Farsong Blog-o-Matic - Schoolin'

Sometimes, I have a helluva time getting to sleep at night. Sometimes, it's the flashing lights that keep me up, and I have to go and turn of the displays just so the power lights don't flash in standby. Sometimes it's the blessing/curse of the binary clock (midnight is nice, because then all its LEDs go off, but they start counting up again). Other times, it's the light from the neighbours' porchlamp that filters in through the chinks in the blinds. Still other times, it's simply that the alarm-clock is too bright, or the phone's network-connection lamp is flashing.

Other times, I'm kept awake by the reverberations of the bathroom fan against the wall, or the fan on the furnace, or a slight humming from my computer's hard drive that I forgot to turn off. Fan noise is one reason I'm not yet running that server, and probably won't run it until I can put it someplace that isn't my room.

Still other times, I'm kept awake by the thoughts in my head. Stories. Thoughts about the day. Images that need to be drawn. Sometimes I can get to sleep after sketching out a few of these, or writing until I'm dead-exhausted. Sometimes, though, it takes a while for me to finally finish my collapse and stay for breakfast.

Even better, it can be a combination of a couple of any of these!


That was all a long-winded way of saying that my mind keeps me up at night. Like last night, as I was getting to sleep, my mind started thinking about how I was merely attending EWU, and not a part of it. I was a part of PLU. There was a sense of community there. EWU is much larger. Yes, it's been three weeks, and I am still meeting people, but the communities of people are more made by students, whereas, at PLU they were spontaneous and just happened. In many ways, I defined myself by my communities at PLU. Frankly, I still [define myself by the groups I am a part of, for good or for ill; that's just the way that human society works].

At the beginning of the quarter, I made a point of not saying anything about PLU, but I'm beginning to speak about the differences--mostly saying "Oh, well, we did such-and-such," and since people are rather educated enough, they understand that I'm not saying "We should be doing it like such-and-such, because that way is better, and this way is different and therefore not good." Nope, that's just senseless. It's the same as noting the differences in culture between the US and Germany--the first time, you see everything as new and different, and the second time, you see analogues of everything and realise the reason for why these certain things are different. They're different in form, but the same in function--lightswitches and power outlets are a prime example).

I'm struggling to articulate the difference between being a part of a school and its respective community, and merely taking classes there. It's more than just taking classes there, but my who life no longer centres on the University and the community in the direct vicinity. It makes me feel like an interloper--coming to attend classes for part of the day, utilising the on-campus resources, and leaving before the day is through for most people.

Then again, I need to recognise that it's still early in the quarter, and I'm still meeting people. It took me several months to originally meet my best friends at PLU, and that was when I was living on-campus. Then again, I was still figuring everything out, being a freshman and all--and you're only ever a freshman once.