The New Order

I've noticed this semester, that the days I don't worry about myself so much and I just act like the person I am, it's a lot easier to notice other people and how they conduct themselves.

I feel like I made a pretty reasonable connection with what goes on here at Anderson. Enrollment is dropping super fast, people transfer out more than stay in, and most of the mentality of the campus just kind of sucks.

There was one day that I did my best to have the best possible outlook in life, look ahead to things that are coming up, and also look ahead in life, literally at the things in front of me. I noticed that nobody else does the same.

Why do I get weird looks when I smile at someone when I walk by them? So what if I don't know you, we made eye contact and I was being friendly, why is that so frowned upon? And what's with this thing that people slowly look down at the ground as you get closer and closer to passing somebody while walking? Where's your self confidence?

The age group that is soon going to be forming the way for society is my age group, and I should be proud of that. Well I am, I'm proud to be part of the group shaping society, but I'm not proud of the rest of them. I can't even count the number of people I pass while walking that are just going to town on their cell phone, or lost in their music that they're tuned out everything else. These people have become completely and totally oblivious to things around them.

I'll admit, that I've pulled out my phone and gone to town as well to escape an awkward moment, but not anymore. This age group, along with every group following it, needs a wake up call, someone to snap them back into reality. Social skills are plummeting faster than a ton of bricks falling alongside a ton of feathers, both will hit the ground at the same time in a vacuum, but that's not relevant at all. If I had more invested in Anderson, I would gladly be that wake up call that they need. Why can't I simply be polite to people I pass by and say hello, who cares if I hold the door open for somebody I don't know?

I feel like I'm looking forward more and more, trying to better each passing moment, while the rest of this campus is simply looking down at the ground, trying to not make too big of a splash in the pond of life. Fuck that, I'm gonna be a cannonball, and it's gonna take more than this campus has to stop me. That's the connection I made with Anderson and the people, they always look down and stuff, and that's kind of the mental attitude of the campus, get it. *Right there, you should have imagined by voice from going all excited and enthused and stuff, to kind of quite and docile because I was explaining the connection I just made, which then makes it kind of funny.

Something else I realized I'm good at is not putting my individual needs first, but the needs of the group first instead. And in my government class, that's a problem with this country. Politicians are the worst at it. I'll give my example via taxes.

I don't want to pay higher taxes, I doubt that anybody does. But a raise in taxes would be a good way to help work on the debt of America, as well as put more money back into schools and government funded things. I feel like I could do with 1.5% less of my income if that meant it could chip away at the governmental debt and make my community better. That's $1.50 of every $100 dollars. Just a little thing like that could help a lot.

But you'll never see a politician run on a platform that he wants to raise taxes. No, they're running on a platform to cut taxes. And in a presidential election, saying you want to raise taxes will give the other guy a huge benefit, almost handing him the election. And saying you want taxes to stay the same while the other will cut them does the same thing. The only way to even the field is for both people to say they will lower taxes.

Well why can't somebody be the freaking voice of reason for a change, and flat out say what needs to be said? It doesn't matter that it might not be for the good of the individual, because what needs to be helped is the good of the whole, which is the country, which needs money really badly.

I love Obama, but if the administration had more balls, they'd flat out say it too. Taxes need to go up nation wide. They're all thinking it, they know it would help. But they know that it would kill the approval rating, which is already low enough, and lead more people to think that something is wrong with government because they've stopped doing what is best for each individual and stepped in and did what government is supposed to do, and did something that is for the best for everyone.

People are freaking dumb, and I feel like people like me need to be high up in government. I'd level with them as say that I don't want higher taxes, I know they don't want higher taxes, but it's something that needs to be done for the time being, and as part of the government, it's my job to act on what I feel will help the greater good, not what the people think I should do, which is the mentality now.

Now maybe once people stop looking down all the time, become more educated about the thing around them, and start acting like a civil and friendly society, maybe then they can tell government what needs to be done. But so long as Americans are looking out for themselves first, their thoughts aren't worth shit.

That's what I've got to say.

Exhaustion / Exhaustion

I actually didn't have anything that prompted me to write tonight, I'm bored beyond bored.

I spent over 3 hours working on one music theory assignment, and I still didn't finish it. I've got to use my trial copy to finish it, which wont allow me to save it so I'm only going to get some kind of partial credit.

I feel like I could totally go to bed right now, and I've only been up for 12 hours since I've dropped my keyboard class, and now my first class is at 10, which is chapel, so it's not important. I am officially half way done with chapel, 9 more left.

I'm going to contribute my feeling so bad to the fact that I've done a decent job at switching to my new eating habits, mostly fruit and peanut butter, but this evening I had a quesadilla and it didn't sit well with all the strawberries from lunch.

I don't understand how none of my professors think that I'm planning on transferring. Almost all of them have seen at least one essay that I've written, and how I respond when they try to prompt me to write about god, and how I rebel against the whole damn thing when it's shoved in my face. But I ran into a problem, I think I have 2 credits that are going to transfer to ball state. That's not really cool with me, but neither is staying here.

Penguins are Pretty Cool

I feel like I broke out of whatever binds were holding me in place this week. I'm unhappy a lot of the time, just because of the campus, but about 5 minutes ago, I just felt happy.

Sunday I broke out the cargo shorts which felt great.

Monday I wore my Young Democrats shirt with pride, as well as my cargo shorts. We had an assistant director in mens chorus and I enjoyed it for the first time. It's not vocal jazz, but I also didn't realize that the hour had gone by already.

Today was more shorts and a long sleeve shirt with the sleeves rolled. Put on my awesome sun glasses too. Right now I'm listening to music in my room, which my advisor told me to start doing again, and I've got the window open and I played some trumpet and played a 3 octave scale, something I haven't done in a while.

I was talking with a friend last night who would go to ball state if he could major on electric bass, but he can't do that there. Music at Anderson just isn't good. The entire campus is just a big high school that you can never leave. I love how personal it is, despite how ignorant most of the people are.

And I realized that among all of the jobs I've considered, they were all a good fit for me, especially being a political scientist and outdoor architecture. I might stay here another semester and see what the other departments are like. I love music, but this year has been a fight to the death to keep my passion alive. But it's clear to me that it's the way they teach music here. They teach you to be confined and stay within the lines when it comes to theory, and keyboard isn't teaching me anything, which is why I play so much on my own. Music is meant to destroy the lines, not be contained by them.

Where ever I end up next year, I'm going to keep playing trumpet and singing. I'm going to take more political science classes and I'm going to get back into theatre.

Persona Personafied

I read more about my personality placement, my advisor said to not worry about being a T or an F, because I display a lot of both. So that makes me an ENt/fP.

Extrovert makes me loud and explains my desire to always be in contact with people.

Intuition would be my ideas that don't seem to work on paper, but turn out amazing when acted on.

Thinking wise I take on a lot of logical points, but because of my high Feeling score I find the logical answer that makes the most people happy.

Perception leads me to go do stuff and build the bridge once I'm already over the river.

After answering a lot of questions, turns out that I'm a leader by circumstance, will avoid doing data-heavy work whenever possible, hate hypocrites more than Hitler, wont stay at a job that forces me to compromise time with people that are important to me, I'll rebel against most things that try to force me to do something regardless if I want to do it or not, and when going somewhere new I'll bring people with me who never thought they could make the journey and they'll be going safely in my footsteps that I've left behind.

I actually agreed with almost all of that.

Gross, NBC just used a really shitty green screen effect on one of their lower-popularity shows.

Basically, There's a lot You're Good at

I've got another post idea rolling around in my head, but it's going to have a pissed off mood to it and I'm too unfocused to write about it.

I had another individual meeting with my career exploration advisor. It was supposed to be for 15 minutes, but we ended up talking for an entire hour. We talked about my Myers-Briggs test results, ENTP, as well as what I value most and my standout traits.

My advisor meets with me 3 times more often than anyone else in my group. She says she has I'm still a huge puzzle to her, and I'm the only one she hasn't figured out. All my results say that I'd do great in a music field, but I know I don't want to play any kind of instrument. She says I'd be an awesome band manager, especially if I get a background in law and my high results for enterprising values.

Another time we meet we talked about me going to study abroad for an entire year, not just a semester. It's a little more expensive, because I have 3-5 chances to come home for 11 days. I'd pick christmas and new years for sure, but I don't know about the other 2-4 visits. I would love to go to Spain, but there's a huge language barrier, but I'm perfectly set up for a year in London.

Last time we meet, we talked about law school, and I made my connections to the professors that could help me out there. I'd most likely go into copyright and patents, which would most likely still allow me to be involved with music.

Today we talked about working at Disney, where I'd have all the creativity I could handle, and enterprising too. We talked a lot about the interview process, and there might be one at Ball State soon. What's funny is that I actually was looking at internships with disney like a week ago. The only turn off is that it's an entire summer, like 3 months. The interviews start soon, and they look for people like me. I get easily excited about things, I like people, and I know my Disney. I could work retail, but she sees me being a character without a problem. I would love to be a character, but I'd like one with a mask, because smiling all day starts to hurt.

And then she noted that I have educational values high too, and the only people who have them as high as I do usually end up being college professors. Which I would like more because there's more money involved and I don't have to be nice to everyone.

I'm way to distracted to keep writing.

End of line.

Life Isn't a Two Way Street

Life is a one way street, each person just moving at different speeds than any one other person at any given time.

This is a topic that's been on my mind for just over a week, 8 days really, and I still can't quite get it out of my mouth. It wasn't until last weekend that it hit home again, and I really decided I needed to write about it.

I had to write a paper about the spiritual emphasis week that went on last week on campus, a lot of it was personal reflection and discovery and junk. I didn't think too much about it until I took a step back and actually found myself doing what the professor was setting out to do. Force you to look at your own life, but without you in the equation.

I also have a seminar class that we're discussing "The Four Loves", and as much as I don't enjoy discussion at all in that class, I had a lot to relate to about it.

It almost made me feel like a computer system that was becoming self-aware. It never really ends well according to all the movies I've seen of things like that. But I'm not an evil robot, at least not for the time being.

Basically, it boils down to this.

I'm a lot better of a person that almost all of my friends. But by saying that, it makes me less of a good person, and I can deal with that. I think really highly of the people that I consider my friends, and there are some that I hold a lot of respect and love for, and I try to make that really obvious. Most of my friends know that if something ever goes down, I'll be the first guy to jump up and protect them. They know I'll always have time to listen to them when they need someone to talk to. They know that I'll drop things that are important to me if they need something. And that I'll go places I have no interest in going if it means we can hang out for a little bit.

The initial idea for this came from last week, when I was having a really shitty time, and just needed someone to hear me out. I don't have anyone on campus that I can really just level with, so I looked to my friends from Westfield, the people I'd gladly do the same for. I was shocked, which later turned into anger, at what happened. But I get it, who would want to listen to someone else's troubles when they can talk about themselves? It's cool, don't worry about it. JK. Actually, not even JK, I'm bull shitting you.

I'm kind of pissed at almost all of my friends. Almost all, that's important. I give and give, and there's just nobody really giving back at all, and my tank has been empty for quite some time. I look back at the last 4 years, and I've had 4, maybe 5 people who have actually just sat and listened to me. What's worse? Those were all one time things.

In my seminar class, I could only think of one person who really did all the of the things a friend should do for another friend, and I told them so later that day. I have lots of friends, and looking at the whole grand scheme, they each give a little bit of the spectrum, but it just doesn't always work. Sure, 25 people chip in 4%, that's 100%, right? Well what happens when I'm shelling out 40% to 25 people? That's 1000%. I know people say to give it 110%, but 1000% is a bit steep.

Even right now, I've got a sub-train of thought going on, evaluating all my friends and stuff. Not all, just the ones who I know I'll be in touch with for years and years to come, the ones I have a long history with. It just kind of bums me out that while thinking through all of this, I get the feeling that people use me, and a lot.

I had to tell a class what my mission is, and while I know it was meant as my spiritual and christian mission, I don't have one. I have a life mission, and that's to be a better person than I was the day before, and that's what I told the class.

I'm kind of getting off target now, but that's what thinking is, it just goes.

I just really wish I had friends that would treat our relationship as a two way street. I can't even count the number of times I've helped people with problems and been there for them when they were down and out, and then life decided to curb stomp them once more. And all I can think of for myself is how much I got out of my own bad situations on my own, or avoided problems entirely. And writing this kind of makes me feel more alone than I've ever felt, and I'm even in my own house, in my home town.

HOLY SHIT. So the smoke detector in my room chirped, and I'm totally unfocused now, and I'm worried it's going to chirp all night.

I've got a few more people to thank, and stuff, and I'll pay it forward sometime to show how much I appreciate it.

I've also got a few more thoughts to lay out from my last post-

You've got to be fucking kidding me. The smoke detector in the living room downstairs just chirped. Holy crap.

Few more thoughts-

I wish that they respected me enough to talk to me face to face, or even over a phone call. It's easy to hide behind words on a screen, that's what I've always thought. It wouldn't have been hard at all, especially because I wouldn't have even had anything to say until 10 minutes after the conversation ended.

I guess it might just be too much to want a friend like me. It sounds arrogant, but it's what I've come to find true. I'm inherently a better person than most people I know. If I did the whole religion thing, that'd be the icing on the cake. But don't worry, this cake doesn't need icing, it was made with love and a cup of pudding for extra moistness.