My Future in Full or: a rant at everyone..........The time period of school, for the first two months of a given semester, is a week to week process. As the semester digs into different projects, essays and papers, the time period is the individual days. What can be done in one day and what not. The work becomes tremendous. Yesterday, I was a null in the knowledge of Chechnya, but by the end of tonight, a fucking expert. Tomorrow I will conquer Hitler in "A Portrait of the Dictator as an Artist", or something tidy like that. It's a five page research paper on Hitler I hope to be done with in a day. The point is, my future no longer measures itself by my dreams, but by my obstacles for the forseeable future. Do I allow the grind to set in? Do I allow the blog to turn into a repetitive theme? This is all on my mind as I wish I could write about another subject.

This also brings me to reflection. I'm at a larger university (finally) and I'm going to try to make the most of this college education. Before I graduated from my last college, my final class was a speech class. The last speech to be given was themed, "Why College?" where everyone says why they chose to go to college and what it means to them and blah blah. It was to be given by every student in front of a group of faculty members. Our professor confided that since everyone gives speeches on how great college is, faculty members love to go to these things so they can feel good about themselves. With our class, they really got it. Student after student walked up there and gave glowing speeches about how really neat-o it was to go to this community college. I couldn't stand it. I was crawling out of my skin the entire time. Never have I heard such sincerity in appreciation for going to a school with so little importance! Future (happy) secretaries and accountants, the lot of them! My speech, one of the final ones, was of course jaded. Long and meandering about complaints, I ended it for the crowd on a good note that went something like this: "I would like to thank Bay De Noc Community College for one of the most glorious wastes of my time and money." My teacher's annoucement right after the speech: "Thank you Kevin for a.....different type of speech."

I'm still quite vengeful for everything I've gone through. Still very lacking in decency to smile enthusiastically at everyone. But, hey, I'm enjoying NMU. I really am. It has benefits in that I am not running into everyone I went to High School with like my last college, the fucking city/community college. Every class there I had some fucking former high school mate and it was always torture. They looked at me and saw somebody they recognized and could talk to. I would just see someone I once habited a building with and never talked to anyways. So they would begin to talk to me, like they knew me. Eventually, I had to do something to basically say, "Fuck off." One time, after a few weeks of ascerting myself as the toughest voice in the class, I was asked something personal by the teacher. I answered truthfully and the kid from my high school immediately speaks up, "Kevin, you weren't like that." In cold harsh words, I reply, "How would you know? You didn't know me!" Everyone assumed I was angry. I really wasn't. Later in that same class, an open discussion began on a hot button topic and this kid gave his opinion. I immediately raised my hand in objection. The teacher asked me, "Kevin, you want to counterpoint his argument?" "No, I want to derail it!" and then the teacher looked at the kid and was like, "Do you want to argue your opinion?" He immediately hunkered down in fear and said no. The best one was when I had a former school mate who was ultra religious and conservative. She looked at a book I was reading. It was titled, 'American Pastoral'. She got excited and asked me what the book was about. I was shocked. I could tell she expected it to be a gleeful book on American religions and values, so I told her deadpan: "It's a book about a 16-year old girl who becomes a terrorist and destroys her family." Then I smiled at her. The reaction on her face was priceless. Horror and confusion translated to the fact that she was never going to bother me again.

But, back to my new school. This is my first semester and a shocking fact came up as I looked up how many more credits I need to graduate. I only have one more year after this one! I'll be done with every available school in the greater Upper Peninsula area! I can't believe my luck! The Heavens will finally force me out! So, to dream a little beyond what I have to write this weekend, I'm plotting where I want to go and what I want to do after graduation. First, is the question of what city I want to live in. Obvious choice is easily NYC. Its also the obvious 'No!' because I actually do know how expensive it is to live there. Think $2000 a month will get you an apartment in any trendy area of the city? Nope. It will only get you a room above a crackhead's apartment in Brooklyn. The greater population of people who work and socialize in New York also commute into New York everyday. A very sad situation I don't care to have. Second, is Philadelphia. Apartments there are affordable and a decent art scene is going on, but the choice of options for decent cinemas is lacking. While I can expect to get a good percentage of the indie works I want to see, I haven't found any listings for theaters that play older films. As many older films are circulating around the country in brand new prints, Philadelphia may leave me out in the cold. I'll next dig into Chicago as a possibility.

What do I want to do? I actually have no clue. The idea of graduate school came up. A further delusion of this school dream that keeps me away from a career but when done, brings me right back to school as I find myself fucking teaching. I'm nowhere near sold on that idea. Then there is the idea to whore myself for recommendations and see if I can get a job somewhere in a field I like. Great and all, but will likely be me as just an intern and have bills mounting up for paying off college so who knows if I'll be able to keep up. The end reward of a great job will be there, but more borrowing will take place. I guilt trip myself everytime when I borrow. The feeling to remain indepedent of anyone's help is always there. Maybe, for this semester, I should just worry about getting the semester done.

I promise I'll try to write about something different next time. The cluster fuck school can be has just gotten to my writing. Everytime before I begin a blog entry, I imagine a great task and get gun shy. Then I just start writing and an hour has passed. Its nearly 3am. Another miserable post, I'll try to do better the next time.