I Hang Out With Engineers and Party at Gatsby's

Friday 19 April

So I did think about blogging last night when I rolled in at 2:08 AM, but then I decided it was better for everyone that I just go to bed.

So yesterday was Pretty Great. It was heaps better than my last Friday, at least. I had a lot of great adventures with great people and I continually find myself asking how I got so lucky to have these great people in my life.

Yeah. I went to physics and was ACTUALLY EARLY, which is the Best, and we learned some more about fluids while Joe and I just chilled and I wrote my Western Political Thought response. It was great. Then I had my politics recitation, which was alright—we talked about Aristotle and how he asked, rather than Plato with "What's the best state?", "What kind of people do we want to cultivate?" and I thought that was interesting. Plato held this whopping grudge against Athenian democracy, because that system killed his best friend and mentor Socrates, and then Aristotle took it and said that Athens didn't kill Socrates. The people killed Socrates, and I think that makes all the difference. Because governments are made by men for men, and thus, there's room for glaring mistakes and flaws. So yeah. Food for thought. Then I went to chem, where we talked about our exams (I GOT A 90 HELL YEAH) and then some more kinetics! YAY KINETICS!

So yeah. Then Sam, Steph, and I went to lunch and Sam said she really could go for a chocolate croissant from Panera, and then I suggested we go to fucking Panera to get pastries, and so, by George, that's what we did! So that was fun, and then we went to Target and saw Steph's friend Elena, and then we all took the bus home with our bags of crap. I then walked to the library and had a nice chat with Crissie, and then I wasted some time and walked with her back to Hallett.

Then Morgan and Crissie and I watched Lonely Island, and then we watched when Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake went through the history of rap, which was amazing and I kind of want to be best friends with them both so we can party and rap together :) So then I went back to Kitt and dropped off my shit, and then headed back over to Hallett, where I collected Crissie after we reposed for a little bit and then went to dinner! We had a nice chat about my romantic life (or, I should say, lack thereof) and then we sam Graham, Connor, Anthony, Sierra, Christine, Flock, and Annie, and so then we went over there and chatted with them for awhile about bad drug experiences we've heard of, the batshit insanity of our lives, Macklemore and his concert, and finally Annie's obsession with salt, which basically ended up everywhere by the end of dinner.

So then I went to Hallett and basically lost my mind because I was so exhausted, and then I danced and Crissie and Johnny judged me a lot, to say the very least. So that's where my life is at.

Anyway. Then I headed over to Brackett, where I hung out with the upstairs gang for a little bit while they all readied themselves for Macklemore, and then when they all headed out I went downstairs to Evan's room. The events that followed are why I hang out with engineers.

We played this game that Joe invented called "Angry Birds," where we played with Angry Birds shaped cat toys and lobbed them at structures we constructed with Red Solo Cups. The person who knocked down the last pig won that round. And it was a great deal of fun. With Kevin, Jackson, and Erin as judges, Joe and Evan were on a team and Noah and I were as well, and Noah and I started on the losing side, but then we came back as the night went on and maybe ended up winning. We never really figured that out, since it was a win-win game haha. I also discovered there is a reason I'm not an architectural engineer, and that's because I suck at building shit.

So yeah. That ended and they all played Smash Bros, and I tried to stay awake because I was exhausted. Then everyone came back form Macklemore and we hung out with them, listening to Imagine Dragons. We almost watched Caddyshack, which I was pretty excited about, but that didn't end up happening since we just talked instead, and that was okay. I spotted the Avengers puzzles Evan got in the dollar bins at Target, and then we ended up doing a 100 piece puzzle at midnight on a Friday with help from Sierra and Connor. You only wish you were this cool.

THEN I convinced people to come to Denny's with me, which was quite a feat since no one ever leaves their dorm or whatever. So Connor, Zac, Sierra, Phil, Ryan (who I met last night—cool kid), Evan, and I traipsed across campus to Denny's and that was Awesome. Granted, I ate shit on the Kitt hill because of the mud and we lost Evan along the way since he ran ahead and then just looped back around to Brackett to go to bed, but you know. It happens.

So I got my stupid hash browns and it was a lot of fun. I talked with Phil and Zac a lot and then we headed back to our respective dorms and I fell asleep at 2:18 AM.

So yeah. That's my Friday and why I like engineers.

Anyway. I had the idea that our society is a lot like that of the 1920's, especially when you head up to college. We party like Jay Gatsby sometimes. Are we morally bankrupt? I don't know. I think we're more in the middle of a great identity crisis, and sometimes we make decisions to see just how far we can go as far as our morals go. I'm still trying to figure out why we do the things we do.

But what's more concerning to me is that we're nineteen years old, in the prime of our lives, and almost everyone I know is absolutely fed up with modern life and the paths it presents us with. We're going to school and getting good grades and doing what we do to earn money in the long run like lemmings, and anytime I talk to someone about this, it's easy to see that this makes us all uncomfortable. We want to go out, hike, explore the world, see everything with bright eyes, experience the full variety of human emotion—and we're stuck here in this life that we sometimes hate, be it suffering through calculus, living in a hostile and unproductive political climate when we know it should be so much better, or finally understanding that your belief in humanity is being shaken to the core.

I don't know. Everything is honestly so fucked up anymore—politics, the economy, our social lives, humanity itself—and it's hard to find a reason to keep going. I don't know why we do if there is nothing to even look forward to. I personally believe the American Dream is dead. We're paying tribute to a false idol that hasn't ever been real.

And I think in this case, we sink into either apathy or ignorance. Most of my friends are too well informed to sink into ignorance, so apathy it is. We're so angry about where we're headed but it seems like there is no way out. I never understood Allan Ginsberg's poem "Howl" until this year. Now I do, and I wish I didn't. Because it's so absurd and I can't find any meaning at all in this void of modernity.

I wrestle with the question a lot. And sometimes I'm like, yeah, I'm excited about the future and I'm really glad for the present and people to go to Denny's with and my friends who help me out and get me through it. And other times I sink into an existential funk and I just kind of hate everything. I don't know if this is what comes with being a young adult or if this is what comes with life in general.

And people always tell me to focus on the good and forget about the bad, but you can't just discredit half of life like that. Because the bad things sometimes define us as well. It's such a weird ass duality that I just can't figure out sometimes.

Maybe I'm crazy. I don't think it would shock many people at this point.

So where to go from here? I don't know. I think the most we can do is to live boldly with the choices we make in this life and face the raccoons with an open heart and mind. And maybe you'll get hurt, but that's the risk you take. I think we just have to accept the bad, embrace the joy, and go on with a little bit of hope that it'll get better eventually. I'm a cynical optimist at heart, and maybe that hope is a character flaw, but I'm okay with that one.

Anyway. Sorry for the rant, but I just felt like I needed to get that out after the week we've had and it's been ruminating. And writing's been the best way for me to try and understand everything.

Okay. I'll see y'all tonight for another blog.

Thanks for reading and for your continued support :)