Purpose

School has definitely taken some adjusting to (and will probably take more adjusting to in the coming weeks and months). It is only now, a few weeks from Thanksgiving break, that I think I'm beginning to find myself feeling comfortable here on a more than somehat consistent basis. I've spent a lot of time talking to my room/suite mates, as well as some other guys from the Honors class. I still don't feel nearly as integrated as I would have liked to feel right now, but there's been an improvement. I'm enjoying it.

With my growing sense of comfortably in New Jersey, these past few days have filled me with a sense of how quickly time seems to go by when one isn't waiting on something. When I was in my long-distance "relationship" with the embryo (she turned 16 in June, and is younger than my little brother who's a sophomore in high school this year- I feel dirty, and that's before the sexual fetishes) time seemed to move by really, really slowly. Days would go by a few at a time, but it always seemed to be September (which it was). Now, honestly, I don't know where October has gone.

With a little bit of help from that girl with a vaguely Victorian sounding name, I'm remembering where I was only a year ago. Making some of the worst moral decisions of my life with Embryo, trying to figure out where on earth I wanted to go to college, and generally having no sense of perspective on the world. Now I don't claim to have any great perspective on the world after two and a half months in New Jersey, but my life, and my perspective, has certainly changed. Eric Miller, formerly of Kickapoo high school and currently of Seton Hall, recently achieved an internship with Media Global, who does a lot of reporting on the United Nations. While going to his interview, he actually bumped shoulders with the Secretary General of the UN. He's two years older than me.

As I look ahead toward my life, I can't really begin to say what I'll do, where I'll live, who I'll be with, or even what I'll be. It seems that there's one thing in particular that's just starting to peak over the next hill: adulthood. It's always been one of those things that'll happen to me someday, and it still seems far off, but it seems much closer now. As that transition comes closer, I begin to wonder how I want to make an impact on the world throughout my adult life. In scheduling meetings with the dean, sitting and talking to my Honors professor's office about the Bush Doctrine for an hour and a half as he introduced me to upperclassmen that stopped by to say hi as his "favorite student", even in keeping a bit of my own schedule, I'm filled with a sense that there is a certain way things should be done.

As I find myself actually having obligations, I really, more than ever before, am beginning to understand how one should be considerate of another's time, actually care if somebody went to the trouble of reading and commenting on your paper, and actually listen to what people that I know know more than me have to say. I find myself paying more attention to how my professors act, how they behave, how they speak, even how they dress. It is, quite frankly, a wonderful experience. Even though I don't know what I'll be doing, or where, or how, I believe now in the importance of doing it right. Of caring about how one interacts with the rest of the world. Of having a purpose.