Intermission

There’s a lot of stuff that happened between the disaster that was Superior 04 and the next phase of my school career. Since this is already running 4x longer than I was expecting, I’ll try to summarize what happened in between as best I can.

1. Off/on relationship with Cortney : I touched on this in my last post.  I learned a lot of things about myself from this relationship despite its destructive nature. Most of them are pretty irrelevant to the current topic save for the fact that it made me realize how pathetic I was. Made me want to commit to changing my situation I was in.

2. My grandpa dying:  Probably the saddest time in my life, but it also made me reflect on what I was doing. Made me realize I wasn’t getting any younger and would have to get the ball rolling soon. In fact his death is what partially made me finally break it off and let go of Cortney.

Minnesota State University of Moorhead Spring 07

Moorhead was literally the most spontaneous decision I ever made. I knew I had to get back to school, but I had no incling of where to go. Superior seemed bleh, and for some reason I was convinced Eau Claire wouldn’t take me. Then out of nowhere someone from Hayward gets in contact with me through MSN. We get to know eachother and they mention they are attending moorhead.  I go to the site, get interested, and before I know it I’m applying.

It was a grueling process, but eventually I get accepted to attend. I’m pretty excited. I figure since I know someone down there it would be easier. They’ll help me get settled in, and before long I would be on my way to some good times.  How mistaken I was?

Well, that’s not completely wrong. I did have some good times in Moorhead, and she DID try a bit to get me settled there. However, I was completely overestimating someone I didn’t know in person. She fell short of what I was hoping she’d do and I didn’t try harder to correct that. More on that later.

As far as the school year went, it was fine. I did good in classes. Went back to eating like I did in Superior again (back when I never ate at the cafeteria) Roommate wasn’t a bad guy, but he annoyed the hell out of me (I was always too polite to say anything)

The biggest part of this semester was that I actually tried to get out of my dorm room more. I attended the anime club which my friend tried to introduce me to. Although I was not able to make any REALLY close friends, I did open up a little bit more.

Oh I forgot to mention I also got counseling which actually helped me! The unfortunate part is that it was with someone who was only there for the semester. If she had stayed, I might have went another semester just so I didn’t lose progress

Afterthoughts: I learned a lot from my experiences in moorhead. Made a lot of advances in my social skills. From my experiences in the anime club I learned how defensive I could be with people sometimes, and from counseling I learned how much I beat myself up on the inside (self-esteem wise) Two major problems that I intend to fix with this new semester at UW-Eau Claire.

UW-Superior Fall 2003:

If you’ve been keeping up so far, you know that the weight of going to college really didn’t hit me up until the day before I left. Even then, I had no idea what it would all entail. I just felt this overwhelming sense of fear of the unknown. Plus I felt torn. The realization I wouldn’t be sleeping in my bed or seeing my mom everyday was something I wasn’t used to.

My Freshman orientation did not go well at all. I was beyond nervous, and to top it all off some idiot lost the placement tests I took months before. I had to end up getting someone high up to give me clearance to just take English 101. Looking back it was probably more horrible how I felt than it really was.

It was required for all incoming freshman to live on campus with a roommate. The weight of that didn’t hit me until it happened either. For some reason or another I didn’t even think about it. Given my anxiety, that might have been a good thing. If I had thought about it before, I might have backed out on it all.

My roommate was a pretty good one in retrospect. He would often talk to me a bit when we were in the room together, even though we had different interests. The only real problem I had with him was his girlfriend who would come over all the time or fight with him over the phone. Although even she wasn’t that bad. I probably just stayed in my dorm room a little too much.

Class-wise I did pretty good. I was a little disappointed that I had to drop one course because I couldn’t wake up for it. Other than that, I made most all of my classes.  Got some decent A’s and B’s. Nothing I can really complain about here.

Like I said earlier though, I stayed in my dorm room most of this semester. I’d sit around on my computer downloading God knows what (It was the first time I had ever been on a high speed connection) I think I watched a few marathon sessions of different anime.

I ate little things for meals. Despite being on a meal plan, I never could bring myself to go to the campus cafeteria. This is because I’ve always had problems eating around people. The only decent meals I got were when I went home on some weekends. I also had a problem with taking showers and only really felt clean when I was home to take baths.

This was also a semester I started getting counseling for my anxiety. It wasn’t horrible counseling, I’ll admit. Although, I don’t feel we ever touched on any of the key issues. We always talked about school or my concerns over online friends.  I remember she referred me over to the schools psychiatrist who ended up prescribing me some anxiety medication that made me sick (plus he was a bit of a bastard)

Afterthoughts: I just realized it, but my first semester it really could have been a lot worse. I actually did a pretty good job of coping with a lot of the anxiety i had. None of my classes suffered, and I don’t remember ever having any bad breakdowns.

I actually did meet some people who wanted to be my friends. I neglected to mention this to anyone before. I was scared though. They seemed nice enough but I couldn’t feel myself relax when I was with them at all. In fact it was shortly after meeting them that I decided I didn’t want to be at UW-Superior anymore. The school psychiatrist told me it sounded like I was running away, and, I hate to admit it but, he was partially right.

I didn’t like the school though. Maybe I wasn’t there long enough or I didn’t look hard enough, but it didn’t seem like the place where I would spread my wings. The community of Superior has somewhat of a backwater town feel. Plus on some level I didn’t feel like I was ready for all this. I didn’t feel like I was ready to be an active college student.

I also made the mistake of becoming addicted to the MMORPG Final Fantasy XI. I couldn’t play it at school, but it made me want to come home a lot more often when I should have been getting myself used to the whole school experience (It’s hard to do something new and uncomfortable when you have a comfort zone you can escape to)

UW-Superior Fall 2004

Yet, a year later, I found myself back at Superior. Partly because I felt pressured into it by my parents, and partly because I had no better alternatives. If I didn’t go back to school that year, I was just going to sit around playing videogames. I didn’t want that.

This semester, through a doctors excuse, I got to live off campus in an apartment. Which was probably a mistake from the get-go.

With my own apartment I was able to eat and bathe right. That’s about the only positive I can find for it though. Everything else turned into a huge disaster.

First off,  living off campus meant I had to walk to campus (since I can’t drive.) Not so bad when it’s during the fall, but an utter pain in the ass to do in the winter time.  The sudden weather changes made me not want to go to school at times and even made me skip important classes.

Secondly, this was during the time that I met Cortney from FFXI (a game I probably should not have been playing in the first place) Despite what would later transpire with her, she was the first girl to ever see me for how I am. The first one to say I looked good and make me feel good about myself in a time where I really craved that.

Thirdly, my mom had her accident which screwed up her leg.  Now if I haven’t said it before, I’m very clingy with my mom. She was often the one to comfort me with all the problems I had, and the one who would help me clean up the messes I made. With her out of commission, I kind of felt myself freefalling a bit.

I didn’t do much counseling due to the distance of the walk and I ended up bombing a few course

Afterthoughts: I feel pretty fucking stupid for all the mistakes I made here. There’s no real excuse for it, and I can recognize where I made my mistakes pretty apparently. I got lazy for one, and I put way too much of my effort into an online relationship. My education was more important, but I lost sight of it.

My relationship with Cortney would eventually teach me many things about myself later on. This isn’t really the place to go over it all, but since I mentioned it.. I’m no longer interested in long distance relationships

People keep asking me if I’m excited going back to college, but I can’t say that I am. It’s probably because I have so much riding on this whole experience. I know I should probably lower my expectations, but there is just so much I want. And I’m tired of waiting for it.

Before I get too deep into my current thoughts and actions, I figured it would be a good idea to reflect on my college career this far. Go over what I’ve learned. Target what needs to be fixed this time around to make things work. Maybe even come up with some things I haven’t thought of before if I’m lucky.

2002-2003: Senior year til UW-Superior

At the time, I was more focused on getting through high school than worrying about college. That’s part of the reason I didn’t do much research.  The other part was that I think I trusted too much in my guidance counselor who encouraged me to go to smaller schools like Superior.  I mostly just wanted to get the whole ordeal off my back so I wouldn’t have to worry about it. I did think about Eau Claire back then, but I wasn’t confident that I would even get accepted. Most other schools were in areas of Wisconsin that I knew nothing about (I still know little about them.)

When I got my acceptance letter sometime in February, my reaction was fairly excited. Most of my anxiety was focused on getting through high school and another failed internet relationship I got out of.  I don’t think I fully grasped the weight of it all then. I just pushed it out as something I wouldn’t have to worry about anymore.

After finishing high school after my third semester,  my thoughts drifted towards turning 18.  18 meant a lot more for me than most.  My savings that I couldn’t touch when I was a child were finally opened up for me. No longer would I be able not to afford that new videogame I wanted, or no longer would I have to beg my parents for stuff. I could just get things when I wanted them. It was like being given a key that would unlock any barrier (Which I later learned isn’t such a great thing to have. More on that later though.)

After my birthday had come and passed, there were placement tests and graduation. For some reason I still didn’t register it all. At the time, I was more excited about the computer I would be buying with my birthday money. I know it probably seems childish, but at that age you really don’t care about those things at all. You just sit there thinking “Yes! I’m finally done with high school!”

I think it was the day before I was leaving for college when I finally realized it. For some reason, everything on that day was going wrong. Home alone,Hornets had infested the basement of my house, I got stung a few times, dog threw up, and I went into a total breakdown. Suddenly everything came crashing in my head and I just lost it. Ended up putting my fist through the living room wall, which ultimately didn’t make anything better.  Ran to my grandparents house crying and worrying what my dad would do when he found out (we ended up telling him a lie. I think he knew what happened. Either way he didn’t seem that upset when all was said and done)

Afterthoughts: I know I talk mostly about the buildup to Superior, but I’m going to talk mostly about high school here (my thoughts on Superior will be in the next section)  Keep in mind that this section is mostly me looking back on it now.

It’s not good to hold a lot of regrets about high school. You think back a lot on what you could’ve done and how your life could have been different, but you remember that there’s no going back to those days. There’s no way of telling yourself not to make those mistakes you did. Even if there was, there is never a gurantee it would have turned out more satisfying.

However, I will say that I made a lot of mistakes. I hated the way school made me feel, and because of that I pushed away people who might have been trying to get closer to me. As an effect to that, I began to feel alienated and coped by isolating myself to the internet. Isolation made me miss out on a lot of social development that I know would’ve been helpful.

For example, I think about a girl I had a crush on in the eighth grade. I remember our lockers were pretty close to eachother and she would always smile and say hi to me.  I wrote her a letter once, telling her my feelings and how happy she made me. I was so close to putting it in her locker, but I chose not to. Instead, I just kept it with me.

Even if the girl had no feelings for me, I would have had that experience to draw upon. I would know that I did it and lived through it. So if another situation should rise up, I would have the experience to tell myself that I could get through it if things went bad. If things had went good, then maybe I could have had a friend at least. Someone to open up to so I would know how to open up to people in the future.

This wasn’t the only experience like this. I can recount many where at the time I just wasn’t thinking of what effect it would have on my life. In the 7th grade there was a girl I am pretty sure had a crush on me, but back then I was such a closed book. I would try to avoid her questions because I was embarassed. Oh the things we understand when it’s too late to do anything about them.

That’s not to say that school was all negative experience for me.  Again most of this is just in retrospect. At the time I never thought twice about them, and now of course I try to look at them as something I learned about myself: Not acting on things doesn’t mean nothing bad will come of it (Note: You’ll find that I learn this a lot throughout this post)

Keep tuned for more Reflection posts.

At the moment, the design is about 70% done. I still need to touch up the styling of entries and comments. Otherwise, this is pretty close to what it’s going to look like.

Unfortunately, I haven’t had time to try this on many browsers or resolutions yet. If for some reason the page layout looks way off, then please let me know. Please provide your resolution and browser! Oh and screenshots are also really helpful :)

- Adam

Okay, just a quick update while I get things set up.

I decided to discontinue my web development work in Ruby on Rails. The reasons being: I just don’t enjoy it and don’t have the time to keep up with it. For the sake of more updates I’ve decided to scrap my code and use a more commercial system which you are seeing now.

The good news is that I can update this blog more often. Which was the main purpose of this site anyway. I wanted this site to be a place to share my thoughts and writing. With this new software, I think you can expect at least 1 update every week.

The only real bad news is I’m more limited in what I can do in terms of layout. Since I don’t really feel up to learning the entire inner workings of Wordpress’s design system, you’ll most likely have to make do with less glamourous looking layouts.