S[t]imulation

I just peeked into my floormates playing Skyrim. Holy shit.

This brings me to my next point: I will die without having digested every delectable bit of media out there I would so love to consume.

I've always loved video games. I am, after all, a boy who grew up in the 2000s. There are so many massive and finely crafted video games that would entrench my consciousness for dozens of hours, if I played them all, I would have no time for anything else in my life. I've bought 3 video games this year, 2 of which have bogged me down significantly in the weeks in which I devoted myself to them. I can't simply play games at a tepid pace, they must be beaten fast and furiously, with urgency and prioritization of the fate of whatever fictional world I'm exploring over that of my own well being. Seeing, only for a moment, a friend of mine, playing Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, I saw what could be sixty fewer dollars and a couple hundred fewer hours of my life. I could, but I won't. I'll restrain, and I'll miss out on a beautifully made fantasy world that was designed for the sole purpose of me to enjoy exploring it. Additionally, I could do this at no risk at all to my actual self, aside from gaining a few pounds maybe.

My senior year, I fell in love with music. I have specific groups or artists whom I do not miss. On the flip side of this, I have artists who, while I acknowledge I'd probably like them, I skip out on to keep my circle tidy. I don't have time on this earth to listen to every last song. This fact saddens me, because each song could be the one that provides a new feeling of comfort or enjoyment. And I let most of it slip through the broad cracks.

I also just finished The Wire. I cannot deny now that I have spent at least 88.5 hours in the past four months watching that show. It's checked off the top of the list. Now comes the rest of the list of television productions I want to thoroughly explore.

I read a book once, I'd like to take the time to do it again, if I could ever find it. Reading gave me a feeling of accomplishment and positivity that the other media don't provide. It also made me yawn and fall asleep early.

People spend lots of time on smartphones, if they've got them. People frequent games such as Angry Birds, Words With Friends, Four Square, and countless other network creations. I am panicking here. I cannot imagine allowing myself to indulge in such time consuming stimulative yet entirely meaningless side forays. I spend enough of my time jerking off Twitter and Facebook to tire me out for the day.

Class! Have you guys seen this shit? Unrealistic reading assignments, for one class per week, let alone four (or five or six). I'm taking a class in which they literally expect me to be able to recall and analyze moderate-to-major events of a 2500-year period. I have another class in which I consistently get 5-out-of-10s on my current events quizzes. And I work 15 hours a week. Yet they somehow expect me to write a novel in papers over the course of a semester. And yet I somehow expect myself to oblige.

Shit, I can't remember the last time I saw a movie in theaters. It was, maybe, X-men First Class? Which I saw twice. Over summer. When I had nothing to do. I see all these movies coming out to up and down ratings, all the work that actors and actresses I gravitate toward being thrown into a pile known as movie to-do lists. And yet all I really wanna do is watch Black Dynamite again.

I enjoy people. I like being around them, interacting with them, and getting satisfaction from improving their mood. I like the feeling of tipsiness that comes over me when I've had a few alcoholic drinks. I like the word "score" in the context of obtaining something, whether used by patrons old or young. I miss the shenanigans and endeavors of the middle-school child. I miss being in the middle of responsibility and risk-free adventurousness. I miss climbing. I miss falling. I miss not realizing the danger of environment. I want to seek out such feelings of liberation with people I enjoy the company of.

All this and I'm supposed to remember to pray before bed.

Sleep is such a comforting feeling. It is more so now than it was then. It used to mean the end of getting to do stuff. Now it means the end of having to do stuff. Such is the difference in leading a life rife with responsibility. The freshman fifteen missed me last year, this year it's gone straight to my eyes. I yearn for respite and am greeted each morning with a feeling of overwhelming. I am fighting a war against my bucket list, and I am losing as it grows to disheartening lengths.

Balancing out the necessary with the enjoyable is what makes adults adults. That responsibility, that resistance to doing nothing but work and Six Flags for the rest of your life, that's awfully hard to accept. In college, I feel (I hope) this sensation is magnified. It's all being shined on for the purposes of conditioning us, so that when we get out of here, we find ourselves with a nickel of time at the end of the day to sit back sip our own Kool-Aid. We learned how to get our work done quick, and now we have time to breathe each day. Or maybe not. Maybe this stimulus overload is something of a superhighway from this world to the next.

And to think, we have the balls to want to create.

--Eliot Sill

GI Joe's and College Apps.

I love senior year. It's the best. There's absolutely no parallel in all of anything. It's like you can do things and seem like a mature person and you can do things and seem like a young kid. Both are okay. For instance, only in senior year can you make a campus visit, have a serious talk about your future with a college advisor, come home, go throw yourself down a slip 'n' slide for two hours, then go to work and earn a decent paycheck. You can never act too old or too young.

Fact: I have a box of GI Joe's by my toilet that I play with during my spare time when I take dumps.

Fact: I have a good reputation as a hard-working busboy at a Country Club. I treat members respectfully and they commend my good behavior and work ethic.

Fact: I have gotten drunk while staying up until three in the morning playing Super Mario Galaxy 2 with both of my older brothers on more than one occasion.

Fact: I run three to five times a week, along with carrying out a steady push-up/crunch regiment to keep myself in passable shape.

Fact: Yesterday I was playing with GI Joe's and using the bathroom while talking to a financial aid advisor at the University of Illinois about my epic fuck-up I referenced last week. (Long story short: What's my name?)

I think you get the point. The point we're at now in our lives is a perfect cross between maturity and relishing these last moments of childhood. The phrase "act your age" has almost no bearing on me because I might go to a symphony performance or play an hour of Robot Unicorn Attack when faced with that prompt.

Going forward through senior year summer, we have time for the bitter-sweetness and the nostalgia, but in these last breaths of childhood air, we have the opportunity to act like dumbasses for the last time. We made it through whatever educational path we chose, but soon we enter the transitional phase where education transforms into a working career. As of now the two are totally separate. So as I cross the bridge between childhood and adulthood, ready to be an adult, I go down it looking forward, but make no mistake, I have eyes in the back of my head. A four-eyed creature, savoring the past and salivating at the future.

Only kids can act like monsters.

--Eliot Sill