You remind me of the necessity of having more hope than fear/No one can be allowed to sleep.

Four Year Strong - Rise or Die Trying rules, definitely the summer anthem CD of 2008. I'll listen to this the entire time I'm in California. Oh yeah, I'll be in California in about three weeks. Pretty much all I'm really looking forward to. That, and next Saturday in Providence.

Milford Police Department - You're not fucking welcomed at the campus again. Bring your "serve the public" protection bullshit elsewhere. Next time, there will be more problems..

School is going as well as possible this semester. The first few days started out as an anxious-filled catastrophe where I am still left feeling utterly frustrated and lost. It's all a matter of environment, and I'm just not in the right environment that I need to be in to do my best work and increasingly grow intellectually. There are very few classes offered that are set up in the way that I can excel and actually think, instead of being told answers, listening to long lectures, or being told that I need to just settle for the way things are because that's just the way it is. Or being told that at the end of the day, any alternative to American democracy is troublesome or just not good enough. My Women in Poetry class is great - the class itself is a little boring and dry, but the reading is really enriching.

I was looking through my folder of pictures tonight and was browsing the 'Buddies' folder, looking at the pictures from the past year, even longer than that. Tons of pictures of Dan and I from the summer, Fisheye photographs of me shaving Steve and lighthouses, and just old moments in time. I'm real siked that I had the ability to make all these memories and now I can look back on them and all I can do is smile 'cause they all mean so much. Biggest bummer is that now that Dan and Lynn moved to Stamford, I see them less and less. But at the same time, it's great seeing two of your best friends in love and following their dreams together. I can't wait for the summer. I can't wait for nice weather and sunshine.

I was thinking about it while sitting around, waiting for class earlier this week. And I think I feel a growing disparity between the other kids at my school now because I've taken it upon myself to de-school and completely wipe out of my scope of vision what I had been force fed since pre-school. It was a gradual process, but taking the steps in order to figure things out for myself, question everything, and not accept what I had been previously been taught led me to the path of self-discovery where I am now. I wish it was possible for me to trace back the exact point where I got there, and pass the secret on to everyone else. Regardless, I feel such a huge disconnect from 99% of the people around me, most of them remaining the majority of society that are so deeply ingrained in thinking that there is nothing else and this is as good as it gets, that there is no struggle and everyone is on the same playing field. But I know better than that.

I wish there was a cure for sleepless nights, spent tossing in bed, thinking about the future, and trying to figure out what the fuck is going to happen. Sometimes, it just all feels like too much and my throat is closing up and there is no feasible exit for something better. I wish it was as easy as lifting up this fake facade curtain of bullshit and just sneaking out the back door, moving on to a better way of life. I guess the best anyone can do is disconnect as much as possible.

"I know that some days it feels like a 9 to 5 deathmarch.
And that's half the waking day taken away.
I'm pretty sure that we imagined something more.
Don't let that fire in your eyes flicker and fade.
They're experts at extinguishing hope, so you better hold it and keep it close.
It's a one-round match; you better grab it by the throat.
And don't let go...
I'd like to say hats off to the slash-and-burn architects,
They know exactly where despair and commerce intersect.
They've solved the equation for the gold rush, soul-crush;
Three hundred million open mouths choking on the surplus."