Stop the presses....

...today's the day I'm going to finally get my life back together and do everything perfectly! I'll, I'll play banjo every other day...and do school-work weeks before it's due, keep up with all my readings, never miss a single class, eat well, exercise every other day, read cognitive science related literature, and finally, write in a blog to center my thoughts on the things i need to do and focus on my priorities for the days ahead! So, yeah, looks good that one thing out of the 20-30 or so things on my to-do list of life can be crossed off today. Two and a half years goes by since that last time i've posted in this thing and I still start off each entry the same way: things are starting to change for the better, starting today!!...lol...I hate to say it, but I'm incredibly dissatisfied with my life, as I have been for the past year and a half. And what a year and a half it has been! It had a little bit of everything and and whole lot of nothing; apartment with jess, and new little schipperke named Gracie (now there's a whole story in itself), lots of stress, stress-related health issues, and sleeping to escape life, wasted money and time in classes that I dropped or failed, demotions at work and we can't forget the big break-up with its included "enlightenment", trips to random places in New York, and, well, some good memories of a huge thanksgiving dinner prepared by jessica, a trip to puerto rico, camping, concerts, and a new car.

All and all I'm not too disappointed with the past year and a half. Academically it was a huge waste of time and money, and the stress I put on myself surely took another good year off my life, lol, but it was all necessary and at the time I could see no better option for myself than to get an apartment. Even though it led to the break-up of myself and jess, or at least for a short time, we also experienced some of our best times together. There may have been underlying feeling of stressed and being overwhelmed, depression and feeling emptiness towards life, and some angered confrontations, but there were a lot of memories and good-times I would not want to be without. And, although Gracie is and absolute menace who, after a year, is still not potty-trained I've still fallen in love with her: ...for some reason posting a picture of her isn't working at the moment, but I'll definitely try to put one up on here soon. So yeah, whatever happened the past year and a half, that's all I have to say about it for the moment. As far as right now: I'm living with my parents, going to school full-time, working full-time, and with what's happened the past year, and with how busy and focused I'm trying to be, loving jess part-time more often than not. She has kinda become just something else on my list of things to do, and I'm not focused enough or driven enough to get stuff done to even justify that. My biggest problem lately is sleep. Not that I'm not getting enough, but not that I'm getting an excessive amount either. In fact, I'm getting just enough. Unfortunately, I'm not focusing enough and taking advantage of the few hours here and there i have to get stuff done, and I expect to take the needed time off sleeping hours. This has never been a problem in the past, though staying awake at night was never my forte, but i've always been able to wake-up with a worry-induced drive pushing me to do what needed to be done. I have, unfortunately lost that, both first thing in the morning and throughout the day. But, as of right now, I'm not doing toooo poorly in my classes, jess, at least i feel fairly certain, feels very positively about me and our relationship and loves me very much, and, well, I'm going to work, getting paid, and leaving...lol... and that's that.

But as always, things are not perfect, which, of course, brings us back to the beginning of all this. At this moment, I have some essays to do for anthropology, "short essays," which apparently means one to one and a half pages typed as far as my professor is concerned, which for six questions is quite a bit to worry about. Philosophy of the mind...yeah...more like intellectual-sounding b.s. by playing with "big", lesser-used, "academic" vocabulary to prove some "truths" about life, not that I have many myself lately, but it's hard stuff to get through, especially when it puts down the validity of science, which to me actually unveils the underlying realities to the workings of life. I guess the less-certain mechanisms are open to philosophical debate and criticisms, but I still don't see how playing around with words and vague ideas, assumptions, and applications of little-understood knowledge would get anyone anywhere. Anyway, I've been putting off these little daily writing assignments for that class, been doing the readings, but frustrations at not getting the daily reading comments done frustrate me, and I end up not going to class, and well, just sitting at the library or starbucks and playing Dungeon Siege 2 to distract myself from the disappointment I feel, or trying to work on other subject to feel a bit accomplished. But as long as i get these essays done tonight and prepare well enough for my exam tomorrow, anthro will be in good shape, and I can start feeling good about going to that class again and keep up with things. Philosophy, I have to face up to things and talk to the professor, figure out the kinds of terminology and ways of speaking I must use to form my ideas refuting this crud, lol, but more than anything I have to start doing the measly assignments and going to class. The true test of my recovery in that regard will be the paper I have to write (8-10pgs) by next wed. Hopefully talking to the professor ( I don't know when...), writing this, and working on my anthropology essays will prepare me well enough for that.

So yeah, in conclusion, I need a focus, I need to focus, and, well, I need to feel better about my life and the things in it. But again, the past year and a half has left me with negative feelings about most things in my life right now. It's funny, I never thought I'd be saying it, but my family is the best, most stable and positive thing right now. I regret my poor performance in school and lack of commitment to my major and direction for my future, I hate work, period, and I wish I could feel about jess what I used to: the same unending and all-encompassing love and affection. I guess I'm afraid of getting stung again, but all-in-all, i'm feeling very disconnected from myself and my life, even if it is going better than that, well, year and a half I continue to talk about. Lately I've been thinking up transferring to California, CSULB to be precise; I know I'm a senior technically and I don't have much to go, but I need some serious changes. More than anything I just want to FEEL SOMETHING again...

p.s. I promise that future posts will be better...it's been two and a half years after all, and a lot has happened, I'm sure a lot more of which will come up in future posts. This was just one of those, get a lot of stuff out in the open and off my chest-type posts. The one's to come will be a bit more light-hearted, event-oriented, or completive in a focused manner. And, I can't help that I write so formally, although I'm surprised I do after how long it's been since I've written a decent paper.