The Vent Thread

[Otohiko]

You should just travel with your stuff packed into a garbage bag. That'd be classy as fuck.

***

I'm having a pretty shitty week or so. Lots of stuff not going right, but a lot of it is boiling down to anxiety over my school/job situation which is rapidly going to shit. My reaction to it so far has been to procrastinate and hope someone finally wakes up and helps me with stuff (e.g. my academic supervisor who has been basically AWOL for months...), but I really need to get moving on things. I gotta pester people to help me sort this out, and I REALLY need to look for jobs for the coming year. Real jobs, too, hopefully, that'll take some stress off my current predicament - if it wasn't for my parents backing me up (for the first time in my life, they're actually willing to help me pay for school and stuff, a total 180 from their attitude for the last 10 years), I would be really screwed right now. The real problem, though, is that I'm out of fucks to give for my department and I'm really disillusioned with where my academic career has got me so far. I'm again reminded of that since this week is orientation week, and I'm sitting here biting my nails over whether or not to go to some of these department-run events. On the one hand, meeting some new (and old) people in the program might be really nice and help me get some motivation back. On the other hand, every event of this type that I had gone to in the last 3 years at least has just resulted in me feeling incredibly awkward and out of place for a few hours, and going home bitter at how much my department and these so-called humanitarian academics in general suck. I have so little in common with most of them, largely through my background and upbringing. Those of you who know me, probably know that yeah, I'm not the most outgoing and charismatic person, but I'm fundamentally pretty darn social and actually really love being around people. I'm not one of those people who doesn't want to talk to or make friends with anyone, in fact quite the opposite. So for me to not want to be around a group of people, it's gotta be pretty bad, right? Well, it is pretty bad. All the same, it's telling that it irks me, and out of desperation to get to know some people, I may end up going... and then rage about it more in the end :/

I've also been in the midst of a creative project that I'm very excited about. I wanna do it. But it requires a massive amount of energy, focus, attention and just sitting through and doing a bunch of hard work to improve my skills in certain areas. All this other stuff has been sapping away my energy, and so I really can't give it the attention I want to give it. And conversely, because I've not been able to work on it, I've been losing the general motivation and excitement that the project was providing me with for the previous couple of months.

All of this has put me into a kind of a rut and, before everything else, hit my sleep schedule. I've semi-recovered it, but I don't really know if it's gone for better. Last few days, I've been going to bed between 3-6pm and waking up 12-3am. As this is the time that a lot of my friends are active online, it means that I've also been missing opportunities to play games and hang around with people I actually care about and stuff ;__; Really need to fix that as well, but as this whole sorting-stuff-out thing creeps up on me, I want to sort that out first before I go off entertaining myself and such. Bleh.

[ZephyrStar]

Hang in there mang.

I get exactly where you are coming from about going to departmental functions, I was very much the same way. I got pretty burned out at the end of things, and was also disillusioned at the passion of the folks coming in...seems like nobody was after the same things I was. Looking back I know that's not true, but it still sucked at the time. I would still go though, I think it's one of those things where you need to give it a chance at least, even if the outcome is what you expected, at least you went, at least you confirmed for yourself. This is something about myself I've been trying to change in the last few years, that I will do things just to do them and make a very conscious effort to talk to people and try to engage. I think that little voice in your head that says "nothing to be gained, why bother" is best when ignored, in the past I have listened to it too much. There was a reason I really didn't have any sort of social life past my online friends and my roomies for the last 2 years of school

I think you also need to hunt down your AWOL supervisor and get some answers. It's really not fair to you and everyone else under this person if they're not willing to at least lend support and advise when needed. Demand it of them. I did the same when my graduate committee chair was extremely difficult to get ahold of during my final semester. What I wanted was feedback on how I was doing leading up to my defense, and what I was asking for was for him to look over what I already had. What I ended up doing was setting up a little private website with my stuff on it, and updating it/pestering him (and the rest of my committee) constantly about how I was doing. I actually ended up getting a lot of really good feedback from one of the members, so by defense time, my chair really didn't have any arguments. I know it's not as simple as that in your case. It's just really shitty when you are very proactive and STILL don't get what you need...

And yes, fix your sleep cycle so you can join us ;__; Again, I'm duly familiar with it, that was pretty much my grad school sleep cycle thanks to my time watching the computer labs/building ;______;

[Fall_Child42]

hell, I sort of know exactly where you are as well.
Shitty sleep schedule, no idea about what to do for a career, etc.
I wish I could offer advice but I have no freekin' idea what I'm doing either.

Oh well.
I'm appreciating Frank Turner's music even more now.

Life is about love, lost minutes and lost evenings, about fire in our bellies and furtive little feelings.
After all the loving and losing, after all the pioneers and the heroes, the only thing left to do

is get another round in at the bar.

[Otohiko]

yup. I have my own (mostly Russian) musical indulgences to help with that

Also, we should hang out before you leave for NDK. I need to fix my sleep schedule a little more first, but yeah.

Also vent: I am le sad I can't go to NDK or AWA ;__;
(fortunately I can only be so sad about it, because when I learned my work schedule yesterday, I realized that there was never a chance I could go .__.)

[Castor Troy]

I'm pretty bummed that I can't make NDK due to all of the expenses I have as a new homeowner.

[CodeZTM]

Oh dear sweet god, my family discovered my Twitter. D:

*block*block*block*block*block*

/hits idiot friend

[mirkosp]

Oh dear sweet god, my family discovered my Twitter. D:

*block*block*block*block*block*

/hits idiot friend

Time to make the twitter private!

[CodeZTM]

Oh dear sweet god, my family discovered my Twitter. D:

*block*block*block*block*block*

/hits idiot friend

Time to make the twitter private!

*headdesk*

I never knew that existed, and now I feel stupid.

[lloyd9988]

Oh dear sweet god, my family discovered my Twitter. D:

*block*block*block*block*block*

/hits idiot friend

Time to make the twitter private!

*headdesk*

I never knew that existed, and now I feel stupid.

xDDDDDD Thank you for making me laugh, Code

[Drageer]

Ended up taking too many AP classes this year (currently a sophmore in High School) and now i'm literally swamped with homework and studying (due to forgetting A LOT over the summer). I'll get through this eventually though. I just hope I can edit when I get that rare tidbit of free time.