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.