2000-11-06 - 04:19:09
always back to the rain

I should stop going home so much; every time I'm less enthused about coming back up to school. I made a whirlwind trip home this weekend (went down to see a special show and visit my ailing grandma, and literally spent less than 24 hours in California), and I sat on my bed for a minute as I was getting ready to go to sleep Saturday night, and thought, "Hmm. I could just stay here. That might be nice."

I don't dislike it here -- I still love all the things I came here for -- and I'm crazy about Portland, and I am not blind to the fact that my mother and I get along amazingly well when we give each other some distance (i.e., about 635 miles). But.[1]

There are some things about this place that just suck, and I think I'm going through that period of adjustment where I come to realize that this place is real, and therefore has things wrong with it. Like stupid essay assignments, pompous professors, a few *really* dumb students, and interesting administrational quirks that start to drain after a while.[2]

And I just don't feel like doing any of this crap. I'm increasingly concerned these days with the question of using my time in ways that I really want to, and I'm just wondering if this is it.

I do like a lot of the people here, and as I said, I love the location, and I'm learning some really cool stuff. I wouldn't really want to give it up after such a brief sampling, I just need to get all this fretting out of my system.

And frankly, if this turns out not to be the college for me, then there *is* no college for me, and that wouldn't go over well with... anybody. Including (especially) me.[3]

So anyway, my plane got in at 2ish (that's PM), I took the bus back to campus and took a nap, woke up, had dinner, contemplated sticking around for whatever was left of the Guy Fawkes celebration (of which I could see little sign), which gave the appearance of being some kind of social gathering, and decided to get the hell off campus instead, finding I was not only unready to face my assignments, I didn't really want to deal with college sociability (read: beer) either. Deciding that what I needed to get me through the unpleasant assignments facing me this week was an infusion of new (to me) music, I wound up downtown where I found a record store that was still open (Portland closes early) and picked up some old Lou Reed and some new Bowie. I've now done my Thucydides reading while listening to Hours, and I have Walk on the Wild Side on my headphones right now, and I feel better.

Unless Portland turns into San Francisco, I could see staying up here when I'm done with school (whenever that is...). As long as I didn't have to venture out into the rest of Oregon, which is the South of the North.[4]

Going home also screws up my sleep schedule (especially last night, when I was up till like 4:30 AM). It's 12:45 now, which means if I sign off and get ready for bed right now I'll be asleep at, like, 1:30, and get six and a half hours of sleep, which is a *small* amount of sleep, goddess damn it. (I need that caveat because anyone reading this [5] is probably one of my personal friends, most of whom consider any amount of sleep to be a luxury.)

Eh. But I'm really enjoying this album, and time late at night is like "extra" time. When I wake up I'll have to, like, deal with the world and do all the stuff I decided to put off tonight. But the time I fritter away before bed, after doing all the productive things I'm going to do tonight, is my time. I guess I understand why certain people have such a strong aversion to sleep. I have it too. I like *sleeping,* except that, well, it takes away from the time I spend awake. Sort of a definition thing.[6]

OK, I guess I should go to bed. I shall probably continue on this theme tomorrow while I'm supposed to be working on something else.

[1] Sentence Fragment #1.

[2] Sentence Fragment #2.

[3] Sentence Fragment #3.

[4] Sentence Fragment #4. You can tell I'm a little agitated.

[5] That's if anyone reads this, which is questionable, since the only link to it is on my iMood page, since I haven't been able to update my AOL page. Say, if you're reading this, drop me an email, a'ight? Not that I'd mind just keeping a journal for my own entertainment, I'd just be interested to know if I'm talking to anyone other than myself.

[6] #5. You get the idea.

[edited 1/1/03]

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