Story of a Perfectionist
02.12.21
E22:00
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Music o' the Entry:"4th...", Gackt
Holy shining monkey, I have time to write. Of course, this is also the direct result of myself being located at my apartment as opposed to the home of my family, where I'm reportedly supposed to be entertaining guests for the rest of the month and the entirety of my winter break but I'm a horrifically lazy antisocial beast who relishes privacy these days, hence...
So yeah, it's been a good month and once again, I fall into the dilemma of not knowing where to start; generally speaking, if given the time, I will write a relatively healthy size of entry nigh-daily, usually of absolutely no consequence, but hey, what can one do? So, I begin with a brief description of my life as is. The autumn quarter (yes, I am aware that it is more commonly referred to as the "fall" quarter, but somehow I love the word "autumn" more; I blame it on the silent "n"...) has ended, and I am presently on break, until class resumes January 6th. I didn't do terribly hot this quarter; my average grades were significantly lower, but in good news I managed to obtain the absolute lowest grade in my entire academic career-a super-sexy 0.0 in Precalculus. Yes, an absolute zero. Because you see, there's failing and then there's failing...wow. Oddly, I'm not upset about it because I'm retaking the class and my cumulative GPA is still a 3.6...how perverse that I would find it amusing, given my obsessive perfectionism. But yeah, very very glad this quarter is over, I think I can accurately describe it as my worst so far in my college career. Still, good things will happen next quarter; in addition to repeat Precalc I, I'll be taking Physical Geography, a seminar on the history and philosophy of geography, as well as intro to geology to destroy my general req's, which are the bane of my existence. And my final happiness shall be that at the end of this upcoming winter quarter, I shall be a junior-huzzah! Still, thanks to flunking math in a highly grandiose fashion, I'm going to have to work ridiculously hard to graduate by the end of next year, purely in terms of credits, which means I may have to use scholarship funds to take some of the those rockin' weekend 2-3 credit anthropology seminars that I always wish to attend but are prohibitively pricey...wah. Oh well, next year will be fun, thanks to the upcoming vocal performance minor.
Speaking of minors and whatnot, I think I may have actually stumbled across a life-changing breakthrough. Then again, I tend to do that nigh weekly, so bear with me. Recently I have been quite troubled and terribly angsty, despite a distinct lack of Japanese boys about...no, this is a far more insidious angst-my future. A brief rundown-it's entirely likely I have a mildly psychotic case of self-directed-perfection; basically, I have astronomical expectations for myself that God (if he exists) would have a horrific time reaching. Whenever I perceive myself not reaching these, I become harder on myself and my health suffers, which isn't good because my body seems to be a fan of the ol' self-destruction...and I just become sort of despondent and suck. A lot. This is not a recent thing, I've been like this all my life. Perhaps the best way to describe it as being a failed child prodigy, meaning I wanted to be a child prodigy but I was not and could not. It was kind of sickening, I was always ahead enough to make it look like something like that was within my grasp but it's always evaded me. I disappointed myself when I graduated from high school at age 18; I had always wanted 16. I am disappointed that I will be graduating with a bachelor's when I'm 20; I wanted 18, or even better 17. I should have had several books published by now, at least prior to my high school graduation. I should be able to speak at one one other tongue fluently by now, and working on others, but my native tongue of English is often described as "unnatural" and my Japanese is unacceptable to me, though I can use it. These were my goals. The reality of the situation is I graduated from high school at age 18, I skipped no grades, I'm relatively monolingual, I have published no books, and I'm enrolled at a joke of a university that I'm embarrassed to say I attend, in a major I never wanted nor do I fully understand why I study it. Yes, I can understand how these are unreasonable, but somehow they seem reasonable to me, for whatever reason. I feel bad about the university thing, because it does have some good points-the education program is widely acclaimed, and there are other majors that it specializes in. However, the issue is that none of these apply to me. The things I wished to study when I entered this university as a high school senior were Japanese language, fish, and meteorology. My school offers a minor in Japanese, one ichthyology class, and two meteorology classes. So why am I here? This is simple-Matt. It may not be a wise decision, but he is the reason, and it was a hasty decision. However, I have a habit of feeling my decisions are concrete and not able to be changed...still, I will not leave him. Anyway, aside for digression, before I actually enrolled here I mocked this school mercilessly, because it begs for it. I had always planned, since I was very young, to attend a selective school, perhaps abroad. Instead, I attend a regional school in eastern Washington (those of you who know my attachment to my home understand the significance of this) who will accept you if you have money and a pulse. This, as one might imagine, is a ridiculous shock to my senses and fills me with shame and a healthy dose of self-loathing. So my way of not disappointing myself, as I have been doing merrily throughout my existence, was to become a physicist, despite the improbability. I do love physics, and science in general-it's wildly fascinating to me, especially when I start partying down with religion and "God is an alien" and "God is physics"-type fun...however, the language of physics is math. I am frighteningly terrible at math, which is attributable to a long bizarre history of broken mathematics instruction which has left me with uncountable holes in my knowledge. This was the final blow to me the other day, that in addition to the humiliation of attending this laughable institution in the middle of godforsaken nowhere to study heaven-knows-what, even when I do escape I cannot be a physicist. I can never be smart, which is what I'd always wanted to be. Yes, I do realize the foolishness and inaccuracy in equating intelligence with being a physicist, but this is a dream, and I've already taken into account that my psyche is not a big fan of observing reality, and simply does not. I get along fine by it, but that's not the issue at hand...basically, all my other dreams had been shot down summarily without a chance of argument, and stuff was looking very bleak for me, in my opinion. Until I visited a bookstore in Seattle the other day. It's called the Left Bank, a little shop located near Pike Place Market (where they sell fabulous Satsuma oranges, by the way), which, predictably, is full of all sorts of leftist literature and propaganda. I felt...happy there. I reminded me of the first time I visited the GBLT club at school here, when I met other people like myself (though I'm the only "T" about)...there ARE other people who share my beliefs. So I realized that perhaps I've been going the wrong direction in my futile, sad, doomed pursuit of ultimate knowledge and godhood or whatever; I can be a human geographer and use my knowledge to further my leftist agenda! For indeed, one of my passions that rivals my intellectual perfectionism is my political fervor, which seems to serve me primarily as a catalyst for arguing with my family. This is something I can do, something I can use to make a difference...ha, isn't starry-eyed idealism silly? Still, I feel like something has been lifted from me and I feel good, determined, not like having the epitaph "It was a failure" inscribed into my theoretical tombstone (I'm going to be a cadaver and later a cadaver burnt to acrisp, so no great hulking blocks for me) haunting my thoughts...and it's good.
So, uh, yeah, that's my story. Sorry if it's a bit disjointed, somehow I lost my train of though in the middle of the thing...of course, that seems to be happening with more and more frequency, more than a mite disturbing. However, this brings me to my current project: my mother. My mother holds relatively traditional Protestant values, perhaps a bit more coloured by religion than I think is appropriate, but then again I'd be utterly overjoyed if all religion would simply just vanish, so take it as you will. My mother is certainly entitled to these views, and I do not expect her to agree with mine, nor do I demand it. However, I find it disturbing her ignorance or blatant refusal to acknowledge the history of this country. No, I am not anti-American; however, I do feel that this country should be perceived by what it truly is and should throw off it's silly facade as the bulwark of liberty, justice, and all the other shiny values it prides itself on but ignores just as much as the "other countries" do; I find such behavior deceptive and foul. So my mission is to educate my mother, which means tracking down Howard Zinn books and other stuff...and hopefully I can educate myself in the process. Despite my loud political views, I usually keep them quiet in relation to my blog because I dislike political arguments; I always take them personally, that my beliefs and core of my being are under attack and it's trying...and frankly, there are a host of people out there who know their crap, and would take delight in blowing this little neophyte out of the water, a nice little ideological shakeup. Matt and I argued last night about politics, and it seemed to come down to his assumption that I don't understand politics and the reasoning behind them. This is grossly incorrect; I know why people do what they do, the reasoning behind it, etc, etc...but that does not mean I will like it, nor go along with it. I do not CARE if Machiavellian philosophy is how the world operates, I will not agree with and will fight it tooth and nail, and I will not see its justification.
...ahem. Sorry. I think I'm going to stop now, because I know I'll just wander myself into trouble, things it's best not to speak of. So anyway, in other news, I have acquired two house guests: Miho and Kayo. Miho was anticipated, and expected; she stayed at my home for a month during the summer, and despite not having the congruence of interests that exists between Yuri and I, we get on well and enjoy the other's company. Miho's friend, Kayo, was expected to come and stay with us for about two or three days, given the dorms at her uni were closing and she needed a place to stay until she flew off to Alaska. However, stuff changed-Kayo is now staying for two weeks, then flying off to Spain and Belgium. This is okay, except that when I have guests I feel a pathological need to keep them entertained the entire time, to be like some sick ever-smiling tireless hostess, who has only her guests' interests in mind. Unfortunately, I'm too selfish to fit that ideal and they came at an unfortunate time that figures to where I get exactly no time alone during winter break whatsoever. Which is where my job as the Janitor of Eternity (more on that later) comes in...thanks to space constraints (my apartment is cozy for one person...three is NOT a good deal), we are all staying at my family's home...my workplace is located on campus, which means I get an opportunity to hang out at my apartment for a bit solo...which is nice. Nowadays, being so close to Matt in distance I am very seldom alone and miss it; my distinct and obvious lack of bloggetry is a testament to the demise of free time. So I'm feeling a bit squashed, and also a bit third-wheely, because I feel Kayo doesn't like me too much. Miho says this is not the case, that she just comes off as that way (which, incidentally, is similar to Matt's behavior at times), but I'm paranoid and extroverted in the psychological sense of the word (deriving one's self-worth from the opinions of others), so...and we just have little in common. They're pop MTV junkies, I'm an obscure nerd of a mentally indeterminate gender with an insatiable love of video games, game music, the Weather Channel, cookbooks and melon soda. You can see how this works. It's not that we don't get along it's just...a bit more difficult, and it's trying. Bah.
Ah well, just noted the time, so it's back to the home of my family where I do NOT blog due to security issues and rabid paranoia on my part, where I shall search for my memory card, listen to music no one else likes, attempt to pass the first stage in Elemental Gearbolt which I acquired yesterday since the bastards had sold out of Shadow Hearts (thanks go out to Lina for the sexy sexy gift card, as well as the Cowboy Bebop DVD-j00 r0x0r) for the 17th time, play "To Zanarkand" over and over on el piano, argue, watch Kristina Abernathy, and get eaten by Darling, who is great. Look for next entry soon, featuring Christmas glee in many shades and tales of my grand Seattle adventure, which resulted in a FINALLY having real yakisoba, real karaoke, and my dearly beloved melon soda again, aka my Japan Compensation Trip, as well as ramblings on my transgenderism.
chronos
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