So, I'm actually challenging myself a little bit. I am feeling pretty ambitious today, and have already started another blog. It has nothing to do with this blog, but I made it separate for a few reasons. The first reason is that I promote this blog through social media outlets, and my new one isn't really for that audience. The new blog is just a collection of writings that I did while in jail over the summer. I titled it Stuck Behind Bars. I'm typing up some of my writings now, but as I said, it will not affect this blog in the least bit. All that I'm doing is typing up the stuff that I wrote, just about verbatim. I also wanted to mention that my Tumblr is now a bit safer. There are still some pictures of girls, but there is no more nudity or anything immediately inappropriate. I don't know what was on my mind that year or so ago when I was posting all of that nonsense, but it took me at least an hour or two last night to delete all those posts. I stayed up all night, watched the sunrise, and then went to sleep until about an hour ago. Here is my evidence:
The view out back of the condo.
I am most likely heading out in about an hour, and may not be back home tonight, but you can expect an update probably on Sunday, or at the latest Monday. Hopefully it will involve something interesting that happens over the next day or so. It is possible that I will end up in the mountains tonight for a pretty big party. You know what that means, instagram pics!
I've been slacking off. This will be of little surprise to anybody that knows me. I've been putting off another entry until something comes to me. Occasionally, that will happen, but I will be away from a computer, and I think everybody can agree that typing anything of length is quite a task on a phone. Now that I have nothing holding me back, I figure I'll take this empty time slot and write a little bit.
I would like to begin with some shameless self-promotion. I've had quite a bit of free time over the past week or so, and have started filling these gaps in my entertainment with some wonders of the world wide web. Meaning, I have created a Pinterest account, am considering getting my Tumblr back up and running, and have even more recently taken an interest in Instagram. I haven't done much with any of these, but I figured I'd post some links, so here it goes:
My Tumblr has a lot of stuff on there that I'm going to work on deleting, but it's going to take awhile. I will most likely re-update once I've completed that task. Definitely don't pull it up anywhere where anybody can see as of right now.
Here's one of my Instagram pics that I took tonight. In all honestly, I thought that the whole thing was... I can't think of an appropriate word, but "unoriginal" will substitute for now... and I just feel like it takes the creativity out of your hands. However, upon giving it a shot, I see what the rage is about. People aren't trying to make original works of art, but just give their pictures a little something extra. Not everybody is going to take pictures, and then bring them home, and drop them into Photoshop (I doubt most people even know how to use Photoshop), with the end result finally being a shared image on Facebook. Especially now, people want to have things immediately, which makes Instagram such an appropriate title for the app.
It's times like now that I wish I had gotten a little more involved in programming. I have to keep reminding myself that it's not my fault, and that I took all of the classes allowed to me in high school, but I can't help but feel that I should have taken things further. When the time came to pick a major for college, I still don't know what persuaded me to go with Biomedical Engineering. I'm not going to turn this into a beat-myself-up post, but exploring the idea wouldn't hurt.
My mother likes to say that back in those days, I wanted to do some good for the world. While this may be true, I think I was highly motivated by financial incentives. I was accustomed to doing the smallest amount of work, while still achieving high marks. I rarely studied for anything, rarely even brought books home. This continued while at Drexel as well. I distinctly remember this one night, and all of my roommates were together studying for a Chemistry test. They invited me to join them, but I left to hang out with a girl instead. They figured I was doomed, and somewhat shrugged off my refusal to study. Once the tests were graded, they looked up the scores online. They knew my ID number, and I can remember to this day how they reacted, seeing that I had scored higher than any of them. That was my life. I was golden, could seemingly do no wrong.
I'm getting way off subject, but I just remembered another pretty ridiculous instance regarding that first year at Drexel. We were scheduled to have a final for one of my classes on a Monday morning. I was up in New York all weekend, this was at the very early stages of my "glory days". I was still rolling on ecstasy when I showed up to the lecture hall, covered in sweat, my pupils completely covering any hint of color in my eyes. I saw one of my roommates, Mike, outside. He couldn't believe that I was in that kind of shape, showing up for a final. I don't remember much about the test, but I know I was one of the first 10 done out of about 400 or so people, and immediately left to go continue on my binge. I can't lie and say I aced that test, but I certainly got an A for my final grade, so it must have been a decent score.
Although I just basically fell completely off track, I'm going to try to complete this thought. I don't know if drugs had anything to do with it, but I'm not so sure that I could have been a great biomedical engineer. I was a shining star through the first two years of basic engineering courses. Once the third year came, those classes turned very scientific, and less mathematical. Numbers were always my thing (I love to brag about my 800 on the math SAT), and I wasn't getting things as easily at this point. I seem to shun the idea, but I'm sure all of the drugs weren't really helping my cause at all. And now, I'm stuck with nine months to go, and probably little to no hope of being able to get back in to finish (because of financial reasons). I just hope that I will be able to figure it out, and finish, and prove to myself that my brain hasn't gone completely to shit.
Now I take one more step back, to the programming idea. With my free time, I might start to look into some programming. I keep seeing these positions at Spotify for web developers, and I can't imagine loving any job more than that. I always thought that computer related fields were overpopulated, and workers were a dime a dozen. But, with the explosion of social media, that may not necessarily be the case. Sure, its still a packed field, but if I applied my passion, I may be able to shine like I once did. I can be great if I only apply myself. I'm not sure how strongly I believe that, but at least I'm starting to believe in myself again, and that's the first step.
I apologize for this post. It may not have been very entertaining, but as the title of the blog states, it's just a bunch of my thoughts put to words. I appreciate anybody and everybody who gives me even the slightest bit of their time to check up to me. I know time is valuable. I'll try to update a bit more often, seeing as I had nothing to type about initially, and ended up going on a crazy rant.
So I was on a mission tonight to stay up through the night and all day Sunday. This was in order to establish a more regular sleeping pattern. I've been going to sleep around this time (5:30 AM) for the past few days, and not waking up until about 4:00 PM. That just isn't cool, not by a long shot.
So, that being said, I've been left to my own devices when it comes to figuring out how to pass the time. There's nothing interesting going on, I'm like one of three people on Facebook out of my approximately 850 or so friends, so that just won't really help. For awhile I found solace in Spotify. I turned on a Damien Rice related station, and just relaxed. I ended up hearing a lot of songs that I already knew, but had forgotten, and a lot of songs that I currently have on playlists. Therefore, I'm convinced that Spotify's radio is superior to whatever algorithms are used by Pandora. But that's a whole different can of worms, and has nothing to do with this post.
However, what does have to do with this post is the nostalgia that I encountered upon listening to said station. It was absolutely insane, and that doesn't come close to describing it. Having not really listened to this kind of music too recently, it brought me on a trip. I had images of middle school, along with some high school as well. Then it went to early Drexel days, and the people I met there. From there, it was right into the beginning of the party days (aka the "Good Old Days"). I then went on YouTube and was watching trance sets from DJs like Armin van Buuren and Cosmic Gate. I even started looking up more stuff about it.
And that is how I came across this lovely pic. I immediately felt the need to post it on FB, as if anybody gives a shit about it. But to me, it is an important memory that I'll always hold dear. I even shared a video from that night. I guess I can put it on here, too. I'll just do that at the end of the post. Anyways, it then occurred to me that this happened seven (yes, 7) years ago. I wasn't even 20 years old, in fact I had just turned 19 two months prior. These were the days when everything was still good. I was in school, I had all kinds of friends all over the place, was working, had a car, had a place to live, etc. I guess that's why I like to consider them the Good Old Days. Actions didn't seem to have much of a consequence. It was okay to leave school or work on Friday, and head up to NYC and not come back until Sunday night (and usually without sleeping). These were days filled with all sorts of crazy shit. I was debating on which direction to go with this blog, and I suppose this is the defining moment. I'm leaning towards the "keep it real" attitude, so that's what I'll do. Usually, these weekends were filled with all sorts of "entertainment". Yes, we went to the clubs, and fucked about in New York at ungodly hours, but even more of the time was spent in a state of delirium, laying in a bed, listening to music of my DJing some tunes on Ableton. We would take an unfathomable amount of ecstasy, taking it like candy. And that was just for starters. But then I remember that that's why it was the Good Old Days, because we were just weekend warriors, and drug abuse didn't come into play until a little bit later. That's when things were more fun. But as I look back, I think that I'm fooling myself. These days may not have involved sticking needles in our arms every couple of hours, but they were not without risk. Almost every time I would be coming back home, I would be falling asleep at the wheel on the NJTP. It seemed that every time I woke up, I was just about to rear end another car going about 80, and always swerved out of the way. I never did run into anybody, but I was putting not only mine, but other lives in jeopardy as well, all for the sake of a fun weekend. That being said, I'm also completely downplaying the legality of ecstasy. We always had any number of pills on us, not including weed, and coke, or whatever else we had. I can recall countless times being pulled over by the police, rolling out of my mind, and somehow always managed to come out of the situation without any trouble. I remember one time specifically when I actually had a few ounces of weed in the trunk, in plain view. I was pulled over because my trunk wasn't closed. The cop looked in the back, and then came to the window and asked why my trunk was open. My eyes must have been popping out of my head when I said "I have no idea", and then he just let us go (I had a full car, five people). Still to this day I wonder why he didn't do anything about the weed. He certainly must have seen it, but chose to let us go on our way, even with me being in a less than desirable state of mind, I think obviously. So, it's dandy to reminisce, but it's of equal importance to remember things how they were. Things weren't all rainbows and butterflies, I was in the beginnings of a serious decline into something much worse. I suppose that's where the illusion sets in. Things weren't as bad. And that's something that my subconscious seems to hold onto steadfastly. I'm unsure of my plans for this blog. I don't know where my thoughts will lead me, or how effectively I'll be able to communicate what it is that's plaguing my mind. But for now, I think I'm on the right track. I'll probably go into some of the more interesting stories that I can still remember (I was able to keep a few brain cells), and might dive into a few thoughts every now and then. I could go on and on with this post, but I don't want it to turn into a rant (if anybody recalls my previous blogs), so I'll end it with the promised video.
