personally-content-blog

[personally-content-blog]

05.29.17

During the last few weeks at Davidson I kept feeling two forces pulling at me: one of sentiment and the other of utter maddening excitement to leave school.  I knew it was the last time I’d see some of my closest friends for 8-15 months so I was trying to enjoy each passing moment amidst the stresses and anxieties of my “academic commitments.”  But in those passing moments I must say I had some of the most beautiful days.  People say they wish they knew when they were in the good old days and I knew those days were exactly what they amounted to.  There’s nothing like reaching a certain positive outlook on life with your best friends at lake campus when the water is flowing in each direction, the trees just look a little greener, and the sky is in a pink kaleidoscope. Nothing like realizing the people you deem your best friends are actually your best friends while you’re all stumbling into brick spot waiting to cap the definitively reckless past countless hours of your lives.  This past semester, Davidson treated me terribly but my friends treated me so well and I thank you all for that.  You all have a place in my heart.  Cheers.

Coming home was quite a transition.  I never realized the difference between being around friends 24/7 to being home.  The automatic helicopter parenting didn’t necessarily help either but I think coming home is a bit of a naturally lonely transition and that’s fine.  I got over it in a week’s time but I have my work schedule for the coming months and it’s looking like 8 to 16 at Honda detailing cars and then 17 to 21 at Human Capital Solutions as a job recruiter.  That goes on my resume as an internship and I get automatic banking connections with the Federal Reserve in Virginia so I feel it’s well worth my time. It shows work ethic as well so I better get a nice paycheck at my first job out of college.  I’ve been learning Greek with Rosetta Stone again and it’s such a beautiful language I can’t wait to learn it all.  Maria has also been helping me with it so it’s not bad at all. She’s been quite the supporter the last few months and definitely a blessing to talk to her most days.

Sydney is mad at me for fixing her relationship and she doesn’t talk to me.  Cheers to helping your friends ha.  I hope everything I’ve done for others comes back to me some day.  Would really be nice to see.

Sadly, I’ve been drifting further from Athena and she’s noticing it fully.  A week after she left here, she told me how David had done some questionable things and how he dealt with it.  It made me extremely uncomfortable because it all just reminded me of my dad.  The cowardliness, the hiding, the lying, the cheating, the blaming, the refusal to see fault.  But he apologized hours after and told Athena he was coming to see her soon and she just forgave him.  Now every time I think of him I think of my dad and it’s haunting.  I’m scared he’s not for her and I don’t want to be there when he hurts her later on.  On the other hand, I’m quite disappointed in her and feel she has changed completely. She’s not the person I used to know and it’s disheartening.  She’s moving to Melbourne soon (she sent in a transfer application for the school of architecture there and let’s be honest she’ll get in) and I don’t think I’ll be friends with her after she gets in.  Half of what excited me was that I knew there would be some time where were just in the same place or at least time zone for over a month but that’s gone so I’m a bit apathetic towards the friendship.  She’s changing and I won’t see her for years to come so I won’t work on her clock as I usually do anymore.  I wish her the best.

One more thing.  I’ve been starting to isolate myself again and thinking purely objectively again.  I’ve started having a distrust in my emotions and it’s starting to worry me.  I hope I find a motivation inside me again soon because the days are growing shorter and shorter.

[personally-content-blog]

04.27.17

Davidson College. What a place not to be.  I will never be “all-in” for Davidson.  I will never support this school’s idea of good morals because it’s simply so one-sided it hurts.  This school is built on hard academics first of all.  This high pressure on students is justified by two things: it prepares you for the real world, and the places you apply will understand you have a lower GPA because Davidson is just harder.  Why would you ever build an institution where 4.0 high school students all suddenly feel stupid because they never see an A again? This hunger to prove yourself to Davidson and feel like you’re good enough to be at Davidson just fuels a mentality that says you’re sticking it out for the degree here and once you make it out you will make more money than you could have before.  This drives materialism and a huge focus on money, money, money to make your career at Davidson worth it.  And I’m not even mentioning the huge problem of alcoholism that this instigates because we all know it’s a problem.  In what world does that make sense to hurt the self-esteem of your students and expect them to be okay because of your “tight-knit, supportive community.”  Your tight-knit community is completely marginalized because the majority are rich, white, privileged kids who have had almost everything not even handed to them but spoon-fed and don’t know how to take care of themselves (so it’s so easy for them to exploit each other) or make their own opinions. But you know they still think their opinions are their own original ideas and stand so firm in them that they are so closed minded to absolutely anything else.   But God forbid anyone here ever be wrong about anything because that would lower their ego or self-image and that’s everything to your happiness.  That’s why Davidson started a diversity program to look good. They don’t want to spend money on the Davidson Trust, but when diversity gets here every minority has to feel a bit ostracized but are encouraged to really “go out there and find your place because it just takes time.”  At a school where white kids think holding a discussion about Black Lives Matter with only Davidson College kids where everyone already loves equality does anything for society?  What goes through your mind after one of those talks really?  Do you think you did some good and spread a message even though that message was already agreed upon by everyone.  We’re 2,000 kids at this school.  You’re not making any change.  And if I don’t come to your discussion it doesn’t make me a bad person to think your discussion was worthless.  Yet, if you’re volunteering your time on campus for an event to help other rich people, that is doing nothing.  Go out into charlotte.  See how people live in homeless shelters and just talk to someone.  Try to understand what they have gone through.  Understand the daily struggle of NOT GETTING EVERYTHING YOU WANT.  You put your sad shit everywhere like “oh no I’m getting the full punishment for a DUI I committed.”  Is that really what you have to complain about?  You are a feminist and push for equality yet you’re saying the women on this campus are elite and smart and beautiful while the men are average.  You have to be joking.  The worst part of it is that the kids that actually have opinions and are open people feel the need to get sucked into this one Davidson mentality and if you don’t you’re left feeling lonely and out of place every day. This school is built on self-image and if your self-image is good then you’re doing fine apparently because you can never be wrong because your ego and you see yourself as good.  There should never be a society like this. This is a society where self-interest is the most prominent driving force behind everything.  Everything is to look good for your peers.  Look at me look at me.  Stop caring about the stupid shit.  Start caring about treating the people around you right.  Start caring about making Davidson use their funds for what the students want.  Start caring about not being hypocritical.  Start caring about being happy and living the life you want.  I don’t see this changing in the near future and I’m leaving Davidson because I don’t believe in a school that couldn’t care about me.  Fuck Davidson College.  I will no longer be in an environment that won’t allow me to be happy.

Thank you to those of you who weren’t afraid to be yourselves and took time to think for yourselves.  You’re golden and I absolutely love you all.

[personally-content-blog]

04.18.16

So my friend Athena has been in town for a few days now.  We were talking last Tuesday and she was trying to convince me to come to Australia while she finishes off her semester there and I just told her I couldn’t so she had to come here and I did the unspeakable.  I called shoelaces.  Now for an outsider this next paragraph might be the stupidest thing you ever hear and not even we get it but anyways.

Calling shoelaces was my ticket to making Athena doing anything I wanted her to and it’s all because she has laced her Vans with her left shoe normal and the right shoe a little different.  She’s been doing this since 8th grade and she waited for someone to notice this though no one did.  She decided whoever did she would do anything for so naturally the second most observant person in the world saw it, MEEE.  So back to the real story, Tuesday night I called shoelaces (Wednesday afternoon for her).  Within two hours I was sitting behind Commons on my laptop at 1:15 am buying plane tickets for Athena to come here and I didn’t even know why.  I just wanted to see my friend and for her to experience the bliss of innocent love once again.  To help her in her journey of self-reliance by showing her she can do it on her own and still be happy.  Because happiness is the most valuable gift of all.  She was on a plane within 16 hours and she got to Charlotte at 7 pm Thursday night.  Aka we bought tickets only 42 hours before she arrived.  We’re crazy we know and the only thing I can say is “reasons”. 

So I may have dropped $1300 and it has been 100% worth it.  I see what this past year has brought us and it’s been both beautiful and ugly but now I feel like I’m sitting on my dock at 6 am in the morning with the fog just kissing the water and the cool air expanding my lungs to their maximum capacity. Water has a healing essence to it especially in the morning.  These last few days have been some of the most fun we’ve experienced together and we’ve had some of the most productive conversations.  Reflecting on it now I’m almost speechless.  Well that’s not the right word.  It’s more like my brain is just excited to put every idea on the page and so it must do it sporadically.  First of all, Athena and I just work together in any capacity as in we’re both domestic people that know how to take care of both ourselves and others.  This in combination with wanting the other person to be genuinely happy makes us into one well-oiled machine.  There’s another complex where we have unlimited jokes in unlimited situations so we’re always laughing along the way.  We’re into the same music, activities, jokes, philosophies, you name it.  So when anything gets in the way of that we feel off and as we like to call it “out of sync” (we’re actually a machine) but these past few days have been unblocked and just blissful.  I think if I decided to live yesterday over and over again I wouldn’t regret it for a very long time. 

And now it’s been a year since meeting Athena Kalamaras.  These are the things I’m certain of.  She loves me, I love her, she helped me see clarity, she taught me how to help myself, she made life exciting, she understood, she listened, she was there, she was patient, she learned what love is, she learned life is beautiful when we make it beautiful, she learned independence, she learned to appreciate those around her, she learned who she is, we learned how to do what’s best for both of us while helping each other, and we learned how to love each other.  I’m uncertain of what the future of all this is though I’m hopeful.  Through all the hurt and depression I’m glad everything happened so I could make a connection like this because just wow.  I could never paint a mural great enough to express it.  We’re some great fucking people that just want to fill our cups and if we don’t the journey we had was unmistakably beautiful.  To the Punny Bunny, thank you for it all.  The happiness I feel to have known you and your family and your friends truly fills that one area of my chest and I think that speaks for everything you know I want to say.

[personally-content-blog]

03.11.17

I told Julia earlier this week that I was interested in getting into art but I didn’t know how to.  I also asked her how she spotted “good” art and she told me to look at a collection of artists so that when we got back from break she could take me to a museum and help me out.  Anyways, I wrote down my first reactions to each artist she listed for me and I thought it would make a great second post.  So here we are.  Dasha Kudinova and Winston Chmielinski impressed me the most so definitely check them out!

First Reactions (without reading anything on these artists):

Janet Fish - I love her color schemes and she always brings a new aspect to still life and ironically I would classify that new aspect as a liveliness.  Her dimensions are rejuvenating.

David Hockney - Although I don’t think he is the most talented I appreciate his ability to make certain paintings have a realistic aspect to them.  His simple color schemes allows him to bring attention to even the simplest details and always has a strong focal point to each painting which is aesthetically pleasing to me.  Yes that’s the word I would use to describe him.  Aesthetic.

Zaha Hadid - While searching her name I noticed “architecture” was the first suggestion beside her name and I can see her use of geometry in her painting.  When she paints a cityscape it almost seems like she’s an outsider with all the organized jumble she lays across the canvas though with her nature landscapes she seems to be at peace.  Something about that is relatable and brings me to like her art as well.

Dan Flacin - As far as the previous artists go, Dan Flavin has not impressed me much.  I’m naturally drawn to lights and I think his art is pretty.  Would love to see it in real life though it looks like each piece is a huge photo opportunity haha.  Again definitely an exhibit to see in real life.  Would be like an adult playground of sorts.

Frank Stella - This is the kind of art I would like to put in my atrium or maybe bathroom or study or just somewhere in my house.  There’s one piece that looks like the shape of a snow pea and he uses triangles and diagonal shapes that looks so cool to me.  I feel like it would be a lot of fun to try to mimic Frank if given the opportunity.

Dasha Kudinova - Dasha’s works are so perplexing to me.  I think of each cluster of intricacy to be a different person and when it’s just a singular cluster it makes me think that each color is separating a different mood or feeling each person has and how it’s all just mixed together to form one being.  When there are two clusters I think of the exchange that happens and how we share ourselves with one another turning each person into new colors.  She has a flowery atmosphere on each canvas.  I like her.  She’s a good one haha.

Andrey Bogush - Okay so I like the feeling Andrey’s pieces evoke from me.  It’s a warm, mystical, and draws out a sense of wonder in me though it feels like he’s a great musician whose songs sound very similar even though you know each song is about something new and different.  I would be interested in seeing his works in a gallery and reading all the descriptive captions.

Winston Chmielinski - First thing that comes to mind is the intimacy Winston creates by painting such close up images.  Not only that but the use of red/pink in each piece also makes me think that.  In each I see a sort of pain amidst the expressions on each persons face or lack there of.  And even though he only has one thing on his canvas it seems so filled.  Quite impressive Winston quite impressive.

Robert Rauschenberg - This one may be brief.  I see a lot of John F. Kennedy and his art seems quite modern.  It just doesn’t really make sense to me but I don’t think it’s supposed to yet.

Marina Abromović - I think Marina focuses on the intimacy between different human interactions and how each thing you do affects someone else in one way or another.  She seems like someone who went through some shit in her lifetime and can’t help but express it day in and day out now.  Very cool idea Marina very cool ideas.

Eric Fiscal - He seems to really focus on the connectivity between people as well as art and people.  His beach scenes look like family reunions almost where everyone is just there but no one is really having fun.  I appreciate his ability to proportionate people’s body very well.  I feel like we’re almost seeing parts of his life through his eyes because these situations seem too real to just be thought of as “oh I would love to paint this scene.”

Gustav Klimt - I see many images of the same painting so I’m guessing this is his most famous piece.  I’ve seen this somewhere but I’m not sure where.  The girl seems very simple though her dress is so intricate.  The eyes are maybe a reflection of her want for attention but the random symbols and shapes do not have a meaning to me.  Definitely another I would have to read on to understand motives and symbolisms.

[personally-content-blog]

03.09.17

So I decided to start a blog today so I can see in reflection how much I’ve grown over the years. I think it’s very important to self-reflect because if you don’t realize what you’re doing wrong you’ll obviously always do wrong.  Doing what is right for yourself is different for everyone and we all have to take the journey.  Some take 25 years, others 40, and sadly enough some will never get there.  This life is what you make of it and this is what I’m making of mine.  I don’t know exactly what this blog will amount to.  If I’ll post every day or once a week or once a month who knows but what the hell here we go.

 I turned 19 this year and am a sophomore at Davidson College so I have a lot of life to live in the next few years and I’m overly excited for it.  As a precursor this blog may be a bit depressing at times but that’s all on the “Road to Greatness” right?  I’m at a time right now where I have to decide what to do with the rest of my life and I don’t think that’s a decision a 19-year-old should have to make but here we are.  I have two roads to go down.  One, which is my original plan, is going to med school and becoming the greatest neurosurgeon to grace this earth with my cure for Alzheimer’s disease.  I just want to be able to fix the most intricate and complex machine in the world, the brain, but I really don’t see myself in school that long, or taking out that many student loans, or going to the military for them to pay for med school so my chances of achieving those uncontainable 9-year-old dreams seems ever so dwindling.  Plus, the fact that doctors are getting paid less and less each year when it’s harder and harder to become one.  On the other hand, I love everything dealing with math and money so economics always enticed me as a major.  I’m in ‘Intro to Economics’ and it has proven to be very interesting to me.  Seeing how economies are affected by different markets, both domestic and international, makes me have a greater understanding how the world around me works and being aware of your environment is of great importance.  So I was thinking maybe I could combine the two and go into hospital management – be the unprecedented, just hospital owner who actually gives a shit about patient care and his employees over having $600K stashed into his bank account every year. I’m on spring break right now so I’m trying to get ahead on my work so I have nothing to do when I get back and also have started a book called “After Dark” by a Japanese author named Haruki Murakami.  Julia recommended it to me so I called the library and had it in my hands within 20 minutes.  It is quite descriptive and it’s all about one night in Tokyo or so I hear so I am very intrigued.

 Hmm other things to include… I guess I should recap things that have happened in the past year or so.  I did shitty my freshman year of college.  Like really shitty.  1.3 GPA to be exact on the level of shitty I’m talking about when I say I did shitty my freshman year of college.  Super shitty. Everything just seemed to go wrong. For one I was just overly immature. I didn’t think I had to work for what I achieved and I really didn’t want to either.  I felt privileged to just get A’s and B’s.  I fell in ‘love’ with my best friend back home (it was just emotional dependency) and she didn’t feel the same way but I stayed friends with her because “it wasn’t fair for her to lose her best friend because she didn’t have the same feelings for me” which I understand but when does it become fair for me?  That lasted until Christmas and I didn’t talk to her from then until July of the following year so just emotional roller coaster on that front from September to the end of the spring semester.  Then there was the pressure from my parents.  My father said he wouldn’t pay for my college unless I have a 3.5 or above, volunteer at least 20 hours a semester, have a job, and be active in clubs on campus (to be blunt he is not paying for my college) while Mom just kept telling me “You have to become a doctor YOU HAVE TO become a doctor YOU HAVE TO BECOME A DOCTOR” and she always wanted me to be more than I was at that particular moment so I stopped caring what she thought of me as a whole and even what I thought of myself.  I mean, if anything you do just doesn’t amount to good enough your whole life then you just think you’re worthless.  To further this, I really didn’t think I had anyone on campus who really cared about me.  I felt like I was so alone and just stranded, that no one on earth could ever help me so I locked myself in my room, smoked more weed than one ever should, and played computer games – just doing enough work to not fail my courses.  There was never a time last year that I could feel good about myself and I still have so many self-destructive habits I almost feel bad for anyone that’s close with me because they have to deal with it too.  Near the end of the school year (starting on April 25th and exactly 19 days before I left campus last year but who was counting?), I met a wonderful girl named Athena Maria Kalamaras who just blew my world out of proportion.  I honestly think she saved me from failing my courses now that I think about it.  We would do everything and anything possible together and I wanted to because it meant being around her, beside her, with her. The last two weeks there was not an hour that went by that we didn’t see each other.  I would study by her while she was working, study by her when she was studying, eat across from her when she was eating, and even sleep beside her when she was sleeping (just friendly don’t worry Mom).  I remember we stayed up all night before she had her flight back to Greece because we thought sleeping was even a waste of time.  We had realized how much time we had wasted just watching Netflix when we should have spent real time with one another and we just wanted to lay there staring into the abyss that was one another.  It was a beautiful thing.  We went to see the sun rise and I took her to the airport for her 9 am flight.  I cried like a baby.  Soon I fell for her and would stay up until 6 am to talk to her while she was working in Switzerland because I never wanted her to be alone.  Would wake up at 8 am to talk to her again and then nap in the afternoon while she was asleep.  This girl took over my life in ways I never imagined and my friends hated her because I would hang out with them once a week and ditch them all the time for a “computer screen”.  George even started calling my phone and my computer Athena.  She came at the end of June and everything was fine but everything after was downhill.  When she was with friends and family in Greece she seemed annoyed with me and when she was in Japan she just didn’t make time for me.  I went to visit her in Greece over Christmas and New Years and she had already fallen in love with an Australian boy so I’m heartbroken and mad at myself now.  I spent countless hours trying to make her happy and upwards of $5,000 in the last few months and it has amounted to good memories, lessons learned, and a few great Greek friends.  In the end I think we both gave it our all and it was not meant to be but I will always remember her and hope to always care for both her and her family.  For now, I’m just angry with her and I think that’s okay.  I took last semester off from school to mature and realize how to be responsible. I think I mastered my goal to an extent because the transition has been noticed by almost everyone on how I handle myself and what life brings at me.  I made about $6,000 and spent half of that going to Greece and spent the other half by mid-February so I can’t wait to start working this summer.  Right now I would say best friends are (this is not in order so don’t get offended people) Kei Kurosu, Stefanos Kalamaras, Julia Vining, Luki Elizalde, Jack Kennedy, James Gerdy, Keith Cox, George Georgiev, Ryan Giggey, and Sydney Westmoreland.

 Just a note so I say it at least once.  Life is absolutely wonderful.  It’s the most beautiful thing this world has to offer you.  Please please please live with a purpose.  Live for yourself and make the people around you happy.  Give everything you have to the people that deserve it.  Happiness is the best gift you can give someone.  A real genuine smile that you made will bring you so much more fulfillment than clothes, cars, sex, you name it.  And if you’re ever feeling like you don’t have a single soul that will understand you, people say I’m very understanding and quite easy to talk to. I love hearing stories and helping so bold move coming up: 910.777.1728.  Cheers!