The Armchair Politician

I know I typically don’t like to talk about myself on the blog. Well, lately I haven’t been talking much at all, so I’m sure writing anything is better than nothing.

The philosophy I ascribed to when I first let Jordi convince me to start writing here was that few people care about the drama of my life. I really don’t mean that in a pessimistic way, despite how it sounds. What I suppose it boils down to is that everyone tries to write about the minutia of their life on their weblog, but ninety-five percent of it really isn’t all that interesting. And that’s a generous assumption.

But lately, I haven’t been in the best of spirits. Because of this, I’m going to try and start writing more about my life as a way to vent.

I haven’t written poetry in a long, long time. I really out to start doing that again. I tried to sit down and write some yesterday. There were a lot of interesting ideas floating around in my head, but none of them really translated all that well into writing. From everyone’s reactions to my last bout of poetry, I really do want to continue writing some. Writing poetry is a great way for me to let out my emotions in a constructive manner, and others evidently enjoy reading mine.

This weekend is going to be pretty stressful. I had a Modern Algebra final, which I finished this afternoon. It took me just about all day to answer the ten questions. Once I started, I guess I sort of got into the hang of it, because the last six or so took probably a third of the time of the first four. What scares me is that some of them were sickeningly easy: most of the problems were a full page long, but one or two were about two lines apiece. I always worry whenever a problem seems too easy to me; it means one of two things: that I either knew the material really well, or I completely misunderstood the question. Admittedly, it’s the former more often than not. But considering how poorly I’ve been doing in the class up until now, it still causes me to worry.

At least that’s out of the way, but the real test of my will is going to be my Advanced Object Oriented Methods class (it’s one of the Senior-level Computer Science courses). I haven’t turned in around half of the assignments, and they’re all cumulative over each other. The teacher, Dr. Gayler, has had me for several classes prior, so he knows I’m a smart student, and that I can do most of the assignments blinded. So I talked to him the other day and explained why I haven’t been doing any of the classwork: I’ve just been burned out. I admitted to him that I wish I had a better reason than that for not doing the assignments, but I simply haven’t had the willpower or the desire to do them. He told me that if I complete the rest of the assignments and do stunningly well on the final (as I did on the midterm), I might be able to pull off a C (anything less would mean I have to repeat the course). The last one is due on Tuesday morning at 8AM, and I wonder if I’ll be able to finish it. Even worse, our final exam covers things we went over in class and aren’t in the book. The midterm was almost exclusively over material in the book, which I could read over. The final, though, won’t be. I can still look at the notes on his website (it’s a take-home final), but I wonder how much good that will do me. I worry that I’m going to work my ass off for this, and in the end I a) won’t do well on the final, b) won’t be able to finish the last homework assigment, or c) will do both, but won’t get a C anyways.

This has me so worried that I was actually browsing the web earlier for requirements for the HOPE Scholarship. I wanted to see if failing a course is an automatic revocation of the scholarship, or if I would still be able to have my classes at Kennesaw State paid for. I wasn’t able to find out. But for awhile, I was contemplating just not doing any of the assignments for the class, and taking it next semester. My parents would kill me, but I’m at my wit’s end.

After that, I have an Electronics final and a Statistics final on Thursday. The aforementioned assignment and final are probably going to do a good job in preventing me from studying for those two, which is really a shame. I think I’ll do okay on the Electronics final; I’ve missed a few classes, but Dr. Schimmrigk’s tests are usually pretty straightforward, plugging in values into the formulas we’re given. He lets us fill out a cheat sheet as well, and we can refer to it during the test. Even better, it’s mostly covering material that was on our last test, which I got an A on (somehow). Honestly, I’m doing better in that class than I really deserve to.

The last test, as I said before, is my Statistics final. I’ve missed the last four weeks straight in the class, and didn’t turn in the last assignment. I’m doing pretty well in it, though, but the material at the end I don’t know at all. I’m going to try and complete the last assignment anyways, and have him check it for accuracy (so I know how well I know the material going into the test), but being able to do that depends on whether I can finish Gayler’s assignment/final in a reasonable period of time. If not, I might end up bombing. I’ve got a decent average going into the final, though. If I do well on the final, I have a moderate chance at receiving an A. If I do really poorly, I’ll probably get a C. I don’t think I’ll get any lower.

In the end, I’ll guess that I’ll probably receive two B’s and two C’s. And to think, I used to get straight A’s for my first few semesters at Kennesaw. I’m really starting to wonder whether or not I should have taken the job at iKobo after all. It’s been great having money and being able to pay off my bills and expenses rather than having my parents do it, and I have never had debt in my life (more than a lot of people my age can say). It’s even let me save up $6,500 in a retirement account, and buy a replacement laptop for the one that was stolen. But working near full-time and taking six courses last semester pretty much burned me out. I’m taking fewer courses this semester (four), but it clearly didn’t help much. And it depresses me that I’m probably going to end up doing worse in Statistics than I should (if I’d turned in the assignment, and been there in the previous four weeks, I could get an A easily). If only I didn’t let Dani convince me to hang out with friends instead of going to class.

Heh, Dani. If anything’s caused me to be depressed over the past several months, it’s that I don’t have a girlfriend. I can’t explain why it’s so important to me, but I really miss having someone that I can be emotionally close to. My last relationship was about six years ago, with Kristen, when I was fifteen. Ever since, I’ve been single. And for the past three years at least, I’ve really wanted a relationship. And that’s where Dani comes in. I met her through several friends at the Student Center at KSU. When I first met her (three weeks ago), I thought she was incredibly cute. For anyone that knows me well, cute is far, far more attractive than gorgeous, and it’s a description of someone’s personality just as much as their looks. I worked my way into conversations that she was in, and we joked around some. She evidently appreciated my sense of humor (which is rare to find in a girl).

Ever since, I’ve been talking (and flirting, but I don’t know if she realizes that’s what it is) with her online, reading her LiveJournal, and trying to spend as much time as possible with her at the Student Center (with our friends, of course). I really, really like her. But what makes the whole situation really hard on me is that I don’t want to ruin a chance at dating her. I’ve been single for so long, I’ve learned to expect rejection. And now that I’ve met a girl who I really, really like, who shares a lot of common interests with me (anime, video games, etc.), I’m absolutely terrified that I’m going to botch this up. It’s not every day I find someone like her. In fact, even my ex girlfriend didn’t really share too many interests with me.

Well, yesterday I did something that I knew she would absolutely love. The previous night, I had been sending her quotes from the IRC quote database, and eventually sent her the link. At one point, she read this particular quote and laughed to me about it. Immediately I knew what I had to do. I ran to the kitchen, grabbed a potato and a sharpie, and wrote “To Dani, <3 Stephen” on it, and promptly shoved it into my backpack. I couldn’t wait to see her the next day after class. And yesterday, I gave it to her. The look on her face was priceless, and I think I got the biggest hug of my life from her. I know she enjoyed it, but I don’t know if she realized that I meant it as more than a joke. Like I said before, though, I’m too terrified that I’m going to screw this up that I’m afraid to approach her at all. Any time I do anything that might tip her off to how I feel about her, it’s done in such a way that it could easily be construed as a joke, or just playing around. To be honest, that’s probably in many ways intentional. The potato was perfect in that regard: I really did mean it as something more than a good laugh, but it could just have easily been perceived as nothing more than that.

All I know, though, is that I’ve got to do something. From reading her LiveJournal, I know she’s single and looking for a relationship. Too many times before have I lamented that all the girls I like are in perpetual relationships, and never seem to break up with their boyfriends. Now that I find one that I really like, and she’s even single, I’m petrified. God help me.