Fall Break

For some random reason it hit me today of how much I want to life in loft downtown Minneapolis once i'm out of college. I want to live in one with a few other guys for a few years and enjoy our young bachelor years in the city and pursuing our dream jobs. Me, I might be found under the name of Benjamin Grey in my future outrageously popular newspaper columns and possibly blogging career. I will write books and short stories for fun on the side, and maybe try to get those published. And, after a few years of outrageous fun and unforgetable memories with my best friends, start a career in film-making as a screenplay writer for TV shows, and maybe a few movies.

Yeah, doesn't that sound so nice.
I have my life planned out. Since ink blots on a web page cannot convey vocal inlfection, that was an extremely sarcastic statement. I know that planning your life out rarely happens the way you imagine. But, this is a goal of mine rather than a dream. I would like to work towards it. If it falls through, then so be it, but I would love it beyond capacity of words to have a life half as exciting as what I just described.

I looked up some penthouses and lofts downtown and found some for decent prices for some really classy places. Split between 5 or so guys would be a really realistic yet epic way to live.


All wishful thinking aside about my future, on to a more mundane but still cool subject: I FINALLY have my life organized!! I feel so good. I'm not sure how much i've mentioned this before, but one of my characters in my book is named Tatum Foxx. She is the upitome of awesomeness and attractiveness. The one thing that seperates her from other girls (aside from the simple fact that she can kick the butt of nearly every person on the planet with special thanks to 5 forms of martial arts)is this: she is self disciplined.

Discipline is a character trait that i've had to fight for my whole life. Especially the last 3 years has been a constant uphill battle for organization, time-management, and effectiveness. I DO get a lot done, especially compared to the average 18 year old college male, but, I'm not comparing myself to statistics of the national average (which is depressing), I am comparing myself to my potential. I know I can do better, so I have been trying to.

Tatum Foxx is the one who has pushed me the last month to finally achieve what i've been trying to for 3 years. I can finally say that I have a decent grasp on self discipline.

Over the fall break weekend most people were staying up to 4am playing video games and doing nothing. So, I decided to utilize a handy program (unknown to me before this week) called OneNote. It comes with most Microsoft Office packages. Anyways, I organized my entire life on this program. I wrote out my To Do List for short term and long term.

Over my elongated weekend (thank you Fall Break, I love you) I dispersed my homework between my 4 days of break, doing most of it at the beginning, leaving Saturday and Sunday for free-time. So, while everyone else was being lazy bums, I was cleaning my room, reading tomes, writng short stories, writing assignments, and having a great time doing so.

Right now I have the evening to enjoy myself where all the guys on my floor will be up nearly all night studying last-minute for assignments and tests due for monday.

I still have a long way to go in the area of self-discipline, but I am happy to say that for once I can be content at what I have achieved.

the one exception

I just got back my first big paper. By "big" i mean 20% of my overall grade in Literature class. Guess what grade I got in it?

D

To make matters worse, it was one of the best essays i've ever written. The teacher happened not to be able to follow my unconventional "hourglass" essay structer based off of modern journalism, but instead is traditional and usd to the boring 5-para-essay format, so she couldn't find my thesis statement.
As a result of her confusion, my angelicly perfect essay was given a D. There were no marks on it for grammar or anything, adding to my anger and frustration because it is inherently perfect, but my proffessor just isn't up-to-date with the newest formatting techniques.

Other than that little revelation I recieved earlier today, life has been wonderful.
My first improv comdey show is in a week.
My sister is flying in to visit tomorrow and staying for 4 days; I can't wait!
I've been having a ridiculous amount of fun and I'm learning a lot through my classes.
I'm hoping to start getting published in the campus paper soon.
My radio show starts tomorrow night.

Life is good. Mostly.