I got drunk last night. And a few nights before that. Probably not the best thing.
While alcohol and school go together like peanut butter and chocolat - ask any college undergrad - this really is only applicable to the younger set of students. At some point in time you aren't just out on your own, old enough to know better and still too young to care, you're both old enough to know better and have a physician showing you charts and graphs of your own increasing body fat percentage.
I use alcohol to self medicate. It really is a last resort. I do a lot of running and writing and I used to read whole books for pleasure - but there are times in this insane schedule I keep where I need to calm the fuck down now . Last night was one of those times.
Running really is a more successful stress relieving venture. I feel better and for longer after a solid run. The two problems with running are 1.) It takes time. You have to run for at least forty minutes to really gain the benefits. When I get home from school at 9:00, and I got up that morning at 6:00, and have to be up the next morning at 5:00, it can be hard to convince myself to lace up the shoes. 2.) Running takes effort. Hey, I dig effort. Love it. But I can only run so many days in a row. I am not an elite athlete. By day five, I hurt. On the weekends I walk to and from work, a ten mile round trip, and my job requires me to stand, lift, and walk for eight hours. Conservative estimates put me between 30-40 miles on my feet on Saturday and Sunday. The rest of the week I probably cover only about 20 miles of running (five miles, four days a week), but that's about all I can do. Tuesday evening I hurt. Plain and simple.
So I drank. At the time it seems like I need it, but the next day I wonder why. I need to find an alternative to alcohol that has the same immediacy, but without the guilt, weight gain, and other bodily damage. And no, I don't mean different drugs.
Not that a human being has ever read this, but suggestions would be nice.
Showing posts with label overwhelmed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label overwhelmed. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Thursday, October 4, 2007
College Generation Update: Just like 10 Years Ago
Perhaps it's a bit of confirmation bias, but I swear I haven't heard a conversation between the two that sit in front of me in biology that hasn't involved, at least once through the length of the class, the words "beer bong." Starting next week, I'm going to keep a tally running.
I made a comment similar to this to a young lady I work with. She is in her senior semester, working on a degree in cellular and molecular biology. She's bright as can be, but gets a little defensive anytime she feels somekind of blanket statement is made about people - anybody - and when I made such a statement she accused me of belittleing the "youth culture."
How do you respond to that? I mean, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I imagine it's not so far from reality that if we took a glance at the spectrum of binge drinkers, people who drink using homemade high-velocity alcohol delivery systems, or those people whose conversations are dominated by how "fucked up" they got and how "fucked up" they plan on getting later, we might just be permitted to apply a huristic and assume youth was involved.
But like I said, I don't have any data here in front of me. So perhaps it's purely anecdotal.
On my side of the world, where I don't live on the college campus, or for that matter, in the same city as the college, or for that matter, the same county as the college, where I have to drive 30 miles to attend class, timing this to wedge between dropping the children off for school and picking them up, and my wife's own classes, and watching the twins, and work, I am happy to report that my car has broken down this morning. Not such a big deal. I got it started, and with luck and a blood sacrifice to the car gods, I may be able to keep it running until Friday night - the only night of the week where I don't have class or work untill 11:00 - where I will take it into the dealer and they will use weasel tactics to get out of the warranty. Which is additionally fine, because as a dual-student household with four children and only one, part-time income, I am swimming in money. I see no issues getting this car - my only car - running again.
I look forward, as a near thirty year-old adult, to begging my parents for money.
My wife graduates in just under eight months. I hope we can make it. (Maybe a beer bong or two tonight will help me power through.)
I made a comment similar to this to a young lady I work with. She is in her senior semester, working on a degree in cellular and molecular biology. She's bright as can be, but gets a little defensive anytime she feels somekind of blanket statement is made about people - anybody - and when I made such a statement she accused me of belittleing the "youth culture."
How do you respond to that? I mean, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I imagine it's not so far from reality that if we took a glance at the spectrum of binge drinkers, people who drink using homemade high-velocity alcohol delivery systems, or those people whose conversations are dominated by how "fucked up" they got and how "fucked up" they plan on getting later, we might just be permitted to apply a huristic and assume youth was involved.
But like I said, I don't have any data here in front of me. So perhaps it's purely anecdotal.
On my side of the world, where I don't live on the college campus, or for that matter, in the same city as the college, or for that matter, the same county as the college, where I have to drive 30 miles to attend class, timing this to wedge between dropping the children off for school and picking them up, and my wife's own classes, and watching the twins, and work, I am happy to report that my car has broken down this morning. Not such a big deal. I got it started, and with luck and a blood sacrifice to the car gods, I may be able to keep it running until Friday night - the only night of the week where I don't have class or work untill 11:00 - where I will take it into the dealer and they will use weasel tactics to get out of the warranty. Which is additionally fine, because as a dual-student household with four children and only one, part-time income, I am swimming in money. I see no issues getting this car - my only car - running again.
I look forward, as a near thirty year-old adult, to begging my parents for money.
My wife graduates in just under eight months. I hope we can make it. (Maybe a beer bong or two tonight will help me power through.)
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Where god Doesn't Belong - Or, Maybe, More Nonsense About Babies
It's no secret to the people that know me that I am obsessed with religion and fundamentalism, especially as it has to do with christianity and America.
Unlike other, more prominent critics of religion, I don't think religion breeds an inherent idiocy, hatefullness, ignorance, or destruction of the ability to percieve reality as it really is. I think religion provides an excellent framework for this. But it doesn't neccesarilly create it. There's a lot of argument to be had here, in both directions, because it isn't a black or white thing, but we'll have that discussion later at a point when there are other human beings reading this blog and I can have such a discussion and not just an argument with myself.
Anyway.
So I was trolling FSTDT.com, which is a fantastic website for those of us of a masochistic leaning to be perpetually baffalled and appaled by what goes on in the world.
Now, of course, the internet has a way of magnifying an issue. Rather than keeping something isolated and local, the internet broadcasts to the entire known universe, making some closet-case's personal voyage of mental freakosicity seem more prevalent. The world probably isn't as fucked up as the internet makes it seem. I did, however, run across this quote today that I think does reflect a reality in this world:
"Contrary to what many Christians have been led to believe, there is no such thing as a 'neutral' education. All education is religious and conveys a worldview, and there is no more important decision that we make as parents than how we educate our children. Unfortunately, Christian parents allow an aggressively anti-Christian institution to form the minds of their children, and the fruit of that choice is bitter. The overwhelming majority of children from evangelical families leave the church within two years after they graduate from high school; only 9 percent of evangelical teens believe that there is any such thing as absolute moral truth; and, our children are being forcibly indoctrinated to believe that homosexual behavior is acceptable."
Two things are going on here (well, there are others, but two I want to focus on. the homosexual thing is an issue unto itself and it's presentation here just adds a level of surreal chocolately goodness).
1.) There is a mindset among the most ardent of religios people that things are either of god or against god. There is absolutely no middle ground. No grey. There is holy worship or baby-sacrificing devil blowing. So something as mundane as examining the interaction of chemicals in an aqueous solution, or looking at the affect a series of unseasonably cold weather has on cliff swallow populations, or reading a book that isn't about god, is against - not to the side - god.
It is this kind of pigheaded nonsense that leads to the craziest varieties of religion. Now, again it could be the internet amplification effect, but it appears that this thought process is growing. Thanks to folks at the Discovery Institute, and thousands of concerned citizens the nation over, we are seeing challenges to science and education from an exclusively religious stand point.
The whole separation of church and state thing isn't working out as well as it could. God is like some kind of trailer park stalker: no restraining order - no piece of paper - is gonna keep him from gettin' what he wants from a woman. We need to be a little more strick with god.
A.) God must remain wholly separate of anything even resembling science. Sure, this only further supporst crazy people's belief that science is anti god. I'm fine with this.
B.) God must remain wholly separate of anything even resembling education. When god gets into the classroom, people get stupid. He's worse than a bully.
Ugh, you know what? the babies are freaking out again. This is what they do. They create havok. It's fucking insane. There is no interaction they can have, whether with each other or their environment, that doesn't lead to horror. It is simply the most stressfull and terrifying aspect of my existence. I can't think straight. I can't do anything. While my wife is at school and I watch the twins, my life is relegated to some kind of coarse torture. It is so very, very loud, and there is no way to distinguish screams of fear from screams of danger from screams of happness from screams of screaming for screaming's sake.
I haven't had a coherent thought is 22 months. I'm in school too. You would tink, hey, since you're home for such a damn long time, I bet you get tons of studying done. This is the thought process of someone that does not have small twins. This is the thought process of someone who thinks a lack of time means having to TiVo several of your favorite shows because, gosh darn it, you have to go out with friends on Saturday night.
My friends slipped into the ether years ago. The most exciting Saturday night I've had in recent memory is the night I got a full eight hours of sleep.
If you are thinking of having children, I just - Fuck... I mean - seriously. Just think about it for a while. I have seen three movies in the past seven years . If I want to go, say, to the grocery store I have to gather four screaming idiots into a car and then herd them through an otherwise civilized place. I am the asshole that creates the nightmare shopping experience for everyone else. I swear, I buy three bunches of bananas three times a week. I was checking out, and the cashier says to me "Man, you must like bananas," and I almost penetrated his heart with one of those yellow spears.
When I found out my wife (whose reproductive parts have since been surgically rendered inoperative) was having twins and I told people at work, somebody said to me "oh, you are so blessed." And all I could think was that there are trailer parks full of equally blessed people. Jesus, I never meant to have this many damn children. See? This is the problem with our health care system. My wife and I, as struggling students, had this kind of decision to make: 1.) Rob a clinic for birth control pills, because our income does not allow us to aford insurance 2.) As a married couple, and as humans, forget that we are sexual beings and remain together in abstinence or 3.) produce babies by the gallon. We tried number 2.), but guess what. Sometimes we fuck. It just happens, and over the counter propholactics or not, sometimes a little spermy gets through and BAM more damn children.
When they extracted the last two, and she was all spliced open, I handed the doctor a twenty and said, while gesturing to the collection of exposed organs in my wifes womb/abdomen, "Do you think, maybe, since you're here and all..."
Unlike other, more prominent critics of religion, I don't think religion breeds an inherent idiocy, hatefullness, ignorance, or destruction of the ability to percieve reality as it really is. I think religion provides an excellent framework for this. But it doesn't neccesarilly create it. There's a lot of argument to be had here, in both directions, because it isn't a black or white thing, but we'll have that discussion later at a point when there are other human beings reading this blog and I can have such a discussion and not just an argument with myself.
Anyway.
So I was trolling FSTDT.com, which is a fantastic website for those of us of a masochistic leaning to be perpetually baffalled and appaled by what goes on in the world.
Now, of course, the internet has a way of magnifying an issue. Rather than keeping something isolated and local, the internet broadcasts to the entire known universe, making some closet-case's personal voyage of mental freakosicity seem more prevalent. The world probably isn't as fucked up as the internet makes it seem. I did, however, run across this quote today that I think does reflect a reality in this world:
"Contrary to what many Christians have been led to believe, there is no such thing as a 'neutral' education. All education is religious and conveys a worldview, and there is no more important decision that we make as parents than how we educate our children. Unfortunately, Christian parents allow an aggressively anti-Christian institution to form the minds of their children, and the fruit of that choice is bitter. The overwhelming majority of children from evangelical families leave the church within two years after they graduate from high school; only 9 percent of evangelical teens believe that there is any such thing as absolute moral truth; and, our children are being forcibly indoctrinated to believe that homosexual behavior is acceptable."
Two things are going on here (well, there are others, but two I want to focus on. the homosexual thing is an issue unto itself and it's presentation here just adds a level of surreal chocolately goodness).
1.) There is a mindset among the most ardent of religios people that things are either of god or against god. There is absolutely no middle ground. No grey. There is holy worship or baby-sacrificing devil blowing. So something as mundane as examining the interaction of chemicals in an aqueous solution, or looking at the affect a series of unseasonably cold weather has on cliff swallow populations, or reading a book that isn't about god, is against - not to the side - god.
It is this kind of pigheaded nonsense that leads to the craziest varieties of religion. Now, again it could be the internet amplification effect, but it appears that this thought process is growing. Thanks to folks at the Discovery Institute, and thousands of concerned citizens the nation over, we are seeing challenges to science and education from an exclusively religious stand point.
The whole separation of church and state thing isn't working out as well as it could. God is like some kind of trailer park stalker: no restraining order - no piece of paper - is gonna keep him from gettin' what he wants from a woman. We need to be a little more strick with god.
A.) God must remain wholly separate of anything even resembling science. Sure, this only further supporst crazy people's belief that science is anti god. I'm fine with this.
B.) God must remain wholly separate of anything even resembling education. When god gets into the classroom, people get stupid. He's worse than a bully.
Ugh, you know what? the babies are freaking out again. This is what they do. They create havok. It's fucking insane. There is no interaction they can have, whether with each other or their environment, that doesn't lead to horror. It is simply the most stressfull and terrifying aspect of my existence. I can't think straight. I can't do anything. While my wife is at school and I watch the twins, my life is relegated to some kind of coarse torture. It is so very, very loud, and there is no way to distinguish screams of fear from screams of danger from screams of happness from screams of screaming for screaming's sake.
I haven't had a coherent thought is 22 months. I'm in school too. You would tink, hey, since you're home for such a damn long time, I bet you get tons of studying done. This is the thought process of someone that does not have small twins. This is the thought process of someone who thinks a lack of time means having to TiVo several of your favorite shows because, gosh darn it, you have to go out with friends on Saturday night.
My friends slipped into the ether years ago. The most exciting Saturday night I've had in recent memory is the night I got a full eight hours of sleep.
If you are thinking of having children, I just - Fuck... I mean - seriously. Just think about it for a while. I have seen three movies in the past seven years . If I want to go, say, to the grocery store I have to gather four screaming idiots into a car and then herd them through an otherwise civilized place. I am the asshole that creates the nightmare shopping experience for everyone else. I swear, I buy three bunches of bananas three times a week. I was checking out, and the cashier says to me "Man, you must like bananas," and I almost penetrated his heart with one of those yellow spears.
When I found out my wife (whose reproductive parts have since been surgically rendered inoperative) was having twins and I told people at work, somebody said to me "oh, you are so blessed." And all I could think was that there are trailer parks full of equally blessed people. Jesus, I never meant to have this many damn children. See? This is the problem with our health care system. My wife and I, as struggling students, had this kind of decision to make: 1.) Rob a clinic for birth control pills, because our income does not allow us to aford insurance 2.) As a married couple, and as humans, forget that we are sexual beings and remain together in abstinence or 3.) produce babies by the gallon. We tried number 2.), but guess what. Sometimes we fuck. It just happens, and over the counter propholactics or not, sometimes a little spermy gets through and BAM more damn children.
When they extracted the last two, and she was all spliced open, I handed the doctor a twenty and said, while gesturing to the collection of exposed organs in my wifes womb/abdomen, "Do you think, maybe, since you're here and all..."
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