Out of hell, for now

Spring break is here.  With the darkened clouds and cooling weather, it greeted me.

It has not yet begun, theoretically; it begins on Monday.  So?  The break began on Friday for me, as soon as the session for accounting was over on 10 AM.  It sure does not feel like that, though.

There are less people here on downtown, is the difference, if I were so inclined to look; people either went home, never to return for a week, or they went on a vacation, never to return for a week.  And yet here I am, to take a test I could very well take at home but instead sought refuge some twenty miles away from home because I will be distracted.  Of course, I got distracted quite a bit here before I started taking a test, but that is another story…

I had a rather high concentration while taking a test, though (which is very unusual for me, as I am beginning to suspect that I have ADD of sorts.)  I was surprised at myself.  I wish I could pull something like that off on regular days, not when I am taking online exams.

Nonetheless, I think that studying during the past few days have paid off.  I have received a grade of 47/50, 94%… and the missed questions are ones that I thought did not give me much trouble at all. The 100% is as elusive as ever, even with a good opportunity like this.  I would like to thank Waffle House for helping me with the late-night studying endeavor… god forbid if I have to do something like this anytime soon. 

And I don’t think Waffle House washes their cups at all.  This is how it greeted me—with smudges from lips that touched the cup before me.  Yuck. Yet I could not raise objections; the people working there… looked so terrible.  The whole place had the aura of misery.  Last thing I wanted to face when I stepped into the place…

I am happy when it rains

(Not from today; today was darker and more severe, albeit, surprisingly, without thunderstorm.)

The last time it rained around here has not been terribly long; it must have been a couple of weeks ago.  It was not terribly memorable because nothing happened to me during the times of tumulus weather (unlike that last time when my car decided to play slalom) aside from going out to dinner with my friends, though.  Perhaps that is why I felt as though it has been forever since it last rained.

I like the rain.  As long as I do not have to drive, I like the rain; the dust settles, smog is gone, and for a while, I get to breathe fresh air (with a touch of earthy smell that is undoubtedly dirt and dust.  It also reminds me of the days of my childhood, where it rains a lot more than it does here.  In the summer, there is a rainy season; in fall, there is hurricane season.  Fun times indeed.  I will also say that the same reason for nostalgia brings out the nightmares that come bundled with it.  Childhood, for me,  was a bundle of misery, packaged so that I cannot taste it as much, like a candy-coated bitter pill.

It is one of those days when I want to just walk around aimlessly, soaked, with not a care for the world—not hunched over like homeless, hurrying like a businessman, or stooped like a collegiate.  Perhaps I want to make up for the lost early days that I could have had.  Instead I went to the convenience store, asked for the umbrella I could buy but the lady told me to borrow one of hers (“you remind me of my son, so why not? Just bring it back when you come back to school,” she said).  With a big, sturdy umbrella over me, I went to the library and began to study for midterm.  So here I am.

I could write more and romanticize about the day, but instead worldly worries cloud over me.  How will the traffic be en route to home? Will I be all right with the midterm? Do I have enough money to fix up the car later?  Will tomorrow be cold?  To add to that, the Red Cross asked for blood donation.  Despite my hurting arm and series of needle scars, I did not refuse. I do not want to do it, it harms me, and yet here I am.

Enough ranting, though. I have a midterm to study.

Personality and tests

I am attending sessions offered by the career advisement center that is supposed to help me decide on my career and , more immediately, my major.  I am not sure if it is helping me so far; it feels mostly like a re-hash of what I have researched and realized thus far.  That indicates a few things.  Let me get over the bad first:  the things that these sessions are offering are not very useful.  These are just variations of information that I can—and did—easily get over the Internet.  Call it efficiency, if you will; I can quite easily do some quick research that proves to be on target in many cases.  Now, it also means I tend to rush over things, not adding too much details (if at all).  If I really had my way, all the posts here will end in a paragraph.  Maybe this one will, at least.

I’m just kidding.

Among the things the people inside the sessions have done is the MBTI.  This test is simply a personality test; you fill out some hundred questions (or just about) of two choices (always two choices, and you can only choose one, although you can leave some blank if you are so inclined), and the test results come back to you in the form of one of 16 combinations of four alphabets.  It is easy enough, and while I am not sure how accurate the free, online versions of them are—they are really easily found and quite comprehensive at least in the questions department—I now have a legit MBTI test result.

In advance: if you are lost in what I am talking about, look for MBTI on Google.

The results are not very surprising.  I know that I am strongly introverted and thinking, but rather subtle in the N/S and P/J departments.  Am I sensing or intuitive? Perceiving or judgmental?  These two always swap around for me, depending on the tests and the time they are taken, or so I am assuming.  So far, I have gotten INTJ, INTP, and ISTP.  One more (ISTJ) and I have the whole selection involving I and T covered.

I read the description and what my type is supposed to depict—the official test proclaimed me an INTP—and it is pretty right on.  I value efficiency, and not much bother me (although I am rather cranky as of late).  When I do my homework, I like to them just-in-time and with as few written words as possible; my answers in short answer and essay questions tend to be shorter than everyone else’s. If that is not efficiency, I do not know what is.

I do not know if I should embrace this phenomenon or try to offset it.  It is my nature, and if I tried to alter it, will I not be going against it?  Being very introverted is quite a flaw in the outgoing, extroverted society like America, though…

Inferiority complex

It was only Tuesday afternoon, and I already hated the week.  Thankfully, or unfortunately as I needed more money, my work ended at three in the afternoon—and as I was quite tired, I decided to go home instead of killing a few hours in the library, trying to study.  The day was still bright, and mail has not yet been checked. I decided, of course, to get the mail; why not? I park right next to the mailbox due to space constraints in the driveway.  I wonder what my neighbors think about it, but I (and my family, probably) ignore any possible indignations stemming out of it by the neighbors.

The mail was rather hefty.  While no packages arrived, a big lump of letters instead filled the mailbox.  Some of the letters were even bundled together with rubber bands.  Most of the mail was directed to my younger brother, who has not received much mail at all until quite recently:

Look at these motherfucking letters… pardon my French.  I am but a few years older than him, and I have not received as many mails from colleges as he did.  Some of the envelopes were recognizable; I have gotten brochures and letters from them a few years back, when I was a senior in high school and was apparently bright enough for college.  Macalester was one, as was Mercer.  I may also have received something from William and Mary, but I cannot remember, and I doubt that it even matters now, as I am now virtually grounded in my bloody state college that it almost feels like a tenure.  Some of them look to be so far out of my league that I would not have dreamed of receiving anything from them, however:  MIT? Caltech?  Columbia? Highest-regarded college letter I have received is probably that from NYU, or maybe University of Southern California.  I was also briefly interested in Emory and visited the campus thus, but that is as far as I have gone.  Through a series of blunders, miscommunications, and other complications, I have missed all chances to get to other universities.  Perhaps it was not that bad; Tulane, one of the colleges I thought of attending, was hit by Katrina on the second year of university.

I do not know how I should feel about this.  Have I mentioned that I feel like a failed experiment?  I am a brooding figure marred by odd actions and beset by trial and errors that my relatives have made from raising me.  They are like my parents; I am, in fact, adopted by them, but while I call them parents while I am at school and work, I cannot accept them as such when I am at home.  I think it is home, anyway.

So, what am I to do?  I cannot blame my relatives for raising me poorly; moving to America was possibly the biggest break I had up to this point.  The follow-up was pretty terrible, though; I admit it, and they should too.  But with the past gone and the best that will come out of bickering about it being the hindsight of what went wrong and what can be fixed (if you are lucky), there is little I can do to better myself in the regard to the school I am going and the grades I have so far.

I would like to get behind my cousin—or my brother, whichever.  But… call me evil, or perhaps call me selfish.  I just can’t seem to do it.  The very fact that he will get a head start in life fills me with rage and grief.

It should also help me with get my ass up and try to get somewhere. Let’s hope so.

Status Quo: Project - “PictoFic”

I do not think I mentioned the project I was working on for a while.  I am still planning things, but it is not working out too well, unfortunately.

But before I get to the nitty-gritty of things, I will tell you what it is.  I plan on writing a story each week, from the inspiration that I get from a picture… oh, did I mention that already?

Yeah, I named the project.  It’s “PictoFic.”

I meant to put the “s” at the end, but then I decided to let it be.  I say I want to let it be an organic endeavor, and what is more organic than an awkward title that feels well-intentioned and –thought but kinda fails in execution?

 

I would get on the project right now, but man, I keep on making excuses not to do it (for example, I have a test tomorrow!  OMG!) I will, though, try to come up with something by next week.  I feel that going headfirst into the project (perhaps like this blog?) will do no good.

I’m late, I’m late, I’m terribly late

It appears to be the main thing that happens to me lately—being late to lectures.  Not somewhat late, either; I am talking about twenty-minutes-past-time, you-missed-half-a-lecture late.  I promise you that I am not doing it on purpose.  It just happens after an excuse here and situation there. 

Somehow it feel eerily like the times when I began losing interest in classes, subjects, and school in general.  Not only was it not pretty, it was a precursor to what I have since become, confused, older, directionless guy, back to home from school dorm and unable to escape without facing the certain circumstances (especially in this uncertain economy, where I can lose a job any day…)  I feel that I am stuck in this life; I am not complaining, not too loudly yet anyway.  You look around and see people suffering and you look at them and… is it the wiseness coming with the age when I say “I have been through worse.”?

I am wondering where things are going wrong.  It could very well be the part-time job that I am doing, but I do not think that is very taxing physically; in fact, my head feels generally clearer by the time I am done.  I do, however, require naps by the time I am done with class and before going to work—that explains very well how I get to work so late so often.  It cannot be helped; I just require a lot of sleep.  There must be ways to keep me awake while simultaneously separate me from my tendency to sleep whenever I can.

It looks deceptively simple, my problem of being late—I need to sleep, I feel sluggish, and I just want to do thing just-in-time.  My tendencies explain a lot about the consequences that it entails…

Tell you what.  I will wake up early tomorrow and be in class on time.  It has not happened in that 8 o’clock class before.  I will make it happen, dammit.

Exit Stage Left

The day was somewhat busy and awkward, with a few hours put in between the things that I needed to do here and there.  That meant that I could not do some things that I wanted to do for today.  As I woke up in the morning at around eleven or so, my mother wanted to go to Sam’s Club, so I went.  What I thought was going to be a short trip turned out to be a trip spanning more than an hour; by the time I got home, it was after 1 PM.  I wanted to mail something at the post office, but since today is Saturday, that did not work out as I would have hoped; the package will have to be shipped first thing on Monday.

Then, I had a tennis practice at five… I am not very athletic, yet my family wanted to know if I would like to learn tennis, I jumped at the chance.  So far, I like it, although I am still a beginner and need a lot of work if I were to be even remotely competitive.  What does that mean, then?  I think it means I will need quite a bit of practice if I were to be better (which I am not getting very often, by the way) and maybe I need to join a club, as I do not have any friends that are interested in tennis.

I got out of the house at nine, after getting back from practice, eating dinner, and loafing a bit around online.  Slacking is such a hard habit to conquer; it adds up, the time, and it takes many forms for it.  Napping here, facebooking there, and maybe after some clicking around stumbleupon and eating dirt at Team Fortress 2, a whole day has passed; where did the hours go?  That is why I left the house in search of somewhere better to concentrate and study.  So, here we are, at a coffeeshop, getting my laptop out, blogging away as soon as the Internet connects.  I love this.

And the reason I left the house?  Oh, the test is coming up on Monday, with materials that I thought I never had to touch as soon as high school ended.  I do not mean to say that it is some elementary stuff I had to learn there, because… well, the advanced placement courses are probably harder than many of the college courses.  Unfortunately, I am not getting the things done today, what with my blogging and being distracted, and a couple on a date right in front of me, chatting away about things I never wanted to know about them, and further away, a bunch of Indians that are annoying and louder than the couple that is literally right in front of me.  I am sure culture plays a part in this…

The whole distraction part and not getting things done in general is in line with the LASSI test that I have taken earlier this week.  It is a self-test thing that my career counselor gave me for a group session.  It is supposed to tell the strengths and weaknesses one has for studying… and I am in bottom tier in all but one category, and that is the “anxiety” category, in which I thought I did not have much but turns out that I was in the 60 percentile.  I am sure culture plays a part in this…

I am going to study now, at least until for about an hour.  I cannot stick around and do nothing after driving some twenty miles to the only coffeeshop around here that opens until midnight.

Bad idea abound / Good idea abound

At a local Borders right now.  The place looks somewhat slower than I anticipated. Could it be the result—of sort—of the economic clusterfuck that is affecting everything from large malls to the gas stations to chain stores to restaurants?  That is a rhetorical question; of course it is.  This is the first of the economic recession that I am experiencing first-hand.  I could count the dot-bomb bust at the turn of the century, but to be honest, it probably was not as bad as the situation that I (and the world) am (are?) in right now, and I was quite dependent on my parents back then, whereas I hold a job of my own, albeit a part-time one.  It hits closer to home whenever I receive a paycheck and have to fill up the gas.  I am more conscious than ever when I spend money… or maybe not, but at least I am cutting back, just like everyone else.  I tend to spend more than I am comfortable with, but only because I feel bad about everyone else having to go through the tough times.  I could say that it is out of sympathy, but it is probably I that probably needs more receiving than giving… I own no store, have no savings, and feel like a leech whenever I come back home and say hello to whoever is in the charge of the house at the moment.  I probably should not think so, but I feel like sitting on a pin cushion every day I stay there.

I wonder if I mentioned that the author of the book Freakonomics is visiting my campus tomorrow for (what I think is) reading from the book and also signing of his book.  There lies in my reason to visit Borders:  I wanted to buy the book.  Problem?  What I had in mind when I came to buy the book was to pick up the paperback copy of the book quickly, maybe take a quick break (by blogging?  Are you serious, man?), and then go for some reading on the subject of accounting.  Instead, what happened was that I could not find the book where I thought it would be (“I am pretty sure I saw this book around here somewhere… it is a popular nonfiction book, right?”), roamed about the place for some minutes, before stumbling onto the books that I looked for in the economics section, right next to business and computer books.  Oh, but this book was not what I was looking for, not entirely so anyway.  It was hardcover, relatively shiny-looking and mostly ding-free, with the superscript letters above the title:  “Revised and Expanded Edition.”  So, is it like the “Teacher’s Edition” for Jon Stewart’s America (The Book)?

Uh-oh.

So, that was a bad idea—looking for the book a little too late, not giving myself some time for the book to ship from Amazon, and buying the book that only worsens my economic outlook and puts me further into debt.  Isn’t life wonderful?  I knew that the author was up to something when he started touring again.

At least I printed out some coupons and brought it over.  That made it about the same as buying the paperback… at regular price.  That’s not too bad… right?  Right?

But while scanning over the places and taking pictures, a brighter idea dawned on me, and it stuck with me long enough for me to write it down.  Such phenomenon does not happen often… what happens, usually, is I think of something cool, fetch my notebook, and stand awed from dismay by the fact that I have bloody forgotten about what I was about to write.  Most of them are lost cause; once it disappears, it is lost forever, never to be seen—or thought of—again.  And even when I write it down, there is no guarantee that the ideas are brilliant and must be used right away, for much (like, 90%) of them is garbage that can at best be used as a reference or an inspiration for something else altogether.

And what is the big idea, one may ask?

Oh, nothing big, actually.

It is another blog, which is probably not a good thing.

But the idea… it might be good enough to be noticed (unlike this blog—hahaha).

You see, I pick a picture.  It could be either something that I took, or it could be from, say, Flickr.  And I write a short story out of it.

It may or may not work.  But I am certainly excited about it.  What should I name the blog?

Memory Photography

I have been toting my camera around everywhere.  Pretty shoddy picturetaking skills notwithstanding, I found that it is not too bad a way to be aware of your surroundings.  The world is my subject, and I will use it… or so is what I think, anyway.  Mostly I take pictures without a human subject in it; it simply feels awkward to take a candid picture of someone whom I did not ask to see if it was okay to, indeed, get a picture taken.

That aside, I have realized one thing while looking through the pictures that I have taken… they bring back memories, do they not?  I sat down to write a post today, and wondered what I was going to write: I had forgotten about it.  Nonetheless, I plugged in my memory card into the computer, hoping to find something else to write about (I cannot be away for too long from updating, that defeats the purpose of having a blog).  And then… voila, I found what I wanted to write about.

So, who’s up for some snacks?  I thought of writing about how I wanted snacks but did not know what to get once I got to the store… it’s probably a lost cause, though.  Anyhow.

I wonder how much of the stuff I know can be recalled by looking through the pictures I have taken during that time.  Never mind the saying “picture is worth a thousand words,” and never mind the fact that the picture was not well-taken.  This is probably the reason why people continue to take shoddy pictures en masse and the little digital cameras sell like pancakes…