posted 2006/03/29 at 23:50
I'm definitely dealing with loneliness issues here. I joined the campus pan-pagan group a couple of months ago (and may wind up becoming their faculty advisor eventually), but I can only stay at the meetings for ten minutes before I have to shuffle off to campus. Un/Gagged's still stuck in paperwork, the other English TAs still find it hard to engage me in conversation, and it's not like I have any social opportunities outside of campus.
As I was driving home from North Carolina a week and a half ago, I thought that one of the things I really needed to do was to open myself up to more social situations. For a while there, I actually thought about trying online personals. Now, though ... I just don't know. There are areas of my life that are definitely lacking, and I want to fix them, but it seems like all the ways I know of to fix them just seem kind of stupid and don't fit in with my personality at all.
Maybe I was meant to be a hermit, but I don't want to admit to that just yet. There's got to be something ... there's got to be someone ... out there for me, right? Right?
posted 2006/03/28 at 23:24
Only now do I seem to be able to resume some sort of normal activity here. Between the stress of the financial situation last week and a possible bout of food poisoning over the weekend, it's only been in these past couple of days that I've been feeling like I can get back to normal here.
Everyone in the house seemed to get sick while I was off doing my thing in North Carolina, and so I've been trying to keep myself well here, drinking lots of hot tea and orange juice and taking zinc tablets to boost my immune system. My nostrils sometimes burn and my throat gets a bit sore from time to time, but I haven't had anything to indicate that this bug has really worked its way into me.
Having said that, watch me get sick right around the time my new dance pads get here. (FedEx is estimating Thursday, but I'm not holding my breath on that.)
posted 2006/03/25 at 22:02
I finally have money again. I got my father his birthday present (a cell phone, which I was planning on getting him anyway but especially after my cell saved my ass on my trip I felt I needed to get him one), I paid back my folks for the money they wired me, and I used the two-for-one Blizzard coupon Dairy Queen sent me for my birthday.
It's not too much longer before the end of the term, though, so I'm probably going to start saving my pennies here. When I was driving through Virginia on my trip, I was reminded that I always wanted to go to Williamsburg. That was clear across the state from me, though, so there was no way I could go this past weekend. What I'm thinking is that I'll try to do a week-long road trip over the summer, hitting up historical places mid-week, then going to another dance game tournament in North Carolina over the weekend. Since I won't be in school then, I'll be able to spend an extra day down there and get to hang out with people at places other than the tournament itself.
posted 2006/03/23 at 22:35
Round-up of my birthday presents (we had the party for my birthday on the 21st since I was in North Carolina on the 18th): Final Fantasy IV Advance for my GBA, Von by Sigur Rós, and Bjõrk's Inner Part of an Animal or Plant Structure DVD. Lots of good stuff there.
None of you got me anything off my Amazon wish list though. In fact, none of you wished me a happy birthday. I'll live, but usually I get at least one or two birthday messages. This year all I got was an automated birthday e-mail from an Oh My Goddess! messageboard I haven't visited in years. Le sigh.
As far as the financial situation goes, I filed an affidavit at the bank yesterday, and with any luck I'll be able to cash my latest paycheque tomorrow and then go and get my father his birthday present, to say nothing of paying my folks back for wiring me money to get home on.
Still, between being angry at Cobalt Flux and rushing around trying to get things resolved, I have seriously tired myself out here. If I didn't have appointments on campus tomorrow, I'd probably fall into a coma right about now.
posted 2006/03/21 at 18:35
Okay, I already made a huge post about the North Carolina trip on LiveJournal, and since it's so long I'd have to make it a .journal entry if I posted it here, instead I will just link to the post if you all want to read all the sordid details of the trip:
http://seanshannon.livejournal.com/121290.html
I definitely learned a lot of life lessons on that trip, which I'll try to write about here later.
In the meantime, an update on the bank situation: I got my paycheque at campus today, but when I went to cash it, the bank said it couldn't do that until Cobalt Flux reversed the charges, which I'd contacted them about over twenty-four hours prior to that. Normally this would just be an inconvenience, but today is my father's sixtieth birthday, and now I'm not going to be able to get him his present until later. Needless to say, I am incredibly upset with Cobalt Flux right now, and they had better do something to rectify this situation ASAP.
posted 2006/03/20 at 01:52
I am back. In one piece. Somehow.
Details to come once I get some rest and get caught up on schoolwork.
posted 2006/03/15 at 22:30
I should have figured that the pre-trip anticipation would start early. Last night I only got about three hours of sleep because my mind just wouldn't shut itself off, even when I got it off the subject of the trip. Given that I still had homework to do for my classes this evening before I went to bed, and my last class just let out about a half-hour ago, this was not a good thing. On the plus side, I think I managed to work out my entire Comp II syllabus in my head while I was laying down trying to get rested.
I guess it's hard to believe one of these trips is finally going through. The Wisconsin trip for that conference got blown when I got sick, and then Nevada over Spring Break went to the wayside when I needed to buy a replacement for my Cobalt Flux. Nothing's stopping me now, though. Unless something major happens in the next eighteen hours or so, at this time tomorrow I should be driving through West Virginia for the first time in my life.
This is gonna happen. Whether or not something good happens, well, good luck vibes would be appreciated. Especially for Friday night.
One last thing: in the event that I can't get to a computer on Saturday (I think I'll be able to steal Lara's on Saturday night after the tournament), wish me a happy birthday now. Yeah.
posted 2006/03/14 at 15:18
A little over forty-eight hours from now I will be heading down to North Carolina for that ITG tournament. Looks like one of these trips is finally going to go through here.
Un/Gagged hasn't submitted its paperwork to the University yet, but we're going to have an informal get-together later tonight at a local coffeehouse. This isn't going to be a big "OH LET'S TALK ABOUT HOW KINKY WE ARE" thing, we're just getting together to get to know each other a little more. Whenever I hear of people making disparaging comments about Un/Gagged and the kinds of things they think we'll be doing, I always chuckle to myself wondering how they'd react when they see how boring we really are.
Not to complain about the weather too much here -- since the start of the new year we've hardly had any snow, and what snow we've gotten has generally melted within twenty-four hours -- but yesterday when I left the house it was close to 65, and today it wasn't even 40. That wouldn't be too bad, but both days here we've had the most ridiculous winds imaginable, making me worry about the safety of my trademark black bucket hat. It's going to get cold here in Toledo this coming weekend, but of course I won't be in Toledo, ha ha ha ha ha.
posted 2006/03/12 at 22:56
If there's one area of my life where I've probably tried to overcompensate for my character flaws, it's conflict.
Those of you who remember me from the pre-.org days probably remember that I didn't deal with conflicts too well. I started stupid conflicts, I stuck my nose into conflicts that I should have just avoided, and when I got into conflicts I didn't tend to do too well, either in terms of arguing my own points or arguing against the points that others made.
Really, what that situation came down to was that I simply decided that the conflicts weren't worth it anymore, and to an extent I finally learned the art of walking away when things just clearly weren't meant for me to be involved in. Of course, over the coming months I had some relapses there and tried to kick new conflicts up, but eventually that simmered down.
There is something to be said for the wisdom of avoiding conflict, especially when my own life tends to be so crazy and hectic. However, I think that maybe over the past year I've gone too far the other way, and I've avoided conflicts that I should have stuck out.
Case in point #1: Spectrum. Rather than stand up and defend myself against baseless accusations made by someone in the group, I decided to walk away from the group and not get involved in something that I feared could polarize the group. Not only did this result in me losing all of my friendships here locally (save one, and even that took months to get restarted), but Spectrum has shrunk back to the same level of insignificance on campus it was at before we turned the ship around in '03-'04. (And I still can't get anyone there to return my things that other people have.)
Case in point #2: Cincinnati. There were some things I did with my former friends there that I could have handled better, and I was hardly without fault for what caused the eventual split, but for the most part I lost those friends because I didn't challenge someone who misrepresented me and my actions. I didn't want to rock the ship, and even though it freaking killed me to be literally without a friend in the world for a while there, I still thought it was better to sacrifice my own feelings so as not to cause tension between the other people there.
Now it's happening again, as I was thrust head-first into the teenage/young adult drama that seems to be endemic in the Carolina dance game community in the days leading up to the tournament. I tried my hardest to be a peacemaker and to be the voice of reason, but I didn't realize until it was too late that I was dealing with a lot of unreasonable people. Even though there are still some people there who want to meet me this coming weekend, other people have made it clear that my presence at the tournament will only make things worse, not better.
Not surprisingly, my instinct right now is to pull out of the tournament entirely, not go to North Carolina at all, and let the people who have made it clear that they won't welcome me there have their way. This is in spite of the fact that, quite honestly, I think my ability to continue to function as a rational human being depends on me going down there to handle certain things. Still, as much as I want to stand up for myself and say, "Damn it, I want to go down there," I still can't help but feel that things would just be better for everyone else if I were to stay at home. Really, shouldn't other people's concerns take precedence over my own?
posted 2006/03/10 at 23:43
Driving to and from Westland, I pass right by some of the runways of Detroit Metro(politan Airport). Every time I'm coming home from there, it seems like there always has to be at least one plane that passes me overhead at a height too close for my personal comfort. I know that I'm safe, but still, if planes can scare me like that from the outside, maybe it's a good thing that I wasn't in one earlier this week.
Then again, given how I feel right now, maybe I should have been.
Anyway, I did just come back from Westland now, and not even two hugs from Jessi seemed to fix what's ailing me now. Not only that, but there are people there whose names and faces I recognize from dance game messageboards, and I want to say hi to them (especially Jessi's older brother TJ, who is just a phenomenal player), but I can never work up the nerve to do or say anything.
I am really not feeling good right now.
posted 2006/03/06 at 20:04
Yesterday after I got home from 2Play, I checked the weather forecast for this week and saw that today was going to be the cold day of the week -- barely above freezing (occasional snow but no accumulation) -- and later in the week we'll get into the 50s and 60s for highs. Therefore, I decided that today would be the best day of the week to stay at home the whole day.
It's not that I really have that much to do here -- there's a bit of schoolwork I need to tackle, but it can wait -- but I've just been totally out of it today. I have new DVDs to watch, stuff to do online, and I just seem to be spending the whole day doing nothing, and to be honest, it's kind of annoying.
What's most annoying is that I'm less than two weeks away from that ITG tournament in North Carolina, and I still need to get my freestyle choreographed here. To say I've never done anything like this before should go without saying, and the potential for me to make a real ass out of myself is super-high. Perhaps that's the reason I haven't done anything today; the freestyle is the most pressing concern I have right now, and, well, if I don't get around to choreographing it then I kind of get out of having to do it at all, right? Sigh, I'm such a loser.
posted 2006/03/05 at 22:44
You know, every year I say I'm going to host a "Fuck the Oscars" party on Oscar night and show movies that the academy unceremoniously shafted, but it never comes to fruition. Then again, given how I only have one friend left here in town (or the whole state, for that matter), I guess there isn't much of a point.
You all have no idea how much I need this break right now. I'll have a bit of schoolwork to do here (especially since I need to get ahead on things in preparation for my trip to North Carolina), but ever since Wednesday night I've been able to relax my brain, and it needed it, believe me. Of course, I can't help but feel there's something I was supposed to be doing right now ... something about a plane trip ... can't really remember now.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Drone Zone on somafm.com is the coolest Internet radio station ever. Seriously.
Oh, and with my birthday thirteen days away, I thought I should tell you all that I did finally make a wishlist on Amazon, although I did so mainly to keep track of all the things I want to buy from there. My username on there is "sean-shannon" if you want to look me up, and for those of you who might feel squeamish buying me "girlie music" or far-left books, I do have some Nirvana and Stone Temple Pilots CDs listed. Yeah, so buy me stuff.
posted 2006/03/02 at 22:56
I'm pretty much on spring break now. I was supposed to have class today, but it got canceled when my professor had to accompany his wife to the hospital (it was nothing serious, thankfully enough). For that matter, I went to my evening class last night only to be let out so we could go to a reading by a couple of my old creative writing professors at a nearby wine shop. Cool beans.
As for my plans over break, Nevada became impossible to do once I had to replace my Cobalt Flux. I don't even have that much schoolwork to do over break, so my main focus right now will probably be on chereographing my freestyle for the ITG tournament I'm going to in a couple of weeks. I know *what* I want to do, but I need to design, and then memorize, the steps for it, and given that I've never done anything like this before, I'm guessing that I'll need a good chunk of this break just to get everything down.
I'm just hoping that my decision to not go to Nevada over break -- ultimately it was a decision on my part, after all (I didn't have to get new dance pads) -- will end up being the right one in the end. I guess I'll find out in a couple of weeks here.
copyright © 2008 Sean Shannon