Some Thoughts On The Matter

      They say the first week of school is usually the hardest: unfamiliar subjects, new teachers, classmates you don't yet know. And while I'd usually be fine with a normally rough week, my first week this semester was absolutely miserable- but not because of classes. As I sat at my desk on Tuesday morning, filling out a few job applications since I woke up earlier than I needed to for my class, my computer screen went dark. My fan's gentle humming slowed to a stop, and before I could blink, the lights went out, consuming me in the quiet dark.     The power was out. And being a naive and hopeful newcomer to the world of renting an apartment, I thought it was just a fluke that would be fixed within the hour, maybe by the time of lunch if I was unlucky. As the air began to warm up, I decided I'd rather go out and get breakfast than wait for the power to come back on. So out I went, and after breakfast, went to class. But when I returned, as soon as I opened the d...

    After a few months back at home for the summer, my long-awaited return to Tallahassee has finally arrived. Though a lot has changed for me back home, having experienced countless runs, laughs, and home-cooked meals, coming back to Tallahassee feels right. I had a lot of fun this summer (see my previous blog for more info on that) but it's time to get back to work, back to school, and back to partying every weekend!     However, before I get to any of that, I had to undergo the process of upending nearly all of my earthly possessions from my house, cram them into the back of our car like a game of Tetris, and survive the 7 hour drive over to Tally- and this doesn't even touch on what happens once we get there. For context, my buddy and recurring roommate Wade had moved in a week early, on account of his film school orientation, and when he sent me a video of the state of the apartment, it left a lot to be desired. Evidently, the previous tenants hadn't bothered to...

      Hey! As my summer at home has finally winded to an end, and the new horizons of my Fall semester at FSU begin to get closer, I figured I should reflect on how this summer went for me. Even though it's just been a few months, I feel like I've accomplished and experienced a lot in this timeframe, so I'm picking five things to reflect on in this blog post before I move to my new apartment in Tallahassee!        1) My Trip To Argentina     Early on into my break, my family and I decided to take a trip to visit our family in Argentina for a couple of weeks, centered around my Granny's 90th birthday! It was a blast spending some time in the countryside with my Dad's side of the family (even though I was sick at the time). I enjoyed being able to talk to my cousins, aunts, and uncles about what I've been up to at college, and explaining my somewhat dubious choice for a career to them several times. It was also just a nice experience ...

      Hey! Admittedly it was a pretty slow weekend in terms of writing material, since I haven't been doing too much besides going out with a few friends and spending time with my family, in anticipation of my return to Tallahassee for the 2024-2025 school year. However, I was reminded earlier this night about a paper I wrote for my Intro to English Studies course I took last spring semester, and I ended up going back and rereading it.  If you want to read it for yourself, check out the link here !     The first thing that resurfaced in my memories when rereading this was how I even got to discuss PTSD as a topic. If I'm being honest, I really just wanted an excuse to talk about an obscure movie that I found conceptually funny, "A Penguin's Memory ". I'm a simple guy: if I see an animated movie of penguins in the Vietnam War, then my interest is piqued. Though I couldn't just write about how I found the film conceptually funny- this was still my first year...

      I'm not really an anime guy. Sure, I've watched a couple here and there, and I've read manga like DEATH NOTE, but generally, I never got *into* it. But a week ago I was bored, restless, and needed something to sink some time into, since I was struggling with sleep a lot. At my wit's end, I asked my buddies Blake and Angelo if they had any recommendations on something I could watch and enjoy in a relatively short time (I was wary of recommendations like One Piece, which boasts over 1000 episodes). Curiously, they both had the same instant recommendation; Jujutsu Kaisen, aka JJK.     I had heard good things about the show, namely its action scenes and characters being well written. Additionally, I knew that this is a pretty modern show, with its second season having just come out last year. So with this in mind, I decided I would start watching the anime the next morning, just to try it out.     Admittedly, while I could recognize that the show was...

    For whatever reason, as my mind strayed tirelessly through another night I couldn't sleep through, a relic of the past resurfaced in my mind, brimming with memories and good vibes. Though I would forget about it once I woke up the next day, a few hours later I checked my phone to see that I had an unfinished YouTube search from the previous night: Just Dance 2014 .     Since I didn't have anything better to do this morning, I decided to turn on the old PS3 in my living room, dust off the old game box, and charge the motion controllers that probably haven't been used in at least half a decade. However, when I booted up the game, I found something else than what I came for entirely: a catalogue of old auto-recording music videos that the game recorded of me and my family dancing along a full 10 years ago. Excited by the prospect of a nostalgic experience and watching goofy videos, I called over my dad and we sat on the couch to watch through some old clips tog...

      Hey! As of late, I've been taking my physical health a lot more seriously (which is apparent if you keep up with my running blogs). However, simply running around everyday and eating a little healthier can get a little boring. Sure, it's challenging to keep running several miles in the sun each day, but is it fun? While enjoyable, I feel like the novelty of running into the wilderness has worn off a little bit, fun-wise. That's why when the opportunity came up, I blindly agreed to go to a climbing gym with my buddies Angelo and Brandon.     To provide a little background, exercising at climbing gyms has become a sort of phenomenon in my friend group. While it started with Angelo experimenting a little with his cousin, eventually more and more of my friends started getting memberships to climb at the gym several times a week, and even those who didn't get a membership would frequently tag along to use a free guest pass to try it out. As I watched more and m...

     Hey! For whatever reason, I can't sleep tonight. Or most other nights, either. Whatever the reason is for my late insomniac awakening (get it?), I've had a lot of time to think. Think about life, my friends, my family, my aspirations. But lately I've been having a lot more late-night sessions where I think about my own psychology, how I think about things and why I think this way. And tonight, as I laid in bed with eyes glued to the ceiling, a line I wrote in another blog of mine came to mind: " I feel like I've earned this view. "     I thought to myself, why does this line feel so significant to me? The idea of earning the sunset at the end of each of my runs is clearly meaningful to me, but I can't shake the feeling that my satisfaction runs deeper than a surface level reward for my effort. Sure, it's a pretty view and I worked for it, but why does the idea of "earning it" make me feel so warm inside, warm to a point where I'm alm...