Back at the Beginning: Part II

So after a blazing California summer of books, T.V. shows, and rushing to finish summer homework (I think I managed to schedule my last two weeks in a way that had me do everything in five days before classes started, and I still managed to totally forget about AP Lit) school started back up in August.

Here is where I make a confession that for those of you who know me, is staggeringly non-news:  I'm an ass.  To be honest, it is my humble opinion that all men are, but some of them are just really good of hiding it.  Towards the end of the previous year, actually not too long after I began writing this blog, I got it in my head—from what in retrospect seems to me to have been a combination of miscommunication, misinterpretation, and stupidity on my part—that several of my friends, mostly female, had a very low opinion of me.  Now, I know I'm not necessarily the most likable person—I can be mean, argumentative, crude and a host of other atrocities—but one thing I certainly do not want to be is that one annoying guy everyone knows, but doesn't want to be mean to, so they just suffer him in silence.  Honestly, I would rather someone tell me I'm an ass and that they'd rather I never speak to them or bother them again (get in line) than have them try to avoid me, and, when forced to interact with me, silently spend the time hoping desperately that I'll leave.  I really would.  I hate ambiguity like that.  I want in or out: either I'm your friend (or at least, we're friendly), or I'm (we're) not. 

But anyway, I felt as though I was that guy.  I may elaborate on this further down the road, but essentially, I got the feeling that several of my friends were only really my friends in the sense that while they didn't really want to have much to do with me and had no interest in ever initializing interaction, they politely put up with me.  At least a month before school had let out, I began to make a conscious effort to avoid initializing interaction with one of my friends to see what her response would be, or if she'd even notice; (in my mind at least) she didn't.  After school let out, I did the same for several other friends.  I don't think one of them contacted me during the summer.  Also, while I was in Southern California, a number of things came up concerning another friend, on who I had been in pretty much constant contact with all summer long, previously mentioned as a coauthor of A Correspondence.  I'll once again consider covering this in greater detail at another time, but suffice to say I was mad at her:  I felt betrayed, angry, marginalized, and a host of other, similar things.  At that point, I cut off contact with her as well.

So when school started in the fall (it's really more like late summer nowadays), I pretty much openly and pointedly ignored a group of people I had formerly (and I should say, now wholeheartedly do so now) considered my friends.  Now in order to make good on my promise to have a new post up today, I will end here, and continue from this point in the next part of this ever-growing... confession.

Back at the Beginning: Part I

It's been one week since High School Graduation.  I've been telling myself that I'm going to start blogging again for days weeks months now, and I've finally gotten around to it.  I'm not going back to reread any of my previous posts before writing this.  Someone else wrote those, someone younger, less mature (I think), and a little less thoughtful.  It's now more than eleven years to an eternity.  And let me tell you, one year makes all the difference.

I've been hearing about it for years, but last summer I finally got around to watching Firefly, and it floored me.  I ended up watching half the show (a whopping seven whole episodes) in one night.  Firefly and Serenity are now my favorite television show and movie, respectively.  I'm not sure what it is about that universe, but I find it amazing.  In retrospect, it's clear that Joss Whedon maintains a certain style of writing characters, dialogue, and stories that I find very appealing, throughout all of his works.  But enough of that.  I'll (probably) dissect Joss Whedon and Firefly in their own post some other time.  After Firefly I re-watched Dollhouse (another cancelled Whedon masterpiece), Blackadder, and finished the first two seasons of Castle (with Firefly alum Nathan Fillion).

Interspersed between my teevee watching, I did some other things.  Like go to Alaska for ten days.  And stay at Thomas Aquinas College in Ohai, CA for two weeks.  Things like that.  I was in Alaska to visit St. John's Orthodox Cathedral and the surrounding community in Eagle River Alaska.  While there, I got to go on a cruise of Port Valdez and Prince William Sound.  I also went salmon fishing and lost (can you believe it!) several games of Settlers of Catan and croquet.  I'll try to find some pictures.  At Thomas Aquinas College, I attended what is basically a two week crash course of TAC's regular four-year Liberal Arts degree program.  We read several "Great Book," including Plato's Crito, Sophocles Oedipus Rex and Antigone, Shakespeare's Macbeth, selections from Genesis, along with works by Thomas Aquinas, Pascal, Kierkegaard, and Euclid, and thoroughly discussed them in Socratic seminars of about twenty students each.  I really enjoyed it; for those of you who know me, I like to argue, and it helped that our group included an ardent Catholic and militant atheist.  Between the three of us, there was some quite vigorous discussion, occasionally interspersed with comments from the fifteen or so other people and the two tutors (professors at the college).  While not reading or discussing, the other students and I participated in hiking, swimming, sports, and pranking, as well as visiting some of the sites in L.A. and Santa Barbara.  Once again, I'll try to find pics.

After all that, they made me go back to school.  Apparently there is a twelfth grade, and it is mandatory that you attend.  However, I will leave that for part two of this post, which I PROMISE will be up tomorrow.  For the one person who's reading (by accident, I'm sure), have a good night and God Bless.

One Year On...

Today is the first anniversary of Junior Prom, and it's been almost a year since my first post.  I've grown a little older and hopefully a little wiser since then.  Quite a lot has happened that's kept me busy, and I hope to be able to relate it all here.  Sometime within the next week (likely by next Monday) I plan to start chronicling the next year and is myriad of notable events, as well as begin a regular schedule for posting going forward.  Looking back on some of the (admittedly few and irregular) previous posts, I seem to be a bit self-absorbed and perhaps a bit... simple? Naive?  I'm not sure.  Going forward, I hope to be frank, open, and honest, as well as a little more self-conscious.  This blog is to be an honest confession of my thoughts and feelings from here on out.  I don't expect anyone—especially anyone I know—to read it; nevertheless, everything I write here, I do so with complete sincerity and in good faith.

And with that, I will close of this post with a bit of self-congratulations:  earlier this week (the 24th) I was admitted to UC Davis and UC Berkeley.  There's been plenty of disappointment in the college application process, but this has made it all worth it.  And with that, Good Night.

More to come soon.