A Though on Life...

Ah ha! Now that I've lured you in with an intriguing title, I can talk about whats really on my mind, autoflushing toilets...whats the deal with these things?

All you have to do is enter the stall and close the door and all of the sudden its flushing. There goes one gallon of water. Sit down, it flushes again, there goes another gallon of water. By the time you get out to the sink, the damn toilet has probably flushed a solid five times. With the industry standard being a gallon per flush, thats five gallons of water!

Where the hell are the green freaks when you actually need them? They're all about conservation and all that other nonsense, so why in their literature do they never mention this? Perhaps each little event of a flush doesn't occur to them, but multiple flushes for multiple people across multiple business? We're flushing tons of water, unnecessarily.

Now honestly, I really don't care that much about the green movement. Some things just make sense to do, but some are just a waste of my time. But, what about the business, don't they care about all the money they are literally flushing away? Water may be cheap, but come on, that's still a lot of water.

The other issue with these stupid toilets is this, it'll flush half of a dozen times when I am in the stall, but by some act of God, there is always something in the bowl when I walk in! Nine out of ten times, I have to manually autoflush the damn toilet! How does this happen, seriously?

Hello, hello. Is there anybody in there?

Hello once again internet,
Its been a while, I assume you have been well. I've been okay too.
We are now midway through the first week of classes here at The Ohio State University. My class schedule is well spread out, but at the same time is a busy one, especially with my job in there too.
My job is going pretty well. I told you I was getting a job, but don't think I really ever followed up on it.
I enjoy it, the people are cool, the work is easy, and we get tons of free food. Which I probably should not be eating, but whatevs.
I am currently taking four classes, they seem okay.

The biggest change this year is finally being off campus. I now live in a house with my old high school friend, Matt, my freshman year roommate, Joseph, and the veritable stranger, Nick.
We seem to all get along well. Everyone in the house is really chill, I think I am the most outspoken, which is typically not the case.
Tomorrow, I am heading to the University of Illinois for some service with the OSU/UI Greeks.
I joined a fraternity, by the way. I like the idea of it more than the actual practice.

I am losing interest with my own writing, so I am going to move onto something else, maybe homework.

listlessness

that is the one word i would use to characterize how i feel right now. no longer do i feel lost or depressed like i once did, but i do, however, still feel without direction. in multiple senses. in college, you wake up when you want, put on when you want, choose what route you want, show up when you want, with seemingly no consequences. you mayn't do as well as others with poor choices, but who cares we all get the same degree, right?
as of late, ive found all the people walking in all different directions on campus quite the physical embodiment of college itself. we are all who we choose to be, for the most part, and are all headed wherever we please. we are all headed there on our own paths, stopping where we want for lunch, meeting up with whoever and cutting off whoever. college has no direction unlike my last 12 years of education where i was neatly dressed and went from class to class til the days end where i went home and did my homework in preparation for the next day. now, however, i do whatever. its concerning to me. i have a hard time with motivation especially when i keep such a ridiculous schedule of sleeping, working and heading to class.
im involved with a couple things now and have a job and i think thats what is keeping me sane, keeping me tied down to something, keeping my mind from being free. total freedom for my mind is not the gift it may be for others for my mind always seems to wander over to the darkness of the world and reside there.
this post may convey the message that im depressed or anything else. im not really. im content, pleased if i may be so liberal to say so. just a little confused in this sea of possibilities as to what i actually want. i am no longer positive about my career in forensics being my lead interest. i just want to do something that makes me happy, not something glamorous, high paying, or prestigious. but, alas, we shall see where exactly this road takes me.
man, indeed, forges his own destiny, but im not exactly sure what path i should forge to arrive at what destination.

for now i swim in an ocean of possibilities, both free to do what i want, but at the same time overwhelmed with the very freedom placed in my hands.

and I'm so sorry, I cannot sleep, cannot dream tonight

So finally, I have employment.
It only takes months of searching and endless application peppered with interruptions by school and my life.
But the good Lord has finally smiled upon and granted me a job.
I'm optimistic, hoping I'll enjoy it. Its at the student union, so that's cool.
It will at least help me start off the new year better. A new year, time to put the past behind me.
As this has been one of the roughest years of my life. I feel like I have nothing to complain about and like the world was ripped from my hands all at once. This year things were quite shaken up.
I lost a cousin, which wasn't so bad on me, he was so distant, but he was pretty cool all the same.
For my uncle and cousins, I can't imagine how they feel.
The real drama for me has been the lose of my grandmother. Loss is never easy for anyone, especially with their sweet grandparents, but mine was especially bitter.
She was a woman I lived with for at least 16 years of my life and that I took for granted nearly every day.

I was hardly ever as respectful as I should've been and was told this often by my family who I never paid any mind to, I just kept treating her the same. I'm so sorry for this now, she deserved the opposite of how I treated her. She pretty much allowed me to have the life I had.
No one wanted my mom to live with my grandma and mooch off her for years, but we did. She never would of had it any other way. She made my life. Her and my mom.
They've done so much for me that I've taken for granted. Now that my grandma is gone, I can't believe how much I miss her. Bursts of emotion hit me at off hand moments and I have to fight off tears. Like now, but I'm losing the fight. If she can see this, I'm sorry for how I was, so disrespectful and unappreciative of all you gave me...a crack at a fair and good life, a life my mom could never afford. Thank you so much and I'm sorry that I wasn't there more. You were a god send and I never realized it.
I miss you.

I worry about my mom all the time now, I would just crack if anything happened to her.
I nearly cracked near the of last year, I was ready to run. I was looking up ticket prices to get to Florida, I wanted out. A small part of me still does, out of where and to where, I don't know but just a change. A huge change if I could.
But, I can't. This is the life I have and there is nothing I can do but bear it and attempt to enjoy the good stuff and swallow the bad the best that I can.
Being ripped from my lovely home on 271st was also hard on me. I feel like such a floater, with no real place to go. Half my family is back home, my mom is in West Virginia.
Everything is just crazy. Although, it always has been. What has ever made sense?
Nothing I suppose, but it seemed to. It was awful and beautiful, sane and lunacy.
I miss it.
I miss my home, I miss my family and seeing people every day.
I miss the structure of life and having dinner with my family.
I miss my grandmother and how we used to play when I was young.
I fear for my mother and her future and our future as a family.
Everyone is to easily at odds and I wish it didn't have to be that way, they want to fight over nothing.

I really don't know where I am going with this, but I needed to write something.
Its lingered over me for a while.

I sit here, alone, in my dorm and feel alone, not only physically but deeper. I feel a certain lacking and an amount of disconnect. The winter only exacerbates these feelings of being cut off.
Everyone is so far away and the weather keeps them there.
The internet is the only one who can hear my thoughts because they're too deep to tell anyone else like I am now.
I reveal a little at a time to people, but this is the whole story, whether you realize it or not.
I wish I had a little lady to tell my stuff to, I wish I had someone to be with when my emotions get to hard for me to handle. I don't know how to get to that person though, but out there she may be. I talk to girls a little at a time, sometimes hoping something will come of it, but never knowing.
People want to push me into things, and so does the world, with all of us, but I want them to happen naturally. I just want to meet someone and understand them and them understand me, then go some where with them. I don't want to meet someone then attempt to awkwardly forge a relationship out of it.

One of the last things my grandmother said to me before I left to go back to school was that I never listen. She was talking about the fact that I don't listen to her when I go outside unprepared for the weather and then get a cough, but maybe there is more to that.
I don't listen and I listen to myself. I, honestly, do not know how to do otherwise.
Maybe if I gave the world a chance, I would be somewhere else.
Perhaps not, I really don't know.

Open the glovebox, reach inside...

Does traffic piss anyone else off to no end? Today I was driving through a 35 and I don't know how fast I was going because there was two people in front of me, so they regulated my speed. The guy who was leading us however was, apparently, not going fast enough for guy number two who was doing the little back in forth in the lane thing, pissing me off to no end. Like I don't know how fast we were going but I can tell ya, it was fast enough. As soon as it turned into two lanes this guy was swerving in and out of the lanes, because he is way more important than you and me. I watched him, his urgent location was the home depot. I'll tell you what I had half a mind to follow this douche and tell him what was up, but people are crazy and so I just proceeded. I was yelling at him in my car however. Threatening to kick his ass and telling him to knock it off, even now as I write this I am getting annoyed.

I can't be the only person these dumbasses piss off.

I hear fireworks and subsequently firetrucks. I wonder if they are related. Probably not, it sounds like the firetrucks are going away as opposed to coming towards me.

I am at my dad's this weekend. I needed to get my car looked at because it is making this god awful squeaking sound that sounds like a squegee on glass or an old oven door. Its an awful noise. Its boring here, but not terrible, probably only because I know I am going back to school tomorrow. Which I am also bored with, by the way.
I decided to take a morning class, which isn't so awful but its really created the daily grind kind of feel for me, which I strongly dislike. Also I tend to stay up to late, then take long naps during the day and create the most whacked out schedule ever.

My residence hall is boring too. Everyone on my floor sucks because they never talk and keep their doors closed and give you weird looks all the time. The weird looks part may be just directed at me, but whatever. My RA is pretty sweet but hard as hell to get a hold of. I wanted to get out of Morrill Tower so badly, and part of me is glad I got out, but part of me misses it. Everybody over there is doing cool things and not telling me, like I assumed they would, so I end up missing out on crazy shenanigans. Argh!

Its only the first couple weeks though, maybe things will get better. I think they will once I get a job and create some type of normal schedule as opposed to all this floating around and free time I have now. Time does fly by fast though. I feel like I have hours worth of free time and then all of the sudden its 2 am and I haven't started studying, but haven't gotten anything else done either. I suppose that's the folly of the computer generation. Sitting on facebook, checking email, wiping out rival gang members in San Andreas. The usual. Its time consuming, but so is school and thus conflict arises, but the only real victim is my GPA, which is an inaccurate depiction of myself but unfortunately in the academic world is way more important than anything else, like your worth ethic or ability or anything.

Hooray for flawed systems!

As of late, I have developed a real probably with the university. Certain changes this year, compiled with past realizations has really gotten me down on the system. Its like "hey, you're poor but we don't care, give us more money. We'll give you less stuff and, ya know, it'll be cool" Meanwhile, every god damned light on campus is left on all night and they draw in a few mil per football game. So where the fuck is all the god damned money going? Why isn't it serving me? and why am I being charged more than last year? These are questions that arise when the systems fucked up. OSU and perhaps most major universities are businesses and that's it. The education thing, not a big deal. Sports on the other hand, which draw more money, are a huge deal. Where does the cycle end? Sports draw money, which is then reinvested in sports to draw more money and where does that put the college student and the 100year old god damned building that clearly needs repairs and updates? Who the hell cares as long as we can get that touch down against whatever fucking team were playing that weekend, that's all that matters.
College is giant scheme. Its just like bribery. You bribe a school into giving you the proper paper work so that some day you can get a job of your choosing, where you actually learn how to do shit.

Why don't we cut out the middle man, I'll just take out a $100k loan and give it all to you and you give me a degree, deal university? I just want to become a fucking cop anyhow. Fuck school, seriously.

Also, for my closing statement. Barack Obama didn't deserve the nobel peace prize and that statement has nothing at all to do with my opposition to his ideals and/or politics.

Thanks! - unless you are the university reading this, in which case, fuck you! :)

Welcome to Ohio State University.

Parent's weekend. These two words stare me grimly in the face, written on the back of the envelope before me. On an enveloped propped up on my keyboard of my broken computer. To anyone else, these may seem like two simple words, threatening enough in their own right, of course. Everyone knows what the words "parent's weekend" imply, that your parents will be visiting your school for the weekend and that you will have to take them around on a tour, go out to eat with them, go to the most awful and cheesiest school organized events ever. A bit harsh, but something anyone can handle. But to me, these words are loaded. Luckily enough, I dodge the bullet of parent's weekend, once again. With that in mind one may ask, "if he is getting out of parent's weekend, what is all this yammering on about?" Its about the fact that I am going to see Metallica. That weekend, parent's weekend, I am going to see Metallica. Again, you may think "then quit your bitching." The thing that sucks about all this is the call I am going to have to make to say "Mom, you can't come up for parent's weekend because I will be in Cleveland at a Metallica concert." After a year of being reminded how I dropped the ball last year on the parent's weekend, I have once again ruined the oppurtinity for my parent to see this fine university. That means for a whole nother year I will be getting crap about how I failed to bring her up to Columbus for parent's weekend, not only one, but two years in a row. From what I gather, my mom isn't having the greatest of times post move. Surprise surprise. Everyone knew WV was going to suck and some tried to speak up and say it, but she wouldn't listen. This was her big move. Now, shes probably miserable and, God, no, she could never admit that, admit she was wrong. So now I have to call and contribute to the disparity of the whole situation. Ruin probably what was her silver lining to her year.

So, I fucked up, but what can I do? There is no way in hell I can just eat a 60 dollar ticket. Hopefully my mother can be reasonable about that.

Well, that's that. At least, for now. I know this doesn't mean anything to anyone, but I felt like writing it out.

I know that you're leaving, you must have your reasons...

Summer '09. I wish I could put into words how I feel about this summer. No, literally, I wish i had something to say. It has been awful. I mean I have gotten to see my friends which is sweet and all, but I would just expect a little more out of a summer. Sadly, I have been looking forward to going back to school for a while now. I have gotten no job, have completed no road trips and have generally done nothing worthy of note, aside from hang out with people.

All those these people I may see less and less as the years pass. It would seem as if I am moving, possibly to Columbus. Not my ideal scenario, but it would be better than staying here in Cleveland again if I can't find a job. That is my biggest complaint with Cleveland, no jobs. I have made peace with how generally boring the city is, I even sort of like it, but life seems to have dealt me a different hand. Come next summer, I may be updating this blog from Columbus, hopefully with a job. The lack of a job is killing me, not being able to buy anything sucks so bad.

The summer hasn't been all bad though. I met some people who were cool and got to hang out with some that I already knew were cool, at least most of the time. One of my friends majorly played me tonight and it doesn't even seemed to have registered with them. It seem like blatant disrespect, but what am I going to do? Make a stink about it for a few days that will ultimately lead to nothing? Hell yea. Why not? I'm no doormat. Speak and be heard, that's how I live. It's not always the best path, but it works for me. But anyhow, before that tangent, I was talking about the summer. This summer hasn't really given me any material to work with to write in here. No drama, no action, just normal stuff. Perhaps that is better though.

I have really been sleeping my life away. While I should be packing. We all should. The fact that house will be empty in a month or two hasn't really hit anyone, because no one has done anything to pack stuff, move stuff, fix stuff or clean stuff. You would swear no major changes were gunna go down. It is a major change though. It hadn't really hit me at first, but moving is a big deal. So much of my life has happened here, countless memories. From good times, to bad times, to strange times, to lonely times. We are just leaving it all behind, it seems odd. I'll tell you what I will truly miss though, the downstairs shower. I will be damned if that is not the greatest shower on the planet. It had such great water pressure and all it had was a standard shower head. It sucks to have to leave it behind. To leave this bedroom of mine, where nothing has ever happened, if you know what I mean. Ha, but no. I have had good times chillin' in here with my friends. Whether nerding it up over runescape, or nerding it up over magic the gathering, we have done it all. Haha. Countless sleep overs.

So, I guess this is growing up. My mom is anxious to get up and out of here and I can't deny some part of me, too, is anxious to become my own person, to move on, to become an adult. But a larger part of me wants to stay here and have things taken care of and only have to worry about whats going on on Saturday night. I feel a burden of maturity hitting me, even now as I write this post. I suppose, maybe, I am not as okay with this move as I have been letting on, but what I am to do? Tell my mom to stay, to ruin her dream of being out on her own? Which in itself scares the shit out of me. I don't trust my mom to be alone, somebody should be with her and it has always been me. I don't know. I don't want to grow up anymore, I just want to be 17 again and not have any real worries, just who was going to drive me to the game this coming weekend. Now I have to think about stuff. Shit.

Well who knew that this blog would turn into such a revelation for myself? I wish I had more to say about current events or whatever, but I don't. These things scare the shit out of me. Money and all that is a legitimate concern. It must be nice to be rich, to never have a care in the world, although, then what do you work for? Do you even bother to work at all? Why am I going on a tangent about rich people? I have my own shit to worry about. Like millions of dollars in school loans, finding a house, and my mother going off on her own. That and the pressure of school and my impending career/adult life. Growing up was a bad idea. Hold on as long as you can kids.