What to write about.
I’m sitting at work, and I should be putting some quality time in on my homework.
Oh well.
Let me just preface this by saying I’m in a good mood. No, really.
Well, actually not so much. Sitting at a desk for a few hours with absolutely nothing to do has definite mood-sapping effects. Maybe I’d better qualify what it is I do first.
I’m trying to write plainly, with little in the way of embellishments; unlike Cadbury eggs and cheap two-dollar hookers, it turns out that when composing languid prose one can in fact have too much of a good thing.
I work as an admitting clerk at the reception desk of a (relatively) local hospital, which means I sit behind a badly scratched desk (highlighted in the bastard tones of the horrid lovechild of aquamarine and blue #4) in a garish pink swivel chair all day and direct visitors while keeping an eye peeled to ensure nothing dodgy occurs on the premises. I also work the hospital switchboard, and those two entrancing tasks fill out the receptionist portion of my paycheck. Since whomever has their warm tush planted firmly in that uncomfortably salmon-esque piece of Swedish-born plastic is also considered to be the entire admitting department, I’m the faceless drone who takes care of all the boring paperwork generated whenever a new patient is admitted. This is the only portion of my job that entails real work, and invariably leads to about an hour or so’s worth of mindless paper-shuffling whenever a new guest chooses to grace us with their presence. Weekends are fairly slow, which means as the de facto weekend shift guy I often get paid twelve-fifty an hour to sit around and amuse myself.
Pretty sweet gig.
Back to the mood thing. I felt it was necessary to state that because really, why else would I take the time to pen such a laborious piece of copy (essentially to myself) than to commiserate a sad state of affairs? The communal nature of interactive media seems custom-tailored to anonymous wanking; one need look no further than my outdated and disconsolate livejournal friends list for proof.
Wow. I was just gonna write a sentence or two as a bit of a rambling precursor, and I’m already up to over a page. Epic fail.
Fuck it. I was looking at the CSU’s International Program, and if I’m lucky enough to get in and meet the qualifications for studying abroad I’m gonna go for it. The only downside is that the only place I really had my heart set on was Japan, and they start their semester of exchange in the fall (September, to be exact.) Nothing troubling about that, until I point out that they require you to be an enrolled CSU student the fall semester preceding the semester of departure. For those of you unaware of how a basic college semester system works, that means that if I attended one of the CSU's next fall I would be unable to take part in the program until the following year. That puts me (ideally) in my last year of college. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it means I’d have to wait over a year when I really want to get going now. Things could change in eighteen months, I could lose the courage to take this opportunity or just change my mind altogether. Still, I’m gonna try for it. I’m hoping to attend San Francisco State in the fall anyway, and that ought to be enough of a scenery change for one year.
I keep getting these backhanded remarks from friends about why I want to leave. I know the chances of having enough readers to require the use of both hands to keep track (more than five, for all the amputees out there) are fairly slim, but while I can’t count on this being a high-traffic site I can reliably predict that everyone who allows these words to burn their way into the tender bits of their hippocampus might have at one time counted themselves among my close associates. That uncomfortable and unwieldy bit of prose out of the way, I feel I can confidently address the reader directly: I want to leave because of you.
No, seriouslyforrealz hear me out kthx. I’ll undoubtedly get shit for posting that, so let’s at least try to make sure it’s the proper vintage of fecal matter before we go wantonly hurling it about like chimps at a hoedown.
You’re great. No, really. We’ve had a great run; I’ve certainly enjoyed our time together, and I’ll always treasure the memories. The problem isn’t you.
It’s me.
Grandiose posturing and sly Dear John references aside, I just don’t enjoy myself very much around the majority of my friends anymore. To be honest this is to be expected; I count my circle of “friends” as being as large as fifteen to thirty people at times, yet the majority of those fine folks were introduced to me as friends of others whom I was acquainted with. Like ships passing in the night, we saw each other often yet never truly gained the measure of one another. As I’ve gotten older, it’s become less and less important to have my presence be enjoyed or even desired by these people, and so my efforts to pander to their sensibilities have slackened. In doing so, I’ve simply made the differences in our own personal tastes more apparent.
Wow, that’s a weighty bit of bullshit. I keep taking these little paragraph breaks to remind myself to (metaphorically speaking) take a breath and move on.
What I wrote above is certainly far from blanket truth. There are a number of people whose company I honestly enjoy, and I often feel guilty that I bring the mood down or don’t entertain like I used to; irregardless, even these fine souls don’t mean much in the long run because the majority are never interested in actually doing anything. My mother often bemoans my complaints of inaction, unable to grasp how a group of physically fit young college students with all their functional appendages intact can manage to find absolutely nothing to do on a weekday evening. It’s gotten harder and harder to find excuses to justify our inaction over the years, and finally I’ve just stopped trying to bullshit her. It’s because the majority of my peer base are losers. And if most of my friends are losers, what does that say about me?
C’mon, honestly. We don’t need to drink to enjoy ourselves. We don’t need to smoke copious quantities of quasi-medicinal herbs to enjoy ourselves. We don’t even need a roof over our heads to enjoy ourselves, and we sure as fuck don’t need money. All that is required is the desire to experience the world around us and the brazen, beautiful foolishness to act on those desires.
I’m rambling again. The point is, the reason I want so badly to do well this semester and travel somewhere else for schooling is two-fold:
I want to start accomplishing something meaningful. I’m 22, and I ought to start acting like it.
I want to enjoy life again, and at this point for me that apparently entails attempting a diverse amount of interesting activities.
I’m not the type to deny my subconscious what it wants, and I’m tired of trying to motivate my peers to do anything outside of their comfort zone. It seems the more and more insistent I’ve become, the less and less my presence is desired by these people. It might just be my imagination, but such a phenomenon would be absolutely understandable if true. I know I haven’t been much fun to hang around with these last six months or so, and I’m not sure I’d invite myself to most gatherings. All the more reason for me to broaden my circle of acquaintances and get the hell out of this town, really. I love California, and I adore Fullerton; that being said, I don’t want to spend the rest of my days here.
Whoa. I’ve got a metric crapton more I wanted to set down, but I think two pages single-spaced is pushing it. Plus, I get to go home in like, ten minutes. Not a bad way to kill an hour.
I’m growing weary of trying to excuse myself, but I think this is important enough to tack on: if you feel the above doesn’t apply to you, then it probably doesn’t. If you’re not sure, well then it still probably doesn’t, but only because I’m so awesome. If you think I am writing about you, and are (justifiably) irritated or confused, feel free to boldly bring it up the next time we hang out. That’ll be in like what, a week and a half? Try not to forget.
Gotta send out my transcripts tomorrow.
Guess I'd better pay taxes, too.
Yeah, still in a good mood.
EDIT: I just realized I printed out the Pimp rulesheet, then left it on the printer at work. That's gonna be interesting to explain...
OH HOH HOH HOH!
I’m sitting at work, and I should be putting some quality time in on my homework.
Oh well.
Let me just preface this by saying I’m in a good mood. No, really.
Well, actually not so much. Sitting at a desk for a few hours with absolutely nothing to do has definite mood-sapping effects. Maybe I’d better qualify what it is I do first.
I’m trying to write plainly, with little in the way of embellishments; unlike Cadbury eggs and cheap two-dollar hookers, it turns out that when composing languid prose one can in fact have too much of a good thing.
I work as an admitting clerk at the reception desk of a (relatively) local hospital, which means I sit behind a badly scratched desk (highlighted in the bastard tones of the horrid lovechild of aquamarine and blue #4) in a garish pink swivel chair all day and direct visitors while keeping an eye peeled to ensure nothing dodgy occurs on the premises. I also work the hospital switchboard, and those two entrancing tasks fill out the receptionist portion of my paycheck. Since whomever has their warm tush planted firmly in that uncomfortably salmon-esque piece of Swedish-born plastic is also considered to be the entire admitting department, I’m the faceless drone who takes care of all the boring paperwork generated whenever a new patient is admitted. This is the only portion of my job that entails real work, and invariably leads to about an hour or so’s worth of mindless paper-shuffling whenever a new guest chooses to grace us with their presence. Weekends are fairly slow, which means as the de facto weekend shift guy I often get paid twelve-fifty an hour to sit around and amuse myself.
Pretty sweet gig.
Back to the mood thing. I felt it was necessary to state that because really, why else would I take the time to pen such a laborious piece of copy (essentially to myself) than to commiserate a sad state of affairs? The communal nature of interactive media seems custom-tailored to anonymous wanking; one need look no further than my outdated and disconsolate livejournal friends list for proof.
Wow. I was just gonna write a sentence or two as a bit of a rambling precursor, and I’m already up to over a page. Epic fail.
Fuck it. I was looking at the CSU’s International Program, and if I’m lucky enough to get in and meet the qualifications for studying abroad I’m gonna go for it. The only downside is that the only place I really had my heart set on was Japan, and they start their semester of exchange in the fall (September, to be exact.) Nothing troubling about that, until I point out that they require you to be an enrolled CSU student the fall semester preceding the semester of departure. For those of you unaware of how a basic college semester system works, that means that if I attended one of the CSU's next fall I would be unable to take part in the program until the following year. That puts me (ideally) in my last year of college. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it means I’d have to wait over a year when I really want to get going now. Things could change in eighteen months, I could lose the courage to take this opportunity or just change my mind altogether. Still, I’m gonna try for it. I’m hoping to attend San Francisco State in the fall anyway, and that ought to be enough of a scenery change for one year.
I keep getting these backhanded remarks from friends about why I want to leave. I know the chances of having enough readers to require the use of both hands to keep track (more than five, for all the amputees out there) are fairly slim, but while I can’t count on this being a high-traffic site I can reliably predict that everyone who allows these words to burn their way into the tender bits of their hippocampus might have at one time counted themselves among my close associates. That uncomfortable and unwieldy bit of prose out of the way, I feel I can confidently address the reader directly: I want to leave because of you.
No, seriouslyforrealz hear me out kthx. I’ll undoubtedly get shit for posting that, so let’s at least try to make sure it’s the proper vintage of fecal matter before we go wantonly hurling it about like chimps at a hoedown.
You’re great. No, really. We’ve had a great run; I’ve certainly enjoyed our time together, and I’ll always treasure the memories. The problem isn’t you.
It’s me.
Grandiose posturing and sly Dear John references aside, I just don’t enjoy myself very much around the majority of my friends anymore. To be honest this is to be expected; I count my circle of “friends” as being as large as fifteen to thirty people at times, yet the majority of those fine folks were introduced to me as friends of others whom I was acquainted with. Like ships passing in the night, we saw each other often yet never truly gained the measure of one another. As I’ve gotten older, it’s become less and less important to have my presence be enjoyed or even desired by these people, and so my efforts to pander to their sensibilities have slackened. In doing so, I’ve simply made the differences in our own personal tastes more apparent.
Wow, that’s a weighty bit of bullshit. I keep taking these little paragraph breaks to remind myself to (metaphorically speaking) take a breath and move on.
What I wrote above is certainly far from blanket truth. There are a number of people whose company I honestly enjoy, and I often feel guilty that I bring the mood down or don’t entertain like I used to; irregardless, even these fine souls don’t mean much in the long run because the majority are never interested in actually doing anything. My mother often bemoans my complaints of inaction, unable to grasp how a group of physically fit young college students with all their functional appendages intact can manage to find absolutely nothing to do on a weekday evening. It’s gotten harder and harder to find excuses to justify our inaction over the years, and finally I’ve just stopped trying to bullshit her. It’s because the majority of my peer base are losers. And if most of my friends are losers, what does that say about me?
C’mon, honestly. We don’t need to drink to enjoy ourselves. We don’t need to smoke copious quantities of quasi-medicinal herbs to enjoy ourselves. We don’t even need a roof over our heads to enjoy ourselves, and we sure as fuck don’t need money. All that is required is the desire to experience the world around us and the brazen, beautiful foolishness to act on those desires.
I’m rambling again. The point is, the reason I want so badly to do well this semester and travel somewhere else for schooling is two-fold:
I want to start accomplishing something meaningful. I’m 22, and I ought to start acting like it.
I want to enjoy life again, and at this point for me that apparently entails attempting a diverse amount of interesting activities.
I’m not the type to deny my subconscious what it wants, and I’m tired of trying to motivate my peers to do anything outside of their comfort zone. It seems the more and more insistent I’ve become, the less and less my presence is desired by these people. It might just be my imagination, but such a phenomenon would be absolutely understandable if true. I know I haven’t been much fun to hang around with these last six months or so, and I’m not sure I’d invite myself to most gatherings. All the more reason for me to broaden my circle of acquaintances and get the hell out of this town, really. I love California, and I adore Fullerton; that being said, I don’t want to spend the rest of my days here.
Whoa. I’ve got a metric crapton more I wanted to set down, but I think two pages single-spaced is pushing it. Plus, I get to go home in like, ten minutes. Not a bad way to kill an hour.
I’m growing weary of trying to excuse myself, but I think this is important enough to tack on: if you feel the above doesn’t apply to you, then it probably doesn’t. If you’re not sure, well then it still probably doesn’t, but only because I’m so awesome. If you think I am writing about you, and are (justifiably) irritated or confused, feel free to boldly bring it up the next time we hang out. That’ll be in like what, a week and a half? Try not to forget.
Gotta send out my transcripts tomorrow.
Guess I'd better pay taxes, too.
Yeah, still in a good mood.
EDIT: I just realized I printed out the Pimp rulesheet, then left it on the printer at work. That's gonna be interesting to explain...
OH HOH HOH HOH!
9:14 PM |
Category: |
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comments
Comments (4)
Wow, that was quite a lot to say, and I can’t really think of how to say all of what needs to be said with out also saying a lot. While I can't exactly say your opinion comes as a big surprise (I would like to think we know you that well at least.) I truly am sad about how you really see us, and while I know you did not mean it an all together mean way it still hurts, and you likely put up the excuse as a base way for either protection our own self delusions i.e. if we don’t think of ourselves as losers we can just assume you were talking about someone else. While it is true I can not argue the point about the general state of the activities that we do, I am sad that you think that we are not accomplishing anything making us in your mind losers. I know it is long but I do ask that you read this whole thing as while it still may be a bit of rambling from the state I write it in I think the point is lost if you don’t read the whole thing, if you don’t like it or think there is something seriously wrong with what I say tell me, don’t B.S. I see that as more a sign of friendship then a polite lie and another step away mentally. (that and while this is mostly from myself I could argue the same for most people in our group and that I write from what I know best)
First we are not doing the things that you would consider exciting and constructive from your point of view, I say this not as an excuse from my general lack of activities but because unlike you (apparently) I truly believe it to be true, for me as well as at least a few others, sure I have not accomplished all that I have wished to accomplished but I am still working towards it I am constantly doing something new and exciting in my studies and learning which is something I bring up a lot when we meet but is generally not a big point of interest for you or anyone else in the group. Yet the reason I bring them up is not just because it is something to talk about in an otherwise empty block of time or a bit of self centeredness talk about myself but because it is what I know and something I truly enjoy, I plan to do this for the rest of my life and if I do nothing else it would not seem a waste to me. I am still working towards my goal of being an inventor even if I sometimes lament about how little I have actually accomplished in making this a reality, I have not given up and only work to make it a reality. I won’t be dissuade by whatever lulls or lack obstacles I come to
As far as physical activities yes it is true I am overall a rather timid individual overall something that bugs me to no ends and am not one for jumping out of planes or running around late at night knocking over mailboxes, or hell even just talking to a lot of people I even know, all things that can be done for free, and truth be told I have no idea why. I am also not so good with social interactions for whatever reasons it may be personality, hearing difficulties, mental disorder, lack of experience or whatever. I also find I have different ideas of what constitutes as fun overall from you in general judging by your given suggestions (although I don’t think all our commonalities are so strained). Yet the biggest underlying part of why I don’t do things like run to the beach at 1 in the morning is simply I am also truly worn out and exhausted, and wish for nothing more then the presence and company of my friends at the end of the day (which you may note I am usually willing to do even at the expense of a proper sleep pattern), even if alls we do is sit around and talk about things that are not really important in the grander scheme of things. As for why I am tired there is a myriad of reasons I go to school full time in while I can not say for me is an extremely challenging subject it is still a lot of work (They expect 70 hours a week according to their own 25 to 30 hours of work outside of school that they keep telling us is necessary to succeed, even if I only give 40 to 50), I am working part time (average of 22 hrs a week figured from my hourly wage and yearly income) in a job that if I am not constantly working I am set home, and yet I am applying for a second part time job as we speak because frankly my family and I are poor and yet we don’t always live like it, the Sunday lunches and the movies we go to are seriously a financial strain on our family we are that poor, don’t feel guilty about it or even think we should stop but we could not be really happy if we didn’t do these kind of things we would just be a family constantly working just to make ends meet, never doing anything fun. So while money may not seem like a key issue it can be if you consider if I don’t work I don’t eat and not in a metaphorical manner. (And yes I think I manage my money well still I spend less then 20% of my overall income on frivolous things and that includes my laptop, eating out, and the likes)
I know this is more of a side note but I can’t help mentioning it because yes it is overall important to why I do things the way I do, and I am not doing this for sympathy just so you get the full weight of why I say the things I do. Yeah some of our ‘financial and therefore my energy’ problems can be solved if say my father was as of now more proactive (which he is slowly becoming more and more again), but I know why it is hard for him to be, all of his life he has worked hard, I grew up thinking he was one of the hardest working people I knew, he worked 10+ hours a day 6 days a week for all my life growing up, and yet he was still constantly there to spend time with his family. Yet at every upturn our family took we then had an uncontrollable downturn weather it be as recently were no one will hire him since despite the fact that he demonstrates an ability to run circles around most tech people, has over 30 years of experience, is willing to work for comparatively little, yet no one will hire him since alls he has is a GED, his experience is considered negative considering he ran the business and did not have a boss, or the fact that we keep getting more and more debt because of things we could not control such as the fact as the van, when it was reposseded the bank took it back sold it for almost no money and charged us a premium interest fee for it (we now owe $14000 on a car we bought for $8000 and poured over $6000 into) or the thousands of dollars the blank just happened to misplace and never reimbursed us for because they consider the error inconsequential and figured fighting us in court would be cheaper for them in the long run since we can’t keep up the legal fees (we have a letter from them that says as much in a less obvious way), or the fact that we were sued for the damages in the house we were in previously in because of the damages that were present before we even moved in, yet the court ruled in their favor because we did not have time stamp documentation of it before we moved in with a third party lawyer, or because all his clients have to be treated lightly because he is a consultant who is just trying to keep clients (i.e. no paying up fronts, or third party collections agency) and many just refuse to pay him later or disappear (for example just last week he found out the lawyer he did work for a few month ago that he keeps calling his office to get paid they finally told him that he had disappeared and no one even knows where he is.). My father has gone through more then a few start up and failures of his business, so I can see why he is a little depressed over the whole ordeal. Yet he has taken it far better than most anyone else I can think of would yeah 4ish years of varying depression (Along with an actual failing in health that is only in part due to his state of mind) he is back on the upturn he is looking for more work he is going to school full time to get that degree everyone sees as so important and even starting to do little things around the house again such as cook dinner while everyone else is out even if is not always consistent. Finally before you get the wrong idea we are doing a lot better now (less then 10K of debt now, and trying to find someplace to move into even if it has to be cheap.)
Yet for all that I can’t say anything but the fact that me and my family really are happy (with the occasional minor compared to the average bout of depression that some of my family is prone to, and maybe Mitchell who is in much the same straights as you but is less proactive about fixing it) sure we are tired from everything that has happened and continues to happen, but we still look back and see all the good parts, the fun we had, the family that took us in when we would otherwise be homeless the friends that were true and encouraging and the accomplishments that we have made knowing that they were still important even if it was just to make some people happy when they otherwise wouldn’t be (My parents still say if they could redo it they would still invite all of you guys over everyday just so everyone could have a place they could see as second home, and all the plans we have for future events invariable include how we can continue to do things like that). I just can’t look back and say that everything I have done was worthless, that it was all a mistake, or even that it was entirely boring, because I could have done things differently (even if there were things we would hopefully be smarter about if we knew the consequences better). Nor can I look to the future and not see a bright path filled with promise and wonder. This is the main reason I call you a pessimist not because you say things will turn up negatively but because you always focus on the bad things or minimize or distort the good you are bored and dissatisfied with life and yourself when one from a different perspective could say you are living a full and interesting life and still working towards something better, I mean come on you are still going for an education in something you vaguely enjoy (something less then 10% of the world can claim), you go out with your friends even if the time spent with them is not particularly remarkable (missing the fact that we are not so superficial of friends to split any time a little difference comes up something many people don’t have, and yes we still can recount many fun and exciting things we have done), you do a lot and live in an interesting time that many in the world would be envious of but you cant see as anything more then less then you want or boring, you are no better then Julius Caesar after he had become a prominent player in Rome at the age of 30 when he broke down and wept when he saw Alexander the greats statue because he could not bear to think that he had not accomplished all that he had wished to by the time he wanted to as he saw Alexander to have done (Sorry for the odd historical bit but I thought it a good way to exemplify the situation). From the way things are you will continue to be unhappy, you will be exactly like my boss that even if you get something great, or do something great and exciting you will find some way to nitpick it death and still be unhappy. I am not saying that it is not good to look for something better for a way to constantly strive to be better, and accomplish all that you can, but rather that how you see the world now will reflect in how you see the world then, even if you can find a small temporary thrill you will soon find that boring and your increasing desire for more and different excitements will leave you still just wanting more after less and less time satisfied.
In conclusion I love you as a friend and will still consider you a friend, I enjoy your company even now, you are intelligent, funny, and can be a lot of fun even if you are also sometime dour, pessimistic, and critical. I wish you the best of luck in trying to find something exciting to do and do not discourage it, I want you to be happy but I honestly don’t think it is possible if you stay the way you are, and it is more then a change of scenery and friends that you require if you want something different. We will all miss you when you leave, and hope for you to stay in contact and eventually come back.
Your Friend,
Joshua Tanner
lolz. Long post is looonnngg.
I don't see much point in responding to what was posted above, because quite frankly little of it addresses the original subject matter.
Not that that's a bad thing, I'm just not interested in carrying on an in-depth discussion regarding the frail and fleeting brilliance of our young lives via internet messageboards.
Dude you went off on a weird and (to my eyes) totally unrelated tangent to what it was I originally wrote about. Your family's personal business is just that, and I don't think I ever called any of it into question. I know life's an absolute rollercoaster for you guys, and if I haven't made my abject gratitude for what you have done for us abundantly clear then that's to my shame.
That being said, I hope you can understand why I sometimes get awfully tired of hearing all this silver-lining optimism rigamarole. Optimism is great; you feel better, live longer and are just plain happier in general when you have a generally upbeat attitude. There is a line, however, over which simple enthusiasm and good-natured cheer becomes willful ignorance to a blatantly unpleasant situtation. Frankly, I'm not comfortable dancing as close to that line as you are; when I'm happy, I'm happy. When I'm irritated, I'm irritated and I'm not going to let the ratio of those two general states affect how I perceive the world around me.
Whoa, you gotta stop letting me do this. I meant to scrabble out like a sentence or three, tops. To sum up, I appreciate the thoughtful response but you strayed waayyy off topic and quite frankly I need to be in bed in less than an hour.
Still, I can see that perhaps you might be right in implying I'm too pessimistic; after all, today was shaping up to be pretty crappy, but then it turns out my friends decided to do something almost completely spontaneous and just go out and find something fun to do. I didn't think I'd be able to join them, but it turns out I over-estimated how much work had to be done tonight and by putting in a bit of extra effort, I managed to get everything I needed to take care of for tomorrow done with a few hours of evening left to spare. Now all that's left is to wait for my friends to hit me up and let me know what they're up to tonight, and I'm off to enjoy a rare night of (near) spontaneous social interaction. Can't wait!
Oh, wait ;)
Yeah I kind of agree I rambled there but it wasn't really off topic just kinda forgot to put the closing connections.
Simple Conclusion:
1.) I don't randomly go out and do things because I can neither afford to or have the energy to, what I do is enough already I am looking for the company of my friends not the next exciting event.
2.) While I can only give personal examples the reasoning behind our lack of up and at em attitudes are not always because we don't want to or are lame.
3.) And while it looks like a lot of bad stuff I don't consider it really bad I am actually pretty happy. I may be physically tired from the work that I feel I have to do, but I am still working towards what I want, I have great friends and a large list of other reasons I should be and am happy.
See that was short enough
As far as the part about optimism it isn't blindness to the bad its the outlook one has about anything. You will always be able to look at something and say it could be better or magnify the bad till it is all you see, so why not enjoy what is actually good there and focus on that (not ignore the bad but realize there is still a lot of good and can be a lot of good). Anything more than that will be a lot longer so we can argue about the merits of that later.
Hey Alex,
A note to say a couple of things:
1. I enjoy your style of writing. Yes, very witty and dry. I still recount your high school "Waffle" story to my friends. ;)
2. I know of a guy (I met his wife) who hitchhiked across the Sahara. Met some cool people, had some exciting runs, and now his wife is urging him to write a book about it. Apparently he was in Barcelona (?) and got homesick, ran out of money and called home. Mom said, nope, stick it out, and so out of desperation stuck out his thumb. Did it all by himself.
So yes, go out and do something! I used to ride the bus by myself just for interesting moments. Granted I also had friends who were willing to do mini-trips with me, but then again, you can expand (not lose!) your circle of friends. I've fed the homeless, spent time at an orphanage, hitchhiked, and other various activities without my friends, and you have the freedom to do the same. You can share it with them later by verbal communications if not by experience.
I'll miss you while you are gone, pray for you, and hope you'll communicate with us as you scratch your itching feet.
Much love, Tannermom