank which needs to be completely cleaned out.

After school, I came home and just relaxed for a little while until the Vice Presidential Debate between Biden and Palin started. I was able to watch it on CNN.com. Once again, despite my predilection toward the Obama/Biden ticket, I have to say I was surprised to see Palin actually able to string solid sentences together after her embarrassingly laughable performances recently with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric. However, I was annoyed with how she upfront told everyone that she wasn't going to answer questions the way Moderator Gwen Ifill, or Palin's opponent Joe Biden, wanted her to, but rather the way SHE wanted to answer them. At least she was honest about that if nothing else. Never did she seem to answer a question with an answer appropriate to the question. She seemed almost like she was reading from a teleprompter, her responses so prepared and perfect. She spurted out McCain Campaign talking points as though she had been indoctrinated as a child, Aldous Huxley-style, with the campaign agenda playing over and over in the background as she slept. I half expected her to accidentally blurt out, "Gammas wear such ugly uniforms. I don't like the color brown!"

Friday: And, finally, Friday. I really shouldn't have woken up, dressed, and wasted gas going to school. My Abnormal Psychology class was cancelled due to a family emergency for the professor, so that left me with just my College Algebra class. Unfortunately, I've missed all the classes I can and I have to attend everyday until the end of the semester, no matter what! I did get back my test, and I found that I was able to make a 74.5, a C. I was happy about that, even though I COULD have made a B had I been able to operate my Nemesis! The professor also gave us our cumulative scores so far, and I am only making a 59, an F! I've missed a few quizzes and I didn't turn in the first Excel Lab. There is still time to bring the grade up, but I'd do alot better to bring it up if I didn't have to struggle with that damn calculator! Of course, once again, my Nemesis had to ruin my morning. We did a rather simple lab on exponential growth and decay. It involved M&Ms and adding or removing them based on how many Ms were showing. I was able to gather the necessary data, but as usual had NO IDEA how to calculate this on the TI-84 PLUS (I'm guessing the PLUS means "PLUS the desire to rip your hair out by being dangled over a pool of hungry crocodiles after eating a warm bowl of camel crap and drinking it down with a tall glass of cow urine!") A few of my classmates attempted to help me, but it basically came down to them having to do the calculations for me, which just made me angrier. I'm a genius, I SHOULD be able to figure this out myself! So, before turning the lab in to the professor, I just balled up my paper, put away my stuff and left the class.

After cashing a check for my rent from my grandmother and getting something to eat at Waffle House, I paid my rent, which is still a month behind because I'm waiting on my financial aid, got to my apartment, stripped down to my boxers, and went back to bed!

So, did this week at least teach me anything? Did I learn some nugget that I can pass along to you guys as at least a small lesson of life? Well, I found out that it feels really good to vent. Oh, and after I stormed out of class Friday, I got an email from one of my classmates because all of us on the front row are supposed to turn in a group project on Monday that I'm supposed to be writing. They were naturally worried that I was dropping the class and wasn't going to come back. I told her that I had every intention of returning to class. Even if I flunk the class I'm still going to take my punches like a man. I explained that I'll write the paper, which is going to be super short when you factor in the charts and graphs of our data, and email it to them by Sunday morning. She emailed back and told me, "OK we just got worried! Don't get so flustered over a calculator... you'll get it if you keep trying and stay positive! We're always here to help you too!"

DING! DING! DING! No matter how you think things SHOULD be, don't let pride or ego stop you from asking for help. Even if you think you'd be a burden to others, ultimately people don't want to see people around them fail. Schadenfreude is only for people you don't have a direct connection with. And, as cheesy as this is, maybe asking for help doesn't have to be a sign of weakness. Perhaps we don't have to live as islands unto ourselves. We can be vulnerable without being endangered. Just because you're weak in one area doesn't make you weak in all areas. Enjoy your strengths and accept your weaknesses, and make asking for help one of your most important strengths. Things just might turn out alright in the end.

Have fun, and keep living life... hopefully it's better than my current approximation thereof!