Hi!

Wed, 3:30 PM

I have a late night shift today! Tons of time to do my homework, so as soon as I get back from work I can head straight to bed instead of doing my homework, because afternoon shifts don't let me do that and-

Oh, wait. Oh yeah. I'm really sorry for neglecting you, it's just that I've just been so BUSY and-

Huh? What? You're mad that I've pretty much been writing sentences and calling it a day?

Come on, you know it's not like that, I mean, there's just been no time and-

Okay look, here. The reason that I became so committed to school these days is because the work is nourishing. Does that make sense? It's not like last quarter, where I had to take boring GEs and my teachers were especially lame. I mean, sure, of course the classes are exhausting me. But the subject matter is so interesting, I don't really mind it.

Since I'm finally delving in my humanities curriculum, I get to take classes much more suited to my interests. My classes are: Beginning Japanese, Distinguishing Romance and Realism within the Novel, Poetry analysis, and beginning fiction. Can you believe that line-up? I might come back from class exhausted, my eyelids heavy, but I feel satisfied. The subject matter interests me in a way that I haven't felt since middle school.

Like first off, beginning Japanese. Learning a new language is difficult. You have to adjust your tongue to the language, and so far I can't nail the dialect very well. It feels like I'm marring the language, like a hillbilly attempting to read Shakespeare in a Victorian style. When I write the hiragana of the language, I can hardly imitate the strokes and loops of the characters. They look like the drawings of demented children. I am so out of my element, plucked from my nice, safe world of English, and thrust into the mysterious jungles of new languages. But there's a fervor bubbling in my body, that makes me excited to tread into new territories. I want to really get the basics down so I can start writing elaborately; it's a great feeling. It's kind of like I'm rediscovering why I liked school before: not in the pursuit of some stupid letter, but just to say, hey, I can do something I couldn't before. Nifty.

And even if the subject matter isn't necessarily interesting to me, I can make an interest out of it somehow. Does it look like I want to spend my free time debating realism and romance in fiction narratives? Do I REALLY want to analyze poetry, iambic pentameter, seeing the stress on beats, spondees, trochees, enjambments, and what have you? Hell no! But I'm learning techniques that I can use to make me a better reader. I can explore books in a way I couldn't before, redefine prose and stories in ways that will open up new layers. I can look back at texts I thought I knew so intimately and rediscover something that will make me see them in an entirely new light, and I appreciate that.

I'm going to see if I'm cut out for teaching. I'll take the teaching tests this year, and I'm participating in the humanities out there program this quarter. I go to local high schools in the area, and assist graduate students as they teach these kids about humanities stuff. The only time I could make is 10th grade US literature. It'll be interesting to see what I have to teach, and whether I get to retread novels that I had to read during that time as well. To rediscover The Great Gatsby, or The Catcher in the Rye, and so many others who I haven't seen so long... I feel that books change as its readers change. Before I couldn't handle Charles Dickens, and now I'm trying to read a bunch of his novels; maybe I gained an acquired taste. I want to see how things have changed from the me then to the me now.

Of course I'm no longer taught by professors, so that might make things difficult for grad school but... we're looking way too far ahead! Let's just sit back, let the breeze run through our hair, let the present overtake us. We'll reach the horizon eventually, so we might as well enjoy ourselves for now.


So many things can happen to us that can cause us to shift our perceptions so wholly. The nature of our temperaments is that of fickleness. We find ourselves in the constant pursuit of something intangible, that one unsubstantiated truth that can give our lives meaning and definition, sense to senselessness. We are satisfied by something for so long, and we can lose all interest in them in a single second. Every tomorrow, every possible future, can storm across the plains of our lives and uproot everything, throwing things awry, making what we were so sure of completely unrecognizable. But, I think that's where the fun lies. If we didn't have that much, our lives would stagnate, until there was nothing left. There would be no reason to pursue meaning simply because there IS no meaning! So even if it is an endless rat race, even if we can't escape struggle and despair, the futility of etching value when it can be so easily distorted, at least it gives us something to do.

Wow, that was really anticlimactic wasn't it. But look, look! I mean, I'm so excited, you haven't seen me like this since I met you and-

Hmm? Yeah? Sorry, sorry, I'll be sure to write more. I'm just so busy these days. It's nice though.