Living in a lonely world...

Sometimes I feel as though moving here to Denton wasn't necessarily the best idea for me. I am now a graduate student taking 8 hrs of classes and all are online. I don't currently have a job or anything. I don't even go to an exercise class or anything. Because of all this, my days are spent mostly inside my apartment attempting to do homework most days and actually doing it other days. Other things about my day include staying up really late at night, doing things on the internet, and as a result getting up late the next day. Most days I don't even leave my apartment except for a brief amount of time. Usually it's to go to Walmart or the library or just to get out and find something for lunch. None of it is very exciting. I don't know if it's because of this that I've become extremely lazy and procrastinate a lot. I have time to finish my homework before it's actually due but yet I still seem to wait until the day it's due to work on it. I don't understand it but I just can't get into a routine regarding my homework. Here I'm almost 2/3rds finished with my first semester of Grad school and I have yet to develop a routine. I think part of the problem is that I don't have any structure in my life at the moment. I don't have any sort of rigorous schedule holding me to do my work at a certain time. To be honest, I know I need a job but I also just haven't really been really putting effort into actually finding one. At first I thought this was all just because I'm burnt out on school. I've been going to school almost nonstop since I got out of high school. I mean, I just graduated in May and here I am again. Sure I've had breaks between classes. This past summer was really my first break from classes and that's only because my degree program is on a strict plan that doesn't offer the classes during the summer. I used to be extremely busy. Semester Y (last fall) was insanely busy and was literally the Semester from Hell (excuse my language please). I had a nervous breakdown at one point and as a result, had to get someone to help me learn to cope with the rest of the semester and it worked. Then came my last semester, Semester Z, which was strictly Student Teaching. That was also busy but not as much as Semester Y. It was the normal teaching stuff: grading papers, writing lesson plans,etc. That sort of thing. Yet throughout both Semester Y and Z, I was also not working. I couldn't. That was one thing my advisor had told me: Don't work during Semester Y because it's nearly impossible. Prior to Semester Y (Semester X), I had been working at the local public library and it began to get too much for me to both work and juggle classes. Yet even though I was busy, I still managed to get my schoolwork finished. I ended up having to quit though because it just got to be too stressful for me. I guess what I'm really needed is a happy medium between insanely busy and near laziness. Don't get me wrong. I still get stressed out with my graduate classes. For instance, I'm writing a blog instead of working on a mid-term paper that's due tomorrow. I'm a little stressed about getting the paper done and also some upcoming projects that are due soon (in about 2 weeks). The difference is that I have time to finish everything before it's due so I don't have to get stressed.
I've also been feeling pretty depressed recently. For the past two weekends, I've driven to see some of my friends in Oklahoma City and we've gone to two awesome concerts at a couple of the libraries. I've had so much fun hanging out with my friends and it's been really awesome. Yet it's also made me think about things. At the wrock show I went to on Sunday, I miracously met someone who is also from Denton. She's a Freshmen at the University of North Texas (my college). I didn't really talk to her much though but still at least I met someone. This got me thinking though. I've been feeling really lonely lately. I realize that I have awesome friends but just not here in Denton with me. It makes me think back to when I first moved to Oklahoma. It took me some time but I sorta made friends in a few of my classes the first semester. I guess I can't really call them friends when I think about it though. I guess I could say they were more just people I got to know through class. There was however, one person that I met and ended up becoming friends with later and that was because she and I were in the same degree plan. Still though, I don't think I actually made any "real" friends my first semester. Once I got into my degree classes my second semester, that's when I actually started making more friends. Then came the Tour de Nerdfighting event in Oklahoma City and I met some people who I later became online friends with and later IRL friends (this is evidenced by the last couple of weekends). I can't say that I don' t have friends because I do. I just don't have any friends here that I can hang out with on a regular basis and such. I should say yet but I don't think that's an accurate description. I don't think I will ever really have friends here. Going back to the fact that my classes are all online, the only time I really see anyone was at the Web Institute at the beginning of the semester and that was only a few days. I met some people and hung out with them but it's been a bit hard to keep a friendship with them when you only saw them a few days and then you don't see them again. You might be lucky enough to have them in other classes and you might end up graduating during the same semester but you don't really know. It's been really hard for me. It's been especially hard to find anyone that's a nerdfighter. Everywhere I've lived, it's been hard: my hometown in New Mexico (pretty sure I'm the only one), at Oklahoma State in Stillwater(there were some but I never found them), and now here in Denton at University of North Texas (or just Denton in general, since there's like 3 colleges here). I'm sure that people are out there, I just haven't found them yet and I really don't know how to find them. It's also been a bit hard to find people that I can relate to. I have no probably being friends with undergrads. It's not a big deal, but I still want at least one friend that can relate to me right now. I guess also because I never really experienced the whole college thing, that isolates me a bit more. I never was in a dorm room and quite honestly never really wanted that experience. I feel as though missing out on these experiences is partly why I'm so lonely now. I could try making friends through my church. However, the church I go to, while I really like it, has very few college students at it. Most of them go to the one on either the UNT or TWU campus which I have yet to actually visit. Plus it's hard for me to go to another campus church when I love and miss the one back at Oklahoma State. I eventually made a lot of friends there and I just liked it.
I wonder if everything that happened back in May could be part of the reason for me being lonely here and everything else. I honestly think I might just need to go talk to someone and get some help. I need something to get me out of this cave of loneliness and laziness I've gotton myself into. Something needs to be done.

Tweet Blogger

So I seem to have become one of those types of people who "Tweet blog" and I don't really know what to do about it. However, this reallt only happens when I get into a rant about something or want to rant about something. Otherwise I just tweet whenever. Yet, I feel that being a Tweet blogger is a bad thing. I feel bad for my followers because they get all my tweets back to back. I could actually blog about it, but usually the rant is quite short to write a real blog about. In fact, if I actually did a blog post everytime I wanted to rant, I'd have way too many blog posts. That's why I think Twitter works for me in this sense. Sure, it's probably not the best way but then what is if not Twitter? For me to send several short tweets about my rant (and it's usually about 5 tweets average at a time) works for me instead of a blog post. Also, I'm not the only person on twitter that does this. I have another friend who goes on tweet rants and ends up tweet blogging. I'm sure there's others. My question then is how do you go about ranting about something when it's usually very brief? Is tweet blogging in that sense a good thing or a bad thing? I mean I don't like tweet spamming my followers when I tweet rant but I don't seem to have a choice. Several long tweets in a short span of time just works better than a long blog post rant IMO. Also, even though they don't necessarily tweet blog, there are some people I follow that tweet frequently. Maybe twitter or someone could look into developing an app or something that creates a blog post from a string of tweets? If there's something like that already, I should probably look into it.

Geek vs Nerd

So obviously my attempts (more like non-attempts) to do BEDA failed completely. I'll admit now that there were plenty of reasons why BEDA simply did not happen for me though I needn't waste any time explaining them. Moving on shall we then?

Today I'm going to talk about a geek vs nerd. Now first of all, this whole thing started because my older brother has been bugging me to go watch Scott Pilgram ever since it came out in theaters. Now I have honestly just not had the time to go watch the movie. Again, not purposely trying to make excuses or anything. However, between the end of summer, moving, getting back to school, and having company, it's the way it's been. Anyway, my brother has been bugging me and bugging me. He thinks that because I'm a "geek" I should go watch the movie and that I will enjoy it. He's even gone so far as to say that until I watch the movie, that I turn in my "Geek Card". However, there is a problem I have with this. First off, I don't consider myself a "geek" at all. To me a "geek" is someone who is into more like video games and more science fiction stuff. Not saying that a "nerd" doesn't also like that stuff but still it's different when it comes to being a "geek" vs. being a "nerd". I honestly consider myself a "nerd". I AM a "nerd". From my personal opinion (and I'm sure I could find people who agree with me) I'm more "nerdy" than "geeky". Thanks to Hank and John Green of the vlogbrothers, I have embraced this about myself and proudly call myself a nerd (NERDFIGHTERS!!). But I still wonder. What is it exactly that defines if you are a "geek" or a "nerd"? I know that there's overlap there. Like I said though, I'm not a "geek". I can't even think of myself as being "geeky". Nerdy yes, geeky no. Reading online definitions don't help much either. Now basing the two on my brother and his family, I could definately say that my older brother is more "geek" than "nerd". Same with my nephew. However, my sister-in-law could almost be half and half. However I think she's more "nerd" (being mainly because she's really smart).

So this is my question to anyone who reads this (which isn't really anybody but me). How do you define a "geek" vs. a "nerd"? What do you define yourself as and why?

BEDA 1: Blog Every Day August... Day 1 FAIL!

So yeah. I completely forgot about the whole Blogging Every Day in August thing and so now I must catch up somehow. Possibly. Probably. I have no clue. Anyway, let's start off with today and see where this blog goes from there. First off, lets start off by saying that I've been pretty busy this summer and so it doesn't surprise me that I forgot about BEDA until like last week on Tuesday, 3 days after I should have been blogging already. So now I'm at least 8 blogs behind schedule. Although I also had a good reason that I couldn't blog too. I'm not trying to make excuses but this is a pretty legitamate reason. I didn't have my laptop at the time. My laptop was at a computer shop being checked out to make sure nothing was wrong with it or anything. I had to use my parents desktop computer in the meantime and while it would have been ok to use it to write my blogs, I really didn't want to do. I prefer my own more.

I don't really have anything too exciting to blog about tonight. Last week was my last week of volunteering with our Space Center Camps (more on that in a catch-up blog) and I haven't really done much else. I'll be leaving to start Grad School (more later on this too) next week and have already started getting things gathered back up and started packing. That's really about it as far as excitement goes today. Between doing some laundry, running some errands, looking up stuff online, and reading, that's it. I'm sorry that my first official post is so boring. I can only hope that my future posts will be more exciting.

Chapter 30: The future looks cloudy

I'll just say it right now: I am really not happy right now. I've experienced a whirlwind of emotions just trying to apply to Graduate School here. That's pretty much the whole problem. I've always intended to continue on to Grad school ever since I transferred here. I have always had my sights set on the Master's of Educational Technology with certification as a School Library Media Specialist. Or at least I did until quite recently. I completed all the required application materials on March 12 the last day before Spring Break. About a month later (I don't really know when it was), I received notice saying that my application was incomplete and that I had been denied admission at this time. Upon further inquiry, I was informed that I should try reapplying upon graduation. For the longest time this was the only response I received. Finally, I sent an email to the person in charge of the program. I was concerned about reapplying and having to go through this again with not being admitted. I received an email yesterday requesting that I stop by and see the person in charge so we could talk face to face. So today I did just that. The news wasn't good. She told me that I did meet all the requirements for the program but the reason I didn't get into the program is because they don't think it's right for me. This was a huge blow to me. Working for 2 years for a degree in Elementary Education in order to apply for this specific program and then being told that it's not right for you. It's just overwhelming. The concern is the fact that I don't seem to want to teach at all and think it's just all about books. I know that a School librarian is way more than just books and stuff. The program doesn't work for those who just want out of a traditional classroom. According to the new standards or something like that, a school library media specialist is like the "ultimate super teacher". The one that the other teachers look to for guidance. That type of thing. The lady in charge of the program feels that from our conversations, that I'm not this type of person. That I'm more suited to a public library than a school library. Most of the types of people like me fail to do well in a program like the one they provide. Basically, by denying me admission they are doing me a favor and saving me from this possibility. However, I don't believe that everything she said about me is entirely true but then again maybe it is. I've researched the classes and I believe that I would do well in the classes. I believe that I would be successful and that it's definitely something I'm interested in. Then again, maybe the real reason that I'm upset is the fact that what she said is closer to the truth than I'd like to admit. I have never really wanted to be a teacher. In truth I've always viewed this as just the first part before what I really wanted to do. Yet I've done well in all my classes and have passed all the required coursework. However, the more I think about it, the more I recognize the fact that my heart has never been fully into it. While I've enjoyed my classes for the most part and I enjoyed my student teaching a lot, it's not the same as it has been for my fellow classmates. They've wanted to be teachers and plan to be teachers. For me, it's never really been that. Perhaps the truth is that this isn't the degree I should be getting. Maybe this is just a worthless degree for me. This is bad. This is one of the things I've tried so hard to avoid because of my older brother. He has a Bachelor's degree but it doesn't do him any good. That's what I'm afraid mine will be now. It almost seems like the past 2 and half years was nothing now. The sad truth is that I'm sure that the lady is right. A school library isn't for me though I wish I could've been given a shot. But no.

The fact is that now I'll be moving on regardless. Wheather it be that I move to University of Arizona or to University of North Texas or. Those are my two options currently. University of Central Oklahoma was a choice at one point but since it's also School Library Media related, it's probably not worth trying there. The programs I'm looking at right now are all for a regular master of library science. The one at UNT is probably more the type of program I'm looking for because they do have an area for Youth Librarianship which is what I ultimately want to be. I still want to be a children's librarian. However, there is also a huge advantage to going to U of A because it's close to my parents and to my brother and his family. Right now, I don't really know which I'll eventually go to.

Of course, it's been a really rough day for me. I've been crying off and on since I found out. I'm trying to get through this and think about graduation in a couple of days but this has just sent me on a whirlwind of emotions. I'm not sure what to think.  It's just overwhelming at the moment.