I'm not dead yet

The first week back at school has had an adverse effect on my mental health. Constant stress over my English class finally came to a head when Brosamer kicked out all the waitlisted people. But I shot him a nice, buttery email, which should hopefully help me out, if he likes me at all. He fucking better.

Everything else is good though. Bardell is as hilarious as ever, O'Connell the same, even though he's pretty scary when he gets angry. Mosleh's Eastern-European, Brooklyn, Californian, Persian hybrid accent is bizarre and the class seems extremely simplistic. I just activated my music course, so I'll be working on that, along with the mountain of math homework O'Connell assigned. Ugh.

But enough about silly school. Let's talk about something else. Once the school year started, I began to reflect, in my spare time, while waiting for class, about my summer. I realized it was probably the most productive summer I've ever had, in terms of experiences, accomplishments, and just general happiness. So obviously, the only thing to do is list it out on my blog (It's more for recording purposes, the probability that I'll forget the nuances is quite high).

I recall kicking the shit out of my finals (except one) and just kicking it for a while. I also recall getting accepted to RYLA, which seemed so far off. So then I take the SATs and get a pretty dismal score and play and beat Ninja Gaiden 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, the former causing me to rage out several times. I also went to the midnight launch of the latter, which was pretty fun. I also marathoned MGS4, because it came out three days before RYLA. I actually pulled it off, good fucking times.

So then RYLA came along, and with it a maelstrom of emotions, revelations, and new motivations. This blog is a direct result of RYLA; that camp inspired me to write every day to whet my skills. Motivations shot up in every area: I wanted to write for papers, be active in Interact, what have you. It was a brilliant experience; I would kill to relive that week. The place changed me, not to a significantly frightening degree - not Dr. Jekyll and Joan Rivers, but it chilled me the fuck out, opened me up a bit, showed me that the world isn't always dark and miserable, although it most often is. Let's just say it eroded a bit of my cynicism.

I also enjoyed learning. I didn't just learn from the Trig class I took at the end of June till the end of July, but other things. More experiences, so to speak. I observed and made notes (not really, but you get what I mean), on the relationships of my friends, to make myself a more knowledgeable person. And maybe apply that practical know-how to maybe get myself one of those "relationship" thingies. Yeah, it didn't work, but that's ok. Live and let learn, right? It's probably a good thing, my attempts just made me grow closer to the two people involved - the consult and the target. And to be honest, that's more important than any successes. On second thought, maybe Trig was more important. ;)

The other RYLA functions, AIDS walk and the beach reunion, served as nice get togethers, pleasant and hilarious. Walking six something miles with awesome people, screeching Journey at the top of my lungs, and explaining point-by-point why 10,000 B.C. sucks to Justin never gets old.

As we come to mid-July, thus began the Great Reading Journey. I had nothing to do, my 360 was broken (still is), and I had nothing else to do, so I found comfort in books. It was alllllll good. You know what else was all good?

PANCAKES!!!

Outside Lands Music Festival (Even if I nearly dropped dead, was buried by a crowd, and barely recognized half the shit played)

A Journey to Bethel Island (Nothing like nearly drowning to make you appreciate life)

Watching The Dark Knight in the first 24 hours.

I'm not sure what else, someone please remind me of things I overlooked. I gotta remember this shit, you know?