There are alot of parts of college that I like, but some things really rub me the wrong way.

• I don't understand why people think you're a loser if you like to be alone sometimes.
• Normally I put women above men, but here it seems like the genders are on the same level, for the most part. The guys treat the girls like dirt and the girls enjoy the extra attention. It's all nonsense. Some things never change. *sigh
• High school doesn't matter anymore; it never did in the first place. Of course that doesn't stop people from obsessing about their accomplishments.
• I'm the only person on the entire campus without a laptop or CD player. w00t.

Just a little rant. I'm actually in a pretty good mood, but this is the only chance I'll get to use the computer for a while so I'm exercizing my frustration in a passive-aggressive way, like I always do. I hope you martin kids are doing good.

-Andrew

Based on the newest AISD policies on dress code, cell phones, tardies, etc., I'd say that I got out of there just in time. If Martin wasn't so full of rich, white, preppy, gangstas getting swoll, watching AgToWn FiGhTs in their BCIS classes, receiving text messages with test answers, and taking discrete pictures up girl's skirts with their rap-laden MP3 Razr's, there wouldn't be any new policies, but it appears that there is no hope for humanity after all.

Oh well.

From what I've seen, the wisest time in a teen's life is the summer before they go off to college. They've experienced a few ups and downs, they somewhat know what they're going to do with themselves, and they jump at the opportunity to educate and a naive young freshman or sophomore on the ways of the world.

This was not the case with me.

Rather than bathing in my own experiential wisdom or trying to help out the younger set, I decided that I have no right to help anybody. I may have just graduated, but hear me out; I am an idiot. I'm not a beacon of light or a genius; I'm an opinionated, hormonal, rebellious 18-year old and nothing I say should have any value to you other than a referrence to look back on, should you end up where I am now.

I guess I say this as a reality check or even an apology to anyone who has looked up to me. I remember seeing the seniors in school when I was a freshman and thinking how they were all invincible gods beyond repute. No such thing. I came to high school as a freshman feeling more concrete about my life than I do now, 4 years in the future. If nothing else, high school blurred all my values into one disgusting color and made it 10 times harder to find myself. Humanity at it's finest.

What's the point of this entry? To let off some steam about how frustrated and confused I am right now, even after finishing a crucial chapter in my life. I have nothing to give, no advice to leave. I just have a feeling that being a blank canvas is my only hope for surviving the next few years and learning anything about who I really am. I'm such a misguided child. That's right; not an adult, not a man, but a child.

-Andrew

Currently Listening Every Day and Every Night By Bright Eyes see related

- Nealy O'Hara

As I get closer and closer to college, I'm bombarded by my father's definitions of what a man should be.

"A man is somebody who works their tail off."

"A man is somebody is somebody who can provide for his family."

Not to mention the media's definition of what a man is.

"A man is somebody who can prove his masculinity with muscles and possessions."

"A man is somebody who takes power over women."

I don't want to be a man in the eyes of the general populous. I don't want to have to prove anything before people will look at me as a man. It's not important. It's just like fitting a stereotype for any image; you do it for acceptance and out of fear from being ridiculed, but in the long run it doesn't mean shit except that you've blurred your self-image to the point that you don't know who you are.

Not knowing who you are... it seems like such a given these days. Finding your identity seems like a painful struggle that only a few succeed at finishing. The last line in This Side of Paradise is, "'I know myself,' he cried, 'but nothing else!'" Is that really what it takes? Is it not until you hit absolute rock bottom that you find yourself? It's as if we each live numerous lives, one after the other, and it's only after one life is dead and we've grieved and shed our skin that we get a glimpse of who we used to be. But few of us ever discover who we are.  

I'm sick of being instructed on how to be a man and I'm sick of watching guys compete for masculinity on a daily basis when it doesn't even matter. If you win a girl over because of how masculine you are, she's not worth winning in the first place, but your idea of winning her probably doesn't go much further than casual sex anyway, so I just proved to myself that my frustration is a waste of time.

Forgive me. I'm overwhelmed with ambiguity right now.

-Andrew