It's been about a week and a half of living and "working" here. Adapting to the bus system (which is frustrating and tough to navigate), to the food (good, but a departure from my diet), to the campus and classes (easier than high school and yet harder), to doing my own laundry and keeping my own place neat (surprisingly easy), and dealing with so much free time. It's not a depression so much as a lack of purpose that makes me listless; no assignment for class so far has taken more than a few minutes, and no engagement has presented me with future hopes or challenges. I'm not much of a self-starter, although I'm surprised at my willingness to begin swimming again and watch my diet. Time will tell if I follow through with these. Time will tell if I'm being silly for complaining of a lack of effort.
Auroch is going ahead with a bunch of shows lined up. I hope I can keep in drum shape with one or two practices a month. Playing bass is really exciting and I wish there was some opportunity for me to mess around with it in a band setting. All these ideas for side projects we had in Vancouver and all. I would love to play bass to Seb's guitar at some point, but trying to coordinate traveling to Vancouver in the midst of my classes and life here is daunting and I've gained new appreciation for Lauren's efforts to visit me when I lived in Vancouver.
I'm kind of worried about next summer. In second term I should hopefully be able to apply for a Co-op program and pay for housing with that, but for this summer I have four months to raise more money than I've ever made in my life. I was looking into treeplanting today but I don't think I have anywhere near the fitness or willpower to get through a season of that. Lauren is hoping to move to Vancouver and I can't decide whether I would want to stay at home or not. I'd really rather stay here. Maybe I could pay rent to Patty and stay downtown. But then again, the band would want me back in the city, and at the place I am now, what would I do all summer besides work and stew in pointlessness?
I've leeched off of Lauren to find friends here but I honestly need some on campus and for one reason or another I haven't adapted to phoning people or eating in the same cycle as everyone else. My 11:30 classtimes are a blessing and a curse, I guess.
Signed up for some clubs at the fair in the quad today. The Martlet is kind of a suggestion-based paper, unlike Youthink, so we'll see if I have the entrepreneurship spirit to plan my own articles. The radio station sounds fun too; Zero Tolerance radio seems like a great gig. I avoided signing up for the Sailing club because it's 9am-12 noon on Saturday mornings and I worry it'll get cold, plus it's $70 to sign up. On the other hand I suspect I'll regret missing out on being on the water, living here; plus, the weather has been relentlessly sunny since I got here, and it's getting on in September. Just another one of those things I should probably have done. *sigh*
This post sucks. I guess sometimes I need somebody to talk to sometimes. So far I've been ignoring or pushing away negative feelings, like sadness about Lauren leaving, or a sense of bleakness about being lonely here, or being directionless, or doing well in my courses. At first I was nervous about establishing my routines, which was an eye-opener to how much I rely on regular patterns and the little bit of OCD anxiety that builds up when I am trying to hammer out my living conditions. But now that I have it all squared away, I have all this spare time and nothing to do in it.
I'm on hold with Rogers now, trying to change my number to a 250 area code. Feeling kind of sorry for myself. I'll go have dinner around six and then motivate myself to go for a swim, I guess. Maybe I'll watch Gladiator or read more of the Dharma Bums. Again though, they're just escapes, putting off the social problems I'll have to cope with eventually. I wish I had one other friend here, someone else who doesn't know anyone, who I could hang out with a lot without being the 'needy' one. I don't want to be a burden on people, I guess. The price I pay for being a journalist/photographer type, I observe, not interact.
As it goes with these I'll probably feel better tomorrow and roll my eyes at the drama of this post, just like how I tortured my parents with doom and gloom letters from summer camp.
Son of a bitch.
