An Encounter with Poetry

Since I decided to do something productive with my time, I decided to get into poetry. I found that I have trouble saying what I feel, especially when it comes to love so I thought perhaps I can draw on some inspiration from poetry. Little did I know, I'd be sucked into an awesome ass world of abstract, Beautifully ambiguous language.

Poetry is an amazing feat if you stop to think about what it is. It's an extremely short narrative with a lot to say. More words are not needed for the poet to express how he or she feels. The words of the poem invite the reader to slowly understand the author's purpose and story. The best part of reading poetry is finding a poem that resonates with you.

I found a poem called "Summer Storm" by Dana Gioia which summed up my situation with a lost love in less than a page. It's just conventional to use poetry to describe anything. Although not as adventuruous as a good novel, poetry offers just as much reflection in just a few words. Poetry offers another thing that cannot be paralleled by a novel.

With poetry, there lies an anticipation to connect and find common ground with the audience or poet. As a reader of a poet's work, I sought after some common understanding that the poet went through to and when I did, I felt comfort. As a poet, you hope to offer some opinions which readers can absorb and appreciate alongside their own original thoughts which the poet has helped enhance. The simplest joy of poetry is that you can find one line that resonates with you.

There are so many one liners in poetry that hit me right in the face. I actually said "whoa" out loud when I read a line in "Summer Storm". Just when you thought poetry couldn't be any simpler, the one liners that stick out make that poem so much more memorable.

A good start after a torrent of thoughts after graduation.

Graduated

I finished my undergraduate years yesterday and I have to say it was a truly saddening experience. I'm not going to see a lot of people because they've gone back to their prospective towns. I'll miss so many friends. In addition to my sadness, I'm also scared. Instead of feeling the joy of graduating, I feel fear and uncertainty in my future. Well of course, all futures are uncertain but I've never been so scared.

I'm scared because I have to find a job, I mean a legit job instead of a part time, uninspirational job. I need something that keeps me motivated. Part-time jobs don't cut it because I get bored wayyy too easily. Something meaningful will keep me motivated and actually want to get up for work and look forward to it. It's amazing how much you learn about yourself from college.College is the first time you're really away from your parents and it's up to you to decide where you want to go with your life.

It's also during this time that you learn, I mean truly learn, all your shortcomings. My weaknesses were never really so transparent in high school because I had mentors and friends who helped me do what I had to do, but college was totally different. I had to do everything myself. I got in a lot of trouble because of my weaknesses and realized how badly I needed to change them or else I'd be screwed in life. The biggest weakness I had was definitely my pride. My pride led me to change my major because people were saying how weak of a major it was and were pushing me toward Med school. So I went from psychology to Chemistry. I love science, but I realize that I was on the right path in the beginning already. I wanted to become a therapist and I still do, but I wanted to pride myself in a major that demanded respect. That's the biggest lesson I learned from college: Never choose a life that's not what you want. Choose a life you want, despite what anyone else says. I can't keep regretting the decisions I've made though. I got a Chemistry minor out of it in the end and a psychology major so gooooddd stuff. Right now, it's a time for action and bettering myself more than ever because employers are going to catch my weaknesses right away unless I fix it now.

I started reading again to stimulate my mind and reading is a joy that I'm surprised more people don't partake in it. It's not only fun, but it's also good for you! Instead, we play video games which don't really benefit you that much. So this summer, I'm going to keep reading books. There shall be no end to it. I'll also study for my GREs and beast the GREs and get into an awesome Graduate School. Here's to Hope! We can't live without it.

True Meaning Behind Procrastination

I've discovered this about myself. I fear failure when I've tried my hardest. At one point, I did try my hardest at grasping material and studying my ass off, but that still didn't get me far. It was at this point that I realized that I had failed and when that realization hit me, I was devastated. I thought with my hard work I would succeed, but I'm ending with a 3.1 gpa and only 1 year of lab experience. So I started not trying as hard when I realized my efforts were going nowhere. I realized that I've developed a defense mechanism against failure by procrastinating.

Procrastination has become a way for me to attribute my failures to my lack of studying which I brought upon myself. It has served as a way to cover up my unfruitful efforts. It might apply to many others who've faced failure despite their most earnest efforts. It's truly a gut-wrenching feeling of disappointment in myself when I find myself procrastinating and realizing the huge pile of work to do that I've left myself to do last minute all in an effort to preserve my pride. Pride is a truly dangerous feeling.

Pride drives us to do so many things, or rather, stop us from doing what we truly want because of fear of what others might think. It's pride that led me to use the excuse, "I could've done better if I tried harder". That's the mentality us procrastinators love to feed on. We like to feed our pride and say it wasn't really that the material was hard, it was because we didn't try hard enough. Life isn't like that though.

All the material we learn is hard at one point, but it's up to us to overcome it no matter what. It's people like me who've lost sight of that who need to get inspired again. That's another thing. Inspiration to work hard once served me well, but when I came to college, failing and not achieving what I wanted led me down a dark path of bitterness and self-damaging behavior. If I still failed with that mentality, how can I hope to succeed? And so, this cycle of procrastination occurs from which we can draw upon a scapegoat for our failures. We'd rather be called lazy than failures.

That's the harsh reality of procrastination. Perhaps mine is an extreme case. Perhaps procrastination doesn't stem from such a deep, dark place. Whatever the case, I urge anyone who reads this to never lose sight of what drives you because once you do, it's hard to get back up. I am just waiting for an opportunity where I can prove myself again, one chance to make what I never could of myself. What opportunity awaits me? Please come soon.

The flash of desire

Friday, after the party, I walked Elise back to her dorm. Before we parted we hugged. It was at this moment, we had a lingering hold and she flashed me a glimpse of a ridiculous amount of sexuality and desire. It was a look filled with passion and desire and I have not been able to get it out of my mind. 

It's amazing how one look can make a guy turn inside out and mentally keel over like I am now. The power of women is truly a formidable one.

I think glimpses of desire are the most seductive thing you can possibly do because you leave the person wondering whether the look was for real or not and it makes them curious and want to find out. So rather than overtly telling someone how beautiful they are, a glimpse of intense sexual desire creates sexual tension that begs to be broken. Oh how the lead in could be just as exciting as the act itself.

See the effect one look has on me? It's way more enticing to me than when a girl told me she thought I was hot. It's burned into my mind. Words come and go, but a moment that tells you everything you need to know without words is a dangerous tool that can give its user great power.

Realization after a Party

I went to a party last night and I just woke up. It was just like any other party except this time I came upon a realization. I am still a coward. I thought I got past that. I mean coward as in scared to touch girls.

I don't know where this fear comes from. It's kind of stupid. I mean I did it before where I touched girls on the hips or ass before and they didn't mind. In fact, I learned that girls like being touched by a guy they're attracted to. It just amps up the hotness. So why did my fear of touching come back? It might be due to the fact that my good side was a little stronger last night.

I think of my life as a balancing act between Yin and Yang, Good vs Evil. Lately, my yang had been stronger and I was a bit more of a badass, touching girls by the hips and acting like the shiznit. Even when a girl told me she loved when guys took her by the hips, I was hesitant. I still touched her by the hips, but not with the same "yea that's right, she's mine" mentality and swag. I guess I wasn't drunk enough which really sucks because that would mean I need alcohol to be able to be badass and walk around with a girl around my arms to show the place that she's mine.

That makes sense. I was drunk last time I touched girls and had the confident swag necessary to trigger my "sup girl?" powers. There was also another burning thought behind my head. I think I still want a relationship. As I was walking a girl back to her dorm, I realized how peaceful and romantic the scenery was and how she gave signs that she wanted me. I wanted to hold her hand or hold her in my arms, but there was no courage in my reserve to pull out. That's when I realized that despite all my talk of doing awesome things and enjoying single life, there's always that subconscious tugging that tells me that I want something meaningful.

Dammit that was short lived. I was nowhere near thinking about relationships until last night. It was when I got home that I realized how empty I felt. Perhaps it's because I didn't get laid too. That could be it too. Whatever the case, I hope I can still live life to the fullest because YOLO which is actually what my last lecture will be about.

I'm really happy I finally found a topic that I can be passionate about. YOLO so experience all life has to offer and answer all those things you wonder about by living it yourself. Noone can tell you how good or bad something is. Only you can ultimately convince yourself. You never know until you try. I tried the dark, bad side and I loved it, but my good side is starting to prevail again. Should I let the good side prevail and go back to being a pussy who repels pussy or continue on discovering new things that lie on the dark side of town? I think the latter sounds better. I can't help what the subconscious brings up, but I can definitely work on my fear of touch. It's really damn annoying. Definitely something I want to find the source of and fix it.