Blogaloggalog

I really need to start drawing comics again. I've got a good drawing program that'll let me do what I want, and a good scanner. There's a project in English 101 that I want to do a comic for. We'll see what happens.

So I pulled an all nighter last night. I was up until five writing the movie paper for English that's been killing me for about four weeks now. I wore the same clothes for three days straight, and I was really tired, so I showered at six and now I'm going to bed at seven. I'm happy with how the paper turned out, because I think I got the organization down, but I do expect the teacher to shoot it down anyway. I really want to keep getting work done this week and next weekend. I've let myself fall way behind in Math because my other classes are so hard, and I'm really not that impressed by the class, even though I AM learning stuff. I need to get my act in shape. On the upside, I remembered to pay my housing early this week so I didn't have to rush for it. I'm tired, night.

Depressed. Don't want to work. Feel bad about not working. Depressed.

So apparently getting a fake mustache for $5 was a pretty good investment.

So here's the problem. I don't want to work, but not working makes me depressed. In order to relieve the depression, I do stuff that's not work, then discover that it's way too late and I need to get to bed on time so I can get up early. Come morning, I sleep in for several hours, and promptly don't update my to-do lists which I drastically need to reinstate now that I'm not completely swamped by a single project. Essentially, the cogs are all bent out of shape and don't have the will to put them back. To make matters worse, I've actually got some drive to do the things I WANT to for once. I've picked XCode back up and I'm playing around with a computer based drawing program, maybe I'll start drawing comics again. Until I get out of this funk, however, I can't do CRAP because it all feels bad, like too many sweets. I know I need to get off my ass and do all these things, but when I do I discover that it's 6:30 and a Wednesday, so I update my blog instead.

Victory!

My bracelet broke. It's going to be quite some time before I can fix it. My wrist feels funny without it.

It's quite hard to accurately convey the disgusting feeling I've had coating my insides for the past two weeks. By no means is that feeling gone, I've still got work to do, but this time... this time I'm optimistic. I don't believe that I've ever experienced that much self deception in my life before. Convincing myself day by day that my subject was alright and that I would be able to write a paper on it in time for today, I don't think I ever actually believed it, or at least the deepest part of me didn't. That's probably what brought me down. It's a bit ironic actually, had I actually been enthusiastic about writing this paper on Sin City and Dick Tracy vs. Crime Inc., I would have probably been fine. I would have been able to motivate myself enough to write a decent paper comparing the two and their societies. But I wasn't. Despite my bouts of excitement on the prospect of having good resources, being able to do the work and doing it on time, at least a part of me realized that it was hopeless. It's ironic because that part caused my depression, my lack of will, my desire to simply creep away into a corner and enjoy what little pleasures I could, ignoring the proverbial elephant.

Even more ironically, the solution to this revolting funk came from making a bad decision, one I knew was a bad decision, and had I made it at noon yesterday when it first occurred instead of later at four, I might very well have had a complete paper today. As it is, I'm in a better mood now than I have been for a while, but like before, it won't last. It will probably be much more manageable though. I'm very hopeful that I may have learned an important lesson in writing, rather than in planning, because more than hard work, it is important to pick a good topic, and even this past weekend I realized I had made a bad mistake. I envied Jon, you see, because he had the brilliance to pick Tim Burton's Batman and Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight. He is, let it be known, an amazing Batman fan, and while I must point out that he was absent today during the first peer reviews, I expect his paper will be very good. But allow me to impress upon you the magnitude of importance of picking a good topic. Yesterday, I systematically discovered that, while all my sources were very good and very applicable to my movies, they were quite specifically not what my teacher wanted. I couldn't have even written a single topic paragraph with my previous two movies. At 4:30, however, I decided to take a leap of faith, almost unconsciously, and switch to Soylent Green and Children of Men. I imagine the air around me resounds with the exciting perfection of the pairing of these movies. both depict the same thing, a dystopian future brought about by the sins of human society, but both of these images are effected profoundly by the prevalent issues at the time. Soylent Green deals prominantly with overpopulation, while Children of Men deals with pollution in addition to more etherial subjects such as the decline in religion and political activism. I must admit that I've only seen Children of Men once, and while Soylent Green was good, I wasn't all that impressed. However, paired together these two films fill me with excitement, rivaling that of my other film favorites (V for Vendetta and The Dark Knight). To prove my point, and bring this long winded paragraph to a close, since 4:30, I have managed to lay plans for an epic and detailed paper, and I know exactly where I'm headed and what resources to use. So, while I am not finished and I do not have all the resources I need, I am confident that by Monday next week, I will have a paper full of significance and sound reason.

That said, through all of this excitement, I know I have only prolonged the duration of this drudgery of work that is upon me. I am leaning on, relying on and hoping on my excitement and interest in the topic to carry my through this work and to motivate me to work hard enough to do what I have taken upon myself, but I am pessimistic in light of my previous bouts of excitement over my origional movie selection. I know I cannot revel in the good feeling of having finally found a subject I am entirely satisfied with, because if I do I may not want to leave the warmth of hope for the cold reality of work. We will see what happens.

Additional:
Mother must be horrified. Today was only a peer review, and I had the first part of my four part paper done. It was five pages including the single introduction paragraph, but compared to the four out of eight page average for the class, I think I'm alright. Still, I've got a lot of work to do and less than a week to do it.

Out of the Way and Under the Bridge

I think that's the first time I've watched Sin City without laughing. I'm not sure that's a good thing.

I haven't counted the number of books I've got to read through today and tomorrow. That said it's 16:24 and I've not touched a single one. I HAVE however watched Sin City, and I think I'm even more muddled over my thesis. It matches what I've got in my mind perfectly. I'll look at how entertainment has gotten more violent since Dick Tracey vs. Crime Inc. How the characters and "heros" have changed from strong, infallibles to... God I don't even know what to call that. there might be a third topic as well, but I really don't need one. I've got > 9000 books to go through, each with at least one chapter pertaining to my subjects. I'll also have to find some statistics looking at crime then and now, just sugar-coat things a little, and I've gotten to all this long before everybody else has. So why, oh why, am I so muddled? Everybody else can pound out a thesis with their fists with no problem apparently. Jon, an actor and English major whom I have a great deal of respect for, hadn't even started research last I talked to him this friday. That said, I fear that for all my hard work and effort and reading till my eyes bleed, he'll still put out a better paper than I. I know I'm doing something wrong, but I can't figure it out. It doesn't help that I strongly question our Engl 101 teacher's grading methods. Jon himself has commented that she seems to have a very specific paper she wants out of us, and if we don't fit that we fail. She gave us an example paper and told us it was about a middlle draft. It was terrible. Everybody in the class knew that they'd written better papers than that and gotten worse than "middle." It's all so very confusing... and paranoia inducing. Mostly, I think it's the fact that it's... 16:33 and I've not yet started work... sigh.

Additional:
My roomie moved out yesterday. I'm sad because he was a good roomie, and he had a TV, but immediately after, me and a friend set about rearranging the room to give me more space and an AWESOME desk. Sadly, while he was away with his visiting parents, I found out that there was no chance I was keeping this room to myself for very long. Apparently there's a waiting list to get into Stephenson. While checking mail earlier today, I found a bit of what appears to be spam waing for my new roomie. I've been getting to bed early (20:30-21:30), and I'm afraid my new roomie will cause problems with that.

And You Know the First Thing I Do is Forget to Post?

I have decided that I will not consider myself a man until my late twenties or early thirties. People are living longer, and despite the increase in violence and morally complicated situations in entertainment, I believe that childhood has been lengthened in our culture. While considering this on my way up one of the many hills in Pullman, I realized that I'm 19. Holy crap.

Working. Yet again. I'd like to think that this time I've got a sufficient jump on things, but I really don't think that'll amount to much. This paper is much larger than the other one, and I don't actually HAVE that much more time. Apparently two weeks is enough time to write a paper that requires a minimum of ten critical resources. I have less than a week. This is not through any lack of diligence on my part (this time), it simply takes a while for freshman students to figure out what the HELL they need to be looking for, seeing as out teacher seems to expect us to know already. Suffice it to say I'm gradually building a sense of distaste for my english teacher. Honestly, I'm not upset about the assignment. I just want another week to work on it. But as things stand, I'll be working myself to death for the next... five days. I MUST be doing SOMETHING wrong, but that can't be right. I'm perfect.

P.S.
Just found out where Nickelodeon got it's name. That makes it's "Splat" logo all the more entertaining, if increasingly disturbing.

Plea

Last night, just before one, I woke up to find a drunk guy peeing in my room. I'm not angry about that, but this morning I am furious. I am furious because of what mother has done, and because she wields ultimate power, she sees need to use it to interfere with things I enjoy doing. After these past weeks of hard work, during which I did not update for lack of time to do anything other than work, mother has seen fit to enforce a little agreement we have. I had agreed to do this blog if I could update with one big post every Wednesday and Sunday, and she agreed to let me do that if I did so regularly. If I did not, she would make me switch to a single line every day. Here's the problem. If I do switch to a single line every day, I won't update. It will not work. Because I do things during the day. Because I have work and a million other things to do every day, and if blogging becomes something as simple and inane as a single line every day, I won't do it. It will slip my mind and it won't get done. You see, here's the thing that mother simply does not seem to get. I enjoy blogging. I enjoy the sound of my own voice and I enjoy writing about myself, but I also writing something useful to inform her of what's going on. Yes. A single entry every day, assuming I actually do it, will give you an idea of what I am doing and what is happening in my life. But do you really think that this blog would be so much better if I simply wrote:

Some guy pissed in my room.

I am writing this as a plea. I am willing to beg. Please do not make me write a single thing each day. This should not be a chore, I enjoy it immensely. Please do not make it one. I will not be able to do it if you make it a chore. I'll stop, you'll get angry, and you'll stop paying for my college. Please do not make me do that. Please.