New Blogland

So I've had my old blog for well over a year now, and I think now's about time to start a new one. This is a common practice of mine, to stop using my last blog every year or so, and my last one has been around for about a year and 5 months.

Just looking at the titles of my blogs over the last five/six years (I don't know what it is), I can definitely see the progression that my life has taken just on that account. I would love to take a few days to just go and read every last entry that I've ever made, but just getting all of those resources together will be trying enough.

I have a tradition whenever I start a new blog to give a brief description of my life as it is right now and finally as to why I chose the title for the blog that I have chosen.

I am...
The Hiding Amaranth. The amaranth is a flower that comes from a family of weeds (daisies are weeds to so don't get all biological on me). The name comes from the Greek word amarantos, which means "one that never fades". If there's anything in my life that I think I am, it's pretty unfading, and that's the direction I aim to be going. My last blog was excelsior for my desire to go ever upward, and I still have that goal, but being the amaranth can enable me to be strong too, unfettered by the powers of the world. To be hiding is to reveal myself to no one. Even though I talk about a LOT in these blogs, I know that to be the Hiding Amaranth is, for the next year at least, my goal.

A plain, maybe sickly looking male of nearly 21. I weight 153 pounds, about 10 less than 15 months ago. There's nothing really stunning about my physical appearance worth noting. Perhaps it may be worth mentioning that I am slowly turning into Darth Vader with my dressing habits. Three weeks from today marks the slaughter of all many of the short sleeves that I have left. My legs haven't seen the sun in...3 years, I don't think my torso's ever seen the sun, and my arms will become the next body part to be forever obscured.

Figuring out the number of languages it is that I'm going to someday speak. Right now, I obviously speak English, but I also speak Spanish pretty fluently and I'm getting to that level in French REALLY quickly. I've been playing around with Latin for the last two years or so, and I'm planning on learning the other Romance languages on my own within the next two years. The plan is right now to be novalingual.

Serious. I figure if anything is worth taking serious, it has to be life. If there's anything that I've learned in my life, it has to be that in order to prevent one's self from being hurt (by anyone else or from one's self), one has to take everything seriously. My experiences have definitely dictated this course of action for me.

Socially Awkward. I do not form relationships well at all. Part of this is because I delibrately refuse to disclose much personal information, so I look like a robot. I have so many things that I'd like to say, but on the first part, most of them are inappropriate for someone in my position to be saying, and secondly, I know that if I say them I would be judged in such a way as to be disadvantageous to me. I don't want pity. Thus, whenever I am in that odd negotiating stage with someone else, I refuse to compromise by providing potential vulnerabilities.

Dedicated. I think there's little doubt here. When I latch onto something, I tend to latch pretty hardly. For most of my life this has been school. This is my distinction. I may have these negative qualities--social awkwardness, isolation, pessimissiveness--but when it comes to academia, I don' think there are as many people around as me who have done what I am doing, frankly. There are a few, and I'm quite lucky to have known some of them (including some readers of my blogs). They've definitely motivated me to work harder than I thought possible.

Nearing the end. Of my undergrad that is. I graduate December 19, 2008. That's like 230 days away right now. Am I ready for it.

Destined for something great. I know someday I'm going to be doing something earth-shattering. I just don't know what yet.

Pretty much agnostic. I don't know if this is wisdom or not. But either way, I've come to the point where I don't think it matters whether there's a God or not, the world is fucked up either way and some deity isn't going to change it. It's up to us to do something about what our ancestors have done to this world. Delaying it in the promise of some salvation is not responsible behavior. I think we have to live life as if there is no God and that we would be proud of what we've done as human beings alone. When I'm croaking, I want to know that I did something with my life, rather than frittering it away in the hope that someone would save it. If anyone's going to save my life, it's me. If there is some kind of universal judgment on my death, I want it to be for what I have done with my life, not for what I thought or felt.

Somewhere between hope and despair. Sometimes I think of all the things that are possible, especially with people of my generation, but then again, I realize that for 99.99% of those people, they'll get caught into something that ends up eliminating any hope of them making lives better. They get involved in themselves and don't worry about anyone else. Or they just worry about their families, clients, whatever. I don't want to be that.

Tired. I'll write more as things become clearer tomorrow after I've had a full night's sleep.