How College Ruined my Life

Or "How I learned to stop worrying and love the chaos."

You'd think that, being a freshman in college, I'd be "living it up," as the saying goes. Or, at the very least, making new friends and dating and going out on the weekends and other things that come with moving and starting over. Instead, however, I have been lazing about... doing no homework... making no friends... spending my free time on the internet and feeding off of my long-lived self-loathing and frustration. And so, where my friends who have gone to school this past semester have done something with themselves, the most I can say is that I didn't hurt myself. And that is my greatest accomplishment of the last four months.

Now, I know it looks as though I am searching for pity. On the contrary, however, I am really only trying to share how I have learned that laying around feeling sorry for myself does me no good. This is a simple realization that probably came ten years too late, and I am not sure that it will prompt any immediate change. Nevertheless, I have made the all-important decision to practice what I preach, to get off my tush and do something with myself. 

You see, when I left home, instead of seeing my new independence as a liberating opportunity, I saw it as a road-block, and suddenly, I didn't know who I was anymore. I'd always had a niche to fill. I'd always had an identity, one that had been formed by those who knew me. But, consequently, I had no idea how to create my own identity. So I struggled, naturally. And I'm still not entirely sure how. I have learned, however, that it doesn't really matter. I have plenty of time. And I will learn who I am through my experiences. This does not mean that I have to ostracize myself from humanity at large. This does not mean that I have to hide myself from people that I could eventually make relationships with. And while my life will not get any easier, it will become infinitely more meaningful. 

Relevance Score - 0%
Coherence Score - -2%

Hot Water

I'm about ready to shoot someone in the head.  Have you ever heard the expression "in hot water?"  Meaning that you are in trouble, or will be soon?  Well, right now, the managers at my apartment building are in very hot water with me.  First, this place is way too expensive.  I'm only living here for half a semester, but I'm paying the price that a full semester would cost me anywhere else.  Second, there are no fans in the bathrooms, or windows that open.  If you're going to charge someone an outlandish amount of money to live here, then at least have windows that open.  I don't know about you, but that seems like a huge fire hazard to me.  And they are going to grow mold very quickly without fans in the bathroom.  Third: The fire alarm goes off twice a week.  And each time, the managers send out an e-mail after the fact, stating that it was just a test.  Uh-huh... really likely.  At this rate, if the building ever really does catch on fire, none of us will evacuate because we're so sick of it.  And then we will all die.  Fourth:  We have run out of hot water for the third time this month (month meaning the last thirty days).  It's a college apartment, so utilities are included in the rent.  If I'm paying for hot water, I think I should be receiving hot water.  

Vent over.  Please resume your otherwise fulfilling internet browsing.

Winnie the... What Now??

Sometimes, I wonder how people came up with their ideas.  I mean, there are things that people come up with that us "normal" people would never think of.

 For example, the wheel.  I wonder what caveman went hunting and decided that his mammoth carcass would be easier to transport if he could roll it across the ground.

Or durian.  Who in their right minds smelled durian and decided that it would be edible, let alone appetizing?  (The answer, children, is no one).

Or Winnie the Pooh.  For some reason, every time I think of Winnie the Pooh, I think that the lovable little bear must have come about in a similar fashion to this:  A.A. Milne is sitting on the toilet in Winnipeg taking care of his business one day, and starts thinking about his favorite stuffed bear from when he was a boy, and "zing!"

Have you ever noticed that your best ideas tend to come about while you're on the toilet?  Sometimes I wonder if that's not secretly the reason that toilets were invented.  But, then again, I have to consider that toilets were probably invented by some guy who got sick of standing over a hole in Europe somewhere trying to avoid stepping in his own *ahem*.

Maybe the toilet is not the secret to success, maybe it's what you do on it that counts.  Maybe the mother of invention is not necessity, but defecation?

Just some food for thought.

I just grossed myself out.

Realizations... and Heartburn... SO MUCH heartburn...

I'm not in high school anymore...  Do you realize what this means?

No... not that I have to join the rest of civilization in the "real world."

No, it doesn't mean that the "May 21st" guy will finally be right, either...

Nor that CSPAN will suddenly become entertaining...

It means that I can't post about high school anymore!

Which means that I have to find new material.

So now I'm going to tell you about my heartburn.  I have acid re-flux, so I have to take stupid pills that are stupid because stupid doctors told me that my stupid chest pain was a stupid condition.  Stupid.  And I haven't eaten anything yet, today...  Because it's summertime and I don't have to be anywhere so why accomplish anything before noon anyway?  But I have heartburn anyway.  Why?  Because my body hates me.  It's revolting against the presence of my slightly disturbed mind and the things that it seems to think are okay.  I don't affiliate with my brain... it usually gets me in trouble.

Know what I need?  A shirt that says "I'm not with you."  with a little arrow above it that points to my brain.  No one will understand it, but that's not important.  The important part is that I will no longer feel like I am associating with myself, which will make me feel slightly better and might just, possibly, get rid of my heartburn.

Relevance Score - 0%

Opera in the Library

I enjoy playing music on the computers in the library.  First of all, I love getting funny looks from people when they realize what I'm listening to.  Secondly, I enjoy listening to music while I surf the rather limited spectrum of unblocked sites that I can reach with the school's computers.  

I especially enjoy playing opera.

I actually like listening to opera.  I love the vocals, the orchestras...  And I really like watching the freshmen craning necks to find out who's playing "that noise."  

I'll turn up the speakers as loudly as I dare without aggravating the librarians, with whom I've found some amount of favoritism.  And then I sit back to peruse the interweb.  

When the sopranos hit their blaring high notes, which are acoustically louder, the "studying" kids at the tables adjacent to the computers look up from their cell phones to glare.  Not that the dozens of other conversations aren't more disruptive than a relaxing C two octaves above middle (which can be devilishly hard to hit, let me tell ya). 

Kids these days just don't appreciate classical music for all it's beauty.  They don't realize that the rock and hip hop that they love all came from essentially the same origin.  Chant, madrigals...  

Makes me feel hard core.  When kids talk about how they loved that band when they were underground, but then they "sold out."  Well I'm so hard-core I listen to original underground music!

Mozart created the "rock and roll" lifestyle!

In any case... I feel like playing opera in the library will eventually be the bright spot in the days of all those within earshot.  And if not... then too bad, because I'm going to play it anyway!

The Random Turn Pro...

Ah, high school!  The pungent and emotionally effusive hot-house filled with the various saplings of budding youth.  The disturbingly over-crowded hallways, the cacophony of overzealous cursing and gossip, the various unnameable liquids puddled on the tiled floor of the cafeteria , PMS, sexually frustrated barely-pubescent boys, frustrated and under-paid faculty... Torture.  Pathetic torture, but torture nonetheless.

I am J. Pabst, high school student, and unpublished but hopeful writer.  I'm nothing special.  Average grades, average friends, average ability, average cynicism.  The difference?  I'm going to share the experiences I have during my last semester of public school with the world at large.

I know, you're probably sick of all those "teen fiction" books.  I can assure you, this blog will not be like those stories.  For one thing, I am not a middle aged woman, writing the observations I have of my own teen children mixed with my vague and out-of-date memories of my high school years and popular teen soap operas like The Secret Life of the American Teenager.  For another thing, these experiences are not fictional.  Names will be changed to protect the identities of my friends, who could be potentially humiliated by things I share here (a tempting thought... but my conscience would never allow it), and every story I share, I will have permission to share.

So... sit back, enjoy it or not, I don't care.  Tell your friends!