I feel like a lightweight sometimes. It's the classic "so little time" paradox, and it's not something that bothers me all the time, but every now and then I start to wonder why I'm not more active.
I make exhaustive to-do lists in an attempt to gain a sense of accomplishment, and as satisfying as it is to cross something off a list, the list always seems to get longer. Granted, I'm contending with sixteen hours of college credit this semester, the gay-straight alliance, the English club (yeah, I'm totally a dork), the school paper, and the sites, but I feel like I'm barely scratching the surface. Like, why don't I have a job this semester?
Daphne G and I got together over the weekend and dissected some government essays as a favor for this year's team. I'd forgotten how fun that is: the court cases, the legal jargon, philosophers, mini-debates. Something about government team always felt right and good, like what we were doing had a higher, socially laudable purpose, and I guess it did. Now what?
I miss reading the newspaper every day, for one thing. When we moved to Alabama, the city had an afternoon paper, which was icky, but I lived with it. For the most part, it was a decent publication and I always loved reading the opinion page. There was always fuel for some kind of fire and I remember the post-church Sunday afternoon race to the phone, Daph and me calling each other at the exact same time and both getting busy signals, so riled up were we about some op-ed fracas or another on page A23.
The University Town paper quite literally makes baby Jesus cry, what with its "family-oriented" policy of burying "sensitive" stories away from the prying eyes of (God forbid) curious children and the nonstop barrage of religion-oriented letters to the editor. When will they understand that religion is subjective and thusly untenable in a legal argument? Sigh. I guess I could read any of the trillion newspapers that are published on the Internet, but I tend to get distracted by silly stuff.
In that same vein, I miss watching the news every night. It's almost like I can't stomach it anymore or something, and I guess I should be watching the cable networks instead of local if I want to see something more substantial than giggling and hair-tossing. I'm never around a television when the news is on anyway, and I'm lucky to haphazardly catch the College Television Network updates in the cafeteria. Damn that sexy Anderson Cooper for being on at 6:00 central time.
I feel like the entire world is passing me by. I don't want to wake up one day and be someone who never did anything with his life. I suppose it's a start that I'm in college, but, for example, I'm supposed to be writing an overdue paper right now. It always feels like no matter how much I accomplish, there is always a lot more to be done. I've gotten really grood (see what I did there?) about not regretting I always feel guilty for the stuff I haven't done, like sins of omission or something.
I know I need to keep up with current events (and politics especially, because 2004 will be the first time I vote for president) and I want to be more socially conscious, but I always have to contend with my basic laziness.
It goes in spurts: I'll have long periods of nothing in particular to do, during which I wonder why the hell I'm wasting my life, but then there will be those awful weeks where everything catches up with me and kicks my ass and I wonder how I even manage to get out of bed.
There are hundreds and hundreds of books I want to (or feel like I should) read. I've always had the bad habit of alternately loving and ignoring books and I hate that I can look at whatever's on the pile and go, "Eh. I think I'll just watch TV." There are hella movies I've been meaning to see, too. Speaking of television, I feel like a punk for not having seen The OC since it returned from hiatus. I mean, TV is my area and I can't even keep up with that sometimes.
There are days where I just get tired of everything. I get so sick of being me and doing what I do that I just can't bring myself to deal with any of it. It's totally unlike me to avoid the television to the point where I have twenty-four literal hours (as in four full tapes) of backlogged programming to catch up on. A day without a forum post is a weird day for me. And these are just the things I allegedly do for my own entertainment.
Most people would say I've got a pretty good life, and I know it's far from over, but sometimes I feel like I've wasted so much of it already that I'll never catch up with whoever it is I'm chasing. Tomorrow I'm going to join the Young Democrats club. I've blown right past their table in the union two days in a row because I was late for something "more important." That's one step forward, right?
I've got a long way to go, but I'm tired of having everyone else do all the heavy lifting. I need to be reading some boring Victorian novels and slogging through the rest of The Decalogue. These things might not make me a better person, but maybe they'll make me feel...what? More relevant, I guess. Time to get back in the saddle, just in time for finals.
Someone got here by searching for: are you born gay or do you choose to be gay? [Which I think the good people of Massachusetts weighed in on today.] And: milkpie movie Reading: Boring, boring research for the seminar paper I didn't turn in this morning. Listening to: Oasis. Watching: The 700 Club, and I don't know why either. Eating: Chocolate cake. Mmm, food service cake.
