Class and other various responsibilities has been kicking my ass for the past, fuck I don't know, pretty much since I last posted almost a month ago. Add onto that I haven't had a computer for over a month because the pins on my cpu were bent because the cpu fan got jostled so I needed to buy a new cpu and install it and you've got a fun combination leading to a lack of posting.
Anyway, not a whole ton of this is actually trans* related, it's just sort of a stream of consciousness bitchfest about my life, so take it with a grain of salt.
My classes are fun, and pretty interesting. I feel like I'm actually delving into real engineering more so than I have in the past, although in many ways it's not quite there. I'm looking at a million different engineering related projects I want to do, but I can't see how I'll ever have time for. Like put together a team, get a grant and build a reprap with grant funding from the college of engineering, and maybe design a wireless communication system for it. Or making and selling vaporizers to the local stores in town to get some extra money. learning matlab scripting, autocad, and muiltisim in more meaningful ways than the bullshit we do in my freshman level class. Or working on the million bio-medical engineering ideas I have. I could probably patent quite a few ideas, but I have no idea how the fuck that process works, or criteria for what fulfills a patent. Actually doing design.
But I also have a million social justice things going on to. I'm the co-representative of a trans* advocacy group that growing and become more mature with every meeting. We're doing things like cataloging all the gender neutral bathrooms on campus. We're putting together educational flyers, figuring out printing, and trying to put information out there, all trying to advocate for trans* people on campus. This is a shitton of work.
I also have class obligations for grades and am currently in the application process for a job that will keep me financially stable for the next 3 years, and the grades and certification I get from my classes which is usually seen as "the reason" people go to college, so they can get a mediocre mind-numbing office job that pay decently so they can get a nice white picket fence, pop out children for a while and then die at 80 of a heart attack are a distraction from what I want to do.
I want to actually do things, and maybe children in the long term might not be a bad idea, but I don't want that to be the sole contribution I make to the world. This sounds lame as fuck, but it's true: but I want to work towards fundamentally changing the world in positive and progressive ways whether that's through social advocacy and change, or through helping the world by developing useful technologies, or through a combination of the two, or something else entirely. I could give two shits about money, outside of not starving, and being able to afford the things and tools I need in order to continue what I want to do. I don't care about my grades, outside of having them good enough to get past gate-keeping mechanisms, like getting into grad school and whatnot. I care about learning useful information from my classes that will let me do what I want to do, and accomplish what I want accomplish. Grades, certification, and money are a means to end, not the end itself, and I feel like a lot of people my age simply do not grasp that.
I've got a million responsibilities, and sometimes I feel super-overwhelmed. Getting organized has helped me a lot. I've got a little planner that is filled to the brim each week with all the shit I have to get done. I have little 30 mg tablets of vyvnase, an ADD drug, which helps keep me focused. I've got strategies for studying and learning, and philosophies for processing and incorporating new knowledge, but I get so much on my plate. I don't want to narrow myself in anyway because as Richard Heinlein once said "
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