College

It seems like only certain majors in college really allow creative freedom. Being a journalism major has been fun simply for the fact that I was able to mess around with school-purchased cameras and audio equipment, but I didn't make anything that I truly wanted to make. Every assignment I turned in was something I found to fit a requirement.

It seems like college should be a huge experience that allows greater freedom from the high school classroom walls, and it should teach you how to think or create instead of what to think or what to create.

The fact that I am now thinking, "Good, college is done. Now I can make something I care about," seems backwards to me. Rightly, the best work of these 4 (or in my case, 5) years should be what you were encouraged to create in the classroom rather than the things you worked on between class obligations.

I hope that colleges out there do exist that encourage true creation rather than guideline-based repetition.

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I am getting back into writing letters. I couldn't sleep this morning while my brain was forming the outline of a serious letter to an ailing friend, so I got out of bed and wrote it. A few pages later, it was finished, and after some friendly advice, I'm unsure as to whether or not to send it. My general outlook on serious letter writing, the kind that is done to allow the writer real expression he or she is otherwise deprived of, should always be encouraged, because what true harm can come from expressing your beliefs to someone. The only real worst case scenario I can imagine is that they simply disregard the letter and don't reply. We'll see.

The other letter is an unfinished letter I started writing to my parents at the beginning of the semester when I was on a huge letter writing kick. It touches on a few of the things I am excited and worried about this semester and mentions new, budding feelings for a girl who has since become a large part of my life. I was thinking about it last week, and decided it would be cool to finish it now with my current thoughts on the same topics and double-date the letter and send it. That one is happening.

Watched Almost Famous today. That movie is still great, though the raw movie quality actually seemed a bit worse than I remembered.

I'm hopefully going to go finish Philip K. Dick's "Dr. Bloodmoney" after I finish writing this post. It is interesting. It focuses on a bunch of telekinetic civilians living in a post-apocalyptic US west coast, living under a physically degenerating god-like disc jockey revolving around Earth in a satellite. Kind of reminds me of my multitude of 2012-based dreams I had last night.

I am a sucker for anything post-apocalyptic.

San Diego

I went to San Diego over Thanksgiving break. Having someone to stay with saves hundreds of dollars. I highly recommend it when possible.

I just got my camera back and uploaded some photos.







There are a lot more. We showed up at the airport with 2 digital cameras, Denise's film camera, 2 disposable cameras, and an old polaroid camera.

The end of college

The end of college is so close now. I have about 2 weeks of classes left, and then this spring I have to complete an internship and then I will be done.

I couldn't be more excited.

I decied that college is not nearly as necessary as everyone makes it seem. I told my mom this and she agreed with me and expressed the same feelings about it as I had, which was nice to hear.

I'm glad that, in a couple of weeks, I can finally have the time to devote my brain to creating things that are important to me. I've always wanted to be a more productive writer, but I never write. I'm not sure if this is actually because I don't have enough time (like I tell myself) or because I just don't have it in me to be a writer. We'll see what happens when I don't have college holding me down.

I talked to a friend from the University of Northern Iowa, and he also has no plans come next August, so we are going to move to Portland and work bad jobs and live in a bad apartment and make bad music and write bad literature. I hope that the combination of all that will churn out something which is good.

Everything is experience. Experience involves feeling. Feeling is good.