Why do I do what I do?

My English class is probably the biggest cake class that I will ever have the fortune of taking in college and I took it for that reason. I wanted a GPA booster, and I got it. The class is basically us doing reading (or not, the reading is totally not necessary) then going to class where the professor summarizes EVERYTHING we would possibly need to know about the reading. Three tests, no final, one paper. I got a 98 on the first test. Cake.

The paper is due on Friday. All it is, is five pages, explaining how something influenced the writer to write a short-story. I'm doing Religion's influence on "Araby". Sooooo easy. But I can't get myself to get off my lazy ass and write it. Why? I have no freaking idea. I have my sources, I have ideas. I could probably bang this thing out in an hour. Instead, I waste hours on facebook, formspring, twitter, blogger, craigslist and finally stumble (yes that is my order and yes I do look at craigslist, don't judge). After that I usually ponder about my future, wonder if I am doing enough, fret that I'm not, insist that I must be and then start the cycle over again.

Someone slap me?

Oh! To further my means of procrastination, I have put my Kindle to good use. I bought A Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood today. It's a dystopic novel about a future society of barren women, and what happens to the fertile ones. I like it.

Snow!

UVMers love snow.

Yesterday we got out first snow storm and it was great to see everyone on campus acting like little kids again. Random snowball fights bro

ke out. Numerous snowmen were made. Not to mention the copious amount of people I saw with sleds ready to throw away homework and ride down a hill. To top it all off there was a snowball war last night. Quite literary, the entire campus came out to play in the snow and throw snowballs at anything that moved.

Photos people took around campus:

Tour of my room.

The video below is pretty useless. What can I say, I was bored.

RIP Fish Number 1

Death is a strange thing.

I recently purchased three fish and a swanky new tank to put them in. I read that it was very feng shui to have two gold fish and one black fish in a tank, so I bought two white fish with little red blobs on their head and one black fish. They represented the colors of the schools I am applying to, dorky I know.

I don't particularly like fish. I don't like to touch them and I wince when I have to touch their tank water but I need life in my room and because I can't go out and adopt a dog, I turned to man's next best friend, the fish.

For a month their life continued swimmingly. They knew that when I turned the light on in the morning fish flakes would rain from the heavens and that if they stared at me long enough while I was doing my homework I would give them a little more food at night. I like to think that they thought of me as a caretaker and that although their memory only lasted for about 5 seconds, that somehow I was remembered.

Yesterday I left my room in the morning to three very happy fish and came back in the afternoon to two happy fish and one distressed finless fish trying to wiggle around the tank. Needless to say, the finless fish died sometime last night and I buried him in the toilet bowl this morning. I swear the two remaining fish are grieving.

I often ponder the idea of destiny. Was my fish destined to have its fins ripped off? I'm not sure. But I like to think that by sacrificing its life it served a larger purpose that will be felt around the world. Its death caused me to write this. It's possible that when people read it they will think about death, tell their loved ones they love them, maybe donate some money to a charity. Essentially it could be because of my fish that someone falls asleep with a full stomach tomorrow. The butterfly effect.

Then again it could have died because it simply wasn't smart enough to stay away from the filter.

Death is a strange thing.

Back to the old Bump and Grind...with a twist here and there

It seems to be my turn to tell you all what its like to be back at UVM. First off its odd. It took me a few days to remember the little things about college. Like how people pop in and out of rooms constantly and how it's completely normal to have a conversation about breakfast while in the shower. It was a relief though to walk through my door the first time and have that feeling of "ahh I'm home". Everything was just as I had left it which is probably my favorite thing about coming back from a prolonged vacation. No matter how long you leave, when you come back you can simply pick up where you left off and go.

Before vacation I thought a lot about how my home will never really be my home again. I assume that I'll always be welcomed there, but I won't be living there for

more then a few months at a time which will slowly decrease to a few weeks which will then whither away to holidays and family gatherings. I find this extremely weird. Sometimes I forget that I'm aging, growing up if you will, and that one day I will wake up and have my own house with my own family and hopefully a job that I like. But before all that I need to graduate college.

I'm taking 16 credits this semester and after this semester will be 5 credits away from being a Junior. This is assuming that all of my credits transfer and whatever school I end up at has the same credit guide as mine does. That probably won't happen, but I'm ahead of the game so I figure if nothing else I'll come out even. I'm taking Biology (with an NJ native, english speaking TA!!) and right now we are breeding fruit flies in order to play with genetics. At the end of the class we have to kill the flies, which I'm pretty okay with but I feel like they are slowing desensitizing us to killing larger creatures. I've heard horror stories about my rat back cracking aunt and am not sure if I could do that but I assume I'll tackle it when it comes. I'm also taking Chemistry (shoot me), Eastern Religion (Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism), Types of Literature, Jogging for Fitness, and most recently Catamount Singers. I'm really excited about the last one, its a nine person mostly senior music majors choir...and me. Its going to be tough but I am absolutely thrilled to be back in music.

Vermont is almost horrifyingly warm. The snow melted, and I don't need the 17 layers I brought with me. Sometimes I enjoy global warming, but at the same time it would be really nice to go sledding. The pictures above are of what it should look like...it doesn't.

While I wait for my Chinese food I think I will write a blog.

First and Foremost:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

I spent my New Years in the City with my best friend Serena. We met in fifth grade (and I hated her) then she moved to Florida in 7th grade and we've been best buds ever since. She goes to AMDA (American Musical Dramatic Academy) and is an aspiring actor. I give her props - thats a tough field. A few months ago she proposed the idea of spending New Years together. I was given the opportunity of a free night in the city and I simply couldn't pass it up. The plan was to see a show then watch the ball drop and then chill with her friends for a bit however once we realized that after midnight I wouldn't be allowed back in the building the plans changed. I figured it was better to be inside during the countdown then have to sleep on the streets for a night (although that probably would have been a wonderful adventure) so we spent the night just hanging with her friends in their dorms (which was actually an old dilapidated apartment building) and had a blast. At one point we headed to central park and had a snow ball fight but I was paranoid about having a place to sleep so we went back fairly quickly. After the ball dropped, the boys hung half of themselves out of the window 8 stories up and cheered for about 10 minutes and we all hung out some more before ending the night at 3AM.

It was so neat, since all of the people at AMDA are artsy majors "hanging out" consists of blasting music and belting harmonies. Everyone there trumped me but I tried to keep up. I was so happy to be around artsy musical people again.

Today Serena and I woke up at 9AM so that I could catch the 10:11 train home but I ended up spending the day in the city with her. I went for a little walk around the block alone in the morning and realized just how beautiful the city can be. I never experienced residential New York before, only touristy New York and I was surprised with how much I loved it. So much so that I'm going to look up some colleges I can transfer to in the city. After my little escapade, we saw Strawberry Fields, and spent hours in the Natural History Museum. It was an absolutely wonderful day and I was so happy to spend it with such a good friend.

As far as new years resolutions are concerned, I have a few.

1. Only eat when I am actually hungry.
2. Get more involved on Campus.
3. Ace 3/4 classes (I can't ask to much of chemistry)
4. Get into some schools and weigh my options

One last thing, it's so neat to think that some of the people I spent New Years with will one day be famous actors/singers/producers. I really hope that one day I can tell people that not only did I know that person, I celebrated 2010 with him/her.

Its going to be a good year.

So not only am I Lost...

...I'm also kinda obsessed with a serial killer.

After Chelsea's post I realized how much I missed being obsessed with a television drama. Lost isn't on for awhile so I turned to Dexter. The show is about a serial killer who kills other serial killers. Here's my thought process on it:

The main character is a serial killer who kills other serial killers. The inconsistency lies in whether or not the main character can be considered moral and whether serial killers have a right to life.

P1: Killing people is not moral

P2: Dexter Kills people

C: Dexter is not moral

But

Many people believe that it is moral to kill serial killers via death penalty. This implies that serial killers do not have a right to life. Can Dexter really be considered immoral for killing serial killers if serial killers do not have a right to life?

If Dexter was caught he would be considered a serial killer. Inference tells us that therefore, Dexter does not have a right to life. But Dexter only kills a being that also do not have a right to life. Therefore he can not technically be considered a "killer" because he has not killed anything that has a right to life and so Dexter retains his right to life.

Can Dexter be considered immoral for killing something that does not have a right to life? Can you be considered immoral for killing a fly which (presumably) does not have a right to life? I would say no. This leaves me with the opinion that Dexter is doing nothing wrong and is morally justified to kill the serial killers. However, murder is still not morally correct and therefore I am left with an inconsistency as to whether or not to "like" Dexter and I am only two episodes in.

Its kinda a lot like batman. Dexter is a person who breaks moral rules in order to help society. The question is whether society is willing to let a person break the rules.

This probably wasn't the best thing to do right before finals because I find myself thinking about it more often then about my impending exams. However I feel like I logically thought it through so I'm going to say that in watching Dexter I am also studying for Philosophy.