floodgate.blog

I hit what I will call a “critical point” in my life, where I realized many things about myself that I liked, that I disliked, and that I wanted to change (please note, there are some dislikes that I probably won’t change… mostly due to their nature — i don’t like eating fast food, but it’s too convenient… see my point now?).

It really started by the simple realization that I am pretty much intellectually starved right now. I have been sitting in this void of nothing for the better part of a year now, where I had great ideas, great intentions, but no action. I often became absurdly frustrated at things that were both in my control and not within my control. I could go into what those are… yea, I could, but I won’t. I am still trying to pinpoint when the exact time is when I hit this realization, but I know that it was within the last two weeks. I remember one day deciding that it would be awesome to understand taoism, and to learn a new language that is not only completely impractical, but spoken by many. In english — French and Spanish are practical, but Russian and Mandarin are not (you could argue that Mandarin is practical, but only for a VERY small geographical footprint, relatively speaking). We already have those tapes/cd’s in the house for spanish, arabic, and gaelic (i believe scottish, but I could be wrong), so I may start there.

I was talking with the girl who sits next to me in my Institution of Education class yesterday about things like this. We were watching parts of movies, and how lots of people had seen the movie, and she hadn’t. I asked her why, and she told me that every movie she ever saw was a bad interpretation of literature or a novel. She then decided to read those books instead. It then suddely occurred to me that I also didn’t really watch TV growing up, but I didn’t read much either. I started to wonder what on earth I did with my life for so long. I know that lego and guitars were involved, and many hours per week hanging out with friends. They were great years, but looking back, had I kept a few hours to myself to fill some kind of intellectual void, I may have been better off.

On the way home last night (that damn commute, despite not being terribly long, offers too much time to think), I was talking to my wife about this, and how I wanted to find something to challenge myself. Many of you might think I’m crazy, especially since I am attenting University. What could fill this void more than a 15,000+ student University? I won’t be the first to admit that where I go to school isn’t Harvard, nor is it a community college. I talked about this with a fellow math researcher yesterday morning, and how we both felt it had to be “OK” with respect to math, as you can get your PhD here. I imagine there is some level of “awesome” required to do that. But, I am in a B.A. program in Math, and it was created pretty much for the math education majors who didn’t want to specialize in any branch of math, but in education. So, I am essentially stuck with a few bright minds, and several underachievers. I of course will now say that anyone I am friends with is a bright minded individual I don’t plan on getting killed this week! I realized all of this yesterday during the lovely 30 minute siege along I-40. I spent five years of my life busting my ass for my 2.3 in EE at Virginia Tech, and constantly being challenged academically (both by faculty and peers). I then step into this program here, and it’s just a stepping stone for everyone to jump into teaching. If out-of-state tuition wasn’t so outrageous and I could get all classes on one day, I would have done this program at VT. It’s only an hour and 45 min away.

The ending point of my phone call last night to my wife on the way home was “I’m picking you up, we’re going to dinner, then to Borders”. I told her about all of this, and pretty much what I had been thinking and planning for the last two weeks. I don’t know if I ever mentioned the DMC project on here, but if I didn’t, I am designing, from the ground up, my intellectual/artistic outlet website. Many will say “yea, he’s said that before”, and they would be correct. I am so frustrated with “nothing” that I need to do something. I am in the process of planning and choosing the path I want to take with it. If you read through any of my posts in the “opinion” category, you’ll probably see those types of posts over there. All the personal stupid shit about my daily encounters will not appear there. Those posts don’t fill any void for me. Hopefully they fill some part of your life, and then that makes me happy to a certain extent.

I bought Slaughterhouse Five and Jarhead last night at Borders. I also have a mythology book that Meredith had, and then some other small book of roman myths, which has a print date of 1899. I have two books on taoism that will also fall into the stack. For the first time in recent memory, I am excited to read. For the first time ever, I know I will continue this trend. I’m pretty much sick-to-shit of dealing with myself being frustrated, and then this extends to all of those who are sick-to-shit of dealing with myself being frustrated.

I guess you could say I am sick and tired of myself… funny how that sounds, and how it can be interpreted 1,001 ways, and still be correct.

~d~