Blegf

I must have written a half a dozen drafts that won't be posted. Some of them are dreary, some of them are super-political, and I just stopped writing halfway through each of them. I dunno what to say in this blog anymore. This one will be full neurotic rambling too, but I feel like that's a drag to read, and that makes me ask why I'm writing. Pretty lame circle of events. I'll keep people updated in the same way I have been, I spose.

So, seeing my last post was before I started school this semester, here's how classes are--- they suck. I keep going into them all naive and optimistic, only to be let down. Constantly. Only Japanese has been good. We got a really easy-going teacher, and a class of six or so people. I was surprised to find how much I enjoy a tiny class. He keeps us on our toes, too, so I may actually be learning.

It is not so with English and Psych. If I've learned anything, it's the same lesson I learned with Logic-- expectations are extremely low. Psych is just the same song and dance as it was in Summer II, homework is notes, and every class is a ridiculous lecture with a quiz or test. And I mean ridiculous lecture. This man says things that make ME uncomfortable. God, I cannot believe the foolish things this man says. How he got a PhD will forever be a mystery to me. I'm not going to repeat anything he says, because his ideas are so stupid or inappropriate that they make me cringe. For a man who proclaims his love for science, that his religion is science, and that more people need to think like scientists, well, he does the opposite. He speaks largely in supposition and makes broad conclusions based on anecdotal premises! AAAAUGGGH. He makes my brain cry blood.

It took me three weeks to figure out this English Composition class is a waste of my time and money. We began writing drafts of our first paper (which I'm sort of working on while I write this) and then started talking about grammar. I almost perked at that, because even though I use things like commas and apostrophes, I was sure I would learn something I hadn't known before, like semi-colons. Yeah, I never -really- know where to use a semi-colon. But... then we started going over things I learned in seventh grade. I was having flashbacks. When we started doing class work, it consisted of identifying where commas and periods go. PEOPLE WERE GETTING THEM WRONG. I'm sorry, if you come out of high school not knowing what's wrong with a run on sentence, you need to go back.

The paper is due tomorrow. The subject is a remembered event, and has to be under a thousand words. I'm basically done. It's not great, but ya know what? It doesn't have to be. Not when the people around me are barely literate. I'm done getting myself twisted up over OCC, because nothing will need to be absolutely perfect, and I'd just be wasting sleep on worry.

That's basically where I am in life right now. There's no one around to impress, no reason to buckle down, no reason to sell out or change. It's boring and frustrating, but I still find hope in planning. Last time I wrote a little about my Adult theory, and I'm gonna write a little more. It may even have to do with what I wrote in the other part of this paragraph!

Adulthood, the way I see it, is a personality trait. I don't believe everyone has it, and I'm not gonna venture into actual psychology to try and validate it or explain where it comes from. Just observation. Not all mature people are Adults, I would say, because my definition is more narrow. Adults are boring. Adults thrive in the mundane. They exist to fulfill expectation. Weird, unspoken, alien expectations. They don't do things that are "silly" or "stupid", because that is not what Adults do. Not prim and proper, more like "stuck." Stuck in the day-to-day, stuck in their jobs, stuck in minute problems. Never fantasizing, never dreaming, never creating.

I can't begin to guess how many Adults there are according to my somewhat specific category. I wouldn't say all, I wouldn't say most, but I would say a substantial amount. I don't understand them at all. They're alien to me. Part of why I speak so much about politics and religion is because those are things I can bring up and connect with virtually everyone on, regardless of stance. They're like trade languages. But go outside of those things, and your choices are left at small talk. I loathe small talk.

The thing they have going for them, though, is that they're often functioning members of society. They get the grades and jobs they're expected to, they have the relationships they're expected to. They make things work.

And now to tie things together! It is my plan, though more long-term than short, to craft Adult Sean. This will happen more after I've gone to Eastern, where I have the space to do the things needed to form this new persona. The aim is more towards Gentleman Sean than Adult Sean, but more on that in a minute. I sort of conveyed the idea to grandma, who suggested I be myself, but as I told her, if myself is dysfunctional in the "real world," then I need to at least lie and pretend I function. It would be a lie because I am not an Adult, you see.

Gentleman is a bit different. I use the word more in the way of "man's man" than "prim and proper." I've read some ideas on what a modern gentleman might be, and I like some of it. Not just on a date, and not just etiquette, but all the time gentlemanliness. Sociable, knowledgeable, fun, and small doses of silly? Sign me up. The whole premise is an ideal, and I think fewer people are capable of being so... capable, I guess, as these gentleman-theorists would say while peddling a book or seminar or something (I saw a link for a seminar and shook my head). But this too would require fundamental changes in my behavior.

That's what I like thinking about, when I think about my future. Mostly, it's because I'm tired of being in my house, tired of being a child. You're always a child in your parents' house, and I want out. It's just gonna take time. I'm planning out a few meals for Fine Dining Night at my place in Ypsi. I'm not very far into the actual meal itself (I'm on the appetizer-- grilled tomato gazpacho), but I can already see who's there and how surprised they are that I could do something SO FUCKING CLASSY. It knocks their socks off and I win.

Sean