From Past to Future

With summer all but over, it's time for me to reflect on the past three months and look ahead at the next school year. It'll be my last at BGSU.

What Has Been...

My summer began with big, bold ambitions. After a vastly disappointing spring semester, I was looking forward to three months of absolute relaxation. Before school ended, I said that I was going to sit on my ass and play video games every day of the summer. I was joking, of course, because I had devised the B3.0 Initiative, had several fiction works to complete, lots of biking to do, and other random tidbits of things to accomplish. My summer started right: the same day as my last exam was also the release day for Spider-Man 3, which I was looking forward to for years. The next day, I decided to purchase one video game to get my summer going - to help me celebrate another school year completed. Arriving at Meijer, I decided to play through The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. That was in the first week of May. It's now August, and I still haven't beaten the damn game. I blame my other purchase from that day: the summer-consuming World of Warcraft.

Yes, more than anything, I reflect on this as the summer of wasted chances, bad decisions, and lost time. WoW is responsible for all of my summer waste. I neglected friends, writing, projects, biking, the B3.0 Initiative, and even my blog, in favor of playing WoW in the morning, afternoon, and night. I supported my job, of course, but mostly because it was paying for WoW. It wasn't until late June that I began to admit it, but it was true: I was addicted to World of Warcraft. Luckily, by early August my interests in the game were waning, mainly because other projects kept staring me in the face (Event Horizon, anyone?). Before canceling my WoW subscription, I did accomplish many goals in-game, so when I return to Azeroth one day, I'll be poised to pick up with a great character, avoiding much of the tedium that killed this summer.

Of course I set out to complete one work of fiction this summer, and Event Horizon has come along great. Although it'll be two weeks into school before I'm ultimately done, much of the final story came together this summer. The story was almost twice as long as I anticipated, but was worth the extra writing.

The B3.0 Initiative, my plan of setting personal goals and methodically achieving them throughout the summer, has been met with mixed results. Two of the four original goals have panned out fairly well. I plan to pursue smaller goals related to the Initiative throughout the fall and winter seasons.

Of course, summer break is supposed to be about enjoying time with friends. Suffice to say, this summer has been leaps and bounds different for me - I've had a pleasant mix of old and new experiences. Although I rarely reflect on Lacey, it's hard to not mention her: this was my first summer in six years that hasn't been focused on my time spent with her. That is not necessarily a bad thing, of course. To the contrary, I've found myself growing closer to a few of my core friends (...), yet I've also been separated by leaps and bounds from older friends. I've been able to spend lots of time familiarizing myself with fun from my past, including biking on the Towpath, river walking in the Maumee, and of course, eating tons of Campus Pollyeye's. It's been a summer of difference for me, but almost always in a positive way.

The bottom line: was it a "good" summer? Most definitely yes.

... And What Is to Come.

I'm going into this fall semester with more worries on my mind than ever before. As my fifth year at BGSU, I'm quite sick of the campus. Yes, I barreled into last year with a strong start and great intentions ahead of me, but both semesters panned out as fairly "meh," mainly with middling grades and major problems arising with my social life.

Nonetheless, I'm charging straight into this semester full-steam ahead. What is to come? I can only guess... time for a hit-list!

I'm making a big effort to spend a consistent amount of time writing. Whether it is personal fiction or work for my two creative writing courses, I want to make sure my writing only improves, and constant experience is the best way to do that.

In the last year I have become completely uninterested in my major, computer science. It's not that dislike the subject matter - to the contrary, I still love programming. To me, it's another form of creative writing, and I can't wait to complete my degree. However, the last two semesters of classes in CS have been boring, predictable, and uninteresting in the extreme. Luckily, I'm taking some very high-end 400-level courses this semester, one of which, Software Development, sounds like a blast. I'm hoping to rebuild CS into a major part of my life. The question is, what part of my life do I knock out to make room? Good thing I gave up World of Warcraft when I did...

Socially speaking, I don't see much happening. I have a limited core set of friends that I love to death, but overall, I plan to spend a lot of time this semester traveling about Bowling Green on foot, alone. It'll be beneficial to my studies. As a whole, serious relationships with girls are on the back-burner to make room for school work, creative expression, and fun with my close friends.

My overall prognosis for this semester? I'm cautiously stepping into it. I have no idea how it will progress, but I've already passed the point of "hoping for the best." At this point, I'm charging full-force into my last year hell-bent on one goal: finishing college.

May the last be the best.

B3 out.