Oh hey

I was asked specifically to update this. In retribution I will now whine about school till you all go away and leave me alone in my puddle of misery.

I'm not even being dramatic with the "puddle of misery" comparison. That's essentially all I am since the beginning of this semester. Community Ecology is like a joy-poultice: pulling all of that pesky happiness and hope out of me and encouraging the growth of unparalleled rage and sadness. Just thinking about it makes my stomach tie up in a knot of nope. Nope nope nope. I am considering writing a letter to the professors telling them that if I die this semester it is all their fault.

I went to a gym yesterday! For the first time evar! The only kind of exercise-y things I usually do is factory work and rock climbing which keeps me moderately fit but I'd never been to a for realsies gym with treadmills and humans before. It was weird. I thought about prison a lot while I was there and how I should get in shape just in case I need to go to prison when I shiv my Comm Eco professor.

I'm really not a happy kitty any more. Either I'm angry or depressed and I think angry is a bit nicer than depressed and that's why I let so many things get to me. I don't think it bothers me unless I accidentally introspect (which I've been avoiding (thus no bloggies)).

I've also found many lovely new friends in Guelph that are much different from friends I have had in the other times of my life. They are fun and sciencey and largely non-introspective. It is a new experience. They are plenty fun, they just are philosophical honey badgers, if you see what I mean. It makes me a honey badger too.

There you go, I updated so that you can procrastinate an extra 15 minutes on whatever you should be doing. I'm going to listen to people say things I do not care about.

My pretties

It's been a few weeks. I just have very little to report.
The post frequency on this blog is proportional to the amount of changes in my life. Lately there have not been many new things. I've mentioned new friends, but that has not brought about changes in me. Usually I am quick to adopt characteristics of the people I am with, but that has not happened to the same degree in this scenario. That may be because I already had very much in common with them, or maybe I've grown up a little and don't care so much about fitting in. Either way, it's a new experience.

Christmas has come and gone. I was not so grumpy this year as I have been other years. My brother and his wife visited from BC for the week before the 25th and it was good to be near them again. When I was a child, my brother was the worst thing in my life. He made me cry every single day and pestered me mercilessly. Then, once I hit high school, something changed between us. We started getting along and actually enjoying being around each other. We could hang out and talk about things. We've been good buddies ever since and having him back in town was lovely.

For the past 3 days I've just been sleeping and computering and smoking. Mostly sleeping. Tomorrow I'm going with my sister and parents to Niagara to see the butterfly conservatory and hang about near the falls. Then, in the evening, UFC 141!!! Buahahaha! I love watching huge guys beat the poop out of each other! I am a Lesner fan, personally, but it's gonna be a high-intensity fight. Woooooo!

I'm currently reading Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, which is (according to reputable sources) one of the beset books ever written. I'm dreading its conclusion. I've read the first 30 chapters (120 pages) and I like the main character, but she's doomed. It's gonna be like Madame Bovary, but with a really nice person getting messed up in the whole thing. Do you know what the downfall is going to be of the heroine? It's the fatal love of receiving admiration. She (Anna) is a good wife, a loving mother, a good and sensible woman. Then one bastardly charmer comes along and falls for her and she does the exact same thing that I would: she falls in love with her power over him and his love for her and falls from grace. It's like the tragedy of Macbeth with less ghosts and whining and more pretty dresses. I am dreading it. These Russian authors have an annoying tendency to write about real humans and the way they work, and I have no choice but to see my own faults in their writing. It's obnoxiously convicting and invigorating.

Enough of the literature nerd. I am off to smoke and read some Sherlock and possibly watch a film.

Oooh, also, I went to see the new Sherlock Holmes with my dear friend last night. It was on the mediocre side of entertaining, but it had Stephen Fry in it and Sherlock has the same pipe as me so I think it was worth the watching.

Science Complex

I like to spend time here. For the past 2 weeks or so I've been at school for 8-12 hours a day. It's a good thing they've put a lot of work into making the Atrium liveable and full of energy drinks.

All of my new friends and I like to sit around drinking Monster drinks and studying and having deep conversations. It's a good time. I'm feeling ok about school in this context. At least I have good people around me while I'm in this miserable hole. Even if I fail a few courses this semester I think it will be my best semester of university yet just for the people I've met. Good things.

It's good to have a common "we" again. After last summer I thought I had forever destroyed any hope of a good pack of hanging out buddies. I guess I'm not as much of a social screw-up as I thought for a long time.

This morning is full of studying but it's ok because I have an energy drink and buddies :)

Birthday!

It was my birthday on the 25th!

FOURTEEN people came out to the pub with me! That's an all time record!

It was a fantastic night: hanging out, having a few (eight) drinks, chatting with all sorts of people.

This past year has not been easy, but I realized it's been good. I've changed, as I so often do, and I've made friends! I think that 20 was one of my toughest years so far, but 21 will be easier. It can't really get harder, actually.

Things that happened since last birthday:
- Brother moved to BC
- Many good friendships nearly destroyed
- Few good friendships repaired-ish.
- Made friends at school! (Notes on these people to follow)
- Made friends at church
- Received two proposals of marriage
- Spent 6 months on brain drugs
- Went to Arizona all alonesies
- Set a table on fire
- Michael got married

Things that are still the same:
- Continuing struggle with existential nihilism
- Hope to move to Africa
- Those same guys from high school who have always been around for me and each other
- Scotch is delicious
- School is a soul-sucking abyss of misery
- Lack of emotional availability prevents romantic relationship
- Rubber boots!

The friends I've made at school are mostly from my Integrative Biology of Invertebrates class. They're all way smarter than me which is good because competition might motivate me to do things.

One thing I want to change about myself is my tendency to talk before I think. I've said a lot of really dumb/insensitive/foolish things and it bothers me. Wish to seem smart.

Remembrance Day

Dulce et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned out backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!--An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
-Wilfred Owen


Do Not Go Gentle

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

-Dylan Thomas

But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony--Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?

-Erich Maria Remarque

Dirge Without Music

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the
love,—
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not
approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the
world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

Found out today that you need to pass an interview to get food from the food bank. It seems unnecessary.

Life's been many an irritating thing recently. School is getting me down, lack of happypills has allowed for the return to my naturally nihilistic state, there are more insects than food in my apartment (less irritating, more ridiculous).

Since quitting my jorb I've felt desperately poor and have avoided turning on the heat, eating, smoking, or doing anything other than my homework.

Basically my brain is in the sewer-like depths of the "everything sucks forever" thing and the things which I know would cheer me up are no good for me (smoking, burning things, manipulating people by lying to them).

I hate trying to put my life on track. I'm not going to say "back" on track because there's no convincing evidence that it has every been going anywhere. If you are remotely interested in what I spend my time thinking about on a nice Tuesday evening at home, go read the Wikipedia article on Existentialism, noting especially the bits on Angst and The Absurd.

BITS LOL

The main disagreement I have with existential philosophy is that I believe on some level that the universe or existence or life or whatever does make sense. There's purpose behind it somewhere. The right answer is the one which assumes the fewest ridiculous things.

Mutant superpowers!

It's ridiculous how much of a rush I get from boy attention. It turns me into a cackling, maniacal, goddess-like critter full of a need for worship but disdain for anyone who bends to my will.

Nonsense! But it's so simple to acquire and so nifty to have...

In other news, I am so far behind in school that I'm considering dropping out and making something of my life. NO BAD SCHOOL FINISHING MUST

In other words, grar.