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I have been listening to Aphrodite, Kylie Minogue's new CD, non-stop for a little over two weeks now, and all the songs are still just as wonderful and fresh and exciting as they were when I first started. That, my friends, is the sign of a good CD.
I've been redefining things a lot lately. I used to think that happiness doesn't exist, because it implies a total contentment with your life, the feeling that you don't a single thing, no matter how little, to change. But I think that's probably an exaggerated definition, and I'm thinking lately that happiness has more to do with just having something or someone to make you feel like life is worth it. Because let's face it: Life is not all it's cracked up to be. It's not all bunnies and roses all the time, you know? There's pain and there's suffering and there's hurt. It's this giant struggle, and I think happiness is having something in your life that makes you say, "This struggle is totally worth it."
I have been feeling a bit more dissatisfied lately. I mean, I always feel a little dissatisfied, but it usually only relates to certain parts of my life -- my romantic life, usually -- and it's acute, hitting me like an asthma attack or hives and going away just as quickly. Lately, though, it's much more chronic. It's like a constant dull sensation. When it's not at the front of my mind, it's aching in the back. I can't stop thinking, "Is this it? Is this it? Is this really it?" over and over again.
Today, I sent an application to Penn State Beaver. They had an ad in last weekend's paper asking for instructors in quite a few different fields, and one of the areas was English composition. The only listed requirements were "A master's degree and related experience," and so I applied. The ad did not say a master's degree in the field you intend to teach, so I'm hoping my MLIS + my writing tutoring/chemistry discussion leader experience qualifies me. The more I think about it, the more I want the job. Perhaps because I am feeling so dissatisfied lately, but I like the idea of having a job that actually means something. It's only part-time, and it's not a faculty position, and it's in a small branch campus, but it's something, and it'll look very good if I can use that in a resume when I apply to grad schools. So keep your fingers crossed.
I haven't done anything else on the grad school front. I need to get on that, but along with the dissatisfaction comes laziness and indifference, so it's hard for me to do anything nowadays besides play my game and drown my sorrows in futile flirtations with a bunch of sexually-confused eighteen-year-olds. The irony here is that I don't even really like my game nowadays. WoW bores the living shit out of me. But I play because I like to talk to the other people who play. I need socialization somewhere, and since quite literally everyone I know in real life has abandoned me for one reason or another, the only recourse I have is to the wonderful world of the World of Warcraft. Lucky me.
On the bright side -- I think it's the bright side, anyway -- a new game comes out in a week. I can't remember if I mentioned it here or not, but it's called StarCraft 2, and it's by the same people who do WoW, and it's a lot of fun. I can't see myself playing it nearly as much as I play WoW, but I don't think you're supposed to. It's RTS (real-time strategy), not RPG (role-playing game), and so it's a very different sort of world. But I can see myself becoming quite addicted to it for a few weeks, which is what happened the past few weeks during the beta testing, of which I was a part. So that'll be a nice distraction for a while... although considering how close we're getting to apply-to-grad-school time, distractions are probably not what I need right now.
I will say this: I have been reading a lot more, and I've been writing a bit here and there, so that's also good. I still feel pretty good about being able to finish Eternity by the end of the year -- first draft, not completed manuscript -- but I wish I wrote quicker, since I have so many other ideas I'd like to turn into something more than just a vague notion in my head. Patience, I guess. Patience.
I'm not sure why, but I'm very tired. I haven't been up for more than thirteen hours or so, so I shouldn't be exhausted, but I am. So on that note, I'm going to get ready for bed. I was going to try and finish the scene I was working on earlier, but that's not gonna happen. Patience, I guess...
I've been redefining things a lot lately. I used to think that happiness doesn't exist, because it implies a total contentment with your life, the feeling that you don't a single thing, no matter how little, to change. But I think that's probably an exaggerated definition, and I'm thinking lately that happiness has more to do with just having something or someone to make you feel like life is worth it. Because let's face it: Life is not all it's cracked up to be. It's not all bunnies and roses all the time, you know? There's pain and there's suffering and there's hurt. It's this giant struggle, and I think happiness is having something in your life that makes you say, "This struggle is totally worth it."
I have been feeling a bit more dissatisfied lately. I mean, I always feel a little dissatisfied, but it usually only relates to certain parts of my life -- my romantic life, usually -- and it's acute, hitting me like an asthma attack or hives and going away just as quickly. Lately, though, it's much more chronic. It's like a constant dull sensation. When it's not at the front of my mind, it's aching in the back. I can't stop thinking, "Is this it? Is this it? Is this really it?" over and over again.
Today, I sent an application to Penn State Beaver. They had an ad in last weekend's paper asking for instructors in quite a few different fields, and one of the areas was English composition. The only listed requirements were "A master's degree and related experience," and so I applied. The ad did not say a master's degree in the field you intend to teach, so I'm hoping my MLIS + my writing tutoring/chemistry discussion leader experience qualifies me. The more I think about it, the more I want the job. Perhaps because I am feeling so dissatisfied lately, but I like the idea of having a job that actually means something. It's only part-time, and it's not a faculty position, and it's in a small branch campus, but it's something, and it'll look very good if I can use that in a resume when I apply to grad schools. So keep your fingers crossed.
I haven't done anything else on the grad school front. I need to get on that, but along with the dissatisfaction comes laziness and indifference, so it's hard for me to do anything nowadays besides play my game and drown my sorrows in futile flirtations with a bunch of sexually-confused eighteen-year-olds. The irony here is that I don't even really like my game nowadays. WoW bores the living shit out of me. But I play because I like to talk to the other people who play. I need socialization somewhere, and since quite literally everyone I know in real life has abandoned me for one reason or another, the only recourse I have is to the wonderful world of the World of Warcraft. Lucky me.
On the bright side -- I think it's the bright side, anyway -- a new game comes out in a week. I can't remember if I mentioned it here or not, but it's called StarCraft 2, and it's by the same people who do WoW, and it's a lot of fun. I can't see myself playing it nearly as much as I play WoW, but I don't think you're supposed to. It's RTS (real-time strategy), not RPG (role-playing game), and so it's a very different sort of world. But I can see myself becoming quite addicted to it for a few weeks, which is what happened the past few weeks during the beta testing, of which I was a part. So that'll be a nice distraction for a while... although considering how close we're getting to apply-to-grad-school time, distractions are probably not what I need right now.
I will say this: I have been reading a lot more, and I've been writing a bit here and there, so that's also good. I still feel pretty good about being able to finish Eternity by the end of the year -- first draft, not completed manuscript -- but I wish I wrote quicker, since I have so many other ideas I'd like to turn into something more than just a vague notion in my head. Patience, I guess. Patience.
I'm not sure why, but I'm very tired. I haven't been up for more than thirteen hours or so, so I shouldn't be exhausted, but I am. So on that note, I'm going to get ready for bed. I was going to try and finish the scene I was working on earlier, but that's not gonna happen. Patience, I guess...