blueswede

looking down the line

So I've been back at school for about a week now. Things
have gone fairly well so far; my courses look like they will
actually be fun for once, or at least most of them will, and
I've already met a fair slate of new people.

Classes will be especially fun now that I've decided not to
take first-year chemistry. I can handle labs and other such
related annoyances, but when they added mandatory workshops,
which of course weren't part of the regular scheduling setup
(despite being a required element of the course!), I quickly
realized I would be reliving first-year CS, except through
chemistry, and that would most likely kill any enthusiasm or
respect I had for the topic. Maybe for grad school or later
at community college or something, but now is not the right
time to be starting over.

As a replacement, I'm taking an EE course on digital music,
which basically deals with harmonics and sound physics as a
start, and moves to encoding formats, synthesis, and other
such cool things. So this should be a pretty good course,
especially since sound engineering could be a very fun line
of work that would be well-served with CS knowledge.

With the chemistry plan so easily defeated, it seems that my
original plan for fall-term graduation will be enacted after
all. I'm going to look into research projects and possible
honors diploma opportunities one last time, but truthfully,
I think I'd be best served by just finishing things here and
moving on to something new. Even if I have reasons to stick
around, say new friends or romantic interests, I would still
be better off graduating and moving off campus. I might be
able to work part-time or on a temporary basis around here,
possibly even for my advisor's company. We shall see.

And speaking of possible romantic interests, you may wonder,
how is that going? As yet, it's not. I've yet to even be
particularly interested in anyone. A couple of friends of
mine are very attractive, and I believe they are single, but
the sheer amount of overlap among our social circles could
make anything with either of them very awkward. If nothing
else I'd probably have to deal with somebody being jealous;
similar shit happened to a friend of mine as his girlfriend
was heavily pursued by many people back during our freshman
year, and that's not a good scene. Other than them, a girl
in one of my classes seems to be pretty cool. I'd met her
prior, through one of my associates here, and while we do
seem to have a fair bit in common, let's keep in mind I just
met her last week and barely know her.

So no prospects yet. But what the hell, eh? It's still the
first week in September, not like I'm up against a crisis of
timing or anything like that. If it were November, I might
be figuring that I'd gone through college and gotten nowhere
with women. And that might still happen. But the year is
still young, with a whole slew of new people, and familiar
faces cast in new light.

I dare say possibilities abound!

But I'll have to be aggressive about meeting new people if I
hope to break the streak. And that's hard for me, largely
because I despise the traditional "meeting people" settings
that present themselves.

Whenever I've gone to clubs, they have inevitably been too
crowded, too smelly, and too damn loud. The one exception
was the bar where I saw Shonen Knife last year, and in that
case it just applied to the stage room. The bar as a whole
was kind of loud, though.

Parties are the same way, especially frat parties. Unless
it's a small shindig at someone's private residence, chances
are pretty good it'll be crowded, smelly, and loud. I can't
meet people when I'm worrying about losing my hearing.

And two other things that apply to both settings: the DJs
always suck, and the lighting is awful. What's the point of
listening/dancing to shitty music when you can't see? Now I
like the dark generally. I have excellent night vision, and
I can barely go out during the day without my sunglasses.
But I'm not interested in meeting people by sonar.

So I'll have to find my own ways, or if nothing else get
people to watch out for me.

And the other thing I have to do is get an honest assessment
from somebody as per my appearance and behavior. I intend
to find out exactly what the damn problem has been, assuming
it is something more than just really shitty luck. The key
is going to be finding somebody who's actually willing to be
honest with me. And I have a feeling that will be harder
than any improvements I need to make.

Enough griping for one night. I've class in the morning and
a bed waiting for me tonight.

Ah, bed. At least, at the end of the day, I still have
sleep waiting for me.