And So It Begins, all over again

So I start classes on Tuesday. I must say I have a relatively easy semester planned. I am taking 14 credit hours, but I only have class two days a week, 10-11:15 12-1:15 and 6-9 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So far it looks like the only issue I will have this semester will be $$$$, As you have read I quite my full time job about 5 months ago, I had been working part time (30 hours a week) at a local bank, but about a week ago that went to shit. They had agreed to let me leave a couple of minutes early one night a week to make it to class on time, well the little bitch I work with announced after my schedule had been approved went to HR and said she had a class that started at 5:30 and she would have to leave at 5 and not close, which completely screwed me and my class. ( I will interject here and say her class was offered in 6 different sections, mine is offered in 1 section per semester and I must take it before I can take any further classes) Well after “talks” to work it out broke down my employer told me I could drop the class, quite, or take the class and be fired for leaving work early. Well I took option 2. I had another job lined up, problem is it makes $2 less per hour and 10 less hours per week. So needless to say I am in a bit of a money bind at the moment. However, I am sure I will figure out a way to land on my feet. Now if I could just get the bitch at work (new job) to quite calling be a spoiled child of privilege, life would just be peachy. But enough about that. It is 2008, a new year, a chance to start over, whatever that may mean. I am only 24 years old; I suppose we all must take our knocks in life, I am at least young enough I can recover and come out of whatever may happen better off than I am now. As for classes I have decided to share with you all the true level of my insanity, here are my classes: (ECCE is Engaged Citizen Combined Experience (It’s a retarded))

POS 231 – Political Ideas and Ideologies – Course focuses on the role of ideas in politics and assumes that ideas shape politics and history. It explores the prominent ideas and ideologies of the western world of the past several centuries and attempts to better understand our modern world through these prisms. (3 Credit Hours)

POS 373 – ECCE: Introduction to International Relations – This course provides students with the basic concepts and theories of the study of international relations. Topics include: the international system, the balance of power, and economic interdependence. (3 Credit Hours)
POS 409 – Political Parties and Interest Groups – Examination of interest groups and political parties in American politics. (4 Credit Hours)

POS 451 – Empirical Political Analysis – Examines the empirical research process from conceptualization to data analysis and writing the research report. Particular emphasis will be given to research design and causal analysis. Empirical methods explored will include direct observation and survey research. (4 Credit Hours)

Well, I need to get some sleep. I helped prepare and served a Champaign breakfast this morning, I got home last night after midnight and went to sleep around 12:30 only to be up at 5 AM and cooking by 6 AM. Didn’t get back home till 2 PM. So I am tired, sore, and still smell like the fucking pancakes I was making today.

BW

A Year in Review, 2007 - Bringing Light into the Darkness

“I realized that I always defined myself in terms of what I wasn’t. Always what I wasn’t, never what I was. And when you do that you miss the moments. And the moments are all we’ve got. Even when I thought I was going to die, even after everything that’s happened, I realized I didn’t want to let go. I was willing to do it all over again, and this time I could appreciate the moments. I can’t go back, but I cant appreciate what I have right now. And I can define myself by what I am instead of what I am not, Alive, and everything else is negotiable.” Babylon 5.

So this is my end of year post. That time where I reflect over the last year and ask myself, what have I accomplished and what I did not. The quote at the top of the page comes from one of my favorite shows, Babylon 5, the lines where spoken by the doctor in the series, who was recovering from a drug addiction, and had almost been killed while helping someone else. After recovering, the doctor said he had found what he was looking for, and this was what he found. As I have eluded too before, it was a little over a year ago I was enjoying the mix of painkiller and vodka, to the point of taking a handful of pills one night with a bottle of Smirnoff. That was the event I credit with giving me the kick in the ass I needed to get my life back onto track and heading in the direction it’s currently headed.

Starting with the spring 2007 semester I returned to school, my first semester was just getting my feet wet, I took two night classes and continued to work both a full and a part time job. I ended the semester with a B average. After that I decided it was now or never. So I turned in notice to my full time job with the County (we will get to this subject more later) that I would be quitting at the start of the fall semester, I did take the summer off from classes. Well at the start of the fall semester, I left my full time job at the county, switched part time jobs from circuit city to a bank, and began 16 credit hours to finish my Associates Degree. Well I ended with a B average overall, a B average on my cumulative GPA and will be heading to University of Illinois – Springfield for the spring of 2008 to work on my BA and MA in political studies. I should be finished in 3 years and ready to see where the world will take me.

Despite everything going rather well with school, and for the most part the job situation going ok (again more on that later), my personal life still seems to be lacking in some way. I have had two random hook-ups over the last year, one was with the cousin of my friend’s former roommate at a party, USA Guy, and the other was the waiter from the restaurant I ate at in St. Louis. I mean several of my friends know about USA Guy, since they were at the party we started making out at. Nevertheless, my family is still kind of an issue, I won’t get into the whole thing over again, but needless to say dad and I don’t always get along, and mom has her head in the sand most of the time, and I honestly think that if she knew I had randomly hooked up not one but two guys she might try locking me up in my room and never letting me out again. It’s like my mom’s idea of being gay is living the life of the perpetual bachelor, she can’t seem to grasp the idea that being gay means falling in love with, living with, being intimate, with another man. The other problem with my social life is living in central Illinois; this isn’t exactly the homo capitol of the world here. We have one gay bar in a town of over 200,000 people, and the next closest one is over an hour away. And part of it is I still have a hard time in social situations, I have never really dated before, so now I am 24 and its like I am going through that awkward teenage stage where you’re not really sure how to even begin. I want to date people, I want to meet someone, but I don’t really know where to even start looking. I am hoping to have enough time in the spring to get involved with the UIS gay and lesbian student group, not so much to look for dates (for those of you who asked) but to try and build a group of friends I can relate with, not that my current friends are not fantastic, but I think I really need to try making some other gay friends before I can expect to move on into a relationship.

Now, for the work situation, for the last two years I worked for the County Circuit Clerks Office. There were many reasons for my leaving. One was tension between co-workers and myself. Some of it was my being gay, but mostly it was that I rocked to boat. I was given a position that the previous person had seriously fucked up, and the way the change went down was a little dirty I will admit, but it was what was needed. While the person who held the position was out on medical leave, the manager demoted her to my job and promoted me to her job, a position I held for almost 18 months. In that time I completely changed the way the position operated, took back responsibilities that she had lost. A lot of people felt the way I got the position was underhanded, and as a result I got constant opposition from people when I would make changes, I will say the managers never stopped me, they wanted me to make the changes. Hell, I swear most people threw a party the day I left, they just could wait for me to be out of there, even as I trained my replacement I could hear the whispers about me leaving. Well now 5 months later those same people have apologized to me, they have begged me to return, and In much the same way I got the position in the first place, another dirty deal has been made and sometime after the first of the year I will be returning to my old job at the county. I guess it’s true that your never really appreciated until your gone.

So what’s in store for 2008, I don’t know. I do know over the last year I have learned to stop defining myself as what I wasn’t, but to live my life defined by what/who I am. I am alive, and everything else is negotiable. I am who I am, It’s a constant struggle, walking a line between expectations of who you are and actually being who you are, it’s easy for people to talk about not compromising who they are, but in practice it’s not always that simple, that easy. For 2008 I intend on continuing with school, even with working more. I am also hoping in 2008 to open up more socially. For too long I let other expectations dictate to me what I would do, and I am starting to overcome it, but it is a slow process. Well, this will probably be my last post before the New Year, so to all my readers. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year.

Closing out 2007, good night and good luck
BW

We interupt this blog to bring you

Ok,

I have finally caught up with myself long enough to post something to the blog, so for those who have missed me, I’m back. So let me recap the last couple of weeks for you. It started with the remodel on my room. Well that became a disaster, we ended up having to pull up and the carpet because of a half ass patch job a previous owner had done, which because of the way we had to take up the old carpet to get to the messed up subfloor, I got new carpet, which meant having to completely empty the room. On top of that I had to help my sister with a project that she just had to have done immediately ( I mix all of the music for the cheerleaders she coaches), and help two friends with computer problems (the problem was determined to be located between the back of the chair and the keyboard). Throw a holiday in there and I am flat running out of time to get shit done. I also had to write three papers, two of them were simple and I just turned in some bullshit to get a grade and get the hell out of that god forsaken class. However, the third one, it was for my political philosophy class, Troystopher and Alternative blog know a bit about this paper. Well, to be honest, it became an obsession. The assignment was to do an 8-10 page paper addressing one of 20 questions the instructor gave us, or create our own scenarios and write a fictional paper that addresses our questions. I choose the fiction option, I ended up turning in a 22 page paper with a 3 page paper explanation. Now if you think that was obsessive enough, I’m not done yet, I created enough back story, character information, I have two legal pads worth of material that could be developed into at least another 100 pages of material, I could damn near write a book. So that has been my life for the last two weeks, work, school, work, school, I haven’t slept much, and have lived off of Sobe No Fear and Adrenaline Rush to keep me moving and halfway conscious. In other news however, I did have three tests cancelled this week, so now I just have final exams to take and I am done this year, no more papers or tests until next year. Well I am off to get some sleep.

In Closing, I was watching and SNL marathon today and figured I would share some quotes

“Schmitts Gay Beer, if you’ve got a thirst and your gay reach for a Schmitts Gay” (Seriously go search Schmitts Gay on YouTube, its funny)

“Don’t be a slut wipe your but” – from a sex ed class sketch

“Dick in a box” – JT with his dick in a box need I say more

And of course the ambiguously gay duo Ace and Gary

BW

life

Ok,

So I have hit that post midterm point of not giving a damn and just wanting to be done with classes, homework, and papers for a little while. I always find this to be worse during the fall semester after midterms, because it’s getting, darker, colder, and everything around is dying. Not that I am a big fan of summer or anything, but at least it’s not as dreary. So what have I been doing instead of homework? Well I have been remodeling a bedroom, I will post some pictures of that soon, as well as the final product of the two room renovation I have been doing. I have also been surfing the internet a lot. I guess sooner or later I need to get my ass moving, I have a lot of stuff I have to catch up on right now, it seems like I went from being a head to being behind overnight. Oh, well I will get around to a bigger post on something important later. But in other news. I have kinda/sorta met a guy, problem is guy don’t know it yet, so here is a set up of this, feel free to tell me if you think I am being a stalker here. There is a guy that comes into the bank I work at to cash his paychecks, well I had noticed certain things that set off the gayday, well one night I was looking at one of my friends myspace profiles, and looked at his friends list to see if he had any of our old friends listed that I didn’t. Well while going through his list I found the guy from work who ill call paycheck guy. Well I checked out paycheck guys profile and it confirmed my observations. So I added him as a friend. Paycheck guy face me a weird look the last time he was in but I didn’t wait on him, and couldn’t bring myself to really say anything to him. I mean he is attractive and seems to have a nice personality. I just have never been comfortable talking to guys I am interested in. I can talk in front of large rooms, talk with elected officials and be perfectly comfortable put a guy in front of me I want to get to know better and I become uber shy and wont speak. So feel free to tell me if I am a myspace stalker of tell me what my hang up here is and any helpful advice anyone might have on this.


BW

Family

I know just about every parent has difficulty when their kid sits them down and says I’m gay. Now when I say difficulty that does not necessarily mean a bad thing, to some difficulty could mean trying to understand more about it, to others, it could mean a screaming temper tantrum and kicking the kid out of the house. I came out over a year ago and am still trying to deal with my parents. Neither one of them had what I would call a negative reaction but I’m still not sure they get it. Dad by far has been the most difficult one to deal with, he still makes comments about girls hoping I will find one attractive. He also doesn’t want me to “flaunt it” around him, so basically what that means to me is if/when I do meet a nice guy and want to bring him home for dinner I had best just not. I know I should be patient with him but at what point is it going too far to make him comfortable with my life. Then there is mom, I think she means well but has her head in the sand. Kind of like when I was in drivers education, she would never let me drive the damned car, it was raining, or it was overcast, or the sun was shining at a bad angle, It was a family friend who ended up doing a lot of driving with me because mom would do it. Now I should point out I have a gay cousin on moms side of the family, but he lives the life of the permabachelor. So that’s what from her background being gay is living the life a perpetual bachelor, to her it hasn’t dawned on her yet that I will meet someone and fall in love with a man, I had a date one night and she told me it wasn’t a date, I was just out with a friends. So I don’t know, I would think after 12 months something would be dawning on them, I don’t want to push the matter, but how much should I bend for them. How long until I break trying to meet their expectations of my life, honestly at times with them it’s like I never came out. Hell my religious sister has accepted it and even comments on cute guys around me. I tell mom I find a guy cute and I get this look.

Good morning blog fans,

Yeah, so getting woke up at 2 AM because mother nature wants to be a bitch just sucks ass. I don’t mind storms and severe weather, but could we get it timed a bit better. Well its official midterm weak is over, and out of four classes I have a C/B in Political Philosophy (not sure which one but it’s on the edge), B in Geography, Mid-level C in Biology (which for me is fandamntacstic), and (drum roll please) a midlevel B in Literature (that’s right the class with the bitch, I be making a B). Now all I have to do on my educational journey is to get UIS (University of Illinois Springfield) to remove their head from their ass (I know I am asking a lot now), I mean really is it too much to ask that the right hand know what the left is doing? I applied 6 weeks ago, well they tell me I didn’t submit a copy of my completed transcript from jr College (yes I did), well it turns out there is a glitch in their system that says because it still has an in process semester the system is saying I have not submitted a completed transcript and therefore won’t re-admit me (kinda nice they leave that all to a computer system ain’t it, tuition money at work?). Well they tell me there is this glitch and that they will transfer me to the person who needs to fix the problem, that person says there is no problem, yet my readmission is still blocked for some mystery reason. Be prepared, a great many things involving the University of Illinois Springfield just annoy they hell out of me, and I will probably blog about it on here so that I don’t actually tell the UIS administration that they can go blow it out their ass. So now you ask if it’s that bad why not go to another school. Well the reason is it is still a University of Illinois Degree, and I can still get the University of Illinois blue and gold ring. I mean honestly UIS is not a bad school, they have some great programs, their problem is the administration, and they way they treat the undergrad transfer students as opposed to golden haired little freshmen sophomore do no wrong students. But I’ll probably rant more on that later. So I guess what I am saying is take my UIS rants with a grain of salt, its mostly just me venting.

BW