So I had my first two classes of the semester today.  I couldn't sleep at all last night for some reason. I was having all sorts of anxiety over class. That usually only happens at the beginning of the school year. I felt like I was going to college for the first time. Anyway, neither class was as bad as I'd imagined.  At first.  then, the truth reared it's ugly head.  I'm in for a tough term.  what makes it extra tough is how unsure I am that I want to be here.  It's almost a given that my life for the next few years is going to be a constant struggle, either trying to get a job ot trying to move up in the job I've got to a point where I can look in the mirror and be proud of myself.  It'd be a lot easier to just go get a job doing some sort of office work.  What makes it so hard right now is the fact that I know if I quit this program I'd regret it forever.  So I guess we're working for  the future. I don't want to have to shuffle into an office every weekday morning for the rest of my life. So I suppose for the next five years or so is better than that.

    It was disheartening, though, to hear my professor saying that we should try to avoid writing in the first person, because then we'd only be giving our opinions, and that's boring. No one cares. But that's the kind of writing I'd like to do.  And i don't think it's true that people don't care about someone's opinion.  I get a lot of satisfaction from reading someone's views on something, knowing that it's just about them.  But I suppose to most of the world, you have to achieve a certain amount of fame or notoriety- or infamy- before anyone gives a shit about what you have to say.  it's sort of scary how oftern the thought floats through my mind, for a split second, of committing some awful crime or something in order to achieve a bit of fame some I'll get published.  Ok, that sounded scarier than I intended it to be.

    I mean, ideally, I'd love to be writing essays for a living, as a columnist or something.  But it's going to take a long time to get to that point, if i ever do.  But as much as I was doubting how much I needed this journalism program, I think it'll do me more good than I thought.  So I suppose I'll stick with it.   And really, I'd hate myself 5 years from now if I dropped out.  I'd always wonder if I could've made a living as a writer.  I just want to get something published. Once that happens, it'll be a lot easier to get excited about writing again.  Of course, to get something published means I'd have to write something.
    That's another thing.  At this stage, in order to get published, as a freelancer, I have to come up with some offbeat  idea that will attract attention, but not so much that a magzine won't get a staff writer to write it.  And I need to come up with things very frequently. Well, i can't think of anything right now.  I just bought another Vonnegut book, Timequake. In it, he talks about how he used to write short stories but nowadays he just comes up with ideas that could be stories and inserts them in his novels and attributes them to a fictional science-fiction writer Kilgore Trout.  And Trout always has good ideas, but never sells anything because he really can't write. I'm really starting to worry that that's where I'm headed.  I need a ghostwriter or something.
    Something else that my professor said today. She said she's never seen a good writer who didn't read a lot.  Well, i'd have to be at least an ok writer to get into this program, and I hardly ever read. She said it's impossible to really have a command of the language without reading. I think she's dead wrong.  I think I have a pretty good command of language, and i never used to read. I just talk a hell of a whole lot, and listen to what people say and how they talk. Maybe that's why my writing is so conversational. I always imagine it as dialogue anyway.  I suppose that's why I make heavy use of italics and boldface and whatnot.  Everyone I know who's read this has told me that they always imagine me speaking these words, and they wonder if people who've never heard me talk would understand everything.
    Anyhow, that's just a bit of what was bothering me today.  "daily aggravations," if you will.  About time I got back to my rants.
 

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