Dag nab it!! It read the durned book!! Now I'm all thinking about time and stuff again. I wonder why it depresses me so much. There is a total lesson to be learned from that book and I get it and I agree with it, but there is a little part of me that says, "whoa, living forever would be Great!" I guess the topic of whether I should drink or not is probably never going to come up, but I can still think about it as a hypothetical question. If I did live forever, that would mean that there wouldn't have to be any rush as to anything I did. If we lived longer, would we still get the same amount of stuff done, but only do it slower? Or if we had shorter lives, would we manage to squeeze it all in? So in that vein, someone who lived forever wouldn't get anything done, because they would always have more time in which to finish it. That sucks. There goes my whole, why I would want to live forever argument. sigh Why are we, I in particular, so afraid of dying? Because we don't know what happens afterward? It doesn't really matter, I think, because it's not like we'll be conscious of our deadness. I think some people are afraid of that, that they'll still be them, but that it will be all dark or something of the sort. Death is a funny thing, without it, there wouldn't be life. All cliché, I know, but it's true. Like Tuck said in the book, the stream keeps on flowing and makes a circle. If the end of the circle stopped, then the beginning wouldn't be able to happen. Like those time predicaments where it couldn't happen beause it never could have happened the first time, or something. unh

Do all great minds think alike?? I guess it depends on what you mean by think. Is it the thinking process or the end result of this thinking? Because if it is supposed to the be the end result, or the solution, that these great minds come up with, they definitely don't all think alike. It also depends on what you think is a great mind. Maybe you think that only the people who think the same things as you are the ones with the great minds. In that case, well, yeah because you are defining who they are and so controlling the outcomes. People who think alike aren't really worth anything to each other anyway. What's the point of spending all your time with some you agree with 100%? These is nothing to be gained for either person except that they will feel good because someone agrees with them. That has no value in the real world.

I think people here fall into this trap all the time. Because there are a lot of people in the world who disagree with them and who really don't seem to be changing their minds, the find solitude in a place where most people think alike. There is nothing wrong with being frustrated and the state of the world. There is nothing wrong with sometimes feeling that you can't change any minds. The point is to keep trying! Sure, they can come to campus every once in a while and just say what they think and have everyone agree and they can feel better, but if all they do is stay here so that noone will disagress with them, they are hiding from the world. In the end, they are having no effect and their point of view is pointless, they may as well be apathetic to the whole situation.

Then, in reverse, I think that people find someone or something that they like or want to believe and then do so. They might have no idea what it is really about, but they are told that it is a good thing, a Democratic thing, a liberal thing, that the Republicans don't like it, and so on and so forth. Because they are supposed to think a certain way, they do. That is not thinking for yourself, and exactly what they say those others are doing. Even when they are told this, when they read some great literary of the past such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, they agree and think that is what they are doing. Wrong

I think this is what frustrates me the most about this campus. I have been having the feeling that everything is useless, and if it all continues like this, it is all useless. All the graduates from this school will get out into the world where everyone will stop agreeing with them and they will be lost, they won't know how to agrue...oh, excuse me dialogue with them about what they really think. They may even be lost as to what to think; it's so easy to know what you are supposed to think. Then this school will have meant nothing and been a large pit into which thousands of people threw millions of dollars.

But! We must not give up. There can be a solution if people will just start thinking for themselves. One way could be to bring on campus a bunch of Republicans, whom everyone on this campus must disagree with on every principle, to show the people here that they are not devil-creatures trying to bring about the apocalypse. Maybe they might even gasp find something in common

So, what is life all about? What differentiates the people who are happy and who aren't? Is there one standard that everyone has, or is it all just arbitrary? Maybe we are taught to be happy or sad, unknowingly, by our parents. In the grand scheme of things, what is the purpose of happy and sad, is there a use for these emotions? Would things every get done if everyone was depressed all the time? Is it happiness that drives people ultimately, do they even think about that? With something so seemingly important to our lives and out productivity, why is it that happiness is such a fragile thing? One day it is here and the next it's gone. Or is that true happiness? How can happiness be fake? It can be faked to the outer world, but it's harder to fake inside, unless you're just deluding yourself...In out little complex computer that we can a brain, how is it that we are all so similar but so different, can't we just pick one????

I feel happy learning, but when it takes a classroom turn, I get turned off for some reason. I like researching, but I hate having to write it all down. It's not like that's hard, I classify and connect them all in my head, or else I wouldn't understand anything, but getting it all down on paper just seems so tedious. I learn for myself, not so that I can show others that I am learning. Do I feel like they don't trust that I've learned...I don't want them to think that I haven't learned. Papers are such an odd thing, because they are barely ever your own creation. There is always outside help in grammer or thoughts.

Am I becoming a recluse?? All I want to do is sit in my room and talk to certain people. I don't NOT want to talk to others, but I don't have the same sense of contentment when I do. This is bad, what do I do? Become more social?? Ack, scary.

Why is it that I can put so much energy into something that doesn't really matter? I could go my whole life without any of this geek stuff and be just fine, in fact, if I stopped working on it and started working on my homework instead, my life would probably be better! But this is something that I can look forward to, that isn't just a tv show or something that only happens once in a while. It's even harder than my homework!! But I am more enthusiastic about it. Except now, I feel kind of guilty when I play because I should be doing other homework, and that just ruins the effect. So I'll have to limit myself to only when I have free time. Unh. Next step is to figure how how to transfer that energy into what the school wants me to do (i.e. my homework). I find it interesting, but not so much that it's not a chore to do all the time. Maybe it's the time limit, or the fact that I can't choose for myself... Maybe if I make an effort to really understand it, and not just read it over so I can talk semi-intelligably in class, I will find more enjoyment. unh. I wonder also if I have to find someone who is just as interested as myself, Sammi and Ann seem to be really into this Emerson stuff and they talk about it together. Study partners?? I do think I enjoy it more when I have someone to talk to or explain to about it. WHY DO I LIKE TO SLEEP SO MUCH????

Does it seem like everyone's leaving!?!?!?! If this is such a great school, then why do all these people find "great opportunities" elsewhere??

I have "Yesterday" by the Beattles stuck in my head. It's such a sad song. I don't think anyone should look into the past and lament about what they had then that they don't now. It's all about looking to the now, and into the future. You can't change the past or what you lost, you can be sad about it, but not to the point that you are neglecting the present. Sometimes I feel like I'm doing that, I think a lot of people do that, especially about their childhood. Lately I have been reminiscing about high school and before with a lot of people. I kind of miss that time because I didn't have to take care of myself and I didn't really have to work hard. Being here means that soon I'm going to graduate, have to find a real job, whether I go to Grad School or not, and take complete care of myself. Who wants to do that? Some people do, I guess, but the prospect scares me more than anything. It might be a fear of failure. What if I can't support myself, if I forget to pay a certain bill, or do something stupid and get fired. I don't feel like an adult, I feel the same as I did when I was younger. There was no epiphany the day I turned 18. In your mind you are always a rational person, even when you are just a kid and everyone else can see that you are immature. Inside yourself, how can you tell when you have passed from "child" to "adult"? And age has nothing to do with it!

Oh man, I wanna go swimming! It's so unfair. What's with the weather anyway? So, no more evil or stupid, how is this going to work? I can't articulate, that's what brought me to those general descriptors anyway. Using English in a way to make people understand is not something I'm good at! I think I have to find something to put my whole life into, I don't have anything that I really look forward to anymore. I don't have any classes that are soooo interesting and I don't have time for a lot of clubs, because I'm always doing homework for the so-so classes. Maybe tennis can be something that I look forward to, swimming is too. I've never been into physical activity before, I wonder if I can do it now? I wish Japanese could be like that, but the class frustrates me so much because I never know what's going on and she doesn't help us figure out what is. Studying everything and anything seems like the best thing to do, but it's so hard. Flashcards are all great and good, but then you have to look at them. And I still don't know what to study. I can't speak worth anything, all I can do is call people names, which doesn't endear them to me really. Maybe if I spend actual time on my homework, I'll find something about my classes to enjoy, that's going to have to be in the morning. Must wake up when alarm goes off. This morning I didn't even realize that I pushed the snooze button, I just rolled over and went back to sleep. What happens if I accidentally turn it off. Must train myself not to push the snooze button. Then I must stop setting the alarm early, I will set in at exactly the time I think I should get up and then I must get up!!

I don't want to have to change. It seems so much easier to just not worry about it and hope it goes away. Sometimes I don't feel like I'm that bad at all and there is no need to change anything, but then I feel like I am a horrible person and every aspect of me needs changing. Why don't I just feel one way all the time? If I felt that I needed changing all the time, then it would be a lot easier to motivate myself to change...or I would just be more miserable? When I feel that I am just fine, am I being dishonest with myself? Am I in some way deluding myself as to my true self. Or is that the real truth and it is just when I am convinced that I am the spawn of Satan that I am being insincere. When I'm happy, I don't do the things that I berate myself for, but once I do something or think something negative, I begin the downward spiral. Which is right and true? Is there a difference between the two?