One of those nights

Class: 9:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.
Copy editing: 5:00 p.m. - 1:30 a.m. (ish)
Impromptu rooftop party on the roof of Walter Webb Hall, complete with accordion player: 1:30 a.m. - 3:00 a.m.
Kerbey Lane, party of 11, $3 migas: 3:30 a.m. - 5:30 a.m.
Crashing on one of the way-too-short couches in the Carothers lobby: 5:30 a.m. - 7:55 a.m.
Desk shift: 8:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon
Sleep: 12:10 p.m. - ???

Totally worth it.

Things I'm Excited About

Too much negativity lately. It's all I see in the news, in Daily Texan comment feeds, on Facebook statuses, just a constant barrage of bitching and criticism. The sheer volume of it just kills your spirit after a while. It's been a rough semester so far for multiple, unrelated reasons, but that doesn't mean I get to wallow in self-pity and subject others to it on a daily basis. I'm gonna change my tone for a minute and list things I'm excited about; maybe that'll help me start off the day right, for a change.

--Where the Wild Things Are opens this Friday. Trailer was awesome. Spike Jonze seems to know what he's doing with this one.
--A Serious Man - new Coen Brothers movie. I hear it's a downer, but they could take a shit on celluloid and I'd still pay nine bucks to watch it.
--The Office - Jim and Pam are getting married this Thursday. I'm aware they aren't real people, and I'm equally aware that it's not a real wedding. Really. I am. That doesn't stop me from pumping my fists and drumming on the nearest surface every time the promo comes on (gotta link this one - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnU9566Tfgo). Bottom line, this payoff's been five years in the making.
--weekend in Chicago - my dad and his twin brother are turning fifty on the 26th, so we're doing a big thing up in Chicago on the weekend of the 16th-18th to celebrate. Hanging out with the Jones side of the family is always a blast. In Austin, I'm a pseudo-adult. There, I'm just another cousin (that's a comforting regression, btw).
--my new job in the Quad - speaking of comforting regression, I picked up a CA job in the Quad eight hours a week. Being here is as close to feeling at home as I'm gonna find outside of Dallas.

I feel a little better already?

Conundrum

Dunno what's worse: thinking you're happy and later realizing you weren't (or at least shouldn't have been), or thinking at the time you were going through a rough patch and later considering that rough patch to be one of your better times. It's a shitty feeling either way.

Sending Katherine off to college at the end of the summer made me nostalgic for freshman year. Then I realized that I wouldn't do my freshman year on B2 over again if you paid me and that I just miss the general idea of freshman year of college.

Independence

I didn't realize how much I've gotten used to doing stuff on my own until moving back home. I had my own room in the dorms last year, from August to May, and that was fun, if a tad lonely at times. Mostly on weeknights and during the daytime on weekends. Lots of reading, lots of sudoku, lots of Facebook. Too much Facebook, probably. It was the same this summer. I lived with Sean, Joe, and Pad, but Joe and Pad worked all day and I worked at night, so we didn't cross paths as often as you'd think. Besides, whenever we were all in the apartment, we all just kind of let each other be. We all kinda did our own thing, sleep-wise, entertainment-wise, food-wise. We didn't force our presences on each other too often, if that makes sense.

I'm kind of used to being left alone, as sad as that sounds. I don't mind spending a Wednesday night making headway in a good book or a Friday night going to a movie by myself (like I did last Friday - (500) Days of Summer was phenomenal). If I end up hanging out with other people along the way, that's great, but I've stopped believing that that's what I have to do to be happy. It's too much effort, making plans night after night after night just to avoid being alone. Or maybe I've just gotten used to it after years of practice.

But being home, I can't do my own thing like I'm used to. I've gotten accustomed to never being bothered, so when I get interrupted every ten minutes to 'come look at this thoughtful newspaper article' or 'meet the new neighbor's fiance,' it just grates on me after a while. I know that part of coming home is having every aspect of your life called into question ("Do you always sleep this late?"), but it's such a 180 from the past year of my life that I feel on edge all the time. They seem to just want me to be there, to hang around downstairs and be around them. And I know they're my parents, and they love me, and I love them, and all that, but I'm a creature of solitude. It's less stressful.

Meh, whatever. I'm leaving a week from tomorrow. I can power through till then.

From the archives.

Wrote this sophomore year of high school. Reading it now is weird, I can tell you that. What a difference five years makes. I want to either give my old self a hug or punch him in the face. Still a good bit of writing, though, I think.

Once, there was this kid. He wasn't really an unhappy kid, but sometimes things didn't go his way. He has a lot of people that know him, less that he calls friends, and even less that he calls good friends. He's not ignored or anything, he's not some kind of pariah. But whenever there's a party or some friends of his are getting together, for some reason they never call him to join in.

So here's this kid, living day by day, going to school, doing his homework, doing extracurriculars. He's not unhappy, again, but he's not really, truly happy. He knows that what would make him happy aren't good grades, or a scholarship to some college, but a group of really close friends that would just get him. Not a bunch of acquaintances that he's on good terms with, but people that he wouldn't hesitate for a second to call at 2 a.m. and ask some inane philosophical question. People who would drop pre-existing plans to hang out with him on a Saturday night. People who this usually quiet kid can actually talk around, because he knows that even if he says something stupid, he won't get made fun of and shut out for it.

One day, this kid goes to a Chinese restaurant. He gets a fortune cookie and opens it up. His fortune says, "You have the ability to touch the lives of many other people." Now, this really makes the kid think. He realizes that even if he doesn't have perfect happiness in his life right now, his mere presence might be making other people's lives a little bit better. The girl he comforts online when she needs some advice about her boyfriend. The guy who he helps with math homework during lunch. Being the “nice guy,” the dependable one, who's always willing to lend a hand. The kid realizes that maybe he's not destined to find happiness, true love, best friends. But maybe he's a catalyst. Maybe his purpose here on earth (and we all have one, I’m sure) is to make the lives of the people he knows better. In little ways, like holding a door, or maybe in big ways, like reconciling two fighting friends. Isn't that better, the kid ponders? Isn't it nice to know that you're out there doing good for people you love? That satisfaction of knowing that you did a good deed, as opposed to the different kind of satisfaction of knowing that your own life is complete?

Anyway, now this kid keeps that fortune in his wallet. He looks at it once in awhile to remind himself that his life isn't wasted. Even though he's got problems of his own, his mere existence makes peoples' lives better. And that makes him feel better for a while.

Quote

Every once in a while, something comes along right when you need to hear it the most. That's how it was for me with JD's final monologue in his last episode of Scrubs. I'd provide some kind of commentary on it, but it's best to just read it for yourself.

JD: Endings are never easy. I always build them up so much in my head they can't possibly live up to my expectations, and I end up disappointed. I don't even know why it matters to me so much how things end here. I think it's because we all want to believe that what we do is very important, that people hang on to our every word, that they care what we think. The truth is, you should consider yourself lucky if you even occasionally get to make someone, anyone, feel a little better.

...yeah.

Work

Finished my summer employment with The Daily Texan. It didn't pay well, but man, did I have fun every night. Everyone that worked there was really chill, and with all the downtime we had waiting for articles to come in and pages to get designed, there was plenty of time to jack around. Formed plenty of friendships that I hope won't die over the coming semester. There's no point in asking work friends if they want to hang out outside of work, because you see them often enough as it is. I feel a certain kinship even with people I didn't talk to very often. Just the fact that we sat next to each other six hours a day, three days a week, seems like enough to form some kind of bond. Coming in to work didn't even seem like work, to be honest, as cheesy as that sounds.

Last night was my last shift, and when the time came to pack up my stuff around 12:45 a.m., I didn't want to leave. It's not cool to make a big deal out of saying goodbye, so I just told everyone that I'd see them around and pushed my way out the door. Not that we had anything in particular to reminisce about or nostalgicize on, but still. I wanted to make it a bigger moment but didn't because it wasn't the right crowd.

I may or may not come back in the fall. I'm looking at getting a job at Starbucks or something, just so I can pull in a decent paycheck to keep myself afloat. I'm starting to think like an adult. It scares me a little.

But yeah. My job at the Texan was the sole bright spot in this otherwise craphole of a summer. Well, it wasn't terrible, I guess. Just...underwhelming.

Shoutouts to Ben, Austen, Thu, Olivia, Nolan, Lauren, and Priya. Hope to see you guys around in the fall. It's been a pleasure.