well i'm doing everything i can to avoid doing automata homework, so i figured i'd post.

i was talking to rick today and i came up with a realization that it's one thing to have senioritis (i'm kinda sick of that term so i'm not gonna say it much more) but it's like so much harder when everybody you talk to everyday has it too. hell, i wish i had a bunch of fish friends or something to motivate me to really kick ass in everything.

it comes up fairly often. i'll be talking to somebody about something academic i'm having trouble with, and their reaction is often: "why do you care, man?" and i can't come up with a good reason other than to help my ego. most of the time i'm only really putting forth effort in a class this semester just to please other people: parents, employers, colleagues, etc. it's no big secret that i don't really care what grades i make in classes at this point, but i have to care a little bit just to make sure i don't come out looking like an ass. i'm not even really completely slacking off, i could do it a lot worse i think.

like when i have a hw due in a class now, and i try to ask somebody for help, they don't care. they're graduating like me, they've got a job lined up, why should they struggle over an assignment at this point? i can't really disagree with 'em.

the only reason i care that much is i'm just making sure it doesn't show a really negative characteristic about me, like i quit too early or something. in high school i did it way worse than most people, it was pretty awful. i just sat down one day after being accepted to A&M and calculated what scores i could get in classes to still be in the top 100%. as soon as i figured that out, i went and purposely flunked my calculus course. i knew i'd be in cal 1 freshmen year anyway, and i could fail the class without dropping out of top 10%, so i did, and i had fun doing it. i made a 15 my last 6 weeks and like a 50-something in the class for the year, and the teacher knew what i was doing and yet had no control over it. i ended up somewhat easily within the top 10% and went to A&M without really ever thinking twice about it.

my biggest reason for not going that far again is that i can't -- employers might look at it funny, parents would have a right to be mad cuz they're throwing in the cash for the education, etc. but i've done what i can to slack off within my means this semester. i've put everything i could off to the last minute, i've turned in assignments late, i've skipped like 3x more classes than ever before, and what's gonna be the consequence? i might get lower letter grades in a few classes, sure. but beyond that, how is that going to impact my life at all? will raytheon suddenly tear up my acceptance agreement and forget the great job i've done for them for 3 years? will my girlfriend dump me over it? will i lose the respect of family and friends? no to all those.

i ended up with a 77 in speech. i should have gotten a B, but i did bad in the class the first few weeks. it'd be nice if the prof had a little sympathy and bumped me to a B, but honestly, how much am i gonna remember about that class 2-3 years from now? i'll prolly vaguely remember my grade in there, but will i remember what i spoke about, the names of people sitting around me or what the professor looked like? prolly not. i think it's unfortunate, but i just think i'm that kind of resourceful person where if i'm given a scenario that i'm allowed to put forth effort less than absolute best, i seize it. the way i look at it, the worst case scenario for slacking off a bit is i pull off a 2.5 this semester, and my GPA is still pretty similar to what's on my resume already, a number that my employer had no problem with.

i'm not really even sure if this situation is ever gonna arise again. when else in life am i gonna be in a position where what i do right now doesn't impact what i'm gonna be doing in the next few months? prolly not very often. it strikes me that nobody wants to see me struggle or stress out over any of this undergrad shit anymore, so why should i disappoint them and bust my ass for nothing? so that i can put on my resume 3.3 instead of 3.25? i really doubt that will ever impact the rest of my life in any way. you only go to college to get a good job anyway, and you only bother with a high GPA to try and make yourself look better to get that good job. then once you've worked for a few years, nobody's ever gonna care what your GPA was.

at my graduation and related events, my whole family is gonna be extremely proud of me graduating from college, especially those that never went to college themselves. but they're gonna be proud of that whether i have a 3.25 or a 3.75. i'll spend more time telling people about my job in the next few months than i will about the last 4 years. it's just like when we're in college we don't sit around and talk about our successes and mistakes in high school. you complete one era of your life, you move on. you have funny stories to tell about each era now and then, but you've changed since that time, thus, it's not entirely relavent anymore.

i feel a bit guilty saying it, but hell, this semester is awesome in a way. i still go ace tests her and there and work my ass off for an assignment, but i also spend a lot of time just doing whatever i can that's not academic. i can do some things now that in my middle years of school i was too busy to do, so it's kind of vindicating now. some people would disagree, but i say if given the opportunity at the beginning of the semester to be given automatic C's in all my classes i prolly would have taken it, just to sorta live here and enjoy life a bit.

it's painfully obvious, but school's a bitch. sure a year from now i'll be saying work's a bitch, but for now and the last 4 years, school gets in the way of a lotta cool shit. we always say "college would be great if it weren't for all those classes and shit" and it's kinda true. living this way is fun for me. but school just invades on your personal life constantly. there are times when alayna and i are hanging out and i can tell she's having fun and doesn't wanna go, but she has to cuz she has an 8am class. or when i sit and wonder why i never go out on thursday nights like everybody else, then realize 9 times out of 10 i have something due on friday or whatever. they're just examples of how school prevents us from having as good a time as we can. yeah, the only reason we're really here is to get an education, but we also gotta live our lives here for 4 years. that's why it's meant a lot to me my senior year to go out of my way to make sure i don't spend too much time stressing over academics and do what i can to have fun. i've slept in more weekends and gotten drunk much more often just to make sure i come out of here knowing i enjoyed the college lifestyle like i was supposed to.

instead, i'll bide my time anxiously awaiting all my FedEx and UPS packages in transit right now. then we'll have some fun building a PC. as my ex-gf said, eeeeeek. as my current gf says, eeeeee.

--the damaja