I can feel the pulse again.
Well it has definitely been a long time since I last wrote an entry for livejournal. Once I started University it just didn't feel natural to put down all my thoughts every night anymore. I'm not sure why exactly--maybe it's because I was meeting alot of new people and I really wanted to be less introverted and analytical and less focussed upon defining my life. And I guess I've always seen these livejournal entries as exactly that--an attempt to understand everything thats going on. Well, that and a place where I posted all the hilarious Youtube videos that I found. Maybe it's not quite like that though. Maybe so much was changing with University and all that I just didn't exactly know how to explain it all. I don't really know what the point of writing is if I have no idea what I want to say. Also, the moment I put my life into words I establish a concrete perspective and, in general, I just wanted to leave my mind open for the beginning of school. I don't know, the reason probably doesn't matter very much.
But anyway, as I said I've been meaning to start writing again for awhile-- I miss this for some reason. New Years' seems like a pretty dramatic time to start again. It probably has something to do with the nostalgia and reflection that comes at this time of year. Obviously I have a big gap in my journal record here, and there's no way in hell I'd be able to recount everything. But I guess I'll roughly start off again where I left off:
The first week or so of school was kind of frenzied and ridiculous. At first I kind of resented ISW at first; everybody from my college would cheer constantly and dance on tables and the like. The thought that I was paying so much money to come to a glorified summer camp made me angry or something like that. Of course, I happily conformed within a few days and actually got pretty into the cheering. I painted myself all sorts of different colours, yelled stupid chants along with everyone else and all sorts of other fun things--sumo wrestling and jumping in the river and what not. Looking back it was actually one of my favourite parts of school so far. Nobody really knew other people and everyone was friendly and receptive. Everyone from my staircase would lie in the sun by the river listening to "The Islands" while weaving hemp bracelets. I know how hippie that sounds but I really enjoyed it. It was nice to not need an excuse to hang out with people.
Of course, classes started after that and the legitimate side of school took over for awhile. I really love some of my courses--like my Biological Anthropology course. In the labs we examined skeletal remains in order to discover certain physical traits (age, gender, cause of death, etc). My other classes all have their high points, but I don't really find them as stimulating I guess. Cultural Studies I just find outright offensive to my intelligence. I'm fairly certain that I could write the final essay right now, without knowing any of the course content from the second portion of the year. Alot of people write the papers while under the influence so that they can better describe abstract thoughts and draw questionable parallels. I don't actually doubt it. What a terrible class.
In general though, I don't really find the classes or the amount of homework very difficult. That isn't always true-- during mid terms in December I was spending the vast majority of my time trying to jam hundreds of pages worth of information into my mind. Aside from periods of time like that and occasional late nights because of essays I actually find that I have alot of free time. I've watched all five seasons of Scrubs for example, and beaten a number of Super Nintendo games with a girl down the hall from me. I also spend a great deal of time re-arranging my room and going on long runs with people that I don't really. For whatever reason my school doesn't really have that big of a party side to it-- which was a surprise. I don't really mind or anything, it just means that I drink much more at home than I do while I'm at school. It probably makes alot more sense economically anyway.
I guess life in residence wasn't really what I originally thought it was going to be though. It didn't really feel as if I was standing out as much as other people where and it didn't seem as if many new people really wanted to get to know me. I was kinda pre-occupied with making the most of University and I really think that hindered me. I wanted crazy awesome stories about my first year at school, and I was kind of unhappy when it didn't seem like that was happening. It was my high expectations that caused those problems though. Looking back I've already done lots of stupid things that would make cool stories, I just didn't see it as being good enough. Also, it was stupid to think that people would just come and talk to me without me putting in effort first. It's annoying, but I pretty much retraced my own footsteps in facing this problem-- a very similar thing happened to me at the beginning of highschool. Fortunately it didn't take me as long to realize the same thing was happening all over again. So I sought people out and started talking to as many people as I could--even if it wasn't nearly as easy as it was during frosh week. I guess I'm not really as good at handling change as I would have liked to think.
I suppose it worked though, because the people that I'm planning on living with next year (to hell with more residence) include the people that I met like this. I know alot of people at school pretty well now, and I like living there with all of them. I feel like I fit in pretty nicely, which is an accomplishment seeing as I didn't really feel like that for the first bit. It's not really perfect, and I still don't have that stereotypically awesome University life filled with nothing but awesome adventures and incredible moments and so forth. But I have something that works well for me. It's annoying that I rehashed old problems, but atleast I realized it much more quickly this time (seeing as it took the first two years of highschool). I'm happy there, and even though I don't connect with everyone there, I DO connect with a few. And I think I've regained some sense of perspective as well (hence the writing once more). All's going well on my end.
There's so much more I could write, but it'll all come out later assuming I keep up with this once more. I have to sleep right now.
Oh yeah, and for the sake of keeping tradition, here's another contextually inappropriate video that I find pretty hilarious.
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