Current Musical Selection: Garth Brooks – Standing Outside the Fire
Tonight is one of those nights where I have multiple moments of contemplation about various events in my life. For the first time in nearly 4 months it is NOT about academic related things. I am focused primarily on the organization in my life. I tend to have order, structure and organization when I have a manageable amount of stuff to deal with, but I somehow always end up with clutter, missing things and paper trails everywhere. Is it worth it to attempt organization even with so many previous events making it seem like it is a pointless and impossible battle with fate? (feel free to use the comments function).
Another thing on my mind is the lack of social interaction I have in my daily life. I have a small network of friends that I rely on when I am not in class or out doing something else. Tonight a very limited amount of the network, 1 person, was actually availible and that person seemed very busy. Perhaps the time has arrived for me to spread my social wings and take flight myself, without my safety line of my limited network. For healthy human survival communication must exist. The intellectual stimulation of communication is required for humans to have sufficient cognitive development to be self sustaining organizims. I know these facts, but yet still can’t convince myself that I need to find more friends and be more social. Since I have graduated my extended social network has been severed, everyone I know is somewhere else, and the ones who haven’t left me seem to be pulling away from me. The graduation proccess includes a lot of changes, including the relationships between people. The relationship between academic and social interaction has always existed (i know i said i wasn’t in an academic, this is my blog i can deviate if i want to). As the peak of an academic scenario occurs, so do the friendships associated with it. We then move on once graduation/commencement is over. Starting a new academic career has strange effects on social interaction. In my observation there is an odd period where a group of strangers who registered for the same course section gradually changes into becoming familiar with each other, even the Freshmen or their equivilents (yes, im a First Year Sophomore, got a problem with it?). Friday and today I myself felt like I was being accepted by a few people from each of my classes. I noticed some initial attempts by some people to talk to me early on Friday, but didn’t really pay much attention to it. This morning it finally hit me and I began to recall my “training” from Interpersonal Communication. I started with some basic strategies for initiating relationships, eye contact, reciprocity of verbal communication, etc. With me what is odd is that I am perfectly comfortable overhearing someone’s coversations, and then butting in with a response to some type of problem the communication partners is having, but starting a conversation is like sitting in a dentist chair. Last week this occured with two freshmen females that couldn’t locate Colvard. Due to my overpreperation for navigational catastrophe I was able to direct the two to their desired destination. In some ways I feel light an outsider on the campus, but sometimes when I sit down and relax somewhere on campus I begin to feel like I do belong on campus.
Its funny how music can change your personality in a very short time. I opened on one song with a specific topic for this entry, but i have found myself deviating with several musical changes behind me.
I was talking to Guy earlier and we were discussing blogs and the level of publicity we wished them to have. We both agree that we like for ours to be public, but not listed in any type of directory. The ability for a mysterious stranger to come upon our blogs doesn’t bother us, but a directed audience does.