I feel like such a dropout. I have never felt so out of touch with what is going on in my classes. I am still within shooting range in the sense that I could catch up, but I am basically floundering in all subjects. This is what it takes to get a job. And I don't even care. I am sitting here typing email knowing that I should be finishing this paper that is due Monday (won't be in class Monday anyway). Drinking Surge to keep awake while I search through the net for things to write about. I have a pretty good paper coming together here, but I don't know how to document it all because all sources are electronic. Is that a pain or what.
This is one of those points where you just ask yourself why? What am I beating myself up for? I felt guilty for taking a nap today. Then I went shopping for flour and vittles for the week. Why can't humans just concentrate on primary concerns like these? Where to sleep. What to eat. All of this working for other people, striving for paper goals. What is it about? Was Marx right when he said that men toiling for other men were just wasting their time? Incidentally, I never had time to read Marx. Nor have I had time to finish reading my "Into Thin Air" book or the Japanese book "Toilets and Culture" that a friend recommended to me. Are my priorities straight? Do I have senioritis?
I stopped by and talked to another Japanese conversation table today. They all laughed at my self-introduction when I explained that I was a fifth-year student. Patty said that I would become a professional student. I wish. I wish I could just read and write what I want and discuss it with my friends here at school. But I must be more productive.
I was discussing with Eugene about the difference between the "artistic" liberal arts majors versus the "technical" applied major people. I think that everyone would like to read books and draw pictures if they could. However, someone has to do the work here in the world. The problem is how to do your work and still have time (and energy) to play.
Liberal arts people laugh at me in my suit looking for jobs, but I feel like they are just shirking their duties. We all gotta work somehow. I just wish we didn't work so much. What if we all agreed to accept a lower standard of living in return for more free time? There is nothing that says we have to work forty hours per week. Thirty hours per week will just give us a slower economy with less money flying around, but there won't be any mass homelessness or hunger. Let's do it. I vote for thirty hour work weeks.
So I asked EDS for three weeks vacation in exchange for less pay. They refused. What is up with that? Who are they to tell me how much money I need? I definitely don't need to have $36,000 a year. I can live in a shack and commute by bicycle and live off the land and recycle everything and teach underprivileged kids in my free time and just generally enjoy my idealistic world. Back to reality. Back to my homework...