What It Feels Like to Drop OutThis year I went to CSU Fresno as a freshman Computer Engineering major. I came to the school with a basketful of issues, but generally content that I had my life on track. I was not going to a prestigious school, but at least I wasn't going to community college, I thought.
For the longest time I had my life planned out, I knew what I wanted and knew exactly what I was going to do to get it. My beliefs were set in stone. College changed all of that. In the past year I lost my girlfriend of two years (and my ability to trust along with her) and got kicked out of a two bit state college. For the past two to three months I have not been in the best of spirits, but that changed.
Before mother's day, I went to talk to a psychiatrist here at the school health center. My mental health had really been affecting my physical health, and I felt damn terrible. She gave me, in that one session, a fantastic spin on life. I now know more about myself than I ever have, I realized that I haven't wasted a year, to the contrary, I now actually really know what I want. I know that I know nothing about myself, and it feels great.
My plans for the immediate future consist of a lot of exploration. Reading books, listening to music, going to shows, and talking to people. I want to expand my horizons and live life by doing what I love to do most, learn everything there is to know about anything.
I'll become a computer engineer at some point in my life because I know I want stability. But that can wait. I can live it up for a while, and I will do just that before I start taking on the kind of responsibilities that, quite frankly, I'm not ready for yet.Trying my BestThe first community of strangers I joined and felt comfortable in was the Gamespot community. There were people there who I followed and came to know very well because of their blog posts and forum activity. But after that, I haven't connected quite as well, I tried when Giant Bomb launched, but it was to no avail. This website, however has a lot going for it. I really love tech, and the time I've spent in the forums has revealed a lively crew of dudes and dudettes who I can see myself liking. I will try my best not to completely abandon this community, and vow to make semi regular posts to tis blog and/or the forum.I Like PodcastsI used to listen to the HotSpot podcast religiously in the Carrie/Jeff/Rich days. I would fire up the browser, let the stream download for a few minutes over my slow as could be DSL connection and listen to the whole thing, every week. But now that I'm in college, I don't have time to listen to the few podcasts I would like to. I can't listen while browsing the web because I'll inevitably end up paying attention to one over the other and fail at both. I don't have any sort of commute where I could listen to a podcast, I live in the dorms on campus and travel literally nowhere. It's really a shame because there is little I like more than listen to a bunch of persons chatting about a specific thing, it feels very human and shines light on things that an article written by a single person could never. It's the same reason I used to favor those multi person video game reviews in Nintendo Power and EGM, I like hearing multiple perspectives on a topic.
Hopefully I will soon have more time to enjoy the Tech Report podcast, the Engadget Mobile podcast, and Steve Litchfield's The Phone's Show.
