trying to decide

so i'm probably going to stick with this whole school thing. mostly because i was born with three times the normal amount of inertia - maybe more. but i can't help weighing the pros and cons of staying and going all the time. it's like some weird kind of masochistic addiction where i tease myself with the idea of freedom and release and then go to class. i think i've really developed my cases for and against post-grad school, though. i'm super analytical and deep.

[case for dropping out] i've thought about this, and dropping out would mean i would have time to do something meaningful. or important. or just really big. like, maybe watch the entire netflix collection. i'm talking about every single movie, show, and whatever else is on there. streamed and dvd. you know how you can get sponsors to do something crazy like climb mount everest and swim across a shark-filled ocean? when you think about it, neither of those things give any more to society than sitting on the couch watching tv, right? but they get media coverage and money and other stuff that is probably really cool. and i've been seeing tons of articles lately about binge tv watching (as if this is some new thing). this would be the ultimate binge. totally newsworthy. i bet there would be tons of companies willing to sponsor me. orville popcorn, nestle chocolate chips, peeps, any rootbeer company... really, the possibilities are endless. i could make history, you guys.

[case for not dropping out] there's this professor - not one that has been especially helpful to me or really even cares much (or at all) about what i'm doing - but he agreed a while ago that he would be on my committee and he reagreed yesterday morning. and this professor is just... there's really no way to describe him besides giggle giggle swoon. really. there is just something about this guy that makes people (i'm not the only one, i promise. there are others.) giggly and swoony and it's really not healthy. i can just imagine me trying to defend my dissertation and getting caught in a fit of giggles because this guy. i'm not even a giggly person. at all. i don't think a single crush of mine in my life made me giggly. and i grew up with two sisters. we went through a very long boy crazy phase and had a million and four crushes. never giggled. so this is big, guys.

as you can see, this is a very tough decision. movies or giggles? suffer though watching stuff that i know i will hate or embarrass myself during my dissertation defense. i just cannot decide.

(i know i just posted about school and dropping out/staying, but my brain. it's tired.)

*Sahara - Relient K

and now you're back

a few weeks ago (or something like that) my high school bus driver sent me a friend request on facebook. this bus driver was, well... it's a little hard to describe him. i can't quite paint an accurate picture of him with just words. you really had to have been on my bus (which had some super awesome people on it) to really get him. but to try, he spent most of his time with his eyes on the giant rear view mirror thing he has watching the girls, he sometimes made some pervy comments, and not to brag or anything, but i was his favorite student on the bus. he would let me talk, eat, and stand up when no one else was allowed to (of course, everyone did anyway, but that's totally beyond the point). he tried to be our friend by copying the stupid things we did on the bus, like saying hi to random strangers we passed, but he would get annoyed when i brought a camera on the bus because "it made the kids crazy." (this was after he had me take a picture of himself, of course, and email it to him.) anyway, i have fond memories of that bus, and a lot of them include making comments about him being creepy.

the other day, my ap history teacher added me on facebook. this guy was also a character. he was our third teacher for that subject that year (our first one died and our second one was the vice principal or something of the boys' school and couldn't do both) and probably the craziest. the first day he taught us, he broke into song. a week or so before the ap exam, he had us coloring buffaloes in class. because, you know, studying is so overrated. one time, he started shouted something so loud (i forget what, but i think he was being a revolutionist or something) that the teacher from the next room over ran in because she was sure something terrible was happening. another time, he had me read a packet about harvey brown or someone that was as thick as the text book. i read for fifty minutes straight, and it was the most boring class i have ever attended. i still feel sorry for everyone who was forced to listen to me drone on that day. oh, and once, he said that he hoped his daughter grew up to be like me. (yeah, i'm pretty cool, and by that i mean very, very far from it.) i'm painting myself into quite the nerd, aren't i? also, i think his disappointment to the gift we got him at the end of the year - that we thought was perfect - takes the cake for the worst reaction to a present i've ever seen.

anyway, there is a point here. i recently decided that i was going to stop being nostalgic, mopey me. i was going to look to the future and live in the present, etc etc. do you know how hard it is to do that when, not only am i going against my nature, but my past is also on teen nick every day, on the radio every night, and now adding me on facebook? i'm not sure my resolution is going to last very long.

oh, and in case you were wondering, mason still hasn't answered me. anxiety is beginning to take over. i better have an answer before i go to florida.

*I Will Survive - Gloria Gaynor

your indecisive mind shows me that you are just another girl

"If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell. I'll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days." 

~Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, pg 76

the other day, i was convinced that i had never felt sure about a thing in my life. i didn't know what certainty felt like, had never tasted it, couldn't smell it. certainty just didnt exist for me. but now i think that i might have been wrong. maybe instead of never being sure, i'm just completely sure of too many things. do i want to work as a computer teacher at my old school? i'm sure i do and could be good at it. i'm sure i don't and think the school is going down the drain (or the students at least). do i want to get married? i am 100% certain yes and 100% certain no. i want to live on a beach and in the city. i want to travel the world and stay near my family. i want to devote all my time to writing and devote all my time to computer forensics. i want to go out and stay in. for almost everything i'm sure i want, i'm just as sure i want the opposite. but then again, maybe that's not the case with me.

this is why decisions are so impossible for me. i want everything so badly that killing off an option would kill me. there are times that i prefer having my decisions made for me because at least then, it won't be me closing the door on everything else. i will have one choice and make the best of it and be happy. i won't be second guessing myself and doubting my decision until the end of forever. sometimes it feels like there are just so many things i want with all my heart that choosing between them is impossible and at the end my indecisiveness will have caused me to lose all the opportunities. i just need to grit my teeth and choose.

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. 

From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out.

I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."

~Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, pg 62-3

*All Hail the Heartbreaker - The Spill Canvas

these words are my diary, screaming out loud

i write this blog for myself. i mean, it's great that people read it and comments seriously make my life, but i write what i want to write, when i want to write, and how i want to write. i don't change any of that to gain popularity in the blogosphere.

that being said, when i noticed that two people stopped following my blog, my first reaction was ouch.

has my writing gotten so much worse/stupider than usual that you couldnt bear to see the updates pop up in your dashboard?? (sidenote: i hate writing the word bear. i can never remember if it's bear with me or bare with me. the english language can be so confusing.) but yeah, ouch.

moving on.

so i think i may have decided what i want to do with my life. for now. and it has nothing to do with computers or IT or anything i studied in college, though the business classes may come in handy. i think i might want to start my own publishing company. like a small one that puts out a handful of books a year. with a small group of friends/random strangers that become friends. there'll be an adjacent bookstore where we sell the books we publish and select others. no big names in our store though (no i'm not one of the people who thinks i'm too cool to read what everyone else is reading, but the random unknown authors will fit in with the atmosphere). we may barely break even, but that'll be okay. the setting will be a lot... cozier for lack of a better word than places like borders and barnes and noble. it will be nice.

*Breathe (2 am) - Anna Nalick

i'm a man without conviction. i'm a man who doesn't know.

i'm applying for grad school this weekend. or at least that was the plan. i downloaded all the forms, filled out one self-evaluation form, and am ready to call it a day. but, hey, at least i got the ball rolling. right?? right.

and there's nothing to procrastinate with because the internet is boring me, my books are busy running circles around virginia (after getting out of baltimore they have checked in an out of chantilly and dulles three times. wth), and my dad wants me to clean the house. applications are the lesser of two evils.

you would think that by this point i would know which school i'm applying to, but that just wouldn't be me. i'm still flip-flopping between AIT with a concentration in information security and assurance and compter forensics.

i need to make a decision asap... which of course means i need someone to make a decision for me.

that's where you come in.

yes, my dear blog readers i'm giving you the opportunity of a lifetime. choose my future. make the decision that may or may not change my entire life.

AIT or computer forensics?? the decision is yours.

*Karma Chameleon - Boy George