victim of the crime

it's cold. seriously. i guess there is no more denying that winter is running at us but i was hoping for a little more of a fall to be quite honest. oh well. gotta have a positive outlook. maybe it will be a mild winter still.

it's nice to know that some traditions i knew as a kid are still around. sunday easy lane drivin'. take out your nicest car, polish her up and cruise around in the bright sun. always a pleasure to see the old men in their finest vehicles looking happy as a clam. :)

was talking to shawn last night about how once a year my aunt would take me and my cousin out (and sometimes the grandparents-parents) to drive around and look at christmas lights around various neighborhoods. i remember how many people used to put up lights and what a great tradition it was to look at them with family. i also remember when we stopped going because hardly anyone was putting any effort into the decorations anymore. so sad, but it's often the case that instead of putting up a bunch of lights, fighting to find some original decorations and whatnot, now all you see are the same cardboard cut outs hanging on their front doors and the huge inflated santa in the front yard. usually slightly deflated. such a sad sight. i will not let my home be like that.

on a related note, people are decorating more and more for halloween. i like this. i think it's a very under-rated holiday. gets a lot of negative attention and rap. i think it's fun to be a little scared sometimes. and the idea of dressing up and going door to door getting candy from people is definitely unique. it's the only holiday i can really think of where you venture outside of your extended family blanket and include others in a celebration like that. idk, it's obviously my favorite holiday so i may be a little biased. who knows.

all that mentioned, i'd still rather see more christmas lights up than halloween lights. i'm ok with myself liking halloween more than christmas but when the majority of people seem to feel the same way it worries me about the morale of this town/area/people in general. maybe i'm just reading too much into it...

tiny cities made of ashes

i feel as though my life definitely has that "rail car gone off track" kind of thing goin on. it's not a pleasant ride by any means right now and i've only myself to blame. it's time i start initiating some self discipline if i'm ever to make it on my own for good.

so more for myself than for the masses that i'm sure read this (riiiiiiiiiiiiight), i'm making a bit of a list. (i love lists)

• figure out where i'd like to go to college
  - does it really matter what i study? audio-video production or enviromental science. either would work for now. have a feeling i'll be going to school the rest of my life if possible. if i have an associates in audio-video production maybe enviromental science in a beautiful place will give me a nice break/different area to expand my options later? but what does an associates even mean these days? really...
  
  
• make as much money as i can while i'm not in school(without going insane)
  - i already have a fear that i will have some sort of mental breakdown working two jobs while not in school. that's how terrifying the thought of a life of retail is to me. it's enough to swallow while i'm working towards something that makes me happy but i've turned my cheek so often now that i'm starting to get dizzy and forget who i am. that said, i have to make sure that i pick up as much time from both jobs so i can begin to pay off this debt/start saving to get my own place.
  
  
• learn things.
  - geography-mapping, environmental science, weather, computer hardware, car maintenance, nutrition, traditional photography, a new craft. all of which i can learn about without being in school. yay for libraries! i just have to stop paying for late fees...
  
  
• make a portfolio
  - online website displaying all my work. stop being so critical about it all and just let it be what it is, comment on it/rework it if need be. but have a place to link to/somewhere people can go to look at what i've done and how i've evolved as an artist.
  
  
  

this post will be peppered with random things i want. fair warning.

itouch. neat. neat. neat. i know my ipod is on the way out. another year at most i'm thinking
with the way it's been rocked around and pulled apart.

lazy eye

The Internet is like alcohol in some sense. It accentuates what you would do anyway. If you want to be a loner, you can be more alone. If you want to connect, it makes it easier to connect.
- Esther Dyson

The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.
- James Branch Cabell

Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.
- Jules de Gaultier




i have been trying to start a blog for like, a week now. and i just kept this window open and kept pasting quotes hoping that they will inspire me to start typing my own thoughts. nope. no such luck. you know what inspired me? this guy. (doesn't translate well to blogger i guess...)

class started tonight. that's what i'm-a learnin' this summer. still bitter/upset/meloncholy about having to sign up for it anyways.

i'm sure it will be good for me though. i've noticed myself snapping faster at work(s) and that's no good if i want to stay where i'm at. i'm finally starting to get caught up with bills i feel like. or, at least now i can start to see it on the horizon. which is such a weight lifted. being able to set things forward in a whole different direction and to do it on your own. it's nice. :)

i suppose i don't have too much else to report besides my summer plans kind of up in the air atm. concerts are coming up that i've been looking forward to for months and this summer... this year... is already going by quickly. the more things change the more they stay the same though.

a guilty conscience grows

"I'll be there as soon as I can
But I'm busy mending broken
Pieces of the life I had before

Before you"



done with school for this semester. i have no idea where i'm going next. and it's making me quite upset not knowing how exactly i'll be moving forward coming up. i sometimes feel as though i'm losing the point of my education and that is literally to ... learn more. it's becoming so entangled with how much money i can make from a degree. when in reality most of the people i know who have degrees aren't even using them for anything with their job. and most of those people also hate those jobs more often than not.
no wonder it's such a depressing cycle to be in.

i should feel relief. i got at least an A and a B. maybe tow A's. but i'm not. if i got the B, i'm upset that i didn't push myself that much harder for the A. i really wish i had the mentality of those that are fine with C's and just passing. just for a day. to not have to hold myself to some standard set forth by... me? i mean, i only have me to answer to right now so if i fail i'm the only one that's really going to think less of me. i think i'm just so afraid of being one of those people that makes excuses for what they do.


"yea but i was working two jobs"
"yea but i was sick that week"
"you needed to sleep... they will understand"


i just don't know where to draw the line. i think that's probably why i enjoy strict guidelines so much (from people i respect anyways). because then i know how to color inside the lines properly.

at least i've found that i can accomplish a lot more than i originally thought i could. i want to keep that going. maybe that's my new direction. to constantly challenge myself. in how ever many ways i can.