Brian's World

Tick Tock I can’t work the clock

Every morning I wakeup around 6:15 to engage in some text messaging and greetings. On Wednesdays, I tend to doze back to sleep sometime during that period. Today, I did just that. I don’t remember falling asleep but I wokeup and said uh oh… its 7:11, you missed 6:50 (important txting time) so i quickly shot off another text. Looking at my phone, it said 6:18.. Now I was confused!

I fell back this time looking at the clock and seeing 8:00am. I panic, I have a class in one hour. AHH.. well I shower, get some breakfast, come back here, check my computer screen and BAM.. there it is, class at 11am. Darn! I messed that up.

So what will I do? Maybe take a much needed nap. I was up until 1AM reading about Ishmael the monkey. Other than that… i dunno. This messes up my agenda a lot. I planned homework from 10-12 but now I have class in there… well, time to take a nap. Better luck next time to me!

Prison

I can create several links between college and a prison, and on some planes establish college as being worse then prison.

• Removal – Both college and prison rely on a removal from ones regular habitat and home to function. College uses it to “centralize” the learning and put you, the student, in a location “better suited to learned”. Prison uses the principle for punishment, removing you to a less pleasent location and giving you time to think. Don’t thinking and learning go hand and hand? And dorms aren’t exactly a step up for most people….
• Restriction – Prison relies heavily on restriction to punish people for their deeds, earning privledges and rights. College relies on restrictions to help complete their mission of molding you into a young mature money making adult. To force you into this mold, they don’t allow you to have a car as a freshmen. Being able to escape when you want can never be a good thing.
• Work/Labour – In college one is suppose to spend their time studying for exams and such. Do they really matter? No. No employeer is going to say “I see you got a 2/3 on that first Calc 2 Basic Skills Quiz. Prisoners do boring repeative stuff like make liscense plates.
• Trickery – Each system employs its own sense of trickery to convince you that you are incharge or that you are an individual when your nothing more than a number in the system. In prison its the people you meet and gangs… are they real friends? Or do you all just happen to be locked in the same building together? In college there are fraternities and sororities. How can one become true friends with someone because they got drunk together or played volleyball?

• In college your life is also heavily governed by the clock. You are suppose to be at class and attend meetings. Even if those items are scheduled in the middle of something important for you.. they just don’t care!

At this point you can add some of your own reasons to the list. I’m just frustrated how I’m being forced to normalize, forced to assimiliate into a situation I dont want to. I don’t want to drink, I don’t want to be here any longer than my classes permit. I’d honestly rather be at home then in my dorm. At least I get yelled at at home, its a sign they acknowledge your existance.

Then I wonder what I’m doing wrong here? Why don’t I have friends? I know I dress wierd, but I even found some friends in high school… if you look at the population distribution and scale it, I should have more friends here… nope… I dunno what I’m doing wrong. I’m cleanly shaven and showered and don’t smell. I walk with my head up, hands out of pockets. I eat normal food, do homework like everyone else… maybe its what I’m not doing that effects it. I’m not getting remotely involved in anything extra. RPI TV is.. well… a very interesting group of people that really dont fit my liking. If I was incharge I would do things much much differently.

And then to top this all off I’m neglecting, or being forced to neglect some of the things I hold most dear.

I can’t figure it out… something is chewing away at me.. and I don’t know who to fight… ok, I stopped writing and started sulking in my bed

Silence

I won’t talk about it, it’s too embarrassing. I looked until I wised up. I stopped making a fool of myself, but something died inside of me – something that I’d always sort of liked and admired. In its place grew a scar – a tough spot but also a sore spot.

(Daniel Quinn, Ishmael pg 6)

I just threw a book and turned on a tap light. I feel rather accomplished in a who really cares kind of sense.

That can apply to so much right now. I feel lost. Thats probably the best way to describe it. So many things I wanted to do I’m not. So many places I wanted to see I didn’t. I’m in a new enviroment experiencing no closure on the old one. I wasn’t ready to be here, and I don’t know if time can change that.

Today I ran into a sophmore here who went to SHHS, Andrea Dalton, she asked if I liked it here, I said “Sure, I guess”. “I guess? You’ll like it.. just give it time.” She replied. That made me think about stuffs. How do we change over time? Over time we forget, we change, we mold, we think. What stays the same. I can think of very few things on a consious level that are the same for me from when I was in Kindergarden, or possible even last year at this time. I don’t think change is what really effects us, its the time that change takes place over that does. Lets look at in like calculus. Its not the function that matters, its the intergal of that function that does. Change that occurs swiftly is more likely to be dramatic and the logical link would be that said change would cause more emotional issues. I debate that topic, all change causes the same issues. Change over time, gives you more time to disregard and forget those issue. Personally, I have the problem of forgetting the wrong things. I forget how things were, how they felt, how me was. I don’t forget my thought process, I don’t forget the heartbeat that keeps me going, I don’t forget my mind. I lookback and say congrats sir. (Yes, I call myself sir) You’ve managed to mess everything up. You are nowhere you wanted to see yourself. I left more loose ends than a rug with tassely things. Looking back, I go “what are you doing there idiot?”

Before going to college I thought to myself how interesting it would be to be able to look forward into my college life and see how things were, so I could see what I should change. Well, I’m trying to do that and I want to slap myself. Not for the past week, not for the past month, but for the past decade of doing things differently then I want.

I’m great at planning, I can think up a solution to just about any situation (still working on a tough one) but its the impletation where I fail. I don’t know how to make it work, or how to go about doing it. If you can think you’re useless. If you can do your useless. Until you master both do you actually get somewhere.

I need to recognize where I started going the wrong way, where did I shut up, when did I start listening to people, when did I stop writing freakishly long blog comments? When did I stop commenting obsessively? Was that just a fad? No, I don’t think so. I need to find the motivation, and its hard when one can’t do anything right. I can’t “get rolling” because I’ve come to a complete roll, maybe backwards… not only do I have to find the forward switch, I need to hope it works….

Completely Lost…

SAVE ME