ten years
It has been ten years since I graduated from college. Just shy anyway. I now only have 2400 dollars of student loans outstanding. I just paid about that amount yesterday. My issue these days is not being able to do schoolwork. I really don't want to do it for some reason. I don't think it will change me, but if it does I don't want that change. I don't think what I produce is quality, so don't produce anything. I sometimes get positive about doing it still, is the amazing thing. But then I go in and any other task is preferable. It is very important to play words with friends for example, or hang the maps in the office. or clean the desk. my attentions span is shorter than it was. I used to write like this for much longer but am exhausted of it already. I always read is the thing. I read and then forget. I feel like I never remember anything. My measure of importance doesn't extend to step by step ArcMap (a mapping program) instructions. The way to learn that stuff is repetition and I avoid it like the plague and don't do it enough to pick it up. One can't consciously remember that stuff, can one?
The procrastination is catching up and will at the end of this semester if I don't get it under control. It is sad because my whole life just suffers under its weight. I know this and yet can't get the gumption to stick it out through one work session until the work is done. The work is presentations and labs and final projects.
But back to my first thought for this post. It has been nearly ten years since my first year at Glacier National Park. Currently my stated goal is to get this masters degree in geographical and sustainability sciences in order to be attractive to the park service so that I may get a job as visitor use assistant and then possibly something year round. I tell the professors I want to be involved in the planning, the management of public lands, but I question if that would really be enjoyable. Having seen how it is done, with value matrices for different alternatives and cost benefit accounting, these long unreadable documents. I would be producing these, is the thing. Retch. I don't want to be a part of such shite. I prefer reading the lay person comments, that actually make sense.
Back again, it has been ten years and I'm here in Iowa City for the past 3, doing the same thing, but doing worse and worse at it it seems. I don't think I am really changing, except in that I'm physically older and in worse shape, sitting on this procrastination seat. This do-nothing chair. Oh the exquisite pleasure that is to be had from completing a lab. HA! It would be a relief though, it would lighten this feeling of incapacity. The folks here are friendlies, but not friends I declare. I'm pitied occasionally, as today, when I try to connect with an office mate. He thinks I want a pep talk for my studies but I don't want to talk about them at all. I want him to not talk about studies. How can we really be this serious about ourselves in this office?
My advisor pushes me to be better but I think I'm fine the way I am. Who is he to try to shape me. A concept must be quantifiable he tries to tell me. Okay, that is a different definition for the word than the common one. That's fine, but it annoys me that a perfectly good word, like concept, must gain a new definition. No you can't steal my words. My definition is larger than yours. It's more important, but I suppose it's no skin off my back to make room for another one. I appreciate this, but resent it.
So ten years ago I first worked in Glacier. and then twice more two years apart each. I want to live there, but when there, don't. I feel at home in Des Moines and nowhere else. But I don't think life there is consequential. The same for life here, and in Idaho, and in glacier when I was there. This isn't my life, my life is elsewhere. My life is in hiking and skateboarding and snowboarding. My life is exertion and exhaustion, not stuffing my face watching television shows and movies. But I don't exert myself and live for 1 hour and 45 minutes each day. That would be selling out. No, I simply live for 6 hours or whatever I can grab on the weekends. And I live my philosophy by pushing myself toward failure, proving that I do not care about this academic course, this department, this class, this assignment. I am a skater, after all. I watch the thrasher videos and eat cheese bites.
Eleven years ago I lived in Colorado Springs in a single dorm room with a small window looking at pikes peak. That wasn't my home. I visited the group of friends that let me in. My life was split. I keep on doing this. I split it up. I am not here, really, I am elsewhere. I am divided. This is what I hate in a daily schedule. I'd rather do nothing all day than commit to following a schedule. Or lettign a schedule dictate my attention. I see it as letting some ruler control me. No i will not I will do whatever the fuck I want. It's only when the ruler is truly in power that I bend to it... like at work driving where I must do it, physically. Grading was so miserable because the mind is not free. The mind must be yoked blindered and made to haul. I'd rather my body be? But that is not true! Freedom is the goal, and the illusion of freedom offered by procrastination and task avoidance is what I am settling for. I am tethered, and it is good. But i don't feel that it is good. I forget how awful aimlessness is. I am happy to have the restrictions and foolishly revolt against them like a silly horse that needs the protection of the pasture fence but broods about its existance. Out side the fence I was truly low. Here inside I can enjoy my lowness, my depression, and the structure, and limply fight against it but of course to no avail.
I could quit tomorrow. And be unemployed and soon to be broke and unable to recreate as I like. And then the obligations would sting even more. I should work for the positive. It is difficult for me. Always the defensive player since elementary soccer. Games of skate, can hold on but seldom win. And never skunk somebody, of course that would be mean!
I have an appointment with a orthopedic surgeon - probably not a surgeon, but somebody who may recommend surgery about my ankle. I have osteoarthritis they say in my ankle. Arthritis I think is a misnomer because to me that results from age and long term use. But i suppose it's my definition of the word that's in error, who am I to call it a misnomer. I'm fucking Cyrus that's who. Anyway overuse of ankle has caused these osteophytes to grow on the socket of the ankle, which cause pain and decreased motion. THis is my belief, anyway. The physical therapist suggest this might be the case - he said, "if it's a physical blockage, this won't help" I thought the stretches weren't going to help. The question is would the surgery really help? Would the side effects be worse than the current situation? It's not bad, I just can't skateboard without pain, which is pretty bad. But should I just take the ib profuen and not be such a baby? And lose weight, of course...
I eat out like my dad these days, every lunch. I alway dream of skipping it and donating to a bum or a charity. But then just get a sandwich and an ice cream sandwich.
The procrastination is catching up and will at the end of this semester if I don't get it under control. It is sad because my whole life just suffers under its weight. I know this and yet can't get the gumption to stick it out through one work session until the work is done. The work is presentations and labs and final projects.
But back to my first thought for this post. It has been nearly ten years since my first year at Glacier National Park. Currently my stated goal is to get this masters degree in geographical and sustainability sciences in order to be attractive to the park service so that I may get a job as visitor use assistant and then possibly something year round. I tell the professors I want to be involved in the planning, the management of public lands, but I question if that would really be enjoyable. Having seen how it is done, with value matrices for different alternatives and cost benefit accounting, these long unreadable documents. I would be producing these, is the thing. Retch. I don't want to be a part of such shite. I prefer reading the lay person comments, that actually make sense.
Back again, it has been ten years and I'm here in Iowa City for the past 3, doing the same thing, but doing worse and worse at it it seems. I don't think I am really changing, except in that I'm physically older and in worse shape, sitting on this procrastination seat. This do-nothing chair. Oh the exquisite pleasure that is to be had from completing a lab. HA! It would be a relief though, it would lighten this feeling of incapacity. The folks here are friendlies, but not friends I declare. I'm pitied occasionally, as today, when I try to connect with an office mate. He thinks I want a pep talk for my studies but I don't want to talk about them at all. I want him to not talk about studies. How can we really be this serious about ourselves in this office?
My advisor pushes me to be better but I think I'm fine the way I am. Who is he to try to shape me. A concept must be quantifiable he tries to tell me. Okay, that is a different definition for the word than the common one. That's fine, but it annoys me that a perfectly good word, like concept, must gain a new definition. No you can't steal my words. My definition is larger than yours. It's more important, but I suppose it's no skin off my back to make room for another one. I appreciate this, but resent it.
So ten years ago I first worked in Glacier. and then twice more two years apart each. I want to live there, but when there, don't. I feel at home in Des Moines and nowhere else. But I don't think life there is consequential. The same for life here, and in Idaho, and in glacier when I was there. This isn't my life, my life is elsewhere. My life is in hiking and skateboarding and snowboarding. My life is exertion and exhaustion, not stuffing my face watching television shows and movies. But I don't exert myself and live for 1 hour and 45 minutes each day. That would be selling out. No, I simply live for 6 hours or whatever I can grab on the weekends. And I live my philosophy by pushing myself toward failure, proving that I do not care about this academic course, this department, this class, this assignment. I am a skater, after all. I watch the thrasher videos and eat cheese bites.
Eleven years ago I lived in Colorado Springs in a single dorm room with a small window looking at pikes peak. That wasn't my home. I visited the group of friends that let me in. My life was split. I keep on doing this. I split it up. I am not here, really, I am elsewhere. I am divided. This is what I hate in a daily schedule. I'd rather do nothing all day than commit to following a schedule. Or lettign a schedule dictate my attention. I see it as letting some ruler control me. No i will not I will do whatever the fuck I want. It's only when the ruler is truly in power that I bend to it... like at work driving where I must do it, physically. Grading was so miserable because the mind is not free. The mind must be yoked blindered and made to haul. I'd rather my body be? But that is not true! Freedom is the goal, and the illusion of freedom offered by procrastination and task avoidance is what I am settling for. I am tethered, and it is good. But i don't feel that it is good. I forget how awful aimlessness is. I am happy to have the restrictions and foolishly revolt against them like a silly horse that needs the protection of the pasture fence but broods about its existance. Out side the fence I was truly low. Here inside I can enjoy my lowness, my depression, and the structure, and limply fight against it but of course to no avail.
I could quit tomorrow. And be unemployed and soon to be broke and unable to recreate as I like. And then the obligations would sting even more. I should work for the positive. It is difficult for me. Always the defensive player since elementary soccer. Games of skate, can hold on but seldom win. And never skunk somebody, of course that would be mean!
I have an appointment with a orthopedic surgeon - probably not a surgeon, but somebody who may recommend surgery about my ankle. I have osteoarthritis they say in my ankle. Arthritis I think is a misnomer because to me that results from age and long term use. But i suppose it's my definition of the word that's in error, who am I to call it a misnomer. I'm fucking Cyrus that's who. Anyway overuse of ankle has caused these osteophytes to grow on the socket of the ankle, which cause pain and decreased motion. THis is my belief, anyway. The physical therapist suggest this might be the case - he said, "if it's a physical blockage, this won't help" I thought the stretches weren't going to help. The question is would the surgery really help? Would the side effects be worse than the current situation? It's not bad, I just can't skateboard without pain, which is pretty bad. But should I just take the ib profuen and not be such a baby? And lose weight, of course...
I eat out like my dad these days, every lunch. I alway dream of skipping it and donating to a bum or a charity. But then just get a sandwich and an ice cream sandwich.