Back at It
Well, school has begun anew, much to my disappointment. In two days, I had some session of pretty much all my classes; it's really pretty depressing to realize how busy I'm going to be this semester. I'll make it through (I hope).
Also very sad is that the World of Warcraft expansion comes out tomorrow, on what I would consider to be the first real day of class. Garr! I am not forced to split my work/hobby time in an incredibly frustrating manner.
Having finally acquired a Revolution, I love it.
Silence, Deep Thoughts, and Gears (of the militant kind)
It's interesting, really, that when a person decides to not speak unless he has something of value to say, he finds out that he really has very little of value to say. This is a large part of the reason I've been more reluctant to speak the last month or so (or at least, I'm trying). A taciturn attitude doesn't lend itself well to a blog, which helps to explain the sheer lack of updating I've been doing despite the copious amounts of free time I have being on break.
I've been doing a lot of "deep" thinking lately, spurred in no small part by the amount of free time I suddenly find myself with, and the fact that the power has been out for a good deal of it. The majority of it is about mostly academic: philosophy, ethics, human nature, things of that sort. I'm pursuing, so it would seem, reconciliation between the things in my head and what I see in the real world, and trying to make them relate to each other in ways I can understand and use. This is mostly dealing with ethics, deciding what I find acceptable and trying to draw some more specific and useful statements out of the general ones I already had. My thoughts on human nature lead me more toward figuring out what my "acceptable statements" fit into what most people would consider ethical, which is useful for both retrospective activities and prediction of future behavior (both my own and others). I more or less consider myself a good person, but I also tend to think that I would be more capable of questionable activities that most people would consider unpalatable. The same general statement goes for several activities that I don't participate in but are important on a larger level. I have my reasons for thinking this, and the odds are good that I'll never really come up against anything to test that statement, so it's relegated to the realm of interesting but ultimately pointless thought. For that reason, I won't bore you with the details. I can almost hear someone reading this line, saying "too late." But if you're reading this, the odds are good that you are at least mildly interested in my thinking, which means I strongly suggest you seek professional help.
A part of my thinking has been of a more practical sort: namely, what exactly I want to do with my life. I wish I could still claim the excuse of youth to keep from thinking about it, but it's kind of getting to the point where I have to decide so I can start working for it. I mean this in a very specific way. I need to decide exactly what field, what type of work, and if I can, who I want to be working for. I've heard good things about working for the government, namely, that they pay you and you don't do that much. Unfortunately, the problem of not knowing anyone in my own field is coming back to haunt me; I don't know people who know things. I suspect I'm going to have a confused couple of years around the end of college and my entrance into the real world, a prospect I don't particularly relish, given my penchant for messing up. This is rather annoying, given that I'm not exactly gaining time to think about this. If I am, it means I have a different set of problems, but I don't worry about that much anymore. Then there are general things, ultimate location, the mildly unsettling idea of turning into a hermit (the distinct social and romantic sides of that are separate trains of thought), and when exactly I'll feel it's time to acquire a pair of Siberian Huskies. Need to figure some of this out. Mainly the job stuff, the rest should logically follow from that.
Gears of War is amazing. I'm really on the verge of taking back everything bad I've said about the 360, just on the basis of this one game. I also own Dead Rising and F.E.A.R., but Gears is what really grabbed my attention and held it. The idea of shooting from cover is great, although I wonder why they decided to couple that with one of the greatest melee weapons ever (a chainsaw grafted with loving care to the front of your weapon). The teammate AI needs some work, but as soon as I make it back to Manhattan, that won't be an issue, since I'll never play with a computer teammate again. I'm anxiously awaiting that. Co-op is great, and games made for it are like little gemstones. That metaphor didn't make sense, but it's 2:40 in the morning, give me a break.
Most of this post was personal stuff, which I sort of apologize for, but that's what's been on my mind. Future posts will probably stick to more interesting things.
