Tradition for the sake of tradition.
Here it is. I did one of these thingys last year and the year before that, so I decided to make it a pointless tradition. (Yes, I just copied and pasted last year's, and that's why it looks exactly the same. I did, in the interest of not taxing my brain too much, waive the 'Five Things I Miss About Home'.) I think it's good, though, in a way, because I can see where I've come from and think about where I'm going, at the expense of all of you who clicked on this page expecting something legible.
Five Things I Love About Here
1. The Lowest Common Denominator
Everyone is just un-lazy enough to get the job done. After that, it's off to play Snood or update your website or whatever you want to do. As long as you make at least a half-assed attempt at fulfilling your responsibility, you can go eat. Or whatever.
2. Levels
Yeah, that makes sense. I guess what I'm talking about is the ability to find a whole new level of fun in something that would normally be boring. This is why going to Wal-Mart is fun and why going up on the mountain late at night is fun and why being completely anonymous at a THP right in the middle of town is fun.
3. Paychecks
They're fun. I love having a job, because that means I get paid. Working also takes my mind off of things like relationship problems, pisspoor grades, alcoholic after-school specials, and Tipper Gore.
4. Friends
There are some rully kewl people out there. For real. I never would've believed it last year at this time, that I'd be where I am a year later, but I'm grateful for everything that's happened to me and everyone I've met in the past year. I'm not going to get all weird and start quoting The Real World or anything, but friends rule, even if you only get them for a little while.
5. Food
We may not have a Happy Joe's or a Peabody's or any sort of really good local holes in the wall (at least, none that don't card me), but there's always fast food just around the corner. I can go out and have my pick of Wendy's, McDonald's, Burger King, Atlanta Bread Company, Starbucks (conveniently located in Target), International House of Pancakes, Domino's, Papa John's, Papa Lovetti's, Krystal, Waffle House, Checkers, Sonic, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell, and Chick-fil-A, all within a stone's throw of each other. Mmm...overpriced grease.
Five Things I Hate About Here
1. The Lowest Common Denominator
Everyone is just un-lazy enough to get the job done. After that, it's off to play Snood or update your website or whatever you want to do. As long as you make at least a half-assed attempt at fulfilling your responsibility, you can go eat. Or whatever.
2. It's ALABAMA!
There's just something to this that I'll never be able to get over. It's tied into the poor image inherent to the state when viewed by the rest of the country. Maybe it just the fact that Alabama (not the state itself so much as the people running it, which is what happens when the young people don't vote, hint, hint) was, is, and will probably always be a back-asswards state committed to religion and no property taxes, and the resulting pisspoor public education system, perpetuating the blind faith and ignorance/stupidity of the masses for generations to come. It's a vicious circle.
3. Work
I shouldn't even bitch, because I make my own schedule, but I'd happily accept a check for doing nothing each week. I don't even necessarily care if I'm rich or whatever, but it would be nice to sit around and do absolutely nothing with my friends and watch the minimum wage roll in.
4. Fights
I don't mean the awesome kind of fight you see in the cafeteria with the clumps of bloody hair on the floor and pieces of plastic tray everywhere after it's over. I mean the ones that you walk away from crying, the ones you'll always wish had gone the other way, the ones that haunt you sometimes at night when you're alone and Sarah McLachlan is on the radio. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?
5. People
Ah, the old standby. The following categories of people tend to annoy and/or frustrate me: loud people, slow people, drunk people in large groups, ugly people, ignorant people, stupid people, the oblivious, the lazy, the voluntarily incompetent, the voluntarily incontinent, people who need people, people who do stupid things and then bitch about how it got them in trouble (regardless of the level of police involvement), and people who try to pass off store-bought cookies as their own when 'Oreo' is quite obviously stamped on to both sides of the cookie. Bitch.
That's pretty much the list. I don't know why I do this every year, other than that it's a prefab topic, but that's not really an excuse since I could get a prefab topic every damn day from the good people at Diarist.net. Rest assured, though, that I'll keep doing it every year until I get bored with it or die, whether anyone reads it or not. Happy Holidays! (Bitch.)
