... It's been a while since I updated this thing and quite a few things have been going on. Now, because I'm lazy like an electron and don't really want to take the two or more hours to write everything out, I'm going to copy and past from my LiveJournal. It's going to be in descending chronological order so just read as you usually would, it'll be all organized for you.
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Or Not?
So there's this little TV series sleep-over party tonight. I've been talking about it for a few days now and now I don't know that I want to go. I've suddenly developed priorities. I have a small project to do, three exams that I ought to study for, Passages to do (you JCOSers know what I'm talking about), transcripts to work on, and I don't know what else. I don't know what I'm trying to do right now. Yeah, this party could be fun, but what about all this other s**t I need to do. Tomorrow I'm helping someone move for about five hours. Am I really going to want to work on stuff after that, I doubt it. I'm trying to graduate and I don't want to put stuff off and be totally ******** over when I have to be done with it all. I'm trying to not screw everything up. I'm trying to make sure that I've got someplace to go after high school. I don't even know...
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Determining the Small Size of the World and Finding Old Friends
Wow, this is a bit of a story with a pleasant plot twist.
So tonight my mom, aunt, cousin, cousin's boyfriend, one of my friends, and myself piled into a Ford Taurus (we were cozy to say the least) and went to see "The Bible: The Complete Word Of God (Abridged!)" by the Reduced Shakespeare Company. We arrived entirely un-rumpled and went up to the theatre where we met another one of our party of 12 and decided to take up half of the entire lobby while waiting for the doors to open.
A few minutes later, another three of our party entered the lobby making us take up more than half the lobby. The doors opened and we all filed in and invaded the entire first row (yes, a small theatre, but fun). We were all talking amongst ourselves and the last two people from our party showed up and had to sit in the row behind us. Being right between two conversations made it so I was pretty much entirely left out since I couldn't hear a word they were saying. So I, being a bit of a binge book worm, took out the book I had grabbed from my back pack (which was nearly my lab notebook because I have a lab write-up to finish still tonight...) and started reading. My aunt turns to me and our conversation went a little like this:
"What are you reading?"
"Oh, Airborne by Kenneth Oppel."
"Ah."
"I've read a couple of his books and I liked them."
"Ah."
"The other day, actually Wednesdays in general, I have a little over two hours during which I don't have a class. So I eat lunch and then go sit in the library. Well, yesterday I didn't really have any work to do so I actually slept for a bit and then remembered this author, and because I liked his books so much I decided to see if they had any in the library. They had the ones that I had read and this one so I grabbed it and started reading. Then the bell rang, signaling the end of the period-"
At this point a few more people had filed in but one group in particular caught my eye: a guy that had attended the National Student Leadership Conference last year at Colorado College! And without skipping a beat I continued my sentence:
"-and oh my god I think I know that guy!"
"What happened at the end of the period?"
"Oh! I checked out the book and I've been reading it voraciously today since I had a lot of free time"
Now, I was excited but I just opened my book and decided to tap him on the shoulder later. The show went on and during intermission I said to my friend that I had brought along "I think I know the guy on the end in the back row!"
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, I'll probably ask him later cause if I don't I'll get home later and be kind of annoyed cause I didn't say 'hi'"
"Yeah."
So the show went on. At the end of the performance this guy and his group left the auditorium. I said to myself 'It's true what you said to Austin, you'll hate yourself for not saying anything...' So I ambled out the same exit he did and I looked across the lobby and my party and made up my mind. I went up to him and lightly tapped him on the shoulder, "I'm sorry, are you Logan Hurd?"
"Yes-"
"You went to the NSLC down at Colorado College last year?"
"Yeah-"
"I'm Lara Peguero!"
"Yeah, I remember!" Our conversation stalled a few times and then I asked the cliche questions and everything and we talked for a little bit. I turned around and saw that my party was gone.
"Wait, where'd they go?"
"Um, I think I..."
"Well, I'd better go see where they are. Do you still have the same email address?"
"Yeah."
"I'll email you, maybe stay in touch?"
"Yeah, I think I lost your's and everything else from the NSLC."
"Oh, okay, bye!"
I went outside and my party was there, and we left. As we were walking the two blocks to the car, I kept looking over my shoulder to see if he had left. We piled back into the car and went home.
That was my evening. What a coincidence to happen to go to the same play, the same night, the same place. What a small world it is, and how I love it so.
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Determining Why I Keep Doing This
So I have this Biology project due on Tuesday and I have a partner. The project is collecting twenty bugs, two species from ten orders. We have fifteen bugs and still have some orders to fill (one order we have has three bugs). I have caught all of the bugs we have. The ones that he has caught have molded over because he forgot about them in the jar. Honestly, at this point I don't care that he didn't deliver before, what I care about is that he pulls through for me just this once and has at least five bugs tomorrow and that they fill the needs of the project. I don't really like depending on people in terms of academics unless I absolutely know that they'll contribute something. I don't know anyone in the class so I took a chance. The last two years I've been working with someone that I've known I can count on. This year I found another person (who is incidentally the other guy's friend) who I can count on. However, neither of them are int this class and the two guys that are next to me are good friends so they obviously stick together. I'm a little freaked right now because this project is probably going to be worth a lot of points and if my grade is shitty then I'm ********.
I really hate grades. I loathe them, they make everyone into competitors trying to get the top grade. I suppose it could be a good way to motivate people but it sucks because grades eventually become the only thing you care about. I recently got a B on a physics test. It's the first B I've had in two years.
Then there's my other school that's just pass-or-fail. There are people at this school that think that because they aren't getting a grade for a project or test that they can just blow it off and it somehow doesn't matter as much. They're wrong. If you don't do a project it's very possible that you don't pass the class and you can't put it on your transcripts. Usually they get a second chance, which wouldn't happen if they were at a conventional school, and if they care enough, they seize that second chance. Why do people feel a need to assess someone's intelligence with numbers? I see absolutely no point because they might not be good at "performing" under pressure. And that's exactly what people with higher professional positions don't care about, all they care about is whether the person's numbers are good. They don't care about the person, what kind of personality they have, what kind of problems they might be facing, or whether this person really just hates the professionals' guts and thinks that they should just jump off a cliff with a backpack full of bricks thinking they've got a parachute.
Now, to answer your question of "why is she talking about all this, it's not directly addressing the topic of this rant".
I persist in my attempts to graduate (i.e. complete classes, get good grades, and work on Passages) because I want to contribute. I want to find ways to make this world a better place to be. I want to help people. But before I can do that, I have to help myself. I need to get through this year sane. I need to keep moving but take opportune times to relax and slow it down.
I only have one more thing to say: I hate apathy.
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So that's it, from now on, I'm going to be just doing what I did before with the into and then link.
labyrinthe larry Community Member 
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