I’ve been quite slack about posting lately, mostly because I’m not really sure what to say. I’ve just been busy with school, work and the radio station. It’s all interesting to me, but not the kind of interesting that makes me feel compelled to write about it.
The satisfactions are small, but not to be discounted – encountering a new idea in an article, finding a perfect quotation to support a theory, moments of competence at work. I’m still working out how best to balance work, school and loafing.
Fortunately, I have no social life to worry about, at least not here in Madison. It’s funny....I do vaguely recall having had social skills at some point in my life, and still have the old friends to prove it, but I seem to have checked them at the Wisconsin border. Some of it’s just being busy, and consequently lazy about socializing. Even when I have the chance to go out with people, I usually would rather just go home, be by myself and rest. And then, I wonder why I haven’t made any close friends here...
There is definitely something about Madison though...I’ve been here nearly two years now, but have fewer friends than I did after a month in Manila (where I was equally busy), or really pretty much anywhere else I’ve ever spent more than a week. I suppose it’s because I didn’t come to Madison because of any interest in the people here.
In any case, my (non-superficial) contacts with other humans have been boiled down to communication with people who I already have close enough relationships with to communicate with long distance or travel hours to visit, and who tolerate me no matter how strange, intense, spastic or withdrawn I become. So, I’m afraid, I’ll only get worse until I finish school, and, with luck, go somewhere very, very far from here.
In the meantime, look for me at the library. But don’t expect to find me, especially now that I’m working there and have keys to even more isolated and far away rooms than ever.