If This Isn't From a Book, It Should Be
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Showing posts tagged College
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Swift Depression
Once again, I’m wondering if I should just get a mindless job, get a modest apartment, and give college a miss, completely against the wishes of anyone who had any kind of interest in my future. This depression arrives only 34 hours after the greatest vacation of my life. Maybe I should just go on the road forever…
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Alive&Unaware: Confession:
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Greatness. She wants nothing less. I don’t want to be great. I want to be happy.
Happy. Nothing more.
Despite that I know that I will always, as I have been doing, do as my mother wants because in the end her happiness is worth more than mine.This was written by (or in the voice of) a 16-year-old. I reblog it because, at 22, I still struggle with living up to other people’s expectations.
My brother taught me to read when I was three. In school, I had always been in advanced classes. I remember my AP English 12 class in high school where we were required as part of a graded assignment to show the teacher three completed college applications. All my life, there was absolutely no doubt in anybody’s mind that I was going to college and that it was the best thing any person could do, and I never took the time to see it any other way. But if my post-high-school years have taught me anything, it’s this: I’m tired of school; I can’t stand to stay in one field for four years; and I enjoy mindless manual labor.
What keeps me in school is everybody else who ever knew me. My parents want me to finish. The college wants me to finish. My friends want me to at least stay until they graduate. Even my own self occasionally tells itself to push through, get that degree, and for once in my life finish something I start. And don’t disappoint the others.
No solid conclusions here. Just a message of solidarity: this happens to people all the time. We are not alone.
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New Semester
It kind of figures that I can only wake up early when I have nothing scheduled until 3pm.
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Bill Engvall. Guest speaker at JLS 230 Humor Writing. This is the best course I have ever taken.
Notes on his talk:
- There really is a difference between “What Sells” and “What I Think Is Funny”.
- The best gag of the talk was about playing a trivia game: “Our question was ‘Where do women have the curliest hair?’ …Now apparently, the answer is Fiji. I thought my answer worked too.”
- “Just start writing something bizarre.” Bill Engvall used to keep active by writing weird stories about walking down the road with a chicken and posting them on Facebook. I would buy those stories.
- On the origins of his Here’s Your Sign bit: “We used to sell ‘I’m Stupid’ signs after the show, $1 each, or two for $5.” A full three seconds before the class burst.
- He knocked on wood twice. I have this great image of a standup who walks around with the microphone and then every time he tempts fate, he has to walk back and knock on his stool. By the end of the show, he’s suddenly breaking into full sprints and dives.
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”Choosing classes, choosing a college, choosing a major; none of it was done with any more conviction than choosing my socks. I can’t remember ever once saying “This is who I am, dammit,” as if standing on a life-changing self-discovery in an inspiring movie. I can only remember saying, “This is who I must be, I suppose,” as if surrendering to the lame non-twist non-punchline of a dull anecdote.
If This Isn’t From My Memoirs, It Should Be
