A Few Notes

As I am just relaxing (albeit tired) before work, I figured I would share a few things that have been on my mind.

As far as having goals--in my case, the 30/60/90 plan--it makes sense to me now that I should have necessarily quantified results I was hoping to get. By that, I mean I should have added some definitive measure as to what I hoped to accomplish. For example, it's hard to track "drink more water" when it's left to ambiguity. As such, I think I should try to drink at least 40 oz. of water daily to begin with. It's about half as much as I hope to eventually get to, but keep in mind that I haven't been working out much. Therefore, I lose less, and require less. Eating less also slows my metabolism, or at least logically that would follow, I would think. So perhaps that factor would also contribute to less cellular thirst.

I've also tried to set some priorities. I'm going to severely limit the amount of time I play video games until the semester is over. Not that it was a problem to begin with, but the trouble lies in my difficulty concentrating on a specific task when so many are before me. As of right now, I'm working on reading a book for my final philosophy paper as fast as possible. The book is the famous The Plague by Albert Camus. So far it's absolutely delightful, I love his style. It reminds me of Nabokov.

I need to make myself an iced coffee in order to stay awake. I'm only running on about 6 hours right now, and that's terrible. Personally, I know that I can't function well at all without my sleep. That's not to say that I don't enjoy waking up early, because I do. The issue is simply that I get home from work late more often than not, so that tends to shift everything about my schedule later.

I have been very ambitious about my writing lately. Yes, admittedly, I did post some erotica on DA recently, which I felt was very well received. It's a genre I'm quite interested in. Romance in general, really. You cannot blame me, my family has it's roots there; Madame de LaFayette purportedly wrote the first romance novel. But I don't want to write just erotica, of course. I have many passions, even in writing. Originally I intended to be a part of NaPoWriMo, but I took myself away from it after only a couple of days, reason being that I wanted to direct my efforts at working on my novel once again. And so I did for a little while, but the harsh realities of writing for school sunk in once more after "spring break". Despite having to write an 8 to 10 page paper for philosophy, I feel a deep urge to write something additional, describing some of my own personal philosophic insights during the course of the semester. A lot of these things are reflections I have had based on inquiries made by the professor--which, in class, often go unanswered. Perhaps I need more courage for my convictions.

At any rate, I would only take the course of writing such an "essay" if I felt it would be innovative in some way. I feel I have found a new approach for viewing the human experience, something both complicated and rational. It will be my attempt to explain it in the paper I jokingly told a co-worker I would title "A Comprehensive Treatise of Philosophy: Why Everyone from Socrates to Sartre Was Wrong". Naturally I would never be that bold, or make assertions of that kind. In fact, I am thankful for the breadth of philosophy that I have been able to study so far and draw from. It's a wonder when we can engineer thoughts that are truly original. On occasion I ask myself if a thought I had is one that surely someone else had thought before me. Perhaps it is so, or I could be mistaken in the way that everyone is an individual, and as such, has a different mental experience. However, the common factors (of how we organize our world) lead me to favor what I originally felt. *By organize our world, I mean the sheer fact that you and I could both observe an elephant, grasp its properties (size, shape, color, noises it makes, possibly even smell) analyze that sense data, and both conclude that it is, in fact, an elephant.

Hopefully my whole paper will not border on such trivial technicalities, or mundane orderings of language. I guess if that is the case, it won't be as entertaining as I had originally hoped. Although, this could be a case of writing for function rather than form. In such scenarios, a process approach works best. Anyways, I feel like the development of my personal philosophy is some kind of search for a unification theory, much like exists in physics today. The problem I have though is figuring out exactly which problem I'm addressing. Maybe I'm addressing everything, life in general, since it's occurred to me (especially with study of existentialism) that I've been left in life to figure a lot of things out for myself. I also possess a certain shade of skepticism, inherited by reason alone, or by paranoia, or a vivid imagination; I'm unsure.

I'm so happy that my university plans for fall are all ironed out. My financial aid should be just about ready to go once I fax a couple of forms back (but my application in general was received early). I really need that to come through for me for this to all work out well though. Certainly, I cannot work this volume next semester and still hope to do well. In fact, I have been faltering as it is now, at a considerably lesser institution. Perhaps the increase in difficulty is simply imagined, but I think it makes sense in actuality, taking a number of imagined and related factors into account. However, I digress: I plan on taking four classes so far. They will be Latin, French, English (intro level), and a Math Statistics course. The later two are going to be undertaken only to satisfy certain general requirements of my major program. My intended major is English, creative writing track (although I've considered a switch to the rhetoric one--damn sophists). I plan to double minor in French and Latin languages. I think Latin will give me an excellent understanding that will aid me in learning French and other romance languages in the future. Perhaps later on I could pick up Italian and Spanish with ease.

This has drawn on quite long enough I should think. It's time to do something a little more productive.