A Long Awaited Reflection?

Perhaps.

I’ve certainly not been writing like I once did.  I think a lot of what made my writing interesting (exposing my thoughts and views of the world, etc) has lain dormant for a while now. 

It was easier for me when I was still back here, in Atlanta, only working retail with nothing else to do to write fairly regularly.  Academia has proven to be quite draining and I am a bit hesitant of the upcoming year ahead.  I will be taking 18 credits in the Fall and Spring.  This will be my first time with such a course load. I managed Spring ’08 with 15 credits while maintaining a part-time job for half the semester; I think if I manage my time between classes responsibly, I can do the full course load.

As of late my posts have been mostly the thoughts of others and maybe a bit of commentary.  It provides a glimpse into my academic world, but reading all these textbooks and academic articles is exhausting.  I don’t really know enough about the world around me right now.  I don’t enjoy reading like I once did.  My thoughts do appear to be those of others because I’ve not spent enough time digesting everything.  It’s all still in the process of registering, but some things stick out.  I like to make note of what I want to apply to my own life.  I’ve been brooding a lot; I’m still here! But are you?  My hits have been dwindling, which is understandable because I barely write.  Shame on me!

I’ve been feeling pretty lonely and my old depression seems to be creeping in.  I have to be very careful of how I handle this because everything good in my life can easily be sabotaged by my own doing when I’m in such a state.  It is a very, very frightening thought for me.  Especially right now.  

I have little to no social life because I’m dealthy afraid of being careless with money (from bad prior experiences).  I have my need to move out of my apartment and find a new one (my lease will be over soon and I DON’T want to stay) just LOOMING over me.  I will be graduating in a year.  I have so many things I want to do in 2009 including spending some time with my family, reconnecting, and I’ve had some plans to move to Portland for a short while now to continue postgrad schooling.  Am I stressing myself out with no need? 

I want the company of friends, yet I desire to isolate myself.  I’ve never been one to have many friends, but with age, my circle of friends is shrinking.  I used to think that was what I wanted but I am questioning it now.  It’s come to a point where I have but one person I desire to go to when I want to talk about  what ails me or what brings me joy.  But where do I go when I’ve fucked that up?  It seems like I have nowhere to go but down. 

My Comparative Religious Ethics class from last semester has been incredibly invaluable to me.  I’ve never been so profoundly affected by a subject in my academic career.  I am spending much more time meditating on the Other lately.  People who I think of as different or opposing me in some way are being seen in a different light.  I have been given a tool that infuses me with compassion for strangers.  I think this is what I have needed to make progress on my goal. That goal that’s been hiding beneath the surface for a bit now. The major goal of connecting enemies into peaceful dialogue.  The goal I thought I would be able to reach through my studies in Anthropology and Religions. 

I am experiencing a moment where I feel things are coming together.  I’ve needed this.  I’m getting glimpses of a great future that will come finally from all my damned preparation!  Things seem to be jelling, but I can’t feel fully successful right now because something is wrong.  I’ve upset the most important individual in my life because I’ve just let myself go and not kept on top of myself. 

If you’ve been reading my blogs for a while now, you know I’ve had some trouble with discipline.  I once wanted to blame my parents for it, but I’m an adult now and I must hold myself accountable.  Whatever I feel I didn’t get in youth is no longer something they have to give me.  It’s something I must find myself. 

I’ve had an unpleasant 24 hours but it’s allowed for a lot of self-contemplation and reflection.  I don’t want to give up.  Not on school, goals, love, anything.  But I must get myself organized.  Wandering aimlessly never did me any good.  When I get back to Tampa I will use my Sunday assessing what I need to accomplish in my immediate future.  Heh, I even went to the lengths today of joining a health and fitness group at my university.  I have some bad habits I need to rid myself of, quite a few.  But I need to replace them with something positive so I don’t go mad.  I have to spend more time figuring this out.  Any recommendations? DON’T HESITATE TO ENLIGHTEN ME

I’m feeling as good as I can for having such a void in my gut right now. 

I only wish to share this life with the one I love most…

~ Best wishes to all

X.

=[

I think I need help.

So, I’ve been known to have an acerbic tongue.  The worst part is, I don’t realize how foul some of the things I say are until after I say them(usually after someone has pointed it out to me).  When it’s spoken, I think it’s a matter of not thinking.  But if it’s written, I KNOW thought goes into it before typing/writing it so I don’t know how to explain it then. 

It is a matter of miscommunication and I have never really concerned myself terribly with it because those who misunderstood me didn’t matter much to me. 

Today, I became quite concerned.  My professor of Religious Studies actually commented on something I said saying basically that I should communicate my message differently because it wasn’t a good way of getting what I wanted.  Even after he said it wasn’t a ‘big deal’ to him, I still felt horribly.  I felt like a dog with its tail between its legs.  I attempted to clarify myself in my response and hoped he understood I by no means meant to be offensive in my original e-mail. 

He, I think, at one point asked if I understood what I was communicating and I had to reply ‘no’.  I sat in front of my reply for 10 minutes with mixed emotions of feeling upset, chided, misunderstood, and…alienated.  I felt like I could cry over the whole situation(this is amusing because despite my being known to be acerbic/cantankerous, I often shed tears quite easily).  My lowest grade is in his class and I have a sinking feeling I will not manage an A in his course.  This is really crushing for me because it’s not because I am slacking.  I have attended every class(sans 1 because I fractured my toe), done all the readings, and the homework.  But this is not enough.   He is requiring something of me that I have not be required before and his refusal to aid in the transition process is very frustrating.  I feel like I am making a horrible impression on him.  And it’s possible he may not think I am as serious of a student as the others who are actual Religious Studies Majors. 

I don’t know why I am struggling so.  I find him likable.  But I think I’d prefer to have a conversation about Religious Studies with him than be taught by him.  I chose to minor in RS because of the profound impact DeChant had during my semester in his class.  I now find myself missing him greatly.  There was something about his lectures and his style that fueled and nurtured my learning process.  It was not the content, but his interpretation of the content that revitalized my interest in the academic study of religion.  Unfortunately, with this class,  that interest is more comparable to a dying ember. 

I will trudge through this class as best as possible and lower my expectations of myself(in just this class) so that I do not have an emotional breakdown over not getting my A once the semester ends.  I find myself wishing his goal was to help his students grasp the important points rather than to reward those that naturally do and just leave the rest of us behind. 

I feel like this is karma teaching me that I won’t always be a top tier performer and that I need to stop putting my foot in my mouth. 

I wish I could just study under DeChant for the rest of my collegiate career.  I hope I can still work with him in a seminar even though I may never get the appropriate GPA.   I am going to have to kick ass in his class this summer, which I am prepared to do, and will happen (crossed fingers) since I already know his teaching style favors my learning style(unlike my current professor’s)

On that note, I will look forward to my summer classes(which BETTER be offered despite budget cuts) and the cessation of the classes I am actually acing.  And I will look  forward to my weekend.  Which starts once I hit ‘Log off’. 

Okay, I need a cigarette.  Poka! (Informal ‘Bye’)

Guess who made the Dean’s List

THAT’S GOD DAMNED RIGHT

ME

Wheeeee

hahaha, Screwdrivers on the house.  Want something else?  Too fucking bad.  This is my party, cumrags!  Bwahahaha

Sorry, I got into the liquor cabinet early.  I’ll compose myself. 

I got a letter today from the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at my university stating I made the Dean’s List of Scholars along with some other hogwash.  I got excited because now I actually have some physical proof that I actually accomplished something last semester.  Along with the good news was a letter that killed my Happy Buzz stating, once again, we owe some ridiculous amount of money because 1/3 of the rent wasn’t paid in October of last year.  Max and I have checked our bank statements and everything looks kosher, so we presume it is their error.  Unfortunately, our 3rd housemate is MIA, as usual, so we can’t really consult with him.  Normal people would think to call or message him, but my attempts have been in vain.  I guess I stopped existing in Rawlins world of video games and Chef Boyardee sometime in December.

A part of me still questions my stability and happiness.  I’m not used to feeling good about myself and what I’ve accomplished.  That part still wonders if this is a dream bubble I am living in that will burst at any given second.  But, with time, I’m slowly easing into it–like a comfortable piece of furniture.  I am molding myself with it, or it with me, and with every day the fit becomes more and more precise. 

Sometimes I lay in bed, when I am not terribly exhausted and fall into immediate sleep, and I think about life.  There was a time when that period before sleep was saturated with exhausting ideas of what I should be doing or what I failed to complete.  Those thoughts stressed me out quite a bit and I found it hard to find sleep.  I no longer have that problem and I actually didn’t realize it until just now.  I’m not always conscious of it, but during special times of lucidity, I realize I am functioning as a healthy person.  Maybe that sounds odd to some of you, or perhaps some ask themselves “What is a healthy person?”.  I could look up an answer and paste it, but at this point I will just say that I can tell the differences within myself and I know.  I’m sorry that’s very vague.  It reminds me of that answer:  “I know God exists because I feel it.”  I could very well go into detail about the changes in my behavior, but I think it’s quite evident if you’re at all familiar with past blog entries.  That was my “to make a long story short” of it.  Not happy?  Contact me.  I’ll provide you with enough links to keep you busy for a week.

I also know there is still much that needs fixing, but I am on the right track.  So far, I’ve proved to myself that I am worthy of my trust and that allows me to make goals with the knowledge that they will be achieved.   

I want to name this feeling inside me something other than ‘happiness’.  Whatever this is, it is in the trunk of my body–within my chest and my stomach.  I don’t know how to describe it unless I relate it to the effects of some drugs.  And everyone can’t relate to that.  It is a force, though.  It seems like my body is just a vessel.  It feels powerful but repressed.  I understand I have some control.  My fear is in it being dispersed at once and losing it because I think this energy/force/whatever is what is aiding my success. 

This is a bit of a conversation with a depressed friend I’m attempting while composing this:

Jenka Potente: I wish I could break off a piece of how good I feel about myself and about life and share with you
Friend: aw
Jenka Potente: I dream of writing something someday that clicks with the masses and inspires them to act in unison for the benefit of all humanity

That last statement has really made me think

…

I <3 USF’s Bull Market

I have never held/seen up close/read a copy of L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics until yesterday afternoon.  Though, I certainly didn’t read it all yesterday afternoon.

I was walking through the Bull Market yesterday and stopping at several booths and learning what their representatives had to say about their organizations.  I enjoyed it but mostly brushed off a lot of the religious hogwash and took to the ‘atheist/humanist’ booth.  We both let out our religious frustrations and even did some debating but then our Rabbi neighbor decided to join in on the conversation.  Mr. Humanist/atheist was going on about how he thinks women should have two husbands so that if one fucks up she will have a back-up.  I expressed my belief in monogamous relationships when considering offspring and how it is beneficial to the offspring to have two stable figures (Ideally yin and yang) in their lives.  I began to provide some examples of such relationships in nature and how I think it is more nurturing to the offspring than to have fleeting parents.  The rabbi liked my example and mentioned we should look to nature to find ourselves, probably thinking I’d side with him.  But instead I decided to go on about homosexuality in nature and how it seems absurd for humans to debase a person for taking part in such things.  He of course was turned off once I gave examples of the Bonobos, which he considered a poor example.  He said, “What about regular animals like cows and sheep? Are they gay?”  Uh…How is the Bonobo not a regular animal?  They’re our closest relative!  He kept asking me if cows and sheep participated in same sex sex.  As if I fucking know.  I told him I had no source and that I couldn’t provide an argument on it so he took that as my admitting defeat.  Which seems ridiculous to me because sheep and cows have been domesticated for fucking ever and shouldn’t even be taken into consideration in my opinion.  They’ve been tampered with.  If you can find me a band of wild cows or sheep and present some research study on their purely hetero lifestyles, I may consider it.  He also kept going on and on about cows and sheep being hetero and wouldn’t allow me a word in edgewise.  I was even planning on stopping at his booth afterward but not after that!  I’m sure he’d think I was only there to give him a hard time.  So eff him!
So then I walked over to the Scientology booth disguised as a Dianetics booth offering a FREE STRESS TEST.  One guy who happened to be foreign with incredibly bad breath said “open your hands and hold this”.  I held two tubes (one in each hand) that looked like they could have been made out of aluminum.  They were attached by some cable to some sort of meter that supposedly measured “upsets in my life”.  First he asked me my name and then asked me to visualize something from my past.  I decided I would make this easy on him and just divulged stressful occurances in my life.  But I also made sure to mention many pleasant things in my life so that I could watch the meter and test how consistent it was.  The wand was going crazy back and forth.  Everytime I projected my voice it would shoot to the stressed side of the meter.  I would mention the stress of tests at school and homework and balancing my life then how fruitful it is to receive an education.  The wand was bouncing to the stressed area the entire time I talked.  I thought it was full of crap, but the Dianetics fellows kept insuring me that it was measuring my stress.  And that it was bad stress it was measuring.  I said, “There’s positive stress and negative stress. How can this primitive piece of technology tell the difference?”  They assured me that it was measuring what has upset me.  Which is crap because the wand shot to ‘STRESS’ everytime I got excited whether or not I was happy or upset. 

After the test, the guy who conducted it showed me a copy of Dianetics and said the answers to my problems are in this book, and this book costs $35.  Do I look like I carry wads of cash around between classes?  This isn’t Cornell or Harvard.  My filthy rich parents (or not) haven’t sent me to school with a couple of Benjamins as my lunch money.   I don’t have $35 to throw away on 1,000 sheets of paper when I can go to the library and check out whatever I please for free.  $35 might be what the messiah of Scientology accidentally finds under his car seat when looking for a tube of Astroglide, but I am paranoid about carrying cash on my person after having my pocketbook stolen in the past and $35 is a full tank of gas.  And I’m sorry, but I find a full tank of gas a hell of a lot more useful than Dianetics. 

He flipped through some pages for me rather quickly but my eyes caught on to the term “Nirvana”, probably because it was recently covered in my World Religions class.  Once I had possession of the book again I went to the glossary to find it again and read the definition.  “The goal of Hindus is Nirvana”.  Uh..What?  Nirvana’s a Buddhist term and Buddhists aim to reach Nirvana.  Hindus aim to reach Moksha.  That’s a grave error in my opinion and this was my first impression of Dianetics.  The man tried to argue this and said I wasn’t reading it in its correct context. Well, yeah, I can pick out a word and create a context for it and that’d be right too, but that doesn’t mean the word is being used correctly.  So then another male chose another angle and decided to blame the error on the editors who wrote the glossary.  So, I had nothing else to say other than that was my first impression and that I’d mostly like spend the rest of the time reading it looking for errors.  So I managed to get away. 

My brain was fairly exhausted by that point and I decided to wind down at the library.  I had Russian club to attend within an hour. 

Thankfully, it wasn’t about anything profound; we just watched a Russian film which was incredibly Americanized.  It was just like American action films – Filler.  But at least the leads actors were hot and spoke in Russian, so I was pretty much mentally masturbating throughout the 2 hours and 11 minutes we watched it. 

It – Shadowboxer – is about a young Russian boxer who loses his eyesight during a fight and falls in love with his doctor who permitted him to fight even though she knew he had torn retina only because he said ‘pretty please.’ She is an ex drug junky that was once involved with a major drug trafficker.  She witnessed his murder and has to run from the law because she has been framed.  Uh, this isn’t meant to be a synopsis.  I am stopping there before I go on for another half hour.  But my favorite part in the film is where she sits on his  lap after they escape from the hospital and he says “I can feel your smell.”  And she replies, “How awful! Like animals!” And then they make out, like, super hard. It made me chuckle.  Still does. 

I spent 10 hours on campus yesterday.  I got home exhausted.

Now I have to attend World Religions – my favorite class.

USF Poetry Jam

A poetry jam will be held at my university library on October 18 at 7PM and I am contemplating going. Now, if I want to perform, I will have to register by TOMORROW. Do I really want to participate? It would mean providing some original works and speaking before an audience. I have no problem with either, but what of my style? Those poetry jam sorts all tend to have similar styles in the US from what I’ve encountered. They sound like hip hop artists and rappers. Now, that’s not my style. Their focus seems to be to exude energy and “pack a punch”. I’m a big fan of Saul Williams, but I could never properly emulate his style. Even if I could, I would feel like an utter hack.

When I translate text into spoken word, I aim to put listeners in a near trance-like state. It is a dance of words, but my dance doesn’t involve breaking or poplocking, I consider it more of a waltz and mambo. Not solo, but partnered and to be married at all times. Bouncing between passion and elegance, I do not aim to divorce, but sustain fluidity between partners. I don’t care to awaken anyone with a political message, I want to wander about in their heads and slide between the conscious and subconscious. I want to travel their bodies; first covering the entire surface area of their forms then seeping into their pores and grazing over muscles and fats. How bumpy would my ride be, I wonder, or how smooth. I want to find my way through capillaries, veins, and arteries as well as the atria of the heart. The spinal cord would be my elevator to the beloved brain – my final destination. Here is where I hope to leave a bit of myself. And in this place I wish to create a pleasant system of reciprocation where listeners care to provide what I provide them.

I think I might just register for the “Jam”, but I think I’ll suggest everyone close their eyes whilst I read.

Time for a crash-course in guided meditation.