I’ve been in college a long time
I've been in college since 2006. I'm in my fifth year, a big joke among my friends.
But in my fifth year now, I've seen myself through a lot of different things: relationships, friendships, finances, jobs, living situations, parties, and everything else. So, in my fifth, and not so final, year I've decided to change the way I think and act. I've gotten tired with being near miserable out of fear of failing. I'd rather try go back to the way of thinking when I was 12 and I could only try everything because I had no idea what I was good at and have no fear.
Of course, back then, I found a computer and held onto it for dear life.
Now, I'm a completely different person and my interest are spread over so many different things, I wonder how I have the ability to process it sometimes. (I had a cool metaphor about blankets and circus tents, but I figured I'd save you the time by not typing it up)
The reason for me having this strange realization and recognition that I've been at GVSU for so long comes from a meeting I had last night with the executive board of the Comic Book Club. We were discussing the yearly Campus Life Night held on campus and how it's changed in the last three years and it hit me: I've been a student here for a long time. I have enough experience to notice major changes in this one event (and probably many other things) on campus.
It was just a shocker for me and it was another reason for me to come to realize that I need to stop--pardon my French--fucking around.
So that's my goal for this year and until I finish school.
Days and days of off-nights
photo via fortphoto
Yeah, that title is a bit odd, but it fits.
I've been in a strange place as of late. A combination of working my part time job, getting more web projects to work on, personal issues with some things, and just not sleeping too well has put me into a weird funk. I've been sleeping enough (~7-8 hours) but not well and I can't pinpoint what is causing that to happen. I could name off some stressful things in life, but this doesn't seem to be related to stress... I don't know. I hope it clears up by the time school starts.
Even with that, I feel like a reset button has been pressed on me. I'm no longer just about computers and logic and reasoning. I have this mix of creative understanding and mathematical reasoning built into me now that's half confusing and half liberating. Though, this can sometimes really screw with my head as to how I should approach situations and understand people, I think it will be beneficial for me in the end.
On top of all that, it seems like this summer has been split into two sides regarding the two halves of my brain. I talked about this before when I was in a "transitional phase" between right and left brain. Thinking back, my right brain was in control for a while there... damn Jeff & Mike.
Again, I've been in a strange place. I feel like everything is grey and there's no black and white. I don't know if it's my job to make black and white decisions, or if I need to just deal with the grey in hopes that taking a stab somewhere will make things end up okay.
We'll see.
Craigslist and coding
I decided a few weeks ago that I'd put myself on craigslist to advertise that I'm some college guy who can build web pages for $50 a pop (including a year of hosting and a domain name). I mean, I could really use the cash and I like doing this kind of stuff.
Let me just say... damn. People have been responding. I'm not trying to brag, but I've taken a few jobs on and it's become a list of sites I need to build. Some have extra features (for extra cash) and some are plain and simple because businesses and people want a good web presence.
So I'm up to my neck in this, on top of work, and D&D and life. It's strangely awesome.
To add to things, Nick Nelson and I have decided to take on an endeavor to redesign a personal project we started a two years ago. It's a 100% rewrite/redesign of the site and we want to go public with it. My goal is to have it ready for initial beta testing by January. We'll see. I have approximately three weeks to get the first part of my portion done (1 of 3) and then comes the testing phase of that with Nick. It's gonna be a fun ride.
I've been doing so much coding lately... this is my counter to my creative bout I've had for the last... 8-9 months. I like this. Of course, my hopes of being a web developer in the future may shift this wave of creativity to lean more towards coding, but nonetheless, I like this.
Rambling thoughts on comic books
Tonight is one of those nights where I sit and think about comics.
Comic-con is upon us and I'm stuck in this feeling of loathing for my favorite medium of entertainment.
There's the big 4: Marvel, DC, Image and Dark Horse.
Marvel has sold out, DC has become a series of continuity confusion, Image is there but almost bland, and Dark Horse site in a corner throwing merchandise to the world that 90 people will buy.
And I'm at a standstill.
Indie comic are a hipster's paradise, Manga has faded from popular demand and more comics are being made into mediocre films that I can barely stand.
I don't know how to feel about all of this. Is this what comics have become? A bland and boring pass time? Have they come and gone as a "great way to tell stories?"
Are comics turning into another piece of shit market? Is the point just becoming to sell enough comics to get a mediocre payoff?
Overheard at My Own Funeral
"Man, what a funny guy."
Everyone is singing along with "Pure Imagination" from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
"His D&D games were the best."
All sorts of stuff about the ridiculous things I think I'm good at is what it comes down to.
Keeping my edge
photo via ScienceIllustrated
No. This has nothing to do with that Straight Edge fad from back in the day.
This is about keeping my mind sharp.
I recently installed a version of Ubuntu onto a PC I was "gifted" by my room mate's brother. But let me preface this story/series of thoughts with this: I had installed Windows Vista onto this PC first.
Now, I'm the kind of guy who's very capable with computers. I've been fiddling around with computers since I was in 6th grade doing all sorts of terrible and ingenious things with limited and free hardware and software. Today, I was simply stumped and, after figuring out the solution, it's made me realize that I need to keep myself sharp in multiple facets of my mind.
I've been blogging a lot lately about creativity and writing, and in doing these things (being creative and writing) it's made my logical/computer related mind duller than I'd like to admit. It's a strange feeling.
Picture of sorts: Squinting
This is, more or less, what I've been doing since about 6am today.
photo via chrismaverick
Guess that's what I get for staying up all night (going on hour 18 since I slept last).
Outlets
photo by zamburak
In the past 8 years of my life, I've been given outlets for my "creativity," and lately I've been in a spiral of taking one or more on at a time. Or, at least, I've been trying to take one or more on at a time. More explanation later.
I've been talking about creativity a lot lately (with no expertise at all), so I apologize if you came looking for something different today.
To list my outlets, they go in this order (starting in 2002):
- Trombone
- Bass guitar
- Electric Guitar
- Computers (Flash, coding--HTML/JavaScript)
- Electric Guitar/Acoustic Guitar
- Writing (lyrics, poems, short stories)
- Glitch/loop-rock
- Writing (blogging)
- Coding
- Garageband
- Electric Guitar
- Coding
- Storytelling (speech - Dungeons & Dragons)
- Writing (short stories, scripts)
And here I sit now combining too many of these things into my life and it's both exhausting and overwhelming to the point where I want to do them all, but can only do them in short bursts.
Is this just me being "old"? Or is it me taking on too much? I guess the problem could be my tendency to simply dive head first into these things and not come up for air until I absolutely need the air (or rest)--again with the pool metaphor. I can hear the thought in the back of my head (the logical portion of my brain) yelling "MODERATION IS THE KEY IDIOT," and yet I just can't bring myself to make that conscious effort to moderate myself.
Twitter kind of reflects my sense of humor
So, if you're wondering... that's the kind of stuff I like and find funny.
Does anyone have any good tweets I should favorite?
Thought Lightning: Sleep
One of the greatest feelings I can think of is a night's rest. Laying down, sailing into the unknown of your mind, not knowing how or when you'll wake up. Simply drifting.
I've taken for granted how much I need sleep and have, on night's like tonight, denied myself this marvelous thing. I know I will be off to dreamland soon, but, again, the how or when escapes me. The night drifts on. My body feels exhausted, yet my mind races with anticipation of what tomorrow brings.
Here's to laying down and closing my eyes until tomorrow comes.
