Pro-crastinating. in Journal Stuff

I signed up for a BS in Philosophy rather than a BA. So I have at least 4 more classes to take for that. My advisor for Emgt is kind of an ex-military hardass that is sort of assuming I’m in it because I find it to be easy without knowing anything about me outside of GPA (3.4) and my grades/classes I’ve taken. “Don’t be thinking this is a pud degree.” Learn a new word every day around here. He kept trying to…temper? my enthusiasm, telling me I’m not just going to be a manager, that it’s going to be work, etc. I don’t think I’m going to be trying to do any impressing next time, just be respectful and ask questions when I have them. I wanted to sign up for “general” studies for the EMGT emphasis, but he kept talking as if it wasn’t an option. Either it isn’t an option, due to the latest restructuring of the class requirements or he knows it’s not a good idea but doesn’t want to state it as such. Either way, I’m going into “Management of Technology.” Here’s hoping.

~ Came back to this topic a few days later. He may have been treating me this way because of both my unshaven image and my multiple withdraws that he picked up on when it came to my class/grade sheet that he printed out as we were getting into talking. Makes more sense. I’m going to try and focus more on showing him I’m capable than telling him I am. Stoic and respectful. Also, I shaved the goatstache. Or whatever I had. Now I’m all stubble and weird looking. But cleaner.

When I went to see my philosophy advisor, I ran into one of my previous classmates in philosophy classes. I had three classes with her? Something like that. She’s this republican, religious, top of her head arguer with an odd name. I think it’s middle-eastern, even though she has really pale skin and looks like she could be from England. She was wearing tightish clothes and kept sitting in odd poses when we were talking, like pulling her knees up to her chest, then pulling her knees apart. Outside of most of her mind and her face, she was attractive. I made sure not to look at anything obvious because she seemed like she was fishing. We talked about classes, teachers, random stuff until another guy came up. We were all waiting to talk to the same person. We broke off into philosophy, since that was our common major. I realized within talking for a couple minutes that I’ve ended up melding most of philosophy classes together when I talk about something and it REALLY works. We were talking about the subjectivity of identity (vis a vis the ship of Theseus) and I pointed out that the question itself always seemed to point to the answer when it came to identity. They both started getting all excited at the prospect of another perspective for looking at things (which is such a philosopher trait) and we broke off onto tangents like the future of cosmetic alterations and how it’ll affect our understanding of identity.

Chris told mom I’m an atheist. I had been enjoying my freedom of offering her morality/ethical advice regarding big picture habits rather than just looking like a good person to your neighbors. She had been seeing my …I don’t know, wisdom?(opinion at least)...for a while. Occasionally she’d liken it to Anthony Robbins while she was in that kick. Now she’ll probably assume my Godlessness as a reason to judge my opinion more harshly, assuming she doesn’t block out the memory of being told. She got all weepy since I won’t get to be a part of her big family support group in heaven. Where her dogs and parents and everyone that makes her feel good will be. Chris thinks I’m an agnostic humanist. I don’t really know what a lot of these terms mean. I just know I don’t believe in the God as laid down by the bible, Quran, Torah, et al. Also, dad telling me that my intelligence and talents were god-given and owed back to him ruffles my feathers. Reminds me of when he told my success at playing on the stock market was just me being lucky. Disregards everything I put into it. Also, I’m going to make Alice into a theist. Makes sense, considering that she pretty much recreates Genesis.

My room had started smelling like a spicy bell pepper. Which means the bell pepper in the trash had gotten spicy. I dumped my trash and had rancid pepper running down the sides of it. The bag I had it in leaked, I guess. Had to soak the trash can for a few hours to get rid of the smell. It burned.

Roommate has started playing a bit of passive aggressive war with me. He turns the temp down to 45 degrees before switching back to heat in the hope that I’ll freeze myself out one night without noticing. But I’m anal in how I do things, so I always check what it’s set at before moving it around. He leaves to sleep with his girlfriend in her apartment every night at 11, so I just wait until he leaves to turn down the temp. He comes back at 6 or so to get ready for his class at 8. As long as this continues, I won’t have to worry about waking up in the middle of the night a pool of sweat. Also fucks with my dreams. Latest ones were me climbing up a sort of rope and getting stuck like 4 knots from the top. I pull myself over a ledge and I’m heavy as lead right before the ground starts breaking away from under me. I had climbed up into some sort of constructions site run by a bunch of Asians. One guy with a sumo wrestler size keeps me from falling and this I look back and the whole area that crumbled looks different. And then I realize that I didn’t care too much when I was about to fall because I could fly. Then I wake up all damp and think to myself that I wouldn’t have had any problem making it to the top of the rope if I hadn’t suddenly gotten agitated from the room’s temperature. Because that’s the sort of shit that happens in my dreams.

The other time I fought a metallic robot made from distilled flesh. Don’t ask me how metal = distilled flesh. I won.

I’m currently typing in here instead of studying for my thermal analysis exam in…4 hours. It’s gone from thermodynamics to heat transfer. Heat transfer being the bastard child of physics and mechanics of materials. I’m kind of worried for the exam. I’m planning on cramming here in an hour or so. It’s open book, but there are so many new variables and circumstantial subscripts that I need refreshers.

My statistics teacher announced yesterday that the final is going to be comprehensive, because the course coordinator “advised” him to. He didn’t hold onto any of our crib sheets, so we get to try and guess what stuff he’ll give us on the exam. It’s going to suck pretty bad.

I’ve been thinking a bit on something lately. That the entirety of human elation and suffering comes on the back of the cognitive dissonance that we consider ourselves both connected and separate at the same time. I think therefore I am. Not therefore we are. And yet without other thinkers, we would never survive childhood. We are the only person we feel, control, truly experience. And yet we spend so much time trying to view things from other people’s points of view. Empathizing, moralizing, sympathizing. There is a permanent disconnect there, and yet we feel ourselves intrinsically connected to others. We (sorta) know ourselves but we have faith in others. Yet every conversation is a smooth melding of the two, knowledge and faith. It’s fun to think about. I have to see whether I can find something that doesn’t rely on the dissonance of this identity. Which is probably impossible, as identity is fundamental to humanity. Acting in accordance with self is how we have selfishness, curiosity. In accordance with both, we have love, hate, confusion, and conflict. In accordance with the group is how we have self-sacrifice and altruism. I wonder if there is a negative to the group accordance...

Maybe if the group makes decisions for the individual. Which removes the first individual from the situation, making it back to accordance with self with regards to the second individual. It would be selfish to sacrifice someone else for the good of the group (assuming you’re included in the group). And yet still altruistic for the one being sacrificed if they agree with it after being chosen for it. Which means the idea holds. Hmm. I’ll have to think more on this.