I don't smoke. Not weed, not tobacco. I don't play an instrument really. I don't like ridiculously abstract philosophies. I don't like giant parties where the overarching objective seems to be getting laid. I liked drinking till I came here, and now I've decided I'm not drinking till an undefined date. Somewhere far in the future.

Why am I in the group that does all of these things? I'm sick of it. I'm going to find a new group to belong to. This is just fucking ridiculous. They aren't bad people, but I really can't stand this anymore.

 Well... I'm home. But for the first time in my life, I'll be damned if it feels anything like home. I feel like I'm spending the night at my aunts house...

If you're up there god, just... just say it ain't so!

So lately I've come to a terrifying realization. It's not simply that I didn't bring games to college with me. It's also that if I want to do well in my classes and maintain a decent social life, I do not have the time to play all the games I want to.

But it's not just that. This school is expensive, and the trip to Chile this summer is likewise extremely expensive. It's not only that I don't have the time to play the amount of games I once did, I quite seriously don't have the money. When I was working at B&N, money was no object when it came to games. I was living at home, I was getting a decent paycheck and decent hours, and I had plenty of free time to play the games I bought. But now... well I had a lot of money saved up, but between little expenses (And Chile...) all that is going bye bye. And with the economy in the crapper and all... I want to pay for everything I can and not burden my parents. My brother and sister got a tiny allowance for groceries and the like, but I don't feel comfortable doing that since I have the money and the stock market is weighing heavily on everybody's minds.

I don't know. I've come to realize the only game I really "Should" spend any money on is Street Fighter IV. Because drunken street fighter IV tournaments would pretty much make weekends here at college even more "The shit" than they already are. Plus it's Multiplayer. I want Killzone 2 so badly, but that's $100 right there. Not to mention, awesome games just keep coming out. Bleh. Also I want to buy the new Rambo which was an awful movie but SOO entertaining and mindlessly violent.

The only games I've touched here in college so far is Guitar Hero (My good buddy has them all for the 360) and Quake Live (Free original quake online). I can't believe I'm not shaking. Quake Live is fun but only for about 20-30 minutes... then I feel guilty and realize I should work on something school related. Like the ecological imagination readings I've been COMPLETELY ignoring.

Well obviously what it comes down to is that I'm going to have to think very economically about what games to buy. I don't even want to THINK about the next gen of game systems either. Sheesh... I don't want to grow up! I want to be on the cutting edge of gaming for the rest of my life!

On a slightly serious note, I don't think I need to worry too much. We're fast approaching the point where internet (Even DECENT internet) is going to be available almost where ever you are in the world. It's not too unlikely that in the future someday when I'm on digs, I'll be up till 3 in the morning in my tent on the farside of the crack ass of the world playing Killzone 4 and screaming the newest internet slang terms at my friends and opponents. Ok that's pretty unrealistic. But hey, I've gotta dream.

So I'm once again toying with the idea of concept art for video games/movies. I've been drawing and doing art 10 times more since I came to college. Not sure what's going on, but I like it because I can already see very visible improvement too. Though right now, looking at my deviant art page, I do cringe a little bit.

I've also found that I'm a HUGE fan of Sci Fi landscapes, so I think I'm going to take a crack at those when I get home for spring break. If I have time... I mean, Killzone 2... FEAR 2... Street Fighter IV... phew.

Spent most of yesterday over at the anthro house helping bake paleolithic goodies. Mostly cookies. It was a lot of fun. Nice to hang out with a new group of people. We also talked about anthropology related pick up lines. My personal favorite?

"Archaeologists do it in the dirt, get out for a beer and do it again."

There's many more but a lot of them get really dirty.

( I think I'm kind of funny )
So turns out this is an extremely dangerous city. At first I thought my friends were lying about hearing gunshots, but no. We were at an open mic and the guys were talking about how where we are is safe but just across the bridge is basically extremely dangerous and there have been numerous shootings and drivebys. Not to worry you guys or anything because we have no reason to go over there, but uh... holy shit. At least our side of the city is nice and safe.

Listening to Brain Stew by Green Day right now, which I haven't listened to since like... my freshman year of high school.

Just finished studying for my 2nd exam this week... 3 hours or so of trying to memorize archaeological site locations, what important things were found there, where the sites were located and what form of hominid created the site. My brain is fried. However, I did get a kiss on the lips from a very attractive girl. Twice. Too bad we're just friends and the reason behind the action was completely plutonic and I'm too tired to explain exactly the reasoning behind it. It was nice though.

Had an exam on Monday and had a presentation today. The presentation went really well. I think at least... we'll see when I get my grade. Unfortunately my presentation didn't really spawn that much discussion. I saw completely different things in the essay and reading than the other people in my class. I feel like that's because they focused on the deep meanings and I focused on the obvious meanings. But there was a lot of important shit in those obvious meanings! Ah well. I stayed confident and said my piece without shaking or feeling all that nervous, so... I'll take that with pride, and as long as I get a decent grade I don't mind the rest much.

Went climbing on Sunday. It was fun. Madison's a cool town.

Speaking of the geeky, Wired has a special thing now called Sunday Soundracking which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. They basically choose like 5-6 different bands and put a song from each on a list and do a little article about them. You can listen to each of the songs on the site. It's neat, especially since I always love learning about new bands. *Edit for some grammar typo type things*

*Edit* Almost forgot! I bring this up because they listed a song yesterday called Sunlight by a band called Tune-Yards which I really liked. Hard to describe but it's pretty good. I'm not alone in finding it hard to describe since Wired usually has a "Sounds like:" portion for each band, and for Tune-Yards they just listed "You decide"

Another interesting artist: Dntel. Very synthetic but not in the usual annoying way. Very relaxing and smooth.
 

Nothin' like an awkward ending to a coffee meeting with a girl you're really interested in to demoralize you for the rest of the day. I've really just got to accept that I'm going to fuck up a bunch with women before I get it right. I also have to work on not being nervous and intimidated. I think I'm a pretty awesome guy, but it's probably hard to see that when I'm shaking like it's -30 in a warm coffee shop.

First exam next week! Time to throw myself into some studying to take the edge off. World of archaeology, here I come.

Last week I left a note on Laura's desk
It said I love you signed anonymous friend
Turns out she's smarter than I thought she was
She knows I wrote it, now the whole class does too
And I'm alone during couple skate
When she skates by with some guy on her arm
But I know that I'll forget the look of pity in her face
When I'm living in my solar dome on a platform in space

Cause it's gonna be the future soon
And I won't always be this way
When the things that make me weak and strange get engineered away
It's gonna be the future soon
I've never seen it quite so clear
And when my heart is breaking I can close my eyes and it's already here

~ The Future Soon, Jonathan Coulton

It was a rainy day here in Wisconsin... and the night before I was tossing and turning until 5 in the morning. I still got up at 8. For such a bad start though, today has turned out to be awesome.

Econ class today was rough. The economy is a difficult beast to understand for those of us less mathematically inclined, but I like to think I'm grasping a lot of it. It's difficult to take notes because he's always demonstrating stuff on the graph and I'm trying to focus and understand what he's trying to illustrate rather than writing notes. But it's very interesting.

After Archaeology today, I went with my best friend on campus to check out the Indian burial mound that gives this school it's unofficial mascot. I think it's more impressive when it's dry and sunny out, but it was pretty neat. You could kind of see the resemblance to a turtle.

In the anthro club meeting today, we learned about the mating habits of primates because it's valentines day. And we're interested in anthropology so we can be mature about such things. Except we can't. And it was much more fun that way.

Non-school related... I want to play FEAR 2 so badly right now. Actually, I'd give anything for a first person shooter of any kind. It was silly not to bring any gaming equipment with me. I think it has helped me socialize more. Which is great. But it does remind me why I was reticent to socialize in the past. Being social with people is COMPLICATED.

I think what I'm missing in this world is something to be passionate about. I think I lack passion. The more I think about it, the more I've started realizing that my desire to be calm and rational has caused me to try and squash passion in myself whenever I find it. I'm passionate about video games, but there's not a whole lot I can do with that. I need to be passionate about something that I can work towards. I need to be passionate about something the way the musicians here are so passionate about music.

Well I guess college is about improving yourself, so we'll see where this line of thinking takes me.