Rare Form
Thanks to some consumer demand, I am reviving this journal. I've been away from it for a long time now, but I've decided that it deserves one last blast of activity to document this coming summer before I retire it forever in August (maybe).
So, here's the least you need to know in order to get you up to speed:
I'm graduating on the 28th.
I've got no prospects.
I've got no job.
Usually, I don't even know what time it is.
Damn it, though, that doesn't stop me from getting into rare form.
To elaborate, here's what's basically happened to me since my senior year of college began back in September. Basically, the fall 2006 term was complete misery. Even though I did sort of okay grade-wise in the end, the whole process was like beating my head against the wall over and over again. I'm sure that, as students, we've all been there, so I won't go into details on all the lousy academic shit that happened. So, for the most part, I was miserable all the time, but some good things happened in those four months just before Christmas. I smoked a lot of cigarettes. I had my 21st birthday. I went on my first mushrooms trip, which was one of the best nights of my life. I even learned quite a lot from my classes, despite how awful they all were. And I started really reading the paper regularly, since I finally discovered that I can read the NYTimes online. I made some new friends that term, got to know some existing friends more, and, all in all, did manage to have a good time once in a while. I also began what I feel is a new wave of fiction writing for me. I know, ever since this journal started, I've been talking about how I'm in the process of writing things, but I've got it more in perspective now, at least in terms of the kinds of things I want to talk about. I started work on a book of short fiction, and, of course, it's coming along very slowly, but at least I'm still at it.
I did make one pretty pivotal mistake last term. I was so frustrated with school that, in December, I made a vow to myself that, after graduation, I would never go back. No grad school. No higher degrees. I would just get a job and never return. I will admit, this decision was made in a moment of weakness. Maybe one or two months later, I realized that, in order to do what I want vocationally, I would need a masters or a PhD at some point in the future. (Since I'm a poli-sci and econ major, I eventually want to go into the State Department and become a Foreign Service Officer, but this is a very competitive job and you need as many qualifications as you can get. It's definitely not the first job you can get as soon as you're out of undergrad.) So, in short, I missed a lot of deadlines for grad schools for next year because I just wasn't considering going at the time that I probably should have been doing applications. In some ways, this is okay, since my family recently told me that we need some time to recover after the ridiculous cost of my last four years. So, I'll have to get a decent-paying job by September, and I've been searching for one for a few months now. Honestly, I find job searching incredibly difficult. I read some article online recently about how everyone student wants an econ major these days because the job market is really good for them, but, to be honest, there aren't just jobs coming out of the walls for me.
But, anyway, I work at a part time job over at this restaurant in Ann Arbor called Za's. We specialize in fake, over-priced, gimmicky Italian food which is actually quite good and we always have a lot of business. It's basically just enough money to pay for books and booze, but some nice people work there with me. I'm trying to pick up another part time job over at the UofM hospital, as a night-shift patient attendant. I have a few friends who do this and they say it pays better than what I have now, and I could use some more money to help pay the rent this summer.
In contrast to last term and the six before it, I had the easiest term of my life this time around. I practically slept through it, literally, because none of my classes started before ten, and that was on the days when I had to get up "early." I don't know why it worked out this way, but I felt that I'd earned it considering what I'd been through for the last three and a half years of college. And, for once, I liked all of my classes. I'm not done with finals yet, but it's definitely been the least stressful finals week ever. In a lot of ways, this term was pretty uneventful, but it was the break that I needed.
I'm ignoring a lot of stuff, but that about brings us to the present day. I won't go on and on about the trivial bullshit, so I'll just talk about what happened this last week. Beginning last Thursday, I decided to go on this ridiculous drinking spree. For some reason, I wasn't feeling so great that Thursday and I just felt like having a drink. I wasn't sad. I wasn't depressed. I just felt like sort of a crappy human. So, I called up some friends, got some 151, and made an evening of it. Then, the following evening, I still felt kind of crappy, and since substance abuse the previous night had been fun, I decided to go out to the bar with another friend and then drink some forties at his house while watching some terrible horror movie on cable. Then, the next night, I got drunk again with my 151 friends. I had never been drunk three nights in a row. It was a first for me. Sunday and Monday I took a break, but there was no excuse for this. Tuesday I got drunk with them again, took a break Wednesday, and then got super-trashed on Thursday. Now it's Saturday, and I'm not drunk now. I feel better, though. I feel like I got the urge to drink that I had last Thursday mostly out of my system.
Although this doesn't compare to what I did on St. Patrick's Day. For my last three years of college, I was always busy on that day and could never party with the rest of the town. Well, I did this year. I started drinking with my friends Greg, Ben, and Alex at midnight and we tried to stay up as long as we could. Eventually, Ben and Alex fell asleep, but Greg and I managed to keep plowing through vodka tonics until the sun started coming up. At one point, he went to the bathroom, and when he emerged, he had the chance to be the only witness to one of my finest moments. In a drunken stupor, I had collapsed onto the kitchen floor with a resounding thud, at which point I heard him laugh at me from inside the bathroom. I began to think about all the ways in which I had failed to figure out what I was going to do with my life, and now, here I was, drunk, lying flat on my back on my friend's kitchen floor. He came out of the bathroom and looked at me sprawled out in front of the stove. "Damn it," I said, or most likely yelled. "I don't have any prospects. I don't have a job. I don't know what time it is." I looked at the nearby wall clock. "It's nine AM, and I'm in rare form." I then tried to pick myself up, but all I did in the end was flop over onto my stomach. Greg and I then proceeded to laugh for about half an hour. Later that day, I left to go to another St. Patrick's party which I had promised to attend, but, according to Greg's house mates, who are also close friends of mine, Greg walked around all the rest of that week, yelling "I have no job, I have no prospects." You kind of had to be there. It was pretty great.
So, I'd really like to try to update every day, like I did back in 2004. I have to cut this journal entry off now because I have some studying to get to and I have to go to work later. I really do think that this entry should get you up to speed on what's been happening to me. This covers the big events. Sometimes, life really is just one drunken moment of self-punishment after another. Nice day outside.
W.
So, here's the least you need to know in order to get you up to speed:
I'm graduating on the 28th.
I've got no prospects.
I've got no job.
Usually, I don't even know what time it is.
Damn it, though, that doesn't stop me from getting into rare form.
To elaborate, here's what's basically happened to me since my senior year of college began back in September. Basically, the fall 2006 term was complete misery. Even though I did sort of okay grade-wise in the end, the whole process was like beating my head against the wall over and over again. I'm sure that, as students, we've all been there, so I won't go into details on all the lousy academic shit that happened. So, for the most part, I was miserable all the time, but some good things happened in those four months just before Christmas. I smoked a lot of cigarettes. I had my 21st birthday. I went on my first mushrooms trip, which was one of the best nights of my life. I even learned quite a lot from my classes, despite how awful they all were. And I started really reading the paper regularly, since I finally discovered that I can read the NYTimes online. I made some new friends that term, got to know some existing friends more, and, all in all, did manage to have a good time once in a while. I also began what I feel is a new wave of fiction writing for me. I know, ever since this journal started, I've been talking about how I'm in the process of writing things, but I've got it more in perspective now, at least in terms of the kinds of things I want to talk about. I started work on a book of short fiction, and, of course, it's coming along very slowly, but at least I'm still at it.
I did make one pretty pivotal mistake last term. I was so frustrated with school that, in December, I made a vow to myself that, after graduation, I would never go back. No grad school. No higher degrees. I would just get a job and never return. I will admit, this decision was made in a moment of weakness. Maybe one or two months later, I realized that, in order to do what I want vocationally, I would need a masters or a PhD at some point in the future. (Since I'm a poli-sci and econ major, I eventually want to go into the State Department and become a Foreign Service Officer, but this is a very competitive job and you need as many qualifications as you can get. It's definitely not the first job you can get as soon as you're out of undergrad.) So, in short, I missed a lot of deadlines for grad schools for next year because I just wasn't considering going at the time that I probably should have been doing applications. In some ways, this is okay, since my family recently told me that we need some time to recover after the ridiculous cost of my last four years. So, I'll have to get a decent-paying job by September, and I've been searching for one for a few months now. Honestly, I find job searching incredibly difficult. I read some article online recently about how everyone student wants an econ major these days because the job market is really good for them, but, to be honest, there aren't just jobs coming out of the walls for me.
But, anyway, I work at a part time job over at this restaurant in Ann Arbor called Za's. We specialize in fake, over-priced, gimmicky Italian food which is actually quite good and we always have a lot of business. It's basically just enough money to pay for books and booze, but some nice people work there with me. I'm trying to pick up another part time job over at the UofM hospital, as a night-shift patient attendant. I have a few friends who do this and they say it pays better than what I have now, and I could use some more money to help pay the rent this summer.
In contrast to last term and the six before it, I had the easiest term of my life this time around. I practically slept through it, literally, because none of my classes started before ten, and that was on the days when I had to get up "early." I don't know why it worked out this way, but I felt that I'd earned it considering what I'd been through for the last three and a half years of college. And, for once, I liked all of my classes. I'm not done with finals yet, but it's definitely been the least stressful finals week ever. In a lot of ways, this term was pretty uneventful, but it was the break that I needed.
I'm ignoring a lot of stuff, but that about brings us to the present day. I won't go on and on about the trivial bullshit, so I'll just talk about what happened this last week. Beginning last Thursday, I decided to go on this ridiculous drinking spree. For some reason, I wasn't feeling so great that Thursday and I just felt like having a drink. I wasn't sad. I wasn't depressed. I just felt like sort of a crappy human. So, I called up some friends, got some 151, and made an evening of it. Then, the following evening, I still felt kind of crappy, and since substance abuse the previous night had been fun, I decided to go out to the bar with another friend and then drink some forties at his house while watching some terrible horror movie on cable. Then, the next night, I got drunk again with my 151 friends. I had never been drunk three nights in a row. It was a first for me. Sunday and Monday I took a break, but there was no excuse for this. Tuesday I got drunk with them again, took a break Wednesday, and then got super-trashed on Thursday. Now it's Saturday, and I'm not drunk now. I feel better, though. I feel like I got the urge to drink that I had last Thursday mostly out of my system.
Although this doesn't compare to what I did on St. Patrick's Day. For my last three years of college, I was always busy on that day and could never party with the rest of the town. Well, I did this year. I started drinking with my friends Greg, Ben, and Alex at midnight and we tried to stay up as long as we could. Eventually, Ben and Alex fell asleep, but Greg and I managed to keep plowing through vodka tonics until the sun started coming up. At one point, he went to the bathroom, and when he emerged, he had the chance to be the only witness to one of my finest moments. In a drunken stupor, I had collapsed onto the kitchen floor with a resounding thud, at which point I heard him laugh at me from inside the bathroom. I began to think about all the ways in which I had failed to figure out what I was going to do with my life, and now, here I was, drunk, lying flat on my back on my friend's kitchen floor. He came out of the bathroom and looked at me sprawled out in front of the stove. "Damn it," I said, or most likely yelled. "I don't have any prospects. I don't have a job. I don't know what time it is." I looked at the nearby wall clock. "It's nine AM, and I'm in rare form." I then tried to pick myself up, but all I did in the end was flop over onto my stomach. Greg and I then proceeded to laugh for about half an hour. Later that day, I left to go to another St. Patrick's party which I had promised to attend, but, according to Greg's house mates, who are also close friends of mine, Greg walked around all the rest of that week, yelling "I have no job, I have no prospects." You kind of had to be there. It was pretty great.
So, I'd really like to try to update every day, like I did back in 2004. I have to cut this journal entry off now because I have some studying to get to and I have to go to work later. I really do think that this entry should get you up to speed on what's been happening to me. This covers the big events. Sometimes, life really is just one drunken moment of self-punishment after another. Nice day outside.
W.