Wait, what?
Livejournal? My god I forgot this thing even existed until just now. And hey look, some people I know (Jordan Trovillion and Pat Ives, namely) still use it? I'd have never guessed.
Well, sure, why not? Besides, what else am I doing? I've been too sick to work the past few days, so might as well entertain myself while making a record of my current condition.
What's going on with me: (I want to believe that I'm writing the following entirely for my own sake, but I have no way of proving that to myself)
I graduated from Alma College with a Bachelor's of Science in Biology, Suma Cum Laude, baby! And I do love the liberal arts. Shit, man, I can tell you about nutrient cycles, history, zooplankton, limnology, evolution, chemistry, music, cell structure, biochemistry, economics. Whatever. You get what you put in, and in retrospect it looks to me like I put in.
...pardon the boasting.
But graduating should come with the following warning labels:
1. You just spent 4 years of your life making this place and these people your home. Now they're all leaving, and you have to leave too. After today, the community that you've so thoroughly embedded yourself in literally disappears forever. Take a look around you at these people in caps and gowns. You've got memories with half or more of these 300 or so, some brief, some shallow, some deep, some years-long. You all know eachother. They're around. They're your classmates, your neighbors, your roommates, your friends, and your acquaintances. They're most of the people you know, even the ones you think are douche-bags. They're your people. Nobody else is. And now off they all go in different directions. No going home after this, no sir. Sorry! Shoulda warned you!
2. You know how you're a good student? Well, that's partly because school-work fulfills you in a way that it doesn't for most people. Or maybe it fills you because you're good at it. Either way, whether you like it or not it's become an immportant part of you, a component of what brings you satisfaction. But now that constant stream of "things you must do and learn before such and such a date" is going to be cut off. So hopefully you didn't get too attached to it during, you know... your whole life so far. And hopefully you don't attach test scores to your sense of self-worth, because you sure don't get any more of them.
#2 must be why so many of my fellow smarty-heads went off to graduate schools. Because it's comforting for them to be at school.
I however am arguably less ambitious and more brave. I've got better things to learn! Like how to live. Sounds obscure, but I mean something specific by it. Where I am trying to learn what I'm trying to learn right now is on a tiny little organic farm up north. A rather luddite organic farm. Not even a plow, just a pitchfork. And let me tell you, it's a lot of hard physical work, which is NOT something I'm accustomed to. But I'm doing my best to accustom myself to it. Not easy. Let me repeat: hard. Like life. Which, as it turns out, is also hard. So no one told you life was gonna be this way (your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's DOA... It's like you're always stuck in second gear...)
Hey here's a great way we can prepare someone for life, which is uncomfortable and indeterminate: have them spend all of their formative years sheltered and working towards a specific goal! Yes, they'll be so ready for life after that. Yes indeed. Great meeting, everyone. We've come up with a sensible solution. Now lets all shake hands and go out for burgers.
That's ungrateful of me, I'm sorry. I wouldn't trade my education in for nothin,' don't get me wrong. I like knowing things. There's lots of cool stuff I understand about the world thanks to my overpriced degree that others are deprived of understanding... though it does make me feel a little, you know... priveleged. In the middle class white male sense of the term. Blech. But intentionally going off and doing hard work for little pay because I want as little to do with the inherently exploitive economic system around me has got to count for something, hasn't it???
There's more to say about my life, of course.
There's Josie to consider. She sure is something. The only thing about her is, well... Falling madly and hopelessly and beautifully in love with a gorgeous and ingenious girl in April can cause a man to make some promises to himself. Writing letters back and forth all summer, cherishing occassional visits like rare butterflies, and the best fall semester of your life, followed by the loneliest winter semester of your life while she's thousands of miles away, can cause a man to become more certain about these promises. And then terribly her return, a new woman unrecognizable and strong and skeptical and adult and sexy and...
disinterested...
but still faithful...
can make a man wonder about the promises he made. Because then they get hard to keep and you're not so sure if she even cares to see you keep them.
What is the best he can do? He can pull up his boot-straps, he can shake it all of and slap himself awake like he would if he were driving at 3 am, and he can never mind that confused head of his, and he can put her first. And well if that doesn't pay off nothing will.
It just sounds terribly desperate, to be bearing so much weight when she is bearing so little. That's real love, I guess, though. I hope so anyway. Love isn't that short-lived shit they put in movies, so this is hopefully more like it...
Or I'm just pretty pathetic...
How's that for a packed entry!?
-Brad
Well, sure, why not? Besides, what else am I doing? I've been too sick to work the past few days, so might as well entertain myself while making a record of my current condition.
What's going on with me: (I want to believe that I'm writing the following entirely for my own sake, but I have no way of proving that to myself)
I graduated from Alma College with a Bachelor's of Science in Biology, Suma Cum Laude, baby! And I do love the liberal arts. Shit, man, I can tell you about nutrient cycles, history, zooplankton, limnology, evolution, chemistry, music, cell structure, biochemistry, economics. Whatever. You get what you put in, and in retrospect it looks to me like I put in.
...pardon the boasting.
But graduating should come with the following warning labels:
1. You just spent 4 years of your life making this place and these people your home. Now they're all leaving, and you have to leave too. After today, the community that you've so thoroughly embedded yourself in literally disappears forever. Take a look around you at these people in caps and gowns. You've got memories with half or more of these 300 or so, some brief, some shallow, some deep, some years-long. You all know eachother. They're around. They're your classmates, your neighbors, your roommates, your friends, and your acquaintances. They're most of the people you know, even the ones you think are douche-bags. They're your people. Nobody else is. And now off they all go in different directions. No going home after this, no sir. Sorry! Shoulda warned you!
2. You know how you're a good student? Well, that's partly because school-work fulfills you in a way that it doesn't for most people. Or maybe it fills you because you're good at it. Either way, whether you like it or not it's become an immportant part of you, a component of what brings you satisfaction. But now that constant stream of "things you must do and learn before such and such a date" is going to be cut off. So hopefully you didn't get too attached to it during, you know... your whole life so far. And hopefully you don't attach test scores to your sense of self-worth, because you sure don't get any more of them.
#2 must be why so many of my fellow smarty-heads went off to graduate schools. Because it's comforting for them to be at school.
I however am arguably less ambitious and more brave. I've got better things to learn! Like how to live. Sounds obscure, but I mean something specific by it. Where I am trying to learn what I'm trying to learn right now is on a tiny little organic farm up north. A rather luddite organic farm. Not even a plow, just a pitchfork. And let me tell you, it's a lot of hard physical work, which is NOT something I'm accustomed to. But I'm doing my best to accustom myself to it. Not easy. Let me repeat: hard. Like life. Which, as it turns out, is also hard. So no one told you life was gonna be this way (your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's DOA... It's like you're always stuck in second gear...)
Hey here's a great way we can prepare someone for life, which is uncomfortable and indeterminate: have them spend all of their formative years sheltered and working towards a specific goal! Yes, they'll be so ready for life after that. Yes indeed. Great meeting, everyone. We've come up with a sensible solution. Now lets all shake hands and go out for burgers.
That's ungrateful of me, I'm sorry. I wouldn't trade my education in for nothin,' don't get me wrong. I like knowing things. There's lots of cool stuff I understand about the world thanks to my overpriced degree that others are deprived of understanding... though it does make me feel a little, you know... priveleged. In the middle class white male sense of the term. Blech. But intentionally going off and doing hard work for little pay because I want as little to do with the inherently exploitive economic system around me has got to count for something, hasn't it???
There's more to say about my life, of course.
There's Josie to consider. She sure is something. The only thing about her is, well... Falling madly and hopelessly and beautifully in love with a gorgeous and ingenious girl in April can cause a man to make some promises to himself. Writing letters back and forth all summer, cherishing occassional visits like rare butterflies, and the best fall semester of your life, followed by the loneliest winter semester of your life while she's thousands of miles away, can cause a man to become more certain about these promises. And then terribly her return, a new woman unrecognizable and strong and skeptical and adult and sexy and...
disinterested...
but still faithful...
can make a man wonder about the promises he made. Because then they get hard to keep and you're not so sure if she even cares to see you keep them.
What is the best he can do? He can pull up his boot-straps, he can shake it all of and slap himself awake like he would if he were driving at 3 am, and he can never mind that confused head of his, and he can put her first. And well if that doesn't pay off nothing will.
It just sounds terribly desperate, to be bearing so much weight when she is bearing so little. That's real love, I guess, though. I hope so anyway. Love isn't that short-lived shit they put in movies, so this is hopefully more like it...
Or I'm just pretty pathetic...
How's that for a packed entry!?
-Brad