Monday, February 23, 2009

What next?

We've hit my limit. Every semester, I seem to have a point at which I burn out and loose interest. I hit that mark two weeks ago. Yikes! That's only a month and a half of peak performance before I start making excuses to my professors and worrying about what a financially crap life I'm going to lead.

It's just school. It's jolly boring most times, especially in religion classes. I feel like I'm being spoon-fed a testimony, and I resent it. It's just a sappy, grown-up version of seminary. I got a 57% on my last exam, and I quit going.

I worry. I worry that I'm not worried. It makes me sick that I can't just force myself to want to do homework or want to go to class. Perhaps I'll just clean houses.

I stole some books out of the closet at work today. People just leave such beautiful books in the closet and forget about them. I stole an old copy of Oliver Twist and a really nice side-by-side translation of The Qur'an. Christopher West (if you read this post), I have a feeling that these books are yours. If they are, just tell me and I'll give them back. I can never feel good about stealing books.

The only class I feel really engaged in is my bookbinding class. It's lovely. I took it once already, about three years ago. This time, I got to write my own syllabus. Instead of doing the normal, simple, prescribed styles of binding, I get to do all leather. Leather work is hard. There are special skills involved. Since you turn the ends of the leather to the inside of the book, you have to taper it down to reduce bulk. New tools, new skills, etc. I research it all on my own, and I love it. It's proactive learning. No one is telling me what to read or study; I get to choose it all. This is the kind of learning that I absolutely thrive on. It's a ruddy shame that all of my education cannot be like this. I'd do so well.

So I need that change that I was looking forward to at the beginning of the semester. I need this back:

He's such a lovely boy. Anytime I'm around, he just can't stay away. He butts into my personal space. He has no regard for anything but to be loved. Here's a year out of eight that I've wasted. I don't want to have to miss him for the other seven years of his life.

What a horrible post. Instead of only writing stuff that I can be proud and feel good about, I'm writing whatever. Holding off until I can come up with something tasty has resulted in creating posts every month or so. I guess you just write until something good comes out. It takes practice like anything else.

Everyone should just go to sleep today and forget about everything.