You can't find the woods while you're hiding in the trees

("Right Where It Belongs by Nine Inch Nails)

Random ..ish. entry time.

I keep having moments of ...like near enlightenment? Semi-woke-ness? I don't know what to call it exactly, but it's like these flashes of insight of things that should be obvious to like, everyone. An example. The other day while driving, I realized that everyone else has their own worlds they are in. That even people I dislike or don't really think about at all... they have their own backstories and lives and dreams and fears and wants and thoughts and ideas. And...yea, obviously I've thought that and known that and I don't think of every single person as some sort of NPC or anything like that, but it's just ...sometimes you kind of forget that all these other people are.... other people. And the realization hit me and it was just like Oh my god. That guy actually exists BEYOND the three minutes that I interacted with him.
I'm explaining it horribly, I suspect. OR I'm maybe making myself sound borderline psychotic, but that's another thing, lately I've been running low on fucks to give about how I'm perceived.
Okay, that's a gross over-exaggeration, because I am still largely motivated by other's perceptions of me, but ...here and there, I'm starting to accept the idea that "who cares if I look foolish?" Or if I'm wrong about something? Yolo, right? Congrats, P@, it only took 40 years to start to grow up.
Interestingly, I think that it's my classes that are pushing these developments. We had to give impromptu speeches last Tuesday, and while I was still shaky/nervous before (and a little bit after), I did fine, and I was like, "I'm just going to give it my best, and it's not like I'm ever going to see any of these people again after the next three months, so does it really matter what they think?"
Anyway. Yesterday during Com class we watched a few TED speeches, and one of them was from a teacher and she said something that had me have one of those "mini-woke" moments - she talked about how she has had classes that she felt like she failed because they didn't meet academic guidelines (I'm paraphrasing), and it just hit me that ...teachers have to feel a massive amount of responsibility for whether their students pass or fail or are learning or are interested at all. It was like, "holy cow, I never REALLY thought of it from the teacher's point of view before."
Speaking of teachers... one of my friends in high school - a guy I really admired - wound up becoming a teacher. About a year ago, I decided to google him, just to see what he's been up to (we haven't spoken in nearly 2 decades, I am not in touch with anyone that I attended high school with) and ...found that he had been arrested for inappropriate conduct with a student.
It's like, jesus, it really is #allmen.
I had an idea for a story (or, hey, maybe it should be a reality) of a pill that reduces/eliminates libido. It would be called Libidon't. (heh) But, seriously, I wonder if there were a way to make men less interested in passing on their genetic code if that would ...fix anything. Probably a lot of stuff, yeah, but I'm sure there would still be some other problems. Maybe. Because I do think that SO MUCH of the craptacular toxic masculinity rape culture problems we have derives from the power of the penis and guys believing that they need/deserve to do whatever it takes in order to spread their seed.
Since this is a random entry, I don't really have a conclusion, and I have other things I need to be doing online, so I'm just gonna hit publish and leave it at that.

busy days ahead

It's Thursday, which means I have a class to attend (I'm at CSN now, as I type this up - taking a brief break in between other online assignments, and getting ready to head to my Communications course, which is starting in a little over an hour).

I also haven't filmed today's OK What Now episode, so I need to do that shortly. (It'll be episode 98, which is somewhat amazing that I've already gotten that high.)

Next week I've got creative writing on Monday.

Tuesday and Thursday of next week are speech days in Comm 101 - mine is due Thursday, so I have ...exactly (well, a little over) one week to finish my 3-5 minute autobiographical speech. I wonder if I could just read blog entries for my speech, and if that would be sufficient. Heh.

Wednesday of next week is the last day of January, so I need to make my yearly joke that day. (It feels like it's been January all year long*) Wednesday will also be episode 100 of OK What Now, and I currently have NOTHING special planned for it. Harper suggested I buy 100 Reese's Peanut Butter cups. Or, 50, I guess, since they come in pairs. And then I eat them all. That ...does not actually sound appealing, because much as I love some peanut butter cups, teh thought of that many is nauseating.

Next Thursday is both February 1st (Irina's birthday) and my speech day. I'm taking that day off work, naturally.

And then Friday is Groundhog Day AND it's my turn to bring food in to the office. A few months ago, our department decided that every first Friday of the month one of us would cook something up, and bring it in to share. I agreed to this idea with the thought that I would simply BUY something to bring in, only to find out that it apparently has to be homemade. Stupid fine print. Anyway, I am thinking that this time will be soup of some kind, because soup is easy, and it's a winterish type food.

So, yeah. Lots of stuff coming up. Now I need to get back to school stuff.

*totally counts, in case I don't get a chance to blog on 1/31/18.

hey hey hey let's not do drugs

So, tonight was the first class of my English 205 (Introduction to Creative Writing: Fiction & Poetry) course, and it was a blast! Online classes are fine, but I think being in person (at least with this and my communications 101 class, which is the other in-person course I'm taking this semester) allows me to get more out of it.
It helps matters that this course seems like a very fun one - the teacher is very fun, with a great sense of humor, and the students are all pretty cool, too.
But what's really surprising to me is that in both classes (I've attended 3 now, two of the Comm. and then the one English tonight) I've spoken up, like a lot. And that just doesn't seem like ME, ya know? I'm not one to draw attention to myself, but, evidently, I enjoy having a little bit of a spotlight on me. Who knew?

Tonight's class had me sharing all sorts of stuff - I related the "bomb/bong" story, I sang the turtle-peep song, and I gave my Patypical interpretations of some poems. And people loved it all! Oh, and I had to write some doggerel (bad poetry), which I also shared, and because it is internet related, and because we all love bad poetry, I'm going to share with you all now:

So-social media
I posted my love on the book of Face
I posted my love all over the place
I was looking for likes
and thumbs up and views
I was looking for love
from you.
My heart is a-Twitter whenever I tweet
someday I hope we will meet
I follow your instagram and I send you email
why does my love for you always fail?

that's my secret, I'm angry all the time

There's probably something wrong with me. Well, ha ha ha, there's a lot wrong with me, but specifically, for the past... however long, month, two, five? I don't know exactly, time is meaningless, but for however long, I have been mad a lot. And it's RAGE. I'm furious when I drive.

While driving is the main impetus for my anger, it's also crept into my work day. I find myself swearing at emails and occasionally actually typing out my profanities (I erase them before sending, of course, because I do like having a job that pays for stuff) and lately I"ve been noticing i get curt more and more with coworkers who are making requests that aren't all that unusual, just slightly inconvenient, but they're causing my rage levels to rise.

I came to the realization that anger is about lack of control, and that keeping in mind that control is illusory may be the way to keep that in check.

Roming roon to Retflix

The crazy hijinks of two upper-class millennials (woo, avocado toast!), a reporter, a recovering drug addict, and their genetically altered canine who can speak partial English. (But only the druggie can hear him, maybe?)

They travel across the country kink-shaming old white guys who enjoy dressing up as supernatural beings. (There are surprisingly quite a lot of them. Freaking Republicans, man.)

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away

We've been on a very Star Warsy kick lately, having the youngins watch the original trilogy over the past couple days, and then we just returned from watching episode 8 in the theaters. (No spoilers for The Last Jedi in this blog post, so I'll just say: It was very good.)

I've been trying to avoid the internet for fear of spoilers and have, for the most part, been pretty successful, but one of the things I have gleaned is that there are some people who were pretty unhappy with the latest installment. That's to be expected, of course, because you can't please everyone, so I was a little bit worried going in that there was going to be something about the movie that was going to cause ...well, I don't know what I was fearing, honestly. Because, like I said, I've been avoiding things, so I wasn't sure WHY people seemed upset.
...and after having watched the film, the answer is obvious. It's because people are, by and large, stupid, and like to get outraged about trivial matters.
The newest Star Wars is excellent (if a little long) and there is absolutely no reason to hate on it.

Now, the ending of Return of the Jedi, on the other hand... (having not seen the prequels, the kids needed us to tell them who that third ghost was). Also, the entire Star Wars movies love them some wipes, don't they?

Anyway, really looking forward to episode 9, just have to wait another year and a half-ish.

marsh-mal-oh

Can you believe it's the 9th already? Like, seriously, where did the first week of 2018 vanish to? It feels like it should be the 3rd. Maybe the 4th. Weird.

I went to the doctorb yesterday; everything seems to be fine, I guess. They took an EKG and said it looked normal. My blood pressure was a little high. They took blood & urine... but I have to go back next week to find out the results, I guess. Honestly, the only reason I really even went was because I needed a new prescription for my asthma inhaler. (Done) The doc did suggest that I take an allergy test in hopes of possibly narrowing down what is causing my asthma flareups. I'm skeptical, but guess we'll see.

It rained more or less all day today and yesterday, after having had absolutely NO rain for the past 110 days. Sadly, it isn't in the forecast that it's going to now rain for 110 days straight to balance it out. But, honestly, the past forty-eight hours have seemed like four months of rain in a way. Rain is great, really. Driving in it, though, is another story. Driverless cars can not get here soon enough.

There's a new promo on air for our news morning show, and it has these singers singing what has to be the worst jingle/song I've heard in a long time. It's truly cringey. I was looking for it online, but I don't think it's made it's way there yet. Once it does, the internet will be a slightly worse place. Sorry, everyone. I didn't make the song, but I still feel like its very existence is a loss for the good guys.