Yesterday...what did I do yesterday? I found out that I am useless when if comes to soliciting quotes from people I don't know, though apparently I'm pretty good at it with people that I do know as evidenced by last year, not this year. I found out that I belong to a cult. All in a days work. I can't believe the organization down here, it's so "California." I don't think I can handle it, and then when I go back to Seattle, there are new people and it's a little different. So in a way, I don't belong in either place. Being an SUA student, especially first class, just makes it all the more difficult. But sometimes I like the recognition, but I still don't want to be treated differently because of it. Wait, sometimes I do, but only when I don't get it. Am I just making this problem for myself? Well duh, but... My practice is suffering sooo much, but I don't want to talk to any of the leaders down here about it. I don't know if I can talk to SGI leaders at all because I'm being so critical of the SGI and all they will tell me is that I don't understand or I'm deluding myself or something like that. Maybe not, but going to the leaders of the organization that you have problems with seems inherently silly to me. Unless I have specific suggestions I guess. When I talked to a couple people in Seattle, they seemed willing to listen, but I wasn't so willing to talk openly. I don't want to be a whiner and I want to have everything objective, not all from my own distorted lens. I know everything is from my distorted lens, but I want it to be as undistorted as possible, yeah right. Must be objective, and not get angry when people tell me I'm not being objective, but how do they know? I'm the only one that knows.

Wow, I barely knew it was Halloween. When I was a kid, it was a big countdown and then the day of was really exciting. Yesterday I had to remind people it was Halloween. It really is a Soka bubble, and I think I have created my own as well; I don't really include the freshmen in my bubble... I think I forget that a lot of them exist, though there are some that pretty much fall into the First Class category.

I'M DONE WITH MY MIDTERMS! I think.

I don't feel accepted...maybe. I think I'm making my own bubble because I feel outside of other peoples' bubbles or the big one that pervades this place. I didn't feel like that last year, what changed, beside adding another 87 students?? Even some people from last year seem more distant. Everyone is busier this year, including myself, even though I'm barely doing any clubs at all. I'm more distant, I only communicate with people on the most superficial level.

My haunted house would include:

A woman in a room breaks a nail, blames the observers, and rushes them with some instrument of distruction.

A couple in the corner making out, you think, but the woman is really dead and the man has blood in his mouth

Screaming coming from an open door, an bloodied man comes to the door, looks around and closes it

Someone looking like a "customer" being chased by a monster. Possibly a shill in the group, gets chased and "killed"

A confused dead person/ghost looking for help from the observer, randomly wandering the hall??

Stick them in a coffin, a small, dark, confined room

A child in a room playing with dolls and taking them apart

A man dancing with a dead woman

A doll maker making live people dolls, à la Jeepers Creepers. i.e. sewing on a person

Person in the middle of a massacre asking "What have I done?" Wants help from observer, is bloody

A person butchering a live person screaming for help

A teacher teaching to a class of students that he has killed

The inevitable dead Prom Queen

An old-fashioned room with a record playing, with scary pitcures on the walls, but nobody in it

A normal looking man passes group and takes his place in a scene above (or below?) Screaming butcheree or sewed person?

I'm much more into the psychological scare than just the boo scare, of course, those are important to. Hmmm, shall we say morbid thoughts on the brain??

Being busy gives me something to focus on. As long as I have something that I can put myself into, I'm fine. But is that running away, or avoiding the issue. Are they really issues, excuse me Gail troubles if I can forget them so easily. All I need to do is have my mind taken somewhere else. If they were that troubling, wouldn't they consume my mind? Oh, and I do have a mind that gets consumed!! And then there are the times that I'm thinking about this stuff and it gets worse. So then, why do I think about it? Wouldn't it just be smarter not to? Maybe it could fester, but sometimes I think I am really not think about my problems, not even in the back of my mind. Shouldn't you be able to tell? I would be so much easier if we could just forget about it and put our minds of something else and it would go away. Hey, I wish that worked with homework as well.

Hmmm, I wonder if I'm going to be cold today?? It is such a good thing that Buffy is a rerun tonight!! I think I can get a good chunk of the dum dum dum duuummm midterm done if I really work at it, I just have to decipher my notes! Ahhhh. But I do think that was a good way to do it, instead of just jumping in headfirst...maybe I can use that in the future too. I just have to remember not to completely fall apart after this week. If I do no work on the other stuff, will have more weeks like this one and last. And that would suck, especially because finals would be there too. Ohh, the thought just makes me want to go to bed and not come out for a really long time!! Don't forget to print out the Sociology Proposal and to send it to the partners. That would suck to forget that!! Wow, that seems to be my word of the blog.

Me status? I haven't had a chance to think about myself because I have so much work, but don't worry, I'll be just as screwed up come Monday. I really really liked Whitman. Maybe I should write a Song of Myself, ehh, but it would probably be almost like his. Hmmmm, maybe, I can see lines and lines of cafeteria observation, hehe.

I'm so scared to use my computer! The screen is all funked up and I hope it doesn't get worse. But I think it is, now the blue shows up as purple. I just don't think that's normal. I thought last week was hectic, but this week should be fun!! But I may be blowing things out of proportion. I have a bunch of notes for AmEx. I am just worried that I don't have enough for his essays. Other than that, there is really nothing new to complain about, and that's not really new. If I had more time, I might write something, but I just don't. I read some Whitman last night for AmEx on Thursday and I really liked it!! It was so much fun, he just talked about random things, and about people. He asked really seemingly dumb questions that were very deep. The poem is life, random, inconsequential and deep all at the same time. He just is, was, and it doesn't matter what anyone else does or thinks, he is still him and I am still me. Well, doesn't it seem like I have the beginnings of a response paper here.

I must not shut down. I think I had been doing so well too! When I get frustrated or I don't know what is going on, I just shut down. That doesn't help anyone, especially myself. I think I eventually run out of patience with people or the whole situation. Last night was so frustrating because the person running the show had no idea how to do what she wanted, just that it was what she wanted. Grrr So then it was left up to other people to decide how to do it, but if they didn't do it right...well then. So then she was all harried because we kept having to go to her for help on what to do, because only she knew. She complains that she is so busy, but the only reason she is is because she has to do everything herself. The problem is that I can see myself doing the exact same thing. I have to micro-manage every little detail because someone else might do it wrong. I've never run anything like last night before, but I can see myself acting the same way as her. scary Must not shut down when frustrated!

I think the way I'm feeling is the same as when you walk into a room and then you forget why you are there. I seem to have no purpose at of right now. All I do is homework, or not, sleep, and eat. There is nothing special that I am doing. I also have a really short attention span when it comes to finding purposes. Like this geek stuff, I like to think that I just got really busy, and I did, but I am not thinking about it 24 hours a day anymore. I think it got really hard. Hopefully when the next week is over and I have some time to breath, I can focus on that again. I fear trying something too hard because I might not be good at it. I tell myself that I can never be very good and so I don't try. Either that, or I tell myself that it is easy and that I would be good at it, but I don't want to prove myself wrong. Must study.

Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!! OH MY GOSH! Hmm, guess I'm going to have to skip collecting tonight. Is it possible to study while making brownies? Hope someone will make them with me!! AHHHHHH, I'm just going to have to leave the AmEx study group early, ahhhhhh, but I need quotes from them. But it's a take home test and Soc isn't. At least that one I won't need to quote all over the place. And ‚©‚ñ‚¶ test, at least that one won't kill me! Wow, it's not as if I have a lot of homework, just projects and tests. All great fun.

So I wonder what I should write my AmEx paper on. Need to have a proposal by tomorrow...Religion, Minority Rights, Immigration, or perspective on the US...I don't know!! I need something that is possible to reasearch but not so boring that I keel over halfway through writing the thing. Immigration doesn't particularly interest me, and I'm thinking that I wouldn't find a new twist on Minority Rights, so that leaves Religion or Perspectives. Perspectives could be interesting, but is it overdone?? What about the US policy of isolation, how that broke, and how it's coming back together. I think I could do that. Talk about how Isolationism helped and hindered the economy and the people, what forced them to come out and how that has helped and hindered the economy, why some people want to become more isolationist again and what they think that will accomplish. What I don't understand is how people want to be isolationist in that they don't want to deal with certain people or whatever, and then they can turn right around and put their noses in other people's business. Okay, I think that is what I'm going to do.

Okay, we can handle this. There was nothing about yesterday that was hard. I wonder if it's just about the stress of being graded. I hate being graded. When I get a less than perfect grade, I think that I have somehow failed in some way, that never again will I receive a good grade. Quite stupid actually. So is my method, then, that of an overachiever? Just do more so that they cannot penalize you for anything. Who knows?

All I want to do is sleep. Why does lying on a bed feel so good. Even if you're not sleeping, but you are doing nothing. To me, doing nothing is the best thing in the world. If I never had to eat or drink, I could just sleep all day long.

Yup, I really have nothing to say. Except that I must write poem with the line. I attempted once, but it was really bad!

What if the eyes are the windows to the soul?
What do you see when you look into mine?
What do you see when you look in the mirror?
What if the eyes are the mirror of your soul?

Wow, going to have to just STOP and...maybe later

Monday again, why does it seem like it's always Monday? My life is an eternal wait for the weekend and an eternal disappointment as Monday comes for another round. It's not even as if my weeks are that hard, I have a lot of time in the morning to do whatever I need to. Maybe I am still suffering from highschool-itis. It's weird, I enjoy certain aspects of the week, like, I can't wait until Tuesday at 8, or swimming class on Monday and Wednesday, but as a whole, I don't enjoy the week. I think I must not look at things in their whole, but in their pieces. The same goes for the weekend. Monday isn't so bad. I have the morning to finish up the homework that I was too lazy to do the night before. Bio is really long, but not hard and most of the time it's kind of interesting. Japanese is Japanese, but swimming class is a lot of fun. That is the extent of my day, why do I worry about it and dread it so? Tuesday, Soc and American Experience, eh. Like the Buffy watching, can fall into a world that is not my own and everything is finished up in an hour. Wednesday, same as Monday. Thurday, same as Tuesday, but no Buffy, plus Japanese. Friday is a good day! Almost like a weekend, I like it. See, my week is not that strenuous, I really do have a lot of free time, I just don't get to use it because I am either sleeping or complaining that I don't have enough time. It's all in the attitute. Time Management again. I will conquer you!! I have lists, they will find your heart and stab at it!!

So, what do you do when you don't want to talk to anybody? It feels like all I want to do lately is talk to the people I always talk to. That could stem from me being annoyed with the entire world, but that has been on the downside lately, thank goodness. I think I am getting more homework done because of it, that's the bright side, could it just be coming from a feeling that I need to get my homework done?? Every time I do something that is not homework oriented, I feel guilty, and it sucks! All I want to do is be able to play around and not feel like I'm the biggest slacker there ever was. There are parts of me that do not involve homework, but lately I feel like I've been pushing them to the background. I want to do well in school, but I want to be a complete person as well. I want to be able to hang out with people while not doing homework! Time management has always been something that I am sooooooo bad at, that is another thing I have been trying to work on, but it seems like it takes up so much time!! So, I feel like I shouldn't talk to people and that I don't really even want to. I still see the freshmen as different and I think I'm even pushing some of the first class away, or if not pushing, then ignoring. There are so many people that I don't see very often. I thought I went through this at the beginning of last year, this whole social thing, but apparently I'm doing it again. I must end this cycle. It comes from my own insecurities, so I just have to end those. HA, easier said than done. Oh man, gotta chant then I suppose.

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?

Time is stupid. It's all fast and slow and kills people but lets us change and is just basically dumb. When you want it to pass, it doesn't, but when you want the moment to be as long as possible, it's over so quickly. When you're little one week feels like forever, but when you get older, one year feels like a week. What happens when you get even older? What happens when you run out of time? They say that time began with the Big Bang, is it going to end in some equally catastrophic event? Things would be so much easier if we just didn't have to deal with time.