So this blog post is going to be updated or continued in a series of posts, I have so much information to discuss but so little time this week to actually devote to writing. To start things off, I have been living in a snowglobe. Each week some mystical force (not God) shakes the snowglobe and we get a foot of snow. Of course because I go to West Point and our teachers sleepover in strategic areas so that they don't miss class, school goes on as usual. I find this to be funny as this is everyday life for me but people I know at civilian colleges complain on facebook when they only get one day off or just a 2-hr delay. Grow up and look at the big picture, as if you didn't already waste half the money you spend on school by skipping class and partying, you now want every day in the winter to be a snow day. Enjoy finding a job when you graduate.
On to other things, I have basically completely healed from my tonsillectomy. My roommate is ecstatic that I had the procedure done because my snoring prior to surgery penetrated the earplugs he would wear to bed each night.
It is strange that somehow we have already finished a quarter of the second semester of my sophomore year. I feel as though I just got back from Christmas break, despite the first wave of tests popping up and already taking a trip to the city. This week and the next I get to look forward to a total of 4 tests, 1 paper, and 1 oral presentation. My birthday this year falls on a Monday. Fuck me right? As if a west point birthday wasn't depressing enough, I have it on a Monday, the worst day of the week at the worst place to have a Monday. But enough with the bitching. My roommate and I will have a bash in the Club de Room 611, in the Projects of Central Area. Fun stuff.
A brief aside:
I was standing at lunch formation today, a very beautiful February 1st of 2011. The air was cold, the wind colder, and the snow accumulating in your collar the coldest. Central area was a mixture of white snow, brown slush, and cadet cynicism and loathing. The barracks were gray as usual, of course the most beautiful gray to ever bless this wonderful planet. It was at this sight that my classmate standing in the squad behind me offered the conclusion, "You can't even see a contrast between the barracks and the sky, Everything is gray!" I immediately realized this and falsely joyful laughter ensued within the ranks of my platoon. The moral of this story is life is never bad or miserable or depressing until your entire world is one amorphous blob of gray which you can never escape. (above is a picture I took while writing this, don't be fooled, a camera is incapable to capture the true despair and color of this place, and the snow has currently stopped which made the skies slightly more white).
On to the Middle East. Why? Because a) it's important b) I'll write what I want and c) I am an Arabic major trying to go abroad. Over half of the Middle East is in disorder. Most troubling for me is Egypt as this is where I want to study abroad and would possibly be visiting this summer. The Middle East seems to have a problem with half-assing representative governments, forgetting about their people, yet still refusing to practice Communism or Islamist style gov't. I mean its good they haven't tried the last two but they only embolden those factions by caring more bout the lining of their pockets. I mean, there is a reason why people view Saudi Arabia as the most greedy and fiscally irresponsible country in the world. I truly hope that order can be reached in all of these countries and the governments will get their heads on straight. I do not want another war in the Middle East to erupt, I don't want America to pit themselves in another Iraq or Afghanistan as it isn't sustainable. And I don't want America to feel obligated to bail out the Middle East because in every natural disaster we provide more aid than anyone else. Problem with this, People are still fucked by Katrina due to a lack of enough aid, and its not like the global community helped to the degree which we help them. Call this isolationist, cynical, provincial, and greedy but it is not. I'm a military man, ready to serve and die on foreign soil making someone else's life better. Given that statement, it doesn't mean we need to always be at war. And given the recent economy and what not, the U.S. could use some extra money and I don't think cutting 90% of the Defense budget is the right way to go about it.
You may wonder why love is in the title.........well here it is, I love lots of things. Most notably my family, my friends, my country, food, music, and life in general. I wanna get soft on everyone for a moment and just say I love who I am, I love what I am doing, I love the people that are always there for me. I've been deep at thought lately and I am finding gratitude in things I usually wouldn't. Don't get me wrong now, I'm still a cynical bastard, but I'm trying to curb it with a dash of positivity.
On to more topics. It is essential for everyone to have dreams and not just any dreams, some of them gotta be big. Whats my big dream? Well outside of living to a comfortable age and dieing happily, I want to open a bar. And now you're asking yourself, "That's it? What does a well educated white kid that is majoring in languages wanna do with a bar?" The answer, I love food, I love drinks, I love its place in society, and I like to think I'm a simple guy. I've been religiously (haha kinda a contradiction) watching "No Reservations" and I have seen success story after success story of people trying something risky and accomplishing there dream in the food industry. Now I am not going to lay many details out right now, but lets just say I am constantly brainstorming, thinking of areas to research, and getting serious. That'll be all on that for now.
Also on food, I am going to make another blog which will be a review of the places which I eat. My last foray into the city (which will be described in the continuation of this post) included some amazing eats.
On to the concept of reality? Well this is an ambiguous part of this post. Simply put I absolutely hate my philosophy class here. Philosophers are terrible people. Confusing the crap out of me and providing me with no solid answers for anything. I have come to one philosophical conclusion on my own.....(today actually).....If one can never prove that a defeater is or isn't present for a given belief then nothing can ever be known for certain. If this is true then why even question anything, why invent the field of philosophy, and why care about life? Now this is exaggerated to some degree, but it shows the kind of crap I've been dealing with in my philosophy class here. The other portion about the concept of reality is that in the last few days I have had multiple dreams which were so vivid upon waking, it took me a few minutes to discount their reality. The matters which they covered will remain personal (not because of lewd contents, so get you mind out of the gutter). Two were very scary and the third well that one was a good one. I find it so strange that I can make myself think that something which I dreamed of was so very real. Every stimulus which the dream instigated was felt as I awoke from these dreams. The power of the human mind is thankfully strong enough that you can finally dismiss them as mere fiction and not walk around believing fake thoughts which your mind so carelessly created in the first place. I believe in a reality and that I am not dreaming about dreaming about dreaming in which I would never know what is real and what is fake. Well, I will now let you contemplate your own view on dreaming and reality and see if you go mad in the process, may those with the strongest mental constitution prevail.
Post to be updated and/or continued later..............
