First of all, let's face it, kids: Nobody reads this.

 

Second of all, I have a secret into which I will let all of you nonexistants: the fact that nobody reads this is probably a big help, considering some of the things I may or may not say, now.

 

Now, at this point, a disclaimer: I am going to be insulting to lots of things about college. This doesn't mean that they're all bad; it doesn't even mean that all the things about my college are bad.

 

I've adjusted to the physical setting here pretty well, I think. I can obtain food. I can clean my clothes. I can move to and from class and other parts of towns and even other nearby towns with relatively little trouble.

 

Homework... well, I dropped the ball on some homework, this first week. But not to worry--it's all finished with, now, and I have my homework for Monday completed.

 

But meeting people, and doing things I want to do are real trouble. The people I met the first week here, before classes started? Vanished, for the most part. I am still in heavy contact with the girls on the tenth, the ones I know from orientation last June. I do lots of odd jobs for them: set up Internet connections, set up computers, set up lofts, set up TV carts. I go to the store with them and carry groceries. I have lent my car and bought lunch. They're not bad people, the girls, but they aren't... stimulating. And this is not a sexual euphemism. Bloody hell, people, I thought you knew me a bit better than that.

 

Some people, similarly, are "nice," but not... quite there. I don't mean that they are mentally absent, either. They're just not in that very particular spot, mentally speaking, that I can talk to them. Perhaps it's a trust issue; I've got plenty of those. Perhaps it's an intellect issue. I have, this past week, been told that I ask questions that seem to frighten my Oral Communications professor. I may have standards of intellect or wit or maybe even charm that are too unrealistic. I have no diagnosis for this, as of yet. And it's getting to me something awful.

 

I want to state, for the record, that I was a fool in high school. I knew brilliant people. I didn't always agree with what they did, but they were there, and I could have done things with them. They were wonderful people, and I mourn their passing from me. I was leagues from brilliance, now I seem a stone's throw from ignorance. Moral decay (read: drinking and drug use and sex) are rampant, here, so far as I have seen.

 

I want to hole up in my room, and shut out the others, here. But... I don't dare. To hide is the last thing I ought to be doing. I have to venture forth boldly. I have to step out. Frankly, I have to kick ass and take some names. But right now my ass-kicking and name-taking have been reduced to angry looks and watching from afar. In fact, I may have gone out, before now, but I am still in something of an ivory tower, even so. I need to find the people I want. I have to find where they secretly congregate, and go there. Comfort zone, I bid you farewell. I'm off into the wide world of college, with my moral waders on for good measure.

 

Anybody who cares anymore, keep coming back to read about my hapless adventures in college. If I don't die of loneliness, soon, there might be something interesting to read.