01.30.06
I feel wistful.
And I’m not sure why, exactly.
I’m sitting in my Contemporary Cultural Theory class (God bless wireless), and I just… feel weird.
Learning about the difference between social theory and sociological theory (oh, and there is one), I feel unfulfilled and wistful. Not that I don’t like sociology, because I do, but I’m increasingly convinced that sociology is a means to an end for me, although the end is as of yet unknown.
I feel like writing, these days. There’s something bouncing around in the back of my mind, but I have no idea what it is, and I don’t quite know how to coax it out to play. I feel like being artistic, somehow, but I don’t know if that means I want to redo a website or make a new desktop image or just play in Photoshop or Illustrator. I feel like disconnecting myself from the online world, but I don’t think I really want to connect myself to the “real” world any more than I already am connected. I feel like I want to talk and write and read in Italian all the time, but it’s not possible for me to immerse myself in the language as much as I’d like.
This is my problem. I’m always really interested in about a thousand things at once, and I don’t have enough time to really get into them all, and not enough determination to get into one thing, and too much interest to limit myself to that one thing anyways.
I guess I’m just… restless, more than wistful, but there’s wistfulness in there, too. I remember being able to make time to do things that were important to me. I don’t ever remember being this burnt out. This is the first time in my life I’ve managed to push past where I’d normally give up, at least for this long a time.
May. In May, after finals, I’ll have a bit of time to relax, to change gears, to sleep in. Go back to my part-time job, too, for a bit, but definitely after a couple weeks of rest.
And then, Italy, for two weeks. With my parents, alas. But Italy. For two weeks! Pasta and gelato and ITALIAN. The ability to go out into the streets of Milano, Venezia, Firenze and Roma and know how to do more than order mineral water (without carbonation) or ice cream or pasta, and understand what I read and be able to appreciate things so much more than I did at age five or thirteen.
Then back home, back to work, and a single three credit class during the summer, perhaps.
I chalk up this general malaise to working last summer while doing the hardest 6 credit class ever. Sure, I got an A, but I pretty much killed myself while doing it. Still, it’ll help me with a 400 level version of that class this year, and both of those will help with my thesis next year.
But I want more than to do classes and get these crazy letter grades that I’ve come to care so much about, which, in itself, is terrifying. I still want to create and absorb art. I don’t want to read these days, because I have so much readings for school. This is foreign to me. I love to read. What is university doing to me?
Suggestions on how to recharge my batteries before May are welcome, because I don’t know how I’m going to make it through to May without some kind of recharging.