Snow Day

Well, I have a snow day today, and I am not even in school anymore. Sometimes I forget how good the management is at my work until they call me at 6:30 am from home on the day of a bad storm to tell me not to come in because I live in East Jesus Nowhere. Yes, Winter has arrived, and it is dumping copious amounts of snow on everything. I guess this is classified as a blizzard because of the 50 mph winds. That, I think, is the worst part. In inches I think we have about 9 or 10 so far and it's still snowing here in CT, but of course the wind is the worst thing and is making it drift and be much higher in places. It's also brutally cold. Sometimes when it snows it's just a little below freezing, but no, it's bitter cold right now.

Apparently the weather man said that this could be classified as the worst storm since 1993 when we had another blizzard that dumped about three feet of snow on the ground. I remember that storm. We have pictures of it in a very old photo album somewhere in my house. I'm not particularly bothered by the storm as I don't have to go anywhere, and since I generally enjoy snow, this is ok with me. I would prefer it without the crazy wind, but you can't have everything. I would like to go sledding, but I have no idea where we would even have a sled anymore. Maybe out in the shed, buried. It's probably broken. I'll have to go buy a cheap k-mart sled (those are the best kind anyway) when this storm stops. This is only the beginning of Winter. I'm sure there will be more storms. I think I'll probably sit around in my pajamas underneath my CT sheep wool blanket which is the warmest blanket ever, and watch movies on Netflix. My sister got me a six month Netflix subscription for Christmas which comes with one movie rental a day and unlimited downloads. It was a pretty sweet gift, especially since I am currently snowed in.

Christmas wasn't so bad, although I could have done without some of the relatives on Christmas Day. Weird as it is to say, I rather like having a small Christmas in my sister's condo with just my Dad, Mom, and sister. My mother gave me an absolutely beautiful new wool coat, which I love, and I got a 1 tb external hard drive, which was what I asked for. I think Christmas last year was a little more fun, as my sister was incredibly sick and there was more confusion this year, but it certainly wasn't bad. I got a nice bonus from work and money from my dad, all of which is going to pay my student loan bills - boring, but I am rather poor.

I read an article on Yahoo news about reasons to quit your job, and one reason not to quit your job is if you are happy with everything but the pay. This is true to a point. I am mostly happy with most things except for the pay at my job, but at the same time my job is entirely irrelevant to anything I might want to be doing in the future, so it feels more like a waste of time than anything. At the same time, I know I get paid well for what I do, it's just not enough to make a living off of, or live on my own. Therefore, I think money is a very valid reason to be looking for another job. In any case, I think I'm going to go watch some movies and for once stop worrying about jobs and money. I'm going to enjoy my day off.

The Internet

Well, I'm feeling a need to write. Even if I can't say exactly what's on my mind here right now (Big Secrets). I can still write anyway. Life hasn't really begun to look up and people haven't become any less idiotic in the last several days. In fact, it's gotten worse. Who knows what makes people behave in the way they do sometimes. I studied Psychology in the hopes it would help me to figure it out, but I'm no closer now than I was five years ago. Sure, some things are easy to pinpoint and figure out, but others, it's like trying to grab and hold onto a fistful of water. Also, no matter what, someone is always going to assign behavior an idiotic reason when that has nothing whatsoever to do with the current behavior - i.e. this person has a narcissistic personality disorder, or it's because Daddy didn't love him, etc. etc. I see this countless times and ways all over the internet every day. Even the comments made about television shows and their characters. Some of the observations people make are so ludicrous and inaccurate. "*REVELATION* I can't believe that character acted that way, he/she must have borderline personality disorder!!!!11!! *REVELATION*

People really need to learn to shut the fuck up when they don't know what they're talking about. You can't just assign personality disorders off at random for personality flaws. Sure, it's easy to do. In fact, if I looked at every single person I've ever met on a level that's a little deeper than very casual acquaintance, I could diagnose each and every one of them with a personality disorder. It's extremely easy to misdiagnose personality disorders, but really it's something that shouldn't be thrown around so easily. Placing the label of personality disorder upon a person can have damning effects, mostly because they seem to be the least curable of all mental ailments - you try curing a sociopath. I was thinking of this only because I recently finished the Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson (some of the best books I've read in a long time) and Lisbeth, the main character, has been misdiagnosed by misguided therapists her whole life. The effects of it, of course, are innumerable. It is very hard to change someone's mind once they've decided you are crazy.

Speaking of the internet, another thing that people do when commenting or analyzing a show, for example, is cry racism. "That family is so WHITE, of course they act like that" or "All of the black people on this show are the same, the writers must be racist!" Holy christ, people, give it a rest. It's a television show. Its purpose is to entertain. I read all of these comments with amazement. People get so angry, over absolutely nothing, on the internet. They create arguments for themselves over problems that never existed in the first place. It is rather fascinating. The internet is a funny place. You can say anything you want, with no limits and no guidelines. There's no one to check up on you, no teacher to mark your paper up with red pen if you give misinformation. The consequence of that is a plethora of misinformation that people have accumulated that they freely spew because they know there will be no backlash. Anonymity creates an interesting populous of people who I could guarantee would never be quite so opinionated were you to have a conversation with them in real life. I love the internet but hate it at the same time.

I suppose I should wrap this up now. I wasn't sure what this post was going to be about when I started writing but I am glad to see that it ended up with a definitive point. I never know where I'm beginning in writing but I seem to always end up somewhere in the end.

Happy Holidays?

So it's almost the holidays - Thanksgiving on Thursday and then of course Christmas next month. The package store is beginning to own my soul. It pretty much does that all season long. I am not excited at all for the holidays. The older I get, the less fun they seem to be, along with everything else. I'm a little depressed. Somehow, and I don't know if it's just because I am feeling a little down, it seems that everyone around me is having a hard time of it too. I don't know if it's the lack of sunshine or cold, or what, but everything seems to be harder lately.

Earlier on in life, I always had a set plan I was on, I guess, and I never really thought about it much. I always just figured that I would figure out what came next when the time came. It's here now, and I don't know what I'm doing. I just happened to finish college when there are no jobs. Apparently I'm not alone in not being able to find one. I feel that I probably would be able to find one if I cared a little more about what I was going to be doing. I care, but I don't at the same time, and it's a dangerous place to be. Many things in my life haven't worked out as planned, for sure, and I never expected anything to be easy, but that won't stop me from wishing it was. I'm lazy as hell. No one is forcing me to do anything. I am applying for jobs because I can't particularly think of anything better to do. I have to do something. I can't keep exploiting my parents forever. I have a feeling if I were forced to do something, I would do it. It would help to have someone who would tell me I was being a weak idiot. No one will. Everyone is all, "Oh, it's not really your fault, the economy sucks, blah blah, it's fine, you'll find something eventually." My favorite is "Why don't you just go back to school then, if you can't find a job." Yeah, a solid plan, except that I am ALREADY in debt and can barely afford to pay those loans, much less attempting to get into a grad school with less than stellar grades, and taking out even MORE loans, so that when I graduate with a Masters or something I can be in even more debt that I am in now, and most likely still jobless. Basically, I would be me, now, with an advanced degree, and lots of debt. It's like a fucking merry-go-round and it's so fucking annoying.

Speaking of annoying - people in general. It might be me, but people have become even more idiotic recently. I feel rather alienated. I talk to very few people. Being the shy person that I am, it is always hard for me to open up to people, so when communication halts between me and another person it's incredibly hard for me to begin communication again. I know that is a poor excuse, but I have always been shy. It's like an ingrained part of me that will never go away. In spite of being shy, I am incredibly social and love to talk. I know, I make no sense, but I am who I am. Therefore, having no one talking to me is making me depressed which in turn makes me even less likely to go out and seek social interaction. Another fucking merry-go-round. I suppose I am just stuck in a rut, and I spend a lot of time thinking about how to go about getting out of it. I like to come up with elaborately detailed plans in my head which I will never follow through on. Most of them require lots more money and a lot more ambition than I seem to have in real life. Reality is almost always more dreary than what I can come up with in my own head, but I suppose that would be the case with most people.

Long and short of this entry is I'm very lonely. I feel sad a lot of the time, defeated, with zero energy. I know it's not helping, but I can't seem to shake it this time. My dog makes me smile more than anything in the world. I love her to death. She is better than any person. She is always there, cuddly and sweet and crazy, and completely huggable. She is a beacon of bright light in my otherwise dreary existence. I do not care how cliche that sentence was, it is entirely the truth. Our lives are plagued by cliches. I of course am still ever hopeful as always that things will turn around. As always, I must remind myself that there are people and things in the world much worse than my life. There are a great many things about my life that I have enjoyed and still enjoy. I try my hardest to focus on the good instead of the bad, to keep a positive attitude even though I know I default to a negative one. Here's to hoping for some Christmas magic to rejuvenate me. There's definitely something wrong when my favorite holiday fails to excite me at all. We shall see.

Ellipses...

I'm bored. I'm bored I'm bored I'm bored. So damn bored, it's ridiculous. I don't understand how some people can just sit around all the time and not go crazy. When I get bored, I read, and when I get tired of that, I read something else, and when I get tired of that, I drink. Healthy, eh? I don't know what is wrong with me. It's hard for me to even concentrate on a chapter in a book without becoming restless, which is not like me. In the past, when this happened to me, I'd throw myself into some situation which would invariably cause me trouble for some reason. Then when things settled back into boring, I could tell myself it was simply relaxing and blah blah, until I got bored again. I guess I need to go back to school, since finding a job has proved to be a lost cause. I've almost given up. I guess I don't care enough. I don't know. Maybe I don't.

I miss learning things. I like learning. I don't like tests and all that jargon, but I do enjoy learning. I just can't focus on one thing long enough to learn a LOT about one thing. I can't focus at all, in fact. My brain feels like it's constantly on and moving, a million times faster than I can sort anything out. I guess it's compensation for the fact that my outer life has become rather stand-still and boring. I suppose I've shut some people out, but it wasn't intentional. I just get tired sometimes, of all the idiocy, of which there is a lot. Plus, not having money makes it easier to shut myself away. I don't really want to do that. I don't need to become the insanely shy girl I was when I was younger. In some ways I'll always be that girl, but I think for the most part I've learned to deal with it.

In an effort to not make my first blog entry after a long hiatus of blog posting negative, I can talk about the one positive thing in my life right now, my rescue puppy Sydney. I absolutely adore her, and she provides every day with a fairly large dose of joy. She is smaller than I expected, but she doesn't act at all like a small dog, and she is not lacking in personality. It took her awhile to get adjusted to living here, but now she knows it is her home, and she loves it, and running in the woods, jumping on rocks, and running running running. She's lightning fast. She's happy, and she's my girl.

Something interesting please happen? I am too poor to do anything but something that will definitely cause me bodily harm. I'd like to keep my eyes and fingers.

Thinking

It's really hot out. I've been thinking about a lot of things lately. Not that that is anything new, but I notice as I get older there are things I take pleasure in that I wouldn't have as a child, and things that I took great pleasure in as a child that I care for very little now. I mean that's a pretty obvious thing to happen as you grow up I guess. My biggest thought is just that it's a little disconcerting when you think about it and realize that everything you thought you knew about yourself might be wrong. I have to remind myself that there are things about me which are constant and will never change - the things I am most happy about myself as a person in general, and will always be a part of me and who I am.

As usual I am not entirely sure where I was going with that. I guess I analyze life and the changes that happen in it more often than most people. I feel very aware of things. It's almost hyper-awareness. Then again...some things I wish I wasn't so aware of sometimes. I feel as though my place in the world is not defined. I have no place. I do, but at the same time I don't, and that is a very lonely thought. My place is always in between. It's as if I'm constantly just out of reach of something amazing. I haven't quite figured out how to reach that something amazing. I guess I'm always at an "in-between" stage. I don't know if I can't get to the other side because I'm not ready for it or if I am just afraid that it won't be better than right now. Maybe right now is the best I'll ever have, and crossing that bridge will just make me look back in anguish at what once was. The thing is, no matter what, you cannot think this way. I cannot think this way, and I know it. It makes no sense, and it's not as if I won't eventually cross the bridge. I have to. There is simply no other choice. I have to know what happens next. I would regret more not going than I would to go in the end, so I will. I need to build up more confidence in my abilities. I am capable of much more than I ever give myself credit for. For some reason a long time ago I taught myself to downplay everything. Now, right when I need to do the opposite, that is working against me. Who knows. Sometimes I just need to stop thinking so much and just do. I do that sometimes, but not with anything potentially life changing. I want to make the right decision. Maybe nothing is the right decision. I guess I'll find out at some point. Tired of typing, and it's hot.

June

I am bored. Second day off in a row, and job prospects are looking worse than ever. I got a call from some kind of hiring manager who told me she would "forward my resume." I wouldn't mind working for this company, but just because this woman forwarded my resume does not mean anything. She just forwarded it. We'll see. I hopefully have some kind of an interview on Friday...it should be interesting since it's something I never thought I would want to do...Supervised visitations. Who knows. Sometimes you have to suck it up and do something you hate. I hate doing that...but hey. Worse things have happened. I really need to make some money, and I really need to stop sitting around my house doing nothing. It's getting me nowhere rather fast. I'm wasting time. I despise boredom, yet it's following me like a plague anyway. If I do not get a job by the end of the summer I am going to apply for AmeriCorps in a different state and move away for a year if I make it in. I need to shake things up a little. I don't really think the Peace Corps is a good idea only because it is for SO long. Two years is a long time. We'll see. I do like Connecticut, but if there's ever a good time to do service work, it's right now, while I'm young.

I'm tired of talking about jobs. The weather can't make up its mind lately but it's been more cloudy and rainy than anything else. It makes me tired. I don't know what to write about. I've been reading House of Leaves and it is amazing, but complicated. There's something gripping and terrifying and satisfying about it. I can't wait to finish it so I can read it again. That sounds strange, but it's just the type of book that you can read again and read it in an entirely different way. I might go read it for a while now actually. I have trouble reading it during the day for some reason, but I think since it's so dark and depressing outside it might be ok.

23

I suppose it's time to update the blogosphere. I have survived until 23, which I personally feel is a massive accomplishment. I graduated. It was anticlimactic, and finding a job quite literally sucks. I hate looking and applying. I finally got a call back this morning. I have not called back yet. I will. The guy said nothing about an interview, just "I was reviewing your resume and have some questions, please get back to me." It's better than nothing, right? I suppose. I am applying for jobs which I have little interest in for the most part. I just have to do something, or I will never be able to get those sweet jobs which pay good salaries and require two years of experience in whatever. The job market is literally pathetic at the moment anyway, so any job doing anything where they are willing to train me is fair game. I hope that whatever I find, if and when I do, isn't too far away.
UConn called asking me for money. Thanks a heap, Uconn. Way to make me feel even more shitty about being a sucky college student and having no job. I need a job pretty soon. I have student loans I need to pay back. The job that called me today is part time, so if I could keep working the packy part time and do that in order to get experience, it would be good, but they only have "questions" so we shall see. I applied for a job in Boston. It's in Arlington. I thought it was them that called until I realized that the number was an 860 number. I felt like a moron, but I have to say I am relieved. I do not want to move away unless the job is so completely bangin' that I can't say no. This job wasn't.
Other than finding a job, life is pretty damn good. The weather, minus the last couple days has been beautiful, summery, and amazing. I have had a mass amount of time to hang out with my friends and drink too much beer. Jess, Allen, and I made homemade martinis for my birthday at Allen's. Allen gave me flowers, and Jess brought a cake. It was a lot of fun, and far better than my birthday last year. I have been enjoying my summer and enjoying the weather. I have great friends. Michelle is home so we are going to spend time together today, and I will get to play with her puppy. I would like for my parents to get a new puppy, and they want one too, but my dad says he "doesn't have time." I laughed and said, yeah, but I do. I have all the freakin' time in the world at the moment. Who knows. I need to go and take a shower so I can call this guy back and see what his "questions" are. It should be interesting. Peace all.

Boredom/Life

It's time to admit it. I like my life a lot. In fact, I love it. There's nothing to complain about. I know great people. I have an amazing family and amazing friends who like to have a good time, But...I am bored. I am bored as fuck. I'm admitting it. I'm bored. Not even really lonely...in fact I enjoy alone time. It's just that...really? Is this what I'm supposed to look forward to when I graduate college? I can't WAIT to graduate. Approximately three weeks. All I can think is...what am I doing? Why am I here? And why am I SO DAMN BORED? I have...uber time. Time coming out my ass, basically. I work three days a week, and I take one class. My job is boring. School is boring. I went to class tonight, and well...all I can say is that I might as well have taught class tonight myself. I knew what my professor was going to say. I could have completed his sentences. I was done writing a sentence in my notes before he was done talking.

Time to be finished with college? Oh yeah. To all those waving me on to grad school - fuck you. I will go when I am good and ready which is when I am ENTIRELY sure of what I want to spend the rest of my life doing. At the moment, I have NO idea. I have to do something. Everybody does something. I'm not doing anything. I have no money. I live at home with my parents. If I want to DO anything, I need to get a job. I don't want to. Just saying that is hard enough. It's not that I don't want to work. I do. I want to be independent more than anything in the world. I just want to do something meaningful. Something worthwhile, for once. I hate feeling useless. I hate that what I'm doing is not benefiting anyone. It's not even really benefiting me, which was the whole point of college, right? I just feel useless. I feel like I have all this knowledge. I have random bits of information. I have little pieces of the puzzle. I'm not doing anything with it. Well I should have done an internship, right? I should have gotten involved in school so my resume would stand out in a crowd. Well I didn't, and it's too late for that now.

I was not the best student in college. Never. I know this. I skipped class a lot. I had things that at the time they were going on seemed more important. Maybe they were. I don't know. Of course if I went to class and followed the rules I would have done just as well as in high school, but I didn't follow the rules, and I did exactly what college students are not supposed to do. I partied too much and cared too little. Why did I party? I don't know. I was a quiet geek in high school. I wanted to have fun. Why does anyone party? Who cares? I don't regret that. Were I not to have done the things I did, I would still be an awkward 14 year old trapped in a 22 year old's body. So I don't regret it. What now? I've partied plenty. It's still fun. I want more than that though. I want my life to be meaningful, and meaningful to me. I couldn't care less what it means to other people...other people are other people, and there are about five or six who matter I've noticed, and they continue to be the same five or six year after year. Maybe one year the six become seven, but at this point I can't really say if that seven will last, so let's stick with six. It's just an approximation anyway.

The whole point of this I guess is that I have been considering some things. Considering only, because if I don't find a job and fit into the American perfect cookie-cutter society, I want to have options. I want to explore. I want to do this anyway, it's just that...well...I've been looking into things that might let me do it sooner. I feel like I spend a lot more time evaluating where I might end up than some people do. I think a lot of people tend to not think of the future and just keep moving in the path that they are on. They never stop and evaluate and think if it is what they really want to be doing. Because if I look at my life in ten years...I want to look back and be happy and proud of what I've accomplished and experienced. I DO NOT want to be that asshole that looks back and goes, "Oh, fuck...I dropped the ball. Really WISH I would have done something different."

That is unacceptable. I refuse to have a life filled with boring ordinary. This is not to say that interesting things can't happen here in good old CT, but so far they are not. I hate when people cop out and leave just because things aren't going their way: aka they run away. I don't really think I would be doing that. I like Connecticut for the most part. I'm ok with living here for now. It's my home. I just wanna see some more things, and do some more things. All I see here right now is people who are my age building lives and families that I am not ready for. I can live by myself if I get a job, I just know I'm not going to be happy doing that. I just know myself well enough to know it won't be enough. I'll be bored. I get bored easily. I've lived on my own already. Joy. Jumped that hurdle. Yeah, it's hard. I had money issues. I had roommate issues. I've done all that. I know how I'll be when I live entirely on my own, which is a hermit who only gets out when her closest friends drag her and her family makes her come home and have dinner. It seems silly to my friends, because to them I am the most talkative outgoing person in the world. In actuality, I'm really shy.

I know the shyness is part of who I am, but it's also part of how society looks at me. I look like the quiet girl who doesn't know anything. Thanks, and yes, appearances are deceiving. Oh, and yes, I have my eyebrow pierced, and no, it didn't hurt, and thanks...it's not really a big deal, I forget it's there most of the time and I did it when I was 18, and thanks for judging me all at once when you have absolutely no idea what my life has been like. Lord how I wish I could say that to all the jackasses that ask me this at the package store. Oh yeah...also...I am old enough to drink, and even though you are 45, I still probably know far more about alcohol than you do, seeing as you're still buying Natty Ice and Busch Light. Oh and hey...I really don't know much about it either. I'm just 22 after all. I know I look like I am sixteen but it doesn't mean I am an idiot.

Wow I guess I missed blogging. Doesn't matter really - paper notebooks, online blog...I can go on and on about shit. It really is shit, all of it. I know I will figure stuff out, I always do, and life doesn't really have a pause button. If life had controls I'm pretty sure most people would just fast forward to see what happens at the end. We are curious beings, after all. Gotta know what the great afterlife is all about, right? Who knows. Knowing me, I'd trip and hit rewind. Wouldn't it be nice if I had something better to write about than my lame corner of existence? We'll see. I've been doing a lot of thinking...which I do all the time, but specific thinking. Thinking about what I am going to do. I feel like that past gone dandelion that someone blew off all in one breath into the wind. Nice, isn't it? Except now I'm all over the damn place, and drifting over everything, and unable to land. Oh, and I probably make you sneeze.

Small Worries

I suppose I should make this a short post while I finish my coffee because right now the weather feels literally like summer, and it is about 75 degrees and sunny with a breeze. It's not going to last either, according to the weather report, and I have oodles of time today since class isn't until 6 pm. I feel as if maybe this weather is an apology for the crappy winter as well as crappy last summer we had. Of course it wasn't all good...we had about three or four days of straight rain and apparently half the state flooded. Of course where I live didn't, but fortunately my town, and me, are all situated on top of a gigantic hill.
I'm seriously worried about my class right now. I took my midterm...and I did not receive a grade back for it. I wrote my professor an email about it and have not gotten a reply. My grade has not been posted. I would have written an extra credit paper had I been aware of my midterm grade...as I am pretty certain it probably wasn't all that favorable. Anyway, my grade in this class is based off of two exams, a midterm and a final. Since I did not do an extra credit paper, that is all I have. After that, I am supposed to graduate. I need these three credits to graduate. If there is something wrong, well...I need to know, and now. I guess I'll try emailing the TA's instead, since apparently my professor is too busy to bother to respond. I just need to make sure I'm passing. I couldn't care less about my GPA anymore...there is no helping it anyway. I'd like to get at least a C though. Last semester aided my GPA a little...just a little. I have a tendency to forget about school this semester since I only go once a week. I already feel like I'm not really in school. Anyway, I'm a little worried. Probably if I email the TA's they will let me know what's going on. I will be livid if something happens to prevent me graduating. Livid. I don't know.

I don't even know why I'm still inside. This is a useless post. I have lots of things on my mind, but I can't even begin to sort them out here. I'm going outside.

Whaaa...?

My life never fails to amaze me. Even when it seems uninteresting, it never really fails to be somehow. I can't complain I suppose.
I am currently starving which is not being aided by the fact that my mother is cooking a steak downstairs and it smells amazing. Let's ignore the fact that it is 9:30 at night...this is normal in my family.
Tonight was Wednesday so I had my one class. It was rather entertaining. Let's just say...we watched a short film called "Delusions in Modern Primitivism" which basically interviews this guy and follows him to where he is paying some guy 500 dollars to SHOOT him in the shoulder in order to modify his body and have a scar. It was absolutely hilarious I might add. Just to hear him and the other guy talking about art and how this is an "art form" and then watch this guy get shot in the shoulder and rushed off in an ambulance...it is something you need to see to believe. It was hilarious, how serious he was about it. And yes, seriously deluded. I need to get my hands on that film so I can make my friends watch it. They will find it highly amusing I am sure.
Anyway, I guess dinner is ready so this is a very short entry. I'm still internally laughing about tonight though.

Don Julio

Here's to my second entry of the day. I felt I had better update myself with the news that finding a name for my new fish was successful at work tonight. He has been christened Don Julio, after the tequila. I am enjoying a 650 mL bottle of Imperial Gemini ale in celebration. I bought it a week or two ago to try. I only bought it because Gemini is my zodiac sign. It's 10.5 % alcohol by volume, so it's a very in your face beer, just as I expected. My slightly biased opinion is that it is rather delicious. I feel that it embodies Gemini spirit well. After I finish this bottle I believe I will be feeling pretty good. Not drunk, but buzzed and tipsy happy. It's pretty spicy, and the bottle says it is a blended unfiltered ale. My first taste was a little overwhelming, but now I am beginning to taste a melange of flavors that I am enjoying. I feel it would be wrong if this beer didn't have a slight bitter edge. It's Gemini, after all. We are multi-faceted people. I think Gemini's at their best are interested and interesting. It's hard to define us as just one thing, because we can be so many things.

I find the zodiac intriguing. I know a little about a lot of the signs, mostly basic things. To me, it's odd how accurate it is. I am a Gemini through and through. I do not fit any of the other zodiacal sign descriptions. Of course, this is not to say that all Gemini's are the same people. I think that people take the zodiac too absolutely. We tend to have certain character traits in common. Some of them are flaws we share. We can be incredibly different people with different personalities, but if you were to read our zodiacal sign description, we would find we have a lot of those traits in common. Talkers. Writers. Thinkers. We just talk, write, and think differently. Unable to sort through emotional depths, and tend to run from them. Airy and bright. At our worst, hyper-critical and insensitive to others needs. Yes. Yes, yes, and yes.

I feel as if my zest for life has returned. Depression always brings about anhedonia. I find this its most intriguing symptom: No longer finding joy in things which used to bring you joy. No longer finding pleasure in things you normally find pleasurable. Very, very interesting. If you don't experience anhedonia, you do not have clinical depression. Depression is only clinically relevant if one of the number of symptoms you experience is anhedonia. I believe it is that coupled with three or four of a long list of other symptoms to make depression a clinical issue.
Amazing. I actually did learn some things in college.
Anhedonia is awful. I remember the example my professor gave in class to illustrate: if every day her daughter runs up to her after school and says "Mommy!" and that moment every day makes her entire day happy no matter what has occurred or will occur...and suddenly losing that. Her daughter runs up to her and hugs her and says "Mommy!" and she feels nothing but the same as she did before. Only emptiness. She gets no pleasure or happiness from that simple thing. That's anhedonia. Wild. It happens and you don't even know it. You only understand when it is over, and you start to see things again. You start to feel things again. People often think of depression as simply constant unhappiness, but you can be unhappy without being depressed. Depression is more a general numbness. You lose all joy and pleasure out of life. Everything can seem dull and lifeless, even sunshine. Unhappiness accompanies depression because there's no way to not be unhappy when nothing gives you pleasure. For me, the only thing bad about overcoming depression is a general fear that it will return. It quite literally feels as if a dark curtain has lifted from over the world and you can see clearly all around you. It's how I imagine I would feel if I were blind for a long time and suddenly were able to see. Wild. It's all perception. Thanks to this beer, perception is appropriately muddled. I am one of those people who can feel alcohol when it takes effect, but I also can control myself if need be. It takes quite a bit before I get to a point I can't control myself at all. I don't think I ever really lose all control except at the point where blackout would occur. Some people are more easily swayed by alcohol's advances. I don't know whether or not this is a good or a bad thing. I just have never been one of those people who would get drunk and then make excuses for my behavior based on being drunk. It is not a good excuse, in my opinion. As long as you are aware of the effects of alcohol on your system, then you should be well aware of the fact that as you drink more of it, the more your inhibitions are lowered, and the more risks you might take. This voice is never silenced by alcohol unless you are in a blackout state, as far as I am concerned. Some people choose to ignore it. That is their choice, and therefore if they behave badly under the influence of alcohol it is still their fault. It doesn't excuse rape, so it certainly doesn't excuse cheating on someone, for example. I despise that shit. "But I was drunk..." No. Being intoxicated negates nothing. All it means is that you were running from something and you used alcohol as an excuse to behave badly. You fail. There comes a point where you are not 16 anymore. Some people never figure this out, unfortunately. They come through my line in the packy everyday. I see multitudes of them. America is not very thoughtful when it comes to their citizens general well-being. I love this country, but man are there some fucked up things about it. I do not hate America, but I also believe that at this point America can do better than it is, and I think a large part of that is education. I think there's a huge disparity in education in America. Some people are highly educated and others are just...not. It tends to cause problems. Everyone needs to be educated. I personally think that those in positions of power in our country enjoy the fact that so many Americans are uneducated. It doesn't take too much to sort out why. The simple fact of the matter is, though, that we spend a lot of time talking about equality here, and how everyone should be equal. People are NOT equal, though, and some can't be. Some are not as educated as others. What we are really shooting for, and should be, is equal opportunity, regardless of race, sex, religious affiliation, etc. With equal opportunity for everyone, natural inequalities will happen regardless. There will be people who are smart and those who are dumb. There will be people who exploit everything and people who live very honestly. The problem people have is that they are always labeling everyone, putting them into a neat little box, and ignoring the ones who fall outside that box. There are racial stereotypes and gender stereotypes which hold very true, but in order to uphold them, we ignore all the people who fall outside that stereotype, or try to come up with ways to force them to be that stereotype, even if they aren't. Everything is ironic. Everything is a contradiction. Welcome to America.

New Fish

I spent my rainy day off yesterday being bored for most of the day, and then I dragged Allen out with me to buy a new betta fish. Finn, my last one died about a month ago, so I decided it was time for a replacement fish. I like to keep a fish because I move so often and it's the only pet that is extremely cheap and easy to move. It would be hard to have a dog or a cat when you don't know where you're going to live next, and as soon as you have a pet you need to have a place where pets are allowed, which always limits your living options. Bettas are pretty easy to take care of...they basically take care of themselves. You feed them and clean their bowl every so often...I don't even do it very often, and they are fine for a couple years.

Finn was probably old...he had stopped eating for a week or two before he died. I had Leonard before him, and Indigo before Leonard. Leonard was the one Jess and I had when we lived together in an apartment a couple years ago. This new fish is as of yet nameless. I seem to be having trouble coming up with a name. I may look for inspiration in the names of alcohol at work tonight. He is a Crowntail Betta, which means he looks the same but his fins look like prongs instead of being rounded. He was two dollars more expensive. He's pretty cool looking. Allen and I were joking about naming him after sushi.

The weather has been exactly like the weatherman said. Rainy. It's not really cold, but it's not warm either. This weekend we might get some sunshine again. I'm very excited for this summer for some reason. I just have a feeling it's going to be a good one, with good weather, as the last one was rainy and depressing...and I was depressed for most of it, until the end of course. I will be looking for a job this summer, but I don't really have much hope of finding one, so I intend on enjoying my rent-free months to the fullest, without being held back by anything. I am completely free this summer to do as I please with who I please. Tom Petty is coming back at the end of the Summer, and after the summer is over...well. I won't be going back to school. It's a strange thought, actually. It scares me a little, but an uncertain future sounds much more pleasing to me than enduring the return to school, paying hundreds of dollars for books, suffering cold walks around campus and listening to people who are still in what I call the "party all the time" phase talk about their weekend plans. I really don't enjoy those aspects of school, which I suppose is why I enjoyed my online class so much. It literally was all academics, all the time. It was all learning. It was a three week course, in which I learned far more than I have in a lot of my classes. I actually like learning. I don't like going to class and everything that goes along with it. Strange thoughts. I am completely terrified, but it's a good terrified, if you can even say that.
I only have to find one job. I always need to keep that in mind. When you are looking for a job, and you apply for months and no one hires you, it becomes self-defeating, but all you need to find is ONE. One job that will get your foot in the door. After that, finding a job becomes easier because you have that lovely thing called experience which all job ads indicate they want. I hope that 2010 is my year. I'm glad I don't have anything holding me back really. I am not expecting to find a high-paying job right off the bat. I am simply looking for a position which will give me experience and give me some sort of direction. We shall see, as they say.

Spring

Life decided to be kind to me for one more day and carry the beautiful weather through Sunday. It's supposed to rain for the next three days but I spent the better part of today outside washing my car anyway.
It's officially Spring, and now the leaves just need to come back on the trees so I can enjoy the beauty that permeates my hometown.
Spring is my favorite season by far. I love Summer too, but Spring for me is just so much better. After a long winter, everything just feels hopeful, and it is the time that I remember that anything is possible and depression is a selfish waste of time. I may still take a walk, because I know the rest of the week is not going to be favorable weather-wise, but I figured I would take a short break and write for a bit because this seems to be becoming a daily thing again. I used to have another journal in which I wrote down every little detail of life. I just realized I don't need every detail, and this journal is very different from that old one. I feel like it's simpler. Sometimes simplicity is important. No one really knows that I have this journal. It's just for me. Writing, however mundane the things I may write about can be, is very therapeutic for me. It's nice to write things that don't ever have to be graded or judged and they can just be there, so if I want to look back and see how I was feeling or what I was dealing with, I can. It puts things in a valuable perspective.

Brilliant Weather

The weather is currently brilliant. It's beautiful, and it's supposed to last all the way through tomorrow which I happen to have off all day. Lovely. Monday I think it will rain again, but I cannot complain for this amazing week we've been having. Of course I have to spend my night at work, but thankfully I have awesome coworkers who are all in the same boat and will supply a sufficient amount of bitchery that we are all stuck there until 9 pm when we could be outside enjoying the beauty.

Things seem to be good right now, or at least I am in a good mood, which can make a world of difference. The realization that I am graduating in approximately two months finally hit me. It finally feels real and tangible. It's finally over. I am literally brimming with excitement at the possibilities for the future. The only thing that ever holds me back is money, really. It's unfortunate. I've been having all sorts of crazy thoughts of things I could do. I haven't really been able to think about things like this in a long time. I'm sure that I won't end up doing anything glamorous, and I will probably start with a job that I dislike immensely and doesn't pay so well, but it's still nice to think about the possibilities. I don't really have any plans. That can be a very bad thing, but on the other side of the coin it can also be a great thing, because there is nothing really holding me back, except for that evil five-letter word "money". Other than that, I'm pretty free and clear. I need to go shower and get ready for work, but I thought I would post some more uplifting entries for myself. I wish I had more time to gush about how beautiful everything is, but reality calls.

A Blip of Delusion

Seriously, I do not know what has been wrong with me the last several months. I deluded myself. I just reread my entry from yesterday. Good lord, when did I become THAT girl. The one who obsesses over some guy that doesn't like her anyway. Come on. I really need a break from relationships. I'm just glad that the delusion is over so I can get back to enjoying my life. I do wish things worked out differently but such is life and there is a reason for everything. There is nothing I can do but move forward.
Perception is everything. Altering your perception of a situation can work wonders. Thankfully, I haven't forgotten how to do that. Now that I consider it, it's probably a good thing. I promised myself after my first love failed to never get like that again, and I just came dangerously close to that. Perhaps that is the reason things worked out as they did. I won't know for sure, of course, but it makes sense. If I lose myself in someone else, I will never be happy. If I lose myself in someone else, I will always fail. I really need someone to slap me upside the head sometimes and say "Snap out of this, you're better than this". Oh well I suppose we are not all perfect. I let myself get consumed in things that don't matter at times. I have to remember who I am. I am not the girl who cries in front of guys (granted I was PMSing hugely that day), but still that's no excuse. Disgusting behavior. Never again. I really need to get a grip. I've got one now. I'll be fine. It was just a little blip of insanity. I'm glad it's over. I'm going to finish my coffee, take a nice long shower, go to work, and then go out and have fun tonight with my friends. Maybe next time I can stop blogging about my personal fails and actually talk about something interesting.

Boredom

I received some advice on how to fix my computer, so rather than attempt to contact people to go out tonight, I stayed in, napped, and worked on fixing it. Right now, it is up in the air as to whether or not the problem is fixed. I am doing a full-system virus scan currently, and my mother is making cookies which smell and taste amazing. I am absolutely entirely bored for a Saturday night, but that's being home for you. Things are working out quite differently than I envisioned, and it's ok. I'm ok with it. It will be fine in the end, I know. It's been a little hellish, I guess, but that won't last forever. Tomorrow I'm going with a few work people to a Haiti Benefit Concert that one of the girls I work with is going to be in at Eastern. I'm slightly excited about it, just because it's so rare that I ever get to go out and do anything actually interesting and different.

I adore choirs, and although I wish I was in one, we can't have everything. I'll settle for second best, of going to see someone else's. I could use a beer, but I don't suppose I'll waste one right now. I think I have one upstairs that I can drink later.

Full system scan is taking FOREVER and a day. It will be ok though. Maybe I'll check around on the internet for any jobs that may possibly be available in the near future in my field of study. No matter what, in May when I graduate, I will have to do something. I should start figuring out what it is now. I've been dragging my feet badly in that department lately. I've been distracted by personal matters. That's fine, but things that may define my future are also important. I have to remember that I can't be picky about jobs, and I just need to work, get some experience and move on. It doesn't matter if I don't feel entirely prepared for the job. I have to just go and do it. That's the only way you can learn, anyway. I feel woefully unprepared, but there's nothing to remedy that now. I never really had a plan, and I guess I never will really. This is the closest I'm going to get. Things have a way of working themselves out some way or another. I need to start doing things again, and stop being so lazy and unproductive. I want to get excited for things again. I need to do something to shake things up. My life gets repetitive and boring, and being home is not helping, but either way a job is going to have to come first so I can make money to move out. We'll see, and only time will tell. I wish I was a more patient person. Patience is something I seem to lack. Oh well.

Writing Again

Lately it seems all I can do is write, and it's all I want to do. In here, on livejournal, in a paper notebook. Anywhere and everywhere. It's mostly a way for me to let go of the stress I'm carrying around without having to continually stress other people with it. I know myself well enough to know I can't hold things in when they hurt me, so I either write or I complain to several people I know.

The thing is, at the moment, I don't even understand my situation, and so how are those people expected to understand it? Talking to people about things means they offer their opinions, which in this situation make no difference whatsoever, nor do they have any value or merit. I am of several different minds about it, and so I've been writing. Of course I love talking about things, but sometimes that's really all I'm doing, is talking. It's not necessarily a reflection of anything, it's just how I handle things. I like to talk and talk. I don't really want advice. I never ask for advice. I don't tend to follow people's advice anyway. Usually my own decision ends up being the best one in the end. I'm not a complete moron. I know that I know this situation better than anyone else, it's closest to me. I need to trust myself. Mostly, I just need to remain calm. It's difficult but doable. The moment anger or mistrust sets in, it sets the stage for conflict and confrontation. I know that conflict and confrontation are certainly necessary at times, but I prefer to keep them to a minimum. If they have to happen, I would prefer them to end up in a positive place. I can't do that if anger is clouding my good judgment. I'm pretty sure there is only one person who has ever had me really raise my voice at them outside my family, and that's hard to do. The moment yelling starts to happen toward me I tend to walk away and shut it out. You want to yell? I'm not interested in hearing what you have to say. Yelling accomplishes nothing. I learned this from my parents, who are much more effective when they speak at each other in normal voices. If I yell outside of my family, all it really means is that the argument is bad enough for me to get truly angry, and I don't particularly care if I piss you off because you deserve it. At that point, I'm not trying to make amends. You just need to know that I'm angry, and I will not forget what occurred. Like I said, this has only happened once outside my family. Family is different I suppose. Yelling occurs mostly because we're comfortable and know they will forgive us eventually. Either way, I still don't do too much yelling even within my family. I'm just not a confrontational person. I'm fine with talking things over rationally and calmly, but the second it degenerates into a screaming argument, i'm out.

Anyway, nothing much more to say. I need to take a shower, get something to eat, and head off to work. My workweek now begins on Tuesday and ends on Saturday. I have Wednesday off of course but I have a class on Wednesday nights. I cannot complain about my work schedule though. It is easy and simple. I'm tired of the job, but I do like my coworkers. It, like any job, has reached the point where it is boring and repetitive. I hope that I don't have to do it for too much longer, but as the job market is terrible, I should be happy I have a decent and pretty secure job as a part-timer right now. Here's to hoping and praying I can find a job when I graduate doing SOMEthing. Oh well, off I go.

Non-planning plus computer glitches

Well, my computer has proved unfixable this time. I am at a loss. It runs so slowly that I cannot access the internet, which makes it extremely hard to troubleshoot things. I know the basic problem, but the problem with that is that it is traceable back to any number of different problems that I unfortunately am not a sophisticated enough computer user to solve. I have googled and googled and googled on my mother's computer. I've tried many things. I've been going back to it every several days because I simply can't stand to deal with it for very long most of the time. It's stressing me out, for sure, but it is also proving to be a welcome distraction from other things which I have ZERO control over and are stressing me out far more than my computer not working properly. I can obviously still use a computer, so this isn't entirely tragic, it's just annoying. I enjoy having my own personal computer on which I can do anything. Not to mention I have personal music, photos, documents, etc. on there which I would prefer not to lose. If the problem truly is unfixable...well...I can probably save documents and such without too much hassle so long as the computer still turns on. Even so, I am unwilling to go and pay someone to fix it for me. It is about five years old. I was thinking about buying myself a new one anyway as a graduation present. Graduation is not so far away now, but it is still pretty far away, and the present truly would be just for me, using my own money, of which I am rather short on.

Currently the computer is running slower than ever, and I am attempting to do a registry scan while also looking into my event viewer to see if I can have any miraculous discoveries even though I am certain I will not understand any of it. It's taking forever. I don't care, I need the distraction. I'm stressed to the max, although I have calmed down considerably. I was literally at the anxious shaky point last week, but that's not a very effective way to be, so I've calmed down. I know there's no use stressing over things out of my control, but it's hard not to...as of course these are things that I wish were in my control. They're not no matter what I do.

We're supposed to get big snow tomorrow, and possibly Thursday. Shocker. I washed my car yesterday anyway, as it was disgusting. I have to say, I'm at the point where I am truly tired of snow. Today was almost springlike, and I just wished it would stay that way, especially since Tuesday and Thursday are my work nights. Tonight, there are no distractions but this computer. I think the lack of information currently is the only thing keeping me sane - that and the fact that hearing nothing at least means nothing has necessarily changed and there is still hope. I am sort of clinging to minuscule shreds of hope right now. I guess it's rather pathetic, but what else can I do? I am cold. I feel ill-prepared for what is coming, but the truth is that it is impossible to prepare for in light of recent events. Therefore all it does is cause stress. I'm not a planner anyway, but if I have to defend planning, I will say that it does tend to alleviate stress. At least if you have a plan, you have something to look forward to. I suppose even plans can fail...if Plan A fails and you go to Plan B and that fails and you reach Plan C, your plans probably never would work anyway, so I guess it's better to not plan at all and just let things happen. That is pretty flawed logic, but I didn't do well in Logic class anyway, and it makes me feel better whether or not it is flawed. I don't particularly care. Anyway, I suppose I will find something else to distract me as I've run out of useless things to complain about.

Turmoil

Well I guess things just look like they're simple right now. They are not, at all, but this is not really new, and as always, I will deal. This is nothing new. I am typing this entry on my mother's computer as my computer has decided to break again. It runs painfully slow. Something is using the entire CPU, and I just don't have the energy or desire to try and figure out what it is or correct the problem. Besides, lately I had been getting a bit too addicted to the internet, and my computer breaking afforded me a couple days off in which I realized exactly how much time I waste on the computer. I am on today, but I barely went on at all yesterday. My mother's computer is pretty awesome since it's new, but she uses it all the time at night so I have been reading, mostly. I really don't have a lot to do lately. I am taking one class once a week this semester, and I work three days a week. Some nights I'll hang out with Jess or Allen, and other than that I stay at home and read. I read To Kill a Mockingbird yesterday all the way through. Amazing book. I had never read it before since it was never a required book in any of my school classes, but I own it, and I loved it. I loved reading it not for school. Classics are more meaningful when you read them of your own volition.

I also have been working on making a collage out of a shoebox. I started it at the beginning of last year. I had covered three sides and never finished. I love to start projects but I rarely finish them. I took it out yesterday and worked on it for a while. When it is done, if I ever get done, it will look absolutely amazingly cool. I had to do something yesterday so I didn't go stir-crazy. The weather wasn't so nice. Snowy and extremely windy. All classes were cancelled, so I didn't even have to go to class.

I am a little depressed because things I was hoping would work out for the best are not on that road at all, but at the moment, I have little to no control over the outcome. I just have to go with the flow and move on. It hurts, and it's a constant irritation in the back of my mind, but life goes on. My mother and father have been the most helpful people in dealing with it. Neither of them judge me. I can talk to them without feeling as though it is all my fault. It isn't all my fault. As far as I know, I did the best I could. I don't have any regrets about it - it's just really hard to let go of such a good thing, or at least what I thought was a good thing.

I truly have amazing parents, and I am incredibly lucky. They may be old, and they are not perfect, but they love me unconditionally, and they raised me as a strong and competent woman. Other people may break promises, but I know that I can keep my word, and knowing that makes me feel good about myself as a person. I like who I am for the most part. My biggest issue is being assertive and asking for what I want. I close myself off when I feel threatened in any way, and a lot of times it ends up creating more problems for me, but I dislike confrontation so much. It's so easy to say the wrong thing in an argument. Anger is a very debilitating emotion at times. Reason and caution are thrown the winds when you are angry. I get angry, for sure, but I try to dispel it, because anger directed toward people never ends well.

I know that avoidance is not a good solution, but at the very moment I can't think of anything to say, except, I am disappointed. That's it. I always have something to say, so for me to be at a loss for words is surprising, but since I am still not entirely sure what is going on, I have no choice. I can own up to my feelings, that's about it. Disappointment is certainly no foreign emotion. People disappoint constantly, but with some it matters more and hurts more.

People say that ignorance is bliss, and I suppose that's true, but I would never give up my intelligence to be ignorant. I know that it is possible to be happy, and in some ways I am. I like myself, my parents, my friends. I even like this little town. It's a beautiful town. I dislike lots of people in it, but luckily I am stuffed in a corner away from all of them. My part time job is ok. It's not perfect, but I know it won't be my job forever so it doesn't much matter.

Times change and people change, sometimes for the worse and sometimes for the better. I am certainly not in any way changing for the worse, and so in general I feel good about my life. I hope that things begin to fall into place soon, but I know it is going to require some sacrifices on my part. I'm not entirely prepared for those sacrifices, but I'm doing my best to prepare now. Nothing is perfect, but we can always chase perfection, and hopefully it will be just around the corner.

So this morning I woke up to see Newsweek on the table as normal. Being a psych student of course the cover caught my eye as it was depicting both sides of the coin of antidepressants as either ineffective or wonder drugs. I flipped to the articles and read them. I knew the majority of the information presented. There are countless studies that look at the efficacy of antidepressants. The ones which did not yield a statistically significant result were largely unpublished, and the ones that do show significant results are more a result of a placebo effect and the people studied rather than the actual drugs. Most of the studies are biased. Scientists and drug companies alike want antidepressants to work. We all want antidepressants to work, because anyone who has been depressed would tell you that if they could have a pill that would make them happy and not have to live in the dark world of depression, they would take it, in spite of some damning side effects such as lowered sex drive, nausea, etc. etc. etc. This is not to say that antidepressants can't be effective. They are for some people. A personal account on the next page details just that. A personal experience with antidepressants which were highly effective for his personal problems. And though Newsweek uses this short personal account as a representation of the "other side," the author of the article also states that his personal experience does not in any way prove effectiveness for a large majority. Depression is an extremely complex problem which has been introduced into the medical community. Both articles state that the majority of people with depression are treated by physicians rather than mental health professionals. There is something extremely wrong with this.
Physicians use the biomedical model in order to treat disease, and for diseases which we can see with the naked eye which show significant physical symptoms, this works quite well. For so-called "diseases" of the mind, the biomedical model very often fails. We cannot simply give someone a pill and cure them completely of mental ills. It's a widely known fact that even drugs used to treat intense psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia should be supplemented with psychotherapy.
Psychotherapy can and does work, and often without the aid of medication at all. My own personal story proves that. I was offered drugs and refused them. I got better all on my own. My willingness to let therapy work for me was extremely helpful. It is the same reason that people who take antidepressant drugs get "better" after taking them. They want them to work, and they believe in their effectiveness. If I were to walk into psychotherapy thinking it was a bunch of bogus bullshit, the first step my therapist would take is to rid me of that toxic mindset. If that can't be done, then the therapist can't do their job. Antidepressants can have an effect, and do with certain people, but the simple fact is that depression is such a complex problem that the same solution doesn't work for everyone. There are many different levels of depression and ways of experiencing it. There are many different causes of it. In short, all depression is not created equal, and therefore the fact that the medical community is largely in control of treatment of it is quite scary. People think of doctors as wonder-healers at times. Why shouldn't they? There are a great many things that could convince us of this viewpoint. Technology and treatments are oftentimes amazing. Doctors, however, are limited in their understanding of mental illness and treatment of it. It is only very recently that new doctors have been required to study mental illness at all, and even now, often what they learn is limited.
The complexity of a mental illness is difficult to wrap our minds around. There are those who say that depression "doesn't really exist" still.
It does exist. Whether or not it's correct to call it a disease is up in the air. We use "disease" because it removes blame from the person. In this way, it is a valuable way to describe it. If we blame the people who have depression, they will be ostracized and we will not help them when they need help, which is why it is framed in the way that it is.
Certainly it is difficult at times to ascertain the level of someone's depression, and in many ways it is an extremely selfish and self-centered disease, but humans are by nature extremely self-centered, so really it's not so surprising. We are contradictory creatures. There will always be people who abuse help and the system we have in place, but we can't let it sway us from those who truly need aid.
I could probably go on about this all day.
We love to create extremely simple solutions for very complex problems, and I believe that antidepressants are a great example of this. It's very interesting to me that there is such a huge body of research on this and still no definitive answers. The fact that we still have to debate over it proves my point that there are no easy answers, and simple solutions. There is still no "wonder-pill."
None of what I just said here was presented with clear facts and information of course, this is just my opinion on the subject after hearing and reading so much about it, and also my own personal experience. I felt I needed to write something down in reaction to this article for some reason. It is just a testament to how we tend to look at problems in the world through the incorrect lens, and we approach them from a point of view of cure rather than prevent. We need to do both, not just one. The prevalence of depression in our society is scary to me. We are not a bunch of happy-go-lucky people that is for sure. Of course, I one day hope to help treat people who have depression, but it is sad that that is what will give me a job. People who we consider "normal, everyday people" are constantly affected. Clearly there are larger issues in our society which cause such problems, as there are societies that are mostly absent of these afflictions. We have a complex society with complex problems, and yet we are still trying to solve those problems in ineffective simplistic ways.

Confusion and My Life Expectations

I seem to never post in this very often, but I thought of it today. It's Sunday, which is one of those days that nothing ever happens even though I have it off. Unless there is a concert or something that is planned ahead...it's the one day everyone knows that I am free...I never work, and yet no one ever contacts me on it. It's a bit strange, but life is strange, and that is the only thing I've become accustomed to about in my 22 years of life. Confusion is permeating my life right now. I feel stagnant and lazy, but it's like, I constantly want to be alone so that I can think, and try to make sense of what is going on. As soon as I try to do that, and come to some conclusion, I invariably end up more confused than I was when I started, and realize that sitting around is doing me no favors.

In response to this, I'll go out and do something...we did on Friday night, and I had an excellent evening out with two of my best friends, which I haven't done in ages. The only conclusion I can come to right now is that me being stuck at home in my parents house is no longer doing me favors and I need to move out as soon as humanly possible. I love my parents. I just don't like living with them. It simply brings me back to childhood. When I am here I am caught in between childhood and adulthood, because when I am on my own, I am an adult, and I am still technically an adult here, but there is no way I can behave in an adult way when I wake up in the morning and my dad cooks me eggs and makes me coffee, and my mother watches in concern in the bathroom when I get sick from eating bad Chinese. I have to tell them where I am going and when I will be home, and they can't tell me what to do or when, but I still have to tell them. My mother cooks dinner every night, my parents bring in the mail. It's like I'm just here biding my time until I'm ready and strong enough to strike out once again on my own.

The problem here is money, mostly. Money for living, where to live, etc. etc. If I could have my choice, I suppose I would live alone, as I think I have just about had my fill of psychotic roommates, of which the list includes my sister. I do think that I want to go back and live in the area I used to live in, because it is generally closer to the things that I want to go see/do. I also need to think of job opportunities. It makes me wonder if I really need to try and stick it out at home until I graduate and find a decently paying job and then just move near it. The problem with that is that it could take a long time. The economy still blows, and my job prospects are not looking so hot what with me having nothing but one tiny little Bachelor of Arts in Psychology to back me up. Beyond that, I have nothing. No experience. No internships, no volunteer work, no nothing. I don't even have extracurriculars. Undergraduate college education was for the majority of the time a big waste for me. There are parts that could have been more useful if I tried harder when I began, but there are also parts that will never be useful no matter how hard I tried or how good I did. If I had gotten a good grade in Greek Civilization or Symbolic Logic, I somehow doubt that those courses would help me in the long run. Waste of time, energy, and resources that could be better spent learning how to be effective in the career I am interested in pursuing. I now have a general knowledge of many subjects. Ranking of my classes in usefulness ranges from
Most Useful: Women and Violence to Least Useful: Symbolic Logic, a philosophy course. To actually do this I would need to look back on my schedule and remind myself of everything I've taken, but I would rank the majority, not all though, of my psychology courses useful. I would rank all of my sociology courses useful, yup, that's right, EVERY SINGLE ONE. English courses vary in usefulness. Creative Writing...useful for me but not for the future. Some of my English course were enlightening (Poetry, British Literature, American Lit since 1880, Children's Lit) while others were completely useless (English 111, The Short Story). Anthropology courses, generally useless, although Anthro 100W was slightly enlightening. The majority of courses I took for Gen Ed requirements, besides fulfilling those requirements, were entirely useless. (Bio 107, Greek Civilization, Music in World Culture, Anthro 106, Gender in Everyday Life). Those are just examples. I find it funny that some of my psych courses were not useful but all of my Sociology courses were. The reason being? I was not required to take INTRO Sociology courses in order to take higher level Sociology courses. Therefore, the information gained from my Sociology courses was all interesting, SPECIFIC, and relevant. Introductory Psychology courses are generally a waste of time. All you get is simple basic background knowledge. Does it enhance your study of the subject? Not really. The same thing is true for any subject. Introductory classes are a waste of time so long as you are a reasonably intelligent student. The theories, etc are always made much more clear in specific context in classes about one specific area of concentration in a subject area.

I often wonder if it is simply me, or if every undergrad college graduate feels this way. I do not feel prepared in any way for a real job in my field. I feel as though the knowledge I have gained will not serve any purpose in the real world for the most part. I feel ill-prepared, and it makes me very anxious in a highly competitive job market. I think this is partially why I dragged my feet for so long in undergrad. I didn't know what I was going to do. I did exactly what you are not supposed to do in college...I let myself get lost in a sea of faces, and I faded into the background. I am disappointed in myself for this, but there is nothing to do at this point but to move forward. I am quite certain that the only thing in college that ever made me stand out anywhere was writing ability. I have several directions I can turn in. I can go on into the world of Editing, which is intriguing but I know next to nothing about. I can go into the world of counseling, which is related to psychotherapy but is NOT psychotherapy, although I do have a basic background knowledge of what may be required of me in that field. I can continue on to grad school in Clinical Psych, and get a masters in that. Or, I could completely and entirely change my focus, and head to grad school for Sociology, and after that, end up doing god knows what god knows where. The point being...I am slightly more focused but still have absolutely NO fucking clue what I want to be doing for the rest of my life. I am terrified of making the wrong decision. If I could have my wish, I would have enough money to not work and to travel. I could spend my life traveling and seeing new places and people, and then settle down back home in Connecticut when I got old. To me, this experience of life would be the most ideal. I would probably learn the most and be the most satisfied. Unfortunately, society and life have not set me up for this. Society has dictated that I must fit into a corner of middle class existence. I must get a job working 9-5 Monday-Friday, find myself a husband, have a couple kids when I am the right age, and settle into a cute little house and be comfortable. Hopefully have a little more than I need and take vacations with my kids/husband when I get time off.

For some reason, this vision of life just doesn't please me. In fact, it sounds like a recipe for fucking disaster, and maybe that is because I see and know SO many people who it just doesn't work out for. I don't know. The "American Dream" for me just simply sounds boring. Unfortunately, the "American Dream" is society's proposed model of success in today's world. It really irritates me. Deviant people are those who do not follow these norms. They have kids too early, get divorced, don't make enough money, and live in shitty housing. These people are looked down upon in society. I think they just fail to live up to society's expectations of perfection. People are by default flawed. We have rigid expectations for them, and some people simply can't live up to them. Some don't want to. I don't really want to. I feel very trapped though. It's difficult to be alone in this feeling, and to see everyone around me striving SO hard for this model of the American Dream. I'm just not interested in it. The problem is what to do instead. What can I do? Technically, I'm supposed to be able to do anything. Go for whatever I want, and become whoever I want. I can in a way, but I am also situated in a position where that is difficult no matter what...because of money. There is never enough money to do what you want. You need money in order to begin. This is how people get roped into the great "American Dream". They think, well, I need to make money to do what I want. Great, 9-5 job, with benefits. They work. They work and work. By the time they will ever make enough money to do what they want, they are too old to care anymore, and simply give up on the whole idea. I just fucking hate this. I am in no way saying that work is bad. It's routine work that gets you absolutely nowhere. I would prefer to just work for myself. Work out of my own home, be comfortable. Take time when I need it. I think what I am most scared of is being BORED. I hate boredom above all else. Right now, I am bored. Boredom is the enemy. It breeds destructive thought processes. I think it's time for me to stop this. This is too long as it is.